I was confused when I got to the first playable screen because it said Final Stage : “Bloodlines” and I thought I had clicked something or entered some sort of code so I restarted and it was the same to which I thought “whatever, just play it!” You control a character from the previous Castlevania titles Richter Belmont. After a short battle with Dracula you gain control the main protagonist of the game in which your journey unfolds.

While playing this I noticed a similarity to a game I had played before and that was Super Metroid with the free exploration and map system, which over time,  spawned the side-genre  Metroidvania which some gamers detest or welcome. If someone says to me, it’s a Metroidvania title I know exactly what I’m going to be playing.

Graphically this game is the pinnacle of 2D gaming. Even looking at it today it’s outstanding! The detail, fluidity of the animation, backdrops, just everything is stunning. Admittedly today the HD 2D games do look great, as to why they have not done a HD version of this game is beyond me. Personally I would pay the full retail price as if it would be a newly released title — that’s how much I love this game.

Music in this game is the best in video game history. Variety is the spice of life right? Well the soundtrack to this will have everyone enjoying it. It can go from heavy metal to calming melodies that are haunting yet entrancing. The music suits every situation and area of the game and makes every area feel epic and not once I thought this is boring. I would sometimes just get myself into a safe area in the game just to listen to the music, yes, it’s that good that I stopped playing just listen to the music.

Controls matter in every game and still even today, they feel perfect. One thing I found myself obsessed by was levelling up in this game, despite playing other games that had RPG elements. I wanted to hit maximum level in everything because you get familiars through your travels which are little pets that assist you and can level up the more you use them. As I said I had played this game initially in Japanese so I played it, sunk in around 15 hours and it had finished, or so I thought. My brother printed off the guide to the game at work because he knew something I didn’t. I did not have internet access until 1999 so I could not search things on the world wide web! So I read this guide, word for word and read about areas that were hidden where if you certain walls, secret items and rooms would appear! This was the first surprise. While continuing to read the guide, it was approaching the end of the game and there was still a good 50-60 pages! I read the last boss fight and it said to continue to the portal after the battle, I stopped reading and sat back and realized I had missed something and it was big. I went back through the guide and found what I missed. I was excited to see what was beyond this portal, after entering it and traveling out of this magic portal I soon realized it was the castle but upside down and the difficulty rammed up. This game has just gotten longer with the same secret locations but with a boss like no other I had ever seen.

If you like platform/rpg/adventure games then check this one out. This is one game every person should play who enjoys video games. To not play it is a sin. You can easily buy this game now on Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network at a steal as to what it is to buy on disc! You can also buy it on the PlayStation Portable in the form of Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles which has a graphically enhanced version of Dracula X Rondo of Blood which was only available at the time in Japan on the PC Engine and an unlock-able version of Symphony Of The Night. This game will never be beaten for my favorite game of all time, I can say this categorically. There are some amazing games, but this one sits atop of them all, superior in every way. Truly epic.

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Max Payne 3 REVIEW

It’s been a long 9 years since Max Payne last graced our TV screens and it’s great to finally see the pill-popping, hard-drinking detective return in the third installment of the Max Payne series.

Still suffering from the death of his wife and child at the hands of some drugged-up junkies, Max is still the same hard-boiled son of a bit*h he was 9 years ago. Only this time he’s moved to Sau Paulo and now works as Security for a rich dude called ‘Rodrigo Branco’. Forgot to mention he’s shaved his head to look extra hard! When Rodrigo’s wife is kidnapped, Max is once again pulled into the world of deception and corruption. Time to load up them guns and put those elbow pads on ready for some diving about on concrete action!!!

The gameplay is as simple as it was back on the PS2 and you can now go into cover, which is handy, so you don’t have to be cannon fodder whilst shooting the bad dudes. Cover is very useful because there is no re-generating health system so you have to be alert when going into a gun fight or you’ll end up dead. Apart from cover, Max has no other new moves, however Bullet-Time is back, as is Shoot-Dodge, and there’s a delightful kill cam that kicks into action as that final bullet leaves your weapon and passes through the gun-wielding baddie.

There is a lot of narrative throughout the game which could annoy players that just want to get down to the nitty gritty, but the the excellent voice acting and cut-scenes are engrossing. It all helps to tell this fantastic story.

With regards to the weapons, there is a decent range on offer. You can carry two side-arms and a two-handed weapon but if you decide to dual-wield, you’ll drop your two-handed weapon. The firefights do look ace as glass shatters and paper shreds throughout the fully-destructible environments.

The single-player campaign should take between 10 and 15 hours to complete depending on what level you play it. There are also a couple of Arcade Modes to keep you busy if you aren’t lucky enough to have an internet connection. ‘New York Minute Mode’ is pretty cool and you are tasked with playing through the campaign against the clock. Each level starts with a 5 minute timer. You earn time by killing bad dudes and it’s pretty addictive.

Rockstar are renowned for making fantastic free-roaming games but Max Payne 3 has a lack of freedom about it as you follow a set pathway so you can’t possibly get lost or not know who to kill. The Arcade Modes do offer a bit more longevity to single-player though which is good because once you’ve completed the story. you will be wanting more.

Now for the bit that i wasn’t looking forward to playing — Multiplayer. The reason i wasn’t looking forward to playing it was because i just had this vision that the multiplayer in Max Payne 3 would be the same as that of Stranglehold. Enjoyable……………for about 20 minutes!

Multiplayer is packed with different modes and whilst i don’t see it being played to death this time in 4 or 5 months, it is an enjoyable experience for the time being. I just don’t see multiplayer getting the fanbase, based on the previous two Max Payne games being purely single-player. It’s always hard when a video game series, renowned for single-player, decides to bash out a multiplayer mode. But that’s the way to go. Multiplayer alone can be the reason people buy a game these days.

GANG WARS is the marquee mode in multiplayer. You play in a gang with other players against another gang and have to complete set objectives such as defusing bombs or assassinating a gang member. Once an objective is complete, branching storylines will change the next objective based on the outcome of the previous round. There are 5 rounds to Gang Wars with the fifth round always being a gun-wielding deathmatch.

PAYNE KILLER sees two players assume control of Max Payne and his partner Raul Passos. Both players will be stacked to the hill with pain killers making it harder for an opposing gang to kill them. If a member of the gang kills Max or Rauol then the that player will assume control of whichever character they killed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-YBpvhKipM

Max Payne 3 has great gameplay, a cracking story and some superb characters. However, there’s a lot of narrative and a lack of freedom. But my personal opinion is that the single-player campaign is so good, you won’t be too bothered about the constant natter because it helps to tell the story. Multiplayer is an exciting new addition with some interesting modes but like i said, needs a fanbase. Overall, Max Payne 3 is a very, very good game.

12 Second Review — An incredible single player campaign and enjoyable multiplayer. Lots of talking and less freedom than other Rockstar games but still great.

GamerSpy Rating 4/5

Platforms — PC, PS3, Xbox 360

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     After five years, two previous critically and financially acclaimed games, and countless man-hours, sleepless nights, and long weekends, the good folks at BioWare have brought us the penultimate pièce de résistance to one of their most beloved franchises: Mass Effect. So, how does BioWare wrap up all the storylines, is the multiplayer worth anything at all, and most importantly, if a Reaper falls on Rannoch without anyone to hear it, does it make its trademark “Whoooooooonnnnnnnnnggggggg” sound? These questions and others will be answered in my review.

STORY

The third and supposedly final installment of Mass Effect ups the ante once again. Far from being just the boogeymen in the dark, believed to be a threat by people like Shepard and splinter groups like Cerberus a la Mass Effect 2, the Reapers have arrived in the Milky Way, and Hell has followed them. Some races are almost entirely wiped out, others are constantly fighting a losing battle, and in the midst of all of this, Commander Shepard has to rally the galaxy’s disparate races to push the Reapers back into dark space. Of course, such a thing is easier said than done, and Shepard must use his/her diplomacy skills as much as his/her gun, all while dealing with Cerberus, which has stopped hiding in the shadows and become a full-scale military operation on its own, and other threats to continued galactic existence. All in all, BioWare’s writers have churned out another gem of a story (open-for-interpretation ending notwithstanding) by bringing together all the storylines, surviving characters, and actions made by the player over the last two games for one doozy of a narrative adventure.

For those who import a character from Mass Effect 2, the game reads all the choices made over the last two games: who survived Virmire and the Suicide Mission, how “complete” your roster of squadmates was in the two previous games, and which decisions you made. And if you choose a clean start, the game notices that, too, bringing you up to speed with two videos (strictly for the PS3 version) and much more narrative input from the supporting characters like Admirals Anderson,  Hackett and Joker. Regardless of how you start, once you get into the meat of the game, you’ll find out that beating the Reapers isn’t as simple as launching a few nukes and giving a few speeches. Depending on how you act towards certain characters, and which decisions you made in previous games, you could find your list of allies growing pretty sparse.

Tough call: which lovable squadmate to kill?

BioWare pulls no punches in this installment, putting some truly sadistic choices in front of you and making you choose one race over another, unless you find some way to take a third option and save both, which brings me to an interesting facet of the story: war assets. As I said, it’s an interesting mechanic because almost everything you do will have an impact on how prepared the galaxy is to strike at the Reapers during the endgame. Several sidequests are just to do with gaining more of these. And make no mistake, if you just blaze down the main path without doing any sidequests, things will get hairy at the end. And speaking of the end, I will not engage in any discussion of the controversial ending, not the least of the reasons being that I’m trying to avoid spoilers for people who haven’t played/finished the game yet. I have made my peace with it, and BioWare is making the Extended Cut DLC as we speak, so let’s move on to…

GAMEPLAY

There is just so much to be said here. Being the third installment, BioWare has learned from the last two games and made the combat in 3 practically spotless. On an initial run, it’s significantly tougher to spot the places where fights will happen, which is one thing Mass Effect 2 was criticized for. After all, how often do you find such a complicated network of waist-high paths on a Quarian research ship unless there was to be some fighting? The architecture and layout of many levels is such that you might be too busy taking in your surroundings to notice the mob of Husks and Marauders making its way to your squad.

I’ll take the boomstick for $2,000, Alex.

But when you do notice, you’ll be able to take them out with your expanded arsenal of weapons and abilities. Like most sequels, there is some Bag of Spilling effect to overcome, meaning that you don’t start with EVERYTHING you ended the previous game with, but you can eventually get everything plus some. One thing I particularly enjoyed was the new weight capacity system given to Shepard. You will by the end of the game have access to quite the arsenal and the ability to upgrade them by themselves and with mods. Yes, they brought back the mods from Mass Effect and with much greater success in my opinion. Every mod changes the look of the weapon it’s modding in some way, whether it’s physical, like a scope on a pistol, or internal, like the armor-piercing mod changing the color of the light emitted by the clip. And while Shepard can use every weapon, whereas squadmates are still limited to two categories, i.e. shotgun and pistol, etc., the weight capacity system keeps him/her from being too powerful. It’s something of a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it keeps the class system from becoming useless, because Adepts and Vanguards rely more on biotic abilities (for you uninitiated, that’s in-universe speak for magic) than weapons, but it also means that much of your arsenal (roughly around 20-30 guns) is left unused.

Insert One-Man Army joke here

For those who imported characters, you start at the same level you ended Mass Effect 2 on, which grants you a nice handful of upgrade points to max out at least one or two skills early on. And you’re gonna need every one of those points you can get, because the developers have said on more than one occasion that they are upping the difficulty as well, with Normal being the new Veteran, which makes me a little wary as to how much tougher Insanity is going to be. As well, you’re going to need to invest your points wisely in your own skills as well as your squadmates’, because the enemy AI is MUCH smarter this time around. Cerberus Engineers will set up turrets to make you take cover while their more generic footsoldier friends lob grenades to flush you from said cover, allowing you to be turned into Shepard Swiss cheese if you aren’t paying attention. And they are by far the easiest. All in all, BioWare set up ME3 to be much harder on players who prefer to lone wolf their way through the story, both on a personal, battle-to-battle level and on that grand galactic scale.

This is true of the multiplayer component as well. For their first outing as a multiplayer studio, with the likes of Call of Duty and Battlefield to compete with, BioWare did a remarkable job with Mass Effect 3’s multiplayer. It’s basically the common soldier’s perspective, even though we’re told that all the characters in the multiplayer are part of an elite group tasked with taking back or holding strategic points in the galaxy, all of which (with the exception of recently released new maps) Shepard visits in singleplayer. You get all the same weapons and abilities as in singleplayer, but you can now choose from almost all named races in the ME universe, including Batarians and Geth, thanks to the Resurgence DLC, and the way you get all the weapons from singleplayer, as well as unlock new classes and multiplayer-specific items like heavy weapons and survival op packs, which refill your life and shields to 100%, is by using the points accrued through kills and finishing objectives to buy equipment packs.

The luck of the draw.

As I said before, teamwork is even more crucial in multiplayer, because enemies will swarm a lone wolf, even on the lowest difficulty. The multiplayer is actually the only place where nitpicks can be genuinely attributed, and they are nitpicks for the most part. Enemies can glitch and not die, thereby causing the round to go on indefinitely. The variety of objectives could also use a few more touch-ups. As it stands, there is the general “kill everything that moves” round, a “kill four specific targets” round, an “activate four randomly placed objects” round, and a “defend an area” round that needs all four people in that same area to make it go by as fast as possible. These are fun and continue to be so, but they will lose their luster over time as people get used to the objectives. The last real nitpick that I’ve seen is the randomness that comes with buying equipment packs, and even then only when you have unlocked almost everything. Then, it becomes almost a waste of money sometimes because you will get something you already have 600 of without any assurance that something you could use, like the Krogan Vanguard class or a super-rare N7 weapon, is coming down the pipe. At that point, it becomes very easy to fall into a Gambler’s Fallacy. You can use actual money if you don’t want to grind for the $60K or $100K needed to buy the best packs, but doing so doesn’t increase your chances of getting anything special.

GRAPHICS/TECH

The site of many an adolescent dream: a planet full of hot alien babes.

Having played the game on both the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360, I really can’t recommend either over the other. They both look pretty much the same, even with the PS3’s cell processor doing most of the heavy lifting and requiring only one disc as opposed to two on Xbox 360. The toss-up here is that on Xbox, you can play the entire trilogy and make the whole series play like you want it to, as opposed to the PS3 ports, which cut out a lot of decisions in their expository video shown while Shepard is being resurrected in 2, and arguably sometime before getting to the first real mission in 3. Very minor appearance bugs make themselves known on both consoles, with enemies passing through walls or getting stuck trying to jump over countertops. And of course, it’s tough to sync words to digital faces, but BioWare does as well as can be expected. The big one, which has since been rectified, was the face import bug that kept a player’s chosen face from importing correctly. This happened only once to me, but it wasn’t such a big deal since I kept the code for recreating my female Shepard’s face. Most multiplayer bugs, like waves restarting due to leaders getting kicked, are a result of internet connections and not so much BioWare’s novitiate status in the arena.

RECAP

For all the fear that Mass Effect 3 wouldn’t live up to the hype surrounding it as March 6^th came upon us, BioWare delivered a solid ending to Commander Shepard’s story. Even if you didn’t agree with how they ended the game and have since sworn to boycott BioWare in future, you must admit that 99% of the game was entirely awesome. After all, in the end, isn’t it the journey that matters, not the destination? The journey to face down the Reapers was certainly worth all the hours logged to me.

FINAL SCORE

10/10 The nitpicks aren’t worth detracting any points, and BioWare did in fact deliver on closing one of the most compelling space dramas this side of the 21^st century.

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Try and Beat some of My Angry Bird High Scores

Post your Scores in the Comments Box, come on see if you can beat me lol

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Square Enix studio, today announces HITMAN®: SNIPER CHALLENGE™, an exclusive standalone pre-order sniper experience, available to play from the moment* customers pre-order their copy of HITMAN®: ABSOLUTION™. The HITMAN: SNIPER CHALLENGE pre-order promotion will be available starting May 15.

HITMAN: SNIPER CHALLENGE is not a part of the main game, but has been created as a bespoke standalone experience to reward fans who pre-order HITMAN: ABSOLUTION.

From a balcony overlooking a roof-top party, you are tasked with taking out Richard Strong, Jr., CEO of Stallion Armaments, along with his entire staff of bodyguards. Skilled players will capitalize on score multipliers, discover secret extras, unlock equipment upgrades, and marvel at the many creative ways one can discretely dispose of a body while they work to fulfil their contract in the most efficient way possible.

The high-powered Kazo TRG sniper rifle and a host of other upgrades can be unlocked and carried over into HITMAN: ABSOLUTION. Also an online leader board will allow players to compare their sniping abilities with players around the world, supported by various challenges to determine who has the best sniping skills. Keep an eye on www.Hitmansniper.com for more details.

“Agent 47 is the best in the business so it seemed appropriate to create the best pre-order reward possible for our fans,” said Jon Brooke, Brand Director of the Hitman Franchise. “HITMAN: SNIPER CHALLENGE is a way of thanking customers and giving them a taste of Agent 47’s skills from the moment they pre-order the game.”

HITMAN: ABSOLUTION is scheduled for global release on November 20^th 2012 for the PlayStation®3 computer entertainment system, Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft and Windows PC. Developed by IO Interactive A/S, a Square Enix studio, HITMAN: ABSOLUTION is not yet rated.

* Customers will be able to pre-order HITMAN: ABSOLUTION from May 15 and will be able to play HITMAN: SNIPER CHALLENGE from May 15 through access to Xbox LIVE® or PlayStation Network. The PC version will be made available through Steam from August 1. Terms of the pre-order programmes will be set by individual retailers in each country where HITMAN: ABSOLUTION is available for pre-order. Please refer to retailers for full terms and details.

Related Links
HITMAN: SNIPER CHALLENGE Official Homepage: www.hitmansniper.com
HITMAN: ABSOLUTION Official Homepage: http://www.Hitman.com
HITMAN: ABSOLUTION Official Facebook® page: http://www.facebook.com/Hitman
Join the HITMAN community: http://www.barcode-society.com

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My first thoughts when I downloaded this game from the Xbox Live Marketplace was “Oh wait, it’s not a full game” which now after playing the game, is perhaps not the best way to grab people’s attention to purchasing this new release however, after writing this review, I hope to change people’s perception of the game.

As I’ve said, The Walking Dead Episode 1 isn’t a full game — its part of a five part series of games that are to be released on a monthly basis. At the start of the game, we meet Lee, a criminal on his way to prison before finding out about the zombie apocalypse at the wrong moment.

Visually, the comic book art-style will definitely appeal to those who enjoyed reading the Walking Dead comic books and reminded me somewhat of the Borderlands game with its vivid colours. The environments that are seen throughout the game vary from woods, housing estates, towns and the recognisable Hershel’s farm from the TV series — all of which have been designed with due care to suit the type of game that Episode 1 is really well.

If you’re expecting thousands of zombies coming at you and you being one man and his shotgun taking them all on, think again. Episode 1 is a point and click game, something I have rarely delved into as a gamer myself so this was something new and different to try out.

For the first hour on Episode 1, I was a bit sceptical on whether or not I would enjoy it. By using the highlighted areas on screen to identify objects that I could interact with and use, this was a lot of a help to a newcomer to the type of game but it still made the game an excitable and real adrenaline rush at certain points and didn’t seem like a total walk in the park with the additional help given to me. Worrying about whether you’re about to see your inevitable death due to the zombie crawling nearer to your legs before you can get that bullet into the shotgun really gets the heart going and for me, standing out of my chair — as it if was going to make my character load the weapon any faster! (There is some logic to this that will be applied in some day and age!) This makes up for the time spent on the slower pace that Episode 1 provides, especially when it comes to the dialogue.

TellTale games have really excelled in The Walking Dead Episode 1 when it comes to the voice acting and the dialogue. Throughout the game, you are required to choose dialogue options, some of which can gain you more information about Lee himself and finding out more about his background or, these can be vital decisions that can change the way the game plays out for you. Most of the choices are choosing between two people to save however, I made a point of doing as much interaction with everyone as I could and through the way that you respond to some of their questions, those people perception of you change which is noted to you through a message appearing in the top left corner.

I think that without the dialogue choices in which I could easily use to gain more information about my character and delay the actual storyline for an extra 5-10 minutes was key in making the game and enjoyable one. Overall, the game can easily be completed within a couple of hours and is an easy game at that, once you know where and what you’re looking for however without the depth that the dialogue brings to the game, then I can imagine Episode 1 would have become a very boring and mundane game rapidly, pushing more people to not like it.

Going back to my point that I made about the game being a relatively easy play through once you know where you’re going,one flaw that I did find with the games is that sometimes, the direction on where you’re going and or what you are looking for is misleading. Without bringing too many spoilers into this review, there was a moment where I had to locate a key which, due to previous conversations, I understood to be under the counter within the drugstore where we were holding up in. I spent a fair amount of time trying to find this key by searching through all of the counters and came up with nothing. After half an hour of wandering around, speaking to everyone and exploring as much as I could, I was finally able to progress with the storyline. As frustrating as this was to begin with, it did force me more into exploring my surrounding areas and trying to just exhaust all possible dialogue options and clicking on all areas that were highlighted for me.

The characters within the game are all new to the franchise apart from the familiar faces of Hershel and Glen which, you can try and consider how this story that’s told within the game can relate to the story that’s been told within the TV series and comic books which, for me, only increases the profundity of the franchise as a whole. Some of the characters could have done with a little more work and thought mind you. Perfect example of this was a reporter that went by the name of Carley who, although could shoot a gun pretty well, kept her extra ammo in the purse and also wasn’t aware on what batteries were. These characteristics just didn’t add up very well within my own mind in the fact that she was able to carry herself with a gun and do it very well, however was too dumb to know what batteries were?! Aside from this, all of the characters presented themselves as unique individuals, all standing for their own beliefs and each had an short but interesting backstory to how they got to where they were, something of which I enjoyed.

As a major lover of zombie games, this really did challenge me on whether I really loved them as much I said I do as it wasn’t really much of a shoot-em-up but a game that presents itself with more concentration on character development and very story oriented which is something that I’ve secretly been waiting for within the zombie games. The game overall is a very short one however, if we consider this including all of the other four episodes, each averaging about 3 hours, then at roughly £4 each, you’ll be getting a decent 15 hour game for the £20 mark and that’s just based on one play through. Consider the fact that you might wish to go back through the game to explore the other dialogue choices and you’ll have racked up perhaps a 25 hour game for £20. Unfortunately, Episode 1 doesn’t offer co-op or multiplayer however I do not think it requires these options as it stands very well on its own two feet as a single player game. The achievements for it are all story related and can be snatched up within the first play through which, to some people, might not give them enough of a reason to go back through the game again but each to their own. I know that I will definitely be playing back through Episode 1 in preparation for Episode 2 coming out in around a months’ time.

The Walking Dead Episode 1 is definitely a game for fans of the franchise and zombie lovers however; you do not require any knowledge of the story that has already been told through the TV and comic book series to understand the game. I think the game is a great way to first get into the Walking Dead franchise and is definitely well worth the money, even if you can quickly complete the game within one night. I’m going to give Episode 1 and 8/10 and I’m really hoping that all of the following episodes keep up the same level that this game has made with a great debut.

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When I sat down to write this piece I was struck with one thought. The games I play lack great villains, or even any villains at all. Maybe it’s just me and the games that I chose to play but it seems that great villains are the preserve of television and films. Now there is one game, a game that took some great comic book villains and turned them into great video game villains. Batman: Arkham Asylum exposed me to the real Batman universe from the comics, and while they tried their best to ruin them with awful boss battles, I fell completely in love with the whole world, villains and all. Of course everyone will always point out The Joker as the great Batman Villain but Bane is the stand out for me. Bane is a top class version of the jacked up juggernaut type villain and has a pretty impressive history against Batman, having previously left him crippled after attacking him in the Batcave.

In the game Bane is used as a tool but I found his boss battles to be the most enjoyable and hardest out of all of them. They were the ones worked most seamlessly into the actual game, unlike others which felt forced and unnatural. The game itself is an amazing insight into the real Batman world. Not being a comic book  reader, I had thought that batman was just the awful batman from the TV shows or the passable Batman from the films but the information you get from Arkham Asylum is amazing and lets you into the world so easily it’s scary. You lean a lot about Batman and the characters who are portrayed in the game but it’s the inrofmation about the characters that weren’t in the game that impresses me the most. The writers obviously have a lot of love for the Comics and that’s shown in the finished game. Now if you excuse me, I have some Batman comics waiting to be read.

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I planned on doing some systematic review of all the games I’ve completed and eliminating them one by one but in the end I decided to go with my gut feeling and that left me with three games; Timesplitters 2, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and Halo 3. I could honestly select any of these games as my favourite and I love them all for different reasons, but as I am playing Halo 3 again currently I decided to go for that.

I got an Xbox 360 in 2008 after owning Playstation consoles all my life. I had heard so much about the Halo series that I was naturally curious as to what all the fuss was about and initially I was a little confused. The only FPS I’d ever really played was Timesplitters so to go to this was a big step up but little by little, piece by piece, it all started to make wonderful sense.

Graphically, for its time, it was outstanding. Having made do with the pixelated vistas of the Playstation 2 for far too long, this was like a breath of fresh air. Light bounced off the water with an almost glass like sheen, enemies moved fluidly and everything just looked much more real than anything I had seen before. Set in the future amidst a spectacular backdrop of cliff sides, planets and spaceships, blasting hordes of alien foes had never looked so good. This is accompanied by the dramatic and epic score expressly composed for the Halo series by Marty O’Donnell that has become, over time, an integral part of the series. This terrific score is backed by excellent voice work from the entire cast and it all slots together perfectly to give the game great presentation throughout.

Arguably the face of Xbox, the iconic Master Chief.

At the time I had never sampled online gaming before and I wasn’t feeling brave so I made the educated decision to hone my skills in the single player arena first. Taking the easy way out (again) I stuck it on the easiest difficulty and blasted through it with little resistance in about eight hours. Finishing the game I was still wondering what all the fuss was about. Having not played the first two games in the series I struggled to understand the story, the AI did not appear as advanced as reviews had led me to believe and the whole thing left me a bit flat. It was not that there was anything particularly ‘wrong’ with the game; I just hadn’t made that connection with it. Yet.

A number of months later, having dumped the game to the bottom of my pile convinced I would never play it again, my friend asked me to play through the co-op campaign on the hardest difficulty with him. Reluctantly I agreed, finding myself in need of a challenge. So we booted up the first mission, and I leisurely strolled though, naively believing I could repeat the same tactics that brought success on the easier difficulty. And then I died…. And then I died again… All of a sudden the moronic AI had been replaced with plasma wielding harbingers of death. Even the lowly grunts suddenly posed a huge threat when attacking in numbers. Having ran away with our tails between our legs, we decided to recruit two of our other friends to the cause and eventually, through blood, sweat and tears (and a bucket load of Red Bull) we prevailed. Tired and battle weary, yet still hungering for more, we went back in pursuit of all the achievements, eventually earning the totally brutal ‘Annual’ for completing the final level, on legendary, with everyone driving ghosts. From that moment I was hooked.

The multiplayer battles were truly epic.

Yearning for more but having bled dry the single player, I summoned up the courage and jumped into the online arena. By this time the game had been out for a while and the majority of players were used to the map layouts and weapon spawns so predictably, I got my ass handed to me again and again. Once again I recruited a four player party and slowly but surely, I began to find my feet. The map layouts and weapon spawns became engrained in my memory taking the place of much less important knowledge, like my psychology A-Level, for instance. Killing sprees became killing frenzies. Every day at college was spent analysing last nights tactics and how they could be corrected. The maps were simple but engaging, often symmetrical, but they never got boring to play and the weapons were powerful but balanced. When you died you knew it was because you had been outplayed, not screwed over by the game.  Then, as if Bungie were in our heads listening to our thoughts, just as the game began to get repetitive they dropped a map pack, and then another, and all of a sudden the game was fresh again. Halo 3 was the game that got me into online gaming, and it will always hold a special place in my collection for that. The memories; the no scope from across the map, the first overkill extermination, the first random sticky grenade kill, these are the moments that make Halo 3 such a cherished game in the hearts of many.

Halo 3 is a game that any Xbox 360 owner should play, regardless of the fact that it is now five years old. It still holds its own against the forerunners in the FPS genre and was a defining game in making the Xbox 360 as successful as it is today. Overall I would give the game a 9/10 as it was not perfect but it showed what the machine was capable of and led the way for the games we take for granted now. If you have never sampled this game then I implore you to pick it up cheap. Halo 3 sits happily at the top of my favourite games list, and it won’t be moving anytime soon.

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