Pile 09: Dead Space Completed

I've been a little quiet on the Pile of Shame front, this is mainly down to one of the reasons I saw as a threat to the campaign, a new game. Not a new game being added to the list of course, but a new game which is out/coming out. Now this new game may or may not be added to the list, it isn't after all one which I have held off since last year like most of the rest of the games on the list. But it's like this; Mercenaries 2 is the last priority game on my list. Once I have finished that I may not play the rest of the games in order, or they may be put on hold for longer as newer games come out. Some I may not get round to at all, and this blog may even stop after that. It's hard to tell. What I do know is that I am quite proud to have gotten to the point where I am now, once Mercs 2 is over that will be 10 out of the 25 games I listed at the beginning of April completed.

Dead Space was a game I really had to get myself into, not the friendliest place to be, that ship. The scares in the game come from the tension and most of the sound. Even when you're walking through the safest area you can still hear stuff going on. I played on medium as that's the mode I selected last year when I bought the game, the save game keeps track of how long you've been playing it, it's not to hand right now I'm afraid but it must have been around 11 hours. Not all that tricky either, I think I may have gotten away with playing the game on hard.

The weirdest parts of the game where when it threw mini-games your way, I think I missed some sort of shooting range, but I found the Zero-G basketball court, and the asteroid blasting mini-game, which was essential to the completing of the game, took me by surprise.

Once again, another ending which leaves the game open for a sequel, which I think we all know is coming in some form. I enjoyed it, though it was a bit of an ordeal playing at night.

Pile of Shame: Additional?

I'm thinking about adding the following games to the list. Or at least maybe starting on one or two of these after I'm done/have given up on the PS360 list.

Pile 09 additions

PC:
Aquaria
HL2 Episode 2

PSP:
Phantasy Star Portable
Patapon
Patapon 2
Resistance Retribution
Crisis Core
Monster Hunter Freedom 2
Liberty City Stories
Metal Gear Solid Portable Ops
Socom Fireteam Bravo 2
Killzone Liberation
Syphon Filter Dark Mirror
Dead Head Fred
God of War Chains of Olympus
Chili Con Carnage

PS2:
Okami
Yakuza
Yakuza 2
Dark Chronicle
Fahrenheit
Tomb Raider Anniversary
Ico
Shadow of the Colossus
Final Fantasy XII

Pile 09: Resistance 2 Complete, Dead Space is the next game.

Completed Resistance 2 the other night just there and it's taken me a while to get round to reporting this. And I've already started on the next game which is of course Dead Space.

Resistance 2 did cause a little bit of a challenge for me, it was not common to die at least twice between checkpoints and I really had to stick in with it. It's one of those games where you do have to hold back when being confronted by a room full of enemies and sometimes you have to hunt out the best places to pick people off from, even if it means you have to die in the process. Some great moments in the last couple of chapters though, especially the section made famous by Ted Price's 2008 E3 presentation (where he almost died stuck beside a couch, I'll see if I can find the video to add to this post). Definitely a highlight. Another great bit which I felt they could have drawn out longer was the power you obtain after defeating the final boss where you drop all weapons and use some sort of "force" ability to obliterate all enemies. It's a shame though as you only have it for the 4 minutes the game gives you to escape.

The ending was interesting too, it keeps the story open for continuation, but it looks as if you'll be playing another character. Hopefully that won't spoil too much, basically Resistance 2 went where MGS 4 failed to, with the welfare of it's lead character.



Dead Space is up next. I'm on Chapter 3, played it for a couple of minutes yesterday to get a feel for the game again, reacquaint myself with the controls.

One of the big surprises of last year and a feature of many gamers top 5s of 2008. EA's Redwood Studios took on the task of creating a survival horror game in space. So parallels to Alien aplenty. The reason I didn't too far through it was simply because there were too many other games to distract me. Plus you kind of have to really get into these survival games, I'm never too keen on having to preserve ammo or micro manage my weapon upgrades, but I'm going to stick by this as it is so revered.

I just need to make sure I play it during the day, good job I'm off tomorrow.

Pile 09: Resistance 2

I've been working on Resistance 2 for a couple of days now and I am making some good ground. it's one of those games where I came to a wall which I just couldn't get over until I left the game alone for a couple of months. Basically I came to an area in Idaho (Chapter 3) where I faced up to these 2, maybe 3 Titans in a park area (with a bandstand and a Bellock grenade launcher in the middle). Managed to flatten them on the second attempt the other day though.

I'm near the end of Chapter 5 though (out of 7) just to give you an idea of where I am. I think I'm just about to face up to a boss in a moment.

Yeah I've had Resistance 2 since it came out last year. I have been playing it a fair bit though since then, just not so much in the single player mode as the game is noted for it's excellent multiplayer, particularly the Co-op campaign, which of course is separate from the single. No slouch in one-player mode though. Resistance Fall of Man notoriously took me a while to get round to finishing too, it's just lucky for me that I am quite close to the end of this. But goodness it's a toughie, once again I am playing normal mode but this time it is a bit of a challenge.

Pile 09: Prince of Persia Complete

Yesterday morning I managed to complete Prince of Persia. This was 3 days after I blogged about starting it, managing to strike another game off my list. That's 7 games from my list I've managed to finish off.

PoP was exactly what I was expecting it to be, a nice little diversion from shooting and a great action platformer. Nothing too challenging and a great adventure. I didn't quite 100% it though, I still have about 350 odd Light Seeds to collect, I made a separate save game file before heading back to the temple for the final showdown just in case I wanted to go back and collect everything. The fact that I did press on to complete though did help me get two trophies though, one for completing the game in under 14 hours and one for relying on Elika to save me less than 100 times. I may not have got these if I wanted to run around the map collecting the rest of these seeds.

I almost missed the final ending too, I won't spoil the game but there's a point after you beat the final boss where some credits roll and you're still controlling the prince after they've finished. I assumed that this was to allow you to go back into the map and collect the rest of the seeds but you don't have Elika with you at this point so it would have been pointless.

But after a bit of experimentation I worked out what to do and completed the whole thing before heading to work. Was almost late too after the real credits rolled.

So another success, let's see how I fare in my next game.

Pile 09: Prince of Persia

Prince of Persia is the next game on the list. And it may be important, though a bit obvious, that this is the current generation PoP game which came out at the end of last year. The above image shows my progress, it's one of those games which does not follow a certain path so it's not one I can say "oh, I'm up to this part" with too easily. You can see that I have completed 6 of those locations with 15 more to go, 16 if you include that temple there.

It's a game which I made sure I added to the list as I really wanted to play it. It was a great change in pace compared to the other games I was playing at the time (shooters mostly), a nice platform action title which isn't too much of a challenge, due to the fact that you have this woman following you around who fishes you out of trouble at every opportunity. In that way it's kind of the opposite of ICO in that your companion rescues you all the time rather than you having to babysit them.

The Prince of Persia name is one I've been familiar with for many years now. I used to own the classic version on the old Atari ST and bought it again as a downloadable title the other year there. I never got round to really playing the PS2 series though I do own the first and third title. One day I guess I will get round to playing those.

Pile 09: Lost and Damned Complete

A little late with this update, well, a day late which isn't too bad. But I didn't update all that much when i was actually playing the game.

I'm also not around my console to make a note of my post completion statistics this time either and I probably won't get around to posting these this time, but as it's GTA there is a high chance that I will only just be over 50% game complete as there is always so much to do. I never bothered with the races or the cards or the arm wrestling, I was only interested in getting the story completed.

An interesting final battle, this really is the difference between GTA and Saints Row, well one of the differences. SR has what you would call "bosses" while L&D finishes with a battle and then an adversary who did not appear to be armed. I was a little disappointed that I missed a context sensitive encounter with him too as I chose to mow him down with a machine gun rather than my pistol.

What I also never noticed until I watched the ending credits though was that Frankie Boyle is in the game! If you have L&D just pop along to Split Sides and there he is, motion capped just like Ricky Gervais was. Also like Gervais he does not hold back on the material included, it really is some of his most extreme stand up, which of course has been taken from his live stand up DVD, which itself is made up of content taken from his various TV appearances.

Still, nice to hear Scottish voices in video games. Ok the next game I am going to be working on is Prince of Persia!

A blast from the past.

Pile 09: Lost and Damned

A bit of a change in my plans now. Previously I stated that I would go on to play Killzone 2 as part of my ongoing Pile of Shame campaign as I was already a couple of levels into it. Well this is not the case any more; basically my PS3 died on Tuesday and this was when I actually sat down to play KZ2. I have a replacement now, Sony were good to get me a new console out in 2 days (much better than my ordeal with MS a couple of years back when they took 2 months just to send DHL out to pick up my broken 360 and then a further 4 weeks to send me a working one). But the problem was that I had to format my 120gig hard drive which I saved from my old machine, I did back up my game saves over a month ago so most of the games on my list are ok (I've lost my completed Saints, MGS and FEAR 2 files though) but I've always known that Killzone 2's save file was not copyable. Neither is SF4s so I'm going to have to play the offline game in easy mode just to unlock everyone again.

During the 2 days when i was PS3-less I just started on the next 360 game on the list which was Lost and Damned (the DLC for GTA4), I will go back to Killzone 2 eventually but it's now further down the list as I am right back at the start.

I think I actually got a good way through L&D in the 2 days I played it for, these were my days off work this week so i was able to give it a good bit of time, problem I have with GTA though is that I can't really sit and play it for too long as I do get a bit of fatigue. At some point I will hit a wall, can't play any further, then the next day I will pick it up again and carry straight on with it. It's hard to tell how far through it I am too, though I haven't paid a visit to the stats screen yet. Also the story in GTA is sometimes a bore to follow too, it's funny but there's never much in the way of plot aside from your usual gang/mobster bobbins. At the moment I'm working my way through one of Elizabetha's missions, I've done there one where you have to stop the convoy at the toll booth, I'm on the next one where in the intro you find out a bit more about her.

What I like about L&D in relation to GTA 4 is that this is the games equivalent of one of those "Stories" games (Liberty City Stories, Vice City Stories), it's just that it doesn't need to be released separately, just a couple of hundred megs in a download and that's it. The story runs at the same time as GTA 4 but like with Stories, you're playing as a character that only has a brief showing in the original game, but you still come across characters which impact it. I mentioned Elizabetha before, she is one of the NPCs that gives you missions in the main game but you don't find out exactly what happens with her in GTA 4, maybe you will hear more in L&D?

Anyway I shouldn't have much more to do, when I get further I will update.

Pile 09: F.E.A.R 2 Project Origin Complete

Perhaps the shortest title I've had to finish off so far (and a scary picture to accompany this update too).

Well when i say short I don't mean the actual game was short, though it was actually quite short all in all this one. It was only yesterday when I blogged about me beginning to finish off FEAR 2 and tonight I managed to reach the end. Yesterday I said I was on level 6 of 14, less than halfway through, last night I managed to reach 11 and that was me just completing it there. Some of the levels are actually quite short, some of them are great when they let you control one of those big mech thingys. Not quite as scary as I was worried about too.

I did quite enjoy playing through the game. Not all reviewers were that kind to the game and indeed it isn't the best looking game out there, but it is quite a satisfying shooter with some of it;s weapons. Towards the end of the game it let's you use the sniper rifle and rewards you with a trophy for getting 10 head shots. The shotgun is also one of the best I've used in a game too.

As for the ending, well I won't spoil it like Wikipedia did for me, but it does make you go "oh" a bit and sets up the next game in the series. As for the characters, ever play a game or watch a film where you just know that certain characters are going to snuff it? Playing the last level you're accompanied by your lieutenant, at one point I just said to myself "I don't fancy her chances to be honest".

Well Pile 09 is going well, that's me 5 games down now. I've worked out an order to do the next couple of games:

Killzone 2 (The next one I'll be playing)
Prince of Persia
Resistance 2
Dead Space
Mercanaries 2
GTA 4 Lost and Damned

I shall do a bit of a write up of KZ 2 soon.

Pile 09: F.E.A.R 2: Project Origin

Well this one's going to be a little annoying to write out each time. Still it's not as bad as S.T.A.L.K.E.R and whatever subtitles that game has these days.

I'm not at the point where I have basically finished the games from my priority list where I was already a "good" way into the game. From this point on I will be finishing off games where I may only have got 3 levels into it. FEAR 2 is actually quite helpful when playing through for the first time as the trophies list how many levels the game has, in other words there is a trophy for each level. A quick shuftie of these tells me that I am currently on level 6 of 14, so almost half way through.

FEAR 2 then. I sort of bought this on impulse when it came out, knowing full well that Street Fighter 4 and Killzone 2 were coming out. I was totally new to the FEAR series, all I knew what that the game was only worth bothering with on PC and that it was by the guys who did Condemned (and also No One Lives Forever, it would seem). The game is an FPS of a sort of horror genre. Like I said I'm totally new, it kind of looks like the sort of game people would mistake for a Survival Horror but I feel that the game gives you too much ammunition to allow you to make this judgement.

It's known for it's excellent AI too, enemy soldiers (so far in the game I have faced both soldiers and weird mutant creatures) will take cover by knocking over tables etc. I'm going to have to close Wikipedia there as I have just read a MAJOR spoiler, thanks a lot, pricks.

Anyway, I'm a bit of a scaredy cat, I played up to level 6 just fine but I tried playing the game late last night and it just creeped me out without throwing any enemies at all at me so I think I'll be playing this in the morning.

Pile 09: Rainbow Six vegas 2 (Completed)

Last night I completed Rainbow Six Vegas 2. Once again I had the help of a member of my X Box Live friends list who was most helpful. And this was lucky, as I tried playing a bit of Act 6 myself and I just could not do it without tearing my hair apart. You may remember from last time that I got as far as the 6th act and I knew I had one more to do after that. Act 6 forces you to play along, no support from your team mates. Luckily though you can still enlist the help of a co-op partner, this was most helpful as if you die you can respawn. Also on act 6 you do not get access to the satellite radar thingy, plus it's as dark as anything so you have to play it all with night-vision.

The last section was brief and finally you get a chance to storm the Villa from the multiplayer maps, so it was a good chance to use the ol shotgun. Then there was the last battle, once again in the single player mode you are meant to be on your own, but I had a buddy with me as I was playing in co-op.

Well that's a game I've had for over a year finished. It's time to get back onto a game I got recently. I think I will do FEAR 2 next.

Pile 09: RSV2 Update

Played a good bit of this last night with the help of a friend online.

Thats a good thing about this game, it has the ol' drop-in drop-out co-op. Plus when a friend does join, the game becomes a little easier as you can respawn after you die. That's as long as your friend stays alive himself for 10 seconds. It sounds like it makes the game too easy but then a little bit of help is much appreciated as this game can get pretty tough, especially, as I mentioned before, when one enemy across the other side of the room can take you down with just a couple of shots.

Making some god progress now. I mentioned last time that I was on Act 4, the Convention Centre. Thanks to the help I got last night I am now up there on Act 6. The last part of Act 4 was a bit of a highlight, that was where you get to a Monorail station. Good for 2 reasons, first that you get to take part in a long range firefight with enemies across a series of walkways before getting into the station. Plus there's the whole disarming of the bomb which although you don't interact with it in any way, is still kind of exciting as you don't know if its going to go off in your team mates face.

Act 5 was the theatre. Some bits were similar to another section of RSV1, I remember there being an operah house of some sort. The thing about playing a story game in co-op is that sometimes your friend may talk over dialogue and this is what happened at the end of this act. i would have liked to have known what was happening as we were in the chopper with someone who looked a little similar to Sam Fisher (he of Splinter Cell), interesting as the Clancy games have been known to cross over.

So, like I said, not much longer to go. Checking an FAQ just now and it's saying I have 2 more acts to go. Act 6 in the Nevada Dessert and Act 7 "Estate" (which unlike the others, has 3 parts instead of the 4). It could be finishable tonight, then it's time to prepare for the next phase in Pile 09

Pile 09: Rainbow Six Vegas 2

So the point I'm at according to my save game is "Exhibition Part II". A quick check of Gamefaqs tells me this is Act 4: Scene 2 and that there are 7 acts in all, so I'm more than half way through.

Booted this up for a shot last night, I think before I must have been in Exhibition part 1 before. I also had a shot of the game online before I finished Gears off as I noticed a couple of friends were playing it. Kind of fun, still a little laggy as the game has always been which is a bit of a shame.

The original Rainbow Six Vegas was at some point my most favourite game of this generation, way back before PS3, Call of Duty 4 and Street Fighter 4 came out. It was the last game I played often online with friends before I nipped over to PS3 with Call of Duty 4 (around the time the 360 lot took up COD4 too and that was the end of RSV). It managed to see off CoD2, 3, Gears of War 1, and GRAW as the main game we would all play. I love the pacing of the game, plus the fact that it had the option for no respawns as that can really put you on edge. Unfortunatly now many of the other modes than the deathmatch based ones would get a look in, but the Terrorist Hunt option (co-op against AI) proved to be very popular when RSV started to die down.

RSV2 was over looked when it came out sue to there being other games out, this was just after the winter of 2007 which saw Halo 3 and Call of Duty 4. Plus RSV2 looked a bit dated and too similar to it's predecessor when it arrived. I had the game for both PS3 and 360 (I got the 360 version first and got further into the game which is why it's the version I'm playing here). A couple of my friends who refused to be taken in by CoD 4 (fools) took this up instead and played constant Terrorist Hunt games, levelling up their ranks so they could unlock extra weapons.

But of course as with the rest of the Pile of Shame, it's the single player game I'm tackling, though there is an opening for co-op if I ever recieve a message from a friend as the whole thing can be played with 3 players. It's the same tactical first person shooter the series has worked towards since it first appeared on console. cann be a little tricky and sometimes frustrating, enemies can put you down with just a couple of shots so you really need to make use of the games cover mechanic, plus command your AI team mates into all the right spots in order to survive.

Like I said, I'm more than halfway through so it shouldn't take an age. I think the reason I stopped playing the game before was because of other games. Or maybe even the fact it was on 360 which I was starting to play a little less. But now with Pile 09, I have to concentrate on one game at at time, and it's time to finish RSV2.

Pile 09: Gears of War 2 Completed

Well, that's another one in the bag.

Unfortunately GoW2 did not provide me with a list of stats upon completion. Needless to say though, it did not take as long as MGS4 to finish off and I only had one act to do.

The Brumak was a lot of fun to ride and I was wondering what part of the game would feature that section as it was one of the bits previewed before the game released. Quite easy to finish off at the end too, different to RAAM at the end of Gears 1 which was a pain in the bum. There was a section in the last act though which did cause problems for me and that was the one where you had to secure this courtyard. This was mainly because Dom had the sniper rifle and I had to make do with the useless flamethrower :S

Anyhoo, thats the first 360 game completed as part of Pile 09 and I think it's about time we had an updated list:

Still to complete:

PS3

Folklore

Dead Space

Prince of Persia

Assassins Creed

Army of Two

Mercanaries 2

Battlefield Bad Company

Far Cry 2

Fallout 3

F.E.A.R 2

Killzone 2

HAWX

360

Bioshock

Mass Effect

Ninja Gaiden 2

Rainbow Six Vegas 2

Tomb Raider Underworld

Fable 2

Grand Theft Auto 4: The Lost and Damned

Braid

Castle Crashers.

Completed:

Saints Row 2

Metal Gear Solid 4

Gears of War 2

Think I may go for Rainbow Six Vegas 2 for the next one.

Pile 09: Gears of War 2

Ta da!

And now we're onto the next. To be honest there wasn't much ground for me to cover in MGS 4 as I was already a good way through it, but the point of this isn't for me to cover entire games, more to just update the progress on my unfinished games.

Gears 2 is sort of similar, I left it alone on the second last "act" where I developed a bit of "fatigue" while getting through a certain part hoping that when I return to it I will just breeze through. And that's exactly what happened with me on Gears 2 last night.

I left the game on the last section of Act 4 earlier this year, fighting the boss (Skorge apparently) who I could not beat for some reason. I kept falling victim to the gas he through. Last night I booted the game up and beat him first time, continuing onto the "on rails" shooting section (the name of the transport escapes me).

So that's where I am. Gears 2 then, or Gears in general. Well I picked this as I felt it was time to do a 360 game. I have less games to complete on 360 as I buy less. The original list I made included a couple of "priority" games, mainly ones which, like MGS4, I am already a good way through and on 360 it includes just Gears 2 and Rainbow Six Vegas 2. Don't get me wrong, there are a couple of other decent 360 games I'm dying to play, Tomb Raider Underworld, the Lost and Damned expansion for GTA 4. But I felt it best to get through all the games I've almost finished first before starting on any others, that way I can enjoy them from the start.

I do enjoy Gears of War, the online section has been a great blast in the past for me and friends. It's just that the friends I have on 360 never play it, it's pretty much just Call of Duty over there with a bit of Halo 3 on Wednesdays (something maybe for a Pile side project, I bought the Mythic pack and have yet to give it a shot). But the single player game has enough action to keep you interested for the time it lasts. And unfortunately one of the main complaints directed at GOW is that it never lasts too long.

So, this should be over quickly, in fact it could be another one evening affair.

Pile 09: MGS4 Update (edit: completed game)

Time for an update on this finally.

Managed to get round to playing MGS4 this weekend. It's been a little hard to just get on with this, MGS is a game you usually need to set a little time aside for as you never know when it's going to hit you with a 45 minute long cut scene.

Act 4 was where I got up to before I stopped playing the game last year. I had reached a room where I was attacked by 2 Geckos in the one room and I was not able to sneak around them. The day after I finished Saints Row 2 I booted the game up to get a feel fro the controls again and I just managed to run through that room. It turned out I was just 2 rooms away from the battle against Vamp. Now I'm at the point where I'm facing Screaming Mantis on Outer Haven.

It would be a lot of work to cover the story in this game to be honest. One of the biggest things about the series is the plot, I think I've said before that it involved a lot of plot twists and sometimes it;s hard to keep up. There's enough spectacle to keep your eyes riveted, and enough appearances from classic characters you recognise.

I was really impressed with the Metal Gear Rex sections, particularly the battle with Ray (piloted by Liquid Snake).

The first section on Outer Haven had me pulling my hair out though as I could not work out how to sneak my way past all the Frogs and the Geckos. This was until I took to slithering my way down on my belly and knocking everyone out with my Pistol.

Screaming Mantis is causing a couple of problems. I know how to beat him/her but it's taking a bit of an effort to aim for the two dolls on either side. Should give this a bit more time this week. But it looks like there's little left to do in MGS 4.

Additional: Rather than make a new post I thought I'd edit this one to add that I managed to finish the game today too. Bloody hell what a long ending. The last Act too, though if you skipped all the cut scenes there probably isn't all that much gameplay. But of course this is to be expected of MGS.

I really should try to avoid spoilers on this blog, so I won't go near there with this game. Let's just say that is one massive ending with a couple of major surprises, the final battle too wasn't something I was expecting to take the shape that it did. Took me a couple of attempts too. I was actually quite lucky to have been kept away from all the spoils with this one. When I told a colleague of mine that I had not finished it and was looking forward to doing so because I still did not know what happened at the end, he was quite surprised.

But that's the end of yet another Pile 09 game, one more scored off the list. Now I just need to work out what the next game should be.

Ok time for some stats:

Total Play Time: 18:08:13
Continues: 34
Alert Phases: 102
Kills: 337
Recovery Items Used: 43
Weapon Types Procured: 36
Flashbacks Watched: 176
Special Items used: None


And as I did this with SR I might as well do it here, I finished the game on Solid Normal. Plus I confered the title of "Hyena".

Just saw this

Loosely connected with Pile 09.

Keep Watching this, it gets brilliant.

Twitter

Oh, I'm on Twitter now @Yaster

So look out for smaller bitesized updates on my progress with Pile 09

Pile 09: Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots

OK then, time to press on.

After successfully completing Saints Row 2 the other night it is time to turn my attention to another unfinished (by me) classic. I've picked Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots as the next title to finish as I wasn't all that far from completing it the last time I picked it up. If memory serves me I had gotten as far as Act 4, in fact I'm a little bit into it, there's 5 acts in total so this one shouldn't take me too long. For the record I had just beaten Crying Wolf and got into a couple of rooms further where I kept getting killed by those massive walking tanks, the names of which will probably come back to me when I start playing again.

Really enjoyed MGS 4 when I played it last year. Was never a massive fan of MGS before, when the original came out it just seemed a little, well boyish, to me. It was all the military terminology throughout plus all the stealth which I could not be bothered with. And it took me ages to get round to playing MGS2 which I finally did after I had played a shit load of FPS and military based games. I think the story put me off a little too, MGS is notoriously convoluted in it's narrative with it's many twists and politics. I never followed it. But I've realised now that although the series is loaded with cut scenes and speech the most important part is the spectacle and the absurdity.

What I did like about MGS4 this time was that the much complained about controls had been improved over previous games and this is because the game is much influenced by western FPS. Now the shoot button is on the shoulder (R1) and aim is on the other (L1). Rather than being top down the game resembles a 3rd person shooter a lot more than it's predecessors. Although I had eventually made my way through parts 1 and 2, this installment in the series felt the best to me. Which was lucky as we're living in a time where all "serious" gamers play games with almost identical control set ups and MGS just had to adapt.

So I don't have the luxury of having a couple of days off this time around so I will be playing this game late in the evening and possibly early in the morning, but like I said, it shouldn't take me too long.

Pile 09: SR2 finished.

Well it just shows what you can do when you put your mind to it.

Last night I was up until 3am with this one and it was only around 4 in the afternoon when I blogged about finishing the Sons of Samedi plotline. I managed to beast through the Brotherhood before taking on the final Ultor missions. Some of the later missions in the Brotherhood are quite difficult. The one where you have to rescue Pierce and Shaundi and fend off SWAT teams and the like was quite frustrating, not to mention the finale where you fly the helicopter up to the top of the building as they're sending other helicopters and you really can't take any damage from them.

I'll admitt to having Gamefaqs open at the time. Which is what I normally do to check how far through the game I am by checking what level I'm on. I also had a look to see if there was anything I miseed. Turns out that the old Saints Church was a landmark that totally passed me by. Not that surprising as in the story the old Saints District has totally changed and is the only area not controlled by any gans so the game rarely asks you to go in there. You find the old church which sits clean in front of the Ultor Headquarters. Pop inside and you're treated to an audio guide narrated by none other than your old boss Julius. And this is the location of a top/difficult secret mission if you're willing to snoop around the police station before heading there.

Ok some states before I move on. The save game on the XMB handily gives me a couple of stats:
65% Completed
Time Playing: 20 hours 3 minutes
55 Missions completed
45/45 Neighbourhoods Owned

And I don't mind admitting I played the game on Normal difficulty. So It's a little like San Andreas where finishing the story is really only half the game. That being said the other half is probably all those diversion missions I couldn't be bothered with. What I might be able to give a hoot about is the DLC coming this month (a couple of extra missions) so I may keep a hold of my copy for that.

But In the meantime the main thing is the think about the next Pile of Shame game to work through. I'm going to give it some thought today but at the moment it's looking to be Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. I'll keep you updated.

Pile 09: Saints Row 2

Been making a bit more progress in Saints Row 2. Now I've completed not only the Ronin plotline but also the Sons of Samedi story too. I've realised what was holding the last Ronin mission off. Another blast from the past was the Stronghold missions which you need to finish before you gain access to the finalies. Plus it looked as if I was further into the Sons plot than I thought so it didn't take long to finish that one off.

Beating the General was a bit of a challenge, especially when he took to beasting around the Mall in that armoured car. I had to quit and stock up on RPG ammo before I posed any threat to him.

The respect meter is getting to be a bit of a pain now that I've completed the first couple of levels in most of them. I have however raised my style meter by purchasing all properties and "pimping" them up, that should help me out. Fortunately your respect meter does fill up somewhat when you are playing the actual missions, especially if you're killing plenty of rival gang members.

So all I have left is the Brotherhood story and no doubt a couple of extra missions at the end and I should be done with Saints Row 2.

OAPodcast - Episode 7

Contributors - Bytor, DaddyR, DudleydaCat, Scarface_1979, Stuart_R, TheNewSaint, Yaster Date - 29/03/09 Running time - 102 minutes Link - Episode 7 (right click and save as to avoid it playing in your browser), or go to iTunes (see below). Contents

• Hello!
• New joiners
• This month's upcoming Events Hot Topic - Killzone 2 vs SOCOM Confrontation
• What we are currently playing
• Bye!

As before drop your comments and thoughts about this podcast below. Any more ideas for the Hot Topic can go into the Hot Topic thread. You could set up an ever so fancy RSS feed in iTunes or on your PSP. Yes, we are on iTunes! A big thanks to HaloJ for keeping the technical gubbins sorted when an eejit like me comes trampling along. To subscribe in iTunes go to Advanced>Subscribe to podcast... and then enter the following URL into the pop-up box. On your PSP type this URL into the browser window and it will then ask if you want to save it as an RSS feed. Say Yes obviously.

RSS Feed:

http://www.oaps.org/podcasts/oap/feed.xml

Pile of Shame: Saints Row 2

First game then. Well I don't think I should stick to any order here, though going through it one by one makes sense. Also I have a rule. If I lose the "oomph" to finish a game because I am just not enjoying it, I remove it from the list. This should be most helpful for getting through everything, especially considering the fact there are a couple on that list which I have litterally only played once.

Saints Row 2? A game which I bought at launch (it came out 17th October 2008) and only got as far as a couple of missions in. The original Saints Row came out for Xbox 360 way back in what I think was 2006. I played it all the way through to the end. I think it was mainly because I was looking for that GTA fix (2004 for San Andreas, 2008 for GTA4, we were in the middle of a long wait). The game really did look like a blatant rip off, almost down to the fact that I started to feel a little embarassed by it on behalf of the developer. You get other games which fall under the same genre as GTA and ones which do look as if they are directly influenced by it, such as Mercenraies (Mercs 2 being another Pile game) but they manage to pull it off as they fall under a different setting. You might think that Elder Scrolls 4 Oblivion and Fallout 3 are influenced by GTA too in a way. Saints Row is almost exactly the same as GTA. In fact SR is actually the game a lot of people think GTA actually is.

With GTA maturing more and more with each new installment in both story telling and character development, Saints Row managed to remain in the whole "silly"/OTT camp. A lot closer to San Andreas than any other game, you play a nameless and (inittially and only in SR1) voiceless character via a character creation function, a local of the fictional city of Stillwater. Getting caught up in a fight between a couple of the local street gangs you are rescued by a leading member of the 3rd Street Saints who you will become a member of and help run the other gangs out of town.

Saints Row 2 has you playing the same character, though because you appeared to get blown into 7 pieces at the end of the first game you get to remodel yourself once more in a much more varied customisation tool, more varied in the way it lets you change your gender (so we can have a female protagonist for the first time) and a voice (so your character has dialog this time round). You return top the city after being in a coma for 5 years to find it is slightly redesigned. Maybe not to the point San Vanelona was in Skate 2, you'll probably find many familiar spots in this city if you have played the original.

The set up the of the game follows GTA closely. You control your character while they are on foot and in vehicles (which are avaliable for you to jack within the streets of Stillwater), in order to progress you visit marked locations on your map in the order of your choice. The aim in the game remains the same as SR1, there are 3 main plotlines which lead the the destruction of each of the 3 other gangs. You do not have to follow each plotline one by one, you can do the first couple of missions for one, change to another and continue the first later on.

Which brings me onto the main focus of my Pile posts, explaining my progress through the game. One of the 3 "other" gangs is the Ronin who take the form of a japanese biker gang. I've done one of the Brotherhood missions and about 5 of the Sons of Samedi missions. I think I'm almost all the way through the Ronin plotline, there must be one final mission the game won't allow me to access (and it's not because I don't have a low respect level, more about that soon). Basically the Ronin are led by a young chap named Shogo Akuji and funded by his father who during the story is flown over from Japan to sort out the mess his son has created. The plot of this gang is similar to the Vice Kings story of the previous game where it mainly features Saints member Jonny Gat and RnB singer girlfriend Aisha (many parallels to real life, late singer Aaliyah here) who by this point unfortunately has been killed by Akuji's henchman. Which is actually a big turn in the plot of SR as she was a big part of the first game.

On the subject of Akuji's henchman though, one of the highlights of the game up til this point has been the swordfight between you and him. Not the most advanced fighting mechanic but it made a change to have a break from the shooting. This is actually another point of SR worth talking about actually. The combat in the game resembles a standard 3rd person shooter more than GTA's "lock-on" shooting which is something that really works in it's favour. Plus there's also regenrating health which is most welcome. Especially when you're in the middle of a long mission where the game throws enemy after enemy at you, you can find a bit of cover and wait for your bar to fill up again. And there's another thing, apparently GTA has solved this with The Lost and Damned but having mis mission checkpoints is most welcome in SR2.

One thing I had forgotten about SR1 was the whole respect meter thing. The game will not let you progress with the story missions unless you have at least pne level on your respect meter. This can be raised by completing "diversion" missions. These can involve Escort (drive a car along with a prostitute to collect a client and keep them away from roving reporters for a limited amount of time). Mayhem (travel to a specified location and cause as much damage as you can) and of course there are the usual racing missions which everyone can expect. The need to raise your respect meter can get in the way a little though when you're trying to plug your way through the story.

So I still have a lot to cover, I think I may be able to complete at least one gang plotline each week at this stage, like I may have implied I am now working on the Sons of Samdei line.

Introducing: Pile of Shame!

Ok then, time to use this site a little bit more. Those familiar with certain media outlets on the internet may be aware of what a "Pile of Shame" is, I used to do one back on my old Blogger blog when I discovered I had a backlog of PS 2 games I had yet to complete.

It's not a list of games you are ashamed of, it's just merely a list of games you are ashamed to say you have yet to get round to finishing or even playing. Wheather it's still wrapped in the plasitc cover or you only had the time to do 2 levels before moving onto the next big thing, it's all in here.

So I'm going to try and use this as a bit of a diary over the course of my campaing as I try to gain a bit more ground in the following games:

PS3

Saints Row 2

Folklore

Dead Space

Metal Gear Solid 4

Prince of Persia

Assassins Creed

Army of Two

Mercanaries 2

Battlefield Bad Company

Far Cry 2

Fallout 3

F.E.A.R 2

Killzone 2

HAWX

360

Bioshock

Gears of War 2

Mass Effect

Ninja Gaiden 2

Rainbow Six Vegas 2

Tomb Raider Underworld

Fable 2

Grand Theft Auto 4: The Lost and Damned

Braid

Castle Crashers.

We're back :D

Well I must say that it HAS been a rather long hiatus. The last time I updated this was after I had just left Morrisons and started working for the bank. Well it's been more than 2 years now. Oh, I also said that I would continue to update the games blog. Hmm, hasn't really worked out has it? Nevermind though, we can start over here. More than 2 years then. Basically the big news is that I am living and working in London in a games industry job. The actual job that I do may be obvious to many but it's going to remain a subject I won't talk about here. After all the whole subject about "blogs" over there is a bit of a hot one and there's no way I want this one to be mistaken for another. This really is just a personal blog which will focus on my gaming tastes and serve as a diary for my Pile of Shame, which I should be posting after this. I remember I could not post so much in the last job as I had no access to Blogspot while I was at work. Not a problem at my new job, though I don't like to piss around so I may still find myself updating at home, and this new job has me working a lot of evenings. As for all these old posts I could have deleted them, but then I may want to preserve my old thoughts. You may also notice a lot of broken images in the olden days, this is because I am no longer using Blueyonder (now Virgin Media) to host. So anyway, keep your eye on here and enjoy the Pile of Shame. Bit of an edit here: I've removed all the older posts from the site. So this is a fresh new start.