The No Sleep Gamer

It’s about time you got to go on holiday in Fallout 3 after all you’ve been through. The new setting of Point Lookout feels like a lost Silent Hill waterside boardwalk, complete with deserted buildings and an eerie fog smothering everything. Sure, it’s no Hawaii, but choice is quite limited in a post-apocalyptic world.

The majority of this substantial map is made up of swamps populated with rednecks, mirelurks, tribesmen, ghouls, toxic bogs and enough radiated water to wade through to guarantee the vault dweller will never have (normal) children. Read more…

Many PC gamers swear by (and most definitely at) the Operation Flashpoint name. This harsh, tactical first-person-shooter is also making a full appearance on consoles too for a change. It’s comparable in nature with the excellent Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway, but based in the very near future.

Dragon Rising is a much fiercer beast than BIA though with its claws severely dug into the realism side of things. So that means one shot could be it for you and you won’t even know what direction it came from. Read more…

This is more like it. The first of the Fallout 3 expansion packs that feels truly worthy of the Fallout name. The Vault Dweller is off to Pittsburgh, or what’s left of it. Now aptly renamed as The Pitt, slavers have taken over the city and its still working steel foundry.

You have answered the call for help from one of the escaped slaves who wants to start a rebellion against their masters. As if the misery of working in the Pitt isn’t bad enough, they face the prospect of becoming a Trog, the equivalent of the Capitol Wastelands ghouls, due to a radiation related disease. There’s a cure for this condition but their masters aren’t exactly sharing. Read more…

It was a bit of a surprise to all of us finding out that the next game to follow the excellent Dead Space would be on the Wii. It might be an ‘on-rails shooter’ but fans will enjoy this prequel to the original game, especially the first level which has a neat twist that they or anyone that’s seen the anime might appreciate.

The game starts before the Ishimura planet cracker mining ship was overrun by an alien plague causing severe psychosis and mutation in their human hosts. Haven’t played the first game? Don’t worry, the prequel nature of the game welcomes newcomers by letting them play through preceding events. Veterans will enjoy some familiar locations and characters and being a part of earlier events from a different perspective on how the shit hit the fan in the first place, as the first game had you starting well after the infection had already spread. Read more…

After Broken Steel raised level caps to 30, PS3 players are totally ready to get their teeth stuck into some more missions. This time you’ll get to interact with a bit of Fallout history that you may be familiar with from scraps of info picked up along your travels.

Using a virtual reality pod you can get involved with the famous battle at Anchorage, Alaska where the US forces had to repel the Chinese invaders. It’s not just a game though. Some members of the Brotherhood of Steel Outcasts need you to beat it so they can gain access to a sealed vault in a bunker, promising you a share of the spoils. Free stuff? Plug me in kiddo. Read more…

It’s been a long wait, made all the worse by 360 gamers having these DLC downloads months before the PS3, but the expansion packages for Fallout 3 have finally started to arrive.

The first of which is Broken Steel. It’s more of a taster and a foundation for the new adventures of Fallout’s post-apocalyptic hell (that we love so much). The new chapter starts two weeks after the final events of the original game. No spoilers here for those of you who aren’t there yet, but you WILL have to finish the main game before the extra missions and plot are made available to you. So I hope you’ve kept a save near the end of the game. Read more…

Rubi: a hired gun, thief, errant son deliverer, car roof surfer, the works, with no questions asked. Along as said ‘Wet work’ involves shooting in slow-motion, wall-running, diving, sliding around on her knees (stop it) and stabbing things a lot. Gameplay wise it’s PS2-era Prince of Persia meets Stranglehold.

Style points earned from racking up combos of kills in slow-motion or with the sword can be used to upgrade Rubi and her weapons with extra health and moves or for extra damage, ammo and faster rates of fire. If you played the demo and felt a bit under whelmed it’s a pleasure to say that the full game does feel a lot better once you’ve got some upgrades under your belt. Read more…

This is the third map pack released for Killzone 2. It features two new multiplayer maps and two new weapons. All of which you should be familiar with to some extent as they appear in the single player campaign.

The first map is Suljeva Cliffside, which is from one of K2’s dustier browner levels. This is from a very brief section of the single player game that you will have passed though in a matter of minutes.

It is a fairly straight map with a couple of underground tunnels with sentry guns guarding the passages. Outside there are twisted remains of metal huts which make for handy hiding spaces. The level itself is on a hill with one team at the top and the other at the bottom, it’s almost like a valley with a high verge on one side and buildings on the other meaning you’ll be wide open in this gauntlet like section. Read more…

The Western genre in recent years has been criminally underused both in the cinemas and gaming. The only games that spring to mind in the last five years are Red Dead Revolver, Gun, the vampire flavoured Darkwatch and the first Call of Juarez title (PC and 360 only).

Hopefully we’ll start to see a few more, as Bound in Blood marks a series and genre really starting to demand (and be worthy of) attention as an alternative first person shooter contender to the sci-fi of Halo and Killzone or the near-future of games like COD: Modern Warfare and the Tom Clancy titles.

Like any decent shooter this game knows it’s all about the weapons and atmosphere. As such it borrows from a wide range of western cinema including classic John Wayne style to Clint Eastwood cool. Read more…

If you missed our launch party article for the game here’s a quick reminder. Downloadable only, team-based World War II first person shooter based on three (soon to be four) beautifully designed Pacific island maps. It’s like Bad Company has gone on a sunny holiday. Read more…

After countless WWII games this squad-based shooter this is the best representation of the constant harrowing fear and panic of the battlefield. Relying on a slower, more thought out tactical approach than Medal of Honor et al, the gameplay is infinitely more rewarding with some missions taking over an hour.

The story of the game follows on from the last PS2 game but don’t worry about it too much if you missed it as it’s easy to pick up (you may be tempted to raid the dusty PS2 shelves after this though). The scale and ambition is on a par with Saving Private Ryan and Band of Brothers with spectacular action and real emotion between the soldiers. You’re in the middle of the infamously botched Operation Market-Garden where instead of the war being over by Christmas, the allies received a major ass-kicking. Most missions involve taking out the giant 88 guns, liberating Eindhoven or simply staying alive against seemingly impossible odds. Read more…

Compared to Casino Royale, the Quantum of Solace film was a big let down, so there’s not much hope for the game of the film right? Movie tie-ins are usually average at best.

So it’s a big surprise to find out that the game is actually rather good. Actually it’s very good. The missions take scenes from the last two bond films, not just Quantum. But not in order, as the game plays through Quantum to after the desert sinkhole shootout, then through Casino Royale, then finishing with the remainder of the second film. Yep me neither. Read more…

This is the pseudo-sequel to 2005s Area 51, but you’re not at a disadvantage if you haven’t played it. The early missions of this first-person -shooter take place in Iraq a few years before the events at Area 51. As an army grunt your character is under the impression this is a standard mission. Half an hour later, knee deep in aliens this is obviously not the case.

The graphics here are reasonable and the outdoor environments are brightly lit with clear detail. However towards the end of this segment there is a section with some horrific slowdown as the frame-rate nosedives and you’ll think the game is about to crash. Fortunately it doesn’t happen again throughout the rest of the game.

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