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Finished the campaign last night. Overall it’s an ok game but a bit forgettable too. The campaigns for the most part were rather dull regardless of what character you picked and your options always felt sort of limited, perhaps because of the limited arsenal each one had (Alien especially). That and the interlocking story, while interesting, meant that each successive campaign felt more predictable and there was a distinct lack of memorable set pieces.

I guess one of the issues is that in the game there is never more than about two different enemies you will come up against so combat really becomes pretty dull pretty quick. The other one is there is no sense of a team. Both Marines and Aliens are only effective hunters when in a pack (at least when the opposition is heavily armed). The game instead makes you solo most of it for each species and both the human and Alien feel like they have increased health to compensate for the lack of AI assistance.

Still, as a huge fan of Aliens it held my interest just long enough. I wouldn’t replay it but. Wait until it’s cheap.

Aliens vs Predator

Do not see Prince of Persia. Seriously, this movie was the worst I’ve seen in a long, long time. It just did nothing right. Poor special effects at times, cheesy dialogue, predictable but stupid plot, at times poor acting and action sequences that all just felt the same due to the cramped camera angles used throughout.

It suffers from the same issues Pirates of the Caribbean did which is repetitive action sequences thrown into a movie that runs for 30 mins longer than it had any right to. Not surprising since many of the same people at Disney were involved in this train wreck. At least pirates had some rather memorable characters…the guys in this movie range from forgettable to “get the fuck off the screen” worthy.

All in all I recommend a rental at most. I think my friend put it best when he said “Hollywood has a new answer for piracy…just release bad films.” If you want something mindless it might be the best film out there at the moment but myself and my friends thought the Tron trailer was probably the highlight so perhaps save your money for that. $8.50 may even buy you the Sands of Time game even.

Play This Instead

Having finished Uni for the year as of today, I’ve begun delving into my extensive backlog of games. I was going to play Crysis Warhead next followed by Fallout and Farcry 2 but I’ve instead decided to play GoW2 given it’s the one I think I’m most likely to read spoilers for in the mean time and those other games aren’t going anywhere.

Anyway so far it’s been quite fun, if at times a bit underwhelming. I think my interest is picking up now and I’d have to say my innitial reactions were likely more influenced by exhaustion having just helped a group put together a report longer than my thesis in the space of a few days, my own contribution running in at 25 pages which was over half my thesis in itself. Picking up again today but and I’m really enjoying it it must be said although ultimatly it’s one to play co-opp which I’ll do with a brother soon.

For what it’s worth, it’s probably one of the most visually and artistically impressive games I have ever played so far. Sure theres a few slow loading textures as in the original, but for the most part this is Gears of War on crack and it really does look beautiful. And yes, thats comparring it to the likes of Crysis ect. Sure it may not be as technically brilliant, but it’s certainly holding it’s own, especially on the now three year old XBox 360.

Anyway later this week or next week I’ll have some images to post of a few things which I consider quite snazzy. I’ll let people see what that/they are at the time but. Beyond that I have 10 days or so until I start full time work so I’ll be making the best of that time to do absolutly nothing. My big plans probably involve seeing Bond which is a good measure of how active I plan on being.

More or less finished the game the other day having completed the main quest along with most of the side ones. Overall I have to say I’m very impressed with the game and it was thoroughly enjoyable. It’s not the longest RPG ever but it does get substantially longer if you spend time buying property and doing the side quests. Maybe takes the game from 12 hours or so to 25 to 30.

One of the more interesting aspects, and one that may make up for the apparent short length is that at some points you do have some genuinely hard choices to make. If your playing good you may have to choose an action which will hurt another person or otherwise will affect how the player looks for instance or loses you XP or whatever. Also the game only lets each character have a single save and usually after these big decisions saves immediately to prevent people cheating to try things out. Some people won’t like that, I think it’s a great initiative to really make game play decisions meaningful. The games short enough that you can go back and trial other routes later.

So yes, definitely an improvement on the first. Some larger areas even if most are still very linear and everything seemed to work quite well. There are some annoyances such as enemies ALWAYS attacking you from the exact same spot so you quickly get used to where to look out for villains, but besides that it’s good. Another thing, I can’t remember if there was a difficulty setting but the game wasn’t overly difficult besides one or two Troll fights that are usually frustrating more than anything. The game also boasts one of the weirdest, almost anti climatic endings that I have ever encountered. In fact the villain in the games a bit weak really but the games more about the player and their choices anyway. Also there is definitely room for a sequel.

One other aspect I liked is that houses earn you money while your offline which is sort of neat. The rate deteriorates over time I believe but it’s nice to get a bit of cash every time you log in.

Probably not a system seller of a title IMHO, but it along with others like GoW, Halo, Banjo Kazooie ect certainly makes me happy to own the system.