Wow my blogs really do suck. I mean, the one before my eternal darkness review pretty much read : "I'm insane! Ignore me!" So I'm apologising for that.

Basically, I'm doing my first blog in two years to just ask if anyone sees this, I just bought an xbox 360 (arcade version, in case you were wondering) and wanted to ask if anyone knows any decent shooters and/or horrors. I've got resident evil 5 and i'm getting the two FEAR games next month. Hopefully Condemned criminal origins will be in my hands shortly. Other than that, any awesome shooters? I prefer horrors but, you know, shooters are fine. xD Thanks for taking the time to read.

This is much easier to read here 'cause the review system doesn't do line breaks.

Second opinion of eternal darkness puts it much higher up my favourite games list than I first imagined it to be. This game is scary. Not oh look that's gross ok carry on scary. Oh My God I just **** myself scary. The first time you enter the bathroom you just have to look in the bath. It's impulse. I nearly had a heart attack.

Perhaps the most notable part of the game are the incredible sanity effects. At a small loss, the room tilts slightly, statue heads follow you, blood drips down the wall, and in the back of your mind you hear the terrified sobs of a woman crying. These noises surround you until you either refill your sanity gauge or die. At half loss, your character may explode if you attempt to restore health without first restoring sanity. At a greater still loss, the game starts to play with you. One of the best ones was when the screen flashed as I went up against a horror and said : available from next year Eternal Darkness 2. I stared for a few seconds, then jumped as it started again. It's hard to tell when your game's messed up or just messing with you.

The visuals, as I said before, are detailed, mostly non-linear, although a few of the backgrounds have been pre-rendered. In particular places you can tell the scenery has been built from scratch, and that in itself makes the game much more realistic. It's fun to explore a room, looking at the portraits on the wall and the evil paintings that create an eerie atmosphere as you try to ignore them. These paintings will be affected by the sanity loss, usually with blood dripping through them or hand marks appearing at the corners. Fires crackle in the grates, although you didn't light them. And as the main character's (Alexandra Roivas) grandfather is dead, it makes you wonder who lit them. Finally, in one particular level, set during WW1, the flashes and bangs light up your screen and actually shake the camera as the controller rumbles in your hand.

There are a variety of characters to play as (about ten i think), and although you begin the game as Alex (a girl by the way), over the course of the game you will control a French Messenger, Anthony, an architect, Roberto, and a couple of Alex's ancestors (Maximillian and Edward (grandfather) Roivas), as well as several others, all who claim the tome of eternal darkness, a book which charters the darker course of the human race and allows you to cast spells, for themselves and succumb to the horrors within it.

On the subject of spells, the game incorporates a runic system, requiring you to collect Runic symbols and their codecs in order to perform twelve different spells. These spells range from shield to magickal attack, to summon creatures. Their are four alignments, Chattur'gha, red, Xel'lotath, green, Uly'aoth, blue, and Mantorok, purple, the strongest attack of them all. You will need to work out which colour defeats which in order to destroy the various bosses that come up against you. Three circles of power are accesible, 3 point, 5 point, and 7 point, and each time you find a new one you have to rediscover your spells in order to use them with that circle. This may sound time-wasting, but it only takes a matter of seconds. There are around fifteen runes to collect, each with its own meaning, so if you're cunning you can discover the spells before you get the scrolls indicating how to use them.

Finally, as the game draws to a close and the credits roll, you are given the choice of starting again. When you first play the game you would have chosen an essence as Pious Augustus, the roman general. The second time round you will have to pick one of the other two, complete the game, and unlock chapter jump. If you complete it a third time...well I won't spoil it. (Note-the three essences red, green, and blue correspond to difficulty. Green is easy, blue is 'hard', and red is 'hero/legend/really difficult/etc). Eternal Darkness is a creepy, scary game, and satisfying to play. It incorporates the use of the runic system well and is a joy to command and complete. Play it and see what the hype is about.

Overall-9.5
Difficulty-Just Right/Hard
Graphics-9
Sound-9
Gameplay-10
Value-9
Tilt-10

Thanks.

Not that anybody cares but, wow I've been off gamespot for a while haven't I? In that time, I bought, played, hated and rated spiderman 3 for the wii, pokemon diamond (yes I am that sad), and watched every single episode of Bleach (135 so far), as well as started watching fullmetal alchemist again (so bloody funny). IF YOU'RE READING THIS... DON'T YOU HAVE ANYTHING BETTER TO DO? Lol.

Have a great summer holiday!

Not really about school but never mind. Just to say I got my Wii the other day finally, with twilight princess and wii sports, obviously. I got red steel the day after and the only glitch i found with it was a slight haywire thingy where the character stared at the ceiling and spun around that happened once every few levels. Other than that, its great. Also, loz is the best game ever ever ever! I love being wolf link and the sword fighting is brilliant! Plus at the moment my wii sports fitness score is 33...about 19 years off my actual age but hey.

Bye.

I totally agree with soadrock2 (see you dude). Gamespot have it in for nintendo, and especially the wii. Look at this. 3 highly anticipated games and two scores-one from gs and one from ONM (UK).

GAME                                  GS      ONM
THdownhill jam                 6.0        85%
LOZ TP                                8.8       97%
Red Steel                              5.5        91%

OK. That's three games, rated high by the uk and low by gs. Why? Who's lying, and who's not? Here are a few quotes-
ONM on THDownhill jam:-
" Pretend this isn't a hawk's game and you'll have more fun playing it, since it's so different from the other games...that you'll constantly be making unfair comparisons. Taken as a unique game, it's an action packed racer with extremely inventive levels."

GS on thdj:-
"Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam starts with a time-tested trick system and an interesting idea on how to reinvent it, but the concept doesn't come through clearly at all. There aren't enough different tracks to keep the action fun for long, and while tilting the Wii Remote to steer works well enough, the rest of the control isn't very good."

ONM on Red Steel:-
"While one of the wii's purposes is to attract non-gamers, red steel was clearly designed with the hardcore gamer in mind. It's slick, addictive, and as close to 'cool' as a game can get."

GS on red steel:-
"Red Steel isn't completely devoid of merit, but it's a half-baked, buggy game that feels rushed and poorly executed. There's a good concept in here somewhere, as a swords-and-guns shooter pitting you against yakuza villains certainly seems like it could be very exciting. However, the experience itself hardly fulfills any of the promises behind it. So if you're looking for an exciting new way to simulate gunning or cutting lots of dudes down using the Wii Remote, you'd best keep looking. "

And ONM on LOZ:
"-A vast challenging adventure-fantastic use of the wii controls-sumptuous graphics and sounds-mesemerising cut-scenes and story.
As one of the most well-rounded, charming and utterly captivating games we've ever played, (tp) is a game that everyone must play, regardless of gaming preference."

GS on loz:
"Objectively speaking, it's still a little disappointing that the series hasn't evolved much at all with this latest installment. You'll almost certainly enjoy the game for its terrific puzzles, colorful characters, and compelling story, but at some point the feeling of nostalgia crosses the line and holds this game back from being as unbelievably good as some of its predecessors. So as impressive of a game as it is, Twilight Princess seems like it could have been so much more with a few presentational updates and more effective and interesting uses of the Wii's unique control scheme. "
It's probably the first bit that annoys me most. "Objectively speaking, it's still a little disappointing that the series hasn't evolved much at all with this latest installment-" is a load of rubbish. The last game was CEL SHADED. Of course the game hasn't evovled (sarcasm) because, i mean, it's not like this game isn't cel shaded is it? Obviously (sarcasm) link is still wearing that stupid little bright green hat and has those beady eyes. A long string of partivularly un-nice words here would not do me any favours, but it would certainly show what I'm thinking.
A couple of scores here btw-
Call of duty 3 GS-7.2 ONM-86%
Wii sports GS-7.8 ONM-90%

And here's a quote from the wii email off gs i got today:-
"While availability of systems has been much less of an issue for the Wii than another certain console that just launched, it can still take a little dedication to get yourself one."

That first bit may be true, but honestly, what a great way of showing your support for nintendo. Thanks guys. I think soadrock2 had a good idea in leaving gs.

I used to trust gs to give honest reports. Now I'm not so sure.