Favourite Games!

So I've had a horrible niggling urge to dust off my Wii and play my favourite Gamecube game as of late - Metroid Prime. Some thoughts on that 9 years after it's release should be a good giggle.  I got Sonic Colours for Xmas as well and have yet to bother to play it, so I should do that as well...

Anyway, Prime is easily high on my 'favourite games EVAR' list, and for the sake of conversation, I want y'all to tell me about YOUR favourite games!
Gimme a 1 to 5 and whys, detailed whys about one game, whatever. I'm intrigued :D

Dead Space 2

Bugger it, I recon I've played enough of Dead Space 2 now to give my thoughts on it :P
A brief note, I'll just type as I think of things, but I will try to refrain from major spoilers as best I can!

*Insert angelic song here*

So! I was very much looking forward to this when the game was announced. I had played the original game to death, finishing it multiple times. Didn't take away from the scariness at all though!
The Ishimura was thick with a creepy atmosphere that made me not want to turn the next corner, I valued every drop and the slightest metallic tang had me running in fear that a Necromorph was about to drop in behind me.

I went into Dead Space 2 knowing the bare minimum - As far as I knew, Isaac, the player character, was picked up by a place called 'The Sprawl' after escaping the Ishimura and that there would be new enemies that I really didn't want to face.

Case in point, the Puker ...*shudders*

I get home from work on the release day and pop the game in, with an excited twinge at seeing two disks in the box. The menu nicely enough has an option that plays a cinematic recap of the first game, which (Although I didn't need to watch from having finished it only a few nights before in preparation for this) I watched. Recapped the game nicely and anyone who hadn't played the first game to the end could quite easily get caught up on the events of the Ishimura.

Jumping into the game, I expected an introduction similar to the first game, in which you are forced to run from your first encounter with a Necromorph without an weaponry. I was safe to assume so...

Isaac awakes strapped into a straight jacket during what seems like a meeting with a psychologist. Clearly he's lost a few more marbles since game one, as as the guys are talking a blood soaked, glowing eyed Nicole (Isaac's girlfriend who committed suicide aboard the Ishimura in the events of game one) appears in the room, clambers into the table and gets right in Isaac's face.

O.O

You black out, and awake to the room being soaked in blood, furniture everywhere, and a seemingly nice enough fellow trying to wake you up. The poor guy, of course, doesn't last long, as an Infector Necropmorph (Affectionately known as 'the Corpse Humper' in our Xbox Live Parties) stabs him in the chest and promptly infects him. Within seconds he sprouts scythes, his neck elongates and the skin falls from his face. Lovely.

A swift headbutt from Isaac removes him from the picture and control is handed over to the player ...still strapped to the straight jacket. You have to run through the halls of this unknown place, Necromorphs bursting through glass and stalking the halls, until you can get to a safe place. It was safe to say that I was quite terrified, and I'd only just started bloody playing!!

When you are finally freed from the jacket, it's still a few halls until you acquire your first proper weapon (The torch you're given is useless, of course) - The good old Plasma Cutter. The game's main mechanic is 'strategic dismemberment', making cutting off your enemies limbs far more effective than body or even head shots. You do this with not-so-traditional weaponry, any old cutting tool will do. Shooting is still very satisfying - Cutting off an enemy's leg and forcing them literally to a crawl feels great. ...it's creepy seeing three or four Necromorphs crawling at you, but still. It's also still most amusing to cut their head off and watch them swipe at random in your general direction.

The weapons get a little upgrade in Dead Space 2 also. Along with the expected extension of the arsenal of weapons (The Javelin Gun is awesome!!), weapons can have a special trait tacked onto them. Upgrade the Contact Beam with enough Power Nodes for example and the weapon's secondary fire with not only knock all the enemies around you back, but will also slow them with a Stasis effect, for example.

When all else fails, pin 'em to the wall!!

Stasis and Kinesis are back as well, and they play a more upscaled role in combat this time around. Kinesis is particularly good now, being introduced early on as an effective weapon. Sharp objects that you find along your trips around the Sprawl can be thrown with great velocity at enemies this time, and you'll find a few. The tactic that's introduced a few chapters in is to cut the scythes off of enemies, grab them with Kinesis and throw them back in their face, although admittedly I'd figured out to do so very early on. I can see this being extremely useful on harder difficulties when ammo is scarce, but it proved handy on Normal difficulty as well when dealing with a large group of Necromorphs.

Speaking of which, let's dwell on the enemies, shall we?

To put it bluntly, they still scare me. A lot. They twitch and squirm, scream with a horrible bloody gargle, and don't hesitate to charge at you when they see you. On their own though, they aren't too bad (Bar a few exceptions, like Pregnants and Dividers. And the Pukers, for me anyway) but their strengths lie in the element of surprise and pure numbers in some cases. You could be happily walking down a hall, whistling dixie, when you hear a crash and 'that' scream. Turning 'round you see a lone Slasher inching his way toward you. As you're dealing with him though there's sudden flash of a scythe - Another bugger's slid out of the open vent that you didn't think anything of before. Pants suddenly fill as a result.

Pretty, aint they?

If that's not enough, each Necropmorph has their own 'death sequence'. If they grab hold of you, they'll promptly begin harming you, either through chowing down on your neck, vomiting from your upper arm to the side of your head or clambering onto your chest and stabbing you. A quick time event will ensue, and if you don't hit that A button fast enough to save yourself you'll be gruesomely killed. I particularly didn't want to be killed by the Puker, after seeing the death at E3 and me and vomit not going together too well. I'd only died a few times during my playthrough, but by far the worst was having a huge claw rammed into Isaac's mouth to the point where his head exploded by a Tripod. Made me squirm, that one...

Watch are your own discression, yeah?

Story wise the game's alright. Not on say Alan Wake's level, of course, but still okay. Isaac sets out to destroy the Necropmorphs and get the hell off of the Sprawl. Simple enough. The characters you come across along the way are alright, only one particularly sticks out other than Isaac and that's fellow patient Nolan Stross, and that's purely cuz they guy is mad as a hatter. Not the good sort either, getting worse and worse until a certain point in the game, where it all goes wrong for him. Everyone just has an air of untrust about them, which may be what the game is trying to do actually. You don't feel like any of the voices that come over Isaac's radio are telling the truth, but you've got no choice but to go along with what they say anyway.

A couple things I want to note that I particularly enjoyed in the game are the set pieces and the Zero-G sections.

The set pieces were all brilliant, having to battle your way through a subway train only to have it end up being derailed and having to fight oncoming Necropmorphs whilst hanging upside down from the dangling rail cars, and fighting a-top a giant digger being two particular stand-outs. I finished those parts with a smile on my face, they were just spot on.

The Zero-G sections were a huge improvement over the first games. You had limited control of Isaac, being only able to jump from one wall to another, crossing whole rooms in one go. With Dead Space 2 though, you're given full control of Isaac, being able to move freely in 360 degree space. Although at first a little disorienting, I quickly got the hang of it and loved coming to a part where I could push off and float where I needed to. Great fun, can't wait to do that again!

Probably the most fun I had in Dead Space 2, these bits



Lastly, the ending I thought was really good. Felt like drawing out the last 20 or so minutes of the first game, after you've put the Marker in position and Nicole comments on how you've 'made them whole again'. Was cool, and I hope there's a secret ending or something to Hard Core mode (Would quite frankly make that worth doing).

To sum up, Dead Space 2 was excellent. Personally I didn't find it to surpass the first game, in both gameplay and I guess scares (They seem more packed into the start of the game and start to peeter out as the game goes on), it's almost there. Definatly worth playing if you're up for a spook, enjoyed the first game, or just want a decent game to play for 8 or so hours.

Howdy y'all!

Hi there!

So I signed up here mainly to comment on friend's blogs and such, but I figure if I've got a blog sitting here I may as well use it ^^;

What for is the question though ...It'll likely just be inane ramblings and grumbles but, ever being the gamer, I may have a try at writing reviews and stuff :)

'Till my first actual post then, I guess!