Bringing your A game - Afro Samurai

Afro Samurai by Namco is based on the animated series of the same name and features a soundtrack from prominent hip hop producer RZA.  With voices by Kelly Hu, Ron Pearlman and Samuel L. Jackson, the creators can't be accused of lacking the cool factor. 

Anyone familiar with the series will know how dark and atmospheric it is, with tense face-offs capped off with extreme bloody violence.  The good news is that they've managed to carry most of this across to the game, with a dark, cell-shaded environment and a colour scheme emphasis on blue, grey and blood red.

The game starts you off by utilising a flashback, promptly throwing you into the origin story of the main character (Afro Samurai) thus explaining his motivations.  The gameplay handles like the "Prince of Persia" series, but with much less emphasis on jumping, climbing and puzzle solving.  Instead, the focus of the gameplay lies with a combat system that encourages bloody swordplay including a nifty focus mode, which turns the world grey and slows time a little, allowing you to aim your dismembering blows, slicing opponents up.  Not one for kids then!! On a side note,"Kung Fu Panda" is worth a shout for under-agers - it's pretty similar, though much fluffier. 

While I found the game more impressive than I thought it might be, there were times I almost grew bored of the fighting.  Though the actual fight animation is impressive and the moves varied and well put together I'm not sure if I could go through the whole game without a little more diversity.  I also had the feeling that it was just a little less polished than it could be.  Small things, like the fact there was no options menu to alter the sound levels or camera controls in-game; when you die, the screen just goes black and it loads the section again - no confirmation that you had actually failed the section; little niggles here and there, but nothing overt.

I enjoyed the gameplay and will play it again at some point in the future.  It's well worth the £7.99 price tag. I think that if you've watched the series, you will get a lot more out of the game.  Otherwise it may seem a little off the wall.

I managed 11 achievements for a total of 95G in one play through and I rate Afro Samurai at a 7/10 - watch the series and then play the game, they go hand in hand.

The journey of a thousand miles starts with... 50 Cent?!!

As my challenge consists of trying every possible game in the back catalogue of Xbox 360 games I have available, I decided to get the number-y games out of the way first. 

Therefore, my inaugural Achievemental experience saw me try out THQ's 50 Cent: Blood In The Sand

First off, this is a game I've been turning my nose up at for a long time, without ever really giving it a chance. I've never really been a massive 50 Cent fan.  Some of my friends still refer to the act of deification as "going for a fiddy" because of the look of constipated concentration on his face in photographs.  I was never going to buy this for £40.

In fairness, the overall premise of the game is ludicrous: 50 does a show; 50 gets paid with an ancient jewel encrusted skull; the skull gets stolen by some generic terrorists; 50 tools up with 1 of his 3 G-Unit pals to kill lots of baddies and get his shiny skull back. The plot is so basic that the introductory cut scenes probably take the same length of time to set the scene as it took you to read the above description.  On top of this, I'm not really sure why he's on stage with live grenades on his person at the start of the game either.  For a man who's been shot at so many times, he's taking a bit more of a risk than necessary.

The gameplay itself is simple... but actually pretty satisfying.  The closest thing I can think to compare it to would be "Kane and Lynch" by Eidos. It's basic third person shooting, using one of 4 weapon slots, with a simple collectible pick up structure and a kill multiplier system reminiscent of SEGA's "The Club". 

Where the game succeeds over "Kane and Lynch" is in its simplicity.  The completely implausible plot makes this game better because it doesn't set you up to disappoint.  When you hear how stupid the story arc is, it can only really get better from there.  "Kane and Lynch" on the other hand, has a great storyline which is dragged down by poor gameplay.  With 50 Cent Blood on the Sand, you just get to shoot baddies, blow things up and move on to a cut scene where the ridiculous plot gets even more ridiculous.  It's simple, basic, only-very-slightly-more-involved-than-arcade gameplay.  What's more, it's got 2 player co-op so you can blast through it with your pal. It's less than £10 preowned and well worth a punt if you want some nonsensical fun with a sweary hip hop soundtrack.

I managed to unlock 8 achievements to a total value of 90G, which isn't bad for less than an hours work.  I would deffo pick this game up for a co-op run through. If you try not to be too sceptical, you might have some fun with this one too.

I'd give this one 6/10, because of the potential to have a laugh with the co-op at the expense of a man who's been shot 9 times.

A little bit more on how this works...

I'll be playing the games in an A-Z order, starting with numbers.  Periodically a new game from a previous letter of the alphabet will be released/become available to me, so I'll go back and blog whenever I get the chance to.  For the most part, though, the blog should flow like a season of Sesame Street.

In each blog I'll detail the name of the game, the publisher, the achievements I've unlocked and a summary of how I found the gaming experience.

Of course I've had my Xbox 360 for a while, so have existing gamer score.  I will not be replaying games I already have achievements for, but at some point in future I will provide a list of games I've played previous to this blog.  For the record, my gamer score pre-"Achievemental" (which is the name of this blog, just in case you haven't been paying attention) was 31376G.

If you don't hear from me for a while, check my workplace.  Or more optimistically, the pub.