Poll Results - 28/09/08

In our last poll, we asked what your favourite current generation home console was. Needless to say the results were not actually that surprising, with the Xbox 360 taking 66% of the votes. Next followed 'family man', the Wii with 25% of votes. And lastly one of you out there felt pity for the PS3 and seemingly passed a sympathy vote to bring it up to 8%.

The Xbox 360 - our winner - appears to encompass a 'games for gamers' attitude as well as fantastically seamless on-line functionality. Not only this, but it is technically the cheapest of the consoles offering the most bang for your buck in terms of hardware.

The Wii took a different approach however and aims at an audience just outside the reach of the PS3 and Xbox 360. The 'casual player' such as your parents or others who wouldn't usually pick up a pad. Add to this the consoles inventive control schemes, utilising pointing and motion sensing technology, and you have the ultimate party machine.

Sony's PS3 console offers the most in terms of power and is aimed almost exclusively at the 'gaming hardcore', as well as having a free online service. Taking a leaf from Nintendo's book, the consoles controller also has tilt sensors built-in for that extra degree of manipulation. In conjunction, the machine is also touted as the cheapest Blu-Ray player on the market.

Not a bad 5 minute summary if I don't say so myself...

[Update] New poll is up!

Continue reading Poll Results - 28/09/08

UK Pokemon Darkrai Event - A Personal Experience.

With additional photos by Cuber.

August saw a UK-wide Pokemon event tour in order to promote the cinema and DVD release of the new Pokemon film Pokemon: The Rise of Darkrai at certain Woolworths stores. In addition to promoting the film, the movie edition Darkrai was available for attendees to download via Wi-fi directly to their Nintendo DS' and at some tour stops, face-painting and "battling the Pokemon trainer"; who was an enthusiastic employee dressed as Ash Ketchum. The newly released Mystery Dungeon games were available to play as well as the Pokemon Battle Revolution game on the Wii.


After travelling for two and a half hours to the nearest Woolworths store, two friends and I arrived with a slight fear of dread, as the majority of attendees were very young children accompanied by a parent. The three of us quickly settled into the event upon realisation that there were, in fact, quite a few people who had reached the end of puberty. Apart from downloading Darkrai, only one thing was on people's minds - battling, and winning (ok, that's two things) - EV (that's effort value) training was the order of the day and as many of the younger players found out, you can hack any Pokemon but it'll be rubbish if you don't train it properly.

My first battle was a 2 vs 2 affair, myself and an eight year old girl (who only had one level 100 monster) versus Ash Ketchum and a trainer who had hacked his team - I can honestly say that I knew I had no chance, especially as I was ganged up on. I lost with a respectable (considering the situation) three out of six defeated monsters on their team.

My second battle was a much more even one that involved myself and one of my friends versus two other friends (one with hacked monsters). Immediately we were at a disadvantage after my starting member was wiped out in one hit but we would fight on. The battle continued until everyone had only one monster remaining, myself a Porygon-Z, my team-mate with a Breloom versus a Kyogre and … something else (I forget what). We had the upper hand - just. In the most spectacular of cock-ups, my team mate managed to slip when choosing his target and sent me to sleep, there was no way we were going to win after that but everyone involved was happy enough to admit that it was a very close match.


The third battle that I was involved in I decided to use a different tactic and make use of a Slowbro that I had trained to be able to take hits. This, however, backfired slightly as I spent 15 minutes slowly wiping out my opponent's team eventually switching out to a different monster to eliminate his last team member. Ambitious but rubbish would be a very good choice of words for that particular battle.

My final battle I was by far the most pleased about in terms of result and in terms of, after seeing my friend annihilated by a fantastic doubles team on the Wii game, I decided to step up to play. I did not have to wait much more than ten seconds before a challenger arrived and after a brief discussion on how well trained each of our teams were, we were ready to battle (and I must admit, I was a little nervous as this was my only battle being played on a big screen). By the time we had both chosen which four monsters we were going to use in the battle, we had amassed a crowd of just about everyone, including staff, that were present at the time. Like I said, my pride was at stake and I was nervous, just how good was my team? Needless to say, I won within three full turns with only one team member down (which in the way it was done, not expected) to the amazement and cheers of the present crowd.

After congratulating my opponent, I was thrown into several conversations at once between people asking me about my team and I realised that the event was not just somewhere to download Pokemon, get your face painted or win / lose against people. The event demonstrated that people with a passionate like-minded interest will develop a feeling of community between themselves. Whether or not I will come into contact again with Jack, Bananas or anyone else that I met there, I will always remember the day where I could share a gaming passion with someone else who shared it with the same level of enthusiasm that I did. I arrived with a feeling full of dread but I genuinely did not want to leave when I did, it's an event that all Pokemaniacs should attend and I thoroughly look forward to the next event. Who knows, maybe I'll be able to battle Bananas without being sent to sleep by accidental friendly-fire.

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Retrospective - The Getaway

• Game: The Getaway
• Console: PlayStation 2
• Developer: Team SoHo
• Publisher: Sony
• Released: 2002

The Getaway was a game I remember quite enjoying. The gritty urban London back-drop synonymous with the films of Guy Ritchie (Madonna's wife), or at least his two good films, only with the humour replaced by awful textures. In The Getaway, you play as Mark Hammond, an ex-gangster-cockney-wide-boy with a boring name, a boring face and a boring voice. As the game starts you see his wife get shot in the chest after a tussle with a couple of gangsters who then proceed to half-inch his only begotten son. Like some kind of fucking idiot who has never watched an episode of CSI, Mark picks up the gun that put a bullet in his wife's chest as she lies dying in his arms, thus framing him as the murderer. This is the main crux of the story, as the mob-boss who orchestrated the kidnapping, Harry Johnson (yes, all of the characters have rather mundane names), uses this, and the life of his son, as a bargaining chip to procure Mark's 'talents' in killing and 'feevery'. Cue Mark having to do a bunch of things he doesn't want to for someone else's gain. The story, though, is just an excuse to tear-arse around London shooting up cockneys. Quite fun it can be, too.

What makes The Getaway stand-out other than the setting is the fact that there is no user interface. Instead of a health-bar, bloodstains appear on Mark as he loses health. To rejuvenate him, you have to lean up against a wall until he gets his breath back. Although not completely realistic, it certainly keeps the game's movie-like qualities thanks to having nothing but the game on-screen at all times. However, if he's at Death's door, it can be a complete pain to find somewhere quiet and wait for the blood to disappear, which takes about a whole minute, which is a long time in gaming. The controls are God-awful. Mark is a complete chore to direct and the fact that the difficulty is quite punishing makes it a frustrating game. The missions you embark upon are quite fun, but the trial and error gameplay is less so. Driving is also fun, but dodgy-handling and loose turning can make these sections as much trial and error as the missions you are driving to and from.

You're gonna die, you slag, you muppet.

All games in this genre come under scrutiny and are compared to one series of games; Grand Theft Auto. Seeing as The Getaway was released in 2002, it'd be harsh to compare it to any GTA game that post-dates it, so, with regards to GTA III (and GTA III only), how does it come out? Not very good. Although it can be quite enjoyable, and the fact that you are driving around a city you might have actually been to (or even live in) and are doing things you'd never be able to in real-life is really quite refreshing and intriguing. However, the game only offers you the main-story. No side-quests, no shops, nothing. A game that could have easily have peaked at about 50 hours gives us merely 10. It seems pointless to have mapped London out so painstakingly only to leave 95% of it unused.

But the thing that shocked me more than anything else when I booted it up for the first time in about 4 years is just how much the game had aged. It looks pretty horrendous. The character models are quite good, but the background textures are washed-out and stretched. I remember quite a good looking game. I think my Xbox 360 is spoiling me.

With all that said, The Getaway was a nice change of locale for fans of the free-roaming-shooty-drivey games. A very British game, and one that took inspiration from the thriving British film industry. Despite its short-comings, it should be regarded as a high-point for the British game industry and Sony and Team SoHo should be applauded for it.

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Extolling the Virtues of Oblivion

• Game: The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
  
• Console: Xbox 360
  
• Developer: Bethesda
  
• Publisher: 2K Games
  
• Released: March 2006
  

First things first, Oblivion was my first trip into the world created by Bethesda in The Elder Scrolls. I had missed Morrowind before it despite people saying that it's the best thing since sliced cheese (because bread just don't cut it for me anymore). So, naturally, I was blown away at the impeccable level of detail in this game. Practically everything can be interacted with in some way. Everything in the game exists, it is tangible, if you pick up a gold coin, you can actually drop a literal, physical gold coin. If you pick up a mortar & pestle, you can drop a mortar & pestle. You can even use a mortar & pestle to create your own custom potions with the plants you can pick up (and can drop). No more items existing only in the ether of the game-world and if you did indeed drop them, come back later and they'll still be there. The world is one great inventory box. It may not be the best thing in gaming ever, but what I'm trying to get at is just how much care and attention has been put into this game.

Suffice to say, the rest of the game is much the same. There are tons of tiny little townships and villages that dot the land of Cyrodiil, and each one seems to have its own story. On my first play-through, I stopped off at an inn for the night in a tiny township, in the middle of nowhere, after a day of tiresome traveling (for my character, not me, I was loving it). I ignored the town-people's threats that I was not welcome there and headed up the wooden hill for some deeply deserved slumber. In the middle of the night, I was awoken by some crazed lunatic attacking me. I promptly disposed of him and fled. Much later, in the city of Chorrol, I heard rumours of a missing girl and went to speak to her mother, Seed-Neeus, who told me her daughter had gone missing while making a delivery to Hackdirt. I went to the village Seed-Neeus mentioned and discovered it to be the very same village I was attacked in as I slept. This stood out for me; by chance I discovered this village almost at random and created my own little story out of it. This happens throughout the game, time and time again. Although the main story is set out for you, you can create your own little world and story. Oblivion really lets the imagination fly.

Lush game-world? Check.

After creating your character, you start the game in prison for an unknown crime and with your only companion, the old lifer in the cell opposite, slinging insults at you. This doesn't last for long, though, as your cell is a secret exit from the Imperial City and needs to be used by the Emperor who appears to be in mortal danger. However, the Emperor notices you, and says he's seen you in his dreams. You follow the Emperor and his guards as they make their way through the secret dungeon. However, the assassins find and kill the Emperor, but not before he sends you off on the first part of the main story. After this, you're on your own. You escape the prison sewers and set off on your journey to keep the Dragonfires burning.

Before you exit the sewers, though, you can again edit your character's features and skills. What sets Oblivion apart from most other RPGs, is that you aren't given experience points when defeating enemies. Instead, for each of your characters skills, you get a bar which gradually fills up every time you do something associated with a skill. For instance, if you take damage while wearing heavy armour, your heavy armour bar will fill up. When it's completely full, you'll level-up in that skill. Once you have levelled-up enough in your major skills, your character will level-up. Each time you level-up, you are given a set amount of skill points you can add to your attributes, you'll get better weaponry and more money from looting, the challenge of the game will increase, and stronger enemies will appear. It's a system that works really well, and it gets you to do a lot of the things in the game that might have been overlooked otherwise. It can be a little confusing at first, but with a few hours of practice and after you've levelled-up a couple of times, you'll get into the swing of things.

You can fight either in 1st or 3rd person view, but 1st person is where it's at.

The main story will probably only take you about 15 hours to complete, but the huge amount (and quality) of the side-quests will have you playing this game for at least 100 hours. There are the side-quests you'll stumble upon, whether through talking to people or overhearing conversations, such as the aforementioned Hackdirt side-quest, but there are also the guilds. There's the Fighter's Guild, the Mage's Guild, the Arena, the Thieves' Guild and the Dark Brotherhood. Then there are the Daedric Shrines, the mines, the caves, the Ayleid ruins and the forts, each of these are like dungeons ranging from tiny to massive and are practically filled to the brim with gold and loot. Then there are the Oblivion Gates, which lead you to the titular realm of Oblivion, and contain expansive game worlds in themselves. There really is a heck of a lot stuffed in this game, and all of that is only the content that came on the disc. Factor in the downloadable content, and there's another 30 hours of gameplay added to the massive amount of play-time already.

It really is an immense game. It's completely compelling and comprehensively compulsive. It's crucial that you own or at least play this game. It's certainly not without its faults (like every other game) and it maybe showing its age a little now, but it's one of those games that really needs to be experienced by as many people as possible, and not just because Patrick Stewart and Terence Stamp are in it, the men with the Best Voices Ever™. What's more is that Bethesda are all set and ready to release their new game, Fallout 3, which promises as much as, if not more than, Oblivion. Heck, if it's half the size of Oblivion, it'll still be absolutely huge.

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Extolling the Virtues of Mass Effect

• Game: Mass Effect
  
• Console: Xbox 360
  
• Developer: BioWare
  
• Publisher: Microsoft
• Released: November 2007
  

As big a problem I have with certain aspects of Mass Effect, I do love it very much indeed. Something I really wasn't expecting from the same team as Knights of the Old Republic. Although KotOR isn't a bad game at all, I seemed to trudge through the 40+ hours of it without ever enjoying any of it, until perhaps near the end. So, no, Mass Effect wasn't a game I ever expected to enjoy as much as I eventually did, which is indeed a rather nice surprise. In fact, I knew I was playing something special as soon as I started Mass Effect, quite the opposite of KotOR. The opening cinematic that introduced the character you'd just spent about 20 minutes creating really set the scene for just how awesome they were going to become over the course of the game. I knew immediately that I could expect a lot better from this than from KotOR.

But enough of KotOR, that's Star Wars territory; Mass Effect is set in our very own galaxy (The Milky Way, in case you didn't know) about 180 years into the future. It's all so very in-depth and rather believable … or most of it is, at least. Mass Effect explains how almost everything in the game works; from your guns, to your shield, to your 'biotic' powers. Reams and reams of text - some of it narrated. Why, you ask? Because this is the kind of thing that gets Sci-Fi nuts hornier than when they see Klingon cosplay porn. But if you don't want to enter the kingdom of the fat, spotty, love-starved virgin 30 year-olds, then you don't have to, as most of this stuff is very easily ignorable. Now, I'm not a complete geek, but I admit I am a completionist (meaning that when I play a game, I want to see and do everything - at least to the limits of my gaming ability), so I read nearly all of it and damn, it's actually quite interesting when it isn't flying over the top of my head at 70,000Kpc/s.

You can land on quite a few planets and check out the scenery. Some of it really is quite stunning.

Then there's the actual game and, boy, is it epic. After the first couple of hours of gameplay, you're given the freedom to choose where you want to go next, provided you know of the system you want to explore. You're given missions that are essential to the plot and side-missions, which, while they lack the cinematic flair and dazzling locations of the plot-based missions, still serve to extend the life of the game well past the 20-hour mark. It's in the plot-based missions where Mass Effect really comes to life, though. The worlds you explore vary greatly in terms of setting, whether you're stranded on a skyscraper laden planet under attack by the self-aware cyborg AI Geth or conducting an investigation into the apparently dubious experiments a shady multi-global company is doing on a freezing ice-world.

It might be an RPG through and through, but the battle system is notable only by its apparent absence. This is a good thing, as there is definitely a battle system in there, it's just that it's completely seamless to the rest of the game, it's played in real-time and, most importantly, it's a shoot 'em up. Yes, there's none of that nonsensical turn-based fighting in this game, it's full-on blasting action. Grenades, sniper rifles, shotguns, assault rifles, pistols, biotic powers, technological warfare; it's all in here, and it works great. There's even a cover-system and recharging health. It's kind of like Gears of War, but without the burly and incredibly ugly men running around and grunting.

See, it's a 3rd person shooter. A 3rd person, RPG, space-opera, conversation-simulation, shooter.

Now, regarding the sex scene - even though it's not particularly titillating, I see it as big step forward for the gaming industry. It's handled pretty much like how films handle it; getting to know each other, flirting, sexual tension and then they get intimate. It doesn't seem contrived, at all. There's build-up to it all the way through the game, leading to your choice between the human male or female or the female alien. Even then, it's entirely optional. If you don't fancy seeing your man or woman making-out with a bald, blue-skinned girl with no ears, then you don't have to. Then there's the fact that there's barely any flesh on show, a bum shot and perhaps a bit of side-boob, but it's mainly just naked kissing. The controversy it garnered is really quite baffling after you've experienced it for yourself, even more so if you wonder how God of War got away with its nipple-showing threesome, replete with button combos and moaning.

The choice over who you make 'the beast with two backs' with is only one of several choices you make in Mass Effect, and each of them has their own consequences. The biggest choice comes at the end of the game, which directly affects the ending you get. Moreover, the decisions you make in the game will carry onto Mass Effect 2, along with your character, and seeing as Mass Effect is set to become a trilogy, these decisions will carry on into, and possibly find closure, in Mass Effect 3. So, even if you have finished Mass Effect, know that it is only the end of the beginning, which is an exciting thought.

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Retrospective - Scarface: The World is Yours

• Game: Scarface: The World is Yours
  
• Console: PlayStation 2, Xbox, PC, Wii
  
• Developer: Radical Entertainment
  
• Publisher: Sierra Entertainment
• Released: 2006

One of the best things about never selling your games on, and keeping them in pristine condition, is that every now and then, you'll go through your collection and stumble upon a couple of hidden gems that not only get pushed to the back of your wall unit (or wherever you keep your games) but also to the back of your mind. Most notable are the games you've never completed. So, when you do get the chance to do this (usually in the summer months when games worth getting are very few and very far between) it can be quite a cathartic process, especially when the games are just as good as you remember them to be.

One of these games I found was Scarface: The World is Yours on the PS2. I remember playing it last year and getting quite a bit of enjoyment out of it, but for some reason I stopped playing it. I think it might have been because it really was quite hard, or I wasn't playing it properly. So, I popped it back into my PS2 and remembered straight away that the opening montage depicting some of the main events of the film was rather awesome and seeing all the recognisable names pop up in its credits; the likes of Ricky Gervais, Bam Margera, Jason Mewes et al. From this point onwards, I was hooked. It does really set the scene rather well.

Scenes like this are commonplace in the game.

Scarface: The World is Yours is the game of the film, but not really: it's the sequel. I know, Tony Montana died at the end of the movie, but the game starts with you playing through the end of the movie as you help Tony successfully escape his under siege mansion. You kill most of Sosa's men, and escape just as the Police arrive. Yes, it's quite strange to have a movie ending turned on it's head like this, especially for a game, but what this allows the game to do, though, is to carry on the legend of Montana when he's pushed back to the bottom of Miami's crime-ladder instead of merely playing through the set-pieces of the actual film.

The game is pretty much identical to GTA: Vice City (remember, however, that Vice City used the film Scarface as its main inspiration in the first place), only slightly more complex. Tony has to restart his empire from the ground up, starting with buying his mansion back off the Vice Squad. You can then buy businesses and use these as fronts for your drug dealing ways. To get Tony's hands on the narcotics, you have to set up deals with local druglords and bargain with them in a quick mini-game that, with good timing, can end up with you scamming the dealer out of pocket. Get it wrong, though, and you'll anger him, leading to a gun-fight with Tony vastly outnumbered.

However, the only things Tony has in this world are his balls and his word, and he don't break them for no one. What he does do, however, is use his balls as an 'overdrive' meter of sorts, which, when filled, makes Tony fly into a blind rage, granting him temporary invincibility, one shot kills and auto-aim, with each kill filling up his health-bar a little, which is a great way to turn the tide of a gun-fight. To fill up the balls meter, kill someone, then press the circle button to taunt them. It really is rather an inspired addition to what would have been a rather ordinary combat system. You can also talk to every NPC in the game-world, and completing the myriad conversations you have with people (like, say, flirting with a girl at the Babylon Club) will add to your balls meter. Definitely, one of the best things about this game, though, is that they've got the voice of Tony Montana spot on. It's not Al Pacino, he only gives his likeness to the game, but a very good impressionist and he never really shuts up, so it's lucky he actually sounds like Tony Montana.

Tony Montana: he don't give a chit.

Scarface: The World is Yours is an incredibly solid game and to call it a GTA clone would be doing it a disservice. At first glance, it is just that, though. A free-roaming, crime-based 3rd person shooter where you can steal cars and cause mayhem, normally ending up with you being chased by cops. But it's the less mission-based gameplay that leads the game away from GTA territory. Tony doesn't start at the bottom to work his way up, he's already been to the top and is trying to reclaim his throne as the Drug-King of Miami, so all that Tony does in the game, he does for himself and his 'business'. He doesn't do errands for people, he buys drugs and distributes them. In this respect, it's almost a real-time strategy game. More likely, though, is that it's a drug dealing simulation, albeit a self-righteous one; you can't go around and kill anyone. Tony has a code - he's never fucked anybody over in his life who didn't have it coming to them. Try and kill a passer-by and he won't let you. He's true to his word and so is this game. If you get a chance, buy it, as it won't fuck you over, either.

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Beyond Lawful Good and Chaotic Evil

Quick moral quiz - as you leave the village an old man comes up to you claiming to have been robbed by bandits in the wilderness. He desperately needs the treasure that was stolen from him and promises to reward you if you get it back. Do you:

1. Ride to the bandits' camp and fight them all off but let them live once they promise to be nice. Take the treasure and return it to its owner but refuse to accept a reward because you were only performing your moral duty as a generic do-gooder.
2. Ride to the bandits' camp, kill everyone and loot their corpses. Then go back to the old man, refuse to give him back the treasure but threaten to kill him if he doesn't give you the reward anyway. Kill him and loot his corpse. Then stamp on a puppy. Loot the puppy's corpse.

Depending on your choice here, your Evil-O-Meter will move slightly in one direction or other, also you probably get more money and XP for choosing the second option, it's just a sidequest though so don't expect any kind of lasting consequences.

The above scenario is obviously a simplified version of the kind of moral choices that modern RPGs try to offer, the problem is that it's not simplified by that much. A typical moral choice will boil down to taking the unambiguously "good" option or the unambiguously "evil" option (occasionally with a few neutral options thrown in). As such, the whole moral choice aspect comes down to a decision made right at the start of whether you want to play a good or evil character.

The pursuit of good/evil points also leads to the character's actions feeling forced - a good character will go out of their way to help everyone who asks, even when they clearly have far more important things to be concerned about. Evil characters on the other hand seem downright insane; a truly self-centred person would probably just ignore the majority of sidequests (and maybe even the main quest) because they don't care about the problems of some random peasant. This however will be counted as neutral by the game mechanics so you need to take the quest anyway then throw in some act of gratuitous cruelty to make the point that you really are EVIL!

And this leads us to the biggest problem, the goody-two-shoes and asinine jerk characters clearly have no rights being on the same quest with the same teammates. The game needs to railroad the player and horribly break the plot to provide an excuse for why a character would go on a quest they clearly have no motivation for (generally an evil character on a good quest, although I imagine playing a good character in Overlord causes this kind of problem too). Someone who genuinely wanted to roleplay an evil character might want to take over the first low-level criminal organisation you fight, kill the leader of the good guys, or sell out the forces of good and take a position working for the villain. But these choices goes way beyond the level of variation that is allowed by the script and so either there will be no option to do any of them, or at best you'll get a few extra lines of dialogue giving a hand-wave to force you back onto the main path. Thus you have the paradox of an "evil hero" - a heartless killer who slaughters the innocent while battling the forces of darkness and amassing a team of pure-hearted allies.

And of course these allies may complain about your latest rampage but will never think of abandoning the psychopathic killer they've mistakenly teamed up with. Kill, steal and stab your friends in the back for minimal reward and they'll still follow you right up to the pre-scripted bit before the last dungeon where the two paths finally diverge.

I think a better option would be to abandon the forced attempts to allow both good and evil choices and instead let the player choose between different moral philosophies on the same side of the scale. Take it for granted that the player character is a hero, but let them choose how best to go about saving the world - more like Lawful Good vs. Chaotic Good rather than tying yourself in knots aiming for Lawful Good vs. Chaotic Evil. Do you work strictly within the law or break the rules for the greater good? Sacrifice innocent lives to stop the bad guys or save the civilians but let your enemies get away? Mass Effect tries to use this system, with both Paragon and Renegade being basically good but differing in how ruthless they are willing to be. There are still some cases of asinine jerkiness - anyone wanting to get full Renegade points needs to be highly xenophobic and needlessly rude - but it manages to be one of the few games where both paths make sense.

Taking the idea even further it would be interesting to see a game where there are meaningful consequences for both "idealistic" and "ruthless" actions. Even Mass Effect tended to allow the Paragon to accomplish everything the Renegade could, making the "I did what needed to be done" defence ring hollow. Ideally, both options should have something going for them, both in terms of reward for the player (most of the time, the evil route will lead to more fighting and stealing, hence more loot and XP) and moral consequences.

Making it so that neither path is obviously more "good" than the other, would still give just as much choice as the more traditional good vs. evil dichotomy but since the choices are limited to the heroic ones the story would make more sense and feel a lot less like you were being railroaded. Perhaps more importantly the player would hopefully end up actually thinking about which one they should choose rather than simply going for the one that earns the most points for their alignment. All in all, the story and your choices in it would become a lot more interesting.

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GTA Retrospective V - Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas

• Game: Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
• Console: PlayStation 2, Xbox, PC
• Developer: Rockstar North
  
• Publisher: Rockstar Games
• Released: 2004

Massive. Huge. Monstrous. These words were once used to describe the size of GTA games, they now somehow seem redundant when describing just how big GTA: San Andreas is. The game-world is roughly 5 times the size of Vice City and it seems incredible just thinking about the step-up Rockstar has made from its previous titles to this magnum opus. When comparing the game to its predecessors, it seems silly calling them huge, because if they were huge, then what is San Andreas? 'Supermassive'? I'm not taking about how big the game world is, though, or even how long it takes to complete the main storyline, even though that, in itself, is a huge task. I'm talking about how much content this game provides the player.

When you first play the game, every time you continue the main storyline the game gives you something new to do. The very first mission you're given is to escape from an enemy gang's territory on, for the very first time in a GTA game, a bicycle. Not long after that, you're given a spray-can and are tasked with daubing your gang's tag across the game-world. Keep playing and you'll get the girlfriend mini-game, the burglary mini-game, low-rider racing, low-rider 'dancing' and more. All this in just the first few hours. What's notable is the fact that most of these things are completely new to the GTA series. Every GTA game added its own innovations of some sort, but San Andreas went above and beyond the call of duty in every respect.

You can actually do a drive-by on a bicycle, which is quite comical, actually. Freddie Mercury's spinning in his grave.

GTA: San Andreas has you playing as Carl 'CJ' Johnson. Having seemingly run-away from his home city of Los Santos, Carl returns for his mother's funeral after a phone call from his brother, Sweet, telling him that she was killed in a drive-by shooting. When he returns he is immediately pounced upon by the crooked cop Tenpenny (voiced by none other than Samuel L Jackson), who threatens him by seemingly framing CJ with the killing of another police officer, who was close to outing Tenpenny as corrupt, coincidentally. When he gets home, he finds his former gang in disarray and pledges to help retake the streets of Los Santos for the Grove Street Families, thereby avenging his mother's death. Events conspire against him, though, which leads him to the different parts of the state of San Andreas.

So even though the first part of the game seems to be ripped straight from 'Boyz N The Hood', most of the game takes place far away from this ghetto setting. There's a countryside, replete with country bumpkins and small townships, farms, a mountain, large expanses of land, forests and everything else you'd expect from such a place. Hours can be whiled away exploring or just enjoying the scenery, becoming one with nature (albeit of the digital kind). Then there's the next two cities (San Fierro and Las Venturas) as well as the desert between them, which holds just as much as the countryside.

Here, CJ is driving up the game's mountain; Mt. Chiliad.

San Andreas also adds RPG-like elements to the game, but in its own way. Gorge yourself on Chicken Bell or Pizza Shack and you'll get fat. The NPCs will comment on your fatness, too, calling you names and such, and you can respond to them in a postive or negative way (this can sometimes, hilariously, lead to a bout of fisticuffs). Want to lose that weight? Go running, go swimming and stop eating so damn much. Simple and just like real-life (although at a slightly accelerated rate). Want to tone up, get some muscles on them bones? Use the weight-lifting machines or dumbbells in the the various gyms dotted through-out San Andreas. You can upgrade your stamina, too, to make CJ run or swim for longer. Every weapon has different levels, making each weapon easier to use and allowing you to strafe the more you use them. Your driving ability gets better as the game progresses too, be it on bicycles, motorbikes or cars. You can also customise CJ by giving him different hairstyles and even more clothing options than Vice City which merely allowed you to wear different suits. You can even give CJ's skin a make-over and tattoo him, whether he likes it or not!

There are murmurings by some that GTA: San Andreas was too big. Can a game be too big? Certainly, if it becomes a chore, but there's something about San Andreas that grabs your attention and keeps you held until you complete the game, at least for your first play-through. As with every iteration of GTA, some of the flaws from previous titles are repaired, such as the aiming-system, which works remarkably well compared to past versions, but some flaws return, like draw distances and pop-up and the game can be incredibly glitchy. Sometimes you can drive through parts of the city that haven't loaded properly, but it's understandable, what with the game having to stream it all off the disc as you play it. The volume of activities in the game more than make up for such piffling issues like that, though.

This picture is rather controversial. Not because he's holding two sub-machine guns, but because there's partial nudity.

GTA: San Andreas might give you the impression that it's trying to do too much. There is a hell of a lot in there, but most of it is optional. The racing activities, the gang-territory side-missions and such are there if you want to utilise them but you don't have to if you just want to complete the game. It makes things a little easier if you do these, as it gives you money to replace weaponry should you die (Wasted!) or get arrested (Busted!) and lose your arsenal, but you can still complete the main missions without touching the optional elements of the game. Completionists will have an absolute riot with this game and so will casuals, as it favours different types of gamers, those who jump in for the occasional burst and those who spend hours finding every little thing.

After playing GTA: San Andreas, you're left thinking that this is what Rockstar North imagined the game being, or at least becoming, when they first started work on GTA III. This was what they set out to create the moment they even thought about making a 3D GTA game. San Andreas is incredible. The story is compelling, each of the cities are completely unique, the characters are incredibly well rounded, the voice acting is superb and the game can look absolutely beautiful at times, especially at sunrise or sunset in the countryside. The soundtrack is probably the best yet in a GTA game, defining the setting and era of the game almost perfectly.

"Ignore the dude with the afro and maybe he'll just walk away…"

This game marks the end of the GTA III era and does it in style. It's still GTA III, but it's been refined and improved. So, the baton is passed to GTA IV. In five or so years will we see GTA IV's San Andreas Just how big and just how good will that be?

Continue reading GTA Retrospective V - Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas

Poll Results - 07/09/08

New poll results! Again, they've been up for ages, but let's go through them anyway.

The 'run by douche-bags' option was merely there as the Essential Comedy Poll Option™, and isn't really relevant to what you think about the content of the site, so we'll notch those three votes as positives. In other words, you three fell into our trap! Haha! None of you said 'it sick', so thank you for that. If we're being honest with ourselves, the person who voted for 'needs improving' is right. All those that either said you liked it, or went for 'it's fuppin' grand' made us blush our cheeks off. So, thank you!

New poll up soon!

Continue reading Poll Results - 07/09/08

GTA Retrospective IV - Grand Theft Auto: Vice City

• Game: Grand Theft Auto: Vice City
• Console: PlayStation 2, Xbox, PC
• Developer: Rockstar North
  
• Publisher: Rockstar Games
• Released: 2002

You can imagine the board meeting at Rockstar when they were wondering where to go with the next GTA game - there they all are, sitting in their Skull Thrones™, sipping their newly drawn virgin's blood and having a cash-money fight when all of a sudden Little Timmy, the work experience lad, chimes in: "Imagine GTA set in the 80s. You know, with an 80's soundtrack. Neon, lycra, spandex, baby blue and pink everywhere, with Bros pumping out of the radio and everybody out rollerskating. It'd be awesome."

*awkward silence*

After they'd come back from sticking poor Little Timmy's head on a spike outside Rockstar Towers, Dan Houser (the Vice President, no less) addresses his slavering pack of barbarian programmers: "I think Little Timmy was onto a winner, actually, but let it be known that it was my idea and not some snot-nosed little git who interrupts my blood-sipping session! Although, let it be known that I never mentioned Bros. I mentioned Scarface, I mentioned Goodfellas and I mentioned Miami Vice." He said it and it was good and GTA: Vice City was born.

To differentiate the game from GTA III, Vice City was set in a sunny clime, rather than the wet and windy of Liberty City. Look, palm trees!

Released merely a year after GTA III, Vice City took GTA to a bygone era, an era some love, some detest, but most can never forget: the 80s. What seemed like a strange idea at the time became quite possibly the best GTA game released and, at the very least, the most unique. But what Vice City did best is capture the 80s perfectly. The soundtrack is spot-on, with tracks by A Flock of Seagulls, Michael Jackson, Judas Priest and Mr Mister amongst others (including some of the Scarface OST) to really capture the sounds of the 80s, as cheesy as that sounds. It's almost like a tribute to everything about the 80s, only one where you can bludgeon hookers to death.

GTA: Vice City still did what each sequel before it had done and that's improve and add to the gameplay. The lock-on weapon system was much improved, yet still not without its issues. Bikes were added, as were helicopters, and for the first time, players could buy property and make money from it. Also new for the series was a proper leading man, with a name and a voice. Tommy Vercetti, voiced by Ray Liotta, was the GTA series' first proper protagonist, and he came with his very own personality and back-story. Vercetti used to work for the Forelli Mafia family in Liberty City before going to prison for 15 years for his involvement with fifteen contract killings. When Vercetti gets out, the Forellis send him to Vice City to act as a buyer in cocaine deals. When he gets to Vice City for his first pick-up, he is ambushed, his bodyguards killed and both the cocaine and the money are lost to his attackers. He gets away, however, but is tasked by Sonny Forelli to retrieve the money and the cocaine and to kill whoever it was that set him up.

The above screenshot just screams 'EIGHTIES' at you.

GTA: Vice City was heavily influenced by Scarface and the mansion Tommy comes into ownership of about a quarter of the way into the game is almost a direct copy of Tony Montana's mansion, including the famous upstairs office where Scarface comes to its thrilling climax.

GTA: Vice City was incredibly well received. It garnered almost universal acclaim and, as of March 26th 2008, has sold 17.5 million units, according to Take-Two Interactive. Vice City is seen by some as the defining point of the GTA series, much more-so than its predecessor. It shows that Rockstar can pull off setting, story, gameplay and size in one easy bound. The fact that it was made in not much over a year goes to show just how talented the people over at Rockstar are. However, the next game would build on Vice City's success in more ways than one.

Coming up: GTA grows to the size of an entire state in GTA: San Andreas

Continue reading GTA Retrospective IV - Grand Theft Auto: Vice City