I decided to give in to my primal hurty instincts and I went out and bought Viking from JB. From the reviews, it just looked like one of the many ‘brutal fighting games’ that game out around the time of Ninja Gaiden, Heavenly Sword, Assassin’s Creed and Conan. I’ve only played it for 15 or so minutes, and I can pretty confidently say, it is. However, I haven’t really done a lot other than hack up grunts to pieces. And when I say pieces, I mean pieces. The devs also made a nice little decision to keep the mangled corpses around the landscape instead of simply letting them disappear. My problem with games like Ninja Gaiden and Heavenly Sword is they are not brutal. Not that they were meant to be, but they are sold as having vicious combos and moves. The thing is, ninjas aren’t brutal, slim, sexy chicks(pixels though they may be) aren’t brutal, they rely on speed and finesse in the killing. This is reflected in the great graphics, smooth action and the blood. It spills with each sweeping slicing strike.

Viking, Conan and God of War are brutal. The characters are brutal, the moves are brutal. The graphics are dark, often poor, but there is blood spilling everywhere, the clean smooth strikes are replaces by powerful hacks of oversized weapons. The first eye opener in Viking only came when I got into combat, the movement is pretty slow, the main character looks like a rather hefty Norseman and it takes a bit of getting used to, but the fighting is just insane. The first finishing move impaled the bad dude on my sword, and the Viking went for a straight decapitation with his main hand axe. However, instead of making a clean cut, this took 2 hacks at the neck. Something that simple does wonders for atmosphere. You ‘feel’ the aggression and imagine that if it took 10 blows to sever the head, you would still hack till it’s off.

There was also a small stump of spine sticking out of the neck-hole, further showing how it was not a clean swipe and just pure rage that killed this baddie. So there you go. 1 mob, 5 second fight, sheer brutality.

Pretty cool huh?

I don’t know how the hell I did it, or even if it’s a standard thing, but I seem to be able to use a zombie skin in the Multiplayer game. I only just noticed it, but there he is when I was trying to look at the new clothing I had unlocked. I can remember I was doing pretty pathetically, got a few kills in a row, had a complete inability to kill anyone with a car. Other than that, the only thing I can thing of is getting quite a few machine gun kills, handgun kills and thats really it. I’ve only played Deathmatches and free runs.

Actually, the only standout was that I had quite a few kills where I died at the same time as the guy I was shooting, maybe that’s it? Kotaku rumours say that you have to kill a Rockstar employee. It may also be viral so you may be able to kill someone that has killed one. I’m sure when my friends kill me we can find out.

Pretty pointless, yet oh-so-awesome.

The other day I downloaded the demos for Overlord and Dragonball Z Burst Limit. I also pulled out the PSP which I haven’t touched since I finished the oh-so-awesome Warhammer 40000: Squad Command to play the Harvey Birdman demo I downloaded ages ago. Overlord has been out for a while on Xbox 360, but it’s only just been thrown up on the PS online store. I was also a huge fan of the Dragonball Budokai series up until, I think it was Tenkachi, when the game turned into 3rd person view instead of the side on view that ALL fighting games should use. Am I being too old fashioned? Probably, but I can’t think of a decent fighter that’s gone against the grain. And I’m talking fighters, so Fight Night fans can back off.

After looking through the demos, I’m kinda looking forward to things. Overlord looks like a really simple game, and it plays that way. Summoning little gremlins, commanding them to kill things and bring you stuff. Hell, thats easy, its also pretty entertaining. Having not bothered to read anything about it on the 360, I don’t know much about it, I’m expecting it to be simplistic to the point I’d lose interest, but only time will tell. First thought after the demo - Awesome.

Dragonball Z games always appeal to me. I’m a huge fan of the cartoon, I have every DVD(bar the movies) from Dragonball, Dragonball Z and Dragonball GT. I also have a crapload of the toys. It’s very geeky but I love them. Re-enacting the scenes from the cartoon is always great. Looking at the demo it looks like they went back the the old Budokai games with the view, the struggles, and added in some really great looking cell shading. Unfortunately there is no real tutorial to speak of so I had to fudge my way through the Kamehameha’s and basic blasts. The game plays pretty fast, but without a tutorial it’s hard to get the hang of. First thought after the demo - Must Buy(fan reasons, the demo is pretty lame).

The last demo was a huge surprise. I haven’t really been a fan of the Harvey Birdman tv show, other than when I have seen it after South Park. Anything that follows South Park is usually neglected in my eyes, but it did get a few laughs. After discussing the basics of the demo with some mates, we decided the game plays very similar to Carmen Sandiego, and I’m a sucker for puzzle games. Searching areas for clues, building cases, and eventually prosecuting them. The demo played very much like an interactive episode, with hilarious dialogue, random characters and very light-hearted. These are the kinds of games I love to play on portable systems. As much as I like action games, if it has a level of complexity I tend to prefer to play it on a tv and big console, PSPs are much more casual so to see games like this come out makes me happy. The game itself had a breakthrough moment with me when I was interviewing Secret Squirrel and Magilla Gorilla in jail about a break in of my(Birdman’s) office, where I also saw Dhalsim in a gratuitous but somewhat relevant cameo. Thoughts after the demo - Depending on price, this could be a go-er. With only a limited amount of cases, I can’t see this being a game I will play forever, but if it’s around the cost of a DVD or Blu-ray, I might just do it.

And of course, it’s Thursday again today, so as the night goes on I will HOPEFULLY find a few more things to try before I buy.

This could quite easily turn into a bitch, so I’ll try to stay on track here. I don’t think the game deserves at 10. I think anyone that does is blinded by hype. The game ‘is’ good, but its not without its problems. Camera angles and aiming issues are things that usually see games ripped apart in reviews from players and magazines alike. Repetition and samey stories also cost points to games. Keeping these few things in mind, let me start my quick review.

Of course, it’s still early days. I think I’m a grand total of between 3% and 7% through the game so I am yet to be wowed by later content, not that I’m intending on awarding bonus points to cover any problems….. I’m finding the camera isn’t behaving to my liking. I even had this issue in adventure games such as Conan and God Of War. Every game has it, but its not often that I see a racing/car based game that takes so long for the camera to follow cars rought a corner. I tend to use the handbrake a lot in unrealistic driving games, and let’s face it, if you are after realism, this game isn’t for you. Yet the simple idea of a quick handbrake turn throws the camera. Another thing I noticed, which may be my camera angle, is that you can’t see going up hills onto a flat area as the car covers anything in front of you, for example, a cop.

Arguably, if I was driving ‘nicely’ these things wouldn’t happen. But driving around obeying all the road rules is NOT the point here. I would get bored of this game quicker if I did that, but with the amount of trouble I cause with camera problems, I rarely end up at the mission start instead of the hospital anyway. I can put this down to noobish impatience, as I have never EVER wanted to take a game slow. To skip over other issues, I have cover, auto-aiming and side-games. The reasons for this: they suck. Try to shoot from a moving car driven by your friend in multiplayer. Seems okay? Now have him turn down random streets. You might notice that instead of moving your gun as the car turns, Niko does this for you. For a lot of this joyriding I was constantly overcorrecting, so I think, okay they want me to be lazy, but that’s hardly true. In one of the earlier missions, Niko decided to take cover in front of a dresser. Sure thats fine if they are behind it, not so much if they are in front with you. I then auto-aimed to the person shooting. Niko decided it would make more sense to try to shoot the guy behind the wall, THROUGH the wall, instead of locking on said guy. Then, when I left the hospital, I played some darts. The aiming is a LOT better and it works exactly as you would expect. The thing wrong? Darts are boring.

There storyline is different, yet, the game plays like every other one, SO FAR. I will admit, I’m losing interest already. The multiplayer is great, more on that another time, but the game is hardly 10/10. Fanboys, you suck.