Banished

 There's something about games nowadays that almost want to you to feel bad for what you've done to people. For example,
'Oh please sir we're oh so hungry, please give us money' said the whining homeless person in Assassins Creed. Unfortunately she would have continued if you hadn't just stabbed her in her stupid complaining face. While it is true that you have no feeling towards this person specifically designed to annoy you, the game punishes you by killing you if you kill too many civilians. I feel this may be a bit much as it's not like Altair never killed a homeless person while no one was looking.

 But to get to my original point, games make you feel bad and have very bad consequences for your mistakes. In XCOM you are forced to watch as your favourite character is cut into bite-size chunks by some alien prick face because you didn't have enough health packs. But one game that ramps up the peril is the new game, Banished, that was released  on the 18th of February and is something that I have only just picked up. The next four hours of my life however was spent crying, as everyone in my town died of starvation because I forgot to plant the crops in Spring and oh god why.

 But this is my favourite part of the game as I feel fully responsible for the 8 civilians left after the winter-food-crisis-incident. Most games now struggle to make you care about one protagonist, but suddenly you're freaking out over the fact that you have run out of stone so you can't build a new house, and you are forced to watch as a family of five freeze to death on the streets. And there is nothing you can do about it. It's these sort of games that make you want to curl up in a ball and uncontrollably cry for an hour or two.

 Now since this is a review of a game that some are wanting to play very badly but don't want to fork out £15 for it, I guess that I am obliged to talk about the plot and the mechanics of the game itself. *sigh*. You play as an exiled group of plebs that decide that living with heat, food and shelter is just too mainstream for them and decide to set up their own town with Blackjack and hookers.

 But I digress, Banished is an astonishing game that took me slightly by surprise as I expected that, since it is still in Alpha, would be buggy and run like an obese person on a treadmill that can't support their weight. But I was wrong, pleasantly surprised in fact by it's depth, complexity and attention to detail. Also this is the only time, where if you say 'Winter is coming', it's another way of saying, prepare for everyone to die because you have no firewood or clothing you retard.      

Applepastie reviews: Dota 2

 Dota 2:

 Dota 2 is one of those games that consists of you, the game and a long afternoon that you have no problem wasting, as each match takes up to a hour and after the first 3 matches you look up at the clock only to realise that you have lost your life once again to a video game. This is what video games are made for and this is something Dota 2 does perfectly. by having long matches, a choice between 50 something characters that all do something different including spells and randomized stats blah blah blah who cares Jacob, get on with the review.

 The first problem I have encountered with this game is the characters themselves as there are 50 characters that some will be awful at and some will be incredible at. This means you can either go through the library to try and find a character that intrigues you or go into a game picking a character at random, this is also the wrong way to pick a character, this is also the way I did it. That is why I have played for 10 hours, 4 of them being, me playing matches with characters that I am awful at. The other six playing a character that I thought I was happy with but then I found that, like me, he sucks. Then I went to the library, the right way to find a character and found Sven. But no ones gives a crap about that.

  Besides the tedious character choosing and the fact that if you go into a match and the character you have chosen sucks you can't change it. This means if you are playing a bad character. Tough shit. But besides problems like this, I think that I should go over the boring yet necessary part. The developers and software, created by Valve it has the backing that it will have great replay value and certainly not suck. As most things that Valve pump out is usually good, and once again they have failed to disappoint with this.

By: Jacob "Applepastie" Bennett

The Last of Us

 

The Last of Us

 I know this game has been out for a while but I feel that this message has to get across one way or another even if the message is a bit late. Just think off me as the Royal Mail of gaming news to only one person...and that's my mum. But I digress, you, (mum), have come here to learn about the sort of new release, The Last of Us. But before we start, get ready to pack your bags and dry your eyes as this bus is on a road to feelsville. By this I mean that this is probably the only game that's almost brought a tear to my eye, even in the company of another man. Although this is not the first time I've almost or actually cried to a game, one of them being Final Fantasy VII with that bit we all know about. You may be wondering what I'm talking about and if you are you need to run to the nearest computer and buy a copy of FFVII. Sorry I completely forgot what I was talking about. Oh yeah.

 The Last of Us. Created by Naughty Dog, the creators of the Uncharted series, Jak and Daxter and Crash Bandicoot. So it was quite a big step going from Crash, to Jak and Daxter, to their first violent game being Uncharted 1, and then the moment when the company decided to put on it's big boy pants and decided to make an incredibly well pet together yet horribly depressing game. Just like every game, I've got a few problems with it. The first being that the infection started 20 years before the actual game, and the character that you play as, Joel, is about 35-40 years old, and after 20 years, he is the most unconvincing 55-60 year old in the universe as the only difference between the two versions of him is the fact that he has a slightly different hair colour and about 4 wrinkles around his eyes. I know that some people look great when they're almost 60, but call me wacky but Joel isn't the isn't the sort of person that would care for his skin and hair especially during a zombie apocalypse.

 Oh wait, they're not even a zombies, it's a virus that, for some reason causes people to get completely covered in mushrooms over a certain amount of time of them being infected. Those who have been shroom-e-fied are either turned into clickers, that hear you rather than see you and bloaters that are fat asses that throw spores at you that creates a cloud of gas that will slowly kill you. Oh yeah, and they take about a hundred bullets to kill and when you literally have little to no bullets, it creates a tense situation of running away from the thing in order not to become a walking talking all you can eat buffet. The other thing that, not only bugged me, but was also very weird, was the blades that you can find in order to create shivs, that you can use to either kill infected or open locked doors, but the blade that the designers decided to use was one half of a pair of scissors, not a normal pair of scissors...just the one blade. Which puts a great image of a guy looking through an entire block of flats trying to find a pair of scissors in order to cut his 20 foot long hair, going crazy, trying to find it for years on end but only finding left blades and another guy who has only found the right hand blades and they have yet to find each other.

 But apart from a few errors this is a very well put together game, and is very impressive. I must say my compliments for this game isn't going to be greatly long as I like to point out what is wrong with the game so people can go into it with an open mind rather than glossing over it with nice words so people go into it with what could be false hopes and be horribly disappointed by the actual result. Whereas if you're told that, this is good, but these are the things wrong with it, that prepares people for what to expect and that means that they are even more impressed by the actual game.

The Last of Us,

                       By, Jacob Bennett. 

Please leave any thoughts and suggestions in the comment section, it'll help me a lot.                                                 

Farcry tree

What do you love, everything? Games? Farcry3? Only two of those are correct and I've decided not to tell you but let you figure it out for yourselves. Okay it's games and Farcry3, you cant love everything. People that do, don't. It's that simple really, and there's nothing more that I love than Games and indeed Farcry3.

Farcry was a game where you played as Jack. Can't remember his second name as it has been many years since I played it. And at it's time, it was one of the best games I have ever played due to it's gameplay, mechanics and overall the powers. The powers are basically if your were to become one with the animals by being able to see in the dark, run fast and jump far. It was awesome. Farcry2 was not. Moving on though Farcry3 has returned to it's roots and has got good story and additional powers that instead of inheriting was injected. This was fine by me but I spent half the game walking around being eating by tigers NOT using the damn hunters instinct and extra damage. This made problems when you had very little space to carry stuff and you have to carry many leafs most of which are useless.

It does have a few glaring issues including glitches and the freaking multi-player. And the problem with the multi-player is everything. Healing is slow, You cant heal unless your nearly dead, Gameplay is clunky and frustrating, Enemies are stupidly hard to kill, they kill you in one punch and you only have one health bar. And yes there are two bars but when you heal it wont fill them just stop after the first one.

With only a few issues that I still haven't got over, it's is my game of 2012. But now it is a new year and much more games to be explored and dead space 3. Oh yes, Dead Space Tree.
Thanks for reading.

XCOM Enemy Unknown

I would like to start by apologising about my spelling, but give me a break. As English is not my first, it is Klingon. Anyway though, I'm going to be talking today about XCOM Enemy Unknown. One of the few games where I cared about the characters mainly because you could design your own characters and you would plan ahead with them by thinking. "oh, I'll be careful they have really good stats." ten seconds later. "OH THE HUMANITY! WHY DID THEY HAVE TO DIE THAT WAY!"

I love XCOM, it is basically a turn a based, eagle eye view but instead of it being like command and conquer  it is with single troops which gives you a much more variety of actions while reducing the amount of players and smaller battlefields. Another thing that made me buzz with glee is when you fly around the base choosing your next project and putting new equipment on people making them look shiny and new. Well this might sound boring but trust me it's not. Look around you, and you'll see that so many games that if you explain them they sound well, crap. Minecraft. Well what you do is walk around, collecting ore to make equipment to survive as long as possible, it's endless and there is no story. Wait, stop it's brilliant, why doesn't anyone listen to me!

But just like everything, nothing is perfect. And such is this that I have to talk about what sucks about the game and it's a few things. First of all there is a ever so slant in the difficulty. By which I mean that for example. Easy. Walk through the entire game with only three casualties, no problem. Normal. Oh you must know what your doing, die instantly. I never ventured above Normal as I didn't want everyone to die before I could even give them a name! The other problem is the glitches, they don't make the game bad or more difficult to play, it's just annoying or even sometimes hilarious. For example I had one where I fired a rocket and it fired out the back of my rocket launcher. The common one though is shooting through walls and team-mates.

This though against some of the things I said ranks 4th on my all time games and I plan for it to stay there. Though I hope you don't go through the same trauma as I did when Some Red shirt Dead Meat died, but I feel that somehow it was destined but alas I have never figured out why
Thanks for Reading.

Skyrim, The Awesome Scrolls

What do I love the most, I hear you cry. Is the freedom of running through epic lands or even wastelands, having to walking a hundred miles just to deliver some flowers. It gives me the satisfaction until a monster jumps out and eats your face off or you end up standing onto a landmine. But even when you die in these horrific ways you restart your save and learn from your mistake. Unless you're me and end up doing the exact same thing over and over again until the penny drops and I think. Hold on, if I go down there a spike trap will come out and give me the ultimate chest piercing.

I am of course talking about Skyrim, except for the part with shooting and the land mines which was Fallout 3. Anyway, Skyrim, or the Elder Scrolls V, is a RPG Fantasy. Two of the things I love most in the world are piled into this game. But, the problem with it is there is no problems with it! I play it for hours and hours looking into every crack and plot hole. And the only thing that could possibly get on my nerves is the glitches and even some them are useful. Once, I had one which gave me unlimited stamina and yet it countered when if I ever go underwater the entire system crashes and I have to turn the PS3 off and back on again. But it will vary for everyone. I underlined it because it will, my step-dad had a glitch with a backwards flying dragon that would get stuck on trees and when it was almost dead it would fly away and only return when you leave and when you come back it would still be flying backwards and with full health.

But lets stop looming over the bad things about because if you enjoy these types of games then I would highly recommend it, and don't let my cursed words put you off it. I have to say, I'm not proud the amount of time I've spent of it as it has eaten about 60 hours of my life away but on the other hand so has Fallout 3 and New Vegas.

Overall though, there are very few things wrong with it. Yet I find that it is a game that you'll enjoy but you'll only be able to share notes with people about the missions. As each person will tell the tale about how they were walking through the wilderness and out of nowhere a dragon will land right behind you and turn you into it's personal chew toy. But one thing that everyone will exchange will be glitches and I hope when you play you will have a tale to tell.

Please comment below to tell me the funniest moments in Skyrim or any game.
Thanks For Reading.

Alien vs Pilot

hello, it is my first blog so lets get it over with. I love games, always have always will so I'm going to be blunt as I can be. Alien VS Predator is craptastic. by this I mean that it has many things that suck about it and many things that are great about it.

 Things that suck. 1) it's short. I have an issue with games that are good but are only 8 hours long. There are only a handful of games that get away with this such as Portal 1 and 2, Left for Dead and if I knew any others I would put them down as well. But unfortunately A VS P is not one of those. If the game was longer then I would have fallen in love with it but I have to be satisfied with a nerdgasm. 2) It still as the original suffers from upside down disorder (not down syndrome) but a case of when your climbing along the walls and ceiling and you don't know if your on the floor, wall or ceiling and end up making yourself violently sick. I did not enjoy this and so did everyone else that played it!

Things that didn't suck. 1) Gore! I loves me a bit of gore especially when your pulling off some ones head and a spine follows after it, but it can be annoying when your doing this and 50 other aliens are gnawing at your legs. It also feels like a job well done after you wipe out an entire base without anyone seeing you, (except if your human, in which case stealth is quite impossible as humans are well, the bait). 2) The game feels like it was made by real Alien and Predator fans unlike the film, which was made by people who have heard of the film and know people who are fans.

Anyway the pure joy of playing it is of the fact that it was made by a handful of nerds in a dark room designing all the ins and outs of all the death, gore violence and the sounds of the pulse rifles still makes me shudder with excitement. Overall, I think it is a small box. looks nice on the outside with promising excitement and joy. But what is inside is disappointing a well there isn't that much to it.

P.S. I Bought the game recently just for the pleasure of playing as the predator. Turning invisible and stabbing people with finisher move, just like the aliens. And no one cares about the humans. Because like I said their the bait.