For something old, with a much-improved sequel, SARPBC has an active online community. I hosted a game, and found five people joining me very quickly – and just as with Rocket League, playing online multiplies the fun several times.
While recording gameplay on the PS3 is still tricky, SARPBC does allow you to save replays. I scored the overtime goal in this match – after many close calls.
Read More »I was surprised to learn that Rocket League was actually a sequel to a PS3 game by Psyonix called Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle-Cars. With such a catchy title, it’s hard to see why it never took off to the same extent as Rocket League did. Having said that, apparently it was downloaded on PSN over two million times, so if anything it just goes to show how I don’t keep up with trends any more.
Anyway, when I found this out I saw it was on sale on PSN for £1.99, and since I got Rocket League for ‘free’ via PS+ I thought I would try it out. It was only after I had bought it that I discovered that there’s an extensive trial version which I could have tried for free, since the way PS3 games are sold on the store is ludicrously complicated.
Read More »Started in 2011, continued in 2013, and completed in 2015. Heavy Rain is a game that I’ve always wanted to see the end of, and had admired from a storytelling perspective, but the first couple of chapters in particular didn’t enamour me to the game itself. In the last update I posted, I talked about how the switching characters felt a bit jarring, and made the game feel quite disjointed. It’s not a huge surprise that it’s taken me until now to finish it off, then.
Now, part of what I want to talk about is the story, and that’s an integral part of the game experience. If you’ve not played the game, and intend to do so, I recommend that you don’t read any more.
Read More »They did introduce something new – but hardly innovative. It turns out that the treasure is cursed, and all associated with it turn into the undead. Yes, it’s yet another game where you get to fight zombies. These aren’t the shambling hordes of Resident Evil, these are agile and quick and vicious. These are just horrible.
While I did find the three-way battles between Drake, the zombies, and the mercenaries pretty clever, the general tone of the game was worsened by their inclusion. I’m sure that many would argue that they were crucial to the plot – don’t take the gold off the island, it’ll make the world cursed! – but it could have just been a disease inside the golden statue instead. Maybe it’s just that I don’t like things jumping out at me.
Read More »The developers of Uncharted were very clear that they wanted this to be a cover shooter with a bit of platforming thrown in, it seems. Following the story, Drake has worked out where the treasure is buried, and we’ve descended down through mausoleums and libraries, using doorways that nobody else has known about. You’d think this was the perfect opportunity for platform exploration, but no – somehow the enemy have got into these areas as well and continue their work to make Drake die. It just feels really tenuous.
Something else I notice – when describing this game, I often call the main character “Drake”, rather than projecting myself into him. It’s clear that Drake worked out the location of the treasure, since I had no part in it. Wherever there are puzzles, Drake is the one who finds the correct page in the notebook which give the answer in an obvious way. When there’s a new weapon, Drake is the one who quips about it being a great find. I’m not – I don’t find guns exciting at all.
Read More »The original Mega Drive game was available on the PS3 for around a pound, so I bought it. Of course. I now own that game on the Mega Drive, Saturn (in Sonic Jam), Gamecube and Xbox (in Sonic Mega Collection), DS (in Sonic Classic Collection), Xbox 360 and PS3. And I’ve completed it on every platform other than the PS3.
This pales into insignificance when you compare it to Andy’s collection, but I’ve no doubt I’ll buy the 3DS version at some point …
After getting annoyed with the battle in Tomb Raider, I decided to play through this. Rather than a straight run-through, I decided to try to get as many trophies as possible. This means not dying, completing the first act of Green Hill and Marble in relatively quick times, collecting all the chaos emeralds, and completing the game in less than 40 minutes. I was saving after every stage and had to restart the special stages a couple of times, but I’ve now got a save game with five chaos emeralds, at the start of Spring Yard 3. I think that the overall time might be more than 40 minutes by the time I get to the end though, so I might need to play through another time without trying for the special stages.
I loved Rez. I loved the way it enveloped all your senses and felt easy and natural. I loved the way the music evolved with the game, and it was built around rhythm in the same way that Daytona and WipeOut are. I loved the sparse stylised visuals and short structure of the game.
I still love it, but now I love Child of Eden more.
Sure, the Move controls are a little flaky at times, not recognising the flicks to launch projectiles – a bigger movement works better but then you lose where the crosshair is – but on the whole removing the control pad makes this even more involving than Rez and draws you deeper into the game. There are times when the immersion is broken, like when the game decides that you can’t move around the area when previously you could, but this just highlights to me just how transfixed I become.
Is that a good thing? For the game, yes. It makes playing this more of an experience than I would ordinarily be used to, and as a result is quite draining. It’s certainly not a good thing for Justine, since she’s likely to feel very ignored whenever I play it. Then again, she’s the one who bought it …
Tim's Gaming Diary 