Sam’s Rant – 2010 Video Games, Part 1

Before I start I would just like to say that I do like Video Games and enjoy playing them.

2010 has been an interesting year, we found out that it is possible to have a dream within a dream within a dream and we still have to pay 1p for plastic bags. Snow covered all of Great Britain, a Volcano caused problems for Airplanes and yet again England lost at the World Cup. It’s also been a great year for Video Games, Sony started selling Lollipops, people started jumping up and down in front of their TV’s, another expansion for World of Warcraft came out and news that Duke Nukem Forever is going to be released. There is still no sign of a series of Game Damage or a new series of the Championship Gaming Series but a Gaming Bar opened in Brisbane Australia.

Animex 2010 was in February (it was quite interesting and there was almost a Rock Concert on when someone was talking about Brϋtal Legend. GDC 2011 took place in March. E3 was very good this year with the top 3 making many announcements about upcoming releases, QuakeCon was on again and I still can’t comment on it because I still don’t know what it is, and rounding off the year was the Tokyo Game Show (and BlizzCon).

January as usual did not have many BIG releases; Bayonetta was the first BIG release of the year. Also in January No More Heroes 2 was released (I have not played the first one) onto the Wii but one of my Favourite Games of 2010 was released in January and that was MAG (Massive Action Game) on the PS3. Basically the Game was a Giant Online Shooting Game with a maximum of 256 players in a match. As you progress through the game New Items and Abilities are unlocked and you Rank up as well. There are 3 Armies to choose from, I am in Raven as a Senior Commandant. It is a lot of Fun.

February saw the release of Aliens vs. Predator, the latest game in a long series of games starring the creatures from the Films. Sonic decided to join Mario on the racing track with other stars from Sega Games. One of the biggest games of the year was released in February. Heavy Rain, an interactive story game in which you play as 4 characters who all fit in the story about the Origami Killer. It is like a book where you follow the actions using your controller. Like the Fighting Fantasy books you can control the course of the story and there are several possible endings. Recently (2011) the game Won 3 Bafta’s at the Bafta Video Game Awards. It is an incredible game and I think everyone should have a play on it. There is currently no news on if the game is going to have a sequel or if a series of games using its control scheme. I think there should be because Heavy Rain is a Fantastic Game.

I went to Animex in February for my second year. It was very good with talks on games including Batman Arkham Asylum and Modern Warfare 2. But the highlight of the show was the talk on Brϋtal Legend; it was more like a Rock Concert than a talk on the game.

In March I was waiting for the Game I was most excited about all year, my Favourite game at the time was (now my Favourite game is Killzone 3) Supreme Commander and Supreme Commander 2 was about to be released. All the updates about what the game would do and the units in it, it was so exciting. Then when the day came to buy it I went into town and bought it. Then as soon as I went home I installed it onto my computer, then it went downhill from there. Firstly I had to connect to the internet in order to install the game, I then had to re-install Steam onto my computer and then it took almost 3 hours of downloading game data for Steam and restarting the computer before I could finally play the game and then when I could play the game it was time for my Tea. Then the next day I discovered you have to be online all the time to play the game. I thought 2010 was going to be the year when the PC took back it’s Gaming Crown (a title it held for most of the 1990’s) but because of this stupid policy saying you can’t play offline (or with Left 4 Dead 2, you have to be online to play offline) it went and ruined its chances. Several games have had this problem which caused many people to buy pirated versions of Spore in 2008. Other mainstream games affected included The Settlers 7 and Command and Conquer 4. Would it be OK for me to play the game that I bought with my money, maybe you could put in a system where I can play offline without having to connect and then go online If and When I want to, would that be OK? Overall Supreme Commander 2 is OK but it’s not as good as Supreme Commander 1 (You could play offline without having to be online to play Supreme Commander 1).

Also in March Battlefield Bad Company 2 was released (I have not played it) along with another major game to be released; God of War 3, also Command and Conquer 4 was released with a major connection problem (please refer to the previous paragraph). Dragon Age Origins – Awakening was released to expand (that is the idea with Expansion Packs) the world of a game I don’t know much about. If I was to play a game with Dragons in the title I would play as a Dragon, forget about the other characters in the game I want to be a Dragon. You could do something like the film Reign of Fire where you have to survive in a post-apocalyptic world where Dragons rule the skies and you could play as either the People or the Dragons. Maybe an MMO where you have to choose between the People and the Dragons, I will probably play as the Dragons. Forget Dragon Age I want to play as a Dragon.  Settlers 7 was released and had some connection issues (please refer to the previous paragraph). The Sequel to one of my Favourite games was released in the form of Red Steel 2 (I still have not played it). As a fan of the original I kind of do wish that they kept it in the same style as the original, but it looks quite good. Just Cause 2 was released in March. March also saw controversy erupting between Activision and Call of Duty Creators Vince Zampella and Jason West. Continual Fantasy 13 was released (why is it called Final when another game comes out after it) and yet again I did not buy it. Technically the game is a 2009 game because that’s when it was released in Japan.

GENEPOOL