So, about 5 hours into Brutal Legend I find myself with mixed feelings about the game.

The presentation, the acting and the style is absolutely amazing. I cannot press how much a joy the game is to look at, listen to and just generally explore. BUT, and this is a big hooty booty sized but, the gameplay …. the weird and wonky RTS and the generally unsatisfying combat just puts a real dampener on the game.

This I think stops the game from being amazing, its just not particularly fun or well implemented and almost feels unnecessary. Could they not have been all AI controlled and this be more of a dynasty warriors kind of affair ?

Honestly my last real experience with an RTS on a console was with Kingdom under fire on the original Xbox and that did it without issue, but then its a much slower affair. With Brutal Legend you are expected to run around and deal with the long range attacks, that you don’t even know are hitting you until you are low on energy and the screen begins to glow red, while trying to get some decent response from your legions of dudes.

I’m sure plenty of people will play it and have no issues with this at all but it just feels a bit sloppy, which is a real shame considering how lovingly the rest of the game is put together!

Hopefully should have some more thoughts over the next few days..

P.S Don’t go into multiplayer before you finish single player, Major Spoiler alert

Due to Sony being a bunch of ass fuckers the release for the 360 version of Ghostbusters, in the UK, has been delayed until October, so being the resourceful chap I am I imported a copy via EBay

After a roughly 9 hour run through the game I thought I would post a few of my impressions and why I think that them making the third film a game was an excellent idea!

Let’s start with the obligatory…

Who you gonna call ?

So the guys are back together, Ray, Egon, Venkman and Winston finally get their asses together for what essentially is Ghostbusters 3. The game is still set in same familiar places and feature the same cast members with only a handful, namely Sigourney Weaver and Rik Moranis, missing which gives the game an excellent sense of authenticity that personally I have never seen before in a game.

You could probably say the kind of experience they are going for is one of a kind. Rather than making a game to emulate a film they have made a game that should have been the film in the first place. Originally penned by Dan Akroyd and Harold Ramis to be Ghostbusters 3 the original script was apparently put on hold due to technology not being advanced enough to give the effect they desired. With Ghostbusters 2 being the success it was I guess they didn’t want to disappoint with the third entry in the series.

I think generally the game is a HUGE success. Honestly I very rarely finish my games, I think the last game I finished prior to this was Mass Effect. That was well over a year ago and I’ve had plenty of other games since, Fable 2, Prince of Persia, just to name 2 but I do get bored very quickly.

Ghostbusters moves along with a nice pace, through the entire game there was only one point where I got frustrated (fucking flying Cherub things), but generally its an enjoyable romp through an equally enjoyable storyline that needs to be experienced by anyone who is a fan of either of the first two movies.

Other reviews I have read commented on the inconsistency of the cut scenes which I would have to agree on, also on the lip syncing being off on a fair number of the cut scenes. Although if I hadn’t have read other reviews prior to getting the game I would have blamed this on my slowly dying 360 but it never really hampered the enjoyment of the experience.

I have had a brief bit of time with the multi player which was a pleasant surprise. For something that I honestly would have expected to be tacked on, it’s actually a very competent component of the package and has a lot of playtime and adds a lot to the game. With a co-op campaign and and experience system and a good choice of modes there is a lot of time that can be spent just busting ghosts and generally making yourself feel good! Because of course, bustin makes me feel good.

Without going on too much, it’s not one of those impulse purchases I regretted, a very enjoyable game that was well worth the wait and I’m actually fairly interested in playing through it a second time to get a load of the achievements I missed in my first run through.

So if you live in the UK you can either pop online and grab yourself a multi-region NTSC version or wait around for the PAL version in October, your call.

Take a journey to a mystical land where Arch Mages battle for supremacy of magical new worlds – battle to become the LORDS OF CHAOS

You would have thought in 1990 this would have been a pretty big statement for a video game to make.  The UK still hadn’t seen much of the 16 bit consoles and the Amiga was still king. If a household had any kind of games device it would probably be an Amiga, Atari-ST, Commodore 64, Spectrum or Amstrad.

The whole market was very similar, you would still get the movie licenced games, which arguably were of higher quality than the more recent attempts, and the games based on popular TV shows. So in-between the copies of Postman Pat and Dangermouse there would more often than not be games that break the trend and walk a different path.

One such title was Lords of Chaos, with a look very similar to the X-com games and a massive potential it put you in the boots of a custom created wizard who was bidding to become the next ruler of the realm. The single player experience took your wizard through a series of scenarios in which you generally had to last for X number of turns and leave via a randomly placed portal once the time comes.

The blurb on the back of the box reads :

Produced by the designers of Laser Squad, Mythos Games have packed excitement and strategy into a game bursting with features : 1- 4 players can battle against each other or highly intelligent computer opponents, make potions, cast up to 45 different spells, collect treasure and fight mythical creatures in this multi-level adventure

Now in 1990 I was the tender age of 8 when my brother bought a copy of LoC for £9.99 probably from WH-Smiths, and it was quite possibly the first entry in what would become a strong love for turn-based Strategy RPGs that would still be with me at this day. The ideas behind the game are ones that I don’t even think have been recreated in any modern game and if it HAS I would LOVE to know about it.

Once loaded the game treats you with the wizard creation screen, you couldn’t simply select a pre-made wizard, you had to create from scratch a wizard who could not only survive a fight with a dragon, but also create enough minions and damage to take out another enemy.

The game was genius, instantly a hit in my household we would often spend a Sunday creating our characters, or loading our single player characters up for a bit of extra strength. The beauty of the game was in the ability to save your single player wizard and load it into the game with all XP acquired so that you can bring those few extra spells and have the ability to risk a dragon spell on the off chance you will run into a Dragon Herb on your travels.

The manual includes a token in the back for you to send off to get the first expansion pack that unfortunately I don’t think ever came out, at least not on the C64. It touted two new scenarios “Island of Iris” and “Tombs of the Undead”.

LoC is a very solid title, pretty good AI and lots of interesting monsters to conjure and spells to cast, and is only probably let down by the lack of scenarios on the single player as with hundreds of different ways to build your character there is always a different way to play and the random layout of the map each time gave the game that level of unpredictablity.

While Laser Squad has been rehashed and rebuilt in many different forms under the X-com name, LoC hasn’t received the same treatment. Possibly due to the geek stigma of the fantasy genre during the period but it is certainly a title I would love to see come back on something like Xbox Live or the DS with some kind of play by e-mail structure that would work exceedingly well in a game like this.

If anyone has any information on a remake or similar games then please leave a comment and let me know!

P.S – I found a copy of StarPaws in the box as well! what a game.