48 - Fahrenheit (Xbox) :
Don't you just hate when you nip to the loo after a nice coffee, only to then blackout and wake up having apparently murdered some old guy who was minding his own business and just having a wee?? I know I do, and so does Lucas Kane, who finds himself in exactly this predicament at the start of the game...
You take control of Lucas, and using the two analogue sticks of your controller, hurriedly try to clean up the scene of the crime before a policeman in the diner where the murder took place, enters the toilet and discovers the mess! It's a truly unique start to a game, and has you wondering exactly what type of thing you're getting yourself into...
It turns out that Lucas wasn't exactly himself when he commited the crime, and like a few others in New York, has seemingly been possessed by a serial killer carrying out the murders using other folk as deadly puppets. Unlike the others though, Lucas has had psychic visons since childhood , and it seems he is destined to play a much bigger role than the murderer intended in this weird plot, that just keeps getting weirder!
Fahrenheit plays like some sort of rhythm-action interactive movie, and a surreal one at that. It's full of big action sequences that look like something from The Matrix, but the plot has you doing everything from mopping the floor to playing guitar to seduce ladies to fighting weird shadowy angel type monsters and dodging giant bugs in your office! Oh, and meeting a Kung-Fu master in a library and playing basketball, not to mention the naked sex scenes that seemed to upset the anti-videogame crowd more than the murder at the start.....
The best thing about it is the way it remembers what you've done as Lucas, and when you get to play as Tyler and Carla, the detectives trying to work out who the murderer is, your choice of where to hide the murder weapon, wash your clothes, etc. will have an effect on what they discover during their scenes...
It can get a little fiddly at times with the controls, but the bizarre story and innovative gameplay should keep you intrigued enough to see it through to the end! And then you'll probably want to play through it again to experience how different choices will affect the game...
Definitely one I recommend! The story in this one is definitely best experienced by yourself, and even the stuff I mentioned above is only a tiny taster of the weirdness you can expect...so do yourself a favour and pick this up! It's available on PS2 and PC as well I think....
47 - Dead Island (Xbox 360) :
Yet more zombie carnage in this FPS....well, I say FPS, but really you'll be doing more smacking than shooting...smacking and hacking and thwacking and splatting! And shooting too, but it's more melee based and uses all manner of upgrades for you to create new weapons to cut the zombies up with! A FPM then...First Person Melee...
You take control of one of four characters as they find themselves trapped on an exotic holiday island that has become over-run with the undead flesh eaters that are being far too overused in games these days. This one keeps it interesting though, by letting you use the aforementioned weapons to bash their brains in, and takes a leaf from Left 4 Dead's book and introduces a few different zombies to keep you on your toes!
The Walkers wander around being all slow like traditional zombies, and sort of huddle together to make it tricky to get round corners and things...the Infected sprint towards you like the more modern zombies in stuff like 28 Days Later, spitting and shrieking and getting all up in your face to try and eat it off.....the Thugs are super-zombies that take a lot of damage before they pop their clogs, so it's best to save the bigger, more powerful weapons for them....Suiciders plead with you to kill them, then explode in a mess of blood and guts when you get close to them, ruining your favourite shirt...
Then there's the Rams, straight-jacketed loonies who charges at you and try to smash you against walls and is also very tough...Butchers, who have their hands chewed off into bony knives which they'll use to try and carve themselves a slice of you...and finally, Floaters...zombies who have become bloated after lying around in water and now have the ability to spew projectile acid vomit at you like Left 4 Dead's Boomers.....
You also get to wander or drive around a huge open world, exploring the various hotels, bars and beaches and later city streets and sewers...and you'll find other survivors who'll wnat you to complete various quests for them such as gathering supplies, finding their relatives or helping to hold off an onslaught. You can hook up with another 3 players online too, making it a bit more fun to go on a zombie slaying spree, although they can sometimes wander off and start other missions which can get confusing, so it's best to stick to playing with people you know will stay together as a team. If you can find the right players it really helps add to the game as you work together to get things done!
It isn't just zombies you have to deal with though. Later you'll find other humans who are trying to survive in their own way, and are using the undead uprising as a means to getting what they want. So far I've found that this is where the guns come in handy, as the humans tend to be a bit more savvy than the brain munchers...
In conclusion then, it's a great game that's a lot of fun to play, especially if you can get a couple of online buddies involved to help you out. There's extra arenas available in the Game Of The Year edition or as DLC, where you can bash away at zombies to your hearts content too, and an extra mission set where you get to see the action form the side of one of your human enemies..
It has plenty of faults too though...the game can glitch pretty bad, with you ending up stuck in scenery, have items disappear or just freeze the game up...but it's enough fun for you to ignore these bits and just get on with the mayhem. So again, it's another one I recommend...
One last thing before moving on...the trailer for the game caused quite a bit of upset, but not for the controversy of showing a little kid get bitten and flung from a window that you'd expect would upset people. What got people moaning was the fact that such an arty trailer suggested that this would be a game where you would have to really think about the fact zombies were human, and deal with the emotional effects of having to end their existence again...Too bad for the people who were expecting that then, that it ended up being a violent gore-fest that revels in the fact you can bash zombies brains in with a customised oar or flatten loads of them in an instant with your car!!
46 - Extermination (PS2) :
Another game I'm just getting to grips with next.....This is a 2001 survival horror title developed by some members of the original Resident Evil team, and you can see the influences a mile off, as it's filled with bad voice acting, key cards, locked doors, etc..... but all ends up being rather groovy despite it's shortcomings!
You take on the role of a Marine Special Forces Operative named Dennis Riley, as he and his buddies go on a rescue mission in Antarctica. Needless to say, before long you'll realise things are a lot worse than people imagined and some sort of viral outbreak is turning people into big gloopy purple mutants that want to infect everybody else! Naturally you also soon find yourself facing this threat alone...at least until you meet one of the shadowy, suspicious characters that populate such games...
It's actually reminds me of John Carpenter's The Thing with it's plot, despite their being no hint of any alien influence so far...but we'll see how it pans out! And as I said, it also owes a lot to Capcom's zombie horror series....but it does have a few interesting additions of it's own to the survival horror genre!
For a start, your gun is really customisable...and instead of lugging loads of weapons about, it's just a case of finding the right additions to it to boost your firepower! I believe their are other weapons you can pick up later, but so far the one I started with is all I need! Well, that and my handy knife which comes in handy when there's a padlock needing smashed or one of the annoying little worm beasties is leaping at my face and I'm low on ammo.....
And unlike the early Resi games, if you get attacked in this game it's very easy to become infected by the virus, meaning that you essentially have to worry about two health bars..your general health and your infection level! You'll get progressively more infected as you battle the enemies, and eventually if it's left untreated, you'll need to rush to special machines to put a stop to the infection before you become the latest gloopy grunt...
This helps adds to the tension of the game, and can really get you panicking when you realise you're miles away from the nearest machine...and of course you'll need to have a special pack so you can use it the machines too!
Other than that, it seems to be a rather enjoyable but pretty standard jaunt, with some of the usual faults.....an annoying save system that can mean you have to go back quite a bit when you die, lots of trailing backwards and forwards finding keys to unlock doors at the other side of the map....you know, the usual!
But it is a rather under-rated title that deserves a lot more love than it seems to have received, and it can be found quite easily for a very low price....so you should probably give it a go if you're like me and need a good fix of hilariously bad dialogue and crate smashing every now and then! And who knows what delights I've yet to discover, lurking in the later parts of the game......
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