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Batman Arkham Origins – New Game

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You can never have too much of a good thing. My last outing with Batman prove painful for my RSI but there is no denying that it was still a great game to enjoy. This time around to avoid the same issues I'm playing the game on easy. I love flying around Arkham performing stealth takedowns, launching batarangs at unsuspecting criminals & solving another of the enigmas puzzles.

It's more of the same yes but for me that's a good thing why mess with a winning formula. GTAV might be taking all the plaudits at the moment for open world gaming but I'll take Batman & Arkham any day. Origins is not developed by Rocksteady (who I hope are busy working on a next gen Batman) but by WB Games Montreal who have not altered the recipe that much.

Some slight changes I've noticed so far are the obvious Batcave with its training facility & Alfred. The crime reconstruction sequences seem quite interesting (I've only performed one so far in the game) & the various radio towers over Arkham offer Enigma a chance to test your brain cells. You have various challenges that you have to perform to unlock some upgrades but generally you start off with most of what you already know from the previous games.




Xcom Enemy Unknown – Completed

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The Uber Ethereal is dead & Earth is saved but “MR T” sacrificed himself to let the rest of the squad escape & destroy the Temple Ship. The six KHANS were united for over 50 missions between them, each complimenting each other’s abilities & skills. Shooting, scouting, healing & by using psi-ops to destroy the alien invasion.

Great game & very satisfying when you manage to pull off an ‘overwatch’ strategy to take out a sectopod or a group of muton soldiers. It is tough and many times I would reload a save point to try a different approach. The main story is very brief in that you only three main missions you have to complete to finish the game but you will be given many random missions that give you the time needed to level up your characters & upgrade your facilities.

So another PS+ game chalked up to completion, that makes three now (Uncharted 3 & Specs Ops). £35 for a year’s sub is proving great value for money. I have started downloading this month’s offerings of Metal Gear Rising & Remember Me but they both will have to wait because the Bat will be arriving soon !!

The Wonderful 101 (Wii U)

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So I fixed it. Deleting the game from the hard drive and redownloading it, somehow, fixed all the control issues. No, I don’t know how.

Now, I can draw whatever Unite form I want and it works every time. And it’s a good job too, because it turns out when it works properly, the game is awesome.

I’m able to dodge or block attacks now. I don’t have to spend half my play time fighting the controls. I’m really enjoying it. Phew, eh?

It does make me wonder, though – did the reviewers get the same broken version I did?

Anyway. Progress: I have defeated the giant that tries to smash you on the top of a tower, then you go inside him and smash his… Brain? Dunno. Awesome.

RLLMUK’s top 100: 40 – 31

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40Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (Xbox)
39Grim Fandango (PC)
38Speedball 2: Brutal Deluxe (Amiga/PC/Archimedes)
37The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (PC/Xbox 360)
36Civilization II (PC)
35Elite (BBC/CPC/Commodore 64/Spectrum/Atari ST/Amiga)
34Phantasy Star Online (including v2) (Dreamcast)
33Grand Theft Auto 3 (PS2)
32Perfect Dark (N64)
31Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan (DS)

Comments on the games I've played:

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (Xbox)

I never got very far in this. It was just a bit boring, and took ages for the game's story to kick in. By the time I found out what was going to happen, I could tell that I'd never get anywhere near the end of the game without devoting weeks to it, and I had many more enjoyable things to do instead.

Speedball 2: Brutal Deluxe (Amiga)

Another game where I never quite got what everyone raved about. It all seemed a bit clunky, with the ball lacking momentum and the playing area being just the wrong size for the number of goals. I used to play this at friends' houses, on the Amiga and on the Mega Drive, and despite winning a large proportion of the time, I was never convinced I was entirely in control. The team management bits seemed pretty pointless as well.

Elite (BBC, CPC), Elite: The New Kind (PC)
I have played this game for hundreds of hours. It's aged pretty badly, really, in that modern games do everything it does but better, but they add other games over the top. Maybe that's why I still like Elite - it's pure, clean, and easy to play. I've learnt profitable trade routes, I've earnt the title of Elite, I've jumped into witchspace and survived.

Phantasy Star Online (including v2) (Dreamcast, Gamecube, Xbox)

One of the best gaming experiences of my life - although not necessarily the best game ever.  This was the first time I played anything online with friends, and I spent many hours building up my character by running through the forests, caves, mines and ruins.  I can still remember the first time I battled Dark Falz with online assistance, drawing attention away from others, healing, whittling down his health.  The final blow leading to a poignant animation of a red ring, showing the fate of the hunter who had left us messages through the world.  I've killed Dark Falz many times since.

Grand Theft Auto 3 (PS2, Xbox)

I completed this, which is saying something given the difficulty of the final mission - chasing a helicopter to a dam, not getting killed while running to the control room, shooting someone who seemed to be wearing a full kevlar bodysuit.  Is this the best of the 3D iterations?  Vice City had less interesting missions but possibly a better world; GTA IV got boring very quickly due to hassles from characters calling your mobiles; the PSP games were great but a bit limited in terms of out-of-mission havoc.  I've not played San Andreas of the latest instalment yet, but will one day.  GTA3 remains great fun to mess around in, and I can still recognise landmarks in the city when I watch videos today.

Perfect Dark (N64)

I played very little of this, as I came to it late and the FPS genre had evolved considerably.  It's dated far more than Goldeneye.

Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan (DS)

Great fun, but I prefer Elite Beat Agents.

Game memories: F

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Feel the Magic XX-XY (DS)
Project Rub in the UK, but I got this with my imported US DS ahead of the European launch.  In many ways it was an ideal game to launch the DS with, showing many varied ideas on how the touchscreen could be used.  It didn't hang together that well, but I remember the black, white and orange colour scheme vividly.

F1 '97 (PS)
Murray Walker shouting "He's on the green stuff" over and over again; tracks being messes of pixels a little way down the road.  A great game.

F1 2010 (Xbox 360)
Far too many options and menus to wade through.  Completing a single race in the career mode took ages, since you had to go through practice sessions, qualifying and the race itself.  Ideal for people who love F1, but for me it was just a bit painful.

F1 2011 (3DS)
As with F1 2010 above, but with a third of the framerate.

F355 Challenge Passione Rossa (Dreamcast)
At the time this felt like a massive technical achievement and tales of the arcade machine using three monitors underlined the game's credentials.  I played it for about fifteen minutes before being totally overwhelmed by the options and realistic gameplay - in other words, I kept spinning off the track, couldn't work out how to switch to a behind-car view, and had better things to play instead.

Field Commander (PSP)
Like Advance Wars but with little charm, little challenge, and a rubbish online mode.

Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles (Gamecube)
I've never completed a proper Final Fantasy game; I've never even passed the first hour of one.  This, however, was played loads at virtually every games night we held.  Kieron had a bucket on his head, I was a Selkie.  John was accomplished at ranged combat, we all could heal each other but often didn't.

Fire Emblem (GBA)
I never completed this.  I remember it getting very stressful due to the fact that if a character died in a mission, they remained dead.  I restarted missions again and again to protect my favourite characters, and as a result it grew stale and too difficult.

Floigan Brothers: Episode One (Dreamcast)
It's a shame there was no episode two - this was an amusing game which was unlike anything else, as with a lot of Sega's Dreamcast output.  It was far too short and there was a bit too much collection required as far as I recall.  I got this in Singapore and worked out pretty quickly that it was a pirate version, but bought the proper version on my return from HMV for a fiver.

Ford Racing 3 (Xbox)
I was convinced to buy this by people on RLLMUK praising the second game, the fact it was online (when there were few other online games around, and it was £10 brand new.  I think I played it online three times and offline twice, before being tempted away by other games that were just more fun to play.

F-Zero (SNES, Wii, Wii U)
F-Zero GX (Gamecube)
F-Zero X (N64)
F-Zero: Maximum Velocity (GBA, 3DS)
GX is the best.  The Mode 7 games are a bit pants now, but at the time they seemed great, particularly on the GBA where the handling was much more refined.  Replaying them now, they are just too floaty and the career mode is a bit lightweight with daft difficulty spikes.

Future Tactics: the Uprising (Gamecube)
I bought this in the US and as a result, the hassle needed to load the game meant that I played it little.  A shame, as when I did I remember it being a clever game melding a strategy turn-based game with something that felt more action-based.  I'm now able to play US games on my modded Wii; I may try this again when I find it.

Fighting Vipers (Saturn, Xbox 360)
I continue to be hopeless at fighting games that are more complicated that Street Fighter II, but Fighting Vipers has a pleasing lack of combo, super and extra EX WTF meters.  The fighting feels solid and the idea of being able to knock off armour works well.  I get the feeling that if I played this a bit more I could get quite good at it.  That's unlikely to happen.