Labels: Gameswipe, Matt, Matthew Meadows, Reminder, Televison

Wolfenstein’s “plot” is little more than a flimsy premise to set you on your way to capping some olde-worlde skinheads. That isn’t necessarily bad, per-se, and didn’t really influence my enjoyment of the game; I mean, if you wanted a deep meaningful story... well, you probably shouldn’t be considering playing a game in which the main character is constantly addressed as ‘BJ’. Go to the German WWII town of Isenstadt and kill the leader of the ‘Nazi Paranormal Division’? Sure, why not. Use the magical crystals to walk through walls? Absolutely.

The game completely quashes any smouldering embers of narrative left by making every single German (that’s pretty much everyone in the game apart from ‘BJ’) have a terrible, terrible accent, that reminds me of some sort of semi-racist impression of a Nazi which your drunken uncle might impose upon you at a wedding. Then... well, towards the end, a character that is reasonably important in the grand scheme of things dies in a gunfight. This may sound reasonable, but the game presents this as some kind of huge calamity when you have talked to this character for literally at most; 2 minutes. It was at this point I realised Wolfenstein was awesome.

Sure, it has a terrible story, but you know what: Raven Software doesn’t give a damn, and neither should you. The shooting system is terrific, there are eight weapons in all that will absolutely quench your blood lust, and dude, when you shoot a Nazi’s head, it pops off like a coconut in a sideshow. Speaking of weapons, as I mentioned earlier, they are all super upgradable, to a point where at the end of the game I was completely unstoppable, mowing down Nazi’s with a super-charged laser cannon that leaves a smouldering pile of bones. During the course of the game you pick up four crystals, one that allows you to see things not visible in the real world, one that allows you to slow down time, one that deploys a bubble shield, and one that gives you extra damage power. However, these magical powers won’t last long - at most 15 seconds - meaning the fight isn’t too unbalanced.

It’s probably worth mentioning that Wolfenstein has a multiplayer component. The little I played of it (about 45 minutes in all) was really enough to prove to me that it was passable. There’s a Team Deathmatch and two objective based modes that really just add another bullet point on the back of the game’s box. However competent it is doesn’t really matter, however, as I’m willing to bet that within a couple of months the servers will be empty.

Wolfenstein isn’t pretty, it’s not got some new “cutting edge” art style, it wasn’t written by J.J. Abrams and its multiplayer is forgetable, so if you want any of those things, move along. However, if you like shooting then you’ll get a good solid 8+ hours out of this game that are incredibly enjoyable, even if only for low-brow thrills.

Matt

Labels: Activision, Matt, Matthew Meadows, Review, Wolfenstein

You know what I love? A nice coffee in the morning. You know what else I love? Great video game soundtracks. I find that as I get older, soundtracks in video games are becoming more and more important to me. The more observant amongst you may have noticed that I gave Shatter an 8/10. While the gameplay is pretty cool, I don’t think that I would have given it that score without its amazing electro soundtrack that I’m still listening to today.

What relevance does this have to this article? Well, considering news is a little slow in the post-Gamescom video game world I thought I’d do a little run down of my top 5 favourite soundtracks of all time. (This list doesn’t include games with licensed music, for example GTA 4, or music games, such as Lumines)

5) Shatter

This game has an incredible, heart-thumping electro soundtrack which perfectly complements the game’s arcadey action. I loved this soundtrack enough to buy it online for more than the price of the actual game.

Highlight: Neon Mines

4) Breath of Fire 3

I may be biased because of nostalgia here, but this game’s upbeat and jolly soundtrack matches the game’s mood perfectly.

Highlight: The Town Loved By The Wind

3) Mirror’s Edge

This game’s trance-y soundtrack really suits the game’s art-style and gameplay well. Also, I generally tend to stay away from the trance/rave sub-section of electro, but this really swayed me.

Highlight: Still Alive

(Note: Matt may or may not have a huge crush on Lisa Miskovsky)

2) Final Fantasy 8

Final Fantasy 8’s music was incredibly necessary in the narrative of the game. Back on the PS1, facial expressions couldn’t be used to show emotion, and there was obviously no speech. As a result of this, Square had to use music to show what the characters were thinking and what the general mood was. This game’s soundtrack is so good that it was performed live in front of sell-out crowds all over the world.

Highlight: Fithos Lusec Wecos Vinosec

1) Bully

Bully isn’t well known for its music. In fact, it’s not really known at all, forgotten in the dying days of the last console generation. This is unfortunate because it has an astoundingly good soundtrack that ranges from 70s style rock-pop to electro to good old chip-tune. I can’t stress enough how much you need to play this game, even if only for its soundtrack. Bully truly is a modern classic.

Highlight: The Big Game

P.S. Sorry about not posting in a while, had some crazy University business to sort out (I'm going to York :)).

Labels: Breath of Fire 3, Bully, FF8, Matthew Meadows, Mirrors Edge, Shatter

Gearbox have released some pictures of Borderlands’ box art, and boy, does it make us guys at GGTL even more excited for Borderlands.

In case you don’t know, Borderlands is a game that has been through development hell over the last 4 or so years, shifting art style completely last year (thankfully). The game’s main claim to fame is its guns. There’s quite a few of them; somewhere over the 1 million mark (they lost count).

Anyway, at some point I’ll write a longer article about why I’m excited about Borderlands, but for now, take a look at this awesome box art!

Borderlands is currently shooting for a release date of October 20^th in North America and October 23^rd in the EU.

Are you excited about Borderlands? Do you think this box art looks cool? Tell us in the comments!

Labels: Borderlands, Box art, Gearbox, Matt, Matthew Meadows

You know what I love about PSN arcade games? That nearly all of them have an amazing electro soundtrack. Super Stardust HD, Cell Factor and Wipeout HD all prove my point here, but Shatter stands head and shoulders above the rest in terms of audio goodness. That aside, Shatter provides a gameplay experience which won’t blow you away, but will please fans of arcade games.

Shatter is a breakout style, block-destroying game that requires the destruction of all of the blocks in the level before progress can be made. In this sense Shatter is a classic game, but the main new mechanic introduced in Shatter is ultra-important. Suck and blow. No that isn’t an offer, and no don’t email me asking about it. Suck and blow is the ability to draw the ball, points (which also power your shield and turret), and any debris towards, or away from the paddle. This introduces a really cool risk-reward mechanic , as sucking everything towards you will help you to get more points, and thus more power and a better hi-score...but good luck with those massive blocks hurtling towards you.

Does that paragraph pique your interest in Shatter? If no, then let me give you another reason to buy this game. An amazing soundtrack. I was about to put amazing in full caps, but GGTL is too classy for that. Shatter’s soundtrack is so mind-numbingly awesome, that I found myself rocking from side to side while playing my game, probably looking like an absolute moron. If you like electro music, I’d be tempted to say that that’s enough of a reason to buy the game – especially for the low price.

Shatter’s mode selection is pretty standard fare. There’s the main story mode (and I use the word story very lightly), a mode which allows you to fight the bosses in the game over and over again, and a “bonus mode” which gives you extra points if you can keep 3 fast flying balls up in the air with your paddle...uh, yeah. The main story mode will take you around an hour and a half to complete, but, the fun comes in trying to get that frickin’ silver trophy for completing the game without ever getting a game over (I hate you level 10 boss).

All in all, Shatter offers a really cool soundtrack alongside a pretty cool game. If you don’t like arcade games on PSN/XBLA or don’t like electro music, then this game probably won’t change your mind, but if you are into one of those two things, then Shatter will offer a fantastic deal for a low price.

8/10 - Solid game for fans of the genre

Matt

Labels: Matt, Matthew Meadows, PSN, Review, Shatter

As a someone who adores all things Terminator I can’t help but recommend this epic, genre defining shoote...nah I can’t keep it up. This game is terrible. Terminator Salvation doesn’t try anything new, and in the end, offers an unsatisfying experience that leaves a bitter taste.

I feel like I have to preface this review by saying that I played the game on hard mode from the get-go. Surely this is irresponsible for a game reviewer, right? Well, no. Arguably the game’s biggest claim to fame is its easy 1000/1000 achievement points or platinum trophy. If you aren’t interested in either of those two things then check out a review on another site or (probably a better idea) just skip this game. This review is built for someone who is only interested in this game for its trophies; which I’m guessing is probably most of you.

Terminator Salvation is a – stop me if you’ve heard this before – 3^rd person, cover mechanic based shooter. The plot revolves around John Connor on a mission to save a group of resistance fighters, who are trying to bring down the evil Skynet robots. The plot is okay, but all of the characters have such little development time (the game can be completed easily in one 4 hour sitting) that they just end up looking like they have really weird social links to each other, two people that meet each other for the first time will, within ten minutes, be BFFs.

The best bit about Terminator is the shooting. Tackling ‘spiders’ by going behind them and hitting their weak spot is pretty satisfying, especially in the game’s co-op mode, but the thing is, that’s seemingly all you do for 90% of the game (the other 10% I will cover in the next paragraph). There are only, get this, 5 enemies; Spiders, T-600s, T-800s, Aerostats and Hunter Killers (whom make up the sole cast of the game’s boss battles). This causes the combat later in the game to become repetitive, which led the developers (GRIN) to think, “hmm the cover mechanic based shooting is okay, but you know what’s great in games, vehicle sections”. How wrong they were.

Terminator’s vehicular sections are by far the most vomit inducingly appalling parts of this game, and probably any game this side of 2008. There are probably about 4 or 5 of these monstrosities in the game, one of them okay – firing RPGs out of the back of a train - the others horrifically bad. For example, one of the sections is a mind-fuck inducing mech-style mini-game that involves shooting at enemies with rockets and turrets while moving automatically through a level. While it doesn’t sound bad, the screen is painted in a Virtual Boy style; orange background that not only gave me and my co-op partner a headache, but also made the Hunter Killers that fly around far in the distance, slowly sapping my health, impossible to distinguish from the fog that they hover in.

Another “highlight” is the grenade-turret section which features vehicles which hover above the ground, even though they have wheels. It was here I decided that literally no quality control time was spent on the game. I don’t really blame them, at this point in the game, about 60% through, it was time to just tie up all the loose ends and abandon this cluster-fuck of a game.

I’ll wrap up this review by saying that while this game does have easy trophies, and can be found at a cheap price, it isn’t worth your time. This is much worse than a normal movie game, they are normally at least polished and good for young kids, but this game doesn’t appeal to anyone, even me as a trophy hunter (see: whore).

3/10

Matt

Labels: Matt, Matthew Meadows, Review, Terminator

I decided to make a video that will round up my thoughts on the game industry. The GGTL Show Show will probably be a weekly thing that I’ll do, depending on how well received this video is.

Subjects include: GTA 4, Terminator: Salvation, The Breath of Fire conspiracy and Modern Warfare 2 bundle news.

Sorry in advance about the video colour being a little off. It’s a result of terrible lighting in my room. Also, my editing skills are far from stellar, but I didn’t think this was a bad first try. If there are any problems that I missed, point them out in the comments. (And yeah, I’ll get a new mic soon)

Hope you like the video!

Matt

Labels: GGTL Show Show, Matthew Meadows

Sucker Punch’s PS3 debut revolves around a deliveryman in Empire City that unknowingly sets off a huge bomb in the city centre, causing the city to be taken over by a plague and your character, Cole, to receive electricity-related superpowers. InFamous is an original game with no games or fiction (save a small 24 page comic) to come before it, so Sucker Punch really had to work hard to nail Cole, and Empire City’s personality to make this a first-rate origin story, and they did. I thought that Cole’s voice acting, while mocked by many in the press, is fitting to a character that unwittingly killed thousands of people, and that his friends, Zeke and John were well fleshed out, and definitely stood up on their own.

Moral Choices in videogames have been as “in” as Keyboard Cat ever since Mass Effect, and InFamous willingly jumps on the bandwagon. Along the way to the game’s ending you will be confronted by moral choices. These can vary from choosing whether you want to have a “good” or “evil” poster with your face on it, to deciding the fate of the city later on in the game. Your choices in these moments push your “karma” (My name is Cole?) towards good or evil, which changes the way normal citizens, and other characters react to you. There are also some powers which can only be unlocked by going one way or the other down the karma path, which basically forces you to be all the way good or all the way bad - there is no ‘neutral’ karma in this game. I played through the game twice, once good and once bad and found that the powers were a little more fun while being evil, but that I really felt awful making some of the decisions I did.

As the game develops Cole gets more and more powerful leaving you with the decision of “do I take over the city, or save what’s left”. The game definitely does a good job of giving you the powers to act on your decision with awe-inspiringly lethal powers. These powers basically replace guns that you would expect to find in a game of this genre. The normal lightning attack replicates a rifle, the Megawatt Hammer replicates a rocket launcher, and Lighting Storm replicates…I don’t know, something really badass. All of the powers are upgraded using XP earned by completing missions or killing bad guys – but the upgrades you get depend on whether you are good or evil. Good powers generally receive upgrades that make the powers more precise and lethal, whereas evil powers just cause an extra area of damage, making you feel like a dick for killing hundreds of innocent people.

Alongside the main mission there are lots of distractions. There are trophies for any people (such as myself) who are sufficiently insane to collect all two hundred and something “shards” and thirty something “dead-drops” (which are audio clips that help flesh out the story really well). It took me about 30 hours to go through the story twice and get the platinum trophy, but I’ve heard from others that it can take up to 40 hours to do.

However much I have poured over InFamous’ good points, it isn’t a perfect game. The game starts off really hard, enough so that I nearly stopped playing, because at that point Cole hasn’t got all of his powers. But after the first 3 or 4 hours it gets easier, to a point at the end of the game were a small flick of the down button can kill 7 enemies effortlessly. This end-game power is actually great, as it really feels like Cole has developed from a small battery to a nuclear power plant in terms of power, which is, if truth be told, very rewarding.

Another bad point, if minor, is the main bad guy; Kessler. He may be tough and, at times, badass, but his voice acting is atrocious. Seriously, he sounds like the stupidest person on the planet. The only comparison I can make is that of the voice of the doll in the Saw movies. Ugh.

Anyway, I digress, InFamous is a great example of how an open world, superhero action game should be made. At no point does the game stop you from having immense amounts of fun. Everyone with a PS3 that likes action games should buy this. Good job Sucker Punch!

9/10

Matt

Labels: InFamous, Matthew, Matthew Meadows, Review

Before E3 started earlier this month, I made a list of ‘dream game’ announcements that I would love to have seen happen. But did any of them happen?

Dream Number 1: New Kojima IP

No. Kojima-san announced that he was working on a new PSP game – Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker and a 360/PS3 game based on Raiden’s story – Metal Gear Solid: Rising. Despite a little bit of disappointment that Kojima isn’t trying something new, I am looking forward to seeing more about Peace Walker’s story which is set in 1970s Costa Rica during the height of the Cold War.

Dream Number 2: Final Fantasy 7/8 re-make, or re-release

There wasn’t any hint of a re-make at E3 but I correctly predicted that FF7 would be released on the PS Store during or on the day of Sony’s press conference. This game is sure to sell A LOT on the store, and hopefully will push Square to release more of their PS1 classics.

Dream Number 3: The Elder Scrolls V

Nope. Bethesda is hard at work on Fallout 3 DLC, Fallout: New Vegas, WET, Rouge Warrior and Brink.

Dream Number 4: Mirror’s Edge 2

It’s happening. While strictly not at E3, Mirror’s Edge 2 was announced to be in development a couple of days ago. Hopefully it’ll retain the original’s amazing art style.

Dream Number 5: Bully 2

When Mr. Jack Tretton, Sony Computer Entertainment’s CEO, came on stage on the 2^nd of June and announced the PS3 exclusive Agent, he briefly mentioned Bully. Awesome, I thought, he’s going to announce a new Bully! But alas, it was not to be. Still; Agent does sound good.

1.5/5 isn’t that bad…oh well, maybe next year.

Matt

Labels: Bully, E3 2009, FF7, FF8, Matthew, Matthew Meadows, MGS, TES

Labels: Matthew, Matthew Meadows, Misc., Writer's note

Labels: E3 2009, Matthew, Matthew Meadows, Microsoft

Punch-out is Nintendo’s latest attempt to appeal to the game-hungry hardcore fans that have followed the brand since the NES days. But will this game live up to the wishes of those rose-tinted-spec wearing gamers? Maybe.

The game uses the same perspective as the hit NES boxing games of the same franchise. This is good in concept, but could present a few problems in the gameplay front – as games and the people that play them have moved along in the past 22 years.

However, fortunately, the game may differentiate from the original games through usage of two control schemes. One of which is a so called “Classic Control” scheme, and one of which uses the motion functionality. While at first I was glad to hear this, normally one of the control schemes in games that feature two schemes sucks really badly (see motion control in Motorstorm).

I hope that isn’t the case here however as this game could just be a sleeper hit of 09’ if the developers don’t rely too much on nostalgia and focus more on effective, modern, but still classic gameplay.

Matt

Labels: Matthew, Matthew Meadows, Month of Hype, Punchout

Punchout

It’s 2009, and…well, things have been a little quiet. Although there have been big releases in the form of Killzone 2, Resident Evil 5, Street Fighter 4 and of course 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand, there hasn’t been a lot in between. However, fear not, as this year still has potential to be a memorable one.

GGTL’s month of hype aims to educate you, the reader, about what’s coming in 09, and why you should be pumped for it. Over the next month you’ll be seeing post after post on games ranging from Modern Warfare 2 to Pro Evolution Soccer 2010.

Later on today or tomorrow I’ll be starting the month off with a preview post of Punch-out which looks to add to the Wii’s catalogue of retro remakes.

Matt

Labels: Matthew, Matthew Meadows, Month of Hype

Labels: FUEL, Matthew, Matthew Meadows, Trailer

Labels: Bethesda, Fallout, Matthew, Matthew Meadows, Obsidian

Pro Evolution Soccer - a favourite franchise for me, and I’m sure many readers out there - will be expanding its game roster with…PES 2010. Sure the name isn’t original but what is in this new football game? Take a look at some of the standout points on Konami’s press release:

• New zonal marking system.
• Better referees and goalkeepers - hopefully a huge improvement over 2009.
• Improved animations, player likeness and visuals. If that means no more cardboard fans, then count me in.
• Commentary altered. Maybe I'll be able to go 2 matches without turning it off as opposed to 1?
• Revamped Master League, with more details to be announced soon.
• Better AI
• New penalty system, a game seller for sure.
• Enhanced online...which you will need 50 different Konami IDs and passwords for!
  

Labels: Matthew, Matthew Meadows, PES 2010

Labels: Explodemon, Matthew, Matthew Meadows, PSN, WiiWare, XBLA

Labels: Coming soon, Matthew, Matthew Meadows

Killzone 2 is Sony’s latest attempt to release a flagship game for its PS3. Lair was met with angry chorus, Heavenly Sword disappointed many and Haze was…terrible. Can Guerrilla Games’ effort meet the expectations of killer-app thirsty fans? Yes.

For those that haven’t been paying attention to the last 3 or 4 years of video games: Killzone 2 is a first person shooter set in an alternate reality. The Helghast are a race of human-like people that are, to all intents and purposes, trying to control the star system. The ISA are the “good guys” that, after being invaded in the first game, are trying to exact their revenge by invading Helghan.

Whilst this back-story is pretty clichéd, the characters do a good job of presenting themselves as real foot soldiers that, while being important, are still part of a much bigger war that would go on with, or without them. Voice acting is okay for most of the characters, but Rico is poorly voiced, and sounds pretty fake.

I’m going to get onto the bit you’re interested in. Graphics. Do they look amazing? Yes. Is this the best looking game on any console? Yes. Can they be bettered? Apart from a couple of loading freezes, no.

Gunplay in this game is great, with an assault rifle that could shoot a fly from a mile away; you’ll find yourself popping off Helghast helmets easily. Even with this ease the game never becomes dull, as later on you find yourself in situations where accuracy doesn’t matter anymore, because you’ll be, “No fighting in the war room” (CoD 4) style, ducking behind stuff while crying for mercy.

I’ve played around 10 hours of the online, and while I can’t say it’s as good as Call of Duty 4, it is at least comparable, with a semi-similar class system that seems more dependant on completing side-objectives (e.g. revive 3 people in 1 match) than normal ranking up. This can be frustrating as you find yourself playing in a way that just get’s that side-objective done, as opposed to putting in a 100% effort to help your team win.

However, when it comes down to it, the online mode really delivers, especially because of the match format. All modes are rolled into one 30 minute (approx.) violence orgy that promises to set your heart beating as fast as it has since…well…Call of Duty 4.

All in all, this game will deliver on the hype that Sony put on it – but the extent to which it goes beyond all of that hype probably depends on how much you like online gaming.

9/10

Matt

Labels: Killzone 2, Matthew, Matthew Meadows, Review

Imagine my delight this morning when I woke up to find a coffee next to me, my cat lying on the bed, and a fresh, unwrapped copy of Killzone 2. Following the orders that my still half-asleep brain gave me, I unwrapped the copy and placed it into my PS3. With a 3 or 4 hours before college started (I go in at 2pm and leave at 3pm on Fridays) I decided to get stuck in and give you some first impressions. 

As the game loads into the campaign mode I’m greeted by an impressive, awe-inspiring cutscene. It scares me that I don’t know whether it was pre-rendered or gameplay footage, but either way it was amazing. The general plot seems to be that the ISA (good guys) is pushing back the Helghans (bad guys) from the invasion seen in the first game.

My immediate impressions of the controls were not good. They felt heavily weighted, a problem which apparently was visable in the first game, and the controls didn’t match the standard FPS scheme (CoD4). However, over a short period of time, about 20 minutes, the controls quickly warmed to me, and I found myself really enjoying using the ISA’s default rifle, with it’s ultra accurate dot-sight.

I only had a chance to play one or two matches online. What I played there, was breathtaking. Stunning visuals which matched the single player mode, atmospheric explosions and gun shots all around, NO LAG (J) and a lot of over excited kids that really should have been in colle…I mean school. The way that the multiplayer works is that there aren't any kind of set game modes. You enter a game which should last you about 30-40 minutes, and during that time you’re given multiple objectives. From what I’ve played, the system works really well, and should keep gamers from piling onto one game type (I’m looking at you Search and Destroy on CoD4).

From what I have seen, this game ISN’T a reason to buy a PS3. But this along with Uncharted, Resistance, God of War and Metal Gear Solid, really should get you thinking about buying the black behemoth.

Matt

Labels: First impressions, Killzone 2, Matthew, Matthew Meadows