All Time Favourites

Since I finished uni this semester, I'd been planning on doing some game reviews to pass the time. As usual, my own laziness got the better of me, and besides the status updates now and then on whatever game I was playing, I never did. But, with only a week left until I return to studying, I decided to write up a few reviews/nostalgic reflections on my top 10 favourite games from my childhood right up to now, and it wasn't easy to choose. And yes, there are spoilers.

10 - League of Legends (LoL) - PC

A recent addiction of mine, I felt this deserved a spot on the list, but at the same time I didn't quite feel it earned the right to be ahead of what will follow. So here it is. The DotA-based online action RTS has been around for almost two years now, and although I only picked it up a few months ago, it hooked me instantly. Essentially free to play, the purchase system is nicely balanced between a continual rotation of which heroes are free for the week, with the option of buying your own heroes to permanently own and use as you wish, having purchased probably a few too many myself. The heroes are varied and versatile, able to be customized to suit most styles and levels of play.

However the game does have some serious drawbacks. Although I havent felt this effect, many people see it as 'playing the same game over and over again', though I feel this is negated by the literally thousands of different hero/rune/item combinations you can try to achieve victory. With only two maps to play on after two years, I can see the nay-sayer's point though.

LoL is a team-based game. This is a problem. Do you have four friends who are all available, can be communicated with and don't suck? Perfect! Chances are you don't. You're sitting at home and you want to play. Welcome to matchmaking, where the system throws you in with the first four morons it could find. They'll criticise your playing style and choices, then die 5 times before you've left the spawn point. Then surrender because YOU and your positive KDR lost the game for the team.

Overall, I think LoL is something you'll either love or hate. I love it. Just don't start playing, suck at it, and make me hate you when we get teamed.

9 - InFAMOUS - PS3
I recently picked this up in the Sony-is-so-sorry-have-free-stuff-deal as a kind of 'Why not?'. The PS3 exclusive open-world morally-ambiguous game by Sucker Punch was originally released alongside Activision's open-world morally-ambiguous Prototype, and was somewhat overshadowed. Having now played both, I think Infamous is the better title. As Cole Mitchell, you awake in the destroyed ruins of Empire City, with no recollection of what happened or HOLY SHIT, YOU CAN SHOOT LIGHTNING OUT OF YOUR HANDS. Yes, I've already convinced you that the game is awesome.

The plot itself is standard, search through the city meeting people, find out what happened while developing your powers and get revenge. Also the plot for Prototype. However the key difference in Infamous is your 'karmic alignment' by which a large part of the game's progression hinges on. Electricity is pretty damn useful. You can use it to jump start the heart of that poor dying pedestrian! Or fry him in about 3 seconds flat! Depending on which way you choose, your powers develop differently, people respond to you differently and ultimately, you either save or conquer the city. 

I ended up playing this game twice just to try out both sides of the force, so to speak, and the differences are clear and entertaining. Be an upstanding citizen, and the people love you. Do as you please, and they'll throw rocks. Less effective than the ball of lightning promply hurled back at their face. I definitely recommend this for all the people who made the right choice and bought a PS3.

8 - Dawn of War - PC
Relic's massive RTS based on the Warhammer 40k universe was a huge hit, continuing with three expansion packs, a sequel and a DoW3 in the making. In the original DoW and it's expansion, Winter Assault, the campaign had a great story as you and your Force Commander annihilated pretty much anything, because thats what Space Marines do. Dark Crusade and Soulstorm opted for a different approach, focusing less on story and on a more Risk-like theme, by which you and your chosen race conquered the planet/sector, progressively getting stronger. Although enjoyable, it was nowhere near as engaging as the original two, but the extra races and units more than made up for this drawback.

I think what I really loved most about these games were the units themselves. Maybe this credit should go Games Workshop for inventing them, but the unique races and even the different personalities were awesome in DoW. Everyone I talk to has a different favourite and a different way of deploying their units. Although a little outdated now, and DoWII took a totally different direction, I'm not sure what to recommend. But definitely keep your eyes peeled for DoW3.

7 - Gran Turismo 4 - PS2

Yep. That's GT4. Not 5. 4.

As much as a fell in love with the sheer OH-MAH-GAWD-LOOK-HOW-PRETTY-IT-IS of Gran Turismo 5... It just isn't as good a game as Gran Turismo 4 was. Maybe it's partly because we waited six freaking years for it, but a lot of aspects, I felt, went in the wrong direction. GT4 had pretty much everything about it's gameplay right. At the time, it too was amazingly pretty. The license system was balanced and required advancing at a suitable time, but not before. I'm yet to find a spot in GT5 where I actually needed a license to race, depsite being up the the super-professional tier. The B-Spec system worked nicely, despite me initially seeing it as the I-just-want-money mode. GT5 introduced specific B-Spec drivers that work for your team. It was a really cool idea. They all suck, and until they've raced over 9000 times they will still suck. You need to give their car 1000 horsepower extra just to make sure they stay fast enough, but fuck, now they cant control it. Plenty of world famous racetracks and every car from F1 to the Benz Motorwagen is common between the two. I wouldn't recommend choosing GT4 over GT5 now, given that it is a six year old game for an outdated console. But comparing the two, despite being sad to say it was the better one, I'm glad I can give it a spot on this list.

6 - Borderlands - PC, 360, PS3

And now the shooters are starting to appear on my list. Borderlands was a big hit from Gearbox Software, combining the RPG-like character development with that of a free-roam FPS. The game earned Game Of The Year honours with four DLC packs to add side quests and a huge range of new items and weaponry.

The character classes are really well designed, each with unique skills and abilities to add to the team. Personal favourite was Mordekai the Hunter, high damage dealing assassin with his pet Bloodwing, but the turret-building Soldier, stealthy Siren and hard-hitting Beserker all coming into play with their own unique abilities to suit different play styles.

Despite earning a spot on my list, the game did have a lot of problems. Mainly, the ending. Sucked. Nothing happened. I traversed the entire of Pandora, found the Vault, trove of amazing weapons, treasure and general valuable end of quest stuff, killed the giant beastie that guarded it... and it's empty. Nothing. The entire purpose for being on the planet is gone. The DLC do nothing to expand on this story either, though their own side stories are fun in their own right.

The weapons system is doubtful too. Except for a few carefully placed and designed weapons, all the random weapon drops from monsters are just that - random. The game has an inbuilt mechanic that randomizes weapons from a series of possible statistics, types, elements etc etc. While this does create a never-the-same style of play, it also gets dragged down by a never-what-you-wanted vibe. Free roamers such as this really need some sort of knowledge that if you hunt Monster X for long enough, it's eventually going to drop that awesome Item Z you needed.

Despite these issues, the game still earned GOTY, so it must be doing something right. Online play lets you team up to complete the story at a harder level, and earn better shit, so you might as well give it a try.

5 - Doom II - Fucking everything

It was originally going to be Doom that I put on this list, and in terms of revolutionary games it deserves a spot. But this is my favourites, and that has to go to Doom II, which took the ground breaking FPS forward without missing a single step along the way. The story continued. The old enemies were all there, plus new ones. The levels got bigger. The difficulty remained just as challenging as the original. The hunt for items and determination to complete levels under par time were just as much fun as before. The cheats were still available if you just wanted to god mode and unlimited ammo to blast the intestines out of everything.

And they added the Super Shotgun. 

I've always had a soft spot for the classics, and Doom II is now available on XBox Live Arcade, but you can probably just download it for PC anyway. So do it.

4 - Unreal Tournament/Unreal Tournament 2004 - PC

I couldn't decide which of these I liked more. Unreal Tournament earned GOTY for 1999, taking the Unreal universe into the arena combat genre, going head to head with Quake III: Arena. Although the Quake series had include a deathmatch mode, Unreal Tournament was definitely a milestone for the genre. The single player did have a loose story around it, basically consisting of win-the-tournament-or-die. But the key to the game's success was the multiplayer, the AI, and the editor.

UT was greatly acclaimed for the AI of its in-game bots. Able to have their difficulty varied on a large scale meant that you could always make them noobs and have a frag-fest or give yourself a real challenge, and the auto-difficulty feature made sure you were never out of your depth.

The online multiplayer was hugely successful, neck and neck with Quake III: Arena, but took that step forward with the inclusion of user-content. The Unreal Editor allowed for the creation of almost any custom in-game content, from entire levels to weapons to skins and any other modification. The server connection allowed for any new content, which was relatively small in filesize, to be automatically downloaded to your copy before joining, so it was never required to go hunting for mods before you could play.

UT2003 brought the original game forward onto the new Unreal Engine, greatling improving the graphics and adding new game modes, setting a record for highest number of downloads with its demo. However just a year later game UT2004, an ever bigger success, adding vehicles and the Onslaught game mode to the genre, maintaining every bit of the mindlessly enjoyable fun from the original game.

As much as I'd like to include Unreal Tournament 3 too, it was a bit of a letdown. The graphics were a nice improvement as the series stepped up to another new generation of the Unreal Engine, the new vehicles and addition of a real storyline were nice, but the game just didn't have that same enjoyable feel to it.

I think why I like UT so much is probably a reflection on high-school, and the countless hours we spent shooting each other in the face instead of doing our work. And I was totally the best at it too.

3 - Crash Bandicoot - PlayStation

The original Crash Bandicoot was the first game I ever got for my first ever gaming console, the Sony PlayStation, which might mean I have a tiny bit of bias for it, but who cares. The game was awesome, and came from an era when games were actually challenging. The game took me months to finish when I first got it, and although that time has drastically reduced now I can still feel that steady difficulty increase as you go through it. And that's just to complete the levels for the first time. You want the gems? Just go through again and collect all the boxes. Easy right? Whoops, you can't die even once or you don't it, something that hasn't been seen in a single Crash Bandicoot game since. Even from Crash 2 games were starting to get easier. Back to the game, even once you got all those gems there were two more hidden levels to complete before you could get 100%, only possible to be unlocked through the completion of two ridiculously hard bonus rounds. 100% was a real achievement. It required dedication and for you to earn a real level of expertise with the game. This has really been lost.

Crash Bandicoot was a milestone in platforming games and one of the games I've had the most fun playing ever, and still do to this day when I pull it out again. The characters had amazing personalities that have carried through the series, the story behind them has continually developed and it's really been a shame to see how the series ended. After being passed around between a few developers who made some progressively worse games, the iconic PlayStation mascot hasn't made an appearance in a new game since 2008, with the exception of two released on mobile devices.

2 - Grandia - PlayStation

The Grandia RPG almost got the top spot on this list. Although the game was never very well known in Australia, it was a huge hit in Japan from GameArts, developers of another successful series called Lunar. I got the game by chance, something my mum picked up thinking it 'looked kinda fun even though it was a bit Japanesey' and wasn't sure if I'd like it or not. Best RPG I've ever played.

The world is huge and contains a massive range of monsters and bosses, progressing from the pathetically easy to the insanely difficult, each with their own strengths and weaknesses to be exploited when you eventually find them. The battling system uses both weapons and magic, which can be developed through the use of their specific classes and items. Use the sword and fire magic for ages and you'll develop you skills with those two. To keep this in check, the game also requires combinations of skills to unlock some of the best techniques in the game, preventing the option of only leveling one weapon or magic. The best techniques requires mastery of everything, and in this way the game has created the perfect degree of grinding and story combination.

The characters are amazing. Seriously. Some join your party for a short time, some for a long time and others right to the end. Every single character has their own part to play in the intricately detailed and hugely expansive story, which deserves to be considered an epic on its own. Without a doubt I have never felt more empathetic towards the plight and emotions of characters in a game than I did with Grandia, and it's impossible to explain why in just a review. It's funny, it's sad, it's exciting, it's challenging, it's heart-gripping and most importantly, it's now only $13 on the PSN. If you like Final Fantasy and other RPG's of that style then without a doubt I insist that you try Grandia.

1 - Crash Team Racing - PlayStation

I've played every game in the Gran Turismo series, Burnout, GRID, Driver, V8 Supercars, and probably several other racing games that I can't think of right now, and I still consider CTR to be the best. If you don't agree, you're wrong.

CTR marked the 4th game in the Crash series and the first spin-off from the platforming genre. The plot in a nutshell - Crash Bandicoot and co are racing in go-karts against the evil alien Nitros Oxide for the fate of the planet. Adventure Mode takes you on this quest, requiring you to collect trophies from the games 16 tracks (bar a couple of hidden ones), by racing against the AI, using turbos and a huge arsenal of weaponry unique to the Crash universe. Succeed and you can race the villians of the series, now under the employ of Oxide, and you can be crowned Champion of Earth and take on Oxide himself.

Every character you can play has different stats and driving ability, meaning you can pick someone that suits your style, or just pick Crash like anyone would anyway and get straight to the racing.

Once you get all those trophies, it's then possible to go back and collect relics for record times, and CTR tokens for going ridiculously out of your way to collect stuff and still winning the race. Once again, Naughty Dog have created a game where 100% completion actually means something, and unlocks a bunch more characters to be used in the other game modes. Yep, that 100% is just for Adventure.

Moving on to Time Trial, where without any assistance at all you aim to get the fastest time possible on each track. Pretty simple. If you're fast enough, you can then race against N.Tropy, unlocking him if you succeed on every single track in the game. And you're still not done; you then have to defeat Nitrox Oxide's fastest time on every single track!

And then we get to Arcade Mode. Exactly as it sounds, here you can compete in single events or cups alone against AI opponents, or with a friend. Completing every cup on easy, medium and hard unlocks cool arenas for the Battle Mode.

Yep, the Battle Mode. These are multiplayer arenas for up to 4 people where you battle. Get weapons, and shoot each other. Winner is the last man standing.

From a single player mode that brought on the most amazing frustration at its difficulty at times without ever slipping from that peak of fun, to a multiplayer system where you could blast the shit out of your best mates, all through the lovable characters and worlds of the Crash series, Crash Team Racing is just pure fun. It was a game that set out to do just that, and got everything right, and thats why it's my all time favourite game.

And now Charmeleon is done too.

So, I still hate tail flames. Fucking fiddly little shit with tiny triangles, and then the paper is too soft and weak if the glue doesn't work the first time. Which it doesn't, because it's too small and gay to sit in the right place. But anyway... looks pretty cool doesn't it!

Next one is only going to be better...

Legs

Still loving the way this is designed, it's the little things that make it so nice to work on. The toe claws use the same perfect fitting shape as the hands, but since they're a little bugger they were even easier to work with.

The way the legs had to be attached did annoy me a little, partially blocked by the arms making it difficult to hold in place, but nothing major. There's a small tear in the top of the left leg, but it's barely visible.

Charmeleon's Arms

Really liked the way the arms and claws for this model were designed. You cant see it particularly well in the picture, but the claws bit really nicely onto the end of the hands and they arent too small to work with. I had a little trouble attaching the arms to the body, but its mostly at the back and can't be seen anyway.

Charmeleon

And so I begin building the next evolution. Not too difficult, except the end of its horn was a little fiddly, and it's sunken cheeks were a little difficult to work with. The mouth was easier than usual though, more room to attach stuff. Overall I like how it turned out.

Charmander Complete

Well this was done pretty quickly. Tail flame spikes were a bitch, but closing the bottom of the flame and fitting it onto the tail was easier than usual, so I guess it's even. I actually like the base on this one too.

Legs done!

Leg section - Easy. Claw section - fiddly and a little confusing. They're normally a triangle shape, which while still tiny is nicer to work with, simply because its a stronger shape. These were 5 sided to give the impression of a slightly more rounded top. Potentially better looking, but makes the structure much weaker while trying to glue it on, and so they tended to squash a lot. Middle left is probably the worst, but they dont look too bad all together.

Charmander with body

This section was only like five more pieces, nice and easy to do. Feet next though, so more annoyingly tiny claws to deal with.

Charmander's Arms

Yeah, these were a fucking pain to do. Claws always are, mainly because they're much, much smaller than my fingertips, and so it becomes exceedingly difficult to glue them together. Turns out okay though I think.

Charmander

So now that I've finished uni for the semester, bar a few exams, I'm making models again.

My freedom co-incided with the revamp and re-release of my favourite Pokemon evo line, so it seemed the obvious choice.

Charmander's head is pretty much done already. Standard build with the usual annoyances trying to attach the mouth, generally because the tabs are bigger than the parts you're meant to attach them to. This would be a huge pain if I were using cardstock as recommended, or even thicker paper. Anyway, here are the first progress shots.

Shaymin

With Valentine's Day coming up, I put Blaziken aside and made this for my girlfriend. No progress shots, since the adorable little thing only took me 18 hours to complete. So here's just some shots of the finished product.

Credit again goes to Brandon of Paperpokes for the design.

Blaziken #1

So I've started on my next model, Blaziken. Credit goes to Brandon of Paperpokes for the design. I'm already starting to doubt how good the build quality on this one will be, simply dude to how many small and hard to attach pieces there are around te head. The rest of the body looks like it wont be too difficult, but the head is pretty tiny and was hard to work with.

 

Charizard Completed

So the model is finally complete. Tail was pretty easy right up until the tip, very small and hard to work with. Flame wasnt too bad until it had to be closed up at the bottom, no room to get inside and hold the tabs together. Dodgy system for attaching it to the tail too, it pretty much just sits over it, but it seems to have worked

Overall though, not as difficult as I was expecting it to be. Until I become a father, this earns the title of the best thing I've made using large amounts of a sticky white substance.

 

Charizard 2

So I've now attached the legs to the model. Feet were easy enough, big enough to work on without too muc trouble. Little difficult attaching the ends of the legs to the body, simply due to the large size of the tabs.

Coins in the feet to weigh it down. Currently falls forward, but with the tail attached it should be balanced evenly.

Charizard 1

Continuation of my Facebook posts on the Charizard model, currently working on attaching the chest pieces to hold the arms and hopefully stabilise the wings a little. Wings were a lot less difficult to make then I was expecting, claws and finer points suc as the teeth were fiddly as always, but not particularly difficult given the size of the model.

I wont be able to use it as the most awesome finger puppet ever for much longer.