Sunday, July 11, 2010


What Have You Played This Week?

I got a lot more in this week. Well it maynot look like i've played a lot but I spent most my time playing Transformers: War For Cybertron. The site was fairly busy but I do feel i've played a good amount this week. Next week I'll try to finish Dynasty Warriors Gundam 2, the game i'm currently renting.

Football Manager 10 – PC – After a poor start to the season I had a very big rally just before Christmas and ended up finishing 3rd...and promoted to League 1. at the moment i'm still getting the team ready for my first season in league 1. I'm not aiming to get promoted as I need to build a squad for the championship as well as get a bigger stadium and facilities.

Transformers: War For Cybertron – PS3 – I Managed to finish both the Autobot and Decepticon campaigns over the week. I'm a huge fan of Transformers and have seen many different series over the years, so playing through both campaigns was very interesting seeing how they fit into the grand Transformers story. What's clear, by the end of the game, is that no one series is dominant. There are Transformers from a few different series in the game, and the overall story is mostly from G1 but with popular aspects from other series. For me the story was great and there is a great shout out in the credits that's worth waiting for.

Playing the game though was something else. The gameplay is fine, very accessible, and it flows very well. But technical issues really started to be annoying. Loading times are long, even after the 5gb install, maybe around 10-15 seconds. But on several occasions the game would stop and load mid-level. The game runs on the unreal engine and it shows. Sometimes there is no texture pop-in, but on other times i've watched a cut scene and the textures never loaded. I'm still having multiplayer issues, where it says there's people online...i go to play a game only to find the game says there's no-one online. Having played the game several times now, a new annoying is the load on the main menu. The game checks the install data and it takes a while to check the 5gb. Perhaps the most annoying issue was with the dialogue in the game. there's nothing wrong with the voice work but i do believe i missed over a quarter of all dialogue spoken in the game. its hard to describe why it happens but regularly in the game, characters are talking to each other but fade in and out. sometimes its cause i'm not near the person talking but even moving near them doesn't solve the issue. to try to hear it i basically had to not move the character or the camera but even this didn't work all the time. the worst issue was the final boss batter for the Autobots. as its hard i had to do it a few times and yet i heard hardly nothing of what was said. Whole plot points, battle tips, what/where to go were missed completely.

For me the story is brilliant and the gameplay is also great, but having played the game a lot, completing the single player story and getting all characters online lvl 10/11, the technical issues really do start to become an issue and can detract from the game by the end. its easy to see why its marked soo high and low by reviewers.

Dissidia Final Fantasy – PSP – this was the only game I got for my birthday I hadn't played as yet. What's clear from the off is the game looks amazing. The cutscenes are very impressive and the in-game graphics are some of the best on the system. It is soon clear that there is more to the game than just fighting as Square Enix have added interesting RPG elements to the game as well as an interesting way to create items. I'm not that far to comment on the story, but so far its competent and explains good enough why all these Final Fantasy Characters are together. The fighting works very well on the PSP. The controls are simple but offer a lot of depth to gameplay. The levels are also great and its easy to play the same level several times and use it differently every time. The game slowly introduces the RPG elements and explains them fairly well as you unlock them, plus there's a help button. This game has been clearly designed to be played either in short burst or a lot in one go and it succeeds in both.

Did you manage to play more games than I have over the week, or do you have any comments on my experiences or questions about the games i've played? If you do, feel free to add them in the comments section.


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