Mass Effect 2 is the most enjoyable game I have yet to play this year. A significant improvement over its predecessor there is comparably little to actually criticise but much to praise. ME2 scores well in so many areas, beyond being visually thrilling, boasting a well written involving storyline and a soundtrack that fits perfectly, the core game is gripping and well executed. As I’ve said previously, for a game whose core is combat, the combat holds up to extended playing and customisation very well. The objective system now means that it’s trivial to find your bearing when you’re lost. Perhaps the biggest selling point of ME2 is the control you have other the events and their game-changing ramifications.

Your interactions and actions really matter, even down to the more passive choices that you make such as who you choose to take with you on a mission causing a diplomatic incident. With many games there is a single ending or a handful of endings which depend on a small number of factors, in Mass Effect 2, the ending is much more complicated and I suspect rarely exactly the same for players. All right, that’s not something which is new but the quality in the execution is what makes Mass Effect 2 a gripping game where you care about what you say and what you do. Mass Effect 2 creates an emotional connection that creates a really deep experience. I’ve never considered buying DLC before, but Mass Effect 2 has convinced me to buy a couple of the mission packs, something GTA 4 really did not make me want to do. Interestingly by contrast, previous to GTA 4 I loved the series and it took me three years to complete that game. I hated Mass Effect 1 and it took me two weeks to complete Mass Effect 2.

Well done BioWare, I look forward to buying the DLC and ME3.

After becoming very frustrated with the first Mass Effect game it is refreshing to play the sequel which addresses many of the play-breaking issues. In my eyes, the predecessor suffers from an awful combat system and terrible level design mixed with unfathomable objectives. The combat is now much improved, with recharging weapons thrown out in favour of traditional ammo. There also seems to be increased variance in the weapons you can take on and a use for every gun depending on the situation (something which ME1 lacked.) The combat is now much more entertaining and while perhaps still a little generic survives extended play well.

The level design seems to be much improved and the ability to bring up an objective marker by pressing a thumbstick fills a gap which left ME1 exasperating at times. There is no fun in not knowing where you’re going. Strangely I find one of the minigames quite addictive, in the same way that I found the Brotherhood assassins minigame addictive, ME2 lets you go into orbit around unexplored planets then scan them for resources using a graph which resembles a spectrum analyser, launching probes where you find strong signals. I suspect some of the appeal is in the form of tactile response as the controller shake indicates the strength of resource. I’ve not yet finished ME2, but unlike many games I play I have no doubt that I will. Mass Effect 2 does something to me which few games seem to these days, it makes me not want to put it down. After playing it for the last 7 straight hours (a real rarity for me) it is clear that BioWare have taken stock of the faults of the first and made a very good game to succeed it.

After buying GTA IV at midnight launch (I was third in the queue, yay) it has taken me just over three years to complete the game. As a once die hard GTA fan (I spent many of my teenage years running GTA fan sites, modding the games and playing the various multiplayer mods for VC and SA) I think this says a lot about the direction that GTA IV took. There is no doubt that when GTA IV was released it was considered a pretty game and as one of the first titles to leverage NaturalMotion’s animation tech character movements were far more realistic than the canned loops which were very visible in the prequels. Both are nice, I guess, but like most people I’ve never played GTA for its graphics or for the quality of its animations. I played it because it was the ultimate in sandbox action games, I consider Vice City to be perhaps the best game I’ve ever played and San Andreas is also a fantastic game once you get into it, GTA IV took all that away.

Vice City not only offers better core gameplay in its story, it exceeds in every possible way, from the perfect setting to the epitomal 80s soundtrack, vast ranges of fun and beneficial side missions and great vehicle options. San Andreas takes away some of the great elements of Vice City and adopts a setting which in my view is nowhere as good as 80s Miami, but despite this it presents great new game mechanics, weapons and vehicles that compel you to carry on and see what’s next and all in all is a great game nonetheless. IV takes all that away in favour of a much more realistic adventure, it does not feature jetpacks, Harrier jump jets, hovercraft, tanks. Instead the missions are rarely more diverse than simple car chases and rooftop gun battles, they do not compel you to carry on playing because you know that the next mission is just more of the same.

When I played Just Cause 2 last year, it was as though I had found all the sort of gameplay that should have been in GTA IV, from the offset Just Cause 2 is like having completed Vice City or San Andreas and having the best vehicles and weapons to cause havoc. These are games that you want to keep playing even after the main story arc is done – clearly boasting strong and rich designs.

With IV, Rockstar obviously focussed on changing their formula in favour of increased realism, I can understand the reasons why they went down that road, but I think it is evident to all that their formula was already pretty damn good. I think this is fair to say and I believe that most the guys at Rockstar will agree. From what I’m told, the last IV expansion pack introduced actually fun gameplay, so it looks like the problem is recognised and being resolved. I wouldn’t be surprised if GTA V goes back to its roots and I have high hopes that it will be a great game up their with Vice and San An.

I’ve now bought Portal 2 and borrowed Mass Effect 2. Having played about an hour on each so far. Portal 2 seems good so far, the frequency of load times seems to be as bad as in Half Life 2, but that’s a small gripe really. So far I’ve not seen much difference to the first Portal, but I expect it will come into its own in due course. I didn’t complete the original Mass Effect, while I really liked some of the story elements and cinematics I found the game too frustrating. The combat system was shit and the objective system was non-existent, I was constantly unsure exactly where I was meant to be going. Mass Effect 2 seems to have addressed the problems that prevented me from playing ME1, it’s story seems strong and the visuals are fantastic. They also seem to have dialed back on the RPG’ness which is good for me as I don’t really enjoy RPG gameplay. I’m excited about playing both games and I’m sure they’ll live up to their hype.

Just finished Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood. Definitely great fun, Ubisoft take the technology behind the second game in the series and build a continuation of the story on it. While I initially thought (along with quite a few people it seems) that Brotherhood would be a sidequel spin-off to finish Ezios story, that’s not the case. Brotherhood is a full sequel to II and therefore a prequel to III. The impression I get from playing the game is that they’ve fleshed out all the things they wanted to do with II that they didn’t get the time to. By releasing another title on the same engine, they didn’t need to spend resources on tech improvements and could focus on fun gameplay.

Brotherhood takes place for the most part in Rome and it reminds me in some respects of Vice City and San Andreas, in that you can buy up properties over the city which then start generating you money. To buy up properties in each district, you must take over the district first. As an added benefit to taking over districts, if you remember the save the citizen mini-missions from previous games, these return but now there is a more important consequence. By saving a citizen, they’ll join the assassin order. You can then send your assassin’s away on missions across Europe to generate you money and also to give them experience, or you can call them in to help you in missions.

The combat of Brotherhood is more advanced than II and indeed requires slightly more from the player than straight button bashing in places. Being able to call in strategic strikes or combat from your assassin’s has been integrated almost perfectly, assisting you greatly in missions and advancing the way you go about combat and strategise.

I had a couple of irritations with Brotherhood, for some reason they’ve removed the ability to (attempt to) jump higher and try to grip a higher ledge. This was introduced in II when you watch an ally climbing, she then teaches you how to do it. This was something I’d got a little used to and quite liked. Also, the “back eject” where you jump off a wall backwards to grab a ledge behind was particularly clunky. Near the end you’re jumping around the top of a hall from lantern to lantern, I must have fallen off about 15 times. I came close to putting the controller down in frustration a couple of times there.

I don’t have a gold account, so I’ve not touched the multiplayer. The concepts between it certainly seem interesting, but I don’t find I have the time to play competitive multiplayer any more, not like when I used to play Halo 3 every night or CoD4 every lunch anyway.

All in all, Brotherhood was a great game to play and if you enjoyed II then I’d say you should definitely pick it up. Some people appear to be skeptical of the game because it uses the engine from II (with noticeable improvements I should add) however I don’t think that works against the game. Ubisoft have put a lot into it, it isn’t a glorified expansion pack or even comparable to ODST. It’s a game in its own right. I look forward to the final instalment.

Read Dead next. Then maybe I’ll finally finish GTA IV, only got a few missions left on it and I’ve had it since launch! But I keep getting distracted by other games.

Ok, for some reason I think that It reference is pertinent to a post about finishing Alan Wake. So anyways, finished Alan Wake just now, after being told it was a six hour game I’ve come to the conclusion that either I really suck at games or it’s quite a bit longer (maybe it’s a mixture?) I was really impressed by the graphics of this game, the way 3d models evaporated into thin air with a simulation of fluid dynamics blew my mind the first time I saw it.

Alan Wake hits so many different levels of being a good game, besides the great visuals I really love how the story was composed and delivered. The audio is really well executed and for the most part the game feels really fluid. The Twin Peaks coffee reference was well received also. My only gripes with the game were that the final episode’s level design really sucked in comparison with the rest of the game. The scripted melee enemy who’d always appear behind me got tiresome quick and it just felt as though instead of building a solid level they’d just chuck as many enemies at you as possible. So I was a little disappointed to see the level design tail off at the end, but all in all Remedy have made a fantastic game here, and I look forward to the sequel/next season.

Dead Space next

So, a couple of weeks back I finished Uncharted 2. I did most the game on hard, but dropped the difficulty down at the end because I wanted to get the game done and it seemed to get a little too difficult. In my view the first half of the game was great, but the second half felt slightly less polished. All in all a very enjoyable experience. Uncharted 2 does well in so many areas, whether it’s beautiful graphics, great audio, involving story writing/character animation (that just make the characters really come to life) and some really excellent levels. While sequels are things that I’ve come to dread to a certain extent these days (I was very disappointed by GTA IV) Uncharted 3 is definitely a game I would like to see made, perhaps as a final instalment.

My brother got married at the weekend, but more importantly than that he lent me Alan Wake. I’m really looking forward to this game. I’ve given up playing Mass Effect, despite the number of people who have told me to play it, the game is awful. The level design is not great, the objective system is virtualy missing, the story doesn’t come close to the praise it has been given and the combat is without a doubt, terrible. Apparently, that’s all been fixed in the sequel, so maybe I’ll give that a try. I’ve got to admit the trailer for Mass Effect 2 has made me very interested. Speaking of good trailers, I absolutely cannot wait for the next Deus Ex.

I’m currently playing through the original Mass Effect on Xbox 360 (of course.) Enjoying it so far, but the game could do with a much clearer objective system and some of the combat feels a little counter-intuitive. Apparently the sequel fixed a lot of these issues, so I’ve got that to look forward to.

After borrowing my friend’s Playstation 3, I’ve also been playing Joe Danger. I first saw the game back at Eurogamer Leeds last year where the company I worked at, at the time had a stall. I’m pleased to say I found the game very fun and the level of polish is exceedingly high.

I’ve also just started on Uncharted 2. I was blown away by the graphics, which are really, really pretty. I’m glad to see they’ve managed to keep the camera system sensibly located as you move throughout the levels. The game has a really strong narrative and I had trouble putting it down. I can see why people raved about this game.