From The Morg is no stranger to the odd game review medley, but I've decided that if I feel the need to review a game, I'll do it separately from my column now. With the old regular reviewer gone, it all works out. Enjoy!

From the Morg 2004 Archive
From the Morg - 2005!!

Resident Evil 4

(GameCube exclusive)

I'll come right out with it - I hated all the other Resident Evil games. I tried to play them, tried to like them, but it really seemed like Capcom were trying to stop me from enjoying the series. Terrible camera, combat controls, movement, inane puzzles, cheesy and pathetic voice acting…

No More! Resident Evil 4 takes all the garbage from the previous games and throws it out the window, ushering in a new golden age. The camera follows you closely now, giving you the personal touch of First-Person perspective, and the cinematic quality of Third-Person. All your guns have laser sights, you can freely aim anywhere within human limits, and enemies will react very differently depending on where they get hit. There are far less puzzles to slow you down, and the ones that are there make good sense.

The biggest change is in the pacing - there are no zombies in RE4! You have to fight many enemies at once most of the time, they're smart, fast and can use a variety of weapons. Good thing you're also not nearly as limited in ammo. Still, when facing off against a nigh-invincible crazed Spanish villager wielding a chainsaw while his buddies throw hatchets at you, you might find yourself wishing for the shuffling undead. Or an extra box of Shotgun shells.

The graphics are superb, the story is suitably creepy, and playing in surround sound will freak the bejeezus out of you. There is a PS2 version set to be released at the end of the year, but it will be a severe downgrade in quality due to hardware restrictions.

TimeSplitters: Future Perfect

(PS2, GameCube, Xbox)

While Halo and Half-Life hog the spotlight of the FPS genre, it's hard to notice the truly outstanding game as far as gameplay and fun are concerned. Most people won't have played TimeSplitters 1 or 2, but you're probably familiar with Free Radical's other work - Goldeneye and Perfect Dark on the N64.

TS:FP doesn't take itself seriously when it comes to story and the stacks of parodies which lie within, and it's refreshing in that respect. Also new is 'wormhole' gameplay - with all the time stream instabilities, you end up playing some of the same scenes twice. For example, you (Sgt. Cortez) are in a haunted mansion and suddenly a ghost appears behind you, and is zapped. You look to where the shot came from - it's Cortez, from the near future. You team up with yourself and take out the zombies while future-Cortez handles the ghosts. Later on you find the gun that deals with ghosts, and walk through a wormhole - roles now switch and you blast the ghosts while past-Cortez fends off the zombies. It's fresh, and very funny watching Cortez get used to the idea.

Of course, multiplayer is where it's at, and no one does it better than TimeSplitters. Online play, system link, 4 player plus bots on one console, even Story mode has a 2p co-op option. Plenty of fun modes from Virus to Thief, and what other game has an in-built mapmaker? You'll be hard pressed to find a console FPS that's truly better than this.

The Punisher

(PC, PS2, Xbox)

As big a Marvel fan as I am, I've only ever read one Punisher comic. I did very much enjoy the movie adaptation, and along with it came a solid soundtrack. I played the demo of the game, and it wasn't as promising as chats with the development team had indicated, so it took the offer of a free Tshirt to get me to make the purchase. There's not much cooler than The Punisher's simple skull design.

On to the game itself though, it's great fun. Imagine Max Payne, but take out the Bullet-Time and all the film noir metaphors, then add in a stack of new options for how to handle any given situation, and you have The Punisher. The biggest innovation has to be interrogations. Instead of just shooting a crook, you have the option of making him squeal in various circumstances. I really don't know how graphic I can be here, so I'll leave it at the fact that for some of the special interrogations, THQ have implemented a black and white filter to tone the bloodshed down a notch. The game carries on it an R18 label, which means kids - stay away.

Ol' Frank Castle is a craft guy, using pretty much anything in the area to his disposal for cover, shielding, traps or offence. If/when you get good at it, you can pull off some seriously impressive stunts in succession and get yourself a nice combo bonus which you can use to upgrade weapons and armour. The style of the characters and storyline are based around the comic and not the movie which explains why it's released almost a year later, but Tom Jane does an excellent job of providing the voice over for the title role. Hire it out, see if you like it. I sure do.

The Sims 2: University expansion

(PC)

The concept of The Sims is simple - it's a life simulator. Why on earth would you want to play a game that emulates life when you have one of your own? It's surprisingly addictive, and of course you don't have to live your Sim's life identically to your own. The Sims 2 took a huge leap forward from the original introducing genetics, aspirations, and a whole ton of smaller things that made the game so much closer to reality. With the University expansion, guess what you can do now, go on… guess!

Okay, so it's not all that hard to guess - you get to take your Sims off to College and partake in all that goes on there. Choose a major, go to classes, write your term paper, get scholarships and grants based on your success. Live in a dorm, fraternity or sorority, or get a place all of your own if you've got the Simoleans. Hang out at coffee houses, on campus, at malls. Meet new people, throw big parties, play in a band… it's all there waiting to be done. Also new is the Influence meter - by gaining popularity amongst the community, you are then able to convince people to do things for you. Personally, at my dorm there was a fire which left a lot of ash around. So I influenced another resident to clean it up - but he didn't stop there, continuing on to pick up dishes and make everyone's beds!

If you have The Sims 2, this is a good expansion. If you don't have The Sims 2, I suggest you get it (provided your PC is up to the task).

The COntroversy - Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas

I feel it’s my duty to say something whenever Videogames, my favourite passtime hits the headlines. It comes as no surprise to me that Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is the videogame in question once again. Every time lobby groups complain about a game, it’s clearly evident that hey have never played it themselves. Fair enough they don’t want to participate in something they believe to be horrific, and influence them to kill cops. But two facts are being completely overshot: despite the overall violent nature of the game, there is absolutely no rape. All acts of a sexual nature are consentual. The second fact, is that the “Hot Coffee” section is only accessible through hacking of the code. It’s not just ‘beat this level to get a graphic sex scene’. Playing the game normally, the scene merely shows the outside of the house while suggestive noises play.

Personally, I don’t even like the GTA series all that much. Glitchy gameplay, lackluster graphics, extremely low frame rate… Plus with San Andreas, I can only process ‘Ebonics’ so fast – to figure out what’s going on I had to repeat the cutscenes a few times. There are some fun things though in unlocking cheat codes – hovering a tank along the river and shooting down helicopters. The funniest thing about GTA: SA is that while your character has all new swimming abilities, no one else does. So if the cops are after you, you can jump in the water to evade them – they jump in after you, and drown. It’s things like this that keep the game so far away from reality that you’d have to be intensely distrubed in the first place for it to ‘push you over the edge’ and have you committing crimes in reality.

The game is not the first adult themed product, nor will it be the last. Mortal Kombat has always carried a mature rating, and I’ve been playing the series since I was 11. I’m not about to throw a harpoon at someone and yell “Get Over Here!” then set them on fire. Parents who buy restricted games for their kids do need to do proper research into what the games are like. Without proper knowledge, buying a minor an R18 game can be equivalent to buying them an R18 horror, action or adult film.

Banning GTA is a pathetic notion, and would only show parental weakness to decide how their children are raised. The bottom line is, while biased research claims violent video games cause crime, if you actually compare the number of criminals with the number of people who play these games, you’ll find no correlation. I’d love to know the definitive percentage of people in jail for violent crime that were directly influenced by video games. I don’t think it would even be a whole number.