To be clear, I haven’t played Uncharted 2 (UC2) to completion. I’ve played a number of chapters looking for Treasures and I’ve had to face the various foes that have been thrown my way in the process, so I have a pretty good idea of the game play etc.

UC2 builds on the excellent foundation of UC. The graphics are amazing, the sound is great and the game play continues where UC left off. There are some new moves and a slight emphasis on being stealthy (the crunch of your targets neck is oh so satisfying ) which just add to an already impressive array of moves and options.

I can’t say too much more without feeling like a broken record as I’ve just written a review of Uncharted… suffice to say, it is just like UC, but better in every way.

For example, the treasure hunt… like UC, hidden throughout the levels are a collection of treasures. These unlock bonus material and of course contribute quite substantially to the trophy collection. Unlike UC however, they can be hidden in high up places, only accessible after being shot down. And of course, many of them are secreted away in the most difficult to reach places in the levels. Doesn’t sound like a big change, but it does make it more fun when you get around to the treasure hunt.

Fighting… as I’ve mentioned, there is a stealthy element to the game, with some nice new moves to accommodate it. There are also new weapons, such as the riot shield… grab it, hide behind it and face your enemies head on, peeping out from the thing to pop them in the head. You can also aim grenades without peeking from your cover like you had to in the original. Again, minor tweak but it does add to the already great game play.

In conclusion, I gave Uncharted a maximum score of 10. To really do UC2 justice in comparison to UC, I should really give it a maximum of 11 as it really does take the Uncharted world to the next level. A fantastic next step in what I can only hope is a long series of games.

When the original Playstation was around, there was only one game to play if you wanted to run around in deserted places solving ancient puzzles… that was of course Tomb Raider. Unfortunately, I’m guessing because of publisher pressure, the game lost what made it great after number 4 was released. 5 was just a bit too short if I recall correctly, and it’s outings on the PS2… best not to mention them (with one notable exception… Anniversary, which is of course a major rework of the original Tomb Raider). Why shouldn’t we mention them… simply because they lacked what made the game great on the Playstation. The control schema changed to accomodate more moves… the puzzles didn’t seem as tough… the games weren’t as long… I can’t quite put my finger on it, but they just didn’t cut it. So for many years now, we’ve been waiting for a game to take up the mantle and fill the void, and well… in my opinion at least, that game (or series of games) is here.

Welcome Uncharted: Drakes Fortune.

For those of you who are long time Playstation gamers, you will no doubt remember such classics as Crash Bandicoot and Jak and Daxter, produced by Naughty Dog. Well, they are the team responsible for Uncharted… a bit of a departure from Crash and Jak, but what a departure

I’ve owned this game for ages, but I’ve never played it. It took watching a friend play through Uncharted 2 to get me in the mood, and well… was I in the mood! I’ve just finished playing through for the first time on the Hard difficulty (if you play through on hard, you will earn the first 3 difficulty trophies and unlock the Crushing difficulty level, which I’m now playing through). It is hard. Your enemies take a while to kill, at times ammo is almost extinct and you yourself… a few shots and your on your way to an early grave.

So, what makes me think Uncharted can fill the enormous boots of the original Tomb Raider games… well, lets see…

First up the environment… the gaming environment is huge and the detail is amazing. The vegetation sways in the wind, you can almost swim in the rivers and waterfalls, and you can hear everything from the birds in the trees to the roar of the ocean waves. Now this is nothing new I know, but it just makes the game that bit more engaging and believable. And best of all, it doesn’t appear to be as constrained by an arbitrary grid as Tomb Raider does, meaning the surfaces and faces you walk and climb on can be curved, like real cliffs for example.

The Story… you play the part of Nathan Drake, a distant relative of Sir. Francis Drake, on his quest to uncover El Dorado using clues left by Sir. Francis. The plot starts on a boat as Nathan recovers Sir. Francis’ coffin from the ocean floor only to find it contains his journal, and our adventure begins.

The puzzles… whilst there aren’t that many puzzles, this doesn’t detract from the game play as you’ll very often be looking for routes through the environment and the best way to despatch those that stand between you and the ultimate prize. The puzzles that are there rely on you decoding the information in Sir. Francis’ journal to get the solution. Once you have it, you’ll probably have to battle the environment to reach a successful conclusion. In short, one of the things that made Tomb Raider great is back in abundance in Uncharted.

The graphics and sound… as I’ve stated above, the sound is superb. Have one of your enemies throw a grenade near you… you’ll have ringing in your speakers just like it exploded a few feet from you. And well, the graphics… whilst they aren’t photorealistic (who needs that anyway), they are certainly filled with the atmosphere of the area you’re in. From misty mountain slopes in the forest to the dark dank depths of an old bunker, you certainly get the feel of being there.

Difficulty… I played through on Hard difficulty (it has Easy, Normal and Hard out of the box, with Crushing being unlocked when you complete the game on Hard). I played to complete it, not hunt for all the trophies and treasures, but in doing so I’ve scored about 60% of the trophies and two thirds of the treasures. It was hard. I had some major fights and died many times, but thanks to the checkpoints in game, I never lost too much progress. But, if you die in the middle of a big fight and you’re doing well… don’t expect it to go the same way when you are resurrected at the start of it… after a while I found some of the enemies changed their tactics, and in some cases you won’t restart where you thought you were, so be prepared. As I said, I’m currently playing through on Crushing difficulty and it is a major step above Hard in terms of how difficult it is. In hard, you can take quite a few shots before being close to death… in Crushing… one or two and you’re nearly in the resus room of the local hospital. The enemies are tougher and appear to be a better aim, so it promises to be a much tougher gaming experience the second time through.

There’s not too much more I can say. If you liked Tomb Raider and have been looking for a replacement, or if you’re new to the PS3 and fancy a game that has you thinking about puzzles, strategies (you’ll need them for some of the fights you’ll have) and whether to take the AK-47 with 26 bullets or the M-4 with 27 bullets, then give it a go. I can honestly say I’ve not enjoyed a Tomb Raider style game as much as this since I last played Tomb Raiders I, II and III many years ago. Truly an excellent game which is why I’m giving it full marks.

I pre-ordered my copy of LBP for the PSP from Amazon. It arrived on the day of release and that was it, I was set Prior to release I had read that they’d had to seriously chop the game down in order to squeeze it onto the PSP. The chops were apparently, a reduction in the number of depth levels from 3 to 1 and a lack of multiplayer facilities in game (understandable really when you consider there is only one set of controls and a comparatively slow processor in comparison to the PS3), so I was, to say the least, a little concerned about the game and how it would play out when compared to the PS3 version which I love so much.

But, I’m glad to say, I’ve not been disappointed.

I’ve lost count of how many hours I’ve been playing. Playing through levels, then going back and replaying them to get all the prizes and ace them and I still have a whole bunch to do. I’ve not tried creating anything yet, but I can say this…

The lack of multiplayer facilities hasn’t damaged the game, it’s still a great fun game to play, on your own (I play it in my downtime at work – I’m using the Pomodoro Technique so I play a while during the post-focus cooldown period) and the supposed reduction from 3 levels of depth to 1 hasn’t materialised… yes, the number of levels has been reduced… to 2. But to be honest, I haven’t really noticed it.

The levels themselves are pretty challenging, organised in the same way as the original game (as groups of levels created by various story characters), I’ve played my way through 31 (20 main and 11 mini) levels and I believe I still have one or two to go.

Graphically, it’s obviously not going to be up to PS3 standard, but it still looks great. Customising your character is a little more limited than the PS3, and creating levels is a little different since there is the concept of static and dynamic objects. Static objects stay where they are placed and cannot move during game play (a bit like stick something with a blob of dark matter) while dynamic objects can move (this is simply a mechanism to reduce the physics processing required to manage the level). There are no global options to control lighting (or at least if there are, I couldn’t find them) and sound effects are organised as individual items instead of being grouped into different speakers as they are in LBP.

Despite these changes though (which were to be expected given the massive gaping void that exists in terms of pure processing power between the PS3 and the PSP), it is a great game. So, if like me, you’d like to get a dose of LBP on the move, it’s well worth the investment.

Released on the 22nd December 2009, this is the first themed creators pack since the excellent Metal Gear Solid pack which of course provided the most excellent paint ball gun. This time around the theme is water.

Yes, thats right… Sackboy can swim

The pack contains some new creators tools in the form of new global options to control the water in the level, a global water object (similar to the global lighting object), a water switch and a scuba backpack allowing Sackboy to breath indefinitely underwater.

And to show off these new toys, a collection of 6 excellent levels based on Pirates of the Carribean.

All in all, an excellent addition to LBP. The new creator tools are great, and the themed levels are great fun, providing some new engaging game play and some good examples of what you can do.

My only complaint, I should point out that I’m not sure when these came in, is that some of the creators tools are now a pain in the butt. For example, setting the length of pistons etc. These used to be done using steps of 0.5. Now, they are done in steps of 1.0. You can still fine adjust things, but if, like me you work on logic using the medium grid, 2.5 and 7.5 are pretty common values and now setting them up takes a while longer than it used to.

But, minor gripe aside, this new content pack is well worth the small investment.

Check out the screenshot… the essence of solving the puzzles is the ‘programming’ panel in the bottom right corner of the screen. You build functions (which can recurse, call each other and contain conditional elements), telling the cursor to move forward, turn left, turn right or paint the square to solve the puzzle by collecting all the stars.

And there you have it. A really great little game, and I’ve not even mentioned the fact that you can create and submit levels. Go and play it today

Oh, and for the record… at the time of writing, I’m in the top 10 ‘most levels solved today’ with 60

Now, I’m not the chattiest of people when I’m gaming, but I am developing various levels for LBP and so I want to be able to name stuff and provide descriptions… using the on-screen keypad is, to put it mildly, like pulling teeth. It’s slow, cumbersome and just downright annoying and for the reasons I mentioned, a fullsize USB keyboard is just not an option so I was mightily pleased when I saw these little babies on the PS3 website.

The CECHZX1GB (UK Model) as it’s known is a small, lightweight Bluetooth keypad that clips onto official PS3 controllers. It provides quick access buttons to get at your messages, and also doubles as a pointing device by way of a touch sensitive area on the keypad. Whilst it’s small and the buttons seem tiny, operating it isn’t as bad as you might first imagine. I’ve made only a few typos courtesy of my sausage fingers, and well, compared to the on-screen keyboard it is infinitely better.

So are there any downsides? Well, I’ve only been using it a few days. Being rechargeable there is obviously the issue of battery life, but it does go into standby to conserve power. The only downside to this is of course it has to reconnect to the PS3 when you want to type some more, but that doesn’t take too long (a few seconds, if that). The unit itself was charged when it arrived last week and has yet to require a refill. It obviously goes without saying that the more you type, the shorter the recharge interval will be, and I suspect using the pointer mode will drain the juice substantially quicker. The upside however is that, like the controllers themselves, it can be used whilst charging by simply connect it using a USB cable.

One of the questions I had when I purchased them (notice plural) was how they connected to the PS3 and whether you could use multiple units at the same time. The answer is they have their own Bluetooth capabilities (which incidentally you can use with other Bluetooth capable devices – I can state that they work with the O2 XDA Orbit) so they connect to the PS3 with no regard for which controller they are attached to. So whilst you can use multiple units at the same time, they will all type into whichever message box has focus. It would have been better, IMHO, if they worked like the controllers… first on is number 1 etc. and were then paired with the corresponding controller number.

So in conclusion, these are a great little addition to anyone’s PS3 setup, but because they don’t pair like the controllers, I’m only going to give them a rating of 9.

Having been a VCR owner for many years, I felt a pang of sadness when Spirit told me my VCR was starting to chew tapes… a sure sign that its on it’s way out… but, considering it was purchased in 1999, it’s not done too bad.

So, time for a replacement… and this is it… the Sony RDR-HXD890 harddisk recorder.

A nice sleek black unit containing a 160GB SATA II harddisk, an analogue television receiver and a digital DVB-T. I will admit I dived in when Amazon had these on a special offer, but I did do some research before I ordered, and the rumblings were in general good about the Sony RDR series.

In terms of operation, setup was dead easy and took less than 5 minutes, and actually using the unit is also pretty easy. There are numerous compression settings, we started off trialling one that gave us in excess of 200 hours, but the quality of smaller items and fast moving features (we tried recording a grand prix) was not good, so we ended up settling for one that gives us about 108 hours (or something around that mark).

So all’s well that ends well… no?

Well, actually no… and here’s why….

The unit was working great, coming on every couple of hours to update the EPG, recording when asked, playback was good, and then *BOOM*. Thankfully, not literally but, the unit just stopped working one night. It was in warranty (although if I hadn’t insisted, I think I would have been fobbed off with a repair, but come on… under 3 weeks old and it stops working… thankfully Amazon were more than a little compliant) so a replacement was shipped out, BUT and here’s the crunch… it failed with a disk in the DVD drive.

After consulting with Amazon and Sony, I was told there was no way for a user to open the draw manually. Unlike most PC optical disk drives that have that little hole in the front for sticking a paperclip in to unlatch the draw, consumer drives seem to lack the forethought that actually they might fail with a disk in the drive. Now, I’m stuck with a unit that won’t power up that has a disk in it… and what am I told… BY SONY… take it to a repair shop. I ended up forking out money to get the disk out.

So, due to the lack of an emergency eject facility and the fact that the power supply went bang just under 3 weeks after delivery, I’ve given the unit a score of 7. Overall, it’s a fantastic unit that should (based on my past experience of Sony equipment) be reliable and of a good build quality (a view shared by the owner of the repair store that removed the disk), so I hope we were just unlucky.

I’ll keep you posted.

This is going to be a short review.

The game has been out for while (so long in fact, that it is now Platinum). It’s the first Ratchet and Clank game for the Playstation 3. So who are Ratchet and Clank? They are old friends from the Playstation 2. Ratchet is a Lombax, Clank is a robot and together they are Insomniac’s answer to Jak and Daxter (another series of games I love).

The formula is tried and tested, and still works… bash, smash and dash your way through some amazing 3D platforming, collecting a variety of weapons and other bits and pieces along the way.

The gameplay is top notch, the story is fun, the levels are good, the graphics and other effects are great. I have only one complaint… it’s not long enough!!!

I was left wanting more. That said, a quick inspection of my trophy cabinet revealed there was potential for a significant amount of replay… throw in the fact that you have to exercise your weapons to level them up and all in all, you will need a significant time investment if you are going to achieve 100% completion.

Having played all previous Ratchet and Clanks, I can safely say Insomniac have delivered… again. Keep up the good work guys. If you’re a fan of R+C, or you have never played and want a nice 3D platformer for your PS3… Buy this game

I’ve rated it 9 out of 10, simply because I want more. There is a downloadable game (‘Quest for Booty’) available through the Playstation store, and the next major installment of the game is slated for autumn 2009. Can’t wait

LittleBigPlanet (LBP), is a physics based platformer, you control ‘Sackboy’. A loveable little rogue made out of cloth. As you progress through the game, you get stickers you can stick all over the place and outfits and stuff that allow you to customise Sackboy’s appearance. The controls are simple… walk or run, jump and grab. There’s really not much else too it.

But thats one of it’s good points… it’s simple to play… simple to understand… its just simple.

Or is it?

One of the things that sets LBP apart from practically every other game out there is that it’s designed to be extendable… easily, no programming required. It’s also designed to encourage community play.

And this is where it comes to life.

As I’ve already mentioned, as you progress, you collect stuff… some you wear, some you stick around… and some, you build with. Ready made contraptions, materials (wood, metal, stone for example), switches, motors, bolts, springs… practically everything you encounter in the story mode levels can be collected and used, by you, to create your own levels. When you’re happy with them, you can publish them, at which point, anyone with LBP can play them.

Besides sharing your own creations, some levels postively encourage multiplayer cooperation by way of special sections that require two, three or four players to help each other reach certain areas. Up to four people can play at once on a single PS3, and if you don’t have that many people to play with, you can go on-line and play with other people.

The graphics are sweet, the music is catchy, the levels are challenging and Sackboy is cute!

What more could you want from a game. I’ve given LBP a 10 because it is, quite simply, one of the best games I’ve ever played. If you don’t own a PS3, get one and play this game. It’s fantastic… fun for all the family.

As a footnote to Sony… I would have included one of the logo’s from the fansite kit, until I read the terms. Why be so restrictive? Do you want people to promote your products or not? The fact is, I love LBP and would love to have included one of the logos, but since this isn’t a fan site, I can’t. Kudos to the lawyers and bods at Sony who thought up such restrictive terms… what were you thinking? Guess I’ll just have to get some screen grabs of my PS3.

Multiwinia.

This is going to be short… if you liked Darwinia, then you should like the latest offering. Multiwinia takes Darwinia to the next level by providing some classic (and some not so classic) multiplayer game styles set within the Darwinia universe (if thats the right term).

Take control of an army of Multiwinian’s and try to beat your opponents… sounds simple no???

The graphics are great… simple, clean and retro. The game play is great with even the simple AI providing a nice challenge. When you’ve whooped the AI, fire up a server and challenge your friends or logon to someone elses game and flex your flatness.

Thats all there is to say… its great, get over to Introversion and get your copy… now… go…

In case you’re wondering, I’ve given it a 8 score because its got a couple of weird mouse issues that can be a real pain in the ass when you’re playing. Other than those issues, I’ve not really found anything to complain about, hence the good score.