2011 So Far - Number 5 - L.A. Noire 8/10

We start our countdown with listing Rockstar's 'third column' in their franchise hit list behind the GTA and Red Dead series L.A Noire. The ambitious project brought together by Team Bondi used real actors to give the player a brand new way of interacting with characters. While the game itself has so far proved less popular sales wise than there other two franchises. Rockstar are quietly pleased with the result with talk of a sequel high up the agenda.

While we fell in love with the accurately re-created 1940's Los Angeles and the Truth, Doubt, Lie detective system it fell short to becoming a true great due to some of the repetitive nature of the cases and some plot holes in the story.

There is no doubt L.A Noire is a game to be remembered in history more for what it tried to accomplish rather than what it did, but hopefully the guys at Team Bondi can build upon solid foundations and a rather enjoyable game and that's why it makes our top 5 games of 2011...so far.

BY CRAIG JOHN SHIELDS

The Top Games of 2011...So Far...

Hey there and welcome to DCR's first ever awards section. With all the great titles that we've already had this year the guy's at DCR thought we should highlight some of this year's hit games by ranking them from five to one.

We've had a plethora of great games this year starting with early runners LittleBigPlanet 2 and Killzone 3. We moved into March and April with Mortal Kombat and Valve's brilliant Portal 2. We put on our Detective Suit in May with L.A Noire and moved into the Summer with Cole McGrath in inFamous 2 and a little known sleeper hit from Nintendo, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time for the 3DS.

This feature will start next week with number five being revealed on Monday all the way down to our number one game of 2011...so far being revealed on Friday!

inFamous 2 Review

Almost a year to the day I travelled to my local game store to purchase a game to take my time up. I wanted something that was good, I needed something that would take my mind off real life for a while, something I could get lost in. It was a difficult time in my personal life, my girlfriend and newborn son having both been admitted to hospital a few hundred miles away, I was moving house and of course had full-time work getting in the way of everything. Eventually I settled on inFamous at £9.99 which after playing the first in the series to death was a bargain. I think due to my emotional attachment at the time thanks to my personal circumstances and the fact that any free time I did have was devoted to infamous 1, had I of reviewed it it certainly would have got a higher score than it deserved. That's not to say this review of the sequel, cunningly named inFamous 2 will be reviewed incorrectly. It perhaps means that I expect more than I usually would from a sequel, infamous one captivated it's audience and turned Sucker Punch Productions from Sly creators and Banjo-Kazooie wannabe's into a real player in the industry, behind Uncharted, inFamous is now arguably the second biggest Playstation brand, overtaking, Resistance, Ratchet and perhaps even Killzone and they've cemented their position within the Playstation family here.

inFamous 2 see's the return of Cole McGrath, just an average courier boy who get's caught up in an explosion and gains electrical super powers, the premise is simple but the execution is superb. This time Cole has travelled south to New Marais as he's being chased by 'the beast' an almighty being revealed at the end of the original, Cole's goal is to grow strong enough to defeat him by finding blast cores in New Marais and continues the excellent story building blocks from the first game. Thankfully inFamous 2 doesn't pull a 'God of War' and take all your powers away from the first game, you keep all you earned and learn new more powerful moves, imagine summoning an electrical hurricane, you can do that here.

A new gameplay addition is 'the amp' a metal electrical rod that Cole wields for melee combat. A few quick taps of the Square button hits the opponent and a hit of the Triangle is the cue for one of the sweet finishers that end your opponent. The melee naturally fits into the game and changes the gameplay enough from the first one where it could be accused that holding L1 and mashing R1 to fire lightning bolts was enough to get through most troubles, but not here, the combat is varied enough from powers to melee where you'll want to switch it up, plus there's nothing more satisfying than jumping off a 4 storey building and slamming to the ground causing an electrical shockwave that kills four guys at once.

If you've never played inFamous one don't fear, you can jump right into the sequel without playing the first (although I highly recommend you to try it). The first game's story is beautifully told the minute you hit start with a loving crafted comic strip style cut scene, these comic strips were littered throughout the original but unfortunately take a bit of a back seat in the sequel. There is no doubt the biggest difference between the original and the sequel is the set-pieces. Dramatic helicopter fights and large explosion's really deliver a Hollywood feel and I've not even told you half the story (and I won't for fear of spoilers). Uncharted 2's train and building set-pieces have gone down as folk-lore at Sony and have set a new industry standard in the video games. The boys and gals at Sucker Punch have taken note and have 'Unchartedised' inFamous 2. Copying off Uncharted 2 isn't a bad thing as the core comic-book super hero gameplay style still reigns supreme but taking tips off Naughty Dog has definitely upped their game. The in-game explosions, even when your just walking around New Marais can be spectacular, needless to say the set-pieces included in the story can be breath-taking, unfortunately nothing to match Uncharted 2, but very few can.

Missions in inFamous 2 are varied enough, more so than the original which tended to repeat some situations over and over but there's enough variety and more importantly fun missions to keep you going through the campaign and onto the side missions which can be completed at any time. The addition of user-generated content was a slightly left-field decision for a game that isn't LittleBigPlanet but it's certainly a welcome one. Some of the early UGC missions I've played were interesting enough without being amazing, but this is down to the lack of time after launch rather than the tools. The UGC interface is quite awkward to create with no real manual but as a starting point for future releases it's certainly a solid platform to build upon.

However it's not all plain sailing for the sequel, during amp and explosion sequences the camera can somewhat go awol. There was a situation with an early boss I encountered who grabbed me by the tongue and tried to pull me in, the idea to get out of this is to shoot inside his mouth to get him to let go, but because I was running away at the time he grabbed me, the camera showed the view behind me and away from the monster so there was no way to save myself. This can be annoying especially when trying to combo melee moves from one guy to another but it's a small annoyance and really shouldn't spoil your enjoyment of this game too much.

Sequel's are supposed to be bigger and better in everyway, inFamous 2 ticks both these boxes with flying colours and stands out in an industry with a lot of wannabe's. It falls short of being on a par with an Uncharted or Mass Effect but it's certainly worthy of it's place as a big gaming franchise, Sucker Punch, welcome to the big time, I'm sure you'll be here to stay.

9/10

Mortal Kombat Review

Well we waited an eternity for Mortal Kombat and we waited even longer for this review, but it's here now! If you haven't already got this game, stop reading and go get it. Right now.

Okay still need convincing well here we go, as always just going to talk about the story mode without trying to spoil anything. First thing is first, the story is great, its a lot of fun and for all you new to Mortal Kombat it starts from the very beginning then eventually going off into the newer story. It doesn't take a whole lot of time to complete which I think is really good seeing as all you want to do is play as every character and see some damn fatalities. There are some parts that are very challenging and at the same time a lot of time. Whilst we are talking about the story we can't help but talk about the voice acting, in essence its great even with the slightly cheesy and stupid moments, notably Jonny Cage. Also there are some moments when you feel a fight just starts over literally the dumbest things. Saying that its still a lot of fun.

The graphics are amazing in my opinion, I am fresh from playing Marvel vs Capcom so I had a good chance to compare the two and the styles are very different of course, but I feel Mortal Kombat does an extremely good job, notably the little things like how you can see your characters damage getting worse and worse with insane amount of blood, torn skin and im some parts you can see the brain. It's brilliant, the attention to detail is better than words can describe. I am going to talk about fatalities later on and we will return to this topic.

I can't really write a proper review without talking about the sound of the game. It is unbelievable how good the sounds are, you feel every punch or every fire ball hitting your character. Literally feeling all the pain they go through! One of the sounds that I notice more than any other is when you uppercut one of the mechanical characters, I can't even describe it but when you next play just pay attention and it will blow your mind.

Other game types include the classic ladder mode, tag ladder, test your luck, test your might etc which are all pretty fun. My favorite game type, Test your Luck. Honestly genius, anyone can pick up a controller and fight against someone who has a ton of experience and win. If you haven't heard about this game type, basically all it is, is a simple fight between two people however, there are between 4 and 7 slot reels that you spin before the fight, based on what lands you can have things added to the maps such as meteor showers and earth quakes. The maps can be altered, flipped upside down or go black for periodical periods of time. Things can be added to the health and powers bars, along with extra health or SP dropping from the sky. Then the fun begins when things are added or taken from players, you could end up as a zombie with no arms or head, you can't block or jump whilst your opponent has the power of a vampire, turbo speed and basically has a hell of a time owning you!

The Challenge Tower, you son of a b***h. 300 events in this tower, you want that platinum trophy  or achievement, better get working right now. Although I can't moan because its truly awesome, starting of simply with little mini games and fights, to fighting 3 Goros at a time, because 1 isn't a pain as it is.. Also a fight where you play as Sub Zero and Scorpion but can only damage your opponent based on what color he is, coordinating with the colors of your characters. There are 300 challenges, do I really need to say more?

Now we arrive at the characters. I don't think anyone can be disappointed here, we have pretty much even character that there is to think off and of corse with time will come DLC characters. I am kinda pissed you don't get to play as Goro others than in the challenge tower. The costumes look amazing for everyone and again with time will come old school costumes, I would love to test out some of the character costume codes that I have but I can't, thank you again Sony. Talking Sony I think you have to buy this game on this console, simply due to the fact that you get an exclusive character, Kratos, when the Xbox gets nothing. He fits perfectly into the game and has an interesting story in the Tower mode. No characters seem to over powered when you know what you are doing. There are obviously some slight combo glitches which need to be patched and sorted out, Night Wolf and his stupid shoulder charge is very frustrating when someone online knows that one combo and that is it!

Finally lets talk about online. Even though we had to wait god knows how long to actually go online with the PSN going down, now that we are there what is it like? Well its okay, when you have a match, ranked or unranked its fun. The king of the hill mode is a good laugh too, even just spectating! Having a crowed score your match out of 10 is always interesting! The issue is lag. Lag and getting a game.. Sometimes it can take forever to get just a single ranked match! Then when you do the lag is bad! Not all of the time, 70% of the time its fine, but it does need to be fixed.

What more can I say, the game is amazing! A lot of content for your money and it is easily the best fighting game on the market right now! A solid;



8.5/10

E3: NINTENDO PREDICTIONS

After last week's predictions about Sony's e3, we here at DC Reviews boldly said that Starhawk would be announced at e3, well a couple of weeks before e3 and it has been! Score one for team DC! So today we look fondly over in Nintendo's direction, what can we expect? Read on to find out...

Project Cafe is actually called the Nintendo Stream

Yep, that's right folks, start your Wii Stream jokes because we believe here at DC that Nintendo's next console will be called the Stream. Not due to Ninty loving jokes but the fact that the basis of the new console will be on streaming. Streaming old games to be able to play them, streaming to the new controller with a touch screen, so a very apt name we feel.

Finally an online system worth using!

After the disaster attempt at online using the Wii, Nintendo will finally give us all a decent online system. While not directly copying Sony's or Microsoft's online plan, perhaps we will see something in the middle. Something similar to Netflix's pay monthly use everything system could be established, except from being allowed to watch movies it could be the Virtual Console, let's say you pay £4.99 a month and in return get to play any game off the Virtual Console as it's streamed to your system. Maybe a long shot but would certainly tie into the idea of the 'stream' idea.

A lot of Zelda stuff...

The release of Skyward Sword and re-release of Ocarina of Time won't be all we hear of Zelda this year, I expect hints of future Zelda's for Stream/Cafe and 3DS, brand new adventures not re-releases. Also, Skyward Sword will not be moved to the new console ala Twilight Princess but could perhaps be delayed until early 2012.

3DS WILL get Gamezzzz!

With all this talk of of the next home console, let's not forget Ninty's new handheld was only just released mere months ago. While the shortcoming's of the 3DS aren't hard to workout (I don't want Pilotwings!) e3 should give us all 3DS gamer's something to shout about. Mario 3DS will get an in-depth showing, a new fully original 3DS Zelda will probably be hinted at and some major third party showings should boost up the catalogue a bit. Metal Gear, Resident Evil and Sonic Generations are all expected to show up with confirmed release dates to stop the 3DS from collecting dust.

Project Cafe/Stream unveiling

While already confirmed to be announced at e3, just what exactly will Nintendo tell us? While a release of 2012 has been confirmed Nintendo should shorten that timespan to first quarter 2012, a simultaneous worldwide release seems unrealistic at this stage so expect Japan first followed by America and Europe a few months later. March for Japan and May for the rest of us wouldn't be the worst guess in the world. Those hoping for a price announcement will be upset, why would Ninty announce a price nearly a whole year in advance? There's no advantage they could get by doing it this early, expect that announcement early next year.

As with the confirmation of a sketchy release window don't expect a full launch line up either. Games will be announced of course but we have to remember these will be in quite early stages of development, expect a playable form on the show floor anything more than that is unexpected.

Overall a positive show from Nintendo this e3, they're best in quite a while, they will win this show. Only a total balls up from the new console would mean they won't win, everyone loves a new console after all! Mario and Zelda in HD? Welcome to the 21st century Nintendo, we've missed ya!

E3 PREDICTIONS: SONY

After a year of waiting the games industries biggest and loudest event, e3 will finally be with us on June 7th. Until that date we here at DC Reviews will bring you our predictions for the three big companies starting today with Sony.

Whisper it quietly but at the time of writing this the PSN is still down, by the time e3 rolls around next month it will be back up in some capacity I'm sure which leads me onto my first prediciton

AN APOLOGY

Yep, I have a feeling at some part during the conference the PSN outage will come up and Sony will humbly apologise, there won't be any Kevin Butler jokes because the whole debacle is serious, I mean, your personal data has been stolen and now 70 million people are in danger of being hit by fraud. This isn't the most shocking of prediction's but it does lead onto the fact that the rewards programme for consumers will be discussed. Europe is already confirmed to be getting an Identity Theft Protection scheme, 30 days of Playstation Plus and two free PS3 games and two free PSP games if you own that system, but what about everyone else?

GOD OF WAR IV

God of War III came out in March 2010 to some fantastic reviews and is currently a 91 on meteoritic. Kratos' story arc is supposedly over but the franchise is certainly not. Will we see another Kratos prequel for the PS3 like the PSP outings of the history's angriest man or will we be thrown a curve ball and be angry in someone's else's Greek boots? Who knows, but I will be pretty shocked if the series doesn't make some sort of appearance at E3.

NGP Full Reveal

Sony's new baby the NGP will be there of course and after it's early reveal in February expect Sony to really blow the lid open this time. We expect a release date for all territories, a semi-reveal of launch line-up but I don't think price will be announced. Revealing the price this early could harm sales and put consumers off unless the price is super low, even then it would probably have more impact on the lead-up to Christmas. A completed demonstration of the OS will be shown live and perhaps announce a revamp of the PS3 XMB to follow in it's new baby brothers' footsteps. Uncharted NGP will get a full showing and will be confirmed to launch with the system. The actual name of the NGP will be announced and I expect Sony to steer clear of the Playstation Portable name, it seem's that name conjures up a lot of stigma much like the Wii, no games etc etc

Warhawk Sequel Announced

2007 game Warhawk, which has a rather large loyal following will finally get a sequel, probably called Starhawk if you believe all the rumours. The multi-player only game will see a release at the end of 2012 and possibly join God of War IV as PS3's big hitters for next holiday.

And The Rest...

And that'll be about it for major news from Sony. A quiet E3 for the Playstation machine yes, but you could argue they have bigger things to worry about right now. All their major franchises are coming to the system, Uncharted 3, InFamous 2, Ratchet and Clank, Resistance 3 etc so barring a totally unexpected Killzone 4 announcement I can't see anything other than God of War or Warhawk sequel in terms of games as mentioned above. The only other thing that could happen that's not NGP related is a totally re-vamped PSN which has been rumoured for months now, even before the hack. Cross game chat will happen and this may very well be the year where Sony finally gets their house in order with the PSN. Sony may jump into bed with EA again and get some exclusive Battlefield 3 deal in terms of maps or something else like they did with Medal of Honour to try and combat the Call of Duty/360 partnership.

A solid E3 from Sony without being a spectacular one in my opinion. They won't win E3, it'll be either Microsoft or Nintendo. One without any games and the other with Zelda. Look out for Nintendo's E3 chatter next on the site!

You can follow Craig Shields on twitter @craigshields9

PORTAL 2 REVIEW

*due to the PSN being down the following review is solely based on single player*

When I sit down and finish a game I usually take in all of what's happened in the final scene and my whole journey through the game, watch the credits then move onto the next game vying for my attention on my shelf. Not with Portal 2. Don't get me wrong I would love nothing more than to blurt out what happens in the end, it really is something special and in a way the surprise you get really awards the player for playing the game without actually giving you anything other than a lasting impression that set's Portal 2 out from the crowd.

For those not familiar with Portal, it was a mini-game of sorts released in Valve's Orange Box which included Half-Life 2. Seen as an indie game of sorts the 3 hour 'extra' soon become a cult classic. You play as a female character stuck in a factory of science, where the centre is being run by an evil machine called GLaDOS, one of gaming's great villains. The idea is to move from room to room solving puzzle's by using a portal gun, fire one portal on the wall next to you and another across the room and walk through one portal and come out of the other simple!

Portal 2 takes the simplicity and complexity of some of the puzzle's of the first one and ramps the little 3 hour title into a fully fledged and fully realised 6 to 8 hour retail game without making it feel tired and used. It really is a great achievement by Valve to keep Portal 2's puzzle elements feel fresh every chapter. You start off going from chamber to chamber and jumping through GLaDOS' (yes she's back) hoops like in the first game but not too far in the landscape of Aperture Science drastically changes and the chamber to chamber formula shifts to really keep you on your toes. The companion cube also makes a comeback to help you solve puzzles, move box from point A to point B to progress but new additions are light tunnel's and two types of gel. One that makes you bounce and one that makes you run really fast. All the new elements fit right in and don't feel at all out of place. The main concern I had coming into Portal 2 was difficulty, I'm not the best at solving puzzle's and thought I would struggle with a few but the game does a great job of coaching you through some of the puzzle's and giving subtle hints to help you along. I wasn't stuck at a puzzle for any longer than twenty minutes and there's no better feeling than when everything *clicks* into place and you continue on.

Like any sequel some new characters have been introduced with Stephen Merchant taking the voice acting role of new robot Wheatley in a role he performs fantastically in and is easily the best voice acting I've heard in a long long time. His constant quips back and forth with GLaDOS are memorable throughout and gave me more than a few truly laugh out loud moment's. Portal's humour really sets it apart as it doesn't need to resort to your stereotypical jokes that often cloud video games, it doesn't have anything relating to sex, drugs, drink or anything seedy like that, apart from one fat joke but we can accept it.

Portal 2 truly is a wonderfully crafted piece of work rather than just a lot of the mindless games we get nowadays, don't get me wrong I love a bit of Mortal Kombat but Portal 2 is something we haven't had in a long time and just adds to the argument that games truly are pieces of art, we're lucky in the fact that Portal 2 is a masterpiece.

9/10