I can’t compare my time spent with Mafia 2 with anything else really. I suppose its similar to G.T.A IV in regards to having a huge open world and even less to do in it apart from looking for wanted posters or Playboy centrefolds. The story itself is fantastic that being said I am a fan of gangster films in general so perhaps my opinion is biased. It almost felt like reading a good book where you just can’t stop turning pages, I always wanted to complete missions to see what happened next in the storyline.

The story will be familiar to anyone that’s seen a Mafia film. You play the game as Vito Scaletta a Sicilian born into a poor family who immigrates to America in the 20’s only to grow up in a neighbourhood where crime seems like the only option other than poverty. Here he becomes best friends with Joe Barbarrito and they both become involved in a life of crime and so on.

After a while I realised I was enjoying the cut-scenes more than the game itself and apart from a few well made missions it had that same feeling I got with G.T.A IV, where I would drive kill some people drive some more and kill some more people. That’s not to say the combat isn’t fun it is and the cover system works extremely well but it’s also a bit standard and throughout the whole game its a case of shoot some wise guys take cover regain health and shoot more wise guys. In between missions most of the time your forced to go back to your home or wherever you might be sleeping that night and sleep only to wake up again in the morning take a phone call and start the next mission.

Driving around is fun and the cars handle nicely, much better than Mafia 1, when that came out on PS2 I played it round at a friend’s house for a few minutes and it didn’t impress me much at all but only because driving around at 2 miles an hour was absolute crap. To steal a car you have a choice of breaking the window or picking the lock which would draw much less attention.

The graphics are good and while Empire Bay looks fantastic at the same time I couldn’t shake the feeling that a lot of time and effort had gone into making this beautifully realised city that nobody will be exploring as there was nothing to do outside the main story.

Closing comments

Overall I enjoyed my time in Mafia 2 but I also left it feeling disappointed as the developer’s gave me nothing fun to do in Empire Bay. I’m sure they didn’t plan it this way, it feels like they should of spent another year on it just to put more content into it. A worthy second hand purchase for fans of Mafia films just don’t expect an open world to play around in.

The opening sequence of Rage felt a little vague and short perhaps I blinked and missed something but I wasn’t sure what was going on but as soon as i’d inverted the controls and stepped outside I was impressed. The visuals were striking and straight away I was reminded of borderlands albeit a lot more beautiful and interesting post apocalyptic world than that one. After a few moments of enjoying the view I got attacked by something that again reminded me of the enemies in borderlands then got rescued and taken to a local encampment of friendly people. I was extremely impressed with the design of the characters with everyone dressed in unique clothes and accessories.

I was enjoying the game going to bandit hideouts and clearing them out of baddies and noticed how well the enemies were animated as I took shots at them they would hide behind cover or more suicidal ones would come running straight for you, although these would run on walls and sidestep quickly from left to right making it difficult to take them down unless you had a shotgun in which case you could just wait til they got next to you and blow them away with the sawn-off.

After a few more missions you end up in wellsprings, a small settlement and the main hub of the game and yet more well designed characters at least graphically well designed for at this point I came to realise that for the most part all these beautifully rendered characters had little to no real personality and were all a bit boring. As well as this the missions and structure of the game started to bore me with you getting a mission, driving somewhere, usually some sort of gang hideout and completing a task as well as killing everything in your path. I started the game on hard and was expecting the difficulty to ramp up but it just seemed to get easier and easier as I had more equipment and upgraded weaponry at my disposal.

The vehicular sections were even easier and I felt I could win every race and destroy every car with no problem whatsoever as long as I had gone in prepared and stocked full off ammo which isn’t difficult to do since making money to buy all these things is as easy as everything else in the game.

Whilst the graphics are fantastic and perhaps some of the best seen yet there was a lot of low res texture’s when you start looking closely and a worrying amount of texture pop in and whilst this doesn’t affect actual gameplay it does take the feeling of being immersed in a world away. Weapon’s sound great and the voice acting is okay as is the soundtrack but nothing special.

Multiplayer

The multiplayer is fun and there’s plenty to unlock as is standard in any multiplayer these days. With a good range of modes there’s plenty of stuff to do however i was surprised to find the multiplayer is limited to veihcles considering it’s made by ID Software who brought us the likes of Doom and Quake. This is a great disappointment considering how well the shooting mechanics work I can’t help but feel this is a wasted opportunity.

There’s also co-op although this is limited to stand-alone missions and not possible to play throughout the whole game and whilst this is also fun there’s already games that do it bigger and better.

Closing comments

Rage is a fun shooter but II expected much more from ID Software and unfortunately they didn’t deliver. It’s far too easy even on the hardest difficulty’s and it starts to disappoint with a storyline and character I didn’t care for. Definitely worth a go for fans of shooters just don’t expect anything special apart from pretty graphics and solid gun play.

From the crash landing in the middle of the ocean and receiving a radio message asking me to kindly do something for someone to the first few moments in the city of Rapture and the terrifying first encounter with a Big Daddy Bioshock felt like something new and fresh when it first came out on the 360. The game has since been released on PS3 with some extras, most notably the survival mode which for me at least is the way to play the game and drastically reduces the amount of bullets, health and cash that you’ll find throughout the city of Rapture as well as making combat significantly harder.

As you make your journey through the atmospheric world of Rapture you will pick up audiotapes telling you much of the story of whats happened in this underwater utopia turned dystopia. Andrew Ryan the games villain is a mad scientist type with a great vision for a city in the sea. It becomes clear that his vision has failed completely and he’s basically created an underwater city full of drug addicts albeit ones with extraordinary powers called splicers not to mention the disturbing relationship between Big Daddy’s and and Little Sister’s.

The combat in Bioshock is extremely varied with the use of plasmids and hacking various security devices giving you a huge range of ways to defeat your foe. The plasmids are powers you can use with your left hand the most powerful and useful being fire or electricity as well as some more interesting and amusing ones like the cyclone trap which flings any splicer unfortunate enough to step on it into the air. To get the most out of the game you will want to experiment with all the plasmids and on the harder difficulty settings inventive use of the plasmids as well as hacking will be essential to surviving. The Big Daddy’s are tough on medium difficulty but on harder settings they soak up damage better than a good quality nappy soaks up liquid and I frequently had to use everything at my disposal just to take one down although you will be well rewarded for doing so.

The graphic design and art deco style of the underwater dystopia is well executed with excellent lighting and water trickling down walls and walkways, old posters and flickering billboards giving you a good sense of what it would of been like to live in Rapture during its better days.

The sound design is incredible from the the groaning of the monstrous Big Daddy’s to the ambient noises of the underwater city your trapped in. The voice acting is equally impressive, from Andrew Ryan’s powerful theatrical speeches about his vision of Rapture to the psychotic ramblings of the splicers as you explore the eerie underwater city.

My biggest disappointment with Bioshock was the vita-chambers which revive you once you die yet any damage enemies have taken when you got killed will stay making the game really easy and unsatisfying when you can just keep chipping bits of health of Big Daddy’s and re-spawning until they eventually die. This has since been updated so that you can turn the vita-chambers off and i would recommend anybody does this as it really affects the gameplay in my opinion.

Closing comments

With a storyline that challenges the imagination and an incredibly well thought out world from the sound and graphical design anyone that loves single player adventures and is looking for a unique experience should play this game.

The day after I played the demo I had to go out and buy this game I was so impressed with it. I’m a big fan of survival horror type games and I also like sci-fi so for me Dead Space filled a gap. As well as this it was a brand new franchise and I’m always on the lookout for something new and fresh when it comes to gaming.

Dead Space takes place in the far future, 2508 to be exact, in a universe where we go planet cracking in order to obtain resources since we’ve exhausted all of our own here on earth. One of the planet cracking starships, the USG Ishimura has sent out a distress signal and a maintenance ship is swiftly dispatched to investigate. Predictably the maintenance ship runs into a few problems upon arrival and has to crash land on the USG Ishimura forcing the crew to find another means of transport, however most of them are killed by horrific monsters known as Necromorph’s leaving Isaac on his own. From here on out you’ll be tasked with fixing various problems on the USG Ishimura and taking down the aforementioned Necromorph’s.

Since Isaac is an engineer there aren’t any real weapons as such most are engineers tools, fortunately these tools are ideal for cutting off legs and arms and you’ll be doing a lot of that in this game. These tools can be upgraded via power nodes and work benches, power nodes are scarce though and you will have to take this into account whilst upgrading as you won’t be able to upgrade everything fully in one playthrough.

Dead Space does away with a traditional HUD with information such as health displayed on a meter on the back of Isaac’s suit and ammo displayed on the back of weapons. As with games such as Bioshock much of the back story is told through in game messages such as text and video logs which are displayed on holograms in front of Isaac in real time as is your inventory making you feel more vulnerable as you can be attacked at any time. This all adds to the dark, brooding sense of impending doom throughout the entire game making for a very immersive experience.

The visuals of the USG Ishimura are fantastic with the different decks all having a distinct feel to them from the sterile white of the medical deck to the interesting zero gravity areas giving you a good insight to what life is like on a planet cracking starship. As well as the graphics of the surrounding environment there’s the striking visuals of the grotesque Necromorphs which only get more gruesome as you carry on further into the game. Though there were some framerate drops during large explosions this is a minor gripe and Dead Space is certainly one of the more solidly built games I’ve played this generation.

The audio also does a fantastic job of adding to the atmosphere with strange monstrous sounds emanating from some unknown place making you wonder whether you gonna be attacked around every corner. Certainly a game worth playing late at night with the lights off and the sound turned high or even better, through headphones.

Closing comments

With a unique sci-fi take on the survival/horror genre,an interesting fast paced storyline, impressive visuals and atmospheric sound design Dead Space is a game that deserves to be played.

The iPhone app allows users of the website to scan in items they want to sell quickly and easily using the camera on the smartphone. The great thing about using this app is that items can be scanned whilst on the go. It can also be used on the Apple iPad and iPod Touch.

To get started with the new app all users need to do is register with Music Magpie on the main site then log in on the app using the same details. Once logged in users can either use the iPhone as a scanner to quickly scan in any console game, DVD or CD bar-codes, key in the bar-code number as an alternative, view the basket and then confirm the order. Once the order has been processed and the old items sent in to be recycled for cash, users of the app can then log in and use the ‘view order history’ link to check the status of any previous orders.

The new app can be downloaded from the Apple AppStore to the iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch by searching for ‘musicmagpie.’ Alternatively it can downloaded from iTunes onto a PC or laptop then the device synced to transfer the application.

Another way that MusicMagpie has made it easy for users to sell old games, CDs and DVDs on their website is via their webcam scanning software. To scan bar-codes using their PC webcam users of the website simply need to go to the webcan scanning page, allow their webcam to use the software then move the bar-codes in front of the webcam to get instant quotes. As each item is scanned in it will be added to the basket and the offer price will gradually increase. After all items are scanned in the trade can be completed through the trade in website as normal.

Even if users of the website don’t have a Webcam or iPhone then bar-codes from unwanted console games, CDs and DVDs can still be typed in manually using the keyboard.

With all these great features and lots more at Music Magpie there really is no reason not to dig out old CDs, DVDs and console games and sell them for cash.

Music Magpie is owned by Entertainment Magpie Ltd who are based in Macclesfield, Cheshire. They originally launched a couple of years ago to allow people to sell CDs online for cash, they have now expanded and also buy console / handheld games and DVDs. They have thousands of visitors everyday and have paid out millions of pounds to their website customers.

Sell your games for cash at Music Magpie here