Back And Braced To Endure

Ladies and gentlemen...

• Red Dead Redemption is one of the best games I've ever played Red Dead Redemption - This is the big one, and the game that took up pretty much the entirety of June for me. Having been stoked for Red Dead Redemption for over a year, it was an almost surreal experience picking up my copy shortly after my end of year exams at the beginning of June. I went into it expecting a Rockstar game, and in a lot of respects that's exactly what I got. Red Dead Redemption is very much a game cast in the Grand Theft Auto mould - the living, breathing open world, the mission-based gameplay, the refined balance between exploration and combat, the host of side-quests and mini-games on offer. It could have settled at that and I would have been happy. Where Red Dead Redemption really went above and beyond what I was expecting was in its storytelling. Going into the game, I was expecting the Rockstar standard - mature themes, glossed over with a thick coat of irony and self-deprecation. Completely in contrast to this, Red Dead Redemption offered probably the darkest, most serious storyline of any Rockstar game. There's no self-aware humour to be found in this stark gameworld. Take bestiality, a subject Rockstar have previously used to humorous effect in the shape of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City's 'Mr. Zoo'. In Red Dead Redemption, when it becomes apparent that one of the quest-givers is sexually involved with horses, it's not funny. Quite the opposite, actually. Such is the case with the entire story and world of Red Dead Redemption, and I think the game is a hell of a lot stronger for it as a result. John Marston is also an incredible protagonist, easy to relate to and very likeable. It's this tie to Marston, and the additional impact of the story because of it, that really pushed Red Dead Redemption into the top tier for me. To sum it up in a sentence, it's the first game since Spyro: Year of the Dragon that I've stuck with all the way to 100% completion. It's the best game that any Rockstar studio have ever put out, with a phenomenal gameworld, a compelling narrative, and superb gameplay that ties the whole experience together. Anybody who plays games for their stories needs to experience this game. Nothing more needs to be said.

• Size Matters is Ratchet & Clank, but it's got some issues Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters - I'm not sure what the impetus was behind me purchasing this. Shortly before I did, my girlfriend picked up the original Ratchet & Clank and spent a few hours with it. Being reminded of how perfectly designed those games are, I decided to pick one up and play it. Despite being in possession of Ratchet: Deadlocked for five years now and having never played it, I instead opted to shell out fresh cash on this PSP instalment in the franchise, tentatively subtitled Size Matters. First impressions were good - given the limitations of the PSP's controls, the series' trademark gameplay transfers to the handheld really well. It looks great (provided it's not submitted to too much scrunity), and offers a surprisingly wide number of gameplay options - alongside the traditional combat-platforming, there are hoverboarding mini-games, Robot Wars-style arena fights, and on-rails space-shooter segments. I say 'surprisingly', because that brings me to Size Matters' biggest flaw - its length. Running through the campaign from beginning to end, exhausting all the mini-games, Size Matters took me just over six hours to complete. There are also a few things that just feel "off" when compared to the console games - the way Ratchet slams his wrench, the way the hover mechanic works, just to name a couple. On the whole, though, Size Matters is an entertaining enough foray into the Ratchet & Clank universe that's well worth looking into, provided you can do so inexpensively.

• It's easy to see why A LInk to the Past is held in such high regard The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past - A Link to the Past is one of those games that I'd always meant to play, and bought with the intention of playing, but never got around to actually playing it. I bought the GameBoy Advance version of A Link to the Past a couple of years ago. I played through the first few dungeons and was really liking what I'd played so far, when my GBA saw fit to die on me. When my DS was stolen shortly after, I was left with no way to continue my adventures in Hyrule, and so the cartridge fell by the wayside. Fast-forward to 2010, when A Link to the Past became the first game to grace my newly-purchased GameBoy Player add-on for the GameCube. I devoted a two-week period in mid-July to A Link to the Past, slowly battling my way through the game's dungeons and enveloping myself in the beautiful 2D gameworld. It's a perfectly constructed, expertly-paced adventure that still looks artistically great even today. If I had to make one complaint, it would be that the boss fights towards the end of the game became a little stale and samey, but the final battle more than made up for that. Upon reaching the end of the game and seeing the credits roll, I can certainly understand why A Link to the Past is so revered, even today. It's a piece of game design that has definitely stood the test of time, and remains compelling to play even in the 3D, high-definition world of modern gaming.

Enduring Final Fantasy VII is resuming this week