Halycopter

The Xbox 360 Achievement system and latterly, the PS3′s trophy system have created a whole new reason to play games that you wouldn’t normally go near. Sure, deep down the achievement and trophy whore knows that it’s pointless, and one day their gamerscore or trophy count won’t matter. But arguably, games don’t matter in the long run. It’s the fun you gain in playing them that matters. If having more points than your friends is fun to you, then that’s fine. I’m certainly not going to dictate what should be deemed fun to people, especially not as I must admit to being an achievement whore. A big one at that. I’ve played many games that I would never have played if it wasn’t for the fact they offer ‘easy’ points, and I’ve enjoyed 99% of them. I would never have considered playing Open Season for example, but despite being childish, I really quite enjoyed it. I don’t plan on justifying my achievement whoring, I don’t see why I need to. The fact I enjoy it is enough for me regardless of what others may think. However this hobby is what brought me to a game that ordinarily I would never in a million years play. And by the end of my four or so hours of it, I was reminded why I would never normally play such a….monstrosity. The game in question? Hannah Montana: The Movie.

Yeah I know, I was bound to not like it really. But you see, I played the High School Musical: Senior Year Dance game a few months ago and I enjoyed it. It was actually good fun and I was amazed at how much fun it was. If there was ever another one, I’d snap it up in a shot. Well, rent it in a shot. But Hannah Montana is not like that, instead it is absolutely abominable. The worst game I’ve played in years, in fact possibly ever. But certainly in many years. To play, Hannah Montana combines a pseudo rhythm dance game with wandering around in the third person collecting up bits and pieces to progress the story. A few things quickly become apparent. When walking about collecting these things, you can’t run. As well as that Hannah despite being stick insect thin, appears to get stuck on absolutely every obstacle possible meaning you have to give a wide berth to pretty much everything in the game at all times. As well as that, you can’t skip any of the cut scenes. The cut scenes are cringe worthy, using the very basic graphics that the game provides (think Sims 1 on an old PC and you’re about right) to illustrate the action. Why Disney couldn’t have provided some FMV sequences of the film is anyone’s guess, but it’s pretty bad. The one concession I can offer in my review is the rhythm action elements of the game. They’re dull (nothing compared to High School Musical which was fun, honest!) but they’re quite simple and in comparison to the rest of the game, quite respectable. Other than that, ugh. Oh I forgot to mention the horse riding mini game, which is incredibly clunky and, again, has awful collision detection.

The real crime for Hannah Montana, is that I have no doubt that somewhere a young girl is being given this game as her first ever video game. She will play it and think that’s all that gaming can offer her, and she will never play a real game, at least not for a number of years, but it could well put her off gaming for life. She’ll miss out on so many classics, all because of some lazy game developer deciding to be patronising to girls and not bothering to give them a good game. As you can tell, I was not enamoured with Hannah Montana one bit. The only reason why anyone should ever pay money for such a game is so that they can burn it. Simple as that.

Not sure if I’m happy with this write up, but I guess that’s what comes from experimenting with different styles/methods! I guess I am trying to be more casual just to get me writing more.

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Rock Band 2 is the sort of game that reminds me why I still play games after all these years. It is pure and simple, unadulterated fun. However, it’s not for the faint hearted, or should I say slow fingered as it will take practice to become any good at it. The core gameplay is simple: you use one of four musical instrument peripherals to simulate playing in a real rock concert, the instruments being drum, lead guitar, bass guitar and microphone. You have to press coloured buttons in time with the music, as they appear on screen. Obviously this sounds so much easier on paper than in reality, but it is extremely simple to get into.

It’s ideal for introducing non-gamers to gaming, especially in a party atmosphere. There are four difficulty levels to choose from; meaning anyone with a tiny hint of rhythm stands a chance of being able to finish a song. And boy are there plenty of songs. With 84 on the disc, over 550 songs available to download (for a price, but a relatively inexpensive 160 points on the Xbox 360 Marketplace) and many more being added every week, and even the ability to import songs from the original Rock Band. You really won’t get bored of the songs fast. I’ve been playing avidly for the last couple of months and I’m still finding new songs, although I have found a few songs be repeated throughout the Tour mode.

The Tour mode is Rock Band’s way of providing a career mode and a bit of structure to events. In it, you tour the world playing gigs. You start out only able to play in small venues in your hometown, gradually working your way up through the ranks from any old two bit musician to the gaming equivalent of The Who, providing you are any good and can attract the fans. As well as needing fans, the bigger you become, the more bits and pieces you acquire such as a tour bus and a plane. These don’t really have much of a purpose other than to highlight your success but it does give you targets to aim for. Gigs are a mixture of single songs and setlists, with some performances providing extra challenges such as requiring a 4 Star performance to be achieved to succeed. With your band, you can also challenge players online via the Battle of the Bands feature although I’ve yet to try this.

You’re probably wondering by now what kinds of songs are available to play, and whether it’s your sort of music. Well as the name suggests, it is very much Rock orientated with the likes of the Foo Fighters, Nirvana, Bon Jovi and Guns ‘n’ Roses featuring prominently. As well as these, there are also classic tracks such as Ace of Spades, Pinball Wizard, and that cheese-tastic hit that you just can’t help but love, Eye of the Tiger.

Despite loving Rock Band 2, I’ll admit it’s a tricky one to describe to someone who has never played it. It’s something that sells itself really. If you’ve played Guitar Hero, you’ve got a rough idea of what to expect but it really is something else to actually have drums to bang in time with the music. That’s what sold Rock Band 2 entirely to me. If nothing else, it is fantastic stress relief! As a party game, it is the perfect social game; you and your friends will have a great time laughing at each other’s dubious talents. My only reservation is that the solitary gamer may find themselves getting bored, sure you can spend hundreds of hours mastering the game but this type of game does thrive upon human interaction. Other than that, it really is a great innovation of the rhythm game genre, something that I couldn’t imagine existing a mere six or seven years ago but that works terrifically well now.

In an attempt to motivate me and get me writing more, I’ve come up with a new concept for the blog. I’m calling these entries, Quickviews. Not the greatest of names perhaps but it works! These will be entries that are reviews of games I’ve been playing recently. They won’t be as in-depth as my other reviews and in some ways they will be more informal. They will only be 750 words at the absolute most, but more frequently 500ish. But hopefully they will give me the chance to hone my writing skills and get some content down, as well as master writing more succinctly so that I don’t waffle incessantly! And on that note, we start with WWE Legends of Wrestlemania on the Xbox 360.

WWE Legends of Wrestlemania is the perfect trip down memory lane for Wrestling fans. Featuring 42 wrestling superstars from the 1980s and 90s, it promises to excite many fans, admittedly this doesn’t include me. I was never very interested although friends were so I’m quite well versed in the likes of Hulk Hogan, The Undertaker, Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Rock. I impressed myself by recognising a good 60-70% of the wrestlers in the game. Things were looking good at this point. I suspected I’d have a bit of a challenge on my hands as I was never very good at the Smackdown Vs Raw games and even worse at the Playstation Smackdown games of yesteryear. Boy was I wrong. I found Legends to be ridiculously simple; in fact it was too simple. All that was needed was a few grapple or punch moves to build up a combo bar, a two button press ‘finisher’ move and the fight is pretty much over. My record for finishing a match was a mere 43 seconds! There are a few different game modes available such as Relive where you, quite obviously, relive a famous Wrestlemania match. As well as this, there are Rewrite (you change the course of history so to speak) and Redefine where you are presented with a match from Wrestlemania history but in a completely different situation. Finally is the Legend Killer mode, and the one I concentrated on the most. This is where you create your own Legend and fight a gauntlet style battle whereby you fight 10 Wrestling superstars in a row, then move onto the next tier and so on. This mode ended up a lot more repetitive than the others. Most frustratingly of all, one of the tiers requires you to defeat 38 wrestlers in a row! Not so bad in terms of difficulty, however you have to do this all in one sitting. You can pause, but you can’t save at all. It was quite irritating for me as it meant I had to find a couple of hours that I could devote to this one Tier of battles. Luckily my stubbornness won in the end and I managed to get it done but it really wasn’t as much fun as it should have been. Finally, it was just far too short. The Wrestlemania Tour section would only take about 3 hours to complete and the Legend Killer mode took about the same. I am in no way a Wrestling game expert, but I do know that this should have been so much better and could have been a lot more fun too.