Dean

Uncharted Territory

Uncharted makes me want to start several threads on multiple forums. I want to shout to the world that Uncharted is the perfect mix of pre-millennium platforming and post Gears of War over-the-shoulder; without all the associated bullshit that goes with it. The thing is, I’m about five months too late. I spent most of the past few months trying to tell myself that Uncharted is just not for me – or that I was not for Uncharted.

What a fool I was. I remember playing the demo back in October and being sufficiently underwhelmed.

I died fairly quickly and gave up. Demos should not allow you to die. They should be easy enough to make you feel like you can carry on for another ten hours, but challenging enough to not want to give up after five minutes. So in my infinite wisdom I decided to stick it to the man and ignore it.

But now I’m about five hours in and thoroughly enjoying my time! It reminds me of one of those games that simply encourages you to play. It actively encourages you to jump about and experiment with the environment. Sure, you die, but the game always resumes a split second before you attempted your suicidal feat.

While this lessens the tension, it increases the confidence of the videogame. You understand that you’re actually playing an unabashed, all balls out game, and it’s great fun. I’ve become rather bored with the over indulgence of developers to spend too much time fantasising about trying to create ‘realistic’ videogames. Fuck that! I want to follow Francis Drake on a treasure trail throughout the South Pacific. It makes me feel like a child again!

Feels like Monkey Island.

Mike

Legend Of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass

A true story. I was feeling bad for not playing my DS. It's like, I know it's fun, it's a lovely bit of kit, but I really can't be arsed with it. My PSP takes my time for the most part, and I'm perfectly contented with that arrangement. But, time has gone on (and on) and I've been feeling progressively worse for neglecting it. Yes, I know, it's just a bit of plastic but some part of me was trying to say that I really don't hate Nintendo.

So, HMV was being browsed just after Christmas, gift card in hand, and I saw The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass on sale for little over twenty quid. Given that I still had money left on the card from previous purchases (Syphon Filter: Logan's Shadow and a VHS head cleaner - I just had to watch Grease 2) it'd only cost me a tenner. Bargain, I thought.

Fast forward a month and I get around to playing it. How do I put this gently? What a pile of unadulterated shite. I mean, really, has it come to this? Say what you want about the Wii being a triumph of PR, say what you want about Mario's Galaxies, level any accusation against Nintendo you want, but I'd (perhaps naively) always held Zelda and Metroid above all the bullshit surrounding the culture. They were good games, I even enjoyed the Oracle of... games on the GameBoy.

Phantom Hourglass though, is bad. It's bad because I can see exactly why people like it, and this makes them thick. It's bad because it's an inferior game in a great series with a gimmicky control scheme that fools people into thinking it's better than it is.

Take away the control scheme for a second. Take away the touch screen and just look at what you're playing. A bland game with sparse areas, unchallenging puzzles and A-to-B-to-C-back-to-A gameplay. Fuck this shit. If any of these dungeons were in Ocarina, Link To The Past or Majora's Mask someone would have been fired. And that's what Zelda has always been about, the Dungeons, the bosses and, to be honest, they're barely average.

I hate Nintendo.

Ian

Murder, Death, Kill

The moment has nearly arrived, when the release of GTA4 sees a whole generation of young men taking the day off work to pump virtual lead into virtual passers-by. When I finished San Andreas I decided, after three console versions and two top-down PC originals, I was officially GTA-ed out. But recently, my Uzi trigger-finger has been twitching, in anticipation of the next installment in the series. I turned my attention to the already owned, but previously ignored PSP games - Liberty City Stories and its Vice City counterpart.

The PSP isn't the best console to go on a crime-spree with - the awkward analogue nub and fewer buttons at your disposal make mowing down pensioners and murdering prostitutes a touch more tricky. Despite the slight limitations, I soon found the Grand Theft Auto feeling was back! The reckless driving, the hideously violent baseball bat attacks on people who annoy me, the regular use and subsequent murder of prozzers. It's like how my life would be, if only those do-gooders down the cop shop would let me. Giving it the Boyz n the Hood attitude on the streets of San Andreas is still the series highlight for me - as a white suburban male, it was naturally my dream to perform an inner-city drive-by whilst listening to NWA.

Hopefully we'll see some classic choons finally given the Rockstar treatment. I'm awaiting the day I make my escape from the fuzz with the power chords of Steppenwolf's "Born To Be Wild" blaring from the car radio. Finishing off a rival gangland boss with a switchblade to the tune of Orange Juice's "Rip It Up" would be fun. GTA is nothing if not a pop-culture potpourri, and creating your own custom soundtracks on the original Xbox versions felt great. If only you could get the piss-taking adverts in there somewhere. I clearly remember watching the morning sun rise over a scuzzy Liberty City as Keith Moon's drums kicked off "Baba O'Riley". "Don't cry, don't raise your eye, It's only teenage wasteland...", yeah, belt it out, Daltrey. Townshend's chords came crashing in, and another day of crime and murder began. With a glint in my eye and a gun in my hand, I'd got it in mind to get paid. Paid in full.

It's like Nena sang, as we raced recklessly through the streets of Vice City:

"99 Luftballons
Auf ihrem weg zum horizont
Hielt man fuer UFOs aus dem all"....

Hopefully those lyrics turn out to mean something significant in German, otherwise I'll look a right tit ending a piece like this.

Mike

Ratchet and Clank: Size Matters

Ratchet and Clank: Size Matters (from henceforth to be know as R&C:SM, okay?) is everything that is wrong with videogames. It's like playing a post-Sands of Time (which will now be known as PoP:SoT, yeah?) platformer and thinking I thought we were past this? It is, in PR terms, an accurate and complete installment of a console franchise on a handheld machine, unstripped and faithful...with fuck all concessions made to the host platform.

I mean, really, isn't it too much to ask the player to use both the analogue nub and the d-pad for movement? The former for general motion, forwards, backwards, left, right, the latter for strafing in a gunfight (of which there are plenty). Isn't it too much to assume the player just knows what to do next? Hands are clapping for the lack of patronising tutorial - the game starts off challenging and goes from there - but to leave the player doing trial-and-error, death-and-restart flailing in the first level is unforgivable.

Also unforgivable are the mini-game style diversions consisting of Sonic Adventure-esque rail sections, hoverboard races (not as cool as it sounds, Back To The Future 2 this is not) and spaceship shizzle, among others (I assume, I lost the will to finish it). On paper they sound good, on screen they look good, in practice they take more piss than a trainee nurse. You're on a rail and the sort of sign you see on westerns for diverting trains comes up. The game assumes you know exactly what to do and that you'll hit it. I twigged it a bit late, missed it, had no chance to atone for my error and died. No worries, R&C:SM says, you'll do better next time. A prompt restart later and I do it and move onto the next section. Should the only way to survive a game be through dying? Ikaruga this is not.

It's infuriating, not least because said section (barely 3 levels in) came after repeated sections of jump-on-platform, platform falls, jump-off-platform tedium. How did I know the platform was going to fall? I didn't, I died, but I didn't make that mistake again. Which comes to the crux of the matter: Should a player fell obligated to constantly guess what the dev is going to throw at them next? PoP:SoT teased the player into improvising, trying, learning, and rarely punished the player for their rashness. It gave the player a climbing frame to scale and only asked for imagination, R&C:SM asks you to think of the most archaic and degenerate cliches in gaming and assume that's what's next.

It's not enough to just be a "full size" game on a bite-sized console. Size matters, it seems, but so does quality. Fucking gash.

Mike

Parappin'

Game: Parappa the Rapper
Developer: NaNaOn-Sha

Publisher: Sony

Platform: PSP

Available: Since about 1997

Is it ever enough just to be first? Think about the games that kick started genres and sub-genres and precious few remain at the pinnacle for too long. Tetris, sure. Mario 64 ... perhaps, though it could be argued that it has been surpassed. Goldeneye? Dethroned.

And so it comes to Parappa the Rapper to show those young whipper-snappers that followed that he remains relevant; he’s just gotta believe. Alas, for time has not been too kind to that dog wot fancies a sunflower and it seems that he suffers from a chronic condition of not being Gitaroo Man. The signs are everywhere: the title screen doesn’t say Gitaroo Man, the songs aren’t from Gitaroo Man, there’s no Mojo, Mojo King Bee and, worst of all, the entire experience severely lacks stadium rock. Bad form.

While it may seem unfair to dismiss Parappa the Rapper for not being another game, there’s no escaping the fact that the entire experience feels pointless. The genre has moved on, games have moved on and while the dog may have seemed radical at the time, he feels conservative and old-fashioned now. It all feels a bit Cliff Richard.

The mechanics of the game feel old, the songs (bar the Driving Lesson) lack punch next to Gitaroo’s set or, even, Un Jammer Lammy; next to what is on offer now, the simple follow-my-lead play style reduces the game to feeling like one long QTE. We’ve moved on, it’s time he did too.

Ian

For Everything Else, There's Master League

PES2008 is not a great football game in my humble opinion, it's part of a great series of games but not, in itself a classic. It's strange then that I've just spent a huge chunk of my week playing it again, at the expense of far more important matters. The clue's in the title as to why I'm still persevering with it, the Master League. Few things brings out my inner football geek like a good Master League campaign to sink my teeth into, with the possible exception of Football Manager (which once saw me watching a Brazilian league game on Sky at three in the morning in the hope of spotting an inexpensive left-back).

In most Pro Evo games the masterleague is the icing on the cake, unfortunately in the latest version it's one of the few saving graces of an otherwise pretty shoddy title. Master League is pretty indestructable in terms of someone at Konami coming along and ruining it. There'll always be the underlying satisfaction of taking a terrible team at the bottom of the second division and turning them into World beater's.

I like to build up a solid team of footballers I've never heard of in my life, sod signing Henry and Rooney; give me the likes of Japanese master striker Oguro (I've no idea if he even exists in real-life but he's been ace in every version of PES so far). Barretto, the long-haired Ecuadorian central midfielder is another player I try to snap up first chance I get, me and Barretto have a history of success. In PES4 on the PS2 he joined me at Lyon for a long and honour-strewn Master League career. In PES5 I'd landed myself a job in the hotbed of footballing passion that is Glasgow Celtic and Barretto once again was signed up as a raw young midfielder who matured into a legend. I'll never forget his last gasp winner than secured us promotion to Div 1 that year. Great right peg on the lad.

Obviously I know little of what these guys are like in real life, occasionally I'll sign up someone who's impressed me on Match Of The Day though. Spurs fans know all about Dmitar Berbatov, well I nabbed him on a swap deal back in 2005 in the fifth Pro Evolution, oh he was a twenty goals-a-season man even in them days. He's grown his hair a bit since then, and he's maybe not quite as effective, but still a good buy for any budding PES Alf Ramsey's. Tottenham fan's will also have (less fond) memories of Helder Postiga, the club's flop striker of a few years ago. Well let me tell you something, that boy knows where the goal is. Only last year (PES6) he joined a failing mid-table Division 1 Rosenborg team and fired us to the WAFA Championship Title. We celebrated long into the night after that one.

That's the thing about Master League, the game & you combine to create your own stars - even the cloggers of the default Master League team, Stremer, Huylens, Espimas et al can become cult heroes. Castollo, the dread-locked default striker has become something of a super-sub in this year's version for me. I've had offers for him of course, but I'm not selling, not while the kid's got something to offer us. At present I'm back at Rosenborg, still stuck in Division 2 and with some dodgy signings dragging me down. Mendieta, the former Middlesborough man has done nothing, and Maurice Voltz, another swap deal is similarly hopeless on the right. Barretto's on board though, so good things are obviously just around the corner. Hope he brought his shooting boots, we need some inspiration from somewhere.

Ian

The Player Issue 9

Download

Dean

I am not pussy whipped (Rock Band)

While I’m usually exquisitely turned out when leaving the house for an average day of Canadian festivities, I’ve recently become accustomed to wearing a Steven Tyler endorsed headband. There are two reasons for this:

a) I have a beautiful head of hair that is accentuated by a rose coloured headband
b) I am one of only a handful of people who can honestly state they can five-star The Hives’ Main Offender in Expert mode.

This in turn allows me to strut into a music shop, declare that I’d like to purchase a Fender Stratocaster and proceed to play the fuck out of it because I five-starred Heroes by David Bowie.

The thing is, Players; while I'm sitting here at my desk wearing a red Libertines jacket doing some Charlie off a supermodel, I’ve noticed my life hasn’t really changed that much. Sure, my bank balance is $200 worse off, and my wife is ignoring me because we have a set of plastic drums in the apartment, but apart from that, I’m still the cocky whore I was previously.

A cocky whore who now has a set of plastic drums in his apartment.

Rock Band is the perfect videogame for a generation of adults who’ve had enough of videogames. While conventionally, the game is extremely simple, it still manages to convey the most heavenly of sensations; playing in a band.

At one point in my life, I played guitar for a wonderful little band that would often cover Blink 182 songs for a dozen or so kids at the local rec centre on a Saturday evening. Coming onto stage and hitting out the first few bars to Dammit was a wonderful feeling, and it really helped with my sex life.

While Rock Band doesn’t replicate the feeling of being fifteen years old again, it certainly allows you to wrap your hands up in masking tape, and pretend that you’re Tommy Lee.

Which, by the way, is fucking awesome.

Martin H

Virtually Inaccessible

My Wii has been a hive of blue light activity over the past few days, what with all the new mail from the Nintendo quarters. And it all seemed so promising.

My first piece of 'amazing' news was the fact that the big N had finally made those fucking ridiculous Nintendo Stars worth sommat more than a shoddy wallpaper/ringtone/PRINT-OUT OF A GBA TO PUT ON TOP OF YOUR TELLY. Whilst not quite at the lofty echelons of the Japanese Club-Nintendo cool-as-fuck-but-pointless-as-hell gifts on offer, it's now possible to swap these stars for points to buy old games off the Wii shop. 'Get in', I think to myself, now a way to play silly-expensive Sin And Punishment without paying.

Except there's one problem. The system for getting your points is totally borked. Totally.

If you're cool enough not to own a Wii, here's how it works - you swap your stars for a points card, like XBox Live pre-paid cards. Great. Shame the cards are never on sale. Presumably to stop the die-hard-fanboys in exploiting their never-splurged (on or over?) Wii points, no doubt amassing in the thousands, there is a download limit per day.
Seriously, Nintendo. Take the hit at first, then have a decent system up and running...

If that wasn't exciting enough, more mail today told me that I can now buy Virtual Console games to send to other people. Fucksake. If I can't get them for free, what makes these cads think I'm going to buy one for anyone else.

Once again, Nintendo win my 'Most Pointless Shit Ever' award.

I'm off to play my rather expensive download of Psychonauts on my 360.