Review: Metal Gear Solid HD Collection

My first experience of the Metal Gear Solid series was back in 1999 when the PlayStation 1 game was released and was so excited about it with all of the great reviews and the fact that it seemed like a big game spanning over 3 discs and did not have a great game to play since Final Fantasy 7.

What struck me about the game the more I had played it was the brilliant voice acting and how much the Hideo Kojima made the story evoke our emotions and get us to cry at the death of some of the characters and the whole aspect of Solid Snake being a clone and having a brother called Liquid Snake a battle of good vs evil if you will. I would almost guarantee that most people would cry at the ending and the fantastic music score.

Since the first game on the PlayStation there have been sequels and three of them make up this High Definition version. Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, Metal Gear 3: Snake Eater and Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker all for around the £25 mark and well worth it too! Konami have even included the MSX versions of Metal Gear 1 and 2 in the Metal Gear 3 game. The collection does not include the PlayStation 1 Metal Gear and nor does it contain the Metal Gear Solid 4 but those games are worth buying on their own and I would imagine that it would take forever and a day to upgrade the PlayStation 1 version due to the very outdated graphics.

Graphically you would not have expected the games to have aged well since the PlayStation 2 or even the PSP but in fact they have been vastly improved and in Metal Gear Solid 3 you would not know that it was on an older console. The boss battles and the FMV cut scenes are just fantastic to watch and the final battle of the game with the flowers just make the HD collection a must buy for that alone.

The Metal Gear Solid HD Collection includes Trophies and Achievements and are worthy of multiple playthroughs and are progressive so no camping and reloading saves after deaths as you would not be able to unlock. They also encourage watching the cut scenes as pressing the R1 or RB button at certain moments nets you rewards. Cut scenes have been a staple to the Metal Gear Solid series for quite a long time now and can last for up to half an hour and depending on your concentration level you could end up just skipping them and missing the story behind the gameplay and that is a shame but compared to Metal Gear Solid 4′s cut scenes the HD collection is not as bad as you might think.

Review: WWE All Stars

For me wrestling games have lost the impact they once had on me since the early WWE Smackdown vs Raw series and stopped buying them from 2008 as I felt that they were all the same and lacked any substantial new features.

When THQ had released WWE Legends of Wrestlemania it felt like a breath of fresh air and to play as some of the best WWE legends there are to date. Despite how easy the game was to complete they had the right idea in trying something different for a wrestling game. Now we are treated to a new wrestling game called WWE All Stars which is similar to that game and direction except adding some of the current roster to pit them against the legends of the WWE. While some people might be sceptical of another easy wrestling game with no relevance to the current WWE product I can personally say that these people are wrong.

WWE may have changed from whacking chairs over Peoples heads in almost every match, blood and flipping the bird down to a PG style show and hell even not using the “wrestling” term only to use “Entertainer” but the product is now aimed at the younger fan and as such want gamers to also have some fun when playing WWE video games. Even at 25 I have been a long time wrestling fan since the age of 8 and lived through the ups of the Attitude Era down to the stupid storylines recently, being a huge fan of Hulk Hogan back when he was a decent guy and John Cena I wouldn’t think that playing against one another would be any less fun that doing so in one of the early inceptions of Smackdown vs Raw but I am pleasantly surprised as you will see in this review.
One notable point people will notice about the game is the visuals, the wrestlers look more arcadey and have a ‘Top-Heavy’ look about them which is quite comical with what seems like inhuman strength like superman which will engross the younger gamer. When you go to hit someone in a combo move by pressing either X or square in succession often your opponent will leave the mat and be flung into the air of which you can mix in some grapple moves to make it interesting. Gone are the complicated controls of the Smackdown vs Raw series although it does take a short while to get used to them as a newbie and maybe a short introduction video showing how to use the different styles but never the less it does the job.