A few years ago, a friend recommended to me that I read a series of comic books called “The Walking Dead“.  And I was hooked!  The series was focused on the survivors and their reaction to the zombie apocalypse as opposed to how many zombies could get their head bashed in before the next chapter.  It’s a fantastic comic book series, and if you haven’t read it I recommend going out and picking up the omnibus right now.  So naturally, I was very excited to find out they were making a TV series based on the books!  GREAT!  As long as you ignore the majority of the second season.

So we’re going to ignore the show right now because the game is much better.  It is so true to the comic books.  I’m one of those people who when a book I love is adapted into a movie or a TV show or whatever, I want to see the story remain as much intact and not messed with as much as possible.  The Hunger Games managed pretty well, Harry Potter forgot about the existence of Peeves, and The Walking Dead series was adamant Hershel’s farm was worthy of an entire season and strange scientists who offered you showers in the middle of an apocalypse would also try and blow you up.

The game however is not the same story you will read in the comics. It’s a story told alongside the original story; it adapts from it. It doesn’t mess with a story you love and ruin it (yes, I have issues with the TV show).

You play as an entirely new character, Lee, and his story develops and you learn more about him the deeper you delve into the game- much like the comic series.  I don’t want to talk too much about his storyline, or what I’ve discovered of it, because I don’t want to spoil it.  It’s much more fun to discover it for yoursel!  I also loved that I could explore the storylines of characters from the comic book series before we meet them in the books.  But their stories aren’t messed with.  It fits in.  If you’ve read the comic or watched the series you’ll recognise Hershel, Glenn and Lilly (although it took me a while to recognise who Lilly was, b*tch). You meet Hershel’s son, Shawn, before he ends up in the barn.  We see what Glenn is up to before heading into Atlanta city.  And Lilly… no one likes her.

The main chunk of the story (or where I spent most of my time) happens when you’re trapped inside a pharmacy (I think that’s the equivalent of an American drug store), and you have to interact with the environment to help out the other survivors. The one thing I have no particularly strong feelings about is Clementine.  An 8-year old girl who Lee rescues/is saved by and you kind of… babysit.  It’s nice to have someone there who the character you play as has to make moral decisions based on, but the game could function perfectly well without her.  I don’t know, I mean.. I like her.  But if she wasn’t there I wouldn’t mind.  I hope she’ll contribute more in future episodes because I do like her and everyone makes a big deal out of her… I just haven’t got it yet.

Before I started playing this I hadn’t really done any research into it.  I didn’t know what type of game it was (other than the obvious… a zombie game, duh).  But the gameplay and controls shocked me.  Some parts felt like an elaborate quick-time event system, some parts felt like a 3D point-and-click system with third person controls.  All overlaid with a four-way conversation chooser thing.  And I liked it.  It worked.

The game is not a zombie shooter. It is not about killing as many zombies as you can. It’s about surviving.  This game is not Left 4 Dead or Dead Rising.  So the fact I couldn’t raise my axe and swing didn’t bother me. The controls were relative to the situation Lee was in.  It’s hard to describe because the way you controlled the game differed all the time!  Totally not in a bothersome way but in an “OMG THIS IS AWESOME” way.  It was totally weird to begin with, but I think it helped to build tension because you couldn’t control it how you wanted.

At one point I’m backed against a car with a zombie crawling towards me.  All I can do is move my head and pick things up. I can’t run away.  I find I can pick up a shotgun and a shotgun shell. But it’s so slow. Come on Lee!  He tries to load the shell but it doesn’t work.  The zombie is practically on top of me and I try to reload again.  I manage to roughly aim at the zombies head and BOOM… safe. It was great being able to control it the way I did.  Because really… I couldn’t.  Not like a conventional zombie game.  I was in a panic!  I didn’t want to die! Who cares about reloading… that didn’t even cross my mind ! I couldn’t let Lee die!  It was so tense!!

On top of all that, you have to make choices.  Big, fat, juicy choices.  As far as I can tell, they don’t affect the outcome of the game greatly… OK, there’s maybe one choice that will.  But they force you to choose your morals in the heat of the moment.  Yup, they’re on a timer.  No sitting there deciding how paragon or renegade you are.  Just choose!

I liked how whatever you decided on, a little UI element would pop up and tell you what the character you’re talking to felt about whatever you just did.  Most follow along the lines of “Clementine will remember you checked up on her”.  Without really thinking about it, I lied to Hershel.. in my head I was trying to protect Clementine… these guys didn’t need to know I just sort of picked her up and took her… I’m protecting her!!  So I told him I was her babysitter on my way out of Atlanta. He didn’t believe me.  He shouted at me!  Thankfully that was all he did.  Later on, Lee isn’t so lucky.  What really surprised me was after completing the game was a bunch of stats comparing the choices I made to the choices other people made whilst playing the game!  Ooo, I love stats!  I was being judged all along!  It makes me want to play it differently and see what trouble I can cause!

In keeping with how similar this is to the comic books.. it looks exactly like a coloured-in chapter!  The biggest comparison is how close Hershel, Glenn and Lilly look to their comic book counterparts. I had to flick through my books just to double-check.  Even the farm is exactly the same.  I love how the characters are 3D in their environment but they’re comic book stylised.  You can see the pencil lines.  Or the subtle shading of the blood on Lee’s shirt. And the curls in Clementine’s hair.  It just made me feel like I was playing an interactive chapter of the comic book.  Oh wait.. I was!!

My favourite part of this game was whilst rescuing Glenn.  And we all know Glenn is a sucker for a damsel in distress, so we have to rescue another survivor before he’ll return to the pharmacy with us.  What ensues is an elaborate chunk of gameplay where you have to sneak through a motel car park full of zombies.  It really makes the most of moral choices, the control system and the graphics to make this a great scene.  I don’t know if that’s the demo level, but it should be… And for £3.50 (I played it on Xbox 360, so 400MSP) it’s more than worth it!  It’s short, I completed it in two and a half hours, but it felt like longer because I was so absorbed.  I really can’t wait until the next one is released.. oh yeah, there’s going to be eight episodes!!!!  Eight!  So excited.

Once upon a time, the handheld gaming market was dominated solely by Nintendo and its Gameboy brand. But now, with many iOS and Android devices offering cheaper and more accessible alternatives to the DS, 3DS, and PSP, the portable gaming market has become extremely competitive.

Sony has responded to this threat with the PS Vita, their second handheld gaming console. After spending some time with the Vita, I have been impressed with the system, and believe that it is capable of providing a compelling portable gaming experience.

First things first, the hardware is great. It is a robust machine with a sleek design that has managed to incorporate a lot of features. Along with a crisp 5-inch OLED screen, the PS Vita comes equipped with a d-pad, two analogue sticks (are you watching Nintendo), four face buttons, two shoulder buttons, touch screens on the front and back of the system, rear and front facing cameras, and a six axis motion sensor. Not bad for a system that measures 7.2 inches end to end.

Sony has made it abundantly clear that they wanted to create a handheld platform that can reproduce console quality titles. This means that no compromises were made when developing the Vita. As a result, the controls are tight, the system has excellent graphics, and the launch line-up is extremely solid.

Arguably the most impressive of the early Vita titles is Uncharted: Golden Abyss. Although Golden Abyss cannot match the visuals and presentation of Uncharted’s PS3 cousins, the game provides a fantastic experience that would not look out-of-place on a console. As with Nathan Drake’s other adventures, expect the six to eight-hour campaign to have you jumping, climbing, and shooting your way through South American jungles and ancient ruins.

While Uncharted demonstrates what the Vita is capable of, BigBig’s Little Deviants makes the most of the Vita’s features. The game takes full advantage of the motion controls and rear facing cameras to create a series of augmented reality levels from the world around you (much like the AR cards for the 3DS).

Certainly Little Deviants is fast paced, frantic, and fun, but the whole game feels more like a demonstration of the Vita’s alternative capabilities than a title worthy of your prolonged attention.

Perhaps my favourite Vita release is Rayman Origins. As a direct port of the critically acclaimed console version, Rayman Origins boasts a wonderful art direction, a fitting soundtrack, and some of the finest 2D platform gameplay seen on this generation of consoles. Unfortunately, the lack of lack of a 2-4 player multiplayer makes it difficult to recommend this version over the console original.

The biggest problem for the PS Vita, however, is Sony’s pricing strategy. Many may balk at the £259.99 for the 3G edition, but on top of that gamers are forced to shell out another £37 for a 16 GB memory card. Smaller memory cards are available, but if you want to download games and movies on your Vita, a 16GB card is the minimum requirement.

With all things considered, the Vita is at the pinnacle of portable gaming. I have been genuinely impressed with the Vita, as it is able to offer console quality experiences on a handheld system. But if Sony wants to sell more units than the 3DS, and steal market share away from mobile gaming, I suggest that they review their inflated prices.

For those old enough to remember, stereoscopic 3D gaming is nothing new.  Sega’s Master System was one of the first attempts of 3D gaming and came with a pair of very unsuccessful and unsupported 3D glasses.  Then there was the 3D gaming effort from Nintendo, the rather disastrous Virtual Boy came with 3D goggles that didn’t help enhance the 3D gaming experience at all.

Even after all of this, there’s still a sense recently that this is the first time 3D gaming has really come of age. The equipment we’re starting to see come out is fantastic and really impressive so people’s expectations have risen with regards to what they want from their 3D tech now.  It could also be the case that there is more of a hardcore games market that’s becoming more and more about HD graphics and is also looking for something new.  Perhaps it’s all of the publicity that 3D work is getting with the film industries renewed interest in stereoscopic film.

However, it’s probably more the case that the new passion is because the technology has finally started to make it; people can now go to their local cinema and watch a 3D film that really drags them into the story, without the need for the red and green flimsy eyewear. To really prove that the 3D market is starting to make it, true gaming fans are now able to enjoy 3D gaming on their home PCs and laptops with the NVIDIA’s 3D Vision gaming system.

The NVIDIA’s 3D Vision is described as; “A combination of high-tech wireless glasses and advanced software, 3D Vision automatically transforms hundreds of PC games into full stereoscopic 3D. In addition, view movies and digital photographs in eye-popping 3D.” It also now supports full HD 1080p.

One limitation of this new system, however, is that you will need a display that is capable of operating at a 120Hz refresh rate, and the problem with this is that there are very few TVs available that can do this. Not many of the TVs have much bigger than a 22-inch panel or more than a 1680 x 1050 resolution, and most also require a dual-link DVI cable to enable the 120 Hz refresh rate to work. The good thing is that NVIDIA provides the necessary cable in the box, and any graphics card capable of driving 3D Vision at a decent frame rate should have the required connector.

One such compatible 3D TV that has recently come out is the Acer GD235HZ 120Hz LCD. This Acer has been brought out specifically paired to work with NVIDIA’s 3D Vision active-shutter glasses system. The TV has a 23.6-inch, 16:9 display and it is retailing for around £300. This TV is going to be great for gaming fans to start enjoying 3D gaming and films; the next few months are no doubt going to start getting a bit stale however as people get bored of Avatar and similarly frustrated by Left 4 Dead 2.

However, the 1920 x 1080 resolution is going to really be useful once the first load of 3D Blu-ray movies start hitting the shelves. The NVIDIA 3D Vision kit is sold separately for around £150, and does require a compatible NVIDIA card, but this is surely a small price to pay for total immersion in either the film you’re watching or the game you’re playing.

Whether or not you have an interest in 3D gaming or watching films, one thing’s for sure, the 3D revolution is most definitely upon us.

Robert Elliott is an active writer and blogger on gaming related topics at Button-basher.com.

This is a guest post by Elle, who you may remember from the old City In The Clouds blog.  She now blogs at elle87.wordpress.com

Foreword by Los Havros: As Patapon 2 will shortly be upon us, Elle is looking back to the first Patapon game that we all know and love.  Whilst I’ve covered bits and pieces of Patapon in such articles as Getting to grips with Patapon and Patapon Revisited, I have never done a full review of the game (although I gave a basic rating of 9/10).

Patapon is a fiercely addictive rhytmatic game released by Sony.  The game consists of your army of Patapons, fighting against the Zigoton army, after they drove them away from their homeland.  But during this, their God “Almighty” disappeared, along with the drums that commanded them.  Hatapon (the flag/banner) carrier was the only person who believed Almighty would return, so he picks up their banner and leads his tribe to fight the Zigotons.

The interesting twist to this game is you become their “Almighty” and each time you successfully complete a mission (which I will later talk about) they worship you.  You must lead them back to their homeland, with the use of the power through your magic drums, following rhythmatic beats.  Different songs lead to different movements which you unlock as you progress through the game:

• Pon Pon Pata Pon – makes your army attack
• Pata Pata Pata Pon – marches your army forward
• Chakka Chakka Pata Pon – retreats your army
• Don DonDon DonDon – lets a miracle be performed
• Pon Pata Pon Pata – retreats your army

But Sony doesn’t make this game easy to begin with; you don’t have the luxury of all the drums at the start of the game, as they are scattered all over the Patapon world.  With each new drum you discover on the missions you are given a tutorial of how to complete the song, and from henceforth you have the ability to use that drum.  From then on, the songs are imprinted on your brain, and at times I have found myself singing the songs out loud just randomly!

Again, this is where people encounter problems.  To use the drums, you have to keep in beat with the Pulse of the Earth, which for us Earthlings means keeping to a rhythmatic four beat count. Each of the PSP buttons corresponds to a certain beat; so X is Don, Square is Pata, Triangle is Chakka and O is Pon.   So you beat out the drumbeat for the songs, and your Patapon army will repeat the song you did and conduct that movement, again in the four count beat, then you do the next song.  If you complete a succession of ten songs in a row (less if you hit each note perfectly) you hit something known as “fever” and this is where your little Patapon army goes into a frenzy, enabling them to and move much faster and attack with greater fury.

It is very tiring, and so frustrating at times, as if you even miss just one beat, you lose fever, and must start again building it back up.  This can be increasing exhausting, when trying to constantly maintain it, you definitely need dexterity.  It is more frustrating when you are trying to fight the bosses (which are basically creatures you must fight in order to move the game on to the next mission.)  The bosses consist of either dragons at first, moving on to snakes, crabs.

As you are “Almighty” you should be able to perform miracles, and what do you know in this game you can.  Whether you are in the desert and its burning your army, you should perform the rain miracle (get into fever, use the Don song and follow the on screen beats to perform the miracle) and it rains and saves your army.

Within your army, over the course of all the missions you need to complete, you will collect six different kinds of Patapon.   Tatepon are strong warriors, who are usually are at the front of your army, who use little axes.  Next are Yaripons who attack with spears and Yumipons who attack with bows.  Kibapons are fighters who are on horseback.  Dekapon are large obese fighters that use hammers, and lastly is Megapons who are literally creatures that fire sound waves at their enemy to shock and cause them to sleep.

This is where one of my annoyance of the game comes in, your army can ONLY consist of three different types at any one time, limiting the strength of your army at times, but still forces you to use tactical thinking, especially in the latter part of the game.  An example being when fighting  one of the crab, it  rears its pincers, which second later will attack your troops, while it hesitates, this is the time you take to retreat backwards; each boss has its own unique attack plans, and by memorizing this you can try and outsmart the boss and in doing so defeat it.   As you get into the game, you will learn to understand what the different specialities each unit has, and therefore what units would be best on a certain mission.

During missions, you can acquire different items which your enemy/animals have dropped, either in the form of Ka-Ching (which is money in the Patapon world) which you can use at the Tree of Life to purchase Rareapons (these are Patapons but using different acquired items, can lead to more strengthened, better soldiers), or resurrect the soldiers which died during battle.  The second, and more important one, are items which are dropped, from defeating your enemies.  These can range from, wood, meat and metals.

A further annoying, very important problem is the fact this game doesn’t contain a pause feature, meaning you have to stay committed for the entire mission, and if fighting bosses can take up to 15 minutes.  At home I always get called away to do errands when I fought the bosses, and then you come back and find your army is dead and you have to start the mission AGAIN from the beginning.  My rage is uncontrollable at this point, as well as wanting to throw my PSP out of the window.  Maybe I have rage problems?!

The next problem comes from your inability to buy items/equipment you may need to strengthen your troops, forcing you to then having to go on a hunting mission, wasting precious gaming time.  You can trade, but in order to do that you need to play one of the mini games, but these don’t provide equipment.
After the first couple of missions, you will encounter the fourth problem of this game.  Even though you have a scroll feature map, once a mission has been completed (except boss or hunting missions) become extinct from the map, meaning you can’t go back and do that mission.  Which is a shame at times, as despite the odd couple of missions (Desert Crossing and Gong Fights Back), there are some missions I wouldn’t mind completing again.

You can go back and replay the boss missions, and every repeated level increases with difficulty every time you have a successful mission.  This means as you reach more advanced levels of the boss, you will need to make changes to your army, by strengthening them with Ka-Ching and items which you have found.  Hunting levels don’t increase in difficulty every time you complete them, which is one of the few good factors, when you need some quick Ka-Ching and items.

The mini games are unlocked when you complete certain missions successfully, and these are further ways to gain extra resources you may need for your army.  The most important mini games I think are that of watering the flower, to get vegetables, which in turn can be used for the cooking pot mini game.  The  cooking pot mini game is very important in the latter stages, or fighting high levels of the bosses.  This game, if you complete it successfully (involves you using the O button to chop the food in half) leads to you producing a stew.  Depending on how good you are in the game, depends on the type of stew you get.  These stews increase your Patapon strength, especially in fever.

Despite all the negatives I have pointed out, which I think could easily be corrected on the upcoming sequel Patapon 2, the Patapon game is a unique addictive game that is currently out on the market.  Like LocoRoco, one of the games focus is that of using catching simple music, which changes according to what mission you are trying to complete.  You simply can’t help either tapping your foot/head to the beat, to try and keep in time.  Once you have put this game, you secretly look forward to the next time you pick the game back up, to see what might be in store for your Patapon journey.

Overall rating: 8/10

I have finished the entire game, and very surprisingly I feel extremely let down, despite it giving me hours of entertainment intermingled at times with severe frustration, especially as I had big expectations for it. Why, you ask…?  Well read on!

LocoRoco 2 is very much similar to the original LocoRoco, but has been advanced, in many ways… for there is more interaction.  The first noticeable difference being the annoying world map, where you literally, at times, have to go the whole way round the world to find where your next point of adventure lies.  Each level within its own planet section has a theme, whether it be a snowy setting or a jungle.

The second difference is that the LocoRocos can swim.  It’s hard to figure out at first to get the LocoRocos where you want/need them to go.  My top tip though is to beware of the creatures you meet, and remember the saying: never judge a book by its cover!

Next is the fact there are crevices in the worlds where your LocoRocos can go, and obtain either more of the red flowers, or the blue flying star things.  The Moja’s return as your foremost enemy, and annoy you at times when you wish they would go away.  But they can now sing, and they sometimes bring black clouds with them which you need to bounce into, to disperse them.  Is this Sony trying to tell us about our O Zone layer?  I do wonder!

The fundamental parts of the game are still there; eat the red flowers to increase your LocoRoco numbers, while collecting everything you can including the Pickories (orange things) as well as the nuts.  A new big feature of the game is the fact you need to collect musical notes, and sometimes conduct a tune using the O button.  The more you collect the more surprises you will release, but I will come back to the surprises later on.

Many of my favourite little characters return in this game, including MuiMui’s (and a new character BuiBui’s, same as MuiMui’s but are red.)  But the BuiBui’s fly around in their rocket ships, whilst trying to launch bombs at your LocoRocos.

Most levels look similar to those featured in the first game, but I don’t know, maybe that’s just me, what do you think?  A further new feature to this game is the LocoRocos’ ability to climb into various stone bits, and then rolling yourself and the stone into various features to smash your way through.  But not forgetting one new LocoRoco to join your little friends, which is one of the features I like in the LocoRoco games, you can choose which one you play with, who have their own little unique characteristics.

The levels you play can be upgraded (if you get the correct specifications to do so, which vary at each level, on how much you have collected so far) which makes Pickories easier to find.  There are further mini-games to play, but most of all I like the new MuiMui house.  This is where you can tell your MuiMui’s to build specifically placed chambers, and equipment for the chambers, dependant on having the correct equipment needed to build them, where the game wants, and not the other way around.  I almost feel we have gone backwards since the last game, where you were allowed to put stuff where you wanted in the LocoRoco house with the Editor.

I originally bought my Pink PSP for this game, as I enjoyed playing it on my friends PSP, so it’s enjoyable to play such a game which is still simple, but frustrating at times.  It is also one of very few games I own as a girl, there needs to be more like this and Patapon. Overall, despite slight disappointment from the game and its lack of levels, it still brings a big smile to my face playing and singing along.  It is definitely worth a buy, it will suit anyone and everyone, even the younger generation.

I rate it: 8/10