What I've Been Playing

Well guys, it's been a week since I reviewed WWE All Stars- it's also been about that long since I last played it. However, I have been playing or two other games which I shall either recommend to you now or tell you to stay away from.

Burnout Paradise (PS3)

Still one of my favourite games to date, I've been on it like a car bonnet. For the uninitiated, Burnout Paradise is the latest installment in the Burnout franchise (if you don't count Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit, which is essentially Burnout with a different name), and was released in January 2008. In Paradise, you're in an open world, allowed to roam freely around the fictional Paradise City- a city based off several areas in California, USA.

I'm only seven victories away from getting my 'Class A' license, and I've enjoyed every second of it. There's so much variety in the surroundings and the vehicles (cars and even a few bikes), and DLC which I don't even have yet. From your standard races, to Road Rage events which challenge you to see how many cars you can destroy in a certain time limit, to Stunt Runs and Marked Man- where you have to make it from A to B without being totaled by either cars- to Showtime (formally known as crash mode)- where you have to cause damage worth as much money as possible- Paradise is a blast, and worth playing, whether you like driving games or not.

Sonic Colours (Wii)

Not much to say about this one, having reviewed it on Zombie Outbreak already, other than I completed it on Sonic's 20th birthday, and enjoyed it thoroughly. Sonic Colours has a good balance of fun and challenge throughout the game, with the last boss being a particular git to tackle. Certainly recommend this to platforming fans and especially Sonic fans, even if you are a bit disenchanted with the franchise- because believe me, they get it right in this game.

Spiral Knights (PC)

Ah, now here's an interesting one. Some spare time last weekend saw me browsing through the Steam store and stumble across Spiral Knights, a free-to-play, action-MMORPG developed by Sega which sees you play as one of many cutsie, metal-clad little fellas called Spiral Knights (duh). The aim of the game is essentially to create your Knight and then crawl through dungeons with him, collecting various minerals and trading them in for in-game cash, as well as picking up other loot along the way.

I was thoroughly impressed when I first picked this up, having thought I'd stumbled across a true gem. Being free-to-play was obviously a particular bonus, and it seemed something I could pick up and play every now and then when I want to play a not-too-involved MMORPG. However, the snag comes when you realise how much everything costs in game. There is, most frustratingly, a huge jump in the cost of armor and weaponry at the beginning of the game, seeing as the cheapest anything that you can buy starts at 150 crowns (crowns being the currency), then reasonably up to 300 or so, but then jumps into the thousands.

Considering I crawled a dungeon for ninety minutes straight to get 150 crowns and only be able to afford the armor I essentially already had at the beginning of the game, I thought this was a disgusting ploy. Basically, if you want anything decent in this game without literally spending too much time on it, you need to put real money into it. Two quid got the entirety of my armor and weaponry kitted out with some decent stuff, but if I can simply buy everything I want, then doesn't that defeat the object of the game, when the only object is to GET MORE STUFF?

Huge turn off for me, and I've not played it since. I therefore do not recommend this unless you are truly a fan of mindless, fantasy graft.

Well folks, that's all on my gaming goings-on for this week. Stay tuned for my next post, as well as all of the awesome stuff that the other guys post here at Zombie Outbreak.