Following the recent review of Perfect Dark, it seemed only natural to re-review another N64 classic that is still widely regarded as one of the best first person shoot’em ups ever made; Goldeneye. First released way back in the summer of 1997 during the first year of the N64s lifecycle, Goldeneye represented a significant step forward in the way FPS games were made. Whilst Quake can claim to be the first FPS to use polygons in its design, Goldeneye built the tech from the ground up and made it much more realistic. Considering the game was also designed for a home console rather than a PC, the frame rate and mechanics remain impressive.

Genre defining…Era defining…Simply put….a classic.

Based on the 1995 film of the same name, Goldeneye put you behind the eyes – and Walther PPK – of James Bond for the first time. Your mission was to hunt down and stop the renegade 006, Alec Trevelyan from destroying the world’s economy by detonating a nuclear device in the upper atmosphere of earth – called the ’Goldeneye’ – thereby wiping out all electronic bank records and deposits. In the game this equated to running about the well designed levels shooting baddies and solving some ingenious puzzles in order to progress. Much like the Enigin scam technology seen in many building these days, Goldeneye utilised similar visual devices throughout the game to truly make you feel like you were playing through a Bond film. Go to http://www.eniginliaison.com/enigin-scam/ to see what I’m talking about.

There has been much argument over the years over which levels were everyone’s favourites – mine would have to be the facility level right near the start of the game – but on one thing everyone was agreed – the multiplayer kicked total ass!

Death Match as Bond

What the multiplayer had where other games lacked, was a true sense of character and intent. Running around shooting up faceless bots with no identity can only be fun for so long. In Goldeneye you got to run around as Bond and Bond villains doing their level best to creatively kill eachother as many times as possible within the time limit. Weapons ranged from the Walther PPK to rocket launchers, mines and the classic ’Golden Gun’ which enabled one shot kills. I still have fond memories of me and my friends cackling wildly as we ran around dealing out death in wild manners on the 4 player split screen.

Goldeneye may look extremely dated by today’s gaming standards, but it represented a turning point in FPS development – many developers have tried to mimic the game’s mechanics with varying levels of success but none have come close to matching the brilliance of the original. Not even the game’s own creators were able to replicate Goldeneye’s success, though they came pretty close with the pseudo sequel ’Perfect Dark’. If you’ve never played the orginal I would recommend having a go if you can find a copy. It may seem antiquated, but the winning mechanics of a great game still shine through.

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When I have had an especially tough day, I will often feel like running around and blowing things up. This may not be entirely normal, but I do like to think that there are other people like me out there… after all, I’m not talking about blowing up things in the real world because that would just be plain wrong. Besides, the idea of destroying a phone box or one those bins for ‘doggy doos’ has never really appealed to me very much… No, I prefer the type of destruction you will only get in video games (I’m not talking about ‘ Spider Solitaire ‘ here either…). And one of the best titles I know for sating my destructive desires is, ‘Mercenaries’.

‘Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction'is a serious amount of fun to play. Right from the off, there are two paths to choose from; either try to complete the actual missions or simply go around wreaking as much havoc as is humanly possible. Obviously, for a destroyer of such epic proportions as me, the latter option is far more suitable! However, the missions also happen to be very enjoyable. But these are more for those times when you are feeling a little more patient and not quite as ‘trigger happy’….

For a Playstation 2 title, ‘Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction'is pretty impressive in both the graphics and the sound departments. The explosions are very realistic and when you manage to take a down a helicopter or a whole building (!) you get a genuine sense of satisfaction.

This is a game that ticks all of the right boxes for any wanton destroyer; oodles of dangerous weaponry, masses of different vehicles and hundreds of enemies who are just queuing up for a bullet or two from your trusty AK 47. Ah, bliss! I really do love this game so much and I heartily recommend it!!

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Most gamers would quickly agree that it’s crucial to have a good first person shooter in your collection. But that doesn’t have to mean the latest ‘Call of Duty’ title… Besides, if you are lagging behind in terms of the console you own (it’s affectionately known as ‘Retro Gaming’ now!), then COD will serve you as neither use nor ornament.

Fortunately the first person shooter has been around for a good long time and there are some fine examples to choose from on just about any games system you care to name. However, one of my personal favourites has to be, ‘Perfect Dark’ for the Nintendo 64.

For any fan of (the original) ‘Goldeneye’, ‘Perfect Dark'will fit just as comfortably as your well-worn slippers! Both games were created by the mighty Rare label and this is blatantly obvious right from the start. There are so many similarities between the two that we have insufficient space here to list them all (the bad guys even die exactly the same way in both games).

‘Perfect Dark'is an absolute joy to play - the controls are super-responsive, the story is nicely done and there are oodles of cool weapons to discover. Of course, the graphics don’t exactly cut it if you compare them to the games of today… but who cares; after all, overall gameplay is always the most important factor to consider. In my mind, ‘Perfect Dark'has only ever been bettered since 2000 by the ‘Timesplitters'series (which was also created by many of Rare’s top programmers).

Sure, today’s first person shooters may be ten times more realistic… but for me they just don’t seem to have quite the same level of fun. Besides, there’s a certain charm about a game with poor artificial intelligence… where the baddies may as well walk around with pop up banners saying, ‘Shoot me please’!

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I know, it’s a tricky subject. And a controversial one on a gamer blog, but I think it’s worth covering.

Sometimes, sometimes, we lose power. And with winter approaching, now seems to be a good time to cover this topic. What happens when the lights (and your Xbox) go out?

So, let’s say it’s a rainy November evening. You’ve got home from a rubbish day at work, dumped your wet shoes in the bath and are looking forward to a cosy evening in with some beans on toast and a few hours on Assassin’s Creed. The beans are in the pan, the bread is in the toaster and the kettle’s on. You’re just about to sit down on the sofa when…

Yep. Your worst nightmare.

Power cut.

Right, so you’re cracking out the scented tealights your girlfriend left at yours last time she had a bath.

Lighting = sorted.

You could eat the lukewarm beans out of the pan. Or just get a pizza in.

Not perfect, but food = sorted.

Now, onto the trickiest problem.

First, take a look round the flat.

Question 1: are your flatmates in?
Question 2: are they feeling sociable?

and

Question 3: is the battery flat in your DS?

Let’s assume they are, and it is. So it’s just you, Dave and Matt. You’ve got (rapidly warming) beers in the fridge, you’ve got tepid baked beans, a flat that smells like flowers, and you’ve got some mates. But no electricity. Now, before you crack out that Isle of Lewis chess set and board your parents got you last Christmas, wait a second. Sure, chess is one option. But there are much, much more exciting board games out there.

With the best board games, it’s all about tactics on the battlefield.

The likelihood is, one of you will have played World of Warcraft. And it’s available as an epic board game that could happily fill your electricity-less evening. Dreadfleet, just out this year, has the nautical zombie battle market cornered. If fantasy isn’t quite your thing, then try Tide of Iron, a WW2 battle tactics board game with loads of expansion packs to keep the game going for weeks.

It’s not a replacement for a console, but for those dark, desperate times, it’s well worth having one of these bad boys in the cupboard.

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Now as much as us serious gamers tend to not really pay much attention to the Nintendo platforms dismissing them as too much geared towards the kids – although serious gamers should have multiple platforms which should surely include one or more from Nintendo. As a mobile device I do like the DS, there are a lot of very addictive games on there that are great for keeping you occupied whilst commuting, even though those people playing games on smart phones and tablets do look at you as if you are still stuck in the dark ages. One of the great things about the DS is if you use if with an R4i card you can have access to hundreds of games for very little money by simply downloading them online and dragging them directly onto the card in your Windows browser. They are relatively cheap and easy to use and represent a fantastic new process for getting access to new games. You can also add movie files onto the card allowing you to watch a whole film; this really turns it into a great mobile entertainment system. Although it’s quite a small one but I’m sure if games are accessed online and transferred to a reusable device it must be better for the environment. The amount of carbon emissions that come from producing DVDs, Blue Ray discs and game discs are actually quite high, so surely it’s time for all platforms to start embracing and reusable device for accessing media. But that might be difficult to control!

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From Dust for X-Box 360, which is the second game in the Summer of Arcade for XBLA, is not your typical video game. Instead of fighting robots, other people or animals, in this game you fight fire, tsunamis, volcanoes, floods and many other of nature’s devastating effects. And you do this while trying to lead a tribe of people to a new home.

The object of this game is to lead the villagers to a totem pole (there are 4 scattered around) and once there, create a livable village for them with houses and even shops with window displays. But you have to be careful about doing this since you could end up flooding the village, burning it to the ground, causing a volcanic eruption or any of the other disasters that come out of nowhere if you do not do things just right.

Once you have your villagers settled, and the land is habitable, then you will see a mouth shaped portal that you lead your villagers through in order to do this all over again. Before that happens, however, you will see vegetation start to spread through your village and animals appear to graze upon it. One of the hardest tasks is when you only have a fire-creating lava weapon and you have to stop a fire from destroying your village.

As the Breath, you can do many God like things such as part waters – such as Moses did – and use a magical wand that will keep your village safe from all natural disasters. You can suck up water from one place and put it in another, you can put out fires or make water disappear with the rightly named Put Out Fires and Evaporate keys. If you need more life, Amplify Breath increases your time.

From dust has beautiful visual effects and is very entertaining, however, it is slow at first and it is only after you get to the last level or two that you feel really challenged.

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The BBC reported last year that more and more developers were turning towards the mobile platform (particularly the iPhone) to develop their games. Hailed as a golden age of games development last year, this year has proven to be even more of an advance in mobile games technology with Smartphones enabling people across the globe to play each other and share stats at the touch of a button.

Whilst the more graphically proficient shooters can still mainly be found on hardware specifically designed to handle them (eg. PSP, X Box), more and more retro shooters have found their way onto the mobile market. Amongst the best games available on your phone are ‘Black Ops’, a tactical based shooter which requires you to deploy your own troops as well as blast the hell out of the opposing side. Another popular shooter is ‘Comic Blast'a classic arcade space shooter which requires the player to navigate and blast his way through hours of insane but stylish levels and become top dog.

The advance of mobile gaming has been a double edged sword for the gaming industry. On one hand it has allowed smaller developers to become well known, but on the other hand it has diluted the industry so much that there is a lot more poor quality titles slipping through making it harder and harder to find quality shoot ’em ups.

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Signs are that this is a wider example of Japan recognising the effect and power the shoot ‘em up genre has around the world. Whilst Tokyo itself has always been reluctant in pandering to the western proclivity for blasting as many enemies away with a gun as possible – on screen of course – the industry has realised the financial gain that come from doing so. The Japanese audience has changed as well and has become more inclined to playing shooters usually reserved for western audiences. Capcom has been watching carefully it seems and decided to see if they can cash in on this change.

Many critics will argue that the past two Resident Evil games were more shooter then survival in any case, but 4 & 5 were more a mash of puzzle and shooter and still focused heavily on not dying with limited ammunition. Operation Raccoon city is a squad based shooter more in the vein of ‘Left 4 Dead’then any previous instalment of Resident Evil. In it you get to control four members of the Umbrella security services sent out into the city to eliminate the remaining police forces still present.

Not only has Capcom taken a risk with their biggest franchise by moving away completely from the survival horror that made it so famous, but it has done so knowing full well that fans are waiting to pull the game to pieces should there be any missteps. Due for release in winter 2011 only time will tell if Capcom’s gamble has paid off.

I had a misconception on armed forces insurance just like I thought that everybody prefers to play shooting games online than playing with friends on a console. There are many shooting games in the market right now and listing them will be laborious. Besides, I don’t want to appear to be advertising for any developer so this piece is just about the personal perception of people on where they prefer to play their shooting games. Before I go further; if anyone out there used to think like me that shooting games is just for men, you are wrong. While asking a few friends and course mates, I discovered that a few ladies love to play these games as well. For me, the best place if not the only to play shooting especially hunting games is online.

I was so used to it and I figured that was the best and that every other person prefers to play online just like I do. Back to the female participation; most that I had the opportunity of asking questions do not like playing online. I asked five of them and only one said she does play online because her brothers do. The fact that she plays online does not necessarily mean she likes to. They also appear to have the same reasons for refusing or hating to play online. The reason can be summarised as the fear of masculine online game freaks. They believe that online gaming is a place where they will always lose and we all know that the female folk take losing a bit more personal. As for guys, most love to play online but new gamers prefer to hone skills through trying out with friends at home.

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