Can I Hit 40,000 Before 2010?

My gamerscore currently stands at 39,820 and my aim is go get the final 180 gamerscore before 2010 hits in a couple of weeks. Any suggestions for games that give good gamerscore? Blood Bowl is impossible to get points from.

Left 4 Dead 2 Review

Left 4 Dead was certainly a big surprise game last year. It did something interesting and fresh with the FPS genre, creating something simple to play but at the same time unique and most importantly of all Fun to play. Left 4 Dead 2 is more of the same.

The gameplay is pretty much the same, the graphics looks a bit tweaked and detailed, and new monsters have been added to the mix along with 5 new campaigns to play through and some new game modes.

The game still plays the same but I feel like they have tweaked the difficulty up a notch or two and in certain maps it is tough to get to the end even on the Normal mode. The hordes of zombies seem to come at you a lot more, and sometimes you are fighting off a couple of Tanks at once and your team will die and have to respawn way back at the start of the level. This can make L4D2 a much more frustrating experience that the original L4D.

However if you are a L4D veteran you will loves the new tweaks to the game and look forward to some new levels to shoot zombies in. Online this game easily beats Modern Warfare.

8.5/10

Blood Bowl Review

Many many moons ago I used to play Blood Bowl. It was a board game and is a sort of violent fantasy American football with lots of rules and dice rolling. Blood Bowl is the board game in computer form and it follows the rules of the original game exactly. You even hear and see the dice rolling and the results. It’s a game of strategy but also a game of chance.

The presentation of the game is a bit bland, menus look like 10 year old PC menus, and the game itself looks okay but lacks any real character or zip. The stadiums are a little bland, the players a bit one-dimensional and lacking in any varying animations however it does capture the board game perfectly.

The game is very tough. I have been playing it over a week and have only won 1 or 2 games. Just when you think you have nailed down the tactics you fumble a ball and the opposing team have scored a Touchdown. It can be frustrating and has one of the steepest learning curves and toughest difficulties I have seen on a video game. If you can persevere and look beyond its presentational faults you can get sucked in and addicted to the game and appreciate it for what it is but it’s not a game for the casual player of faint of heart.

7/10

DJ Hero Review

Just when you thought you had bought enough plastic instruments along comes a new piece of kit, the DJ turntable to add to the pile and take up more space in the spare room/under the bed.

DJ Hero is a game where you work your way through a number of mixes and mash-ups of some pretty well known songs and tunes. It’s a much stripped down game with no real career mode as such, you are just presented with an ever unlocking list of DJ sets which you work your way through and move on.

The mixing itself is a lot of fun but does have a steep learning curve and at first it feels like patting your head whilst rubbing your stomach. It follows a similar pattern to other music games with you hitting certain notes at certain times but adding elements such as scratching, cross-fading and tweaking sounds. There is a lot to take in but once you pick it up it all flows nicely and you will find yourself bobbing along to the beats and hitting all the scratches.

Compared to Rock Band/Guitar Hero it does feel new and fresh but it somehow lacks that extra bit of atmosphere which those games have. It’s fun to play but feels a bit clinical at times and lacking in presentation.

A nice game to impress your mates at a party but not something they can just pick up and play.

7.5/10

Call of Duty:Modern Warfare 2 Review

The original Modern Warfare was a massive smash and was in the games charts and online charts for many many months and has been the only real contender to steal Halo’s crown as being the most popular online shooter. Modern Warfare 2 continues the story from where MW left off and also expands on the online game. It’s the biggest game of 2009.

The game comes across like a huge Hollywood spectacular action movie. It’s big and loud and brash. Your eyes will be assaulted with some of the most wonderful graphics and cut scenes and your speakers will probably shake themselves free of their fixings. In the single player campaign get ready for several hours of non-stop gunfire rattling around your living room.

The single player is a great game. It looks lovely and plays perfectly but you do hit moments of frustration where the difficulty seems to ramp up and you find yourself doing the same section over and over hoping a random hail of bullets doesn’t cut you down. Also the story can be a little confusing. I can follow difficult plots and films but at times I had no idea who I was in this game and why I was assaulting a certain enemy base. I’m sure it all makes perfect sense but the logic and story seemed to be buried under the noise of explosions and chaos on screen.

Online the game is very similar to the last game and I’m sure MW fans will love playing with the news maps and perks. Personally I am not a massive fan of the Modern Warfare online experience. It is too chaotic. Shots ring out from every direction and it’s a spawn, run, shoot, re-spawn experience. A lot of people like this but I prefer my FPS online action a little more tactical, a little more slowed down, a game with well defined objectives and sides where you work as a team. In Modern Warfare you can be shot from any angle and you have no real sense of your side and their position never mind the enemies. It is however a very slick and fun game online.

Overall Modern Warfare 2 is an excellent and polished game. It’s like a Michael Bay film on screen. Not very subtle. Loud. But thrilling and fun.

9/10

Borderlands Review

Borderlands is probably the closest the X-Box 360 is going to get to a World Of Warcraft MMO at the moment. Well, World of Warcraft in a post apocalyptic First Person Shooter sci-fi setting, with guns and jeeps and crazy bandits. Borderlands can be played as a single player experience but compared to other single player FPS’s it doesn’t quite match up. It does however come into its own when played as a co-operative experience with 2 to 4 players.

It is basically a looting and adventuring game. You (and your group) have a number of missions to complete and in doing so your will receive money and weapons and armour and also stats to upgrade your character with new skills and powers. The sheer amount of weaponry can be daunting at times and you can spend large parts of the game stood around sifting through your inventory puzzling over which guns to keep and which to discard. Gamers not used to this stop-starty approach to their running and gunning may find the experience a little frustrating but if you are an obsessive collector and tweaker than you will be in micro-management heaven.

Borderland looks lovely. It has its own unique style of graphics. It all looks like something from the pages of 2000AD or a graphic novel. The game plays well and works reasonably well as a FPS but you can almost hear virtual dice being rolled in the background.

Overall Borderlands is an interesting and fun game. It is not without its faults (I’ve had some network issues and disconnects which have led to a character progress being lost) but it feels like a new and fresh experience which straddles nicely the genres of FPS and Looting games. As a single player experience I would mark it down a score or two but as an online Co-Op game its one of the best you can get on the 360

8.5/10

Reviews Incoming

With my new busy/crazy lifestyle Ive found it hard to find time to write reviews and blog about gaming but I have upcoming reviews of Borderlands,,DJ Hero Review,Call of Duty:Modern Warfare 2,Left 4 Dead 2 and Blood Bowl in the coming week. Keep your eye on the Blog and comments appreciated.

Lips:Number One Hits Review

Lips was always a guilty pleasure for me. Have a few drinks and work up a bit of dutch courage and stick in Lips and sings along to a lot of cheesy pop. It had its faults, slow menus, bland presentation and such like but it did its job. Lips:Number One Hits is the follow up and is pretty similar though the whole interface has been spruced up. It looks a lot nicer, has a bit more polish, has Avatar support, allows you to assign mic's to gamertags, and shows your world ranking as you are singing the song. You can also use all your Lips DLC with it and use the old Lips songs on the disc with a bit of disc swapping.

Number One Hits is definitely an improvement over the first Lips and its good simple fun and a good drunken party game.

7.5/8

Brutal Legend Review

Do you like Heavy Metal? Do you like Jack Black? Do you like wonderfully designed and well written Video games? Then you should like Brutal Legend.

Brutal Legend is an adventure set in a land based on every Rock and Metal cliche going. The land looks like the cover of many album cover and all the characters are based on rock stereotypes (along with a few real rock god appearances). You are placed in the role of Jack Blacks character, a roadie, and its up to you to save the land from Evil.

There's a large area to explore and you can play the game as you like, exploring and completing side quests until you decide to take on the next part of the main story. The story itself is brilliantly written. Its very funny and has the feel of a good Hollywood blockbuster. The game itself reminds me a bit of Kameo but a lot more polished and a lot more variety. Some parts of the game are simple hack and slash sections, some are racing, some are collecting, and some are a strange sort of Real Time Strategy and combat sections.

Brutal Legends probably didn't appear on a lot of peoples radars but its a very good game and is one of the better games in recent years and well worth trying out.

8.5/10