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Best of Range: Quake 4 (PC)
by Danscomp
How to do things properly
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Whenever I think of Doom 3, I think of disappointment. It was a first person perspective sci-fi horror game with a huge budget that turned out to be incredibly, utterly boring. The perfect antidote to that disappointment was Quake 4. It was frantic, exciting, had ... an actual storyline and memorable boss battles. It looked great, played great and didn't have fetch and carry quests ad nauseum every five minutes
Quake 4 takes the approach towards it's predecessor of pretending it never happened, much like Bobby Ewing's death in Dallas. It is therefore a sequel to Quake 2. Having successfully defended Earth against an invasion by the bio-mechanical Strogg, humanity has embarked on an invasion of the Strogg home world. They use starships, landing craft, marines. For some reason, they choose not to use WMCD's, Weapons of Mass Cultural Destruction - like TOWIE, Bieber and Simon Cowell. I guess the Geneva convention also applies in outer space.
Anyhow, Matthew Kane (the protagonist) joins Rhino squad as they are shot down during an attempted landing. Crawling into the middle of a warzone with just a pistol, you are soon encountering some fairly ooky enemies as you struggle to secure a beach head. To add insult to injury, their standard foot soldiers are humans that have been "Stroggified". Alien design is similar, yet different. Alien recharging stations replete with indecipherable hieroglyphics are seen on a regular basis, and will shortly end up being useful to you after one particularly horrible section that manages to be incredibly inventive.
Gameplay
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Level design is generally good, with some very nice sequences and spot effects littered throughout. Your arsenal will grow as you progress, as will the quantity and type of the enemies that you encounter. The graphics were great at the time. They are still serviceable now. Enemy AI will depend on the type of enemy. I was impressed initially by the standard Strogg, and the way he'd jump sideways and often. Maddening, if you'd just unleashed a hail of lead where he no longer is.
You will quickly encounter your first melee enemy in close quarters, the grunt. Back peddling while firing is your only option in such tight surroundings. And this sets the tone as you get assaulted from the front, enemies spreading out to try and flank you. Some enemies are ranged, some are melee. But some are both. The bosses you encounter can be truly frightening in terms of what they do and simply how huge they can be.
Your handgun has unlimited ammo, but is as weak as a tin of carling. There are some fairly generic weapons that you get access to, such as a machine gun (more of an assault rife) to a rail gun sniper which can shoot through several enemies at once to a grenade launcher. But there are several really fun weapons on offer also, such as a fully automatic nail gun with a homing function, a lightning gun with which you can be frying tonite and the DMG. The Dark Matter Gun. Quake's answer to Doom's BFG. Ammo is rarer than unicorn babies, so only use on the most dire of foes. Weapons are all reasonably satisfying to use, including room shakers like the rocket launcher, the grenade launcher's bigger brother.
The plot keeps moving quickly enough that you don't feel bogged down. It's not all constant action. There are times when you can roam through your star ship, listening to squaddies talk and watching scientists experiment on living and dead Strogg. You do feel like part of the war effort. Your companions are just interesting enough that you care what happens to them (and things WILL happen to them) and the voice acting throughout is very good indeed. In a nice change of pace, you get to drive a hover tank through a number of sections.
Conclusion
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If there is one major drawback to the game, it is with the sudden ending. It feels as if they either ran out of ideas, or had a go to market date that prohibited any further polishing. Either way, the ending is a let-down. The good news is that the journey is so much fun that I have played through the entire game about three times.
Released in 2006, the game is still widely available at a tenner or below. If there's one factor that should tell you that this is a game worth playing, that's it.
Graphics: 8
Sounds & Soundtrack: 8
Gameplay: 9
Pacing: 9
Fun: 9
Plot: 8
Overall: 8.5 / 10
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Mystery P.I. - The London Caper (PC)
by Decanus
Couldn't resist this when I saw it on Amazon. A PC game, with decent reviews, for £1.49! And to top it off, it featured London, my favourite city in the world. What was not to love? So once I plunked down my hard earned cash, what did I get....
Well, the game comes in a standard pc/ dvd case, with the title and pictures of London ... emblazoned on the front. The game itself loads up quickly, and from what I read is actually part of a series of 'Mystery P.I' games set in various cities (New York, Los Angeles etc). The plot, in a nutshell, is a very cliche one. You play a 'world famous' Investigator who has been hired to find the Crown Jewels, seeing as they have been stolen. Your client is the Royal Family no less!This is going to involve trekking all over London to look for clues, and to make things tougher, you have a time limit of 17 hours.
Right, first the good points. It is set in London, which I like, so lots of graphics of red buses, london pubs etc. The graphics are all pretty decent as well. There is a degree of challenge (repetitive as it is) in which you have to find items in all the locations you visit, there are 25 'unique' locations to see. The items can be a tad random - a paddle, a trainer, a bell for example. So realism is not too high on the list! To spice things up, the main quest also has three specific items hidden in each location - a key, a pair of handcuffs, and a crown - which you need to find and collect (these are harder to find than the regular items). Much like most games, collect enough of those special items, and you unlock rewards such as bonus game modes, extra money and so on.
Gameplay is quite gentle, a very laid back game that is more suited for the older player than the younger. As straightforward as it is, it does include hints that can be accessed if you get completely stuck, though at the cost of some of your points. Another tip, don't just repeatedly click the mouse over every part of the screen to find items without really looking; the game didn't like that and told me off. Another 'cheat' of a sort, which I did quite early on, is you can turn off the 17 hours requirement, and just complete the adventure at your own pace. I enjoyed looking at stuff and didn't enjoy the rushing from one locale to another, though I know a lot of people will enjoy that aspect. There are a few mini-games you can play as well, some on specific levels only.
The bad points. Very, very, very repetitive. Visit a location, look around, find random items, find special items, hurray, on to next location...and repeat...and repeat...and repeat. Even collecting the special items is not really worth it as, muggins that I am , I spent ages finding them. All you unlock is a new mode that is not timed, in which you can search for even more items! thanks, but no thanks. The plot, about the crown jewels, is not even relevant for about 95% of the game; it provides the set-up, and the conclusion, but the middle of the game could be about anything. I could have lost my sunglasses in the pub, and was retracing my steps across 25 locations in London to find them...would have made just as much sense.
It is not a terrible game. As a 'point and click' it is actually pretty good, especially for the price, but it will only suit a certain type of game player, and that is not really me. I like games to be a bit more varied and challenging; this is a game you can sit down with a cup of tea and play happily for a couple of hours to pass the time.
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Minecraft Creeper Bracelet (PC)
by thehonesttruth
My boyfriend is something of a game nerd - never happier than when he's sat in front of his computer, playing a game with friends, or by himself. One of the games he really likes is Minecraft - so much so that not only does he play, but he watches videos of others playing too!
So, when I was looking for stocking filler gifts ... for him at Christmas, and came across this Creeper bracelet, I knew this was something he'd quite like.
For those that don't know, Minecraft is a sort of mining and building game - you mine and harvest materials, and use those materials to make tools, weapons, and building materials, with which you build on your world. There isn't really a plot or a story line as such (it's sort of like Lego, but computerised), but one thing that does get in your way is the Creeper, who turns up at night time, and explodes, causing damage to players and the environment. Creepers, appearance wise, are mottled green with a black down turned mouth and eyes. (Apologies if this description is a little vague, I'm not a Minecraft player myself).
The bracelet itself, is a vibrant bright green in colour, and features the creeper face, with it's typically blocky pixellated shape, the mouth down turned. It's made of a sturdy rubber, much like those rubber charity wristbands that were all the rage a couple of years ago. It feels really hard wearing - obviously with this having been a Christmas gift, it's been used plenty since getting it - it's been stretched, fiddled with, in and out of hot water, and nibbled on by an excited puppy, and aside from puppy teeth dents, is as good as new. There is no sign of the colour fading, the rubber perishing, or the black parts scratching.
There are a couple of criticisms though. The first is that the rubber takes some stretching to get over my boyfriends hands (he does have quite meaty knuckles) even though we ordered the large size. The other is that I do think at £5 from Amazon it is rather expensive. I appreciate that it is officially licensed, and that naturally that does put the price up a little, and I also know that most game memorabilia comes at a premium, but even so, had this not been a perfect little stocking filler for a boyfriend that is fiendishly difficult to buy for, I probably wouldn't have spent that amount on what, essentially, is not much more than a bit of rubber.
Overall though, he was really chuffed with this little gift, and has worn it pretty consistently ever since he got it, so I suppose it was money well spent.
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