What is this madness, I hear you mutter to yourself? “Is it worth putting down my controller/mouse to check out?”
Well, it depends on what your thoughts on Assassin’s Creed are, I guess, but yes, this is the second game play trailer on Game Junkie 2.0 in one week.
Now, I’m tempering any expectations about Black Flag until (if?) I actually play it: I adored Assassin’s Creed 2 but was disappointed by AC3 – it just wasn’t fun and almost felt as if it was trying to be a little bit Red Dead Redemption with all the crafting and stuff. I’m hoping ACIV is going to learn from the mistakes in AC3, to be honest.
Anyway, enjoy the video. Looking forward to ACIV: Black Flag or going to give it a miss?
We like videos here at Game Junkie 2.0: It means we don’t have to concentrate so hard and just have to look at the pretty moving pictures.
Watch Dogs, from Ubisoft, is looking to be pretty good – it has a real Person of Interest TV show vibe to it (Person of Interest is a TV show about a computer network that can predict crime before it happens and the two guys out to stop those crimes) – but, of course, I’ll wait to pass judgement on it when I eventually play it (and it could be some time before I play it as I expect Grand Theft Auto V to suck up a lot of my free time).
Any way, here’s a 14-minute game play trailer from Ubisoft that shows how protagonist Aidan Pierce can hack just about anything around him to gain access to things. Watch Dogs (I refuse to do the underscore between the two words) is either going to be an amazing game or it’ll be a run-of-the-mill third-person game that’ll be swallowed up in the wake of GTAV.
Hmmmm, I wonder if GTAV will be so big that we’ll start talking about games as “post-GTAV”?
Time will tell I guess. Let me know what you think of the video.
Looking good: a screen grab from Killzone Mercenary taken from my PS Vita.
Killzone: Mercenary, where have you been all my PS Vita’s life?
Mercenary is a shooter that you’ll actually want to play. It’s the shooter that my PS Vita has been crying out for. Oh, sure developers have tried FPS games on the Vita before but let’s face it: They sucked. Pure and simple (I’m looking at you Black Ops: Declassified and Resistance Burning Skies. You were shit).
Killzone Mercenary is the real deal. And if Mercenary had been available earlier, my Vita would have seen more action over the past few months rather than pretty much gathering dust, sitting unused.
Why, Sony, why has it taken it has taken so long for a great first-person shooter to appear on the Vita? Not through lack of talent as there are plenty of talented people in your development studios. There was really no excuse for it. I mean, the Vita has two analogue sticks: It’s made for the FPS, right?
Placing the player in the shoes of soldier-for-hire Arran Danner, Killzone Mercenary is set between the events of Killzone 2 and Killzone 3 and interestingly, in a first for the series, the player will fight alongside both the ISA and Helghan after a twist near the end. Danner is a, after all, a mercenary so he goes where the green is.
Let’s get the visuals out of the way first, though: they are stupendous. The two images with captions are screen captures I did during game play. Looks pretty good, right? It’s like the developer took the PlayStation 3’s Killzone and zapped it with a shrink ray: It really does look that good. Is is too much to say this is the best looking game the Vita because I think it is. It is jaw-droppingly beautiful and really is the best looking game on the Vita.
But good graphics does not a game make, it needs a solid story to back it up. Well, Mercenary’s story is nothing we haven’t seen in countless shooters before (filled with betrayal and backstabbing) and you can see what’s coming a mile off but it’s a shooter, after all: It’s not a Shakespearean play filled with enlightened exposition and wonderment. It’s a game where you shoot people to earn money and complete objectives. I also found the controls took a bit of time getting used to – crouch and sprint are mapped to the circle button which makes things interesting during an intense firefight – but things fell into place soon enough.
Mercenary uses the Vita’s touch screen cleverly, too, letting you melee kill foes by tapping the triangle button then following an on-screen prompt indicating which way to swipe.
Being able to do that means you’ll use it – and I used it a lot, against both normal Helghast grunts and heavily armed heavies. In fact, I probably used it too much (and handily, many of the Helghan turn their back on you when you melee them), but there’s just something satisfying about swiping the touch screen to kill a Helghan (although, does Danner really have to stab some of them in the balls before knifing them in the head? That just made me squirm)
The touch screen is also used to set mines (placing each thumb on the screen then rotating them charges the mine) and kills earn valour, or money, which can be used to buy new weapons, ammunition, better armour and other gadgets from black market weapons chest conveniently dotted about the game world. Every kill earns you money: headshots earning you more than a shot to the chest.
If there’s one thing frustrating about Mercenary’s game play, it’s its checkpoint system, which isn’t very good. I would have liked to have seen a more robust save system and while yes, the Vita has a good standby mode, if you quit a level mid-mission expect to have to start again from the beginning. It’s annoying.
I’ve only touched on the single player campaign here because, well, I haven’t had a chance to try any online yet. I got a code to do that but haven’t had the time. Perhaps when more people are playing it I’ll give it a whirl.
Airborne assault: Flying in a Helghast ship to assault an ISA cruiser.
OK, to round up. Yes, Killzone Mercenary shows little innovation when it comes to game play (and Killzone is a stupid name for a game) and yes, the story is cliched and yes, if you hate the Killzone series then this portable version isn’t going to change your mind, but it’s a freaking console quality shooter on a handheld and it’s a good one – and that should be celebrated as far as I’m concerned (and if it was shit, I would tell you as much).
Not so long ago I was thinking Sony had forgotten about the Vita completely and hoped no-one would notice. Well, we did notice but if Mercenary is Sony’s way of saying, “Sorry about the previous shit Vita FPS games. Try this for size” then I forgive you, Sony. I forgive you.
I have to admit that before I even started playing Splinter Cell Blacklist I jumped on the “It’s not Michael Ironside voicing Sam Fisher” bandwagon. And to be honest, that wasn’t fair to new actor Eric Johnson, who was hired by Ubisoft because they apparently needed an actor who could also do motion-capture. I guess Ironside is a little past motion-capture work these days.
Anyway, Johnson does a creditable job as Fisher but it took a few hours for his younger voice to start working for me: I’ve played every Splinter Cell game to date and it’s always been Ironside’s dulcet tones that have soothed me as I took out an enemy or wandered about. It seems that the adage never judge a book by its cover is true here, at least in my opinion.
So, the Blacklist in the title: It’s a list of locations in the United States where a terrorist group called The Engineers – lead by a former British MI6 agent no less – are going to strike and it’s up to Sam Fisher, the special forces guy with all the cool kit, to take it out. Now leading the secretive Fourth Echelon (after Third Echelon was disbanded by the US president), Fisher leads a top-notch team that includes recurring character Anna “Grimm” Grimsdottir and new characters Issac Brigs, a fellow operative, and whizzkid gadget guy Charlie Cole.
The story is clichéd and clumsily handled at times but despite that, for me, Blacklist is a return to form for the Splinter Cell series and wipes out the abomination that was Conviction, which just seemed to lose the plot completely as to what a Splinter Cell game was meant to be. It almost forgot that stealth was a core element of the series. In fact, Blacklist could be spoken in the same breath as Chaos Theory, the best Splinter Cell game in my mind.
Blacklist is a return to form for the series because stealth is given a starring role it deserves and with numerous ways to complete objectives it feels remarkable open-ended and fresh, Fisher is now again able to hide bodies and you can tackle missions in one of three play styles (Ghost, Panther and Assault), one of which is ghost-like and stealthy, which is how I like my Splinter Cell games to be. I never grew sick of taking enemies unawares, either through stabbing them silently as they walked past or jumping down from an overhead pipe.
Blacklist brings back the Mark and Execute feature found in Conviction which lets you target up to three enemies at once (a silent kill will activate the feature) then take them out when you’re close enough in a slow-mo style one-shot kill. Yes, it makes things easier but it’s still a tonne of fun – although the feature proves less useful once you start encountering helmet-wearing heavy-armoured foes as the two shots are needed to take them down with the first just knocking off their helmet.
I can say it enough but Blacklist succeeds as a Splinter Cell game because it lets you rely on stealth to take down enemies, if you want, and for me, that’s what a Splinter Cell game should be all about. The cover system works exactly how it’s supposed to as well, with Fisher sticking to cover when you tell him too and moves from point to point fluidly and with haste.
Enemy AI is pretty good on the whole – most of the time – although sometimes a patrolling guard won’t see a dead colleagues feet sticking out from behind a concrete barrier or that you’re gripping a ledge a few metres from their head. I only came across a couple of times when guards were walking on the spot, and that was during side missions outside the main story campaign.
The story mode delivers a great experience but I question a couple of instances where the game takes a first-person perspective in a few missions. It just seemed a little out of place in a game where third-person action is its main focus.
Grimsdottir, Briggs and Cole each have side missions that can be tackled any time you like – be it after story missions or at the end of the game (which seems weird a bit because the characters talk about events that need to be stop although you’ve already finished the game). I played some of the co-op missions with friend Chris Leggett (@Leggetron) – him in Seattle, me in Christchurch – and it was a blast. It’s always nice to be able to discuss tactics with a friend before tackling an objective. Co-op missions can be completed solo but certain entry points on maps will be “dual breech” or co-op only.
Also worth a look is the co-operative play and online Mercs vs Spies mode, first introduced in SC: Pandora Tomorrow. Spies vs Mercs pits one team as Mercs out to stop hacking spies. While I fared poorly, it’s an interesting premise.
I went into Blacklist unsure what to expect, especially given that Michael Ironside wasn’t voicing lead character Fisher and following the disappointing SC: Conviction. But thankfully, I sat back after the final cut scene satisfied in a game worthy of the Splinter Cell moniker.
That’s the saying, isn’t it? “A change is as good as a holiday?”
Well, personally, I’d rather have the holiday: Change is too hard on the nerves. Believe me, I know.
Today, I ended a 22 -year-long career in journalism, at the one employer. That’s a big change and not one that I’d like to repeat in a hurry. Oh, sure I’d done plenty of different jobs during that 22 years but, still, this is a huge monumental change in my life. I need to take stock of that. I need to take a breather and soak that in for a minute.
I didn’t think it would be, but it felt weird saying goodbye to all those people I’d worked alongside for so long, all those people who I’d seen every day. All those people I’d shared coffee with, chatted to, said “Gidday” when we passed. All those people who went through the February 2011 earthquake in Christchurch with me.
And when you think about it, I probably spent more time with my work colleagues than I did my family, bar weekends, of course. But now that has all changed: I no longer do a blog on Fairfax’s Stuff website (long story short: Fairfax refused to pay me to do, given that I’m now, you know, unemployed, so I made the decision to end it. It was a tough call but I had to make it. Right?)
So, now that I’m a free agent, a freelance writer, this is where all my game writing will go for the foreseeable future: This is where all my inane ramblings, opinions and thoughts will go. I’d love you to join me. A colleague at my farewell said he reckoned I was the best games writer in New Zealand. I’d debate that, probably because I don’t like to toot my own horn and it would make me arrogant, but whether it’s true or not, I hope I’ve done a damn good job of getting video games into the mainstream media in a positive way. That’s what I’ve enjoyed most about the last few years: Letting mainstream people know that video games are something that normal, tax-paying, work-going people play.
I hope I succeeded.
I grew a wonderful community of followers over at my Game Junkie blog on Stuff and I hope most of them follow me to this blog and we can grow the community even further. We can, right?
But a community is all about its readers, about followers. I hope I can continue to bring a different spin to the traditional games writing which so often just seems to be regurgitated press releases. I’m sick of seeing that: The same story on numerous websites. I want to do things differently. I want to delve a little more. I want to give a different view-point on things. I want to create engaging, thought-provoking content that stands out from the flood of same old, same old video game coverage.
I know those are bold words but even if I fail, I want to give it a damn good crack. Will you join me on what I’m doing here? Shall we take that journey together? I hope so. Email me at: [email protected] and tell me what you think.
I make a hopeless virtual bank robber. Pay Day 2 showed me that.
Thankfully, I’m not planning on making a career change to full-time criminal but Pay Day 2, the first-person-bank-robber simulator from development studio Overkill, isn’t a game that you want to play on your own. You’ll get frustrated with it pretty quickly. I did.
It’s a game best played with three friends who can fill the roles of the three members of your hard-as-nails crew, replacing the computer-controlled AI – which is pretty bad.
How bad? When I botched a heist – I forgot to subdue and handcuff all the bank staff and one of them triggered an alarm – I ran out into a side alley, hoping to confuse the recently alerted police. Suddenly, my three colleagues appeared beside me, shooting at the police instead of, I don’t know, staying in the shop and grabbing the jewels that we needed to complete the mission. Thinking about it, the single player isn’t the best.
In fact, it’s almost as if the game’s makers felt obliged to include a single player mode just because it was expected by the public – when really all they wanted to do was make an online four-player co-op game.
Objectives will vary from job to job – one might involve using a thermo-drill to open a safe, while an other might see you having to upload data to a computer – but they all follow the same format: case the joint, start the mission then hold off increasing waves of armed police until the objectives (objectives) is done and you can scarper to the exit point.
Visually, it’s not a pretty game – the character models are ugly but a game primarily designed for online doesn’t want fancy pants graphics slowing things down now, does it? – but Pay Day 2 is best when it’s played with three other humans who can work together, complete the tasks then get the hell out of doge. That’s when Pay Day 2 is at its best.
Pay Day is a bust if you play it just for the single player mode – and it’s not a game that will hold my attention for too long – but if you can muster together three friends to play it, then you’ll have a lot more fun.
Is this guy just trolling these two brothers? Nah.
I’ve tried not to spoil anything in this review. Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons (out on PS3 and Xbox 360 now, Steam at some time soon) is something you need to experience for yourself, so if you’re in any doubt – as much as I hate to say this – stop reading now!
Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons is, essentially, a tale about loss and how two brothers deal with it. At least, that’s what I think it’s about.
I say it’s about loss because the game opens with the younger of the two brothers mourning the death of his mother, her headstone looking out from a hilltop over a calm sea. The boy sobs gently as he remembers his mother but his sorrow is short lived, as he soon has to help his older brother get his clearly ailing father to the village doctor – and their quest begins to search for the remedy.
Brothers is one of those games where quiet, contemplative moments are common (there are even benches dotted around the environment where one or both of the brothers can sit and soak up the stunning vistas, and they are truly are stunning) but it’s also one of those games that has a moment near the end so profound that it alters the whole shift of the game. I wish I could tell you about it but it’ll spoil the whole game. Let’s just say it’s a profound event.
Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons is a single player co-operative game where you control both brothers, at the same time in an effort to save their father, and while most of the time you control the brothers individually, the game really shines when you have to combine the talents of the two to solve the game’s simple puzzles.
The left stick controls the older, stronger brother, while the right stick controls the younger, more agile sibling. The trigger buttons let each brother interact with the environment. It’s not a perfect control system – an hour or so into the game I was still managing to steer one or other brother into a wall or pillar every now and then – but sometimes it just shines, especially a moment when the pair have to control a gilder as it soars through the air.
It’s also clear from the beginning that although the pair speak in some nonsensical language (somewhat similar to the language spoken by Sims), the boys have very different personalities – and that comes out in they way the boys interact with their surroundings. When the pair come across a fellow villager tending to some plants, the younger boy slaps him playfully on the backside, while the older boy tries to placate him. The younger boy plays a villager’s harp beautifully, while the other plays it dismally.
The game play is simple enough: environmental puzzles – for example, in one location, the younger boy will turn a handle to open a gate while the older boy clings to a chain handing from a conveyor belt – ledge grabbing and climbing and as the boys’ journey continues they’ll come across a variety of landscapes and inhabitants, including rock trolls, the remnants of a battle between giants and a snowy wonderland.
In one scene as the boys traverse an underground mine (sometimes you can see trolls down below swinging pick axes), they come across a troll trapped inside a locked cage. The only problem is that the key to the lock is on the belt of a nearby guard, who stands behind two gates. As I guided the younger of the boys through the first gate then negotiated piles of human bones , I couldn’t help but smile as he started tip toeing across, careful not to disturb the bleached white bones for fear of attracting the attention of the guard troll.
Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons won’t take an age to finish – I think I finished it in around three hours (I wasn’t counting but it was done over an evening) – but I was captivated the entire time, even though the puzzle solving won’t tax those wanting to test their grey matter and the game play is a little safe at times.
This is a game that plays like it’s set in one of Grimm’s fairy tales and to be honest the control system only caused me problems during on chase sequence where I died once until I’d worked out the layout of obstacles in the boys’ path. This is a game that has an ending that comes as a surprise and one that shows the game’s makers weren’t afraid to push the boundaries a little and give gamers’ something to think about. The team at Starbreeze and 505 Games deserve any accolades they receive for this game: It’s one of the most memorable I’ve played this year.
You can probably tell I loved Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons. It’s haunting, it’s captivating, and I could play games like this until the cows come home (I’m not sure what that phrase means, considering I’m not a farmer but I’m hoping it means that I’ll be doing something for a long, long time). I liked it. A lot.
As far as I’m concerned, Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons is a must-play for gamer’s who want something different from the AAA blockbusters that tread the tried and true,
It’s me, Barrett: I’m going to frustrate the hell out of you.
I own two copies of Deus Ex Human Revolution.
One on Xbox 360, one of PC (I bought it during the recent Steam Sale for the princely sum of $US5.99).
I loved the game the first time I played it, and I’m loving it now, the second time, but Barrett, the augmented bulldozer who’s the first boss in the game, is still an arsehole to beat second time around. He’s an ARSE.
To be honest, the boss battles just seemed out-of-place in DX: Human Revolution, a game that let you sneak about through air ducts and over gantries if you wanted to, avoiding the guards and enemies. You could go in guns blazing if that was your cup of tea but if you wanted to stealth it, you could. And I liked that about Human Revolution. Even the game’s developer admitted that they should have “put more effort into the boss battles” and they didn’t realise they were a problem until the game had shipped.
In fact, as someone on Twitter pointed out, the boss battles were actually outsourced to another developer. No wonder they felt disconnected from the rest of the game.
In my first play through of the game, I was going in cold so tried to take him head on: Nope , that didn’t work. I soon realised that if I got too close to the part human, part machine behemoth he’d grab me, punch me in the head then drop me to the floor. No problem: I’ll just hide in the corner of one of the two ammo rooms, confuse him. Nope, that didn’t work either. He’d eventually toss a grenade in to flush me out … generally causing me to run too close to him and get punched in the head.
Then I saw the explosive barrels dotted about the room, which were clearly good for throwing at Barrett, stunning him, allowing me to go in for the kill. Well, that’s what they’re supposed to be used for. Most of the time I fumbled to pick up the barrels and by the time I’d turned around to throw one at Barrett, he’d shot at it, causing it to explode (while I was still holding it, remember), depleting my health. Things were not going well.
In my first play through, I eventually defeated Barrett (I think I just wore him down due to my ineptitude and he died of boredom) but for my second play through, even though I’d defeated him before, I watched a few YouTube offering all kinds of strategies for defeating him (stun gun, concussive grenades, EMP grenades) I thought I had it sussed. Famous. Last. Words.
None of them worked for me: I still kept dying. Lots. None of my strategies seemed to work. Perhaps I’m rusty. Perhaps my skills need sharpening. I’ll try to get them sorted over the weekend.
I love you Deus Ex Human Revolution. You’re a great game but Barrett is still an arsehole.
Update: I’ve just been reading up about the Director’s Cut that’s in the works. It sounds as if there are a few tweaks that will make this the best version of the lot, featuring tweaked boss battles, AI and graphics, but it doesn’t seem as if it’ll be available as a download for those of us who already own Human Revolution. That’s disappointing.
Killzone Mercenary: Here Helghan, Helghan, Helghan …
For a handheld title, Killzone: Mercenary on the PS Vita is pretty impressive.
And Lord knows, the Vita needs impressive titles to bolster its fortunes. It has few must-have titles (and some desperately don’t get titles like Resistance Burning Skies and Call of Duty: Declassified, anyone?). Mercenary could well be the first-person shooter that makes you proud to own a PS Vita.
Set between the events of Killzone 1 and Killzone 2, players take the role of a mercenary called Danner, who has contracted his services to the ISA in an effort to wipe out the Helghast on their home planet of Helghan. And being a mercenary is where this Killzone pops up its first difference to the console editions of the game: money.
Each kill earns Danner money – the more kills he makes, the more money he makes. Making a headshot will net more cash than just pumping a Helghast with lead. Even picking up dropped ammo earns cash. Earned money can used in-game to purchase better weapons using black market lockers (why they’d be dotted around a Helghast base, I’m not sure). You can also unlock a variety of other things but some of them cost huge amounts of cash.
Visually, the game looks superb, and while not on par with what the PlayStation 3 can generate, it shows that developer Guerilla Cambridge (formerly known as Sony Cambridge, the studio behind the Medievil series) are pushing Sony’s handheld to its limits, with dynamic shadows and volumetric lighting. It really is impressive.
The game opens with Danner and a colleague (he’s shot down mid-glide so he’s not even worth mentioning) gliding from an ISA dropship down to a looming Helghan base where you have to deactivate two radar dishes that control the giant cannons causing problems for the ISA ships orbiting Helghan. It’s up to you (Danner) to finish the job and turn the tide of war.
OK, so the premis isn’t very original at all and while I was a little disappointed that the opening sequence was on-rails (I wasn’t able to steer Danner at all) it’s a powerful way to start the game, with rockets and enemy fire flying around as Danner glides towards the base, finally landing on top of a cable car.
So far, so good, and Killzone Mercenary has a hell of a lot going for it, especially for a handheld title, but that said, it ticks all the boxes that a Killzone shooter should so if you’re not a fan of Killzone, chances are you’ll find little to like here.
Stabby, stabby: Yep, you can stab Helghan in the neck.
While the preview code was only one level long, I was able to mix it up a little with both stealth and full-on frontal assault (the former thanks to Danner’s silenced pistol and knife) and the game throws in some hacking for good measure (using the touch screen to match on-screen icons while racing against a timer). Talking of touch screen controls, it’s used wisely throughout the campaign with the rear touch pad letting you zoom in and out with weapons and the main screen used to finish off silent kills of unwary Helghan using a quick time event after you’ve tapped the triangle button.
The Helghast showed some smarts at times during my play through – after being spotted by one soldier while assaulting the barracks, he called for reinforcements – but other times, stupidity was evident, with more than one not noticing I was in the same room as them (just before I filled them full of lead). Perhaps that’ll be tidied up come September, when the full game’s out. The only time stealth didn’t work was during the what seems a mandatory element in shooters these days: the hold-this-position-until-ordered-where-to-go-next sequence.
So far, so Killzone, which will please fans of the series, and the closing moments of the preview mixed it up a little with Danner having to hold off a barrage of Helghast using a Porcupine missile system, which fire missiles at what ever you tap on-screen (assaulting Helghast, a hovering dropship). One thing I’m not certain about for Mercenary is the multiplayer, as the feature was disabled for the preview.
Killzone Mercenary is looking extremely solid for a handheld shooter and while I’ve no idea how the story holds up throughout the rest of the game or whether it turns all formulaic in the sea of brown-on-brown that the Killzone series is famed for, this handheld title has piqued my interest. Perhaps it is possible to have a decent FPS on the Vita and have a Helghan in your pocket. Here’s hoping.
PlayStation New Zealand provided a download code for the preview version of Killzone Mercenary.
You know the old saying “You can’t teach an old dog, new tricks”? Well, I hope it’s not true because in a fit of madness I’ve decided to try and learn programming language Java.
Dummies: Aspirations of Android app development has meant a lot of reading.
Why? Because my teenage son thinks it’s a good idea to have a crack at Android app development. I sort of agree with him but I don’t think he realises how long the process will take from go to woah. A while, me thinks.
My lovely daughter – who we drove to Dunedin a couple of weekends ago to pick up and bring back to Christchurch – stopped into the University bookshop to try to exchange some books and while there I found a book on Android app development that I contemplated buying – Android App Development for Dummies – but didn’t (too tight to spend the money, if I’m honest). Daughter, though, had other ideas: She had a store credit from an earlier visit so bought the book for me as a way of payment for “all the money I had spent on her in the past”. The gesture was much appreciated (although, I’ve spent a helluva lot more than $40 on her over the years).
Later that night, after we got home, I sad down with a beverage and read through the opening pages of the book and it recommended knowledge of Java, which was something I didn’t have, before tackling the book. Cursing, I went to bed to watch season one of Chuck and today, I went to the local library and found a book called Java All-in-One for Dummies (there’s a theme emerging here) that promised to demystify Java.
Well, after the first few chapters of the Java book, I’m still none the wiser … so I gave up with the Java book and cracked straight into the Android App Development for Dummies. I might be a mistake but I made my first project last night, which displayed the words “Hello World” on a screen made up to look like an Android phone’s display.
It was actually fun in a hard work kind of waybut it’s slow progress and the code is almost a foreign language at the moment: I’m having to type things like this (which is supposed to add a button to the Android view:
<Button
android: id=”@/toggleButton”
android:layout_width=”wrap_content”
android:layout_height=”wrap_content”
android:layout_gravity=”center_horizontal”
android:text=”Toggle Silent Mode”
/>
See what I mean? Foreign language. It’s harder to learn than 3rd Form French. Or maybe it’s because I’m so old that my brain just hasn’t got the room anymore to absorb such foreign knowledge. Surely it’ll get easier the more I practice, right? Right?
I’m hoping to stick with it but truth be told, I’ll probably crack under the pressure and give up in a few weeks time, consigning the book to the Graveyard of Technical Books pile in the spare room. Already residing there is HTML 4 for Dummies, a printed out manual for TrueSpace 4 and numerous magazines with discs containing free graphics programs.
I hope not: I want to be able to use my knowledge of toggling silent mode somewhere.
Mercenary uses the Vita’s touch screen cleverly, too, letting you melee kill foes by tapping the triangle button then following an on-screen prompt indicating which way to swipe.
I have to admit that before I even started playing Splinter Cell Blacklist I jumped on the “It’s not Michael Ironside voicing Sam Fisher” bandwagon. And to be honest, that wasn’t fair to new actor Eric Johnson, who was hired by Ubisoft because they apparently needed an actor who could also do motion-capture. I guess Ironside is a little past motion-capture work these days.
The story is clichéd and clumsily handled at times but despite that, for me, Blacklist is a return to form for the Splinter Cell series and wipes out the abomination that was Conviction, which just seemed to lose the plot completely as to what a Splinter Cell game was meant to be. It almost forgot that stealth was a core element of the series. In fact, Blacklist could be spoken in the same breath as Chaos Theory, the best Splinter Cell game in my mind.
I make a hopeless virtual bank robber. Pay Day 2 showed me that.
The game play is simple enough: environmental puzzles – for example, in one location, the younger boy will turn a handle to open a gate while the older boy clings to a chain handing from a conveyor belt – ledge grabbing and climbing and as the boys’ journey continues they’ll come across a variety of landscapes and inhabitants, including rock trolls, the remnants of a battle between giants and a snowy wonderland.
