Cat Burton

Gaming

I love gaming. When I get the time, I enjoy nothing more than dedicating a few hours to my latest obsession on the PS3/Mac.

Below are my thoughts and opinions on games I’ve been playing:

World of Warcraft
Anyone who knows me, knows I’ve become a little bit of a WoW addict recently. I was persuaded to sign up in October (08) by the lads at work and since then have been spending a significant portion of my free time levelling up an undead rogue and a blood elf death knight. As you can tell, I play Horde characters. You can find me on Nordrassil .

I’m sure everyone has heard me mention WoW enough, so I guess the easiest thing for me to do is just post links to my WoW armory stats:
Chambelle – Blood Elf Death Knight
Chambord – Undead Rogue

Lego Indiana Jones

This game is sheer genius. Ok, so those who played Lego Star Wars may find this formula a little bit of a copy-paste job. However, i’ve not seen Star Wars (yes, yes, i know), so I never played that game.

Lego Indy is one of those games i wanted to play purely to see if the concept worked. What i found, was a game that maybe had a few flaws, but was generally brilliant. Yes, the characters that follow you like a darn shadow can get annoying, and even more so when they cause you to repeatedly die. However, the overall gameplay is very fun. Pure, dare i say it – cute, gaming pleasure. It’s nice to take a break from the violence, shooting, stabbing and mutilation in other games, and just play a pure, fun, nice game! I really love this game and can’t wait to get my hands on Lego Batman!

Assassins Creed

Three words: boring as hell. So much potential, but gees, its so dull! Not wanting to rant too much…oh why not, heres why it annoyed me: The game doesn’t need to tell me to do certain things when it’s clear there’s no other option (don’t want to add too many spoilers, so shall not give spcific examples). I do not want to have to press buttons at certain moments in the cut scenes…those are for sitting back, drinking my beer, and taking a few well earned moments away from the game. Another point – while the “you’re a modern day dude made to relive an ancestor’s antics” storyline should work well and add depth, i found that the dipping in and out of moddern/medieval times made me lose touch with the game. All in all, it was a bit of a letdown. Perhaps if i can bring myself to play a bit more of it, I might have something positive to say. Then again, there’s more chance of me giving up geekdom and going to live in the Arctic than there is of me playing this trash again.

Devil May Cry 4

DMC4 is awesome. I can’t say much more than that. The gameplay is cool – totally different to anything I’ve played before. The characters are interesting and even the cut scenes with gratuitous ass shots of girls are well made! I’ve yet to complete this as i’ve not had much time for gaming lately, but it’s very high on my todo list! I would definitely recommend this game.

Unreal Tournament 3

This is a very fun game – I played a small amount of the campaign then decided to do some online multiplayer. Capture the Flag in UT3 is very fun and I love how it is instantly accessible. You don’t have to be an expert to be able to join in with experienced players (though you may just die a little more frequently).

Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

Brilliant game – totally addictive. I’m currently playing as a Wood Elf using a custom class (I wanted to emphasise the sneak and marksman properties as these compliment the skills of that race). The world that you can explore is enormous and contributes to one of the game’s best aspects: freedom. You can complete each task and follow the game straight through. Or you can take your time: explore, speak to people, develop your skills etc. Note: I would advise against stealing horses early in the game as this results in your Bounty value increasing, an almost definite capture by guards, a night (or more) in jail and the potential loss of skill points that you’ve spent all night achieving!

Pirates of the Caribbean

I’m not entirely convinced with this game so far. Fight scenes are long an drawn out, and I often ended up with sore thumbs from using the analog stick for too long. I wouldn’t recommend buying this game at the moment – the graphics are ok, storyline seems ok too. Just the controls in this game leave your hands really sore!

Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune (overall rating: 8.7/10)

A very good game. The scenery and game-play are just stunning, with dazzling waterfalls, beautiful architecture and incredibly realistic characters. I originally bought the game hoping for a new Tomb Raider. It’s pretty close, but despite the obvious differences (no Ms. Croft is a big shame), for me it felt like it was lacking something. Perhaps that’s due to being restricted to only small areas you can explore. Maybe it was the fact that any puzzles were really simple and lacked the challenge and complexity of other games. The other downside for me was all the shooting. I do enjoy a good shooter and am more than happy with a few enemies. But this was an adventure, searching for lost Treasure – At times it felt like the game forgot that and instead we spent a LOT of the time shooting hundreds of random men.
Overall a very good game, just needed a little bit more free-roaming adventure and real puzzle solving to balance out all the shooting.

• Graphics (9.5/10) – I’d give it 10, but don’t want to fill the top spot too soon.
• Storyline (8.5/10) – Good storyline and character development.
• Gameplay (8/10) – Great, but too much shooting. Not enough complex puzzles or exploring.

Portal (overall rating 7.7/10)

What can I say, other than I LOVE this game! I’ve never played a game like this before. The concept is very fun and gets progressively more difficult throughout the game. The dark humor, Companion Cube, and dedication to getting cake make this game funny, addictive and just plain brilliant! I really hope they bring out a longer sequel.

• Graphics (6/10) – The graphics aren’t amazing, but it’s made up for in game-play
• Storyline (7/10) – Not much story, but brilliant characters.
• Game-play (10/10) – Unique, brilliant, addictive