Aliens Vs Predator - game review (PS3 & 360)

Rebellion brought the first avp game to the pc many years ago & since then its always had a great following, but then its no surprise seeing that the alien & predator movie franchise is so popular among people of all ages. At the time of its first release in 1999 avp got strong welcoming from many gamers who wanted to try playing in a unique kind of way & that’s exactly what rebellion did then & are doing again now only this time they have the benefit of producing next-gen graphics on home consoles. The story is rather linear but the catch is you can play through the campaign as all three species marines/aliens/predators. Set on the planet BG-386 a human colony discover an ancient pyramid while mining the area, a galaxy away the alien race who built the pyramid are alerted to the discovery & dispatch a hunting party to secure their secret. Deep inside the depths of the ancient pyramid the xenomorphic race of aliens are also awoken & they soon wreck havoc on the planet & its inhabitants. A distress call is sent & a platoon of marines is sent to the planet to assess the situation & deal with any hostiles. From there on in its fairly straight forward.

Playing as a marine you thrown into a world where anything that appears on your motion tracker could be a potential threat, but then as a marine you are equipped with high powered weaponry. For fans of the film you will be glad to know your main weapon of choice is the pulse rifle, there are also pistols/shotguns & the ever useful flame thrower. Playing as the marine was not my favourite part of the game because its rather straight forward, something moves & you kill it. of course its not as easy as it sounds because not only are the alien xenomorphs after you, the dreadlocked warrior predators are too. Playing as the alien is actually quite fun, thought at first the controls were a nightmare because the alien can run up walls & that’s not something gamers won’t be used to. As the alien you have to use stealth & smarts to outwit your enemies, hiding in the shadows works best as you become almost invisible. The alien is by far the fastest of characters to control in the game & in my view the most fun. Using the predator is kind of like a cross between marine & alien.

The controls are not too difficult & its rather satisfying to play as the real hunter in the game. Anyone familiar with the predator from the movies will expect the inclusion of the laser cannon & various other space age weaponry. All are included & it really pays to have the option to lure your prey into an area only to blast them in half with the cannon. I had great fun stalking a platoon of marines only to meticulously pick them off one by one. The online play also adds so much life to the game, there are the usual modes you would expect like death match but there are also so many other new modes thrown in to spice up your experience, my favourite is survival mode where you have to fight off waves of incoming xenomorphs. The graphics are good but they are not what I’d exactly call stunning, the lighting is however fantastic & you really get the claustrophobic feeling of the movies. Because its officially licensed by Fox all the sounds are genuinely taken from the movies, everything from the predators scope to the rip roaring sound of the pulse rifle all sound legitimately real. I was going to review this game weeks ago but I wanted to finish the campaign on all species, so having done that I can honestly say the game met all of my expectations & more. I’d recommend the game to anyone who’s a fan of shooters like modern warfare & survival horror games like the resident evil series. I really cant think of anything negative to say about the game, maybe it starts slowly but it sure picks up speed you get into the swing of things. Visually it could have been a little better but saying that the graphics are still next-gen, the music too fit’s the game perfectly & intensifies the mood & atmosphere. I’m going to give aliens vs. predator a much deserved 9 out of 10 - I’m only taking one mark out for the graphics. I played the game on both the ps3 & the 360.

Twilight: The Graphic Novel (volume 1) - book review

I’m a huge twilight fan so obviously I had been eagerly awaiting the official graphic novel, I got it last week & gave it a read through..here are my thoughts on the book. The first thing I realised was the book was not the standard manga size but rather the same size as the hardback twilight books, good for those of you who like to keep a tidy book shelf. The second thing I noticed was the cover which featured bella looked a little incomplete ..on closer inspection I spied Edward cullens arm. My bet is the next book will have a matching cover that joins up to the first novel forming a rather neat picture of bella & Edward in the meadow. So the book went on sale recently & so far I’m hearing well over 66,000 copies were sold in the first week making it a best seller. The books by meyer are so big that the graphic novels are going to be split up into different volumes, I’m sure how many exactly but I’m very sure that I’ll be purchasing each one as they come on the market. Though the book is mainly black & white some of the key scenes do feature colour. This time around because its not relying on text as the main story teller the experience is much more visual & definite to the authors original vision of her beloved characters. I was worried that when I did start reading the book I’d start to see some of my favourite characters & think they look nothing like how they appear in my image of them. Thankfully they all look so much like I’d imagined especially alice & rosalie. The art itself is actually really well done & some of the moods & emotions are quite engaging. I’ll admit I’m not a huge fan of comics but I do read the occasional graphic novel especially if its an adaptation of one of my favourite movies. Twilight is one of my favourite series of books/movies & I’m happy to report the graphic novel is quickly growing on me too. I’d really recommend the graphic novel to twilight fans like myself, if you were worried about the characters/story being adapted wrongly then you have nothing to fear its not only a great read but a nice little collectors item too. Roll on volume 2.

One of my favourite parts in the book, bella is introduced to the cullens through cafeteria chatter

RapidShare Targets Pirates

For years now rapidshare has always been well known safe haven for the pirate & downloading community, it was easy to just go to a set address then with a few clicks grab the material you wanted. copyright infringement was just another one of those things on the internet but not anymore, rapidshare are reporting that they are taking a firm stand on the ones behind the spread of internet piracy. Rapidshare are stating that they are actively logging the ip addresses of both uploaders & downloaders. The site gets hundreds of millions of visitors a month but its not the only filesharing site out there so it makes me wonder will it make much of a difference to the current availability of pirated material online. The site is listed as one of the internets most used sites but the owners have faced many lawsuits over the material located on the their servers. Currently the site is vastly popular with its users & passing visitors so I’m assuming that filtering & logging ips will only cause the pirates to move on to a competing site of a similar nature.

What I'm Watching

Fantastic Mr Fox - “beagles love blueberries”

I’m not a huge fan of CGI movies, why? Because they are too fake & though I can see the need for CGI elements in movies I tend to avoid movies that entirely depend on it so it was really refreshing to see this gem. Roald Dahl is behind many great stories such as “Charlie & the chocolate factory” & “the witches” but even though the books are written well their film adaptations are sometimes lacking any real depth, this is not true when it comes to this movie. The jerky movements of the characters are a welcome return to the world of old fashioned animation techniques & the effects are done so well it feels like you can almost reach out & run your fingers through the fur. The attention to detail is utterly fantastic & every few seconds I found my eyes drifting over the different props & backdrops. Perhaps it’s the attention to detail or perhaps its just the simple old school styles of stop motion animation & proper story telling..I don’t know, but Fantastic Mr Fox is & will remain to be one of my all time favourite films. Forget 3D & forget suffocating lashings of CGI infested pictures by Pixar, if you wont to see something both highly entertaining & freshly original treat yourself to this little gem.

2012 - “You're telling me that the North Pole is now some where in Wisconsin?”

For some reason this movie actually kind of works, not a story telling level with high class acting but on “omg that looked impressive” kind of way. The story is simple, in the year 2012 the prophecies of an incoming Armageddon are all true & so the human race fight for survival. The acting is terrible & every third line sounds like a bad joke but this really is not the kind of movie you watch for the acting ..or the story. Ok so the world is coming to an end due to natural disasters such as earth quakes, tidal waves, volcanoes & so on.. When such disasters do start happening that’s really when you see what the movie has to offer, the visual effects are really quite stunning ..entirely over the top of course but strangely kind of believable. Cities sink into the sea, boats get obliterated by giant tidal waves & yellow stone park gets wiped out by a enormous volcano. Without going too far into the story I can definitely say that the movie would have been better if they left the last 20mins out, I suppose because it was such a hyped up movie that spent millions to make it was bound to fail. In the end the prophecies themselves by the Mayans & Nostradamus were not followed closely enough to really make the movie that believable & the cast did not fit their roles, that said danny glover as the president of the united states worked but I just couldn’t stand john cusack. Perhaps it will grow on me, perhaps not but this may be a flick worth avoiding.

The Fourth Kind - “Please be advised, that some of what you're about to see is extremely disturbing.”

Straight away the movie stated it was based on a true story this of course peaked my interest but the more I looked into it the more I saw how fake it actually was. The story revolves around a psychologist living in an Alaskan town where strange alien like activity is reported. The Dr starts to investigate her patients claims through the medium of hypnosis.. What she finds is disturbing. Ok so the entire story is completely made up but parades itself as factual, blair witch anyone? I liked the blair witch for what it did with such a small budget & even though it did fabricate the truth it still had scares & so does the fourth kind. When the horror element does drop the scenes are genuinely scary & the themes of demonic possession & murder/suicide really did make me squirm. All in all its not a bad movie, the acting is quite admirable, the shocks do get a jump & the story isn’t half bad. If you like Milla Jovovich it might be worth the watch or indeed if you like movies like “fire in the sky” & “communion” this might also appeal to you.

The Boondock Saints 2: all saints day - “A .22? Oh you've gotta be kidding me. That's like bringing a knife to a gunfight.”

The first boondocks movie was great, the acting was ace..the action was heavy & the jokes were actually funny, this time around sadly the same cannot be said. 10 years later the saints get framed for the murder of a priest & so they come out of hiding to not only clear their name but to take revenge on the true killer. They return to boston to make things right with guns blazing & tongue in cheek quips at hand but it just doesn’t work. Most of the original cast do return but it just seems like too little too late, I don’t know why exactly but I watched it a few times & I still couldn’t make myself really enjoy it. I suppose my biggest issue with the film was the sidekick they take under their wing, I really didn’t like the character & he kind of annoyed me. The action when it does happen isn’t bad but its no where near as good as the original..perhaps that’s what it got a very limited cinema release. If you are a fan of the original you might get something from this but its still lacking in any real depth. The only saving grace for me was the acting by flannery & reedus, they are great actors & play the roles perfectly but the sidekick really ruined it for me.

PS3 global crash - Y2K for Sony?

If you are a PS3 owner don’t worry you are not the only one out there having gaming problems today as countless other players are experiencing the 8001050F error code. I was playing Aliens vs. Predator when I stopped to check out my game trophies, the next thing my system froze so I restarted it only to be met with “Registration of the trophy information could not be completed. The game will quit.” - naturally I assumed it was a network error so I tried to sign back into the playstation network with no luck, soon after I realised that the trophies themselves for AVP had completely disappeared. This of course worried me but it turns out its not just my system it’s the entire network & every playstation user on it. Sony have acknowledged the network crash & are currently dealing with it, lucky for myself its after 2:00am so I’m off to bed soon - Sony’s official response is the following: “We’re aware that many of you are having problems connecting to PSN, and yes, we’re looking into it. Stay tuned for updates.”- whatever is going on with the network you have to wonder what kind of a glitch stops users from playing a gaming title offline.

[update]


It first seemed like the problem was with the PSN, however it does not seem to be caused by the service anymore - as only older models are affected. Some users are speculating that the error is tied to the internal calendar or clock function of the machine (my clock reset) - there are theories that, since the incidences seem to have begun on the transition from February to March, a leap year miscalculation may be involved. even new consoles that have never been used online are being affected by the bug with game saves being corrupted, News sources are reporting that game saves should be fine once the bug has corrected itself or after a firmware update. However, it's unclear what will happen with trophies.

The advice at the moment for all owners is, if you have a pre-Slim model, don't even switch it on until some clear guidance comes through; and certainly not today. It'll be tough for recent purchasers of Heavy Rain - the game was out this weekend and requires a download update before you can play. Sony had this to say "Know that we have narrowed down the issue and have engineers working to restore service even as you read this. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you, and genuinely appreciate your patience while we work to resolve this." - however the company's Tokyo headquarters said shortly afterwards that it had yet to determine the problem that had caused so many consoles to be denied access to the network.

Sony has suggested concerned playstation users follow its Twitter feed for the latest news.

My own trophy info is still on the server when accessed through a pc

Many are saying the error will correct itself 24hrs after the bug hit as other similar machines facing the same problem have done, the biggest issue with gamers seems to be that their trophies may be forever lost. I already checked mine and the only ones that seem to be gone are my AVP ones, they are not on the PS3 but when I go to the playstation network through my computer they are still there (except the last 3 predator ones I earned) - again this is annoying but seeing that the data is on the server still I'm not as worried as I was. I'll be away from my PS3 for the next 2 days but I have one in my apartment too so I'll be checking that one later tonight. How a massive company like Sony didn't see this coming is beyond me, lets hope they have a fix for this soon rather than waiting 24hrs to see if it fixes itself.

[update]

Sony spokesperson Patrick Seybold: “We believe we have identified that this problem is being caused by a bug in the clock functionality incorporated in the system.” - half the playstation community could have told them that hours ago. Mine crashed about 18 hours ago so if after 2:00am the clock doesn't switch over i'll start to really worry.

[Fin!]


And so it went that all the PS3's came back to life after the dreaded Y2K-like bug, it was fairly serious at the time & a lot of questions still have to be answered but i'm just glad to have my system back.