ImaginaryLemon

Okay, so we all know the difference between Arcade and Sim right? Virtua Tennis 4 never proclaimed to be a Tennis Sim, everyone knows that it is a Arcade and the Virtua Tennis series always has been. Having played Top Spin 3&4 and the Grand Slam Tennis games, I had sampled both ends of the genre, both Sim and Arcade. Virtua Tennis 4 is a mixed game. The actual Tennis matches are brilliant fun, but the way they've (the Devs) decided to set out World Tour is disappointing and quite frankly, pointless. World Tour plays like a board game. Imagine Monopoly but with Tennis players. Each turn, you are handed some 'tickets' which determine how far you can move. You land on a variety of spots, such as Training, Practise Matches, non-playable charity and publicity events and the VT4 equivalent of 'Jail', Stolen Wallet. Which does what it says on the tin: loses you money. This idea is awful. It made me miss out on the vast majority of matches that I could participate in, lowering both the fun and my Star Ranking, which is VT4's version of the Seedings in real Tennis. I don't know what the Devs were thinking with this idea. It's absolutely, one hundred percent disastrous. The game does, at points, seem completely broken as well. I was one step away from a Championship, had a One Step Ticket and the game wouldn't allow me to move to it. The Arcade and Exhibition modes, on the other hand, are fun and pretty much without flaw. You get to play as your favourite Tennis pros, such as Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Andy Murray, Maria Sharapova (not as hot in-game as in real life :3), Ana Ivanovic (likewise) and Laura Robson. Wait...Laura Robson? Yes, I do know who she is, but many don't and I wonder why they decided to put a little-known Tennis player in, who really isn't that good, when they could have put in the likes of Sabine Lisicki, Serena Williams (arguably better than her sister Venus) or Maria Kirilenko. Sega seem to have put MUCH more focus on the male Tennis pros than the female, with 11 male and only 7 female pros. I could easily think of another four to fill the gap. Overall, I think they have had poor judgement with many of the players, some don't even play competitively anymore or have slipped down to low Seedings. The Graphics aren't anything special. The players to slightly resemble their real-life counter-parts but not by much. Some players seem to have had much more effort in making them seem lifelike, such as Federer and Nadal, while others have been left alone. Other than a slight graphical improvement, not much has changed from the times of Virtua Tennis 3.

Anyone who has played the Resistance games can tell that each one was vastly different to the previous game/s. In some areas, such as the graphics, this is a good thing. However, in other areas, it is most definitely not a good thing. The Multiplayer of Resistance 2 endeared me to the game- it was so different, so unlike anything anyone had ever played...I loved it. That's gone. Wiped out. Dead. The Multiplayer is now just a slightly aberrant experience, nothing exciting and nothing that would make you say 'whoa, that was pretty epic!' like in R2. Secondly, the Campaign didn't strike me as anything special either. Sure, we saw a lot of big, badass looking Chimera, but didn't get to fight many at all- mostly just grunts. I just wish Insomniac would figure out where they wanted to series to go and just stick to that formula. Insomniac reminds me of Linkin Park- if anyone knows who they are you'll probably get it. However, I did still enjoy it. Sure, there are parts that really annoy you and the plot is a bit shallow (just my opinion) but at the end of the day, the only thing that matters is fun. Is Resistance 3 fun? Extremely.

I brought The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim a little bit later than most others, in May earlier this year. Just over two months later and I just completed the main storyline. Admittedly, I am a bit of a slowpoke when it comes to playing video games, especially games with worlds as large as Skyrim. I enjoy simply wondering around, looking at the mostly beautiful environment. Any game with a game world as large as Skyrim is going to encounter some bugs here and there. However, the amount of bugs and how often they appear is disappointing, to say the least. I find that you can easily ignore these small bugs though, because of how utterly well built most of the game is. The quests are huge in number, with the main quest taking around 20-25 hours to complete, longer if you like to dawdle like me. The side quests are plentiful and keep the game going hours after you completed the main quest line. Also, the length of quests varies greatly, which gives a sense of time to the game. The different 'groups' that you can join are very fun. For example, for those of you who haven't ever played an Elder Scrolls game, you can join one group and complete their storyline and then move onto the next group. Overall, I have greatly enjoyed playing Skyrim, and while there are some nasty bugs and often mild-serious lag problems, it is still a fantastic game which, at least, deserves a long rent.

Sniper: Ghost Warrior is a game plagued by faults, some small and relatively forgettable, and others much larger which seriously interfere with gameplay. Probably the biggest, not to mention most annoying, fault is the Save Checkpoints. These appear very frequently. While some may think that this is a good feature, I do not, for this reason- every single time you reach a new Checkpoint the game freezes for about 3-5 seconds. This really interferes with your fun, as it drags you out of the game and interrupts what can, occasionally, be a gripping sequence of events. Next, is the barrage of invisible barriers/walls that you will find within the game. These appear in what seem to be random locations and often stop you from reaching that perfect sniping spot that you can see. I find it hard to believe that this highly trained Sniper cannot somehow climb over a small rock. When you hear the word 'sniper', what words come to mind? Covert, silent, stealthy? No, according to this game, words and phrases like 'all guns blazing' and 'open fire' are what sniping is all about. You can definitely see that the Devs behind SGW have taken a page out of Infinity Wards books. The hectic mix and sudden change between silent and stealthy to loud and action filled works for the CoD franchise but not for Sniper Ghost Warrior. Lastly, one of the most minor, yet still irritating, faults is the amount of bad spelling and grammar and subtitles not matching with the actual dialogue. For example, during the first section of the game, the words 'don't let your target see you' or spoken but 'don't let your pray see you' is shown on subtitles. Yes, this is a very small issue and easily ignorable, but I thought it warranted a mention. All in all, Sniper Ghost Warrior had it in it to be a fantastic, stealthy game, but it falls short in so many areas. The constant interruptions from Checkpoint freezes to the disappointing, 2006 graphics make this game a chore to play, or as I should say, work through.