Seeing this new trailer for FEAR2:Project Origin reminded me of how absolutely terrified I was when I played the first game,how whilst sat in my room in the pitch black I almost had a heart attack when my cat brushed against my leg. And also simultaneously reminded me of those fearful nights playing the first 2 of the Silent Hill Series. And it struck me, a glutton for punishment I may be but I can’t remember the last game that truly scared me. Kept me up at night and made me so immersed I actually modified my day to day habits out of fear (SH2 made me much much fearful of cars in the mist).

There actually haven’t been any good survival horror games in some time, the second Condemned was a let down and the Silent Hill series has moved away from Japan and to America, and since then the games have dropped in quality significantly.Part of this is because games developers seem so besotted with ‘open world’ games that they have strayed away from traditional story lines where survival horror thrives. In a nostalgic moment I have attempted my top 5 horror games:

1.Silent Hill 2

2.Project Zero

3.Resident Evil 2

4.FEAR

5.Condemned

It seems you can’t ignore the constant stream of conversations about epic online battles. Of sniping, shooting and laying sneaky mines around the enemy. When I used to play games back in the day, I would never of imagined we would be at this point. Where people seem to value their worth based on a 5/10 minute game window against people from across the world.

In no way am I condemning the mutltiplayer aspect, I am a recent convert myself, but find myself alarmed at the competitive nature of games such as COD4. After playing a game with some work friends and doing quite well, I got a message from someone I had killed simply saying ‘Emo’. Now I know this isn’t an insult, but I wouldnt take random abuse in real life yet through XBL I simply shrug it off and continue. COD and Halo are easily the worst offenders, I will always either be in a private chat with friends when I play or simply not plug in my mic to avoid the torrent of abuse and childish gibes.

A game is often valued now by its additional content, if the main gameplay is short(like cod) then people will forgive it for having a highly polished multiplayer aspect. Left 4 Dead was the first game that relied solely on its online aspect and was also the first online game I truly enjoyed.Why?Well, for the first time in an age I was working with people online  instead of killing each other. Naturally it is better when played with friends but I have enjoyed every session I played.

For me, I see games as an escape from my day to day, as a chance to immerse myself in another world, so multiplayer is always a fun side game to play with friends. If you think back to the first time you played FF7 or  MGS1, it needed nothing else to make it a great game and my worry is that we are now being fed a slew of average games that are forgiven poor game design thanks to a big multiplayer offering. And we deserve much better.

For those of you who own an Xbox 360 the new demo for Resident Evil 5 was avaliable for download as of yesterday. It features online and offline co-op and will be on the PS3 in a week.

I spent most of last night tackling the shambling masses, and I think my love of Left for Dead may have diminished the experience for me. The slow poor slow zombies felt like a distinct downgrade from the vast, frantic zmobies of Left for Dead. The controls were as annoying as in Resi 4, but the addition of Sheva has been a nice breatj of fresh air to the franchise and in theory….should keep me interested…

Well even for me this has to be a new record for not posting!

I have been working on my first game launch for www.footballmanagerlive.com, a football management MMO which has been an exciting and very very busy period. Infact in the time I have not posted there seems to have been a full blown recession that has been hitting the ‘recession proof’ games industry hard with a large number of redundancies. I have been nervous to say the least!But all is going really well and SEGA Europe has a great package of games coming out including Madworld, Empire, House of the Dead:Overkill (which I have seen and looks amazing) and many more.

In terms of my gaming habits the biggest news has been that I finally vought a 32 inch Samsung HD telly and it has revitalised my love for gaming and I am now systematically replaying all my old games to get the full impact!I got COD:WOW for christmas and although I was let down by the multiplayer aspect I am loving the single player aspect, especially the new graphics in the cut scenes which intersperce real life footage of the horrific conditions of the warfare. I also got Far Cry2  which I have only just started playing and am approaching with some trepidation given the mixed reviews and will post more about when I get into it.

In revisiting my old games I sat down and devoted some time to HD Bioshock (beautiful) and realised that I honestly haven’t played  a game that I was so immersed and in love with since. The choices are handled with deft subtlety, characters are fleshed out and each have their own charm. The ending felt, well it felt earned and it was a fantastic sequence (I saved them) and I have felt a desire to revisit it I haven’t with any other game. The only game that has come close is Fallout 3 which I will post seperatley about.

In terms of new games, I am fully supporting the more unusual Wii games because it is good to see a console and its base be challenged, and a challenge is what the wii sorely needs. I have far too many games on pre-order and many still too finish (cod, Saints Row 2 in its entirety, Far Cry 2 etc) on top of alot of great new DLC content coming out. My big trailer right now is the Arkham Asylum one, I am praying this doesn’t let me down as a huge batman fan myself:

EA announced today that DICES’s revolutionary new game Mirrors Edge will be avaliable as a playable demo on PSN today and XBL tomorrow.

The demo consists of prologue, tutorial and a bit of the single-player game.

This is immense, the song is incredible (wish I knew who it was!), but i love the idea of it switching to us now attacking them.

The second trailers is the launch trailer that was revealed today and shows a very different approach to the first, still as gory and brutal but with a purpose and it seems more of an ongoing story arch. Shame coles back though!lol

It seems that Epic are wanting this gears to be a truly Blockbuster game and if the reviews and clips are anything to go by its looking likely.

To add to the woes of Fable 2 fans who have pre-ordered the Collectors Edition of upcoming Fable 2, there have been cases in America where the boxes aren’t being dispatched with the promised DLC: Microsoft have posted this message on the Xbox site..

We have identified that some copies of the “Fable II” Limited Collector’s Edition are missing the downloadable content (DLC) cards, which give access to in-game bonus content. This represents a small fraction of the total number of “Fable II” games shipped and sold, and is contained to the Limited Collector’s Edition of the game in North America. We are currently investigating the scope of this situation and regardless the outcome of the investigation, we are implementing a plan to address it. We will have a means to deliver replacement codes by Oct 28th so please check back then. We apologize for the inconvenience.

I have pre-ordered the collectors edition here in the UK and will post on Friday…

Your eyes are not deceiving you, this is a new Alan Wake trailer from the 21st. It looks fantastic and given most people have been waiting over a year to see any sign of the game it is a welcome sight!

Unfortunately since I’m not made of money I had to pick just one of this amazing line up and went for  Fable 2, I will get Far Cry 2 along the way and Dead Space seems a bit generic for me.

Big news for the past few weeks:

1. Fable 2 co-op patch will be avaliable for download on release day!

http://community.lionhead.com/blogs/fable_2_development/archive/2008/10/19/3137312.aspx

2. Players of Bioshock on the PS3 got a sneak trailer of Bioshock 2 at the end

3. Soul Calibur will be releasing Yoda and Vader as DLC for PS3 and 360