Sny Keel

Runescape.

2013-03-23T04:02:00.002-07:00

I, Like most people who read this, (Hopefully) had a Runescape account that I would play religiously on most nights after school. Before, during and after my homework.

Now, to the average internet user, Runescape has long since passed it's prime and is quite quickly becoming that weird stain on the carpet that you're not exactly sure how it got there, all you know is it won't go away. What with our sidebars being filled with 'Click to play' ads, and even YouTube has started hosing it's trailer... "Wait, it has a trailer??"

Well, I gave into the nostalgia and decided to not just give it a shot again, but to create a new character (They have integrated it with Facebook meaning to create a character, all you have to do is click 'Link with Facebook' and everything is done.

Bloody hell this game has changed while I've been away.

For one, the graphics have had a pretty major overhaul (Still nothing groundbreaking, but taken into context it's a pretty monumental change)

Two, there seem to just be a metric crap-load of new things for you to do (As a free user) they've changed the layouts of most of the areas, and just added in a couple of sweet little Easter egg style thing for you to find.

Cut-scenes. I don't think I need to elaborate on it any more, there are now cut-scenes.

Finally, the combat has had a total revamp, which gives you 'special' moves you can use, you also have this weird ... 'agro bar' (I'll call it that as I've actually forgotten it's name) which builds up during combat, allowing you to use stronger and deadlier moves!

These aren't the only updates to it, but I wouldn't want to spoil all the fun of discovery ;)

Oh, and as if that wasn't awesome enough.

Tutorial Island has gone!

I feel like a kid during Christmas all over again.

So, if you fancy re-connecting with the ol' Scape, hit me up.

Seddon235 (I play world 81)

Risk Part Three

2013-02-17T15:26:00.002-08:00

Damn it Will!

So, our idea for having one risk game a week has pretty much fallen apart as we have been swamped by Uni work for the past couple of weeks meaning we have to have the games as and when we have time.

Surprise surprise Will won again.

Third win in a row

Third!

We changed the rules up slightly this time, by instead of randomizing the territories, we each picked one fortress and then got another random fortress. Once this was done, we each took turns choosing where to place our troops. This made the game not only a lot more strategic, but also a lot harder.

Once again I started in Rohan, with Helms Deep as my first fort, and luckily got Isenggard as my second fort, I then started placing my units almost solely inside the region of Rohimerin. However, Price put a sudden end to this by claiming the very last tile of the region. This was going to be an interesting battle.

Will had pretty much all of the top right of the map under his control, with Aaron H claiming most of the middle left, and then randomly placing a few units about just to cause tension. I had most of the bottom left in my power, and Price was stuck with the middle again. Which he frequently made a point of.

I had claimed three rather major areas of the map, as my power-cards granted me a hefty dose of troops when I played them. That was my first turn sorted. But as the game intensified, those units I had added at the beginning quickly counted for squat. Will, once again, took a very early lead claiming two regions out of the three he needed, all the while the rest of us were still fighting for control of one.

(I have been informed that my last story contained some problems with my definition of 'territories' and 'regions', a territory is a single map tile, whereas a region is a collection of territories. My bad)

I sadly lacked the strength to take even the simple region of Rohan as Price bolstered up his troops in my top tile, and all along my eastern flank, meaning my armies were well and truly split. When I finally tried to make a push into The last tile. Will came sweeping through all of the south West with the force of a thousand suns literally destroying everything in his path.

While the rest of us were trying to figure out what just happened, Will led a second attack via the sea to pincer the north west, leaving Poor Aaron H trapped and stranded as Price and I tried our best to give him strategic advice. But there is only so much advice you can give to an ant fighting a landslide.

There were some moment of hope, which to us were 'Balls grippingly tense', however trying to depict them here will be a bit of a challenge.

Here goes.

Will had Ten units poised to attack one of Aaron H's many territories. This territory only had three units defending it, meaning that this was a pretty clear cut moment from the outset. However by some divine intervention, Aaron H managed to throw back wave after wave of attacks, with Will losing a total of seven units against Aaron's three brave defenders.

~~There really could be hope.~~

Sadly all this was in vain.

as.

We blinked, and Will had taken the very last tile he needed securing his three regions and winning the game.

Damnit it Will.

Seddon

This is 40

2013-02-17T15:11:00.000-08:00

(spoiler warning)

'This is 40'

Is a sequel to 'Knocked Up' that follows the side story of Pete (Played by Paul Rudd) and Debbie (Played by Leslie Mann) as they not only come to terms with life after the big 40, but also with the decisions that have led them to this point in their relationship.

I'll be honest, I went into this film not really expecting great things. I personally loved 'Knocked up', but I find that sequels of this nature usually fall short of the mark left by the original film, as they try to recreate certain moments that made the first so great.

This is why I was so pleased with 'This is 40', as in my opinion it managed to avoid this trap spectacularly, creating some real moments where I felt a genuine connection to the characters. Another trap that I feel this film managed to bypass, is the mistake of showing all the important scenes in the trailer. While this seems like an easy thing to avoid, many good films have fallen right into it, tricking audiences into thinking it will be a brilliant 'laugh-a-minute' experience, when really, they have already seen the best moments for free.

The plot revolves largely around 'Paul' and 'Debbie' as their relationship deteriorates, with brief moments of respite, and even slight recovery, before descending into chaos once again. This is juggled nicely with a subplot that 'Pete's' new record company is losing money at an alarming rate, teetering on the chasm of bankrupsy.

There are a few more sub's thrown in for good measure, but I shall leave those out of this, to keep an air of mystery, and so you don't feel that I have given the whole film away.

The film manages to balance comedy and dramatic misfortune very well, providing a lot of laughs with a lot of 'them feels man' . This was quite a surprise as I was expecting the film to be primarily comedic in value, but it did have some beautiful moments.

Other moments however, did not hit quite as hard as they should. A personal favorite of mine, is when 'Debbie' asks 'Pete' "Why am I crying like this", but there were no tears in sight, this was only emphasized when she tried to wipe away her nonexistent tears. This took me right out of the moment that they were trying to create, which is a shame, as if it were done correctly, it would have been perfect.

The final point I have to make of the film, is that it lacks an emotional climax to end on. While some have hated this, I personally like this, as I feel it's the message that the film has been trying to convey. Nothing really ends, it just keeps going, life is not full of emotional climaxes, it usually just trudges on and on while you try and keep your head above the water.

8/10

Seddon

A Real Website

2013-02-17T13:22:00.001-08:00

We have some brilliant news, we are currently in the process of getting an actual website made for SnyKeel, which will hopefully look a lot more professional than the blog currently does.

Our friend is currently in his third year of University, and has asked if he can make us a website for one of his projects. So naturally we jumped straight on board, as hopefully it will draw a few more readers to us. Well that's the theory anyway.

The website will probably take some time to create, so in the meantime, we'll be trying to up our post count as we've let it slip a bit, which we are sorry for.

Please post in the comments what sort of features you would like on the site.

Also please tell us what sort of content you would like posted as we're doing this to entertain you, so if we're not quite hitting the nail right, we want to change that!

Thank you

SnyKeel Team

Django Unchained.

2013-02-14T11:17:00.000-08:00

'Django Unchained', is like taking 10 espresso shots, then diving into a frozen lake. It starts relatively calm, but quickly explodes into full blown anarchy with guns, guts and garters flying everywhere. The balance of comedy, action and the dash of romance makes this a must see.

9/10

Seddon

Dwarf Fortress

2013-02-02T16:37:00.003-08:00

I figured I would take this time, to tell you about my favorite game.

Dwarf Fortress.

For those of you that have not played this game, it is a masterfully crafted piece of artwork. The graphics may not be much to look at, as it uses ACSII in place of sprites, but it's the coding that really makes this game what it is. There are various texture packs available which make the game a lot easier to follow, I would highly recommend acquiring one of these as soon as possible.

You start off with seven dwarfs. Each one has their own name, personality, stretching from what Gods they follow and their political party they are associated with, right down to their preference in food, and even what type of weather they prefer.

You are not in direct control of these little guys though, instead you give work orders and the dwarfs get around to it as and when they feel like it. Sometimes starting work off of their own accord if their God decides to give them an order. This is known as a 'strange mood', the God in question has given them an image of something that they need to build, and that is the only thing they will do until the task is complete. This can cause problems if you do not have the right materials for the job as the dwarf can go crazy and attempt to kill everything in the fort.

This brings me onto my next point about the military. At first, the military seems like an incredibly complicated mess of options... which is exactly what it is. However, once you get the hang of it, the simplicity of it all shines through, you can create areas for the Dwarven military to patrol, train, sleep and eat. You can also set specific areas that activate during enemy attacks, which can be as simple as a thief trying to break in, or a whole siege consisting of a full army complete with war dogs, bears, rhinos and even elephants.

These areas will 'herd' your dwarfs into them, making it impossible for them to leave till the alert has been lifted. You can set a zone specific for your peasants to flee to during an attack, and a separate one for your military, meaning that your non-combat dwarfs are well out of harms reach. You can even set different zones for each of your squads meaning you can have different sections of your fort defended by different squads and so on and so forth.

The main thing you will take away from this game, is that losing is fun.

It's a strange concept, but losing a fort is not the end of the world. For you can chose to start a new fort, somewhere else in the game world, (which is completely randomly generated when you start a new game) or, you can take a squad of highly trained soldiers in an attempt to retake your old fort.

I once tried to reclaim an old fort, (which had been killed by a goblin raid.) only to find out a 'Forgotten Beast' had taken it as it's home. There are the usual types of enemies, goblins, wild animals, Dragons...

Dragons fall under the 'legendary' category, meaning that your fort probably isn't their first rodeo. 'Legendary' creatures can be anything that has killed a lot of things throughout it's very, very long life. Everything from Minotaur's, to a really really pissed semi immortal bear. 'Forgotten Beasts' though, fall under a whole different class, these things have been dwelling under the earth since the dawn of time, and are generally just there to fuck your shit up.

The beast that had claimed my fort, had no eyes, and muscle pretty much everywhere... it was pretty much a walking muscle, covered in rock, and spikes. Why? Because fuck you that's why.

Needless to say, the fort still belongs to the beast.

Fortress mode is not the only option available. there is also 'Adventure' mode, where you can chose to play as a character from one of the many kingdoms that populate the game, you can be a dwarf, elf or a human. Each comes with their own pro's and con's.

The object of being an adventurer is to travel around killing things for towns folk, getting gold and building a bad-ass crew of monster killers. you can also visit your forts in adventure mode, which I plan to do once I get a large enough team together to kill that bloody 'Rock Muscle' thing.

Once you have got the hang of this beautiful game, you will find yourself sinking quite a few hours into it without even realizing. The level of micromanagement that is available is astonishing, and quite overwhelming for a new player. Hell it's even overwhelming for me. I tried creating a fancy defense system that would pump lava to the top of my fort cutting off any attackers from reaching my peasants.

Sadly this did not go to plan and I ended up drowning my entire populace in a fiery cocktail of Lava and Alcohol.

For those of you that wish to play, I have included some links in the description, provided by a helpful chap on the /VG/ section of 4Chan.

Helpful beginner material

http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/ •>The game. Current version is Dwarf Fortress 2012 (34.11)

http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php •>The official forums.

http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Main_Page •>Wiki for all your dwarfly needs, down to every last mineral.

http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2012:Quickstart_guide •>The fastest way to get ready to strike the earth. Concise and simple text + images.

youtube.com/51ppycup and youtube.com/captnduck •>Great tutorial/LP. Hugely entertaining, and very informative, highly recommended for someone wanting to get into Dwarf Fortress.

http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=59026.0 one of the most useful downloads you can get, this has the entire game, complete with a set of texture packs to chose from, and a handy set of utilities to help you run your fort. Highly recommended.

Strike the earth!

Seddon

Momento

2013-01-29T09:04:00.002-08:00

Momento is like those short stories you read, where it doesn't make sense until the last line says to read every capital letter, and then it becomes pant-shittingly clear. Momento is labayrinthinly beautiful, like a tasty Spaghetti Bolognese you can get lost in. It's a brilliant modern classic.

Adam Dean

War in the 7 Kingdoms!

2013-01-28T15:15:00.000-08:00

War will soon be upon us!

For those of you who love the 'A Song of Ice and Fire' series as much as our flat do, will be incredibly excited to hear about the upcoming 'Game of Thrones MMO'. You read that correctly, there is a 'Game of Thrones MMO' in the making, and best of all, it's set to be Free. There are three main factions; 'The Starks', 'The Baratheons' and 'The Lannisters'.

Your character however will start in one of the smaller lesser known houses that populate the land, but can ally to one of the larger factions.

I for one am totally pumped.
This looks amazing!

http://www.gameofthronesmmo.com/

Seddon

The Hurt Locker

2013-01-28T13:53:00.000-08:00

An incredible portrayal of what the term 'Occupational Hazard' really means. This beautiful 'little' feature will keep you almost firmly planted on the edge of your seat. Even when it slows down, the tension never truly leaves, thrusting you headfirst into a gritty world.

This is truly a masterpiece.

Seddon

50 word reviews

2013-01-28T06:58:00.000-08:00

50 word reviews is a new tasty feature that delivers bite-sized daily reviews, so you can get all the Snykeel reviews you want, without all those calorific words. But why 50 words? Because a review featuring 51 words is like cyber brain-freeze, i thought everyone knew that.

Fucking Brain-freeze

Adam Dean

Flat Wars. Episode 1

2013-01-27T16:05:00.001-08:00

The Towel Assault

Our flat is notorious for being a pretty noisy bunch ... well, me excluded as I'm the narrator, but, my actions are slowly taking a stronger turn. These little battles have been raging pretty much since we all moved in, they started by Will and Price repeatedly throwing Aaron H's bed down the stairs, Aaron H replied in kind by slowly moving parts of their rooms into different areas of the house and watching with a quiet joy, only experienced by a man who has known the great feeling of revenge.

This was a short lived victory for Will and Price decided to up the stakes by literally relocating all of Aaron H's room downstairs and into the small porch type room below, blocking the door with his mattress and subsequently piling up the rest of the bed, cupboard and wardrobe along the stairs.

Thus the war began.

As the narrator I have been granted a very strained lease of 'diplomatic immunity' which I can only presume ended when Will and I hid our various alarm clocks around Price's room set from Midnight to about three o'clock in the morning.

We had to be up for seven the next day.

My immunity ended in the shape of a shaving foam covered alarm clock hidden carefully right below my bed, directly under my pillow. Poetic justice came for me in the form of a horrendous beeping ball of blue foam, that my sleep ridden mind struggled to decipher. Until I tried to pick it up that is.

These battles often start in the smallest ways, with suspicious glances, shady footsteps, then quick rush up the stairs towards the rooms followed by a whole lot of shouting.

Today's incident followed the exact same recipe.

Price made a few careful steps towards the stairs before bounding up them at full speed, followed by Will in hot pursuit, backed into his room, Will slammed Prices door shut turning off the light and shrouding him in darkness. I followed by spraying the better part of my can of cheap deodorant through his keyhole and under the small gap below the door.

Price responded the only way he could, ripping the door open, he unleashed a painful barrage of stinging hits with his towel. Will retreated under the cover of confusion to his own room where he armed himself with a Football shin pad, but realizing the towel had far greater reach, opted for one as well.

The whole conflict was over in a matter of minutes leaving both Will and Price in a pretty bad shape. Will got a beautiful overhand shot right at Price's crotch leaving him immobile for a couple of seconds, to counter this, Price grabbed a second towel and started, what I can only describe as, 'Windmilling' them while slowly advancing on Will's room.

The war ended with a handshake and a cup of tea.

Exactly how every conflict should be sorted in my opinion.

Seddon

SportsCorner: The Intro

2013-01-27T14:58:00.002-08:00

SportsCorner: Intro

Hey, thought I'd start a new feature for the blog. It's about sport, I hope to have at least one up a week and probably post it up late Sunday night. It's going to focus mainly on the major football games of the week and formula one races, but will also look at other sports, like the superbowl next weekend, big boxing matches and just generally anything that is interesting to watch, sorry Bowls Championship 2013 you ain't our kinda deal. So on with this weeks blog...

Oldham Athletic vs Liverpool FC

Let's get the first thing out of the way, I am a Liverpool fan whereas I will post unbiased posts as much as I can, when Liverpool is involved that just ain't gonna happen. Now for the other first thing first...

Liverpool deserved to lose the game, straight up, from the performance the players gave for the most part of the game we didn't deserve to go any further in the F.A Cup. From the 2nd minute goal shambles until Gerrard subbed on we just didn't really get going. Oldham had a real physical presence and from this season its clear that any threat of physical presence really shakes the LFC foundation of tiki-taka football. It happened with Stoke, it happened with Mansfield and today it happened with Oldham.

The only positives we can take from it is that Hendo at Right-Back actually works, he provided a good overlap with Downing that he just couldn't commit to when he was trying to play in the middle of the park. Hopefully with Enrique nearing match fitness we could have Johnson fit in at Left-Back and Hendo on the Right Flank until our defence doesn't feature Coates.

Talking about Coates...before the match there were rumours that Brazillian Club, Gremio, were looking to buy him for approximately £7 million. Before the match I wouldn't be happy as a fan to take that offer, now, after seeing how slow he is to react to a large amount of attacking threat I think it would be good to bankroll Phillipe Coutinho's offer and offload Coates or even have it bankroll the buying of Tom Ince (which seems to increase in price daily) or even put a shock offer in for Brendan Rodgers former player, Ashley Williams. If we were to buy the 28 year old defender for Swansea it would be an odd move to sell a young, promising talent with a player almost at his twilight years, but for the next few years I would be much happier with Williams in a red shirt after his performance against Chelsea than Sebastian Coates' performance today.

There aren't many positive talking points from a Liverpool fans point of view, but taking out the F.A Cup does have its positives in a packed schedule with the Europa League coming back into play within a couple of weeks. Saying that however is defeatist, it's not a great thing, but it certainly isn't as bad as it looks. One loss after three wins doesn't break our season...that test comes next week against Arsenal and the Chelsea. Hopefully I'll have a lot happier words to type next Wednesday.

That's it for the first post of SportsCorner but I'll have more to talk about next week with a lot of Formula 1 car reveals and the closing of the Transfer Window.

-Adam

A halt in the plans.

2013-01-26T07:38:00.002-08:00

Dropped frame-rates and a glitchy sound-file

So, my glorious plans to start uploading Minecraft play videos with Price has been somewhat halted by the strange lag I have started getting on Minecraft. I'm not sure whether it's Java, or something related to it, but Minecraft refuses to play smoothly. It's even more confusing as I can play games like 'Oblivion' and 'Left 4 Dead 2' without any freezes or issues.
On a positive note though, my new webcam and microphone have arrived, meaning when we eventually get around to posting song covers, they should be quite clear. at least clearer than my other attempts.
I'll keep working on how to solve the problem, maybe I'll just give more Ram power over to Java and see if that fixes the issue. if it does you can expect to start seeing our adventures pretty soon, if it doesn't ... I guess there are always other games.

I've had my eye on 'Lord of the Rings Online' for quite a while.

Seddon

3000

2013-01-26T03:08:00.001-08:00

We've hit 3000 page views, which when we set up this blog, I really didn't think we would get there, I'm amazed that people has taken an interest in it, so I want to thank you all from the bottom of my heart, this means a huge deal to us.

Thank you for sticking with us this long.

Seddon

Mysteries of the Underground

2013-01-24T13:57:00.002-08:00

The Tube is a wonderful thing, with trains usually arriving every couple of minutes, the longest wait I have had so far, has been maybe ... five minutes at most, six if there is a delay. This is a stark contrast to back on the Wirral where trains come every half an hour (fifteen minutes during rush hour).

This is why it's a complete mystery to me when I see people getting so agitated that they'll have to wait another minute or two for their next train. There was a man I saw, who just missed his train, and started ranting and raving about how the tube system is utter trash and is totally against him, this rant went on for about a minute.

No less than forty seconds into this rant, the next train arrived, to which he stepped into continuing his rant about how long he had had to wait.

Am I the only person that thinks this is madness?

Seddon

Why you don't let your friend use your Xbox account.

2013-01-23T11:29:00.000-08:00

A Black Ops story.

My flat and I are pretty into gaming (if you couldn't tell by our weekly Board game night) and as such, we love anything to do with games, playing them, watching them and even just talking about them. Currently, Will and I are the only ones who own Xbox Live accounts, we usually just take turns letting Aaron h and Price play using ours.
However, a certain incident has changed my mind somewhat on this matter. I am by no means the best COD player ... I'm not even a very good player really, but there is one thing I was proud of. That was my incredibly mediocre 'Kill Death Ratio'. A pride I can no longer have.
In a certain game, with a certain player using my account, he manged to rack up a grand total of 36 deaths, to 8 kills. That beautifully average percentage I had worked ... not all that much on to create fell right before my eyes.

The worst part?
Was that I was in the room watching, yet did nothing. I know that no amount of apology will make up for the fact that I left my poor account alone and scared when it needed me the most.

I just hope in time I can redeem myself and gain it's love back.

Seddon

2013-01-22T13:32:00.000-08:00

Alliances and Broken Hearts.

Another Risk Story.

The Flat have decided that Tuesday should be our 'Risk Day' as we all finish college at the same time. So you can expect regular stories once a week about the trials and tribulations of our constant battles for 'Middle Earth'. As I type this, Price is attacking Will in what marks the beginning of our 'End Game' strategy to completely wipe him from the map... whether it will work, is totally up to strategy ... and a bit of luck. But rest assured that you will know by the end of this post.

This time, all four of us are playing, as opposed to the three we had last time as Aaron Hayse is now back among us!

I have learned pretty quickly that either the game, or the dice hate me, as so far I've almost only rolled one's, two's or three's, and sadly that is usually not enough to wipe out an attacking army, so as a result I have begun building up my horde in selected areas, namely my two forts (If you read the last edition of my little risk story, I explained what a fort is)

We have good news as well, it's snowing.

Back to the story. Despite it being his first time playing, Aaron H has almost entirely dominated the top regions of the map, while Will has almost completely taken the bottom regions. (save Helms deep which I refuse to let go easily) One thing is certain, no one is going easily. Evident from the current battle now raging between Price and will, with Price having seven units in defense and will having eighteen in attack. No points for guessing how this little skirmish will turn out.

As Will takes another territory, our hope for victory diminishes one bit more. that's the great thing about the game, no matter what you think, there will always be a little turning point that tips the entire game, for instance, Price had a pretty solid plan that has totally backfired and left him in a pretty bad condition.

I think that at a quick glance, Aaron H has the most units, with Will in second, and Price and I fighting to not be last. A lot of things will need to go right for me to win this.

In a dramatic, but predictable turn, Aaron H has started pushing south, followed in a retreat by Price from the center of the map to the far left where the boats are, only to be attacked by Will's forces bordering on his edge. Price has just lost Moria. Could this be part of some plan?

It seems now that I am the most heavily outnumbered. This thing I am feeling is apparently called 'fun'.

To top it off, it's stopped snowing, this is a bad sign if there ever was one.

The game has been going on for a good ... two or more hours, and it seems like the real action is just starting. 'Lord of the Rings' trilogy soundtrack blaring full blast. This is War!

We are playing a mode where we need three complete regions to win and Aaron H almost has three under his control, with only my fort holding off his victory, and Will almost having Three, but once again, my fort is messing with that beautiful little plan.

After a short ten minute break to restore our sanity, the battle continues.

The fate of 'Middle Earth' hangs in chance of a few rolls of the die.

My strategy is starting to unfold, by handing Rivendell over to Aaron H, I begin my push into Rohan, with the aim of claiming the whole territory for myself. Through careful diplomacy and a sheer bout of luck, I appear to be making a comeback, it's all about the little turning points.

It really does feel like a reverse of helms deep, as I have Isengard totally surrounded to the south, with a unit mass of twenty four ready to rain death and destruction against all who stand before my might... well, my little plastic pieces on the cardboard board of 'Middle Earth'

Whether I will ever get to make that move is a totally different matter, as Will is attacking north aiming to claim the final territory he needs to win. Only Aaron H's stuffy die rolling skills are all that stand between Will and total annihilation.

Will's push north continues strong, but is slowly starting to falter, the giant force he originally contended Aaron H's force with has quickly diminished. All bonds are broken, and all bets are off. We're back at a standstill. Such is life in a game of 'Risk'.

Even as I was writing that last paragraph, Will unleashed a 'power card' giving him three more units, granting him the power to take my small outpost and move onto the rest of Aaron H's land. The music seems to know exactly what is happening, as 'The Hornburg' takes a dramatic turn, Will claims the last territory and the land has once again fallen into darkness.

Hopefully luck will be on my side next time.

Please join us the following week for our next adventures in;

The Battle for Middle Earth.

Seddon

Things Learned in Hitman Absolution

2013-01-22T05:36:00.000-08:00

Hitman Absolution.

A whole lot of blood.

(spoiler alert)

My Flatmate Will recently got a copy of 'Hitman Absolution' for the Xbox 360, and needless to say, I've been playing a fair bit of it. Which has taught me some very harsh lessons about myself, but before I get to that, I suppose I should review the actual game a little bit.

Camera

'Hitman' is made by 'IO-Interactive', which I know in the past (Kane and Lynch Dead Men) has brought certain problems with it, however I can say with a certain degree of confidence that 'Hitman' has solved all the old issues of view. They've thankfully kept in the 'click switch' basically meaning that by clicking the left thumb stick in, you change the camera from being over your left shoulder, to your right shoulder. A very handy thing for shooting round corners.

Gunplay

Obviously, a large part of 'Hitman' is to do with finding men of a questionable moral disposition and shooting them. (I for one prefer the good old tactic of firing as many bullets in their general direction and hoping I hit) The Aiming system is relatively smooth for the most part, only catching, for instance when you shoot round corners, but as a whole it is an incredibly smooth and enjoyable experience.

Stealth

Now for the Important part. The main focus of 'Hitman' is trying to kill your enemies in fascinatingly quiet ways, be it using a fish to poison more fish, or even poisoning a line of cocaine The ways you can kill your enemies are endless, I once pulled a man out of a window just after he had learned he did not have Prostate Cancer, I even waited till just after he told his doctor over the phone that "no-one can shit on this day" ... I'm still not sure how I feel about about my actions at that point.
The stealth mechanics in the game are by far some of the best I have seen, alongside such games as 'Splinter Cell', or The 'Assasins Creed' series and many many more. And by rights, they should be as this is the fifth installment to the 'Hitman' saga, so they've well and truly nailed it down.
Disguises are also a major (albeit optional) part of your mission, allowing you to sneak past enemies using you 'instinct ability' to trick them into believing you are among their ranks. When you are in a disguise, ordinary citizens will not look twice at you, even if you are in a 'restricted' or 'hostile' area, enemies and police (yes, these are two different categories, which is a refreshing light in the world of cop killing games) however will take notice of you so it's best to keep your distance.

Story

Without giving too much away, the story follows the infamous 'Agent 47' as he tracks down various targets for his contractors, all while trying to protect another contact from being eliminated. It is quite heart warming in parts where you get to see '47s' human side, and I for one felt a much stronger connection to him than I have in the previous games. The story flows pretty seamlessly from one mission to the next all the while hurtling towards what I can only assume will be a climactic conclusion.

It really feels like everyone is out to get you.

Lessons Learned

I am a terrible assassin. On a certain mission (which I shall not name) the anit-hero inside me decided that everyone in this area decided to die. So instead of using my usual method of hiding among the shadows and avoiding contact with the enemies as much as possible, I went through the level guns blazing. What made me feel even more bad-ass was the fact that I was dressed as a priest, and the level had some pretty dramatic classical music blaring out to accompany my hail of justice.
When possible, I will find the most extravagant way of eliminating my enemies, when given the chance, i will opt for blowing them up with a remote explosive to silently eliminating them when no-one is looking.
I myself have a very questionable moral stance. Actually, I learned this is the 'Army of Two games', but given the chance, I would kill a target instead of letting them live, as it means one less person I need to worry about.
Finally, when given the option, i will toy with my prey, rather than giving them a clean death. In one of the missions, a character shoots a nun out of frustration, and once given the option to either kill him cleanly, I decided to chase him around an old Hackney carriage with a hatchet in one hand... for about 10 minutes, imagining that '47' was reciting the Verse;

"Cursed is the ground because of you;

through painful toil you will eat of it

all the days of your life.

It will produce thorns and thistles for you,

and you will eat the plants of the field.

By the sweat of your brow

you will eat your food

until you return to the ground,

since from it you were taken;

for dust you are

and to dust you will return.”

Before finally laying him to rest with said hatchet.

I guess that concludes my little review, i would highly advise anyone out there to purchase this gem as you will get many hours of enjoyment out of it.

Leave a comment on your views of the game, and subscribe for more reviews.

Till the next time Internet.

Seddon

LOTR Risk

2013-01-19T15:46:00.002-08:00

War is Upon us!

Well, not really, but it sure as hell feels like it.
I think we can already agree that 'Risk' is one brilliant game, the right mix of strategy and action to keep you entertained all through the god knows how many hours you'll be slaving away at this board. 'Lord of the Rings Risk', takes this to a whole new level.

-Forts- These little beauties take your defense up to a whole new level, tired of not being sure where to aim for? Not any more, now you know exactly where to shoot for, because these bitches drop one unit on them every single round!

Unless you're me of course, who forgets that he has a fort.

Playing Risk with my two flatmates has shown me some harsh truths.

1) I'm terrible of keeping track of forts, honestly, I lose those things faster than ... well, faster than I lose at Risk.

2)event cards can go any way. Will pulled a card that gave three units on three separate territories. Turned out I just so happened to own those three territories.

3)Fate hates everything and anything that you do. Attack a single unit with a cave Troll(5 units) Tough shit, looks like you're going to lose all 5 attacks.

4) Each failure may kill me inside ... but yeah, it kills me inside.

The game started fairly simply with us setting our defenses, and preparing our forces to attack. Things took a drastic turn with the first major victory. My taking of the 'Mines of Moria' from Will's Cave Troll by my Nazgul goblin horde... Turns out that would be the last victory I ever saw. What I did see instead was territory after territory fall before the Might of Wills army, whatever feeling of victory I had. Was a very short lived thing.

But the main thing to remember.

There is always a re-match.

Seddon.

Living in London

2013-01-19T11:13:00.005-08:00

Life throws a lot of unexpected twists and turns.
For instance, getting a flat in London with 3 guys that I have never met before, was a pretty big move. But that was some 4 months ago, time sure flies.
A lot has changed since my last review that I posted and a lot will continue to change.
I've just ordered some new equipment so I can start creating game play videos. (I know what you're thinking, not another idiot who wants to add to the already overflowing pile ;) )
Living with actors always has it's uses, the moment I mentioned about wanting to re-start this blog and youtube channel, they immediately started throwing ideas around for what we could do.
This next year will be a very interesting one, and I for one hope you enjoy the Journey.

Seddon.

The Long hiatus

2013-01-19T11:07:00.003-08:00

Well, it's been a while hasn't it?

This time we're back, and we're working on new content, from game play videos to new posts.

Part of the reason for the total media blackout has been that Luke Seddon Took a job in America for three months which left him without internet, and then took up a Foundation course in Acting.
Not to mention that Adam Dean has been doing a Course in BA film.

However, we're back and working on good things. You can also expect a few new ... well not faces, but names ;)

See you soon.

Sny.

Star Wars Battlefront 2

2011-06-23T17:27:00.000-07:00

Where to start with this one?
Well, I suppose a short apology for the lack of posting recently, things have ... to say the least been hectic. The beginning of this year seems like a nightmare but it's all getting better now.
So back to the blog ;)

Star Wars Battlefront 2 or SWB2 as I'll refer to it from now on, is reaching it's sixth birthday, which is incredible considering this week alone I have sunk maybe ... 30 hours into it? and over it's whole lifetime ... well too many hours to still be considered a 'recreational' gamer.
But for now we'll stick to the core essentials of the game.
For those of you that have played SWB1, you will find that the core layout is more or less the same, you have to capture certain control points while defending your own with a variety of weapons and vehicles at your disposal. On paper this may seem like a concept that starts fun but gets boring very quickly, but I assure you it somehow manages to remain fun and entertaining all the way through.
The game itself was released in October of 2005, while it's predecessor SWB1 was released only a year earlier in September 2004 (If Wikipedia is to be trusted, as my memory isn't). The advancement from number 1 to number 2 is quite obvious, to begin with they have added a number of new units to the game including dark troopers for the empire and Bothan spies for the rebels as well as a whole host of other goodies for you to play around with.
It may be a strange thing to mention, but I have to admit that I fell in love with the menu from the get go. There is something strangely comforting about the Imperial March ... or is that just me? Either way, when that music starts blaring out with scenes from the original films in the background, my heart did kind of melt slightly. Another cool feature is that it will show game play footage if you leave the menu idle for about a minute or two, what makes this even more beautiful is that not only is the footage slow motion, it is also backed by some pretty epic fight music. Imagine 'Carmina Burana', but with lasers and other cool battle stuff.
The size of the game itself is something of a marvel compared to the first one. The original galactic conquest consisted of ... 5, maybe six planets? However each planet did have two maps which made up for it. But you couldn't move command ships around a galaxy biding your time till you struck their home planet in a fiery rage that would make the heavens tremble! - back to my point, the CIS campaign consists of no less than 13 planets, and ... 30? space battle points, hell you can even have space battles over planets before you go on to pillage the surface and take all the booty ~~and women~~ as treasure.
Each campaign, Empire, Republic, Rebels and CIS have their own planetary layout with different routs you can take which is a pretty cool thing in my books. Calling them campaigns though would be a bit misleading as I usually assume a set storyline with a campaign. With these though, it's more of a 'you make the story line'. SWB2 leaves you to wage war on whatever planet looked wrong at you today (so long as it is in the Star Wars galaxy) You can build the Empire and crush the Rebel scum or even overthrow the Republic as the CIS, you can literally change Star Wars history as we know it.
Unlike SWB1, you do not start off with all the troops at your disposal, instead you start off with just one type, the marine ... or assault ... or whatever you wish to call them, they have an assault laser rifle and that's enough for me. You then use the money you just earned from pillaging some 'helpless' planet to buy more troop types and combat bonuses. Oh yeah, that's also new, you no longer get planetary bonuses, you now need to buy them ... and they only last for one battle which makes using them a lot more tactical.
as well as these new combat bonuses, you also get cool troop upgrades. These sadly only last for as long as your soldier does and you really have to earn them. For instance as I'm playing right now, my assault trooper has an upgraded gun that shoots in bursts of purple(?) lasers that pretty much kills what it hits first time round. It's a game that rewards you for being a good killer, then rewards you for being good at living by letting you keep your rewards ... till the end of the round. But I suppose they needed to have some form of stopper on it otherwise you would quickly become too awesome for the game to handle.
The upgrades are also interchangeable should you wish to change troop class, Lord knows you've earned it you little killing machine you.
Space battles are almost too fun ... and difficult at the same time, each time I get into a space battle I'm still amazed by just how much is going on around me considering this game came out in 2005, upon leaving the ship, you find yourself surrounded by lasers, asteroids and death, usually in that order. Should you be luck enough to land in the enemy ship, you best hope you brought a landing craft otherwise it will be a lonely fight that should you lose, will result in you having to fly back over from your ship.
There is more to the game than just galactic conquest though, there is also Training, Space overview, Rise of the Empire and instant action. Training and Space overview are more or less the same, although Space overview is more of a short video about the do's and do nots of space combat. Rise of the Empire is More of a campaign than Galactic conquest and could even double up as a long tutorial because it slowly teaches you through the entire thing. this is an interesting take on the empire as you see it through the perspective of the 501st or Vader's fist, a branch of the Republic army.
Instant action acts as a skirmish mode allowing you to fight any battle as any army that you wish, there are also some special game modes but I will let you discover those for yourself.
So before I sign off for tonight I'll leave you with one final question, do you have what it takes to fight off a droid invasion of kashyyyk along side an army of Wookies all the while not knowing how long your little garrison of troops will hold out against the relentless onslaught?
If you answered "give me the rifle and watch them try to take me" I believe you are truly ready to embrace SWB2 ... on another thought, if you haven't played it yet, the game is six years old so you really have no excuse to not own it, shame on you.

Luke Seddon.

Call of Duty: Black Ops Review

2010-11-21T13:58:00.001-08:00

Call of Duty: Black Ops review

This is my first game review so please bare with me, I'll try and make 'em as good as my movie reviews.

Call of Duty: Black Ops is the next installment in the often called 'Biggest and best gaming franchise of all time', but does it deserve it's place in gaming's hall of fame or should it be left outside in the cold? Well, in a sentence I would say both......and neither.....at the same time. I'll try and make sense of that statement throughout the review.

Story

Yes, it might seem an odd place to start a review of Codblops (yes I will be referring to it as that from now on) on the story, considering Call of Duty games aren't exactly known for their long, engaging and emotional storyline, more the polar opposite of that in fact. But I'll be brutally honest here, I actually liked the storyline, it was a little bit over the top and a bit hard to swallow (calm down), but it was entertaining to say the least. Yes it does have some “DOUBLE-UU-TEE-EHHHFFF” moments but, when it's main job is to entertain me and to provide me with a couple of hours of fun and aggravation, then it does it's job.

Unfortunately the key phrase in the above paragraph is “couple of hours” stripped down to it's core and without all the cut scenes and times when the player doesn't have the control (Which is more often and more shocking than you might think, watch this video-http://bitURL.net/Codblops ) or any relative input at all, the game barely manages to get 5 hours of gameplay in there. You read that right, 5, and before you scream at me for playing on the easiest difficulty setting, for your information you incredibly aggressive anonymous internet user I was playing on hardened difficulty which is the second highest setting there is.

Not only does the single player gameplay have many many instances where they might as well take the gun away from you, it has many times where it becomes inexplicably hard. It's not due to excessive rubber banding AI levels (well.....to a degree it is), it's down to it not being straight forward, or your objectives just aren't being explained at all. If you've played the campaign then I'm just going to say “Vietnam Hill”, hopefully some people here will understand that and agree with me. I spent around 20 minutes shooting endlessly respawning enemies before I realised what I had to do. I guess you could throw in the old argument of modern games becoming too easy or dumbed down so when a moment when you have to actually use skill or logic to pass through then you become stuck. That's true to an extent, but what about games like Little Big Planet, Braid, Assassins Creed (in regards to the Glyphs), I passed through them with 'relative' ease.

New additions to Codblops single player campaign is scary Russian communists, this is a brand new idea and I'm surprised that no-one's ever thought of it before. Just in case you are illiterate at reading sarcasm, let me have the privilege of introducing the power of sarcasm to you, sarcasm allows you to insult idiots around you, very entertaining. Yes the Russians are back as bad guys and it's up to you, Alex Mason to stop them, preferably with one of the many guns in your arsenal. The real additions to Codblops single player is pilot-able Helicopters (in select levels of course, don't be silly!) usually in Call of Duty games you are allowed to only shoot the gun on ships, planes or helicopters. The first level that the helicopter is used and introduced is a level that you are stuck in a valley, so it's a little bit constricting and not as free as it should be, but the next level you use the helicopter is by far the better, I'm not going to spoil it for you, except that it's incredibly fun.

Splitting up the single player campaign into two different categories means you'll get two different reviews. The story is imaginative and fresh, it's definitely a step forward in the right direction (except length, mind you). The gameplay is starting to get old now, you run then you shoot, duck behind some superbly placed indestructible crates that just so happened to be there. That's it, besides the drivable vehicles (that you only get to use like twice) nothing new has been introduced this year.

Multiplayer

Here's where it's at, where Call of Duty has made a name for itself, developing into a force known all over the gaming industry. Codblops delivers the now standard (for CoD games) blisteringly quick, ear-shatteringly loud, knock-out punch to the face 60 frames per second shooting. But looky here, they've added some new stuff. It's like getting your favourite meal in your favourite restaurant, just so happens they have that chef with 3 and a half fingers and a runny nose. They also used ingredients they found in the midst of a hobo's plop. Yes, I hate Treyarch let it be known. It's not that they don't try, it's just that they don't succeed. For me, the most interesting and exciting addition to Codblops was the theatre mode (more on that later), but, like many things, it just doesn't work.

They've introduced some things that are genuinely useful and great (Wager matches, increased customizability) but for some (and I'm not going over the top here) baffling, enigmatic, incomprehensible,indecipherable, indescribable, unexplainable , inscrutable, insoluble, mysterious, mystifying,obscure, odd, peculiar, puzzling, strange,unaccountable, undefinable, unexplainable,unfathomable, unintelligible and unsolvable reason they've taken stuff out. They've removed the amount of perks and I don't know why, yes I understand removing commando, but in retaliation to that they've introduced the ballistic knife and upped the distance you can knife from to near commando levels anyway! They've also changed the time limits on some match types, my case in point is sabotage. It's now 10 minutes instead of 20 minutes in MW2. I'm going to lose all my reviewer poise here, brace yourself. WHY?! What reason did Treyarch have to do that? It's been proven to work! Sabotage are the best match type because it defines what CoD is, it's frantic, god damn, brilliant, boisterously manly awesomeness! WHY RESTRICT THAT?! IT MAKES NO SENSE! Especially when they've increased the map size from Modern Warfare 2 it takes bloody 30 seconds to travel to the bomb-site making defusing the bomb in sabotage near impossible. Why did that need to be changed? Treyarch I think you need to learn from some old sayings “If it ain't broke, don't fix it”, “Don't promise things you can't deliver”, “Treyarch, I hate you”.

To add to my increasing amount of despair, I checked out theatre mode, the brand new inclusion to the franchise allowing users to record, edit and show off all those Uber killstreaks, those epic no scopes, and those down right hysterical mishaps.

Well it would allow you to do all those things, if it worked that is. Here is an edited down conversation I had with my friend whilst trying to use theatre mode.

Step 1: Have the actual match.

Step 2: Flick through the stupendously bad menus to find theatre mode.

Step 3: Find the match.

Step 4: Select file for playback.

Step 5: Allow video to buffer.

Step 6: Press play on the video, and struggle with the controls to find the right part you want to edit.

Step 7: Struggle with controls more.

Step 8: Realise that, in Treyarch's endless amount of wisdom the file has split itself, resulting in the match being two separate files and missing out a possible vital 30 seconds to a minute.

Step 9: Find other file.

Step 10: Select file for playback.

Step 11: Buffer video.

Step 12: Press play and struggle with the controls.

Step 13: Realise that it's not actually you that you are watching, it's someone else.

Step 14: Find yourself.

Step 15: Find the part you want to edit.

Step 16: Press record.

Step 17: Struggle with controls, restart recording.

Step 18: Struggle with controls, restart recording.

Step 19: Struggle with controls, restart recording.

Step 20: Struggle with controls, restart recording.

Step 21: Struggle with controls, restart recording.

Step 22: Get recording.

Step 23: Re-record part because, once again, it's restricted to 30 seconds per recording.

Step 24: Get new recording.

Step 25: Save file.

Step 26: Exit menu.

Step 27: Re-select file.

Step 28: Render video.

Step 29: Wait.

Step 30: Wait.

Step 31: “File has uploaded itself to theatre.callofduty.com”.

Step 32: Check theatre.callofduty.com.

Step 33: It's not there.

Step 34: Re-render video.

Step 35: “File has uploaded itself to theatre.callofduty.com”.

Step 36: No it hasn't.

Step 37: Re-render video.

Step 38: “File has uploaded itself to theatre.callofduty.com”.

Step 39: No it hasn't.

Step 40: Get bored/annoyed leave the whole process.

Step 41: Couple of days later, go onto youtube.

Step 42: Decide to flick through a few of my own videos.

Step 43: The file has somehow uploaded itself to youtube.

I CANNOT COMPREHEND HOW THIS PROCESS WORKS!

Yes, I understand that “Theatre” mode is in Beta still...C'mon Treyarch the game has been released how can you have a significant portion of the game that doesn't do what it says it does! That's why Treyarch sucks. Yes Codblops does have it's ups, Zombies is fun but then completely unoriginal, it might as well someone else’s coding they stole and copied.

What review could be complete without a bit of positive re-enforcement and helpful hints? Well, in that case here it is: Treyarch, adopt the Medal of Honour method, I propose Treyarch to develop to the singleplayer campaign and Activision can make Sledgehammer games develop the online portion of the game, it might not have worked that well on Medal of Honour but I'm sure it would work on Codblops.

The way that I would sum this review of Codblops up would be that I utterly, utterly despise the multiplayer side of this game, but I play it. It's got something caveman and primeval about it, it's gritty stuff, and it's a way of proving how much better you are than everyone else. I guess that on some sort of level that makes me like it, and that's why I hate it with every fibre of my being...because I like it.

Honestly, I can't get my head around my reasoning behind my feelings towards Codblops and I don't expect you to either, but I guess this is as good as a stage as any to declare a challenge. I want to play against you guys, hit me up with a friend request and just tell me that you've read my review in the message.

My PSN: Baggie1993

(This is the frankly pointless video that was uploaded to youtube:

http://bitURL.net/Codblopstwo

Note: I know it sucks, but it was a short little video that I enjoyed and was only done to test out all the features of theatre mode).

Remembrance day poem ... thing

2010-11-12T08:13:00.000-08:00

I only just found this, I think I wrote it before the last remembrance service.
it's not really a protest piece, I just had a vision of war becoming nothing more than a sport in the hopefully distant future.

'Fun'

There's gas in the trench boys
There's gas on the wire
There's gas on the ground
And there's gas in the prior

Where is our lord boys?
Where has he gone?
Our lord has left us,
Should we run?

The whistle is blowing,
The charge has begun.
Those who falter,
Are easily done

Why do we fight?
Why do we stay?
Our city lies ruined
And fallen with plague

The war's never over.
The battle still goes on.
Why are we fighting?
We're fighting for fun...

As I said, it's not about protest, it's just my morbid view of the future of warfare ...

P.s I would have posted this yesterday, but my internet decided to fail on me.

Undead Nightmare

2010-11-04T11:55:00.000-07:00

One big cup of OHWHATTHEHELL.

Where to begin with this one?

I would start at the beginning … but that is a spoiler in itself for those who haven’t played this anyway. All I can really say about the beginning is that within the first five to ten minutes, all my theories about how the pack was going to turn out, where swept aside through a tide of awesome.

The story line is a fairly straightforward one, ‘Kill the zombies while trying to find a cure’, Straightforward yes, simple … not so much. You see, the only way to kill one of these undead bas- beings is with a headshot and while this might sound like an easy task for any experienced dead eye user, trust me it is not.

I even checked to see if Rockstar had skimped out and done a certain amount of damage to the body before death … they haven’t, and I can’t explain how amazing it feels to unload all six shells of a semi-auto shotgun into a Zombies chest, then finishing it off with one revolver round to the brain.

Okay, I might not have been telling the truth when I said there was only one way to kill them, there are in fact a few ways. My personal favourite has to be setting them alight with a torch. Yes you did just read that correctly, a torch, like the burning kind they used to hunt Vampires with. The first time I used the torch was against quite a large group or rotters and … well it didn’t go quite to plan, for some reason I thought it would kill them fairly quickly. It didn’t. So for the next twenty – thirty seconds, I found myself being chased by no less than seven burning zombies, and as they say “The only thing worse than a zombie, I a burning zombie”.

As much as I love zombies, I have to admit that I got a little nervous at the prospect of Redemption having zombies introduced into it, one wrong move and the whole thing could go up in flames. However Rockstar seem to have crafted a fine balance between the Undead and the Wild West.

The actual story line of Undead Nightmare will take you just about everywhere, from Blackwater where you start, all the way to a brand new location in Mexico. I’m sure all of you will be happy to know that it features almost all the original cast and will take about six-nine hours if you decide to complete all the side missions and all the challenges.

The game play has stayed pretty similar to Red Dead Redemption with only a few changes, the first and most notable change, is that the whole camping system has disappeared, which oddly works perfectly. Instead of camping to fast travel you now have to liberate towns from the undead menace in order to use them. Once liberated, you can save or fast travel from there, and sadly there are no shops in the game which means you will have to loot corpses and make sure every shot counts.

Once I actually got over the awesomeness that were zombies, I decided to have a ride around to see what else was out there and I have to tell you, it was eerie. I just couldn’t place my finger on what made the whole experience so damn creepy. It wasn’t the zombies; I love zombies, nothing creepy about them. There was something else … something all together stranger. There was an absolute lack of people, I must have ridden around for a good hour and only heard a few shots in the distance, unless you count those hungry zombies trying to kill me. It really did feel like the world had ended which was an incredibly beautiful experience.

Aside from the gameplay, Undead Nightmare actually feels a lot like a B-movie Which works very well for the whole experience. I’m not sure who they got to be the narrator for the game, but the did a good job in casting him.

Once you finally decide to save one of the many ‘helpless’ towns, you are greeted by a number of armed survivors on the rooftops taking pot-shots into the undead horde. There are then two things you can do, you can either run around dispensing ammo to them, or keep all the ammo for yourself and decide to Rambo those zombies asses. Whichever way you decided to handle the situation, you almost always get a new … or old gun out of it, which I think is Rockstars way of saying “sorry there are no shops”.

Another interesting thing to do once you have obtained some brand new guns, is to go and cleanse a graveyard. What this involves is burning a number of coffins, then holding off against the Undead till the ‘Boss Zombie’ rises, who is usually a character you met once in game. Once you have killed those the Graveyard is clean, rewarding you with new ammo and various other interesting gadgets.

Before I move onto the multiplayer, I have to talk about the wildlife. OH MY GOD it is pretty damn awesome, never have I experienced true terror before until I was being chased from tall trees by a large mob of zombies (I had ran out of ammo) only to be joined by FIVE zombie bears and three zombie wolves. Infact I don’t think you have lived unless in a situation like that, that is the sheer level of ‘Oh dear god what now?’. Yes, you would be right in thinking that that is in fact a Zombie cougar … Where is your lord now?

Well I suppose it is time to talk about the multiplayer, which I will be honest am a little disappointed with. Not because it’s bad, I just feel that there could have been more done with it, more game types involving zombies … hell even a zombie free roam, but I’ll stop before I start ranting about how I have the perfect idea for a zombie game, as they did deliver one awesomely fun thing called ‘Undead Onslaught’. The whole idea of U.O is to survive as many rounds as possible, while more and more zombies keep poring in. Sounds simple right? Wrong, you see every wave the Zombies get a little bit more difficult to kill, and you have to kill them all within a certain amount of time and just to add a little salt to that wound, if you don’t pop them all, you are stuck in limbo with a never ending wave of zombies till you die, you don’t even get any new ammo.

Well, I guess that is all from me for this review. I would tell you more but that really takes the fun away from playing. I hope you have enjoyed reading it, and remember if this has peaked your interest you can just purchase it from your console.

Luke Seddon