So despite having waited longer than most of the rest of the world to get my grubby mitts on a copy of Metroid 3 yesterday on its English release day. I thought I might as well give my thoughts on the game which to me marks the start of enjoyable game season for the Wii, with Mario Galaxies and Super Smash Brothers in the near future.

Having only had Zelda and Wii Sports for my console until now it was being used pretty much as a giant paper weight, all be it a £150+ one with glowing bits. Metroid is not a game I've played much of in its previous incarnations, beyond a small stint of 2 on the Gamecube and as such I wasn't that sure what to expect from it.

Initially, having been spoilt playing on my friends 360, I was slightly let down by its overall graphics quality and lack of shine (for want of a better word), though this soon left me when I realised how well done the input was. What quickly made itself clear was that the designers were not making a simple port of an existing game that could have been made for any other console, this really was thought through for a Wii launch. From the elegant method of aiming with a lock on to allow for strafing to the pressing of buttons or opening of handles the game did feel as though it used the Wiimote for a purpose and not just simply as a gimmick, one of my main gripes with the otherwise solid Twilight Princess.

Its also interesting for me as marking one of the few games on a nintendo platform that included voiceovers, something I assume that has been avoided in the past to allow for cheaper and easier ports between various language versions and in many ways a welcome addition. While I don't mind text only games, some advances made on other platforms are an nice addition.


Overall, despite my little playtime so far I would definitely say that the game is worth buying for almost all Wii owners and hopefully will prove that the little console that could is not only a platform for grannies and kiddies.

A quick question post here, out of interest of the general skill and bloody mindedbess of the average Destructoid commenter.

How many people have managed to complete all of the advanced portal challeneges?

Not being much of a first person shooter player I was slightly dubious when I was cajoled into playing Half Life 2 about six months ago. I had to admit, after playing the game for several hours I was very much entertained by the idea of juggling oil drums around and firing them into the craniums of my enemies.

With the newest updates in the form of the Orange Box I thought I might give the story updates a try and have a play with the new Team Fortress multiplayer. Now this isn't the kind of game I would normally have bought, I'm usually a big fan of long and twisting singe player games that involve leveling or collecting items more than blowing the heads off of other people. Most of the time I'm playing a game I'm playing it alone for a reason unless its specifically something with my friends actually in the room. Here however I was pleasantly surprised, I wasn't instantly ridiculed for my completely hopeless efforts in the game, though the rather unfamiliar need to pick out a server and check that there were players on it was a little annoying for someone used to having adversaries either generated for them or picked out automatically.
After playing for a while and trying out the various classes I did begin (slightly) to improve, the game feels pretty solid and has a lovely visual look which I have to say was one of the main hooks for me. The mix of defence and offence is well done and its really possible to have a laugh at the little touches Valve added with the voices and gag lines of each player.

I realise at this point that I'm essentially rehashing what has been already thrashed out in various few weeks by people much more capable at writing than myself, I do sometimes find it hard to agree with the general viewpoints of reviewers. This might be down to my slightly unorthodox tastes or simply because I almost always end up getting devoted to games long after their release.

This leads me on to another game that can hardly be called alternative, Halo 3 has been getting large amounts of coverage not only in TV form but also on the sides of buses. Not being a 360 owner I've only had a chance to try out this game in a few long binges with a friend.

Now my initial view of halo was slightly dubious, maverick that I am I played the original game on my Mac which while I'm sure will raise a few eyebrows worked fine and seemed like a reasonable if uninspired shoot-em-up. Which surprised me when I heard that halo 2 had caused so much fervour and was being held up as a wonderful example of online play. Again not owning an xbox myself I got only small chances to play Halo 2, usually bullied into it by friends who wanted to do nothing else but play hour after hour of slayer matches. I being hopeless usually spent most of them dead or stuck with my view on the ceiling or the floor.

With three, and being my first real experience of a next gen console I was fairly awestruck at first with simply how shiny the game was. It simply had more stuff than the games before, from grasss that blew about in the wind to glints and sheen on the carapaces or armour of enemies. The story was pretty much over my head, with the odd appearance of Cortana from the first game annoying in that it broke up the Salughter. I wasn't particularly impressed with the story I saw in the first few levels, though I can understand how it would be for the hardcore Halo fan.
The weaponry seemed slightly more flat than I remembered, with there not being a big difference other than the areas of; close range, rifles, rockets and machine gun dispite the fact that in numbers terms there were far more. The new enemies seemed oddly easier than the elites I remebered though the snipers had definately gone up in skill.

One can tell that the game was seriously polished and had insane amounts of money spent on it but it didn't really feel like a game I could play for any long amount of time. It was difficult to fault in any major way, other than slight insignificant niggles with the uselessness of some weapons or graphics that didn't stand up to the general prettyness but there was to me some slightly flat tone to an otherwise good piece.

Maybe I should just stick to RPGs and pick up final fantasy tactics...

Final Fantasy Tactics on the PSP; a review in basic form.

Pretty movies.
Isometric camera views.
Separate slightly irritating tutorials.
Humans, chocobo and monsters.
Eggs.
Hitting people in the back with swords. Terribly hard.

This is all. Play it and rejoice.

I like to think of myself as grown up. People who have read my previous posts might think of me as a self important long word using dullard, but I hope at least a moderately adult one.

So when I have to admit that I've become addicted to pokémon again its probably not a good sign. I played the original Blue, as almost, if not everyone did. Yes you smart bastards you could have played Red too.
everyone's
Instead on a whim I got a copy of Pearl, to see the differences (cue when I were a lad) to what I remembered. Its certainly come a long long way from the original 150 black and white tale I remembered and gained about 3 levels of complexity along with it.

Its still however, very much pokémon and utterly addictive. I was sad I didn't get to choose everyone's favourite meme influenced Mudkip as a starter but I wondered on to find an adversary similar but not quite entirely unlike Pidgy. So on from there the basics of the game remain intact, from the bicycle to the 8 gyms and the whole rock / paper / scissors / psychic_melts_your_face mechanics of gameplay. I assume though haven't reached it yet that there will be something akin to the painful safari zone and elite four.

First thing that struck me however was the inclusion of a wireless word trading ability which frankly is one of the coolest things they could have added to a game that was annoyingly reliant on hooking up a cable between to devices to complete. Though you still have to find the pokémon you want somewhere else to request it, which kind of makes a request for a legendary you haven't got slightly meaningless. Still, its a good addition even if one can't swap for everything.

I can't help wondering what it is though that I'm most attracted to, the whole obsessive compulsive area involved in collecting every one of something or the nostalgia of a game that in a simpler form I enjoyed about ten years ago. This isn't anything new, even in a less extreme form I was suckered back into replaying Final Fantasy IX, a game which only came out about 7 years ago.
Though not a member of the 360 generation I can tell from other people that Microsoft has been good at capturing this whole oldschool idea and I wonder if I'm just cruising down a similar channel in handheld form.

All I need to work out now is if my shame of playing a game marketed to kiddies will overturn the sheer enjoyment of tiny pixelated monsters kicking the shit out of eachother.

I'm not usually someone who enjoys gory games, to give you an idea of my usual level of blood you might find Pikmin, Okami and Loco Roco as good examples. For those of you with some large brain deficiency or having never heard/played those games they're completely kiddie proof (though a friend of mine had a 7 year old brother who was addicted to GTA 3, but I digress).

This said I'm starting to find it strange how attracted I am lately to God of War II. I hadn't heard about the first game and bought myself a copy second hand while browsing through some second hand cases. I wouldn't normally have bought the thing if not hearing about it on a few podcasts and how it apparently had a nice fluid gameplay, which it does.

For those of you who have yet to play it, God of War romps through Greek mythology where you end up killing just about all of the protagonists in every single tale you can think of, and most of the mythical beasts too. Icarus? Check. Medusa? Check. Ares? Check. While its vague attempts at some form of story, that of revenge (what else?) against Zeus its the combat and puzzles that really appeal. For something that would seem to be a clear massacre-em-up it actually involves quite a large amount of thinking, from working out how you can stop a floor of spikes impaling you to what corpses you can use to hold down switches while you leap through rings of fire.
The combat, as mentioned is fairly button mashingly simple yet elegant. A swing of the control stick is reciprocated with the swing of your weapon, allowing you to get up some nice swings rather than pulverising one enemy at a time. Similarly you can also swing into people while in the air and flick them around rather than simply to a single prescribed area.

Its not completely without fault, some puzzles are infuriating because of overly precise movement or aiming and some of the platform aspects can result in endless deaths until you finally get just that tiny but further. It is however a very solid game, though with slightly tired graphics compared to some of the newer consoles.

It is however not this that gets me, its just the sheer amounts of unnecessary violence that is for once strangely appealing. When killing certain enemies you don't just pound them, you rip off their arms and stab them through their chest or smash their necks over your knees. In opposition other enemies will sometimes lift you and grind you in their palms or turn you into stone and shatter you. The bloodiest (and therefore most fun) encounter so far has to be that of a boss fight where your opponent is not only smashed in the face, drowned and thrown out of a window but also impaled on a spike, attached to a chain and then used as a method of escape. Charming.

What I find interesting about all this, which to players of games like Manhunt or even perhaps Silent Hill or Resident Evil might not see as unusual, is that despite its obvious violence it really ends up being fairly cathartic. I don't end up wanting to go out and hunt down a passing stranger to disembowel, far from it. I actually end up feeling more relaxed and less violent than when I started which might seem to some as an odd and perhaps unnatural reaction. I would however maintain that unless someone is naturally a psycho players of violent videogames are not going to turn into mad axe wielding maniacs overnight from playing one single bloody videogame.

I seem at this point to have lost the plot of this blog post, mixing (late) review and an opinion article. Simply put, God of War is fun, killing people in real life is bad and videogames do not breed instapsychos. Now go and tear out something pixelated's throat.