Miroars Edge

Mirrors Edge

 Have you ever wanted to become a mail-(wo)man, delivering packages from point A and point B in the fastest way possible? Ever wanted to leap from building to building, while surviving improbable drops or follow red objects around the city that conveniently lead you to your destination? Then future postage simulator 2008 is just the game for you.

Plot & Game-play

 Run, run, float, fly, jump and run your way to victory as Faith Connors, a fully fledged post-woman, is ready to deliver documents hidden from the surveillance of the government. Call them big brother because they are watching your every move, rigging trials and killing civilians. A bit like V for Vendetta, but with less British people and masks, with instead more mail and cool tattoos. 

  In order to stop the government tightening their clammy hands from around the city any longer, Robert Pope decides to run for mayor but then he is killed. Turns out, faith's sister is framed for said murder and it is up to courier Connors to find out what the hell is going on and just who killed Pope.

 Game-play in courier service simulator 2008, centres around the free-running aspect where you can disarm+shoot/run away from the police and then you run away from the police helicopters all while doing sick tricks like hanging off ledges, sliding down slopes and not breaking your legs from 50 ft drops. 

 Like sonic sez, you gotta go fast when playing this game or your gonna have a bad time. As the main mechanic behind the free-running is momentum. Lose that moment and you'll be unable to disarm guards or make the impossible leaps of... Faith.

Graphics, Sound Track & Fun Factor

 The games graphics were pretty good for the time and do sort of still hold up now and the colour pallet, although lacking, reflect the OCD controlling nature of the governments hold surrounding the city. At least they used bright colours, I'm fed up of all the browns, blues and greys used in most first person games.

tl:dr Looks good, not many colours but the colours that are used are good.

 Mail-woman Mal's Dystopian Journey uses a soundtrack comprised of synths and beats that, like I said earlier reflect the setting of the game. It does feel a bit weird however, when you have that intense music playing  in the background while waiting in one of the elevators that break up the game-play. The sound effects for running change according to the surface and change quite smoothly. 

tl:dr Soundtrack suit setting and sound effects change in an appropriate manner.

  Is it fun? When you can play the game without losing too much momentum, plays out very nice with transactions from platform to platform becoming very fluid. When you haven't played it for a while or at all, starting off can be quite frustrating as you keep having to build momentum over and over when you make minor mistakes.

tl:dr As you get better you get the more fun it becomes, if you keep screwing up it will feel slow and clumsy.

Re-playability + Conclusion

How is the re-playability? The game is quite short and it doesn't have a very strong plot in my opinion, but good first person free-running hasn't been done in any other of the games that I know of(Looking at you Brink). Hmm.. well abiding by the Mirror's edge first law of fun-factor: Increasing skill=Increase in fun, means that is you keep coming back to this game and improving you will have a better experience.

tl:dr More playtime= Better player= More fun= More playtime.

In conclusion, I'd say that Post-woman Patty of totalitarian town is worth the purchase as you can get it for around about a fiver (pre-owned) for X-Box 360 and PS3. If you have a PC, like always, wait for steam sale as £15 is a bit much for the age of the game and if you don't like the idea of mouse and keyboard it is compatible with 360 controllers.

tl:dr Buy it for less than £10 if you can.

Spilt Sercond Verlercity

Split Second/Velocity

Split second velocity is a racing game, in which you can total enemy cars by ramming them or the games main attraction, sabotaging the race tack with set pieces such as collapsing building, plane crashes and exploding certain pieces. These environmental disasters also change the track significantly all within a couple seconds, so you're going to have to adapt quickly if you want win. The cars in-game all use automatic gear changes, a decidedly good decision considering all the action on screen would make it nigh on impossible.

The games graphics are really well done with most outstanding being the particle effects you see when you see the explosions or watch the buildings crumble away.

The game devs decided to use a small but sleek HUD that sits behind the car with it's width matching the car. This was a fantastic idea as the car is where you're eyes will be trained on for most of the time, it also means you can see more of the beautiful environment they worked on.

The music used in-game are those that have a quick tempo, that sets a tense atmosphere surrounding the races, although this music, by default, can be hard to hear over the screeching of cars around the bends. This is however viable for change in the options menu and purely subject to opinion.

The fun to be found in this game lies in the various different ways to play this game. This added with the (blue shell factor)* makes multi-player even more addictive, especially when you screw over your friends with an abrupt plane crash. Those who have started to get the hang of the games mechanics can expect awesome indirect vehicular warfare, with dastardly schemes to make use of the environmental changes to it's up-most potential.

*I have named this after the usage of the blue shell in the Mario kart games, the blue shell is an overpowered item that is given out to players who are low in place on the leader board. As a result, this 1^st place seeking, homing missile quickly changes the balance of the leader-board, that can result the people in last place coming in first. Also it is really annoying to be hit by, while a guilty pleasure to use, especially when you see the smug look twist into one of rage.

As for the re-playability, it lies within the ranking online and the achievements awarded in-game. Being at the top of the leader-boards or earning an achievement, results in having the rank/achievement decal placed on your car. Meaning that by the time the budding achievement hunter collects most, if not all of them, (s)he will have them plastered all over his car so (s)he can show them off to the world.

I highly recommend you buy this game if you are looking for some arcade racing as it only costs between 10 and 5 pounds. While providing an action packed yet unique racing experience, especially for playing with your friends. If you are looking for a racing game with more realism and manual gear changing you'd be better off looking elsewhere like Forza or the (GTR) Fiat GT Racing games.

Ecco the Derphin Review

Ecco the Dolphin

For Sega Genesis

The game for this weeks review is ,as you can read from the title, Ecco the dolphin. A game in which you play a dolphin, swimming around eating fish and exploring the ocean. Pretty simple right? WRONG!!! This isn't some wish wash story you could pull from a mad-lib oh, no.

Ecco goes on a journey to look for Big Blue, some old whale, 

who then tells him to look for an older geezer called the Asterite,

 so old in fact that he is the oldest living thing. 

  Turns out he is missing an orb, so Ecco heads to Atlantis to discover that everything was a part of an ALIEN HARVEST and in order to defeat them he's going have to TRAVEL BACK IN TIME.

He then defeats the Asterite, gains magical powers, returns to the present, goes back in time to the harvesting, uses said powers to destroy the alien queen and rescue his pod. A very interesting story which is a big contrast to the games simple look.

The music in the game is very atmospheric and

relaxing at times when travelling through the deep

blue sea. The sound effects however sound out of

place and some are rather annoying.

If your going to play this game, don't go in with the wrong mindset this may look like a kiddies game but damn is it hard and confusing at times. The in-game puzzles you can only really solve by experimenting, there is no hand-holding here, although when I think of it now it really does suit the lonely atmosphere of the game. There are hints, but they come in cryptic messages and if you're planning on solving the puzzles get ready to make many trips or your going to run out of air.

 Your character controls like an with squid with arthritis, so don't expect have much accuracy in your movements especially dashing as when avoiding obstacles as there's a high chance you will collide with  the wall.

At the time of release, the games graphics were pretty good, when compared to today’s standards however it's pretty obvious to see that the sprites would need touching up to before being released. Other things I'd like to see change would be the backgrounds as they are a little too busy for my liking and the text scrolling which is a little nauseating at least. 

I think the re-playability in this game lies in the absurdness of the story as you have to play the game through multiple times to truly understand how you got from diving out the ocean to travelling back in time to use your special sonar powers to defeat the alien queen.

All in all, Ecco the dolphin is a adventure through a bizarre plot filled with rewarding harsh puzzles and buggy controls. If you don't mind the controls and wish to play a game with a good story that actually requires thinking then buy the steam version instead , it's cheap at £1.99 and will make a good addition to your collection of games.