Super Mario Galaxy 2 – Wii – 28th May 2010 (wouldn’t be released on a Sunday like in US so picked the next Friday)

The original Super Mario Galaxy is by far the best game on the wii so far, I voted as such by making it my second favourite game of the decade. It is also my favourite ever mario game (I preferred Sonic in the olden days). The game proved that platforming can be amazing in 3d when done properly combining the best graphics on the system with brilliant physics and a masterful soundtrack. Galaxy 2 promises to be more of the same with similar locales, slightly improved graphics and a typically marioesque daft storyline. Sure this might make Nintendo lazy but surely more of the same isn’t always a bad thing. The first game was so good that I would happily take more of the same. Bring it on Nintendo, this time I’m going to preorder…

In other news Split/Second from my previous list now has a new name and a release date. The game will now be called Split/Second: Velocity and will be release on 21st May.

In relative chronological order then:

Mass Effect 2 – Xbox 360 – 29th January 2010

The first game on PC was ranked as my favourite game of the last decade. The second game is supposed to be even better fixing all the issues that I am currently fighting with in trying to complete the first game again… which I have to do before getting this one as it continues on keeping the same save file and being affected by your decisions in the original. The big problem with the original is combat, too often you end up dying for seemingly no reason… that is just not fun, this has been fixed and I am very excited to continue the best gaming story I have had the chance to enjoy.

Just Cause 2 – Xbox 360 – 26 March 2010

I never got to play the first Just Cause game on the PS2, it looked promising but I have since heard otherwise. This game looks like it can fulfil the promise of the first game largely due to the idea of screwing around with a grappling hook (the image below showing a car having been attached to a fighter jet by grappling hook). That said a recent video has made the controls look a little bit weak so while I think this game could be amazing poor controls could render all the fine work pointless. That said the environments in the game look wonderful and with 10000 km2 to explore there will be hours of fun to be had… fingers crossed for the controls then.

Red Steel 2 – Wii – 26 March 2010

The first red steel game sucked. It was the first fps experience for so many wii gamers and the first with motion controls but it was awful. The controls were horrible, the story was simple and dull and the graphics showed the wii to be lacking. That all said though, there was promise. It remains the best game to feature true sword fighting and so along comes the sequel with the wii peripheral ‘motion plus’ that allows you to get closer to 1-1 motion. The team have also added a stylised cel shaded graphics system that makes up for the lack of power in the wii and it just looks like an improvement all round. A heavier slant towards sword fighting is also evident with the gun fighting now playing second fiddle which makes it immediately cooler. This is the first wii game I have been excited about since last summer so it has a lot to live up for in needing to reinvigorate the wii’s recently weak software lineup. Also don’t worry I am out of sequels now…

Red Dead Redemption – Xbox 360 – 30 April 2010

An open world western game is something I have been wanting to play for years. Back in 2005 a game called Gun came out on the PS2 but it had iffy controls and quickly got annoying. Red Dead Redemption looks to give the genre the GTA treatment thanks to it being developed by Rockstar the team behind that game. If any team can pull off a cool western game you have to believe it can be them.

Split/Second – Xbox 360 – 31 May 2010

This game seems to be a mix between Burnout 2 and Excite Truck in that it is insanely fast frantic racing and the scenery explodes around you. Therefore this game should be epic. That said it also sounds like it could be largely down to luck as to where you finish what with the environmental obstacles causing havoc. Still that should make it very good multiplayer. The other slight issue is its made by Disney… which makes it sound weak. Oh well, I am game, where do I sign up?

So other than the fact that I can’t buy Mass Effect 2 until I have recompleted the first game and then have a gap until the 26 March 2010 when two of these games come out I have a pretty good and spaced out lineup for the next six months.

Other games I can look forward to:

• Trackmania – wii
• Backbreaker – Xbox 360: something needs to give Madden some competition and force it to improve its game

All images courtesy of ign.com

Top Ten games of the 2000′s:
10. Burnout 2 – Gamecube – 2003
The original burnout was a hard game especially in multiplayer as the amount of traffic and the lack of boosts made it tricky to finish a race before running out of time (especially when playing with your feet). Burnout 2 addressed this and made it more casual friendly by making it near impossible to fail the checkpoints while incorporating tracks that work brilliantly and are more varied. The multiplayer is mainly what gets this game here, I have spent days playing this game in multiplayer. While the single player mode gets a little dull in an hour or so with a lot of repetition there is much to be done with a friend round. The strong crash junctions provide something for casual gamers (like my wife) to enjoy the game and this is the only game to which I can add that a blind friend of mine managed to beat me… nuff said.

9. Advance Wars – DS – 2005
Turn based strategy you can take with you. This is my favourite war sim. I still enjoy this series of games from its official start on the game boy advance to the latest Days of Ruin reboot. It is addictive and has made many train journeys seem to take no time at all. If they keep making these I will keep buying. The premise being its a little like rock paper scissors with certain units effective against one thing but useless against something else (helicopters vs AA guns anyone). The level design is varied and the story throws up super weapons to make life harder. The perfect travel companion.

8. Timesplitters 2 – Gamecube – 2002
Of all the games with which I have spent time, this is the one that has sucked the most of it. Timesplitters 2 is bar none the best first person shooter I have ever played with its bizarre story mode, humour, many many challenges and create your own level mode. The multiplayer is also very strong with four players running around blowing merry hell out of eachother. College lunchbreaks would not be the same without timesplitters and I will be still playing at the end of the next decade.

7. Dirt 2 – XBox 360 – 2009
While not perfect this game has a lot of variety in its racing, beautiful graphics, spot on controls and a good damage system. It is therefore the best racing game I have played. It is unfortunate that I had to say racing there as the rallying side is a little underwhelming. Lots of fun to be had here though with a rush coming from knowing you are so close to losing everything around the next bend as you fly towards a wall. Exhilarating and good fun at 2am the day after Thanksgiving…

6. Professor Layton – DS – 2008
Professor Layton was a little slow in finding its way to the UK (it came out in the US in 2007) but it did very well for itself last christmas selling out across the country. The mix between brainteasers and a strong story was what caused it to sell so well. With more games Layton coming there will be much more for the public to sink their teeth into. Whats more its a game my wife finishes before I do and anything that encourages her to play games is fine by me.

5. Boom Blox – Wii – 2008
Another game my wife finishes before I do is Boom Blox which is from Steven Spielberg apparently. To my recollection there has been no better party game. I have never had anyone say that they have not enjoyed this game. Its unique style, perfect use of the wii remote (this really could not be on another console) and physics engine that never gets it wrong place this game in here.

4. GTA San Andreas – PS2 – 2004
It might be odd that this is the version of Grand Theft Auto that finds its way into this list after GTA 4 stole the headlines last year but GTA 4 just isn’t fun for me. The PS2 games had a slightly arcadey feel to them especially in their driving mechanic and this is unfortunately missing in the newer game. The story is fun and the game world is more varied than the cityscape of games past. The variety of things you can do in this open world are limited largely by your imagination. The fun to be had in driving a sports car to the top of the games mountain and flying it off the ramp to be found there at high speed is not to be underestimated. This is also the game where the controls were tightest and the missions the least frustrating.

3. Half Life 2 + The Orange Box – PC – 2007
Half Life 2 would probably have been my number one but for a big frustration… Ant Lions, my word do those things make me annoyed, those buggers are also the reason I am not a big fan of HL2: episode 1 which I am sure I will come back to and finish at some point. The story of Half Life 2 is one of the best with a dystopian world where the citizens are oppressed by the combine. Gordon Freeman ends up in the middle of this and has to first stay alive before eventually trying to free humankind. The orange box represents the best value in video game history with Half Life 2 and its two episode packs plus portal (which is by itself one of the best games ever made taking a simple concept and making it addictive) and team fortress 2 (a crazy multiplayer game)… if only it weren’t for the ruddy ant lions…

2. Mario Galaxy – Wii – 2007
I grew up with sega systems therefore I preferred Sonic, I still do not like Nintendo’s flagship series in 2d form. I keep trying but I also keep failing. In 3d though Mario is more interesting while Sonic is a bit crap with endless gimicks ruining what Sonic should be while Nintendo have struck gold with mario keeping to what made it work. This game is the best platformer ever with graphics that while cartoony are also impressive, a control system that is almost perfect and a physics engine that works superbly to make platforming fun again. Sure the story is the same we have played a thousand times and the game can be a bit easy but these things do not cloud such mastery by Nintendo.

1. Mass Effect – PC – 2008
Having now played the start of the Xbox version this game would not be number 1 if it had been played on that platform. The controls are iffy at best while the PC version flowed beautifully. I fully enjoyed my 12 hour experience with this game. The story worked well, I felt emotionally attached to the characters and this is the first RPG since Final Fantasy 8 I have truly enjoyed. This is also the best sci-fi game on the market. The story sees you as one of the unliked human race struggling to make your name in the galaxy. As things start to go awry you go investigating with your team levelling up as you go. The game is set across an epic scale and for those 12 hours I was hooked. I am very much looking forward to the continuation of this series next year, the problem is I need to complete the xbox version of the game first…
The pc game is my game of the decade because it hooked me into its world, showed me that not all rpg games are rubbish and that there is hope for space travel in games.

Here are the games that nearly made the cut:
Race Driver 3, Metroid Prime Trilogy, Fallout 3, Fifa 10, Star wars battlefront, Madden 09, Grid, Wii Sports, Pikmin, F1 ’06

Come back tomorrow for my review of the year.

Images from microsoft.com, niceskybox.files.wordpress.com, ign and the guardian

The first Boom Blox was a hit taking the simple idea of knocking blocks over with balls and making that concept even more fun. You wonder how much Steven Spielberg contributed to the idea beyond the basic idea but that man is a genius. A year has passed since that game was released and EA have released a sequel again with the great Spielberg stamping his name on it.

The sequel is essentially the same as the original but there are multiple additions and changes to the formula. For example while it might seem like a small change there are now cylindrical blocks. There are also zero gravity and underwater levels that take the already brilliant physics engine to a new level. In terms of the controls, they have been tightened slightly since the first game meaning that they feel slightly more accurate. At the same time though it may have become slightly easier to make a good shot as well. The games style is the same as before with block shaped characters running around making weird noises as you play. They start influencing the levels now though. In some of the underwater levels a giant squid pops up and starts knocking blocks over, in levels where you have to carefully disassemble the tower this adds another level of challenge as you try and catch the blocks before they hit the ground.

There are other changes to the formula as well which include a slingshot mode where you pull back on a block and then fire it at speed at the other blocks and a match three paintball mode where you fire paintballs at a structure to match three blocks of the same colour to make them disappear. Both of these work extremely well. Another addition in the cannon is a little less well thought out, it works, but it could have been better.

The biggest change in the game though is updated ability to create your own levels, in the original this concept worked but was a bit too difficult to use. This time around, every level in the game was created in the level creator so you know exactly what it is possible to create… if you have the time and ability. The upshot of this is that they have properly integrated the internet to transfer levels. You will be shown a button at the bottom of every type of level that will take you to EA’s server and there you can find user and EA generated levels to try and then save to your console. This also means that the game never ends because it is constantly updated and therefore it will last until the next one comes out. The only real problem with the service is that you still cannot play people online. Its no biggy for me though because I prefer having my friends in the same room… being social is kinda underrated these days.

My only other real gripe with the game is the user interface, I understand that they have gone with a kind of theme park, fairground theme to differentiate the levels and it works in single player as you work to progress through each level but I find it downright rubbish in multiplayer as you try desperately to remember where that killer level is hidden. This is where ‘it ain’t broke don’t fix it’ should come in. In the old game you had each game type categorized, for example the shooting gallery games, the pulling down a tower games and the block throwing games were separated from eachother. Now though they are mishmashed together under broader categories of circus, underwater, space and futuristic. I am sorry but this really is not an improvement, I go into the game thinking ‘right we’re playing some slingshot levels’ and then spend 5 minutes trying to find them.

In conclusion, Boom Blox: Bash Party is a brilliant evolution to the series. The controls are tight, the graphics look good for the wii, the physics engine still rocks and it is still the best party game on the wii. From the next version I would hope that we can expect a new online playing mode and 8 player local support (lets be honest there is no reason in Boom Blox why you should be limited to four players). There are some downsides to the new game like the multiplayer user interface but these are forgotten when you consider the vastness of the user generated content available to every player… for free. Whether you own the original Boom Blox or not every wii player should get this game as it is truly brilliant.

9/10

I am not a fan of horror. Usually the plots are too daft to justify the scares from people running past a window or being hacked up in very bloody ways and therefore I stay well clear. This logic applies to both films and games. I also tend to stay away from light gun games because you don’t get very much control and often the controls (especially on wii) don’t tend to feel that good.

Therefore I was surprised by House of the Dead: Overkill (HOTDO). It is extremely violent and bloody but it also doesn’t take itself at all seriously. It is not for the squeamish or faint of heart but it is rarely scary. The film is pitched like a 70′s horror B Movie and bares a passing resemblance to the Tarantino/Rodriguez Grindhouse double feature of 2007. The game sees you hunting down a man named Papa Cesar as he unleashes a mutant virus on the world. The game will see you take on a giant preying mantis, a wheelchair bound telekinetic kid and a whole lot of clowns among other more ghoulish things. It also does controversial things which no other game would dare to do and uses extreme amounts of bad language.

That all taken into account though there is not a lot bad about the game, if you can put up with the gore, controversial subject matter and copious bad language you will have a great time with this game and its silly plot. The graphics are pretty good for a wii game and the control are perfect in that they are strong and accurate and you always feel you can pull of a shot. The levels are set in locations such as a hospital, carnival and train and the design is varied (apart from the fact the screen is dark most of the time). The games sound design is good with strong voice acting even if what they say is a bit poor and obscenity filled. The music backs up the games B Movie vide with some very fitting but disturbing music.

The game doesn’t frustrate you with constant death as you are able to restart where you died with some points pull off your total. It is this high score that you are really aiming for throughout the game. Your aim is to try and rack up the points and it helps with the replay value. There is also a two player version available which for anyone who has played House of the Dead in an arcade will be a handy feature. The only real downside with the presentation is the on rails camera, it swings about as if you are the character and it usually works well but often it gets slightly frustrating with its movement.

In conclusion, if you can handle the blood and subject matter then this is the best lightgun onrails shooter game available on the Wii. It is also the most fun horror game I have played and it is the least PC game available in my opinion. The replayability and multiplayer options are appreciated and make for a fun long lasting game. Well done to Sega for putting it out there.

9/10