Heavy Rain Has Restored My Faith In Gaming.
Feb 27th
I have just finished my second play though of what will be many judging by the results so far. Heavy Rain is a game that has done something I haven’t done since my teenage years, an epic play through in two massive sessions. I’m an older gamer now, these last several years have just seen more and more of the same uninspired shoot em up/strategy that nonsense really makes me question the quality of games compared to the old days. To me just because a game has great graphics or lack lustre multi-player doesn’t necessarily make it great. Most games today are just the same game reheated, but they’re lapped up by the general gaming population anyway.
While Heavy Rain could be classed as an adventure game reheated, and in parts it is. Heavy Rain has restored my faith in gaming primarily because it was willing to try something new in both the control scheme and other design aspects of the game. The story got me emotionally involved with the characters and their plight too.
It seems today that so many games are so reliant on the multiplayer aspect, that a lot of games single player side gets let down, yes MW/MW2 I’m talking to you!. I’ll say upfront that I’m not a raving online fan, although I do play them occasionally. Main reason I avoid online is the fact that most of the people you get match-maked with online are so rude or childish you wouldn’t want to know them in real life, so why play them online?
Thankfully, Quantic Dream saw the potential of a fully rounded single player experience, unlike so many other developers and added in the capability for multiple endings, so now you have a game with loving attention to detail by the developers with massive replay value with not nary a multiplayer mode in sight, AMAZING!
I certainly hope that Heavy Rain is a success. It’s potential as a franchise is great. I haven’t had this much fun playing a game since the heady days of Indiana Jones & The Fate Of Atlantis or Pandora Directive. Thank you Quantic Dream.
Heavy Rain Thoughts.
Feb 25th
The much hyped Heavy Rain came out today. Happily it coincided with a day off! I have to say that the game has me hooked so far. Back in the old days (and today too), my favourite game genre was the adventure game, sadly it’s seen better days. With the advent of the stupid plague of the mid nineties, the adventure genre was almost made extinct thanks to the first person shooter craze that is still around. While you wouldn’t class Heavy Rain as a dedicated adventure game, it certainly has adventure tenancies thanks to it’s interactive movie design.
The term interactive movie has always scared me thanks to the poor early efforts in the genre during the early nineties, but thankfully, this time it works pretty well. The story is well rounded and the characters interesting to the point that I’m becoming emotionally involved playing them. I don’t think Heavy Rain will be huge with the younger (and sadly majority) gaming audience as you need to look and listen to character iteration and use your memory from previous scenes to get proceed correctly.
About the only interaction younger gamers are used to (and actually like) in games today is shooting another characters head off every ten seconds. Hopefully it is only the older gamers that get it and make it successful, all the Ritalin chewing kids can have their Modern Warfare, I prefer intelligent gaming.
Wall Street Is Back!
Feb 21st
Wall Street is one of my 10 favourite films ever. I was eleven when I finally got to see the film on channel 10 over 20 year ago and instantly it impressed me to the point that I wanted to be a stock broker when I grew up, that was until the film ended. Obviously I didn’t become one owing to the fact that I don’t like cocaine and the possibility of going to jail, but I’ve always enjoyed to film to the point of owning the original on a number of formats.
Finally after 23 years Oliver Stone is revisiting Gordon Gekko. Now while I’m somewhat concerned that the film won’t be a patch on the original, it’s good to see Gordon Gekko back on screen, hopefully he’ll be a ruthless as ever and the film won’t be as corny as the mobile phone joke in this trailer. Excellent use of the Rolling Stones in the trailer, suits it perfectly!
*addendum* As is typical and annoying with youtube, the embedded video doesn’t work though here now, you can still view it direct on youtube though.
Up In The Air Review.
Feb 16th
It’s been a few weeks since I’ve seen the film for the second time, but I’ve finally put up my thoughts on George Clooney’s new film ” Up In The Air”, click here to read my thoughts on it.
Off To Sydney.
Feb 11th
I’m off to Sydney tomorrow for the weekend to see Top Gear Live amongst other things, so I won’t be posting for a few days. Twitter no doubt will be active. When I get back I may post some of my photos from the weekend on flickr.
Beowulf Review.
Feb 10th
Read my vitriol review of the Robert Zemekis film by clicking here. I don’t know why I bother a lot of the time with newer films considering the market that they’re aiming these things at! And to think I used to be in that retarded demographic too. Was I ever that dumb?
I Am Legend Review.
Feb 7th
Today I’ve decided to let 2007’s Will Smith vehicle I Am Legend be my topic for review. I don’t know but I think I sound a little narky with this one, not so much at the film but more towards the younger generation. Click here to laugh heartily at my views on the younger generation or conversely tell me I’m a douche if you are from said generation.
Fallout 3: New Vegas.
Feb 3rd
Personally, I’m a massive fan of the Fallout games. They’ve always been a solid, enjoyable, well written series set on a massive scale. Fallout 3 took everything that was great about the original two turn based strategy games and successfully transplanted it into a first person system for the newer, impatient generation of gamers. So with today’s trailer release of the next Fallout game, it’s now reminded me that I need to get my bum in gear and finally complete the last few side missions of Fallout 3.
Ghost Writer Trailer.
Feb 1st
It looks like Roman Polanski got to finish what will hopefully be a great suspense film when released later this month. Obviously not aimed at the stupid under 25 market, The Ghost Writer looks like a solid, enthralling and hopefully enjoyable film. I’m off to see Invictus tonight finally! Life does see to have an excellent knack of throwing your plans astray doesn’t it.
The more observant amongst you will have noticed that I have started embedding youtube videos now. Currently I think this will be the way I go for the immediate future. While I personally have disliked youtube and it’s syndication system, it seems you can now disable the annoying “related videos” option when embedding videos to your own blog which suits me fine due to the large file sizes that videos can be. The fact that you can now embed HD videos also is a big plus as well. 
Indiana Jones 4 Movie Review.
Jan 20th
Feeling somewhat creative tonight and decided to write my review about the Indiana Jones film that came out over a year ago now. It’s really more of a rant actually, maybe you’ll like it or maybe you wont. The long and short of it is that it wasn’t so bad as everyone said. Look for more of my “creative” (if you can call it that) output soon. Click here to read it should you have a few minutes to kill and you don’t have an paint to watch dry.