Mashing Buttons

a couple of gamers blogging about games

My first Platinum trophy

Posted by Greg On July - 30 - 2010 View Comments

Just in time for dinner

That’s right. I’m now part of the exclusive group of “1337″ peeps who have achieved a platinum trophy on PS3. Among my PSN friends list, I’m the third to manage it. The others did it in Batman Arkham Asylum and Fallout 3.

It takes time and effort and I admit I’m pretty chuffed. It took me an afternoon to get from the 84% I was at already in Assassins Creed 2 to the 100% mark. And some of those little extra tricks were pretty… well… tricky!

Read more…

Far Cry 2

As much as I loved Far Cry 2 I still think there were a couple of things I would have changed about the game, some reasonable thoughts and one random one.

The animals

There was a couple of seconds of terror realised as I fell into the water the very first time in Far Cry 2 because I come from Australia where we have crocodiles that sit in our northern waterways (nowhere near where I live but still there’s an awareness). When I fell into the murky waters of that river I thought about having to get out as soon as possible as I was probably going to get attacked by an aligator or a hippo. Then I checked online and discovered that no animal will hurt you in the game and that there aren’t any dangerous animals featured. Read more…

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Far Cry 2

Far Cry 2 is an open world first person shooter that I had seen a review of ages before I finally had bought my PS3. The review and what I had seen of the game really impressed me at the time and I’ve had in the back of my mind to pick it up.

I got a really cheap pre-owned copy and then it sat on the shelf amongst Modern Warfare’s and Flashpoint’s which I worked my way through until I randomly called it up to the majors.

Little did I know at that stage that Far Cry 2 would provide me with literally hours and hours of entertainment. Read more…

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transformers

Last week I was lucky enough to get an advance copy of the new Transformers: War for Cybertron for PS3.

I’ve played a few Transformers game in my time, most recently the Autobots/Decepticons games that were released around the same time as the 2nd (Michael Bay) Transformers movie. Since then, I’ve noticed two more Transformers games released: G1 Awakening for iPhone (which has been around in one form or another since 2008) and the just-released Transformers: War for Cybertron. What’s interesting about these two games is that they focus on the earlier years of the Transformers franchise rather than the more recent “re-telling” that are Michael Bay’s film interpretations. War for Cybertron concentrates on the pre-Earth days on Cybertron. Here we get to witness when Starscream first joins Megatron and when Optimus Prime rises to become leader of the Autobots after the death of Zeta Prime. Read more…

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Final Fantasy XIII — still going

Posted by Greg On June - 27 - 2010 View Comments

After 29 hours, I'm worried about that '0' before the 29. How many hours is this going to take??

When do I get to the good bit?

I took a break from Final Fantasy XIII to play Red Dead Redemption (I’ll write up something on that eventually) but recently decided to return to Cocoon to see if I couldn’t push through.

What is really starting to drag about FF is that I’m still in a linear world. I’m going from battle to battle without any useful respite in between. In terms of the game’s plot, I understand why it is this way: we’re fugitives on the run from just about everyone. But we’ve been running for a very long time now and, well, it’s starting to get boring. Still, I feel like I’m getting very close to what is likely to be a major plot point. Read more…

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God of War III – Ladies Man

Posted by Lee On May - 18 - 2010 View Comments
godofwar3

It’s been a while since I played the first two God of War games and whilst I remembered that there was sex in them, I really didn’t remember all that much about the scenes.  I think they were off screen with rocking pieces of furniture etc.  I can’t recall if you actually take part in the process or not. Read more…

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First impressions: Final Fantasy XIII

Posted by Greg On May - 13 - 2010 View Comments

There’s something about the Final Fantasy series of games that has always interested me yet the gameplay does not always hold my interest for long enough. At times it can be repetitive or frustrating to the point where I don’t enjoy it any more. This was definitely the case when I gave some of the early games another go a couple of years ago after they were re-released on Nintendo DS with updated graphics. Read more…

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Uncharted 1 after Uncharted 2

Posted by Greg On May - 8 - 2010 View Comments

I finally found it at a reasonable price, so I bought Uncharted. The catch, however, is that I already played and completed Uncharted 2 late last year. Considering the number of times Uncharted 2 was declared “Game Of The Year” for 2009, was I going to be disappointed by Uncharted?

What must not be forgotten is that just as Uncharted 2, timed along with the release of the PS3 Slim, re-invigorated the PS3 platform, Uncharted proved to gamers and game developers what was possible with the platform (apparently Uncharted only uses one-third of the PS3′s capabilities). Read more…

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First Impressions: Street Fighter IV

Posted by Lee On May - 3 - 2010 View Comments
Chun Li suggests that Ryu should probably cook his own dinner...

It’s been a long time since I visited the world of Street Fighter.

Street Fighter 2 on the Super Nintendo actually.  Since then there have been a bunch of versions of SF2 and I imagine Street Fighter III though I don’t recall seeing anything about it.  But then I saw a demo of the current one Street Fighter IV and was very impressed with the graphics.

So then I saw it for a pretty awesome price, took 20 minutes away from Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising, which I might add I’ve been becoming more obsessed with every minute I play it. Read more…

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Poseidon is a jerk and Gaia is mean

Posted by Lee On April - 17 - 2010 View Comments
godofwar3

After my initial return to the world of Kratos I’ve pretty much dropped everything else to stat playing this in the three or four minutes I have spare each day.  Whilst fleeting those minutes are full of bloody awesomeness and innovative use of the PS3 controller to kill people.

The story goes like this, the Titans are mounting an assault on Olympus and are all climbing up the sheer cliffs of the mountain.  In HD it looks fantastic and the rumble in the controller adds to the overall effect of the sequences.  You as Kratos are climbing up the back of Gaia helping her shake off the weird crab horse water thingies that keep impaling her. Read more…

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