I’ve been lucky enough to get hold of a Beta key for LittleBigPlanet.

Wow. What a charming game, brimming with little touches and brilliant ideas. From the second Stephen Fry’s voice kicked in I knew I was in for unique treat. So what is LittleBigPlanet about? well I’m lazy sod so I’ll pinch the description from Wikipedia

In LittleBigPlanet, players control small characters (nicknamed either “Sackboy” or “Sackgirl”, owing to their material and appearance), each of which can jump, move, and grab objects. Players can use their abilities to shape and develop the highly manipulatable environment to build custom spaces either individually, collaboratively, and/or competitively. Levels focus on co-operative, physics-based gameplay, and players can use mechanisms such as cogs and blocks to build anything from small level parts to large, complex worlds. The game will also allow opportunities for players to acquire new skills and tools.

It’s a joy to play. At face value the gameplay can seem simplistic, sure it’s not a deep or complex platformer like say Super Mario World. But that doesn’t matter as there is just so many cool little ideas and fun things to do. The level creation mode is where it comes alive. The scope of what you can do is staggering, the game comes with an enormous toolkit of stuff to play with and build levels. Levels can be published online and shared for everyone to play, picking through some of the user created levels online has been a mixed bag - but several of them have shown stuff I didn’t think was possible, and you come away with ideas for your own creations!

I’m in love with LittleBigPlanet - roll on the 24th Oct when it’s released fully.

So it’s that time of year again, the time of year where 99% of publishers release their “triple A” titles.

Gaming has always been a seasonal hobby, and it’s inevitable that publishers are going to release games in the run up to Christmas, but I think things are getting silly. For example this year in the next 3~4 weeks we have coming out: Fable II, Fallout 3, Dead Space, Little Big Planet, Mirror’s Edge, Far Cry 2, Gears of War 2, Tomb Raider: Underworld, Prince of Persia, Left 4 Dead, Call of Duty 5. And that’s just the ones I want off the top of my head, that’s a LOT of games. Four of those games all come out on the SAME DAY.

Now personally it’s not about the cost, although I appreciate for many people this is a major complaint. Really how can we give our time and dedication to these games, to do them justice? Titles like Fable II and Fallout 3 I’m hoping to get a good 40~50 hours of play out of, which is probably a month or so of play each.

Something will have to give, some of these games will not be bought straight away. Using a bit of willpower I will wait - maybe till next summer when there will be no games being released and play them then. The games will also be half the price at that time.

I’m curious how the game publishers expect to benefit by this glut of choice? Inevitably some of these games will sell far less than others in the face of all the competition, and I think the publishers are shooting themselves in the foot.

So Capcom finally realised they had a sweet bit of IP with their old Bionic Commando game, we’re getting a full blown next gen sequel at some point. But Capcom have also put out a remake of the old NES Bionic Commando game for PSN and XBLA called Bionic Commando: Rearmed. Summary: It’s a 2D platform/shooter where the main character has an extendible bionic arm thingy, enabling him to grab and grapple his way round the environment. Firstly it’s a very good looking game, clearly a lot of love and attention has been put into it. The 2.5D works really well, and there is a surprising amount of detail in the backgrounds and levels for what is essentially a 6 quid game.

Very little comprise has been made with the controls, so it’s fairly unforgiving, and yes there is no jump button - which does take some getting used to. It’s difficult too, small mistakes can result in instant death especially on the later levels. Old gamers like myself (ahem) will remember a time when all games were like this. I had a bit of a on/off thing going with it - often giving up as it was too hard (If I’m honest I claimed it was impossible and switched it off in a huff several times!) only to come back the next day and breeze past what ever level or boss was causing me pain.

Anyhow I finished the game last night - a real genuine sense of achievement. I more than got my 6 quids worth of fun from it.

I hope developers pumping out cheap ports and remakes on PSN and XBLA will take note. This is how a proper remake is done.

And who said game titles aren’t getting longer!

I picked this up as a cheapy a few weeks ago (it can be had for about a tenner) and completed it last night. OK first things first, it’s a flawed game. The graphics are sub-par especially the textures which are woeful in places. The plot is utter 3rd rate, high fantasy tosh. It’s heavily cut down as a RPG with little customisation, choice or real depth, and it’s got quite a few glitches and bugs.

But… despite all of that I really rather enjoyed it! It starts off pretty badly, in fact I only continued to play in order to see how bad it could be and laugh at it. But soon I was sucked in, the game definitely improves by about Chapter 4 when the settings and enemies start to get interesting

In a way I enjoyed the fact it didn’t have all the depth of a real RPG or thousands of side quests like say Oblivion (which would be the closest game to compare it to, given the fantasy setting and first person view). The lack of options and choices basically meant I got on with playing the game, rather than the hours of buggering about that I normally do. The game also rewards exploration, something I like in my games; so if you go clambering up to the top of that hard to reach, ruined pillar there is generally something there to reward your efforts & curiosity (other good games in this regard are Tomb Raider and Half Life 2)

Anyhow, if you are after a light weight, action-RPG with a bit of hack and slash & dungeon crawling and general daring do - I’d say you can’t go far wrong with DMMM:E (as it’s know to it’s friends!)

The weekly Weight Watchers meeting could get a litte fraught once the biscuits arrived

Just completed this on the PS3

Wow so that’s 2 games in 3 days! Well I’d been playing this on and off for a while. What can I say? It adds very little to the series, it’s a cut ‘n paste job of DMC 1, 2 or 3. Now I guess Capcom reckon if it’s not broke, don’t fix it. But by the time you get to a forth game in a series you expect some innovation.

Well it’s very pretty, very, very pretty in fact; but all this eye candy comes at a price - interactability (I don’t even think that’s a word - but you get my drift). In gameplay terms 95% of the environents are basically box rooms and corridors, they don’t look like box rooms and corridors, they look like ultra detailed, epic pieces of gothic architecture, but you just glide through them, there is nothing to do in these places. The locations merely serve as a sumptuous backdrop to yet another demon slicing fest. OK maybe I’m being unfair, Devil May Cry doesn’t pretend to be anything other than a beat ‘em up with completely OOT sword and gunplay, and in those regards it’s fine. Special mention has to go to the cut scenes; these were gorgeous, well choreographed and even more OOT than the game, which is going some. Extra special mention for the cheap shot Capcom pulled making you fight through the same levels twice (once as Nero, once as Dante) you even get to fight all the bosses twice too, yay! actually some of the bosses you fight three times! Come on Capcom that’s really lame!

Still not a bad game. And defintily one to show off to your mates if you are looking for a true HD game that doesn’t just look like a PS2 game with extra varnish.

Yay, it’s done.

Well it’s had it’s ups and downs - but overall it was an absolute top class game. Warning mild spoilers follow

It did start to grind a little at the end. The Sorrow was spooky and different but frustratingly obscure to defeat. The Volgin / Shagohod fight was a proving to be a bitch, then it just clicked and I did it with barely a scratch. I also found the fight against ‘The Boss’ fight a bit disappointing - the setting and overall cinematic were gorgeous, but the actual fight was a bit ‘flat’. Unusual for a MGS game - I actually followed the plot, for once Kojima didn’t go too bonkers with triple bluffs and twisting conspiracies within conspiracies, it actually made sense!

I won’t go into a lot of detail on opinions, it’s a 3.5 year old game after all, so it’s all been said before. But I will say one thing, after all my initial impressions and bile - I was wrong. This is a text book example of when persevering with a game can be worth it. I also urge anyone thinking about playing this game, to pick up the Subsistence version - if only for the improved camera, I can’t imagine how painful & frustrating it would be with the original top-down camera

Here’s looking forward to number 4. But I’m going to take a break and play a few things in-between before starting that. I think a double dose of Snake might be overkill.

No this isn’t some new extra sepcial limited edition version of MGS 3, just my final attempt to play & get into this game.

I’ve attempted to play this game twice before (once with the normal version, and once with the Subsistence special edition) and both times hated it; absolutely despised it. And was rather ranty and vocal about it on my blog. So for some totally mental reason I decided to try a final time - this time playing on Very Easy and determined to make some progress. Well finally it’s clicked, I’ve got past the really annoying ruined factory section at the beginning and started to get drawn into the game. It was obvious that Very Easy mode did what it said on the tin and was very, very easy - far too easy. So I started again (yeah the into was getting pretty dull by this point) but on Normal difficulty.

All my initial reservations are still there, the controls are really archaic, the gameplay is at times clumsy and the initial starting mission has a vertical difficulty curve for what should be a gentle intro to the game.

But I’m loving the mad as a hatstand plot, the attention to detail and minutia such as all the animals you can hunt, kill & eat or using a cigar to remove leeches. It’s certainly a game that brings out the OCD in the player. But it’s not without humour (despite what I said before) If I’m totally honest I kinda want to get this out of the way so I can play Metal Gear Solid 4 but for now it’s got me hooked. Goes to show - don’t judge a game by it’s terrible first section and hour of play.