Many apologies sports fans, the old ‘saw boy has been somewhat busy of late and completely neglected his space from love and devotion.   Without further ado’s let me put this into check and get you up to speed with the world of me and video games…

Halo Wars

Ohhh yeah!  A fully optimised RTS for consoles!  Surely not?  Well, I’m pleased to report that Ensemble Studio’s effort has been a darned good one, not only is it THE best RTS on a console it also encompasses my favourite franchise; Halo.  A win, win situation if you like.  Want to find out more?  Check out my review on XboxGameZone here!

Matt Hazard: Eat Lead

Maybe not quite in the same league as Halo Wars but this game has humour, it also has lots of guns and therefore lots of shooting.  In theory the perfect concoction to make a gaming classic, however you may want to check out my review here first.

Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X.

Yep, we’re not finished yet.  Ever fancied yourself as a bit of a Tom Cruise?  H.A.W.X. drops you right into the cockpit of a modern day supersonic jet fighter and gives you loads of weapons to play with.  Sounds good?  It actually is good and rather damn fun with it, forget about lowering your flaps, all you need to do is shoot stuff.  I liked it, see why at XboxGameZone here.

Ahhhhhhhggggghhhrrrrr!!  A Non-gaming day?…  Have I suffered the infamous RROD?  Has the local power station melted down?  Nope, the answer actually demonstrates that I do exist in a world outside of the virtual one that I so often propagate.  In fact it also shows that behind the rugged battle-scarred Halo head gear exists a man of love, kindness and humility, probably not unlike the ‘Chief’ himself.  I bet at some point between Halo CE and Halo 2 he took the odd day off to take Cortana to the movies or out to dinner.  As for me, I’m taking the lovely Mrs Saw out to the local Thai restaurant, where we shall celebrate our 5th wedding anniversary.

My better half is what I would describe as a ‘non-gamer’, she really doesn’t comprehend the enjoyment I get from endlessly shooting bad guys.  I think that some of this is due to her having incredibly bad 3D spatial awareness, I’m not saying she’s clumsy, but she does lose her bearings (not marbles) surprisingly easily.  At some point a sat-nav is going to be a God-send of a gift to her.  She’s tried to understand my fascination with the world of Halo bless her, but I have to say it was comical to say the least. 

For those of you familiar with Halo CE, you’ll remember the first level where you are working an escape through the stricken Pillar of Autumn.  Surrounding you are ship-shaking explosions, multiple Covenant incursions and general mayhem reigning throughout.  The level is constructed predominantly of poorly lit corridors with many twists and turns.  Unfortunately this was far too much for my beloveds’ strictly 2D perspective.  The cross-hair of her Assault Rifle was soon buried up into a corner of a room, and she was spinning the Chief round manically yelling “I’m stuck!”  It’s very endearing really, and she does understand that when the view shifts into the third dimension she just as well put the controller down.  There has been the Wii, which has undoubtedly pushed her toward the title of ‘almost a casual gamer’.

I can’t grumble, Mrs Saw has put up with my gaming hobby for over 10 years now and accepts that those headshots are part of my required R&R.  In more recent times she’s even been most supportive of my newly expanded gaming role in the form of my XboxGameZone reviews.  Not only has she understood my need to go ‘work’ on the Xbox and spend hours at a time typing, but she also devotes time to proof my pieces.  Now although this doesn’t take long to slot in the odd comma where I’ve made a sentence far too long, but it does mean that I do make her read about ‘games’. 

A big thank you Mrs Saw, or should I say ‘Tank you’ in view of my latest piece ‘Death Tank’, you’re my rock and I love ya more than ‘twelvety’.

I dedicate my Death Tank review (I’m sure she’ll be dead chuffed….Not) to the wonderful Mrs Acksaw, and should you want to read it you can check it out here: XboxGameZone

Right enough with the sloppy love stuff I’m off to pop some heads!

Do you like going fast?  Do you like smashing things up?  If the answer is ‘yes’ to both questions then read on…

Let’s face it, when you watch a Grand Prix or rallying what are the standout points of the race?  Pitstops?  I don’t think so!  More than likely the answer is going to revolve around crashing, and preferably that crashing will take place at high speeds.  As our good old mate Newton dictates: Force = Mass x Acceleration (or deceleration in the case of crashing).  Basically loads of speed = huge crash, and lets face it as long as there aren’t casualties involved then they provide a highlight to a sometimes dull race.  Fortunately ‘Criterion’ has recognised the popularity of these crashes and built a whole game around destroying cars.

So has Burnout finally blown a big-end and ground to a halt or is it still the eye-watering speed demon of arcade racers?  Want to find out more?  Then check out my review on XboxGameZone

So, those of us in the Halo ‘loop’ will be more than aware that some of our more fortunate gaming colleagues will already be killing each other in 3 new maps available in the limited edition of Halo Wars.  The rest of us will have to wait until the Mythic Map pack is available for download from the Marketplace in a ‘few weeks’ as revealed by Bungie.  The cost of this download will be 800 points, and by all accounts should be worth the expenditure.  However, my gaming colleagues and I would really like to see Bungie treat us big-time by releasing all the old Halo 2 maps as a download.  Don’t worry about tarting them up, just release high-res versions of the originals!  I want to play capture the flag on Relic, rockets on Foundation and Slayer on Ivory Tower, surely not a big ask?  Please Bungie, we love the new maps but how about some ‘old-skool’ retro action for us Halo veterans?

Xboxgamezone roving reporter now safely back in the green rolling hills of sleepy Devon. 

Well, that was my first press event and I’ve got to say it was most enjoyable experience indeed.  The guys at Ubisoft were really friendly and laid-back, it was pretty much a case of ‘this is our new game, have fun and enjoy it’.  I found H.A.W.X. to be a really good game as it turns out, the demo doesn’t really give the proper ‘feel’ of the game and I came away with a very positive vibe.  I normally would dismiss an ‘air combat’ game, they tend to go all ‘simulator’ on you and then my feeble brain switches off from information overload.  But you know what?  You could just shoot stuff, loads of stuff in fact and all in a gung-ho frag-fest style.  Anyway, I’m not going to say any more, if you’re interested in a detailed report on my visit to Ubisoft, then pop-on over to www.xboxgamezone.co.uk for the full-fat preview.

Dead Space Review

There’s no atmosphere in space, however the same cannot be said for Electronic Art’s new I.P. ‘Dead Space’.  From the opening scene that sets the arena for the game you know this is going to be one hell of a ride to escape with your life let alone anything else.

The scenario is fairly standard for sci-fi horror and has obviously borrowed much from what has been seen and done before.  Aliens, Event Horizon, Doom and Half-Life are obvious inspirations for this game and that is no bad thing as all are worthy ambassadors for the genre. 

It all starts as a typically innocuous mission for the small crew of a maintenance ship sent to aid a ‘planet-cracker’ mining ship the USG Ishimura.  All communications have been lost with the 1000-manned ship and you the focus of this story only have a worryingly cut-short desperate message from your female interest in this tale that is stationed onboard.  All fairly typical so far and just to put the icing on the generic cake your small ship takes an unexplained ‘knock’ en-route to docking with the Ishimura.  The resulting impact causes a rather unsurprising crash-landing into the stricken mining ship docking bay.  From this point on there is little time before the first casualties occur to your colleagues whilst performing a mundane damage report.  It all takes place with claxons sounding and red flashing emergency lights to quickly spike the horror level with the initial ‘OMG what’s happening’ reaction.  You have no choice but to run for your life and as a result detach from your crewmates.

Now on your own, the stage has been set for your desperate struggle to survive against impossibly horrible ex-human abominations, which have no other purpose than to eat your face.  Of course nothing is as simple as just jumping on an escape shuttle and getting the hell out of there, numerous obstacles stand in your path, not least a 1000 horrors with a taste for your internal organs.  As it transpires two of your crewmates have survived the initial attack and throughout the game will inform you of new and urgent tasks that must be undertaken to ensure your immediate survival.  Initially the Ishimura’s engines are offline and the Planet Cracker’s orbit is decaying, which will result in an imminent planet fall so giving you your first mission to save your bacon.  Further exploration reveals a little more information about the ‘Necromorph’ infestation on the Ishimura, the fate of the crew and further confusing communication regarding your lost love interest.

So in typical disaster movie with a horror twist your objectives to give you a chance of survival are set out before you.  The missions are typically fed to you via a video link to your surviving crewmates, the action doesn’t pause and take you to a separate screen, it is beamed in front of your third person view as a cool virtual screen.  You can continue to traverse the claustrophobic corridors with this genuinely impressive interface playing in front of you, viewable from 360 degrees.  Similarly your inventory, map and current objectives are accessed through the same revolutionary method. 

The action itself is no Gears of War, you are not a near indestructible marine, you are an unsuspecting engineer thrust into a very unfamiliar situation.  This means that you don’t start the game prepared with ‘uber-alien-smasher’ gun, instead you have a screwdriver.  Fortunately you soon come across a humble mining tool in the form of a plasma cutter, this projects a thin, wide beam of energy that can be rotated through 90 degrees of movement.  You are also given some fairly obvious hints that you should cut the monsters limbs off to really hurt them rather than the traditional head or body shot.  Sure enough you soon get the opportunity to put the newfound weapon and knowledge into practice.  What superb fun it is to lop off a charging ugly’s legs off, watch it scrabble menacingly towards you with extended spiky arms, only for you to give those a good pruning too.  The method of despatching the bad guys in this game has been labelled by the EA developers ‘tactical dismemberment’.  This term is well and truly justified by the innovative mechanic that expands upon the simple ‘just shoot them’ tactic. 

Of course all of this limb removal sounds rather gory and indeed it is, Dead Space doesn’t do subtle and a severed appendage equals spurting blood.  Certainly this game is not one for the kids and the18 certification is well and truly deserved in this case.  The blood and gore moments are numerous within Dead Space and were it not for the tension building moments would soon become irrelevant and forgettable.  However the atmosphere created by the graphics and sound in this game is really sublime, moving shadows and unexpected ambient sounds really set you on edge.  Sure, nothing new in terms of the tension building execution but what Dead Space borrows from horror films is expertly recreated here.  Protracted portions of exploration without hostile contact are kept alive with mauled bodies dropping through ceilings in front of you, eerie quietness or hauntingly close alien wails.

Parts of the game require you to enter parts of the ship that for one reason or another have become devoid of gravity or are even open to space itself with no air.  These sections really serve to act as a reminder that you are literally floating in claustrophobic, isolated catacombs with no quick escape.  There is often a degree of problem solving often involved with the zero-G areas but none are particularly taxing on the old grey matter.  This is one area in particular that I feel that Dead Space could have really made a better effort to distinguish itself from the competition but nonetheless still a fun and worthwhile addition.

As you progress through the game you unlock or can buy additional weapons from stores positioned around the levels as well as upgrades for your protective engineer suit known as a ‘rig’.  Once again a fairly standard affair and doesn’t offer anything any more inspiring than the initial plasma-cutter weapon.  This is not to say the weapons are bad, just that there is nothing much new added to the early tactical dismemberment revelation.

So that pretty much sums up the main elements of Dead Space but what I will re-stress here is the atmosphere that is created.  Now part of this is due to the fact that I have played this game mainly when it is late at night, the lights turned off and the surround sound turned up.  Should you be playing this game on a portable TV in broad daylight then undoubtedly the experience will not be the same.  But should you plump for this game then I urge you to do it justice and play this game the way it was intended and you will not disappointed.  For fans of sci-fi horror such as me this is a must-buy, for all others I really urge you to try this game at least, it may just change your mind on what the genre has to offer.           

  Acksaw’s rating: 9/10

Live Spaces?  Blogs?  Facebooks?.................  Don't understand them!!!

From what I've seen of typical entries that fall into the above categories it mostly involves textual ramblings about life, relationships and pets.  If you have come here to find gossip that falls within those boundaries then I apologise.  I do day to day stuff all day, every day and generally it is too unexciting to write about…….  So I won’t!!

  What I am here to do is give you hopefully an interesting, amusing and sometimes informative observation of one of my favourite hobbies: video gaming.  “Agghhhhh!  Geek!”  I hear you scream and indeed you maybe right in your personal judgement, however my virtual world is fun, engaging, atmospheric and at times more exciting than planet Earth.  Carry out some filing, fill in your tax return, put the bins out, do the dishes or save the entire universe from invading aliens?  Which is more exciting?  Hence the reason I have chosen to witter on about a pastime that is perceived by some as the source of evil within all youngsters rather than politics.  Prove to me that the subject of politics is less evil than games and I’ll go away but you’ll need strong proof and a well constructed argument to frighten me away from space invaders!