The headline says it all.  Bungie, the developers behind the hugely successful Halo franchise, have signed a 10 year deal with Activision.  I find this a very interesting move for a number of reasons.

Moving from Microsoft to Activision will of course mean multi-platform Bungie titles is on the cards.  This is good news for any PS3 owners who have secretly been feeling a little jealous.  Accepting the fact they couldn’t bounce around the screen while dodging rockets fired at them by a bunch of angry pre-teens must have been very difficult for some.  This announcement will certainly add some fuel to the Xbox 360 vs PS3 arguments you find on every single gaming site, and even some sites which have absolutely nothing to do with games.  Fun times ahead for any gamers hoping to find a sensible discussion on what is a huge move in the games industry.

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Fragile Dreams is a really beautiful game. When I say that I’m not just talking about the graphics although the game is certainly polished in that area. For me this is one of those games which will stand out in your memory as this generation of consoles is replaced by the next. This is especially true with this title being on the Wii which isn’t blessed with an abundance of stand-out titles.

A post apocalyptic setting surrounds the main character, a young boy named Seto, who feels alone and is possibly the last human in the world. You guide your character along his journey in search of survivors. The adventure is a perilous one and if he’s to reach his final destination Seto must defend himself from a variety of ghosts and hostile creatures. Seto will meet, and uncover the story surrounding, some interesting characters on his travels.

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At its core this game is all about time and resource management. Your farm won’t run itself and you must keep an eye on everything to make sure it’s taken care of. At the top of your screen there is a clock which ticks down. You must keep an eye on the time of day as shops are only open at certain times and in the evening the ability to chat with characters will be severely limited. The clock ticks down when you’re outside but time bizarrely freezes while in your home or another building. Another thing to keep an eye on is what season you’re in and this is displayed next to the clock. I spent a lot of cash on a bunch of fruit and veg which is meant to be grown in Summer and Autumn then discovered it was Spring and I’d have to wait a while.

Another thing you must keep an eye on is the physical condition of your character. This is split into two bars, energy and health. Your energy bar decreases while doing physical tasks such as farming or using weapons, though strangely not from moving around. The use of farming tools will reduce your energy bar by a small amount while using the range of weapons has more of an impact. The health bar may seem self explanatory but it’s worth mentioning one important aspect. Your health bar is reduced not only when you receive damage from attacks but also when your energy bar is depleted. This means that when your energy bar is empty, even while working on your farm, further work will eat into your health bar until that is also empty. When this happens you’ll lose consciousness and wake up with the possibility of a cold and reduced energy.

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When I watched the main trailer for Metro 2033 my first impression was that this is a good looking game. The dark and gritty post apocalyptic style immediately had me thinking of Fallout 3 which I adore. The visuals were a promising start and I was really looking forward to getting my hands on this to find out if the similarities went beyond the cosmetic. I will take a moment to mention the few issues I have with the game before moving on to the positives.

It is apparent from the very beginning that atmosphere was top priority when the developers were creating this title. This proved successful as for the most part I found myself immersed in the events unfolding before my eyes but a few things threatened to spoil it for me. Overall I was impressed with the visuals and sound but unfortunately each area had noticeable failings. The visuals were let down by a lack of character models. There were three faces in particular which I saw countless times, a little boy, a large breasted woman with dark hair, and an Osama Bin Laden lookalike. The visual repetition was mirrored by a lack of variety in voices. I was genuinely surprised when the end credits revealed that a large list of voice talent had worked on the game. If I closed my eyes there was no way I could distinguish between any of the male voices. One of the creepiest things in this game is hearing the little boys talk with a grown man’s voice. Scary stuff.

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I wonder how many of you remember when Sega did what Nintendon’t. Well, that seems to have changed a bit over the years because this title may as well have been called “Super Sonic Kart”. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t see that as a bad thing. I believe that if you’re going to copy a game at least copy a good one and Super Mario Kart is a very good game indeed. You’d need to be living in a cave for some time to have not heard Nintendo’s classic racer and you’d need to be blind to miss the blatant similarities in this title.

Some of the playable characters are Sonic the Hedgehog, Tails, Shadow the Hedgehog, Amy Rose, Knuckles, Alex Kidd, Beat from Jet Set Radio, Ulala from Space Channel 5, and Ryo Hazuki from Shenmue. Ryo is my character of choice for a number of reasons: his appearance is unusual in such a game, he has a cool motorbike, and I can pretend I’m playing a bizarre prototype of the elusive Shenmue 3.

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Over the years my experiences with games based on the Olympics have been far from joyful. I have never understood how some people can take pleasure from mashing buttons as quickly as they can. Granted, things used to be much worse. I recall playing a boot camp game on the Commodore 64 when I was a kid. That required non-stop button hammering and joystick waggling. At least one joystick was lost in my battle with that game. I really hated it. This game isn’t as bad but I really don’t think a modern game should give me flashbacks of childhood horrors. In truth, compared with previous Olympic titles, there is very little button mashing here but it still frustrates the hell out of me.

I can’t say I’m an avid viewer of the Winter Olympics but a little research goes a long way. This game has 24 countries to choose from while the actual Olympics had participants from 82 countries. As far as the sports go the most notable omission has to be the ever popular Ice Hockey. This means Canadians will be unable to recreate that huge victory in their national sport and that seems a shame. For those who would rather see Skiing events there are lots and lots of them on offer. In fact, 7 of the 14 events are Skiing.

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A comedy set in contemporary times featuring a plague of bloodthirsty zombies. My first thought was that this would be little more than a Shaun of the Dead clone. Then again, as a big fan of zombies movies and especially that Edgar Wright gem, that was fine by me. This was a huge opportunity for Ruben Fleischer who went into Zombieland with a Directing career pretty much limited to Jimmy Kimmel Live! Ruben must have been happy with a cast which included Abigail Breslin of Little Miss Sunshine, Emma Stone of Superbad, Jesse Eisenberg who has recently jump-started his career, and the veteran Woody Harrelson.

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In Avalon Code the world is coming to an end and you are trusted with the hugely important task of filling a big book, known as the Book of Prophecy, with everything you deem worthy of saving. The idea is that when a new world is created it will be filled with everything you’ve saved. That’s a lot of pressure on the shoulders of a character so young but in their world, unlike our own, they won’t be distracted by the lure of videogames.

You’ll be expected to defend yourself against a variety of aggressive enemies. Swords come in handy but your main weapon is that Book of Prophecy which you carry around with you. Smacking people and monsters, or specific objects such as plants, with your massive book will show you a 3×3 grid. This grid contains the essence of that specific creature or object, think of this as a basic form of DNA. For example a deadly plant may contain poison. The poison can be extracted and kept aside. When fighting an enemy you can hit them with your book to reveal their grid then add the poison which in turn damages its health. You can also extract fire from something then place that in a weapon to enhance it with fire damage. This adds a level of tactics not often present in this type of game.

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I have yet to see the film and will be unable to compare the two but I imagine this game will remain quite faithful to the big screen Harry Potter-esque tale. Percy is at school, bored out of his mind, when all of a sudden he is attacked by a mythical beast. He takes care of that problem but understandably wants some answers. It turns out he is the son of a God, which is certainly news to him, and is soon caught up in a battle with a force which was at one point beyond his imagination. School certainly got a lot more interesting for young Percy.

Beneath the Greek mythological exterior this game can be described as a series of encounters with aggressive individuals. I will now provide a handy example of the type of scene which is all too familiar in the game.

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The name of the game is Way of the Samurai so at the very least I expect this to make me feel as though I am in control of a Samurai. I had fond memories of Bushido Blade on the Playstation until playing it recently. I expected the graphics to have aged quite badly, as this is true of most 3D games from that era, but it’s the difficulty I had a problem with. The fights on their own weren’t that tough but it was the strict rules of combat which had me frustrated. I was continually told off for using what was considered to be dirty tactics. If the only frustrating thing about this game was strict rules in combat I’d be content but unfortunately a lack of direction is a bigger problem.

For most of the game you’ll find yourself running through villages in order to complete one of many silly errands. These errands range from delivering a message to fighting multiple enemies and the latter sounds way more exciting than it actually is. Some effort was made in providing multiple endings but I found it hard to care about any of the characters and I certainly didn’t care about the story enough to play through the game more than once. Visuals aren’t everything but in this case they are below par. I accept that various shades of grey and blandness is considered really cool in the gaming world but it’s the lack of detail I take issue with. The music is ok but the sound effects are basic and often seem out of place. A bunch of crows circle a field of fallen warriors and every so often they fly down and peck away at the fresh meat. Not only do these crows collide with you, and knock you back in a ridiculous fashion, but the sound effect which accompanies this is a jarring thumping sound.

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