Not a single video transcribed is anywhere near accurate, I think there was one sentence in all of the videos I have checked that were slightly correct. Most of the text is complete gibberish and seemingly completely unrelated to the audio on the video. I assumed that as they are introducing this system to millions and millions of videos it would at least be half competent but I don’t even think that you could refer to it as speech “recognition” it’s more like a complete guess.

It’s and F to Google, please try harder.

Anyway Rasta monkey is a pretty simple affair, you guide your monkey around a bunch of trees by either tumbling around like some kind of spidermonkey (a cross between a spider and a monkey, not the well known Spider Monkey) or you can hold the spacebar and spin, spin, spin until you hurl yourself up to another branch. The physics in this game seem eerily good however that did not help me excel at the game, infact I’m pretty crap. It is however an enjoyable experience, so give it a go.

I learned of this game from adverts on TV, they were sponsoring all the shows I watched apparently, the adverts made the game look really nice and so I got it on rental. The first thing needed to be said about Darksiders is that the game’s title floats entirely on it’s own, no reference is made in game to “Darksiders” and it really doesn’t describe any part of the game. Secondly this game is not really a God of War copy, a lot of people seem to think that because the fighting is similar the rest of the game is the same, but it’s not, if I had to liken Darksiders to another game it would be Zelda. Same kind of dungeon/room setup where you have to work your way through puzzle type rooms and fight the bad guys until you get to the boss and kill it, but the similarities end there, read on for more Darksider crap.

The game starts with you thrust into the apocalypse, demons and angels are raining down from the skies hell bent on destroying each other and pretty much everyone on earth, you control War, one of the four horsemen who is on neither side. You fight some angels, you fight some demons and then get smooshed by a really big demon. After that there’s a pretty long and boring cut scene informing us that somehow War has broken some seals and set about the apocalypse early and as punishment you must return to earth and annihilate the bad guys. Oh and all of the angels want to kil you because they for some reason think you killed one of their top brass or something. And it’s 10 years later!

By this time the earth is pretty much in ruins and a giant demon fest, you have to fight and puzzle your way through dungeons full of bad guys to collect the hearts of large demons to give to another demon who will lead you to the bossman demon… Yea… It’s a little strange. There really isn’t a lot of story development through the dungeons, you just hack and slash and learn a lot of minutia but no real plot.

Graphics wise Darksiders isn’t going to be winning any awards, it’s the standard graphics level for this generation, combat effects are nice, enemies look pretty good but the scenery for the most part is pretty bland. Most notably War is very detailed and colourful, as are his weapons and his horse, ruin. Being mainly confined to subterranean rooms and… Subways there isn’t much scope for beauty.

Nice sword!

The combat system is pretty simple and basically anyone can pick it up in a few minutes, to start with you’ll basically be hammering the X button until you get more weapons and more abilities, but they mainly consist of hitting X or Y repeatedly. That’s not to say that combat is boring, it’s nice to have a simple system where you can pull off a lot of different moves pretty easily and knock the living snot out of a bunch of demons. The addition of different weapons along the way keeps the combat fresh and interesting. There are also a bunch of limited use weapons you can pick up off enemies, they are generally big and overpowered, my favourite is the big shard gun which fires remotely detonated explosive shards. Again it adds more variety to the combat and gives you some truly overpowered moments. Also of note is Ruin, War’s horse, once you get him back there’s some nice horse riding scenes and some action again reminiscent of Zelda.

The puzzle aspects of the game for me were a little underwhelming and not always completely obvious what I had to do, in this way it diverged away from Zelda like play as sometimes I would enter a room and not know whether to explore, puzzle or if it was a dead end. At least in Zelda most of the puzzle rooms locked so you knew you weren’t wasting your time.  I wasted a lot of time in this way, some of the puzzles were just too fiddly and other times the controls seemed to want to have a mind of their own when doing puzzles. This area really needed more effort, something a little more obvious and entertaining.

There’s really not much else to say about Darksiders, it is an adequately engaging action game combining exploration and puzzling, the story may be lacking any kind of substance and awe but after a little while I found myself quite enjoying the game, quick time events are actually useful and the combat is good enough to continue to engage and although there are some lulls in the exploration part where you’ll be doing nothing but running/swimming around it always seems to pick back up. It’s definitely worth a rent and play through.

Advert:

Wallpapers:

Having coded every link to parse the URL parameters I only had to code one page, sure it may have taken close to the same time but it was a lot less tedious and a much better learning experience. It also means that I can update the page to fit into any design I wish with the minimal of effort. I think I will code up a Terror From the Deep USOpedia, should be pretty easy now I’ve basically got all the code.

Edit: USOpedia is now online too: TFTD USOpedia, I also added an index page which displays all the images on one page like so: TFTD USOpedia maybe someone will find it useful, probably not.

Userstyles/stylish links:
NOTE: Depending on whether your mail is entitled “Google Mail”, “Gmail” or just “inbox” you will have to install a different style.

Gmail:
http://userstyles.org/styles/25543 – Alternating Envelope
http://userstyles.org/styles/25542 – Flashing Envelope
http://userstyles.org/styles/25558 – Static Envelope

Google Mail:
http://userstyles.org/styles/25544 – Alternating Envelope
http://userstyles.org/styles/25541 – Flashing Envelope
http://userstyles.org/styles/25557 – Static Envelope

If your tab title says only “inbox”:
http://userstyles.org/styles/25560 - Alternating Envelope
http://userstyles.org/styles/25552 – Flashing Envelope
http://userstyles.org/styles/25559 – Static Envelope

If you don’t know what you need download stylish first and click on “install with stylish”, make sure you get app tabs too and right click on the tab and select “app tab” which will make it auto load with firefox too.

LittleBigPlanet is a game I never really understood on the PS3, I thought it seemed a little too simplistic for a full on home console game. The game is very basically a platformer, there are some nice fun elements but at it’s heart it is a run of the mill platformer. The main selling point of the game though is the ability to create and share your own levels, create your own puzzles and generally be all round creative. When I saw it was coming to the PSP I was impressed by the graphics and thought that LBP would be the perfect game to be ported to the PSP. A bright, colourful and creative platformer is just what I could see myself enjoying, I had no idea…

The graphics in the PSP version are pretty good, it looks pretty much like the PS3 version, retaining the great textures, so colourful and well drawn that you can almost feel the fabric of the levels. The first few levels are also peppered with some pretty good FMV explaining the mechanics of the game, to me they were a bit excessive and I hate games that have to tutor me through them, however they at least did them well, with great expressions and a voice over by everyone’s favourite twit-erer Stephen Fry. Whilst I wasn’t really a fan of his over indulgent monologues I can see why people would like his dulcet tones.

Getting back to the graphics for a moment though, it’s not all gold stars. First off there seems to be a strange vignetting effect throughout half the game, it surrounds the screen with a dark cloud almost and in some cases gives a sense of darkness and depression. I have no idea why they decided to go with it, there is no reason I can see for it to be there. Your viewpoint also suffers with the port to the PSP, to fit the levels in the screen sackboy has to be pretty small, which takes a little away from the customization of the character because you can’t really see him as well as you can on the PS3 version.

Honourable mention has to go to the map screen, but only because it reminds me of the map screen from Blast Corps.

Plenty good

Also of great merit is the audio in LittleBigPlanet, aside from the constant ramblings of well spoken Stephen Fry you are treated to some great music. Nearly all happy upbeat tunes, the music matches exactly what you’re seeing on the screen: Vibrant and fun. Most of the other audio is the standard affair, jumping, firing etc, but there’s not much one can do about that.

Gameplay wise LBP PSP is almost identical to the PS3 version, all the levels in the PSP version are new however, so you won’t be treading old ground if you’ve already played the PS3 version. I must say I was never too enamored with the platforming element of LBP, but I never really played it that much, on the PSP however I have had plenty of time to get through levels and collect items and I am quite enjoying the whole experience.

One of the nice touches is the movement on the 3rd plane, LBP is a 2D platformer but you can also move back and forth to get around obstacles or just progress through the level. It seemed like a gimmick to me at first but it’s been worked into the levels in such a way that it shows through as a unique point. However it can be a little difficult sometimes to actually move between the two planes or you can get stuck on one or the other. Overall though I like the idea.

The puzzles in LBP whilst not difficult are generally imaginative and lively, it can get a bit frustrating at times, but that is part of the art of platformers I think, giving you just enough frustration to make you try again but not enough to make it annoying. In that sense LBP’s puzzles whilst not difficult can still pose a challenge when you want to collect all the items from a stage, or when you just keep falling off that ledge!

Character Customization

Collecting is a large part of LBP and it is the main driving point behind progression in the game, I found myself replaying levels to get more clothes for my sackboy because I so wanted to make him my own. There are also level parts, materials and stickers to collect throughout the game. Customizing your sackboy with the earned items is also more fun than I thought it would be, it’s great to try out different costumes and play every day as a different character.

The controls in LBP are quite intuitive if nothing special, however the let down in this department is the response to controls rather than the layout itself. Jumping is very hit and miss, for a platformer that is bad news, as the world is actually based around a physics engine and not pixels and preset variables it’s a little uneven, sometimes even the slightest deviation can cause you to miss or hit the ledge you’re aiming for. Worse than that, there seems to be an issue that if you’re stood anywhere near a wall you can only jump about half as high as normal, extremely frustrating.

Another bad point in LBP is the loading times, prepare to see it a lot… Even when restarting a level you’re already in it will take in excess of 30 seconds to load the level that should already be in memory. Going from menu to level and back again is the same affair, constant loading screens throughout. For me it really takes away from the portability of the game, somtimes I just want to play a quick game but end up not being able to because starting the game from the XMB and getting into a level takes over a minute and a half, time I could have better spent playing the actual game.

The level creation tool is one of the main selling points and whilst it’s comprehensive and has all the options there that I could think of there’s not really much to say about it. You unlock materials, shapes and more to use in your levels and then plonk them in there, of course you can stick objects together, make functioning cars and anything you could think of. There will probably be a full article on the level designer some time soon, probably a video.

Overall though LittleBigPlanet is a well put together game which despite its flaws will suck you into it’s world, you’ll be nodding your head to the great music and playing with your sackboy to get him looking just right. I definitely recommend it.

I like the artwork from Bad Company 2 but there aren’t any good wallpapers out, so I used the fan kit from DICE to create a few of my own, not the most creative but I think they worked out pretty well, currently adorning my laptop desktop Please enjoy and feel free to share, if anyone wants any custom resolutions or aspect ratios let me know and I’ll make it up for you, alternatively download the fan kit yourself and have a go