A few more from the IOCT

So, in preparation for tomorrow's open day, I had a run through a few of the games the IOCT has for its other consoles.

Wii:
Super Mario Galaxy: So, other than a bit of Super Mario 64 back in he day, this is the first proper Mario game I've ever played (honestly, I was always more of a Sonic fan). I've gotta say this is one of the most fun games I've ever played. The controls feel really natural and it's a lot more comfortable than holding a standard controller. The concept of the game is great too. It really does interesting things with the concept of a platform game in a 3D environment. The changes in direction/orientation can get confusing at times, but it's still fun. Definitely a game that makes me wish I owned a Wii.

Xbox 360:

Ridge Racer 6: This game is horrible. While I'm not so great at racing games, I still usually find them enjoyable. This one isn't. The cars feel annoyingly slow. My car was apparently doing over 100mph, but it mostly felt more like I was doing 30. The handling is bad too. The slightest nudge of the analogue stick would just send my car into a skid. The music was horribly annoying and repetitive as well, with no way to change what was playing. All this annoyed me so much, I couldn't even be bothered to finish one race.

Perfect Dark Zero: As I've said before, I'm not a big fan of FPS games and this is no exception. My main gripe is the way the movement/camera controls work on a console. Somehow I always end up having no idea what I'm looking at or what direction I should be going in, etc. I much prefer a third-person view, as it means that when I need to be close to something, I don't have my view completely obscured. Other than my standard gripes about FPS games, it was quite a good game. The visuals on the 360 were great and the storyline was interesting. If it had been more of Tomb Raider style third-person game, I probably would've really enjoyed it.

More X-men

So, I'm not going to bother to date this as these posts are now so erratic. I'll just give my opinion on the game.

X-men Legends: Rise of Apocalypse: So, I've covered the original X-men Legends game before. Most of what I've said applies to this game as well. The controls are pretty much the same and so's the gameplay. The major differences are obviously the storyline and the characters. Due to the story involving the Brotherhood of Mutants and the X-men teaming up, you get a much wider selection of characters (even at the very start of the game). This makes for a game with more scope than the original and also means you're not stuck playing the same characters over again. Another change is how things like experience points and equipment are applied. The first time you get anything, you're given the option to manually apply them or to have them applied automatically. You can also select whether to keep this behaviour throughout the game. This is a great feature as before, whenever I reached a save point, I found myself interrupting the game for a while as I sorted all my characters out. Definitely a game to pick up for anyone who enjoyed the first game.