Monday 5 July 2010

DW: Blood of the Cybermen

[Once again it can't be me who plays this, just me who posts it.]

It's the Cybermen and they're out for blood! They attack in the night and fly away and... hang on, might be a bit confused there.

Anyway, it's about how Cybermen were frozen in the pole and now they are being dug out. Wait! Before you can say "It's a Tenth Planet reference!" this is the North Pole, not the South, so there is no similarity at all. And, to be fair, there isn't. There's far too many other stories this is ripping off, it doesn't need to go there. (Think "space ship buried in the ice and slowly being dug out" and you're there!)

The game feels a lot shorter this time. That might be because I'm getting better at it, but it just felt like there was less to do (but more cut scenes!). Whereas the Dalek game took me a few hours, then under an hour on a replay, this was barely over an hour from the start.

The game consists of investigation then action, just like the last one. There is also another helping of sneaking around. This is padded out (time and game wise) by having you needing to navigate corridors (just like DW! Except we are sneaking, not running down them). However, since there is no clue where you are going, you just stumble around hoping to find the next plot point. (I'm sure there were a lot of collectable cards tucked away that I missed. On the other hand, I'm not that bothered by that.)

We get a new minigame, a sort of virus coder thingy that involves changing the colour of some balls that whizz around in a circle. Can't say that I really got to grips with it. Solved them more by luck that design!

We get to play more as Amy than last time, although in shorter takes. And there seemed to be less rendering issues, although I did have the problem of people being in the way when I was trying to get out and save everyone. But didn't die nearly as often as the first time I played COTD. (Hmm... COTD... BOTC... next game must be AOTB.)

And as for the Cybermen themselves... they looked to have a new design to them. I wonder if these were the revamps Moffat wanted to make but didn't have the time.

In the end, a fun game, if short and annoying in tunnels. And these are supposed to be in continuity? Where are the references to them in the main series then, eh? eh?

[END]

2 comments:

Peter A said...

According to DWM's article on The Pandorica opens the prod team had wanted to bring in a new Cyberman costume for the Amy and Cyberman scene, but decided against it (AISTR) apparently because the new Dalek design had been 'enough' (I'll say!) for that year. I guess budget restrictions may have prompted a rethink too.

I think WRT the 'Blood' Cybermen the only change is replacing the Copyright Cybus chest logo with the old Tomb face logo?

Jamas Enright said...

Certainly noticed the different chest design. That could have been enough to make me think it was a new overall design.