Fallout 4: Love Shack, Baby

As anyone who isn't living in a real nuclear wasteland knows, the mighty Fallout 4 was unleashed yesterday, sent to run riot in the wild like a ghoul strung on Jet. To non gamers this news was a mere passing trend on social media, but in the gaming world it landed on shelves like...well like a mini nuclear blast of its own and if you happen to be a fan of Bethesda's games you are no doubt still feeling the aftershock.
Its been a while since I splurged on a special edition but that Pip Boy edition was always going to be mine and I had it on preorder for months. Aye, its nothing more than plastic tat that will gather dust on a shelf but who cares right? Right? Only live once and all that jazz.
Now anyone who has played an Elder Scroll or Fallout game (especially on consoles) are well aware that as far as bugs and glitches go, Bethesda titles have been plagued by them In fact I replayed Fallout 3 to fuel the hype and the game still freezes so when I slid the disc into the PS4 last night, I didn't have the usual excitement big releases usually bring (which is kinda sad because being gamers the hype is part of the ritual.)
So imagine my surprise when two hours into Fallout 4, digging through the ruins of Boston, I had no issues. None. Nada. In fact it felt the complete opposite and played smooth as mammoth cheese (oops, wrong game that's Skyrim.)

FF 3 days

I don't want to be 'that guy' or anything, but still no bugs and I play a good few hours of an evening. Sure ive read about floating shacks and companions getting stuck or lost but Fallout 4 has been buttery smooth whenever I boot up (PS4).

Teh Nerdgasm

Face it, Fallout 4 is harder than FO3 and New Vegas and if you are going to stay alive then you'll be needing skills/perks. Here's what ive been topping up as priority skills.

Become Shadow

Like I said, this game is harder than previous games and early on your rookie ass would be better off avoiding Fallout's happy campers like raiders, Super Mutants, Ghouls, Mirelurks and and... look just everything okay. Invest in some sneak skills, your pretty ass will thank you for it believe me.

Gun Nut

There are times when stealth just doesn't cut it and your club footed guy/gal WILL kick off a floor trap or worse a landmine. So either be ready with a stockpile of stimpacks and chems, or learn to shoot. Fast.

Physician Heal Thyself

Some gamers think firearm skills more important than medicine but the wise man knows better. Nobody is getting help if you have more holes than Swiss cheese, so lap up those medic skills.


So, Any Downers ?

Sure! Fallout 4 is not the perfect game we all hoped it would be. Granted everyones opinions differ but for me? The inventory system can be very fiddly, especially when facing a crew of psycho raider scum. If you aren't ready then prepare thy doom (its worth noting Fallout 4 is harder than previous games too). Then there is the map. It feels smaller than Fallout 3 despite wandering the wilds and discovering loads of new settlements. I just don't get the same wow! This game is huge feeling. Of course this might be down to 'sandbox fatigue', play enough open world games and they all shrink due to not being fazed any more.
Settlers camps>. When I first saw Preston Garvey (current leader of the Minutemen) I thought he'd be a badass like Isran from Dawnguard, the Skyrim DLC. He's not. Indeed from the moment you set him and his chums up at Sanctuary, he begins to irritate. All settlers do. Bunch of whiny, demanding yoghurt knitters looking to me to help them survive. If they helped, I wouldn't care but the basttards leave everything to me. If the game allowed it, I would have killed them all long ago.

Anyway, im heading back to the wilds of Boston and kill more sh!t. Lock and load.


Fallout Onesie? I'll Take Two

Hotline Miami

Strange In This Town


Games like Hotline Miami fill my 8-bit heart with warm, fuzzy joy because while we love to soak up the stunning vistas of titles like Far Cry 4 and The Witcher 3, we can also appreciate 'niche' titles like the surreal Hotline Miami (Dennaton Games).
Contrary to younger gamers (mistaken) belief that near photo perfect graphics is the main draw for Playstation 4, we retroheads who grew up in the 1980s with games like Manic Miner know different.
Here's a secret kids; gameplay is king. And it always will be. Developers can create the biggest, most detailed map ever seen but it will be for naught if there's no game to hold your interest. Grand Theft Auto V is a good example for me. Los Angeles has never looked better in a videogame thanks to GTA V but after completing the main campaign, I felt no urgent need to explore the map (no matter how cool being in that submarine was).
Anyway before this goes completely off track, lets go back to Miami. This game is Ace. 10/10 all the bells n' whistles ace. Yes its extremely violent (even for todays standards) and as tough as coffin nails (prepare to die LOTS) but the age old One-More-Go factor of Hotline Miami is like gaming crack cocaine.
If you haven't played them yet (there is a sequel) and are old enough to remember the original Grand Theft Auto on PlayStation 1 with its top down view, you will be on familiar ground. This also serves to help sugar coat the rampant violence because due to the birds eye view it never feels truly shocking. What won't be familiar (to newer gamers) is the unforgiving nature of Hotline Miami and its one hit kills because like retro classics of old, if you make the slightest mistake, be prepared to pay with your life. Fortunately the auto save will bring you back to where you died so the only frustration will be to the players monkey fingers.

It says a lot that for such a retro heavy looking game available on Playstation 4 when most people are doing cartwheels over Bloodborne (and obviously there is room for both), the only groan you could have is for the price. £10 each is a tad steep, and perhaps had Dennaton Games hung a £7 tag on it, it might have persuaded gamers who are still undecided to take the plunge. I'll be honest though, its still a very minor complaint when Hotline Miami is so darned FUN.


An easy 10/10 for me.

Mario, get Yer Guns

What are the odds I will go off subject in this post? Still, I will try.  After reading yet another article calling yet another videogame a "burglary sim", I had to put pen to blog.  Why? Because its lazy journalism, sloppy and winds me up. Hell, the same could be thrown at television but for some peculiar reason we don't do that.
I don't watch television but from the clips I've seen on the interwebz and things I hear on forums, nothings changed from when I did used to watch it. Scheming, plots, adultery, revenge, murder, and bloodshed. Its all there, played out by glamorous women and guys with chiselled physiques. Gotta look your best when you're knee deep in sin right?
And so it goes that videogames have followed that same path. Those age restrictions on the box aren't there to make the case look pretty, videogames have matured and its illegal for soft parents to give in ("for ten minutes peace") and buy wee Jimmy a shooter with a bloody big red 18 stamped on the box. Is that ten minutes peace really worth a hefty fine? Dont think it doesn't happen because it does (more often than you'd care to think).
So we have a burglary sim now do we? What about Grand Theft Auto? Armed robbery sim? Dishonored? A murder sim?
These are games fer Crissakes, but the way some journalists describe them make them sound like guides on how to raise hell for real. One of my current favourite videogames is Thief, a game where, yep you guessed it, you skulk around an 18th century London inspired city, pilfering gold watches and clubbing hapless city guards over the noggin. But I don't play the game to train as a cat burglar, anymore than a fan of 24 watches the show in hope of becoming a CIA agent (or whatever the heck Kiefer Sutherland is meant to be).
And what frustrates me more is that I read this on a gaming website not the Daily Mail  (where one expects such petty sniping). Honestly, videogames have become a massive business in these last few years and deal with mature subjects. Can't we be at least as responsible when writing about them?

Blue Estate

If you've ever played an on-rails shooter like Time Crisis and House of the Dead, you will know exactly what to expect from Blue Estate. Just don't expect any of the class and genius of the former two. I picked it up on the back of enjoying the demo but quite frankly the £9.99 price tag, is too steep. Sure a tenner won't get you much in the way of entertainment these days but I'm betting  if developer HeSaw slapped a £4.99 tag on the game, it would have had it shooting off the (virtual) shelves.
You play the son of Los Angeles crime boss, Tony Luciano  who is a thug with penchant for gold 9mm pistols and pole dancers. But its never taken seriously and gags aplenty spill from Tony's mouth (especially when his hair gets into his eyes during a gunfight). I kinda like this because far too many games these days take themselves much too seriously.
One of the first things which drew me in was the design. Its very stylish and the art is a joy to behold (you feel bad for shooting the sh!t out of it). And the lunatic characters in Blue Estate mad world only add to the  'lushness' of it all. Be warned, enemies can be frustrating as hell,  owing to ridiculously lengthy health bars. Okay players get a good a dose of continues (8 in some cases) but doesn't stop it becoming repetitive which can plague on-rails shooters. To sum up then, £10 is a tad on the high side for such a short game but the fact it often takes the pizz out of itself I don't feel so peeved.
Its not as dire as other gaming sites would have you believe mind, and its important to remember this. If you are looking for a quick ten minute blast of video gaming fun (for fun see guns and violence)  then Blue Estate will deliver in spades (or should that be Uzi's?)  Its not the type you'd pull an all nighter on but get a get few mates around with some beers and you could get some thrills out of it.

GunPlay: Boys @ Work

Not so long ago, in the drunk and not so distant (but very distorted) past, I used to hate FPS (first person shooter) videogames. Well maybe 'hate' is a tad strong word but certainly I was no big fan of the genre. Oddly enough (seeing as the player is playing as if they were 'in the boots' of the hero/villain), that perspective didn't work for me. I always felt out of the action if you get my drift? For me it was third person action games like Metal Gear Solid and Resident Evil that roped me in.
I felt much more attached to a character who I could see/control in front of me than something like Call of Duty or Killzone where all you ever saw was the barrel of a gun and if you were lucky, a pair of dodgy looking feet. Far from looking realistic, it was like a ghostly gun floating around, mopping up the bad guys. I played them of course, who didn't love those early Medal of Honour games on PS1? But as good as they were, my heart was always looking for the next Tomb Raider and more badass third action shenanegans.
Then something *cue sinister music* changed, ooh around halfway through the Playstation 3 life cycle. I started picking up more and more FPS games and so began a new found appreciation of the genre. And it wasn't the big hitters that turned me on either. Nope, the first person shooters which had me waving the boomstick were titles that didn't set the charts on fire; Resistance, Dead Island, Duke Nukem Forever and Bioshock. (Okay Bioshock was a pretty huge deal but the others weren't exactly dripping with awesome).

Anyway enough waffle, there have been some ace shooters released these last few years. And here are my gaming gold FPS. If you are a fan of videogames and guns, all titles below should be on your shelf.

1. Dishonored

Corvo Attano is a legendary assassin who sports a very cool metal skull type mask. He looks seriously badass, especially when combined with powers such as bending time and the ability to summon a freaking plague or rats to devour his hapless victims to the bone. The guy is a killing machine, pure and simple. Now some games have great ideas but fall short on being average to play. Dishonored is not average. Its a 10/10 Must Play before you die.

2. Bioshock Infinite

Now the underwater city of Rapture with its 1950s theme made the first Bioshock stand way above other shooters of its time, and im pleased to report that Columbia (this time a city in the clouds) is just as good. Probably more so due to being able to use sky hooks to deal deth from above. Its a genuinely great story too with not one but two fantastic baddies to battle; a motorised patriot George Washington, and the sinister Songbird.

3. Thief

Looks bloody fantastic on Playstation 4, and a looters dream with an abundance of trinkets to find/steal. Its quite a thrill lurking in the shadows of houses of olde worlde London (or the City as its called here). Thief is only let down by having one of the most boring stories ive seen in a while in a videogame, and you don't much care for the characters either (or was that just me?)

4. Outlast

I dare you to play this game late at night with the lights out. Its creepy and disturbing, and when you are armed with only the light from a camcorder (no weapons here sorry) Outlast leaves you at the mercy of crazed asylum inmates who roam the dark corridors and basements, leaving you feel extremely exposed to murderous attacks. Its f**king terrifying and anyone who says otherwise is puling yer plonker.

5. Far Cry 3

I hated Far Cry 2. Absolutely loathed it in fact, so was happy when UbiSoft hit it out the park for the third outing. F**k me, you can even fight sharks and crocodiles and turn them into wallets! Oh and use hand gliders from the highest parts of the map. And the map? Its massive, filled to the brim with coo stuffs to discover.

Uncle Salty Crabs

So the Hong Kong crime caper, Sleeping Dogs, is coming to Playstation4? Well you know what? Amidst all the negative nancies complaining about there being too many remakes emerging for current gen consoles, I for one am pretty excited about this one. It plays like movie classic Hard Boiled with you as a karate  kicking cop yer Crissakes! What's not to love? GTA Japan anyone?
Actually (and this is only my opinion of course), but Sleeping Dogs is better than that. "Better than Grand Theft Auto?" You ask. "What could be a better sandbox game than GTA?" Well the setting for one. My personal love for Japan aside, Hong Kong is the perfect backdrop having plenty of 'flavour' from the East to make it exotic while still having a fair dose of Western culture to keep it familiar. Sure you'll hear Japanese music on the radio (beautiful it is too), but flick a few channels and you can hear everything from Mozart to Black Stone Cherry.
There's nothing ground breaking about Sleeping Dogs but what it does, it does well and is a welcome break from creating mayhem in California. Comparisons with GTA are inevitable and while vehicles are lacking, (petrol heads will be disappointed),  it makes up for in other, some would say cooler ways. Side missions and things to do when not killing folk for example. In Grand Theft Auto the player can relax with a round of golf or do yoga (yes YOGA). Reports of a knitting circle are unconfirmed.
Sleeping Dogs has much more suitable past times for a career criminal however. Maj jong poker on a private ship. Kung fu brawls that would make Bruce Lee happy. Oh and cock fighting. Controversial perhaps but no real roosters were harmed during the making of this game. It all fits so well.
I've played some great videogames recently, including the mighty BioShock Infinite (easily in my gaming top 10), but Sleeping Dogs is the one that revved my thrill clock to the limit. I had a f**king blast on it, so much so that I will be visiting Hong Kong again pretty sharpish. And the fact it reminds me of classic Shenmue is bonus.
I'm not saying the game is a stellar 10\10 gold, and it does have some (minor) niggles but nothing that ever comes close to spoiling a wonderful experience. Every gamer should play Sleeping Dogs, and I'm in raptures over the fact it is being rebooted for PS4.
The only thing I can imagine some being upset about is the map. Its fairly small when compared to say Red Dead Redemption but then again, that can be a blessing too. After all who wants a huge map filled with nothing to do?  This is just me of course but after completing the missions in GTAV, I wasn't in a hurry to get back to Los Santos. Like I said, yoga isn't exactly laugh a minute (no offence to yoga loving hipsters reading).  But the whole Hong Kong city vibes hooked me in proper and I loved just wandering the markets listening to food vendors (the pork bun man is legendary) sell their wares, and seeing dodgy DVD sellers tell you they have the latest movies.
A big mention is the hand to hand combat which makes fighting in other open world games feel boring. It does a good job of making you feel like a martial arts master and even getting surrounded by 10 thugs you never feel too worried (in fact the more the merrier).
To cap it all off, Sleeping Dogs is like being in 80s movies American Ninja and Remo Unarmed and Dangerous. And for a guy growing up back in those neon tinged glory days when Commodore and Spectrum ruled the games world, this is indeed good news. (There's also a cool retro DLC pack).
So a reboot for PlayStation 4 is very welcome news for this gamer. I have a feeling these current gen consoles are just what the game needs because machines have the 'oomph' to bring Hong Kong truly alive. Whisper it, but I reckon it could do better than the GTAV reboot. You read it here first.

Brat's Top 2013 Movies

Number 1: Yeah!

We had a lot of decent movies in dear old (or 'rotten old' depending on your year) 2013 and guess what? Yup that's right boyo, Brat News saw them all. We don't take entertainment lightly here you know. And things like this demand a list! So here is (in my humble opinion of course) the best of the Hollywood bunch, including those where I expected aceness but instead were lamest.


1. Dallas Buyers Club (A modern masterpiece)

2. Prisoners (Ace film, Ace)

3. Captain Phillips (Brilliant, tense cinema)

4. Killing Season/Machete Kills (Being cheeky with joint positions but hey, my list)

5. Rush (F1 Ace)



Close but no cigar ~

The Butler (Ooh suits you sir!)

Life of Pi (Surprise hit for this Brat)

2 Guns (Bang bang hot to trot)

Pain & Gain (What can I say? I love Wahlberg)

Would You Rather (Oh yes! Some fine horrortastic dares)


And here belongs the "I Iz Disappoint" movies ~

The Wolverine (Aww Hugh, you were doing so well with Prisoners)

The Sweeney (Utter shyte, Thaw spinning in grave)

Iron Man 3 (Needing WD40 methinks)

World War Z (Arm Pitt ruins an epic comic yarn)

Rambo Trilogy Game Trailer

Bring on the explosive bows!

Yo 1980s action movie fans, here's something to tickle yer guns! Bad ass Green Beret, John J. Rambo is coming to a current gen console near you next year (Jan 17th) thanks to British publisher Reef Entertainment. And despite all the naysayers predicting the game to be a sloppy and average affair, I personally think its going to be a blast. Admittedly im a Rambo fanboy who regularly cracks open one of the movies (even Rambo III) to accompany my Saturday night drinks, so I will be easier to please, but come on! Watch the video trailer avbove, even grumpy old Col. Trautman would think this game looks decent.

Craig Lewis, commercial director at Reef said: "We have big ambitions for Reef and the Rambo IP is the first step in establishing us as a worldwide player. Rambo will be a triple-A title on PS3, Xbox 360 and PC and will capture the gritty atmosphere and full-on action which made the Rambo movies so successful."

Let us hope so mate, I am positively drooling at the thought of being to able to play through the meatier bits of the Rambo trilogy, while guzzling a few (too many) brewskies. Hunting cops through dense forest? Raining down those explosive arrows on hapless soldiers in Vietnam? Pass the bandana and elephant sized survival knife, let's do this!

Expendables 3: Good News

Lurch is gone

Expendables 3 just got better now that its been revealed that Nic 'Crappy' Cage is OUT of the movie. Thank f**k for that, im not a huge fan of these movies, in my opinion they could have been so much better, but having lantern headed Cage in it would have killed it stone dead before it hit the track for me. Suffice to say, I am most definitely NOT a fan of Cage. "Leaving Las Vegas" was okay but I enjoyed that because of the subject it dealt with (alcoholism) rather than crumple chops' performance in the film. And Elizabeth Shue's spectacular ass of course.
Everything else this lump has ever done (and I must admit, ive not seen much of his work as he makes my skin crawl) is very meh. Average at best. And I can never forgive him for ruining Ghost Rider, one of my favourite comic book characters of all time. Con Air had a wonderful idea behind it until Cage appeared looking like the love child of Worzel Gummidge and Lurch from The Addams Family. Hearthrob he is NOT, good actor even less. Also these Expendables movies are all about 80s action legends for me (with some exceptions like Jason Statham) and the Gummidge/Lurch hybrid is not welcome. So when I read the news earlier that Expendables 3 would be knickerless (Nic-er-less geddit?) I was one happy motherf**ker.

Fuming Rose

Axl Rose is fuming. He had £200,000 worth of jewelry nicked at a private party after a show in Paris. Maybe this will teach you not to ponce around in jewelry lad, thats a womans game. Women look sexy in expensive trinkets, blokes just look sissyish.
Oh well whatever, hope the Ginger One gets his stuff back. And here's Guns n' Roses when they were hungry, dangerous and f**king classic!