Why Arkham Origins MIGHT be really good

As I'm sure both of my regular readers are aware I have a lot of nice things to say about Batman: Arkham Asylum due to its strong due of a license in a video game and a strong story focus. However I also commented that the sequel Arkham City pretty much wrecked all that, and spread the game so thin and showed that the actual gameplay mechanics don't really hold up by themselves without the Bats firm grip on the reins. 

It was with this in mind that I've pretty much ignored all information that's come out about the new game Arkham Origins, to the point where I only just realised this morning that it's actually due in a couple of weeks. It wasn't out of malice or anything, I just genuinely didn't care, I was completely indifferent to City during my playthrough of it and since then I've slowly realised all the little things about it I hated and after recently attempting to give it a second try I rage quit it almost instantly. So I thought I was done with this franchise, but with the new game being in the hands of the developers, a prequel to the other games and all the other things I've heard about it I'm actually intrigued. 

The biggest weakness of City was the story which pretty much jumped the shark on its premise alone and continued to be an incoherent mess from there. Even with Batman and a colourful cast of his more beloved villains running around the game fell flat because there was just all this "stuff" going on. That was sort of the idea, to have the City be a big playground for all of Batman's villains and their dudes to make him feel out of his depth, but in the end just turned out to be a meaningless cluster of sound and motion that I can't comment too much further on because my brain has wrapped all the specific plot elements into a little ball and tossed them out my ear due to disinterest. It was dumb though, I remember that much.

However Arkham Origins on paper alone sounds like it has more going for it in the plot department. Sure the writing doesn't seem much better with one of the trailers having the Joker unironically use the line "nice of you to drop in" and Batman screaming "HOW MANY PEOPLE DID YOU JUST KILL". I know neither of these lines are out of character but COME ON. Anyway, even Asylum had a crap ending and not particularly wonderful dialogue so we'll let it pass, what's interesting is the premise for a video game. 

Black Mask is pissed off at Batman and has hired 8 dudes and dudettes to deal with The Dark Knight...and that's pretty much it. Sure it's not the most complicated plot in the world, but games like No More Heroes and Crackdown have shown how fun this simple premise can be when used properly as the main characters develop and grow through a series of colourful and memorable boss encounters. It means you'll always have a clear objective and an overarching sense of being threatened as baddies lurk in the shadows. Plus Batman's main skill is punching things and this gives him a lot of dudes to punch so shut up.

Another thing I don't like about either Arkham games is the general mix of gameplay, both the stealth and combat sections worked and were fine but neither were fun to play for extended amounts of time. City made this problem even worse by giving you respawning dudes to fight all the time and adding 10 million gadgets that completely failed to integrate in the game intuitively and spread the game even more thinly. 

So far Arkham Origins seems to have a strong combat focus and has made the actual fighting more complex than hammering the square button and occasionally the triangle button when one of the enemies gets gassy and starts emanating stink lines. Being a prequel the game SHOULD have less stupid gadgets to break up the actual fun parts of the game, so if the combat and stealth get a lot more polish and are the main connecting elements between awesome boss fights with the assassins then this game could be a lot stronger than its predecessors in the gameplay department.

The boss fights will be the deciding factor in my opinion, if they're all unique and memorable on par with the awesome fight with Mr Freeze from City then this game will almost certainly be the strongest of the trilogy. However, if the designers slack and waste all their time animating the snow effects and Santa Claus on his sleigh in the skybox and have Asylum style boss fights where you trick them all into running into a wall then it'll be a waste of everyone's time. So no pressure Warner Bros. Interactive Montréal.

Not that I'm PREDICTING it'll be good, it's going to be a story focused game based on comic books and a sequel to a game I don't like at all so there's still a lot of room for doubt. I'm just saying it sounds interesting to me so...if it sounds interesting to you...then, ermm cool...

END OF BLOG GO AWAY

Grand Theft Auto V Story Mode - Final Thoughts

I'm going to be honest here, I've been excited for GTAV for a while, but I was mostly excited for the world Rockstar was going to build with polished mechanics which would be a big playground to run around in with friends online. I wasn't expecting that much more from the story missions other than a big long tutorial to show me everything to game has to offer and get me settled in, and although it certainly is that, GTAV surprised me by being one of the most entertaining games I've played in years.

Is the narrative a tense gripping emotional cinematic masterpiece? Absolutely not, but I think GTAIV proved that no-one wants the series to be that. What it is however is a big "bro up" between the three main characters and following them on their crazy crime adventures and the even crazier people they meet along the way. I knew less than an hour into this game that Rockstar got what people wanted with the introduction of Lamar and "the employee of the month" scene, which is far from being the funniest scene in the game but instantly got over the fact that the tone has changed from last time around.

Another decision that has to be applauded is the creation of Trevor, the choice to go for three decisions is an interesting one and certainly has its advantages in terms of telling a story, but Trevor could have easily carried this game by himself. He is everything a GTA protagonist should be, unredeemable, crazy, ridiculously capable, scary and perhaps most importantly funny as hell to be around. The writing around Niko Bellics redemption arc was certainly strong in GTAIV, but the fact they even attempted it at all is nuts to me, there is no justifying the actions of a Grand Theft Auto character so you may as well run as far as you can with it and make it as entertaining as possible.

The lack of loading times and cutscenes running on the in-game engine helps the flow of the story along immensely and also makes the sandbox itself more immersive as the storyline actually exists in the world you're in not some hypothetical other dimension locked away behind load screens. The missions are far more varied and less focused around commuting and cover based shooting, even if there is still plenty of that, but the character dialogue carries it through on the trips though.

The thing about GTAV is I was wondering if I should lay into it more because in all honesty there's dozens if not hundreds of nitpicks I could make about the gameplay. Slight control issues, stupid rating systems, bad race AI, really weird and unforgiving fail states for some missions and so on and so forth, but every time I think about that I pull back and realise the scale of what Rockstar have achieved and forget all about it. Of course this game has a lot to nitpick, the developers have shoved their big 10 incher right into the PS3 and forced everything out of it that they can in as many ways as they could think of, there's no way they were going to nail anything. The fact some reviewers feel these nitpicks are grounds to pull the game down considering the other trash that gets perfect scores all round show the level that Rockstar is playing at, it's like we've all instantly agreed this game is an A, now we just agree about how many plus signs we want to put on the end of that.

To go slightly off topic for a conclusion, back in 2005 when the industry was pushing for everyone to get excited for the new hardware with the 360 and PS3 releases upcoming and showing off what it could potentially do, we never got what they promised...until now, and it's called Grand Theft Auto V. A game that took everything we loved about the last generation titles and used the technology available to make it something incredible, which is my word of warning to people getting excited about next gen. There will no major leap up in games for many years to come from the new technology, and the amount of work required for that leap to happen is going to get more colossal. It could be a VERY long time before we get the next gen equivalent of a Grand Theft Auto V.

And all this is before the online even launches.......jeezzz....

Grand Theft Auto 5 - Hourly Report DAY ONE

Like anyone cares about reviews of this game, you all know it's good. So instead, here's an hourly report of my first day with GTAV

Hour 1 - Starting Out and N!ggas

God damn this game took an age to install, by the time the people who went to the midnight launch got it going the shops would have been open anyway. Makes sense though, the map to this game is almost too big to go on my wall.

I'm expecting the usual Rockstar gambit of the majority of this game being a tutorial, but feeling the game so far they've generally polished everything. The San Andreas RPG elements are back (thanks Crackdown), now half your health bar regenerates and you can one hit nut people in the street (thanks Saints Row) and the driving and shooting in general feel a lot less heavy (thanks this entire generation). Cars do seem to spin out a lot though, that probably happens less as you level up.

I've forgotten their names already because I'm dumb but I think I'm going to love these black characters, their banter is hilarious especially the Arab car dealer. I should probably point out the use of "n!ggas" because that is seriously about 60% of these guys dialogue...the light tone of the PS2 games is definitely back and thank god.

Hour 2 - Getting Priorities Right

Alright I was a good boy and did story stuff for like a little over an hour, now to find the true source of hype, the strip clubs.

I hit up the local place, I went straight for the private lounge because I'm a player son. The security didn't like though, three fist fights later I found myself in the girls dressing room...but they had already ran for it WHY DOES THIS ALWAYS HAPPEN TO ME. The cops showed up and weren't interested in my freestyle pole dance and gunned me down.

Alright, I get straight out of the hospital and head back to the strip club, let's check these girls out. It seems pretty similar to GTAIV to be honest...wait BOOBS. ACTUAL BOOBS. And there's a feel up the stripper minigame! Touch Nikki to increase her "like" meter, YES, I knew these mechanics would find their way out of the Japanese DS market someday. 

She likes me! We're going back to her place, Nikki shows how much of a rounded character she is by announcing "mmmmm I bet you can make me cum" on the way back to her place. If there's quicktime events involved, I got it covered. Wait, how long have I been doing this?! It's time for a new section.

Hour 3 - Stuff Actually Happens

I'm only a couple of hours in and it's already noticeable that the missions flow a lot better than the ones in GTAIV. Rather than commuting from cutscenes you seem to drive to a place and stuff immediately happens and you have to react. A chase sequences with a stolen boat right out of 70s cop show occurred and I had to catch protagonist 1 Michaels' son (who is basically me) as protagonist 2 Franklin threw bad guys into in the road. 

The obvious change of tone is really making this game noticeably more fun, already this game is making me do that thing that only Rockstar games make me do, where I turn the subtitles on for no reason other than I don't want to miss a word of dialogue. Michael and Franklin are both straight guys but they play the straight guy to a wacky world and their seriousness is constantly being played for laughs. Also neither of them murdered 20 kids in a war or something which also helps, plus the sun is out. Life is great. 

I'm not sure how I feel about this character switching mechanic yet in terms of gameplay. I do see the plot benefits of it as you have different characters doing different stuff at the same time so it goes a little way to help the sandbox storytelling issue of completely murdering the pacing. Hey...I want to go back to the strip club...

"Yo man, does employee in the month mean nothing to you!?!"

Also stumbled across my first helicopter OH MY GOD they control so much better, you can actually screw around in them and not end up in a skyscraper within five seconds. Now doing a mission where you have to tow some abandoned vehicles in something that looks like the hick truck from Cars, the whole point of this seems to be Rockstar saying LOOK HOW COOL OUR PHYSICS ENGINE IS.

Hour 4 - Finding Your Mom

Of all the things I thought would be in this game, Dog "Sniff-O-Vision" was not one of them. Franklins dumb gangster pal Lamar (whose name I forgot earlier) has a dog called Chop who lives up to his name. He also humps other (male) dogs and you have to pull him off to get him back on track...this is a mechanic that exists in this game...

Onto my first race mission, and I've now found something about this game I don't like. I liked how they made the driving less heavy and feel smoother to GTAIV, but is there any impact in this game that doesn't instantly spin your car out and leave you crashing to a halt? It was really getting on my tits trying to win a race. Not just that, all the AI racers seem to be programmed to drive in a big flat conga line, but occasionally crash into each other and spin out, but if YOU try to spin them out they suddenly get tank physics and you just bounce off them and probably spin out GOOD WORK. There's also no clear indicator of what cars are even in the race, it's very easy to lose them in traffic sometimes...especially when they/you are spinning out. I hope the other races in the game are better because this is garbage.

But now it's time for the main event of GTA, FINDING PROSTITUTES, which was way easier than it was in GTAIV. I took my babe around the back of an alleyway by a church for bonus sinner points. They've limited the camera angles on the motions this time round to stop the "smash the door off the car for a better view" trick from last time, but the voice acting, the controller vibration and length is...excessive. Do you want people to jerk off to this or not Rockstar? You got to make up your mind. She tells me that she thinks she can really talk to me and that I should see her again, I hit her with my car for a quick refund. Tell it to Beelzebub, slut.

Hour 5 - UNDER THE SEA

I've noticed something icky about this game now, it has a nasty habit of disabling certain features in certain areas, it is now literally impossible to take out a gun in the strip club. You also can't run or jump around like a twat in there...but you can weirdly still beat up dudes. Why Rockstar? This is a sandbox, you shouldn't be trying to limit your player in any way.

There's also random events now that you can choose to intervene in. Some guy stole another guys wallet so I hit him with my car, you then get the choice of keeping the wallet or giving it back to the guy for a reward. I gave the guy his wallet back, got a stat boost, then capped him in the head three times as he was walking away and took the money anyway. COMMUNITY.

The adventures of Michael and Franklin continue, I still haven't seen enough of the benefits/disadvantages of the character hopping mechanic to comment on its addition to gameplay, but Rockstar were onto something here story wise. These guys broing it up on missions and having crazy adventures really give this game a spark of personality. Michaels wife has been bonking her tennis coach, so the boys go round to his house....and pull it down and leave it hanging off the side of a cliff. Again, it's nice that these characters are mean tough guys, but not absolutely psychotic and use murder as the solution to everything, at least I'm comfortable in the fact that my assholes are the smaller assholes in these conflicts.

Turns out it wasn't even the guys house and now we got trouble. The hopping mechanic comes into play here as you can either shoot the guys with Franklin or outrun them with Michael, so the game kindly gives you the option to go for your favourite tactic which probably won't be Michaels because spin outs. You better make sure you're confident in your choice though, the games AI certainly isn't going to make the other option work out for you.

I'M IN THE WATER, IT'S PRETTY!

Hour 6 - SMOKE WEED EVVVERRYYDAYY

Now having fun at a fairground, and I'm starting to appreciate the tweaks to the wanted level system now. If I say, wanna blow off some steam by smacking some old ladies in the face in line for the Ferris Wheel, instead of BS ring of authority that God beamed down upon us in GTAIV instead you get isolated units on patrol for you, and at long as you lay low your wanted level will still go away and you don't have to commute out of the area and commute back for more experiments. IT'S GOOD.

There's a minigame in a mission where you have to close internet pop ups and run anti virus software. Seriously...and a PROGRAMMER asks you to do this for him. 

GTAV also seems to have an issue with not letting you dick around inside buildings or not, like one of most fun things to do in GTAIV was run inside the hospital and cause as much mayhem as possible. I hope there are buildings in the city somewhere that let you do this that I just haven't found yet. 

I found a nice guy with a weed stand and now I'm tripping balls, so there's a bit where you shoot aliens with a minigun that goes on slightly too long to be funny. Yup, Rockstar have definitely noticed Saints Row. 

Hour 7 - Fangasms

GTAV lets you rotate your car way easier than previous titles when it gets flipped over, which is a god send with...y'know...all the spinning out that's happening. After I optional mission where I helped my wife her walk cycle screwed up walking back into the house and then I hit her with my car....whoops.

"There was an Eastern European guy making moves in Liberty City but he went quiet" OOOOHHHHHHHHHHH, there's your GTAIV reference for you. Expect millions of Tumblr posts about how idiots fangasmed or something. We're heading to a jewellery store for our first heist, the main focus of this game allegedly, but first time for some Spy Kids stuff and get some shots of the place first with our Norman Jayden glasses.

The heist stuff is really interesting, you get a choice of different methods, and then there's a risk/reward mechanic where you hire drivers, gunmen and hackers to make your life easier. The better guys get higher cuts of your loot, but are much less likely to balls it up. We'll see how this plays out in motion soon enough.

Hour 8 - Money Money, Yeah Yeah

I'm really starting to appreciate how huge this game is now, as the story starts spreading me out across the city I'm constantly thinking "oohhh I wanna play there" or "can't wait til the online launches to crash blimps into people there!" The scale of this game is incredible.

On my way to the bank robbery, Michael has specific dialogue about the exact team I picked, it might seem like a little thing...and it is really but so few games bother with polish like that.

The bank heists are pretty cool based on the first (tutorial) one, the game demonstrates what happens if you cheap out on crappy guys and one of them is left in the dust, the game doesn't punish you though and still lets you have his loot. Strategy and employees do seem to have an affect on how things turn out. I also like how the game lets you actually loot the place yourself as opposed to the usual method of "collect the pile of green goo at the end of the corridor and run" as it actually creates tension as the alarms hit and you gotta make a run for it before the po-po start coming.

Donald Ducks Quackshot Review

There’s a bizarre amount of cartoon ducks in pop culture. We got Ducktales, Donald Duck, Darkwing Duck, Daffy Wing, Duckman and Howard the Duck just to name a handful. It’s not immediately obvious why this is, are ducks just easy to draw? Is it guilt for all the ducks we all murdered in Duck Hunt? Is it because they’re so gosh darn delicious? Regardless, an abundance of ducks in children’s cartoons means an abundance of duck related video games, one of the best being Donald Duck’s Quackshot for the Mega Drive.

No gameplay mechanics jump to mind when you’re stuck with making a title around a character with a speech impediment and a temper problem, so what did Sega decide to go for? PLUNGERS. Yep, it really shows the inspiration and possible substance abuse going on with Japan developers of the time, if Virgin Interactive were told to make a Donald Duck game they’d probably give a jetpack and minigun and make a Space Harrier clone. 

Plungers actually turns out to be an inspired choice, instead of brutalising his enemies like most cutesy kids games Donald opts for the much more traditionally cartoon method of sticking a plunger on their faces and running by. There are two other weapons in the form of bubbles and popcorn which will remove enemies entirely but these have limited ammo giving an almost Mega Man like sense of strategy to basic gameplay. Plungers can also be upgraded to stick to walls and on the bellies of low flying girls allowing a rather silly sounding idea to open up Quackshot to all sorts of adventuring possibilities.

That’s the true secret to the good of Quackshot, it feels like an adventure and it all feels very Indiana Jones. There’s non-linear world map that works as a level select, in reality this is a lie as there’s only ever one level Donald can beat at a time but all levels can be attempted until you hit the checkpoint which will stop you if you don’t have the right item. Donald can then call the airplane flown in by his young nephews which might have been a misguided decision; you don’t want to be heading to the South Pole to find a Viking diary only to have some kids smash the plane into some Easter Island heads. The airplane allows you to leave levels at said checkpoints and also return to those checkpoints when you return to the level with the correct item, so Quackshot gives itself a larger adventure feel by having a lot of location changes but doesn't do the typical retro thing of wasting large buckets of your time by repeating levels.

Quackshot is a surprisingly atmospheric too; outside levels feel large and fast to give a sense of the environment and indoor areas have more concise platforming challenges and feel a lot more claustrophobic. The music reflects this too, catchy happy themes for the outside world, slow and moodier inside. Boss battles are cool though, one character you meet will only give you an item you need if you go through her labyrinth and fight her tiger so you beat it down with your hardcore popcorn gun. There’s also a fight with a vampire duck which is cooler than the one in the Ducktales game JUST SAYING.

There is something wonderful about playing Quackshot today, there’s constant attempts to recreate the NES 8-bit style, and there’s a lot of games that come out that resemble SNES style platformers, but Mega Drive games especially ones like Quackshot are a lot more unique. There’s some about the electronic almost DOS like sound effects and weird overall jankiness that comes from limitations as opposed to artistic designs which will never be recreated again. Although a lot of Mega Drive games have aged horribly, there’s an unique quality to them that sucks in people’s nostalgia for old games, so the few genuinely really good ones like Quackshot should remain celebrated.

So there’s a lot to remember Quackshot for, besides having a pointless mechanic where Donald eats a lot of peppers and goes on a killing rampage, perhaps the slowest and worst water level in any game ever and some cheap platforming and cryptic design towards the end, it’s a thoroughly enjoyable adventure to this day. Now go and start petitioning for Quackshot Remastered, I want to see the stains on those plungers in full high definition. 

The Lesmowhatever Top 10 Games of this Generation

With the next console generation looming over us offering us nothing but a shinier version of the hardware we already have with more bullshit no-one asked for, it is a time of reflection by which I mean it's time for the gaming press to pad out content with features that people also didn't ask for. 

So for entertainment purposes only here is my personal top ten gems of what I guess we could term the "Patch it in later" generation. Keep in mind that I haven't played every single game that's come out over the past seven years and I also don't care what you think, this is all from personal experience.

Also at time of writing GTAV isn't out yet and it'll be hugely surprising if that game doesn't earn a place on this list, but let's take that as read and let some other guys get a chance.

-IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER-

Batman: Arkham Asylum

Truth be told in terms of pure gameplay mechanics I'm not sure Arkham Asylum would hold up on its own merits as a game. It's a mostly linear experience of walking down corridors, crawling through vents, beating up dudes over and over again, occasionally dropping them from gargoyles and having crap boss fights. What Asylum does so well though is in its use of the Batman name itself, the game makes you feel like the Dark Knight and that is so valuable in a licensed game of this nature. Throw in a ton of polish and nice touches and the genuinely creepy Scarecrow sections which tensed me up on their three outings more than the entirety of The Last of Us and you have a great Batman experience. City on the other hand splooged the game out so wide that it lost its tight focus and the slightly flimsy mechanics started to buckle under its own weight.

LocoRoco

Pretty much the only game worth buying on the PSP for the longest time, LocoRoco was an adorably cutesy platformer that slaps a smile on your face the entire time its in front of you. The limited control of the LocoRocos themselves served to make the environments and hazards more threatening but the world was so well designed the little bouncy balls never failed to be endearing. The sequel is a good game as well but is more of a mission pack than a proper follow up.

The Walking Dead

Putting the huge budget productions of Heavy Rain and L.A. Noire to shame The Walking Dead showed everyone how interactive storytelling is done. It's not with extra polygons or facial capture it's with interesting characters and strong writing, y'know, those old chestnuts. The Walking Dead is a disappointingly rare example of a story driven game that couldn't work as well as a movie or TV show (HEUGH Last of Us ECK) as it is very good at making you feel responsible for your decisions and actions even if they're scripted sequences that happen anyway, a talent that gives the drama all the more weight and draws you into the story deeper than a non-interactive media could ever hope to.

Crackdown

This generation has been very sandbox happy but perhaps the one I enjoyed the most was the Xbox 360 exclusive Crackdown. It masterfully balanced the random fun of dicking around in a sandbox world with a structured design that made you feel like you were achieving something. Running around on rooftops doing side missions to level up was fun, tossing cars and ragdolling dozens of gang members in gas explosions was fun, and the progressively more difficult boss fights were the main event that held it all together as a constantly fun memorable experience. The sequel was shite though.

Nintendo DS

Yes this is absolutely a cheat and a good reason for why no-one should take this list seriously. I couldn't decide what I've enjoyed more, the courtroom anime drama silliness of all the Ace Attorney games, the more brain taxing straight up puzzle action of Professor Layton or just killing time on Sudoku in that Brain Training game. Writing this paragraph I just remember Ghost Trick, and Super Princess Peach, and Mighty Switch Force 2. Jesus that last one is on the 3DS, this is now less cheating and more hacking reality itself. Overall, nothing has held my attention in recent years more than Nintendo's dual screened sandwich toaster with its library of visual novels, brain simulating titles and a general design that encourages intuitive and inventive game so I'm giving a shout out to the entire console library and YOU CAN'T STOP ME.

Braid

Oh shut up you know why Braid is good, and if you haven't played it yet you can get it for pennies in some indie bundle or Steam sale or something so go do that. That's all I have to say about it. I'll pad out this paragraph by mentioning that the also very good Limbo nearly made this list but that game is super short and still sort of runs out of ideas and dies in its final hour...but go play that too...

(Ultimate) Marvel Vs Capcom 3

Embarrassingly UMvC3 has probably taken up more of my time this generation than any other single game, and that's even with the Ultimate edition released a mere nine months after the original, barely any single player content to speak of or anything else to pad out the core. However the core itself is so good I crammed the entire thing into my mouth and swallowed all of its seeds. Like any other fighting game you can argue for hours about how imbalanced or broken it is but ultimate(MvC3)ly what it does better than perhaps any other is make the game seem reactive and fun for button bashing casuals and also have a ridiculous amount of depth for hardcore players. I've played dozens of fighters before this one but this is the first time ever I've actually gotten deep into the mechanics of them and now I understand what stuff like "plus on block" and "OTG" mean and can throw them into conversations like they're real things. Marvel Vs Capcom 3 has become my gateway fighting game and anyone who trashes it for that is an elitist prick and part of the reason why fighters fell into obscurity before this generation brought them back. 

Netcode's rubbish though.

Super Meat Boy

With Sonic constantly running into walls and off cliffs and Mario officially no longer trying any more and milking the nostalgic buck for all its worth, it was up to indies (and Rayman Origins) to keep the platformer boat afloat. Fortunately Team Meat provided us with Super Meat Boy, a super challenging, super tight controlled platformer with a super amount of content to go with it. Understanding what good game flow is Meat Boy gets rid of archaic nonsense like continues or lives and just presents you with simple mechanics, hard as balls levels and as many attempts as you like because by golly you'll need them. The instant respawn makes the failures in Meat Boy barely frustrating at all and the difficulty makes every success important, definitely the best platformer of this generation.

Dead Rising 2 (Off The Record)

Dead Rising 2 on paper is very simple, there's you, as many zombies as the current console hardware can handle, and whatever you can find to kill them with, which is almost everything. Mixing arcadey organic fun with survival and sandbox elements makes Dead Rising 2 stand out amongst its sandbox crowd as a genuinely unique game. A lot of people much prefer the Off The Record version for its inclusion of checkpoints and a sandbox mode, I think an argument can be made for both games as the original was a lot more tense and encouraged a lot more strategy and time management from the player, whereas Off The Record just lets you do whatever you want whenever you want which obviously is good in a lot of ways but it also means it gets dull a lot faster. Either way, they're both great fun especially when all the goofiness is accompanied by a trademark Capcom pseudo serious storyline. 

Uncharted 2

Cover based shooting has been mostly cancerous to this generation as being the most overused and lazily implemented core mechanic for AAA gaming. The Uncharted series however understand it's best used as a connecting element between climby, puzzle and explosive set piece action. Uncharted 2 is a popcorn game, written like a movie and if it was actually one it wouldn't be a very good or original one, but it feels like an epic adventure and the set pieces really are the best that gaming have to offer. There's a lot I don't like about Uncharted 2 on paper, it's obsession with cinematic less interactive gameplay and cover based shooting but everything is balanced so well and done to perfection what you instead get is one of the most exciting action games on the market.

The multiplayer was highly engrossing too, taking the rather dull shooty affair of Gears of War and adding the trademark climbing and movement added a surprising amount of strategy and fun to what many assumed would be a tacked on lazy feature. 

So there, that's what I enjoyed this generation, note that there are no Kinect/Wii/Playstation Move or first person shooters on the list because why would there be, alright I haven't played Bioshock, but with all I've heard about it there doesn't seem to be any reason to now.