SEGA Mega Drive Ultimate Collection

This is another game I bought in the hope of earning more quick achievements and I wasn’t disappointed. Also a trip down memory lane was long overdue. I used to love all the old games on this compilation from my younger days. Well, some of them anyway. I hadn’t played a lot of them before as they were before my time. Some are even released before I was born!

The first thing I realised when playing was that games have become a lot easier since the Megadrive days. I swear to God, I was better at these games when I was younger, but if Sonic Generations proved anything it’s that I will never be good at Sonic again, no matter what version of the game I’m playing.

Dying became something of a regular thing throughout these games. Having a limited number of lives before having to start again is something that modern games don’t really do. I can’t think of a modern game which punishes you half as much for being careless. It’s no wonder I found these games so difficult as modern games have dulled my abilities.

I used to walk through Golden Axe without a care, fighting my way through the hordes of enemies and I swear I’ve managed to get to the end of the game before. On the Ultimate collection version however, I can’t even make it through to act 4 without having to use at least 1 continue.

There’s not really a lot else for me to comment on. We all know that the older games are vastly superior and can’t be criticised for looks so let’s dive straight into the...

Achievements – 1,000 Points – 34 Achievements

With a compilation of this size, it was disappointing that there were only 34 achievements. There are quite a few for playing the individual games but not all of them. I was especially disappointed that there weren’t any achievements for completing any of the Phantasy Star games or even any achievements for individually playing them.

One massive improvement from the Megadrive generation is being able to save your progress and reload. This was great because, as I mentioned in the Sonic Generations review, a lot of the games are very much trial and error. This cut potentially hours off both of the Vectorman achievements.

Most of the achievements are hideously unbalanced as well. Why oh why do you have to play the first five to ten minutes of some of the more enjoyable games, yet you have to complete Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine which is not only a horrible game to play but insanely difficult to boot.

Downloadable Content – N/A

On the whole it is an easy set of achievements to gain with the exception of Dr Robonik’s not so fun Bean thing. Some of the others were quite tricky as well such as getting to a certain stage without dying and I think I got lucky during some parts.

However, it was an enjoyable game to play through and certainly has a lot of replay value which is more than can be said for the majority of modern releases.

CSI: Crime Scene Investigation Fatal Conspiracy

This is a new concept of gaming for me. I tried the CSI games on the recommendation from a friend that they are good to play as a couple. I couldn’t agree more.

I’ve never really watched CSI but you don’t really need to in order to play the game. It’s essentially five episodes which have an overarching storyline and you are basically on a mission to crush Beatrice Salazar’s drug empire.

CSI’s gameplay can be easily compare to the old point and click style adventure games where you have to investigate crime scenes in order find evidence and prove murders. You have a lab in which to analyse the evidence which includes DNA, chemicals, microscopes and computer analysis to name a few.

There are also interrogations where you can use the evidence to force people’s confessions.

And that’s pretty much it. It is a very simple game which can be really frustrating when you can find that last piece of evidence in a scene. However there were several moments that were actually quite funny as result of under development of story and just horrendous gameplay.

Covering the story element first, some of the characters are really under developed. The interrogations could have been a lot better. You gather all the evidence to nail someone with the crime and they will deny it until they are blue in the face. Then you present them with a piece of circumstantial evidence that could be easily thrown out or argued against but instead of expectedly arguing on, the suspect folds instantly like a wet napkin and confesses everything!

What we found most annoying is that we were figuring out what had happened and what we needed to do but then the game would send us patronising emails telling us what we already knew. We had the hints set on low as well so this was exceptionally irritating. We were also thinking of different questions to ask suspects based on the evidence we had collected but didn’t have the option to ask the suspect because we hadn’t complete a prerequisite to another part of the investigation. It was like the game was saying, ‘No you can’t solve this your way. You MUST solve it our way!’

As far as the gameplay goes, the microscope stuff was very, very irritating. We couldn’t get past the first investigation because of the bloody thing no matter how many different combinations we tried.

We were tasked with analysing a piece of evidence under the microscope. The tutorial indicated that we could move the microscope around to look at different bits of the piece of evidence, but in reality this was not the case and you were fixed on the one area.

There are three levels of zoom you can use and you can adjust the focus accordingly but after trying every possible combination, we resorted to looking it up online. Apparently we had to adjust the zoom first and then the focus in that exact order or else it won’t work. We only had this problem for the first microscope bit so I can only imagine that it is an unfixed glitch.

Achievements – 1,000 points – 25 Achievements

There are no missable achievements and I think they are all story related. There are three which may require replaying certain missions but it’s not too time consuming to do so.

Downloadable Content – N/A

So CSI is another achievement farm but it is fun to play with others. The one issue with this type of game is that there is next to no replay value as once you’ve played it through, you know what will happen. Due to the hand-holding nature of the gameplay, there are no alternative routes to the solution which is its biggest let down by far.

Saw

I went on an end of year achievement spree and found a list of ‘easy’ games online. Saw was one of the games I picked up for a quick hit. I’m not a fan of movie/game adaptations and Saw was no exception to the rule. However it did have some good points as well as bad.

The story of the game takes place between the first and second movies and is quite well constructed in that it uses Detective Tapp as the protagonist assuming he didn’t die after being shot at the end of the first movie. Instead, he was saved by the serial killer only to be put into a mental hospital to punish him for his ‘obsession’ with catching said serial killer.

They put quite a lot of work into the story to make it fit with the series as well as work as a standalone. Detective Tapp has to face all of the people whose lives he has destroyed in his quest to catch jigsaw and, with a few notable exceptions, the characterisation in done remarkably well for a movie adaptation.

They have put a big emphasis on lighting as well. You need a light source to get through dark areas and you pick up different light sources throughout the game. One of these light sources is a camera which you can use the flash to light up dark places. This was great in the movie and really added to the ‘jump’ factor when Adam was being hunted by Pigface. However, in the game you cannot see where you have to go before it reverts to total darkness again so it doesn’t work as an adaptation. At one point I had to navigate through a bomb-filled corridor which would have been straight forward with the lighter, but it made me very angry when I switched to the camera just before having to do this bit and without being able to backtrack and switch to the lighter.

The gameplay elements consist of fighting bad guys and solving Saw style puzzles. The puzzle solving element was okay, but there were only five different ones throughout the game so after the first two sections, it became a bit repetitive.

The combat sucks a fat one too. It is unintuitive and the game would be better without it. The last fight is bizarrely flawed in that all you have to do is stand there and grapple with the boss for five minutes before he dies. Most bad guys can be killed in the same way despite their class differences – what is the point of have a ‘berserker’ type character that isn’t berserk and fights in the same way as a regular minion? I would have expected Tapp to have to employ different methods of dealing with different foes but it is all very samey.

In all games there is always a major element designed to piss off all gamers and in Saw, it is the booby traps. You can’t see shotgun trip wires until you’re dead and then you have to go back to the last checkpoint which, in some cases, can involve a lot of backtracking... only for me to forget the trap was there and die again!

Achievements – 1,000 points – 46 Achievements

The achievements in Saw are varied but not exhaustive. For example, there are achievements for getting kills with various weapons but not all the weapons. There is an achievement for finding your first asylum file but not all of them. By adding achievements such as ‘Find all asylum files’ could have added a little reply value.

The non-exhaustive achievements have good and bad points. On the plus side you are not going to be frustrated looking for that last file or trying to find the only weapon you haven’t killed someone with. On the negative side, it felt very unrewarding getting to the end of the game, almost like a hollow victory. This is a real shame because the achievements get everything else spot on.

All the secret achievements are unavoidable and story related. There are two achievements for both endings but you only have to replay the last section to get both of them. It’s almost like the developers have realised they have a repetitive game and don’t punish their gamers by making them play the whole game again.

The only achievement that required me to replay certain levels was stomping five evil dudes to death. This was mainly due to the inconsistency of evil dudes falling over when I was punching them and the horrendous quick-time events required to stomp them to death.

Downloadable Content – N/A

Saw is definitely good for farming the points but is not a great game and isn’t very rewarding for completion. I wouldn’t play it again for fun and it hasn’t changed my opinion towards movie/game adaptations.

Pro Evolution Soccer 6

Story – N/A

It is football. The only real story is taking a team to the pinnacle of winning their respective domestic league – no Europe just the league and cup. There is also their own Pro Evolution Soccer league and cup competition but it’s so fictional, you can really draw any comparison to real life football.

Picture 7/10

It would be harsh to judge the first Pro Evolution by the modern standards and there is only so much to it you can look at. I think the likenesses are very good and accurate which is what I believe most people would use to rate the game in terms of graphics.

Sound 2/10

Pro Evolution is made by Konami which is a Japanese developer. As such, the theme music consists of the most annoying noises you can ever listen to. You don’t want to be hanging around in the menus when the ‘music’ is playing and this is made even more frustrating as the options you have to set up your team can take a few minutes to customise, which pushed my brain all the more closer to suicide.

The commentary is the best and worst thing about the game. It is brilliant for about the first five games however, from game six onwards the commentators run out of new things to say and then it becomes just as soul destroying as the music. ‘Header too!’

Gameplay 7/10

This is where the majority of football games pick up their points as you would expect. The obvious comparison to make here is to FIFA and, in my opinion, the football is a lot more fluid is Pro Evolution.

Also from time to time, when the players actually do what you want them to, you can play some pretty good football. The only trouble is that Pro Evolution seems to insinuate that the majority of professional football players make seven out of ten bad passes and, when through on goal, one on one with the goal keeper, will shot high or wide without any pressure.

There are also issues with how the other players you are passing to react to the ball. When your pass isn’t quite good enough, the player you are passing to will occasionally make absolutely no effort to get the ball and lose it to the opposition. If a ball is going out of play and you try to keep it in, your player will do one of two things; casually run after it and let it go out anyway, or chase it down only to get there and direct it out of play!

The other area when the game lets itself down is with the game modes. There is no European Football in the standard league and their own Master League is so unofficial it really took away the enjoyment for me.

However, it is one of the best games to play socially with friends and this is where it wins the points. There is nothing more satisfying that watching a friend scream, ‘COMON PASS!’ at the top of their lungs and it is even more satisfying when controllers suffer horrible deaths.

While local multiplayer is fun, the online element shits all over itself, but I can hardly blame the game for other people’s issues. I didn’t play the game online until recently and only to collect the online achievements. I met one person playing the game who was actually decent (in a sportsmanship kind of way).

I faced one guy who beat me once and then kept sending me messages saying he wasn’t going to play me again after his one win in a game where the conditions of match play can differ greatly from one game to the next. A couple of other people sent abusive messages after losing narrow games and others quit out after they started losing by a wide margin. The last one I don’t have a problem with, but there was one twat who took it to the next level. If you score an own goal you get to control the replay which doesn’t time out if you don’t do anything... so he scored an own goal and then walked away from his computer leaving me with two choices – out wait the guy or quit out. Massively frustrating and a hole in the online play – there should be a time limit on replays or better yet; stop players from watching them during the game altogether!

I decided the boost the last 50 wins as I couldn’t be bothered to wade through another 50 games (minimum) of shitty people. And for my trouble, I got another shitty message calling me a twat!

Achievements – 1,000 points – 23 Achievements

Online achievements are pointless - This is something you will see repeated across many of my reviews. If people want to show each other how good they are at a game (or how bigger twats they can be) they can do it in their own time in their own online environment. The online achievements for Pro Evolutions Soccer 6 were pretty straight forward though so it wasn’t too bad.

It does win further points over FIFA though by actually letting me get the online achievements – many FIFA games have closed servers making 100% achievement now impossible.

In terms of the offline achievements all you have to do is win all the leagues which is nothing short of time consuming and not that enjoyable.

Downloadable Content – Not Applicable

In terms of getting achievements I would list it as a definite no for purchase. It’s too time consuming, not enjoyable and if you like football games, one of the more recent instalments is much more value for enjoyment. I consider anything I have to boost as not worth it, but my OCD got me through this one.

Condemned: Criminal Origins

Story 6/10- SPOILERS

The premise for Condemned is really good. You are a policeman who is disgraced and framed by a serial killer and so you have to go on a revenge mission to stop him and clear your name. It’s kind of hard to describe this story for the things that pissed me off without spoiling it for others, hence my warning but here it is.

I’m down with the whole realism and gritty underworld full of drug addicts and violent criminals where a serial killer may take refuge. But once you reach a certain point, they add an additional sub plot and you are no longer just hunting a serial killer. It turns out that the whole thing is to do with some crazy evil demon which many online reviews and plot synopses refer to as 'The Hate.' I get the whole 'physical manifestation of evil, mainly because it is completely contrived and clichéd to be polite. It caused me to lose any vested interest I had in the story thus far.

I don’t understand why games and movies do this. They come up with a really good premise for scary real-life situations and then remove any kind of tension by introducing demons, poltergeists and other supernatural shit that is not generally scary to people other the age of 18; incidentally, the certificate rating for the game.

Even if it the basis for the serial killer was that he was being controlled by a demon, I wouldn’t mind if the game was trying to be fantasy based... but it’s not. It is caked in realism which works really well before being shat all over with the whole, ‘we can’t write a decent explanation so let’s have a demon. And a cult.’

Picture 5/10

It’s not very pretty. The graphics are more that of the Xbox/PS2 generation and the characters are very blocky and linear in the way they move.

The one good thing I will say is that the interactive weapons blend well with the environment. For example you can use two-by-fours and pipes as weapons which blend in with the scenery. That said, when Agent Thomas does pick up these weapons, they disappear from the environment and appear in his hand; a bit strange when you are interacting with a pipe attached to the wall.

Sound 8/10

The sound effects are easily the best thing about the game. They compliment the dark atmosphere and actions well, especially when an enemy jumps out at you when you least expect it. There is a point where enemies are climbing a wire fence and the clanking sound is scarily accurate. The only disappointment in that when you strike an enemy with a weapon repeatedly, the sound generated is more suited to a Batman comic.

Gameplay 4/10

I will start by saying that the combat is a pile of garbage. This is a little bit of a snag when your two gameplay elements are hitting someone in the face with a stick and investigating crime scenes using the ‘X’ button; and when you add in that eighty percent of these elements is weighted towards combat, that make the entire gameplay a pile of garbage.

On top of the basic principle of this 'combat', I found it ridiculously irritating that all you can do is swing at an enemy once when they can unleash flurries of three hits at the same. My irritation is enhanced by the fact that you are fighting crazed drug addicts and you are an FBI agent who must have had some kind of combat training.

I also took the liberty of looking at the critical reception. Quite a few people made a big deal about the game so I thought I would sample some of it. Gamespot said of the game, ‘it captures hand-to-hand combat with intense, lifelike brutality like no other game before it.’ There are several things in this sentence that make me believe that the reviewer didn’t actually play the game. The combat is broken and bitty. Unless you have managed to master the blocking, which I didn’t despite playing through the game twice, and even when you do block, it’s not as seamless as this sentence makes out. Also saying that it has 'lifelike brutality like no other game before it' doesn’t take Manhunt into account, a game that allowed you to choke a man to death with a plastic bag or hack of a man’s head with a machete. The only reason they are comparable is because they are both prohibited by German law.

Achievements – 970 Points – 50 Achievements

Now, I know it’s called the 1,000 point review but for some bizarre reason, Condemned: Criminal Origins only has 970 points and no downloadable content to make it up.

It’s not too stressful to get all the achievements here although there isn’t much variance. There are no real pain-in-the-ass achievements, but there are a lot of collection related ones which are all listed as secret for some bizarre reason.

The other cardinal sin for achievements is making you play the game through twice because of a moral choice ending. and while I’m ruining shit for everyone, this 'moral choice' makes no difference to the outcome of the story so it’s only there to make you play through the game twice, which makes the monotonous gameplay all the more unforgivable.

Downloadable Content – Not Applicable

Summary

I would definitely put this game into the easy and not too time consuming category however it is not the most fun you will have earning almost 1,000 points. I’ve also heard rumours that some of the collection achievements are glitched if you chose to replay chapters out of order but I never did that so never experienced it. If you are an achievement hunter and don’t mind being bored on a second play through, stick this one on the ‘to rent’ list. It is definitely not worth a GameSpot 8.0 rating but that’s just my opinion.