The Starting Village

Aliens, Raccoons and Modification

2012-01-18T22:43:00.000Z

Despite never having played the XCom games before, I followed the announcement of the new FPS game with quite some interest. Nice art style, interesting era of history that is not normally explored, a potentially incredible deep tactical command/RPG system. Take a look. I personally thought that 2K Marin had really nailed a good balance between first person and strategy.

The internet, as it is wont to do, got rather angry. How dare they make a FPS game out of a beloved turn-based game? That will never work! People were angry, it seemed, because it wasn't the XCom they'd played 18 years ago. To which I say; "Of course it isn't." Sad as you may find it, turn-based games aren't as big as they used to be. There's less of a market for them these days (which makes the recently announced XCom Enemy Unknown reboot even more of a surprise). If it were me, I'd be quick excited to play a new spin on my favourite franchise. That said, I do sort of understand the outrage. If they announced a Grim Fandango reboot that was an FPS, there'd be blood.

The tagline would probably be
"They're dead... Now make 'em deader."

I feel like I haven't mentioned Super Mario 3D Land enough, which is a shame, because it's really quite good. Actually, no one has really been mentioning it very much. It snuck out at the end of last year, and everyone seemed too busy taking arrows in the knee to pay attention to the latest iteration of the exploits of a portly plumber.

Being a Mario game, you know the drill. Power ups, themed worlds, boss fights, it's all there. The game's structure is based on the classic games (hence the "Land" in the title), so no Galaxy hub locations to be found. Comparison to the classic games actually feels quite apt, because the game feels like a love letter to that style of gameplay. The levels feel like courses, as opposed to the multi-part obstacle courses found on the console games. The Tanooki suit makes a triumphant return, unless like me you've never played Super Mario Land 3, in which case, it's a leaf that turns you into a raccoon. Incidentally, when you plays as Luigi (spoilers, I guess) he turns into a fox instead, thus proving that foxes are always Player 2.

what is this i dont even

I've spoken before about my intense dislike of mods, mainly because most modders assume I am willing to install basically anything onto my PC, as well as the assumption I understand how computers work. When I installed Morrowind a while back, it was with the intention of modding it into 2012, or at least to this decade. After spending a good day banging my head against some of the most confusing guides, akin to something like this, I decided it was a lost cause.

But frabjuous day, the Morrowind Overhaul Project is here to change my view on mods and safe me from my own incompetence! This little beauty can be downloaded in four parts of that site, and then after that it's magic. It extracts itself, you point it at your Morrowind folder, and it goes to work. I mean just look at these images! Admittedly, the game doesn't actually run very smoothly on my PC now, but that's my fault because I overestimated what my PC could do. I can't thank the guys at Morrowind Overhaul enough for this, as well as their fantastic documentation.

All done. See y'all next time.

East Versus West: The Role-Playing Conundrum

2012-01-06T00:30:00.000Z

There's a lot of ways to divide up role-playing games. Fantasy or sci-fi? First person or third person? Turn-based or action? It's hard to talk about RPGs, however, before one division rears its head; Western or Japanese?

There's certain expectation attached to either genre. The Western RPG, or WRPG, is associated with more action adventure stryle gameplay, usually involving you running about in a wide open world, taking quests and levelling up specific skills as you do. The Japanese RPG, or JRPG, is more linked to turn based battles, featuring a range of characters in a vast, and often complex story.

Since I'm currently flip-flopping between an example of both genres, Skyrim and Final Fantasy IX, I figured I might take a whack at comparing and contrasting the two. I will admit to having a limited experience of JRPGs, so please forgive any ridiculously inaccurate sweeping statements. Let's get to it.

For a start, there are a lot fewer of these guys in WRPGs

WRPGs are about choice, JRPGs are about chance

In quite a few JRPGs that I've played, you tend to follow quite a linear path through the game, and then in about the last quarter, you gain access to an airship or such, giving you freedom to roam the world. However, a lot of the time, if you go back to locations, you'll have already missed out on certain missions. Certain items only show up in specific sections of the game. Doors are only open once. A perfect example; one of the best weapons in FFIX is only available if you get to a fairly late point in the game in under 12 hours, but to do that, you'd have to literally rush the main plot, skipping a whole host of content.
Conversely, WRPGs lay the entire world out from the start and give you access to pretty much everything. You can go where you want, take as long as you want and do what you want and there's no penalty for this. Okay, so some quests might annoy another faction, or murdering someone might prematurely end a quest, but for the most, everything in the game is always there for the taking.

In JRPGs you inhabit a role, in WRPGs you create a role

What's the very first thing you do in most WRPGs? Most of the time, you go through some kind of character creation section, choosing your character's appearance, their skills, their favourite pizza topping and so forth. Basically, you create you. You create who you will be in these adventures. And then away you go! Off to battle evil, slay dragons, rescue maidens and become the greatest damn blacksmith in all of Tamriel. Just me on that last one?
In JRPGs, your character is already waiting for you, fresh out of the angst oven (sorry, sorry). You don't build your own character, but rather you take on the role of pre-existing characters. This is partially because JRPGs are far more story driven, and laso because of the team based nature of the games. Can you imagine what a drag it'd be to create all your characters in a FF game?
Which one is better? I don't know. I suppose, technically, the WRPG is truer to the pen and paper roots of the term "role playing game", what with the whole character creation, but in JRPGs you are still playing a "role". It's just not specifically your role.

In a WRPG, you tell your own story. In a JRPG, you are told a story.

One quick look at the journal in Skyrim demonstrates perfectly what I am talking. "Jarl Nordicson asked me to go slay a dragon. I did, now I will return for the bounty." Your character forges his own way through the world, and you create the story to go along with that. It's all done in your head. Yes, there are cutscenes in WRPGs, and yes, there is still a story, but often it's you who stitches together the plot together between the dramatic story missions.
JRPGs have side quest too, but they treat them very differently. You can level up your chcocobo as much as you like. You can collect as many legendary weapons as you want. You can play as many card games as humanly possible. But as soon as you hit the plot, none of that will make a blind bit of difference. No matter how hard you try, the story will play out as it is intended to do so. The show, as they say, must go on.

It's interesting to see it all written like this. At first, I felt that JRPGs and WRPGs were two completely different kettle of fish, but now I see that they are both aiming for the same goal; tell the player a great story. It's in the execution they differ. WRPGs seem to say "YOU are the hero! Head out and make your own way in the world." JRPGs take the story-making responsibilities out of your hands and say " Here's the story, can you make your way through it?"

I'm not here to say which genre is better. In fact, I think it's great we have the two different approaches to RPGs. Variety, as the saying goes, is the spice of life.

Wishing you a... hold on, stat check... Happy New Year!

2011-12-31T20:52:00.000Z

It's been an RPG kinda Christmas for me this year. I'm not normally an RPG fan. Sure, I like my stats and upgrades in other games, but I've never been a massive roleplayer. If I have been at all, most of the RPGs I've played are western RPGs as opposed to Japanese turn-based affairs.

But this Christmas, I've gone all out and am playing RPGs than ever before, by complete accident. First I got Chrono Trigger on iOS. Then came along the beautiful surprise of Final Fantasy IX on my new (hah) PSP. Then Christmas happened and I got Skyrim. And I've just remembered that I'm in the middle of Dragon Age: Origins. SO MANY RPGS.

Chrono Trigger is still going strong. There's a section, about midway though the game where you fight several tough bosses in quick succession but, it never felt as though the game was ganging up on me. With out giving too much away, halfway through there's an amazing twist in the direction of the story and a whole new location is revealed. Needless to say, I'm having a great time. Even when this jerk showed up to repeatedly ruin my Chrono-Frog-Robo dream team;

This isn't even a major plot boss fight. He turns up,
you kill him, and that's it. No explanation or anything

Thanks to the generosity of my neighbour, I've now got a PSP! It's the same one he lent me back in 2009, but this time, it's actually mine for good. I was idly browsing the PSN store for PS one games to buy when I stumbled across FFIX. After regaining consciousness, I bought it, downloaded it twice because my internet failed halfway through, and after sorting out the screen size, flung myself back into Gaia.

IX is quite an impressive game, as it manages to be a nod to the classic Final Fantasy formula, as well as introducing loads of great new ideas. The world is a return to the industrial revolution with magic style of the older games. VII and VIII decided that apparently the fantasy genre included horrendous dieselpunk, but there's none of that marlarky in IX. It's all Black Mages, airships and hitting people with swords because fuck guns. man.

When I first played FFIX I was about 11 years old. It took me a long time to get anywhere in that game. I got stuck at a boss called Gizamaluke, through a combination of poor equipment choices and being bad at games. This time around, I'm taking things much slower, and experiencing the everything the game has to offer. Tetra Master is the ongoing mini-game in FFIX and it's a fantastic distraction from the main plot. I'm also making sure my characters are levelling up properly, and aren't constantly under threat from one hit KOs. Even though the "abilities through apparel" mechanic is dreadful, FFIX is a solid JRPG, if a little aged. You know what'd be great? A 3DS remake. Make it happen, Square Enix.

It'd look like this, only with more dimensions

Skyrim is everything everyone says it is. It really needs a full blog post about it and for that reason, I will be writing one next year (hah!) so I can make a FUS about it (ha-HAH!)

Finally, with only four hours left in 2011, my game of the year, unsurprisingly, is Bastion. I've already said everything that needs to be said about it, but the ultimate truth about Bastion is that is is pure joy to play. Pick it up today.

Well, that's another year wrapped up. 2011 has been a crazy good year for games, and 2012 promises to deliver some corkers too. Hope to see y'all then. You know where to find me.

The Most Wonderful Time of The Year

2011-12-23T13:47:00.001Z

Oh and it's Christmas too? I was talking about coming home for the holidays and spending six hours a day on the Xbox. As a serious point though, I need to take more breaks, I'm starting to get quite bad headaches.

Okay, moving on from that downer of an opening, I'M BACK HOME FOR CHRISTMAS! I finished up all of my deadlines before the end of term, and now I have a month to catch up on my gaming backlog. First on the chopping block is Assassin's Creed Revelations.

Nothing is True, Everything is- HEY PRESENTS!

I'm a very big fan of the Assassin's Creed series, and I've got the hoodie to prove it. If nothing else, the AC franchise shows how well trans-media can function in order to create a strong central narrative within a rich varied universe across games, books and even film. Ubisoft have seemed to scale down some of their trans-media activities recently, but I'm hoping they'll be stepping it up a notch for 2012 and the build up to AC3. Basically, I want Project Legacy back.

I loved AC: Brotherhood, so much so that it was probably my game of the year for 2010. It took all of the mechanics from AC2 and improved on them, as well as adding a layer of strategy and micromanagement. Training your recruits up from mere vigilantes to true Assassins was both enjoyable and rewarding.

Back in June, I suggested that AC: Revelations was going to be the same as the previous game, but better. The series has a history of taking the previous game, adding on some more involving content and introducing a new mechanic or two, which is fine. Revelations appears to have hit some kind of critical point. There's simply too much superfluous content, In addition to the main plotline, you have Assassin recruitment, Master Assassin training, Mediterranean defence micromanagement, bomb challenges, faction challenges, Den Defence, Full Synchronisation on missions, Templar Dens, Book collecting and Animus Data Fragments to collect. That's all the content I can think of off the top of my head, but their may well be more. The game seems to really lack any sense of direction. Even the plot, which admittedly I haven't got too far into yet, seems to lack any real drive.

I'm not saying Revelations is a bad game, because it isn't. The characters are far better realised (specifically Yusuf). The dialogue specifically is incredibly well written, more so than in previous games. Istanbul (or Constantinople) is beautiful to play around in. A piece of advice to anyone playing; run everywhere. The fast travel system saves time, but you miss out on the excellent atmosphere of the city. You also collect far more Data Fragments.

Chrono Trigger came out on iOS recently, and after two days of not planning to buy it for a while, I bought it. The Square Enix pricing policy might seem expensive, but seven quid compared to how much it costs on DS isn't too bad. Up until recently, I wasn't really a huge fan of JRPGs, but since the original Final Fantasy won me over, I've been willing to give them all more of a chance.

I'm glad I did, because Chrono Trigger is awesome.

The art design: Lovely. The story line: Little flimsy at points, but enjoyable. The characters: All excellent, especially Frog and Robo (you know, because frogs and robots are both awesome). The combat is a brilliant fusion of action-adventure and traditional turn-based RPG. The game really pushes the boundary of what I have come to expect from JRPGs. There's not a huge amount of things to do outside of the main plot, but that's actually fine, because the main plot is so varied and interesting,

This is me, a humanoid frog and robot,
standing round a table. Buy this game.

Righty ho then. I'm off to go wrap presents, or buy a turkey, or something Christmassy. I'm sure I won't get distracted... by... OH MY GOD.

But that's for next time. See y'all in Alexandria!

Pre-Christmas News Bonanza!

2011-12-05T23:21:00.000Z

University deadlines being what they are, I haven't been able to finish up the blog post I had planned. It was going to be about RPGs and the such, but it just boiled down to me rubbing myself against Paper Mario and not an awful lot else. I'll just do a post about Paper Mario in the future, because I'm intending to finish the original over the Xmas break. I might even go the whole nine yards and buy "Thousand Year Door". Or maybe I won't. I love freedom of choice.

Retrospectively, I wish I hadn't used the phrase "rubbing myself against Paper Mario" That seems like a fast-track to horrific paper cuts. Anyway, no turning back now.

No real direction here, just a quick round up of things that have been happening recently before I knuckle down for the next few weeks.

BEST RPG EVER (MAYBE)

Yesterday was the 10th anniversary of a franchise very close to my heart, Jak and Daxter, and boy, does that make me feel old. I remember the first time playing through the original game and absolutely loving it. The platforming, the art design, the simple premise of collecting power cells executed so well, all the elements were there. The sequel probably is the reason I am so passionate about games today. It took me from the safe, fuzzy surroundings of a colourful platformer to the dark, gritty dystopia of Haven City. It was amazing. What with the HD collection having been announced, there's more and more reasons for me to buy a PS3. Well, three reasons (Sly Cooper Collection, Sly 4 and the aforementioned Jak and Daxter Collection). Maybe one day. Not soon though, I have NO money.

Planescape Torment. It's one of those games. A game that is often described as a real experience. After having only played a few hours, I can definitely agree. After some issues trying to install mods (the short version; I really hate mods. I like what they do, but they are almost more trouble than they are worth) I started up the game. At first glance, it's not an awful lot to look at. The art style isn't exactly stunning and the combat leaves a lot to the imagination. But that's probably the key part here. Imagination is key. Planecape Torment is a Dungeons and Dragons property, and despite not know much about it apart from the presence of the latter in the former, I do know that to play it properly, you need a pinch of imagination. And that's really what Planescape is; a virtual DM. Here's your world, go and talk to everyone and kill some dragons. Or just hang around with a floating skull in a bar full of zombies. I'm serious, that's actually an option. Expect a hefty blog post at some point.

You remember how I decided I like the original Final Fantasy remake because it was nice and simple, and nothing got in the way of the gameplay? Well apparently, someone at Square Enix heard me and now they are doing a new game in the old style, as far is I can tell from the few screenshots about. "But Eddie, wait, this new Final Fantasy game... IS A SOCIAL GAME! Surely you don't like social games, do you?" Well, theoretical audience voice, I actually do like social games. I'm not talking about FarmVille or any of its life-sucking ilk, but more gamey games. Things like Dragon Age: Legends, Echo Bazaar or the criminally under-appreciated Assassin's Creed Project Legacy. I think they are enjoyable games with a novel take on multiplayer, and often get ignored simply because they happen to live on Facebook. Final Fantasy Brigade won't have this issue, because for some baffling reason, they'll be making use of Mobage powered phones. Don't worry, I hadn't heard of it either. I'm looking forward to playing Brigade when it comes to browsers though, or if it even comes to the West at all. Damn you, Japan. You keep all the cool stuff.

Also, Chrono Trigger on iOS. I was excited about this, then I briefly forgot about it, and now I've remembered again and my excitement is rekindled. No idea why, because I've never played it before, but it just looks so damn good.

I've not got anything smart to cap off this post with, so I'm just going to finish by saying that Fangamer are absolutely incredible and if anyone wants to buy me anything from their site then I will love you forever.

Also, it's the Christmas season. Good tidings to all.

Blood Diamonds

2011-11-14T12:00:00.000Z

Even if you've never heard of the Tetris effect, you've no doubt experienced its effects. Having the wall in front of you ever being moving upwards after a long Rock Band session. Feeling as though the world is shaking after playing too much Call of Duty. It's essentially when your mind starts playing tricks on you because of too much visual stimulation.

Recently, I've been falling asleep to the images of coloured rocks being rotated into place AND I DON'T LIKE IT ANY MORE MAKE IT STOP.

WHY WON'T THEY GO AWAY

Bejewelled isn't a franchise I've really ever played before, despite having had a go on plenty of clones in my time. If you are unaware of the game's premise, then you might need to stop reading this blog about video games, and first learn what a video game is.

The Windows Phone 7 offering is inventively titled Bejewelled LIVE, and features the same simple gameplay as its predecessors. The game is fun to play, and I feel like I'm getting a bit more strategical with my gem slection. Making power gems is a vital part of the gameplay but sometimes feels like little more than blind luck. I really don't understand why the game ends when you run out of moves on the board. It's not like this is your fault, because you don't have any influence on the next gems being introduced. It's a feature that has infuriated both me and Jess over the past couple of days.

In a similar colour matching game vein, I picked up Puzzle Quest 2, also on WP7, as it was discounted as deal of the week. This game can best be described as something of a casual hardcore fusion. It's essentially Bejewelled covered in a fine layer of high fantasy. I don't know why I describe so many games using food metaphors.

I really enjoyed Puzzle Quest 2. I find it surprising no developers before Infinite Interactive had hit on this idea. The idea of switching out points for damage and mana is incredibly simple but very effective. There's a great feeling as you collect up action points and then taking a massive chunk of your opponents health. There's also a massive sense of annoyance when your opponent manage an enormous cascade, netting himself twelve extra goes.

Whilst I do still enjoy the game, there are a few bugbears. The upgrades to the weapons are a good goal to work towards, but it's often unclear what effect the expensive upgrades will have. The game also scales the enemies to your currently level, meaning that there's really no point in fighting any unnecessary battles or taken on side quests, since every enemy will be on a level playing field. Gaining allies is good, but I feel something more could be done with it. Perhaps I could spend some action points to call them into battle, boosting my attacks for a few turns?

Two similar concepts, but two very different executions. That's just gaming in a nutshell really, isn't it?

Also, because I'm never gonna have another opportunity to link to this, here's one of my favourite Penny Arcade strips ever. Enjoy!

A Novel Idea

2011-11-01T22:51:00.000Z

I love books. I also love games. If only there was some way of uniting my two passions...

What a coincidence.

Game books aren't exactly brand new, but they have been enjoying quite the rise in popularity over the past few years. Mass Effect, Dragon Age, and Halo all have their own spin off novels. Assassin's Creed has a few lack-luster adaptations. Even Gears of War, a series not known for its deep storytelling, has several tie-in novels all written by the lead writer of the series (At least that's what thirty seconds worth of research on the Waterstones website tells me).

As you might be able to deduce from the image above, I've recently been reading the Bioshock novel, as well as one of two Elder Scrolls novels. Both are first person RPGs (albeit differently), both have a focus on narrative (albeit differently) and now that I think of it, both feature the gameplay mechanic of throwing dangerous things out of your hands to ruin the day of those in your vicinity. Albeit differently.

First off, BioShock Rapture. The original is one of my favourite FPS games in recent years, and I actually really enjoyed the sequel, despite the general consensus of "more of the same". Rapture provides us with a look into the three ages of the titular city, from the idea in Andrei Rianofski's mind (Yes, apparently Andrew Ryan is a Russian immigrant) to the construction of the thing to its inevitable fall from grace. Surprisingly, an awful lot of the book focuses on the social and economic side of the whole endeavour, with plasmids and splicers only really showing up until the last quarter of the book.

In fact, Rapture really doesn't reference the game a huge amount. If I say BioShock, what's the first thing that springs to mind? If you aren't thinking about Big Daddies, then clearly you played a different version to me. The Big Daddies honestly are barely mention, and get half a page worth of origin story. They turn up later, but the appearance seems referential at best.

Rapture seems to be trying to tell its own story, but is limited by the fact it HAS to end with the Fall of Rapture. Learning the background of Cohen, Steinmann and Fontaine is interesting, but Rapture doesn't manage to add much to the already rich story of the BioShock universe.

This doesn't really have anything to do with the book.
I just wanted to remind people that BioShock 2 was actually pretty good

The Infernal City takes a different approach. Set in the already lore-rich Elder Scrolls land of Tamriel, Infernal City tells a story set fifty years after the Oblivion crisis. Not having actually played the fourth Elder Scrolls game, I was a little in the dark about some of the details, but I've recently become something of a TES lore nerd, because apparently I wasn't well-versed in enough fictional extended universes.

The novel follows a few characters, but the central focus is Annaig, a young Breton (human, for those unversed TES races) girl and her Argonian (lizard man) assistant, Mere-Glim. There's no set up into the universe to be found, as the story throws you straight in. Annaig and Mere-Glim are living a relatively normal life when giant floating citadel, called Umbriel, turns up and starts turning people into the undead. I think. It's actually sort of unclear what is going on on the ground, since most of the action takes place inside of the floating city.

There's a lot of strange things going on in TIC, and I think the point maybe that you AREN'T supposed to understand most of it. More often than not the characters will be confused by what's happening, and you'll be confused along with them. In fact, it's not entirely unlike booting up Morrowind for the first time.

There's also a sub-plot with the Crown Prince and his emotional issues (he either cries at or has sex with everything) that sees him team up with a very angry Dunmer (dark elf). At one point they travel through Oblivion, which is a really well written segment of the book.

There's one more sub-plot about a Inspector named Colin, who murders someone at the start investigates a few things in the middle and runs away from something at the end, and his story doesn't really seem to go anywhere at all. That's probably my biggest complaint about TIC; it finishes before anything really gets going. The sequel has just come out fortunately, so I will be finding out how everything is wrapped up. I'm guessing someone will die. That tends to happen in Elder Scrolls stuff.

Game novels aren't going away. In fact, they're only really going to be getting bigger, with the way gaming is going. With a bit of work, and some good writers starting to move into the arena, I think we can expect some great reads coming out of great games.

A Series of Tubers

2011-10-10T12:00:00.000+01:00

In the interest of full disclosure, this blog post will be full of spoilers. No holding back. So if you haven't played Portal 2, you might want to go elsewhere.

It's difficult for me to say exactly what I didn't really enjoy about the original Portal. I once rather flippantly summed up my opinions with a simple "It's alright." but looking back on it now, I actually think it's the best description of my feelings towards it. Portal has a clever, original mechanic, and I enjoyed playing it, but I always felt it was too short. The game finished before I really got into it. I enjoyed GLaDOS as a character, but I never found her as entertaining as everyone seemed to imply.

Perhaps it was down to the fact that by the time I got around to playing Portal the hype had died down. People had moved on from spouting "The cake is a lie" at every opportunity. Perhaps it was because I already knew about GLaDOS' true nature, so the final reveal was nothing special. But whatever it was, I left Portal feeling underwhelmed.

I only bought Portal 2 because it was on special on Steam, reduced to a very affordable £10. My excitement had been slightly quelled when a certain gaming website who shall not be named as The Escapist told me what was going to happen in the later stages of the game, but not enough to stop me from ever wanting to play the thing. I was ready to go, and not really sure what to expect.

I enjoyed Portal 2. In fact, I really enjoyed Portal 2, far more than the first one, and far more than I expected I would. The humour was funnier and darker. The characters are better formed. The puzzles feel better fleshed out. Even the environment, whilst being inspired by the original, works better for the game. The gameplay from the original remains completely intact, but is built upon fantastically (which really is exactly what game devs should be doing) with the gel mechanic.

From the get go, I liked being accompanied by Wheatley. I know a lot of people found him grating, especially those who knew of Stephen Merchant before playing, but I really enjoyed his performance. I was also impressed how his comedic stupidity actually really tied into his role as an Intelligence Dampening Sphere. This time around I really warmed to GLaDOS far more, and not just because of her fantastic transformation into a potato. Something about her seemed funnier. Maybe it was the lack of her Morality Core, perhaps it was the decades of living death she had endured, but throughout the game I was genuinely amused by her snide comments, to the fact I couldn't stop grinning when she started making comments about my weight.

The trip into Aperture's past and the unveiling of GLaDOS true past was actually quite a shock to me. I honestly wasn't expecting that much detail, and whilst not everything is explicitly lain out for you, there's quite a lot you can add up. Some might say that it takes away from GLaDOS as an antagonist, but I feel that if anything it makes her a better antagonist. It adds layers of depth which change the way you view her as a character. And if the fan theories about Caroline's relationship with Chell are true... Well, that basically changes EVERYTHING.

I read a quote from Doug Lombardi that said "Portal was a test bed. Portal 2 is a game." which is completely on the money. Portal felt like a tech demo, a proof of concept. Portal 2 was everything that could be done with that idea.

Since the ending song to Portal 2 doesn't seem appropriate if I want people to visit here every week, I'll just leave you with this fantastic tirade.

Typography | Cave Johnson Lemons from Ignis. on Vimeo.

See y'all whenever we get to the Borealis.

The Story Continues

2011-10-04T19:18:00.003+01:00

Back at university now, and all moved in to my new house. Access to the computer is restored. Trying to keep this blog up to date to help focus my attention somewhat.

My last blog was essentially a love letter to the fine humans at SuperGiant Games, so it's safe to say I've been having withdrawal symptoms from Bastion. As per the norm, my XBox is not with me, so unless I decide to buy it on Steam (which I probably won't) I can't play it for a while. It's probably the first time I've really wanted to play a game through more than twice, and it's not even an achievement driven thing. I revel in the world that Bastion creates, so just being there and experiencing it is more enjoyable than some entire games I've played.

The Final Fantasy series and I have a rocky relationship. I played through quite a lot of FF7 when I was younger. I really enjoyed FF9, so much so that it's properly my favourite of the lot. FFX was just plain weird and personally, where the series lost its way. The earlier Final Fantasy games always appealed to me more. The battle systems were far simpler, making them more intuitive. In the old games, a glance at the screen told you essentially what moves were at your disposal. Now, it involves Paradigm Shifts, Chain Gauges and something called Stagger Mode, which I don't think I really want to understand.

Onwards to the point I'm trying to make. Over the summer, I've been playing the original Final Fantasy, or more accurately, the Dawn of Souls re-release on my iPod. It's actually quite amazing. If you look at the reviews of FF13, the general consensus was that the game took far too long to get going. Not only were there several cut scenes to get through to the actual gameplay, you then had to push on through past lengthy tutorial. Dawn of Souls avoids this by having a thirty second cut-scene, and then you are off. Straight into the big wide world. There is very little plot other than "Go to dungeon, beat boss, go to next dungeon" and it's that simplistic design which really allows you to enjoy the game. Don't get me wrong, I love story in games, my previous post clearly shows that. It's far too often, however, that you see games bogged down in too much narrative.

The game itself isn't too long and I found myself beating the plot dungeons at quite a pace. A lot of my playtime has now been sunk into battling the bonus dungeons that were added in to the remake. Unfortunately, I found myself a list of all the superweapons and bosses in the game and now have devoted a portion of life to obtaining and maiming them all respectively. My party is already pretty souped up, it's now just a case of getting down to those nasty lower tier bosses and killing them as fast as possible. It's always fun when they wipe out three quarters of your party in a single hit.

So, that's Final Fantasy; Dawn of Souls for you. It's often said that "Less is more" And in this case, it couldn't be more true.

See y'all next time.

The Greatest Stories Ever Told

2011-09-30T12:00:00.000+01:00

If you haven't played Bastion yet, you need to play Bastion

I thought I'd put that out there right now. It's not often I demand that people play a game, but with Bastion I genuinely think it could change the way people think about games.

Bastion is one of those games that you can tell has been made by people who really love what they are doing. My hat goes off to Supergiant Games for putting so much effort in every facet of Bastion's design. From the graphics to the music to the gameplay, there is genuinely no weak link in the chain. But what makes Bastion ever stronger is the way that all of these elements have been artfully woven together.

I've often been of the opinion that gameplay is the most important thing in games. Sounds obvious but it needs to be said. Some developers have gone on record stating that gameplay can be sacrificed for the story, and I couldn't disagree further. Gameplay is what makes a game a game. The interactivity, your very involvement with a world is what differentiates a game from, say, a film. Gameplay is why LA Noire is a great game, but Heavy Rain isn't. And it's what makes Bastion so important.

You probably already know about Bastion's main feature, but in case you don't, it's simple. As you travel through Bastion's unique post-apocalyptic world, your actions are dynamically chronicled by a honey voiced narrator. Each fight, each path you take, each weapon loadout you choose is noted, sometimes humorously, sometimes seriously narrated. It's difficult to describe how it affects you as you play. Often it's the subtle things. In one of the early fights in the game, I took a few hits, and Rucks the Narrator commented on how I had a few scratches. It sounds like nothing but it binds the experience to you and makes it yours.

Bastion is a game about world building. It creates a beautiful world that you miss without ever truly knowing it. As you collected the weapons in the world, you learn more about the different factions, like the Menders, the Brushers or the Slingers. The relationship between the Caelondians and the Ura is slowly revealed and manages to surprise you at each turn. Yet Bastion never asks you to sit through walls of explanatory text. In fact the most it makes you read are simple sentences on the loading screens, more often than note confirming something that you already know.

It'll be interesting to see what happens with Bastion, and Supergiant Games as a company. The world they have is already strong enough to support other stories, and one of the two endings does leave the game open for a sequel. In my mind I could see something along the lines of "Beyond Bastion" which follows the adventures of the group after Bastion. Another option is "Before Bastion" which would look at Caelondia before the earth-shattering calamity. In fact, they might not even have to be games, these stories could translate equally well into the medium of comic books or animations. That's not to say I wouldn't like to see another Bastion game.

Now I just want to go off on a side tangent, a personal request if you will, in the vain hope that this might be read by any of the Supergiant Games staff. I know you are incredibly busy right now moving into a new location and so forth, but I'd like to make a suggestion. I realise that making a full XBLA title takes a fair amount of time and resources, but it would be great to see a new Bastion game at some point soon. In that line of thought, might I suggest releasing a Windows Phone 7 game? You could use it perhaps as an opportunity to explore the backstory of Rucks. The story telling mechanic could be kept in place by having the narration appear written across the screen as though Rucks was writing in a journal.

But ultimately that's just me wanting something new to play on my phone.

Bastion is a vitally important game. If you care about story-telling in games, play Bastion. If you value games as art, play Bastion. Simply put, if you care about video games in any way, you must play Bastion.

Because it will change everything.

Wah Wah Wah

2011-07-20T21:52:00.001+01:00

Sigh.

I can't remember when my last blog post was. I think it was when I finished my exams, talking about all the stuff I was going to write about.

As you may have noticed, I didn't.

Here's a quick summary of the past month or so;

I came home from university after finishing my exams and had a week or two before I started training for my summer job. In that week, I completed Darksiders, as well as both Oracle Of Ages and Oracle of Seasons. I started training for my job, and then a week or so later I got my university results. Unfortunately, I've not passed the second year. I have five exams to retake, and I'm finished roughly around the 19th of August.

The short of it; For the next month or so, I have to work three days a week and revise like crazy in my down time. As you might imagine, it doesn't leave an awful lot of time free to play games, or subsequently write about them.

It's annoying to say the least, but I only have myself to blame, and so forth. Hopefully the resits will go well and I will get back into university. Either that, or I get one of those real jobs people keep talking about.

Lastly, it's my birthday tomorrow, meaning I'm writing this in my final hours of being a teenager. I'd normally have some witty comment, but I'm a sleepy Edward, so I guess I'll just say overall, my teenage years has been pretty good.

This non-blog post was brought to you by Lucozade, sleep deprivation and orange jelly.

See y'all whenever.

Revenge of the E3

2011-06-16T16:48:00.000+01:00

SO. I'm back. And I've forgiven you, so let's put it behind us and we can move on.

My exams are over, and they all went fairly well. Except one. And there was that one which was disturbingly easy. Perhaps that thing were I was so stupid, I came out the other side as intelligent. Or perhaps vice versa.

It was E3 last week, but as I mentioned I was busy learning about cells, so I couldn't post anything. But now, since I'm done, I'm going to quickly run through what I liked, and what I didn't.

The GOOD;
AC: Revelations; Another year, another Assassin's Creed. It's difficult to find anything to write really. If past instalments are anything to go by, it'll be just like the last one, only slightly better and with more stuff. And dat trailer..
Bioshock Infinite; Apparently, it's the best game ever made, so I'm glad I'm alive to see this.
From Dust; Downloadable God-sim, which will fill my need for something like Populous until Populous gets a HD makeover
3DS Showing; Super Mario, Luigi's Mansion 2, and Paper Mario all look to be fun. I'm particularly excited about Paper Mario.
Skyrim; Archery, fireballs, swords, shields, dragons, cat people. Very shiny, very awesome, very excited.
Wii U; Apart from having a name which I can't help but say like a retarded rodeo clown, Nintendo's new console does look pretty clever and I really can't wait to see what developers come up with for it.

The BAD;
Mario Kart 3D; I can't help feeling Nintendo have been a tad lazy on this one. Underwater and flying sections don't really seem to change anything.
Mass Effect 3; It's hard to believe, I know. But I'm having real difficulty getting myself hyped up for the final instalment. Whilst I do like the look of the Kinect stuff, I just can't see myself rushing out to get ME3 when it's released.
SW: The Old Republic; I was really quite excited for this. Now that I've seen it, less so. TOR is looking more and more like a re-skinned WoW. You might say the Star Wars covering makes up for it. Think of it this way; if you spread delicious jam on your sandwich full of glass shards, you still end up with a mouthful of blood.
PS Vita; A TOUCHSCREEN ON THE BACK IS STILL A BAD IDEA.
Fable: The Journey; For Christ sake, Peter...

In non-gaming convention related things, I've been playing a few games in my down time. First up is the Virtual Console re-release of Link's Awakening. Just a couple of things...
-It's not in 3D. Not even a little.
- Despite having an ability to save pictures, the 3DS fails to save the photos you take in game to the SD card

Despite these minor flaws, I still enjoyed the game. It's a fantastic Zelda adventure and is actually quite a deep game. The ending might not be great, but that's kind of a given with classic games.

Also, Sam & Max Season 2 and 3, but I'm not talking about that till next blog post. I need content, people.

And finally, Spiral Knights is a free to play, Legend of Zelda-esque action adventure MMO now on Steam. Go and play it.

Well that's it for now, I'll see y'all when I cruise by in the DeSoto.

Acronyms and Exams

2011-05-15T21:28:00.001+01:00

It's all systems go right now for me. I've got my exams coming up across the first two weeks of June so I'm working about eight hours a day to try and cram an entire academic years worth of Biology into my tiny brain. So that's fun. How I live for those five minute breaks between hours.

In those five minute breaks, as well as my lunch breaks, I've been trying to fit as much gaming is as I can. I've missed my TF2 practice whilst I've been at home, and it feels good to be back. The Replay update IS a lot of fun, and I've captured and edited some fun replays. Unfortunately, I'm the only one whose ever going to be able to enjoy them since the game seems to crash every time I attempt to save a take as a movie. But trust me, they are all brilliant.

I'm always getting better and my class builds are far better now. I grabbed the intelligence a few times as the Scout, as well as bludgeoning a hapless Medic to death on the way. I still like playing the Medic, but it is literally the most annoying part of the game when a person I have been healing for their WHOLE LIFE, and they are STILL crying out for a medic. I'M HEALING YOU. THIS IS THE MAXIMUM ABOUT OF HEALING YOU I CAN BE. STOP ASKING.

Also, I've got the Wrangler now, so my Engineer build is basically complete. Taking control of my sentry was a strange experience at first but now I'm dangerous with that thing. The Engineer is quite a unique character in TF2 and probably multiplayer FPS games in general, in that he's not really himself designed for combat, or killing anyone through dexterity or gaming skill. The skill comes in intelligent placing of sentries and dispensers, which couldn't really be more removed from twitch FPS gaming if it tried. Yeah, I know the Medic is kinda unique, but it still relies on the ability to move fast away from fire. When you think about it the Medic is basically a couple of extra hit-points for the Heavy. Like a sentient suit of body armour. Which is German.

On an entirely unrelated note, I recently submitted a pitch to write an article for a gaming website. It would have been my first proper writing job, and unfortunately I got rejected. I don't hold anything against the site; I appreciate they probably have tons of pitches and they have to choose the best ones. It was a bit disheartening since it was my first rejection (as well as first submission) but I've picked myself up and am staying positive.

E3 is just around the corner, and for the third year in a row, it's fallen dead in the middle of my exams. I know that E3 is always around June, but I swear to God, it's always right in the middle.
I'm pretty relaxed about the whole thing though. I'm not waiting to see anything that badly, and whilst I'm sure they'll have some good announcements at the press conferences, I'll probably just have it on as background noise whilst I'm reading about myosin filaments or something. The excitement of my life, eh?

Since I won't be doing that much gaming over the coming weeks, I won't be posting as often, which is a shame cause I feel like I've just starting hitting my stride with them. I might finish the Minecraft post which has been hanging around forever, but I'm not making any promises.

Hopefully I'll be back posting around the 17th when I'll be back home for the summer, and have a whole 10 days free before I start my summer job. Fucking economy.

Until next, wish me luck, and I'll see y'all when I return.

All Hail The King Of Speculation

2011-05-08T12:00:00.007+01:00

I've been making the most of the 360 since I've been home. I've done everything in AC: Brotherhood, bar the multiplayer achievements, and my wireless at home isn't good enough to play any matches properly, so I won't be getting them any time soon.

Instead I've been putting some time into Fable 3. I spoke about it last year giving my general impressions. There's nothing particularly wrong with it, it's just not a great deal different to its predecessors.

There's some interesting ideas in there though. The story is dark at times. The Fable series has often walked that line between "childish humour" and "balverines eating people" but when the final boss fight (oh right, MASSIVE SPOILER) forces you to kill your mentor, it's pretty heavy stuff. The final scene where he dies isn't going to make anyone cry, but it's pretty sad nonetheless.

However, it sticks to the template lain down by the franchise. There's not an awful lot of innovation going on. Yes, being the king allows you to make choices that affect the entire kingdom, but it's just basically another form of the moral choices that have been a part of Fable since the beginning. There's nothing particularly bad about that, but it'd be nice to see some new ideas injected into the franchise.

So with that in mind, here are my ideas of things Fable 4 could do to make it even better;

- Bring back the magic
The main antagonist of Fable 2 was Lord Lucien, a guy who really couldn't get over his personal tragedy. Fable 3 was mostly you travelling around forming alliances and playing property developer. Let's see a return to the magic of Fable 1. Jack of Blades was a brilliant villain, with a great malevolent feel. I'd love to see a return of The Court, with the Queen or Knight of Blades being the primary antagonist. God, I'm such a Fable geek.

- Swap out/upgrade the engine
Fable 3 looks nice enough, and it's actually quite stylised, but I'd like to see the game running in a different engine. The fighting of Fable has always been a bit repetitive so perhaps an engine shift would allow for slightly more dynamic combat. Perhaps combining spells and swordplay. Basically, I'd like to be able to set fire to my sword.

- Keep the weapon morphing system...
... But make it MORE dynamic. Fable 3 had the Hero weapons which could change in a few ways, but the others had three upgrades which were essentially stat upgrades. I'd like to see a system where the weapons perhaps adapted to better suit your play style. So for example, if you use fast flurries of sword attacks, your sword becomes a katana, but if you use lots of blocks and flourishes, it becomes a slower, stronger broadsword.

- Bring back menus
As much as Peter Molyneux would disagree, menu screens aren't all that bad. No, I don't enjoy them but I recognise them as a necessary evil in inventory management. The wardrobe system was nice, but sometimes I like to just default to a simple pause screen. The map system was nice though. That can stay.

- Go global
The map has expanded each Fable game, so it'd make sense to expand it further in Fable 4. Instead of purchasing individual properties, why not be able to buy territories and be able to adjust taxes to increase your income? It'd be great to see a range of different countries, like Samarkand mentioned in Fable 2. I like medieval England but sometimes, I'd like to here some villagers who don't sound like they're all from the West Country

- Stop the black and white decisions
Admittedly, Fable 3 was better at this. Some options were evil, but pleased the populace, and some vice versa, but let's move on from the "Send the Orphan to school/Kick him into a volcano" style of choices. In fact, why not have several options, with it not being exactly clear what the result will be? You could make the entire decision by normal gameplay actions. Instead of having to press and hold a button, maybe you could just walk away from an downed enemy if you wanted to spare their life. Alternatively, you could shoot them in the crotch. Or perhaps offer them your hand, to form a new alliance.Your choice.

- More WP7 interactivity
I liked Fable Coin Golf. It was a clever little side game that rewarded you in Fable 3. I want more of this in the next game. Why not have a short Fable style action-adventure game about a legendary hero on the WP7, whose tomb you can then access in Fable 4? Also I want to be able to take my Fable dog out on my phone for walks. That's innovation right there.

- Stop my character from talking
There's no deep roleplaying insight for this one, his voice just pisses me off.

The Prey Problem; How far is too far?

2011-05-04T22:29:00.000+01:00

About a month ago, Human Head Studios announced the long awaited sequel to the 2006 hit, Prey. The reaction from the gamer public was something quite extraordinary.

Cards on the table, I've never played Prey. It was 2006, and I wasn't that into my PC gaming (or gaming overall) as much as I am now. I was away of it at release though, dismissing it as yet another FPS where you'd be trying to kill something for some contrived reasons.

Prey is not that simple though. It actually tells the tale of a Native American man who is abducted, along with his girlfriend and grandfather, into a semi-organic alien spaceship called The Sphere, and the fight back against the cybernetically enhanced alien races that maintain the invading ship.

The game featured strong Native American themes, with Tommy, the player character, being able to spirit walk to new areas along with his spirit guide Talon. It also did portals before Portal, as well as gravity shifts before Super Mario Galaxy. In essence, the game was ambitious and won a lot of fans with ideas which were ahead of their time.

The details of Prey 2 make it out to be an entirely different beast. An open world game featuring open-ended missions, moral choices and parkour, some kind of fusion of Mass Effect, Bioshock and Red Dead Redemption. The character is apparently the connection between the two games; Killian Samuels was a sheriff on the plane which crashed into the sphere in the original game.

You might think the long awaited sequel to a cult hit shooter would be the best news that some fans could have hoped for. Unfortunately not. Along with the first screen shot of Killian and the basic game concept came angry from the fans. Many claimed that it was too far a step from its Native American inspired predecessor. Others suggested that it had undergone the CoD effect, dumbed down for the modern day shooter masses.

Human Head Studios, the developer of both the original and the sequel, soon after released more information, explaining the previously mentioned fusion of gameplay elements. As people caught wind of these elements and screenshots started emerging, the general opinion started to move in a positive direction. Prey 2 was starting to look as ambitious as its predecessor. Of course, there were still some who wanted to see the return of Tommy, and a continuation of his story. Human Head offered the somewhat cryptic remark that Tommy will be involved, but not directly.

But it presents an interesting dilemma. Human Head have deviated so far from what they had before. Instead of offering up more of the same, they took an enormous left turn, resulting in a game which felt, on first impressions, entirely alien. But surely that's a good thing? We always talk about how desperately the industry needs innovation and fresh ideas, and here's a company taking a loved game and building something entirely new from it. Isn't this a Good Thing?

Perhaps not. Yes, innovation is good. I'm the first to attack CoD for being the same game for five years. Sometimes, however, there's too much innovation. Imagine if Portal 2 had done away with the setting of Apeture, lost GLaDOS, taken a new unknown character to a different location with a different kind of portal gun. Yeah, it would be new and imaginative, but it's too far away from what people liked about the original. The same applies to Prey. People enjoyed the story, the clever gravity puzzles, the portals and the setting. Taking all of this away and making something entirely different altogether, albeit in the same universe, is breaking the mold to a dangerous degree. As many people said "Why is it even called Prey 2?"

At the end of day, you sometimes have to put a bit of faith into a developer. I remember a quote saying that "Prey 2 is the sequel the Human Head wanted to make." Sometimes, we as consumers have to accept that the devs have the right to change things in their games, and have some trust in what they are doing. Imagine if just after finishing Half Life, someone told you the sequel took place in a suppressed Eastern European city, and you get a gun that can pick up boxes. Sounds insane. Sounds nothing like the Half Life you love. But it worked so well. I think the same might happen with Prey 2.

On paper, it sounds mad, but in practice... It might just be as intelligent as the original.

The System Is Down; Why "PSNgate" could be bad for the whole industry

2011-04-29T00:18:00.002+01:00

Something that really winds me up is when technology goes wrong and somebody will say they hate technology. People don't hate technology, they hate when it goes wrong. I get the feeling a lot of people will be hating technology right now.

The Playstation Network has been down for a week today. Yesterday the news came that the reason for this extended interlude in service was that Sony had been hacked, and the personal data, which potentially included credit card information, of around 70 million people was now in the hands of said hackers.

At this stage it's still undetermined who actually hacked the PSN. Many are laying the blame at Internet hacktivist group Anonymous' door. The group recently declared an attack on Sony, in response to Sony's during of George Hotz, who provided the key to unlocking the console for unlicensed software.

But Anonymous deny any attacks on the PSN itself, stating that they don't want to stop gamers. It makes sense; they want to make a hit against Sony not the people with their consoles. Thing is, the very nature of Anonymous means that it could of been one of their members acting on what it thought was their common goal. I'm not going to go into my thoughts on Anonymous (I generally support them, for the record) but it's hard for them to defend themselves on this one.

Sony told users yesterday that their personal data might have been leaked, and in my opinion this is pretty unforgivable. Now I don't understand hacking or how you'd go about hacking the PSN but Sony have to have had some idea about what had happened. If you think some outside agent has gained access to personal confidential information of your customers, it is your responsibility and even your duty to tell them as soon as possible. Like last Thursday.

But this is going to have much more of an impact on Sony than just some interrupted service and a few pissed off customers. That trust that consumers place into them has been broken and that's not easily won back. In the week the PSN has been offline, it wouldn't surprise me if some committed Black Ops players have already traded in their PS3s for an XBox. Gamers NEED multiplayer these days.

But I think this entire incident is going to hurt Sony the most seriously in the living room. For quite some time, the marketing for Sony, at least in the UK has been targeted at families, focussing on the console as a blu ray and motion control device over traditional gaming. But now with the news of the security breach hitting newspapers and the BBC websites, almost every household in the country will have some knowledge of the events. Many I imagine will intrinsically, and incorrectly, link the PS3 with credit card fraud. That's the sort of damage that no amount of positive marketing will quickly fix.

As I'm writing this post, news is appearing that Sony is to be hit with a class action lawsuit, as well as potential government fines. This is serious now. This could ruin the PSN forever. At first this was just a case of a multiplayer outage which made Sony look a tad daft. Now it's a media firestorm which could tarnish the image of the PS3's online capabilities forever.

In fact it might not just be Sony who take a PR hit from this. Both Microsoft and Nintendo seemed keen to get people into using their respective online services. Microsoft offers the family Gold account allowing control over content, and Nintendo operate the ambassador policy, rewarding Wii owners for helping friends sign up to the online service. But the "PSNgate" news is on the front page of some newspapers. To the public, the idea of giving your personal info to a game console would be tantamount to handed flyers out with your account number and sort code on them.

I can see Sony giving away something free when they've sorted this problem out and the PSN is back online but will that be enough to persuade the legions of customers who feel betrayed. No, the hack isn't directly Sony's fault. They didn't actively give anyone the data. But they didn't take enough steps to prevent it getting into the wrong hands, and to me, it feels like they screwed up there. Big time.

It's difficult to say how this is going to play out, but it's going to take a hell of a lot more than a Kevin Butler ad to sort this bad press out.

The 3DS; My Twelfth Impressions

2011-04-25T12:35:00.001+01:00

Now I'm back in London, I've gained access to that most wondrous of new devices, the 3DS. The media gave it a relatively good response but I didn't hear any cries of "greatest gadget ever" from the journalist masses, so I was willing to wait. After having the thing for almost a month now, I've decided to compile my thoughts on the thing;

- Visually, the device lots great. I chose the "Cosmo Black" version and it is really well designed. The top half is slightly larger than the bottom, allowing for easier opening. Opened up, it still looks great. The Start, Home and Select buttons are all discreet enough that you don't notice them all the time.

- The controller nub (or whatever Nintendo call it) feels responsive when used. It has just the right amount of give. I put in Super Mario 64 DS and ran around using it. Felt awesome.

- The Home screen is really well lain out. The ability to choose the size of the icons allows for a decent amount of customisation. The influence of the Wii homescreen is evident.

- The 3D works. There's no two ways about it, it looks amazing. It's definitely not perfect though. The viewing angle is pretty specific, and I often found myself having to adjust the device as to prevent the two images blurring apart.

- The inbuilt FaceRaiders is really nothing but a distraction, but it actually serves to show quite a weakness in the 3DS's stereoscopic imaging; moving the device around too much means you inevitably lose the 3D effect. Okay, you can switch it off, but it's not as fun that way.

- The augmented reality stuff is cool. I'm impressed Nintendo managed to shoehorn in a boss fight with a dragon to every game, even fishing. It will be interesting to see if anything more is done with this. I'm still hoping for an AR Katamari game.

- I can't really comment on StreetPass because I haven't passed anyone with a 3DS yet, one of the downsides of being an early adopter. StreetPass Quest is a nice light hearted RPG adventure which rewards Miis with hats. Pointless cosmetic upgrades? Count me in. Due to my lack of street-passing, I've been paying cats to fight ghosts for me. Yes.

- The pedometer seems like a needless inclusion but I really like the element of earning Play Coins. Games should reward me for not playing sometimes. I can see this being implemented into the Pokemon games, and perhaps being able to trade in Play Coins in Mario or Zelda for upgrades.

- The lack of the software store is a poor show on Nintendo's part. The launch line up was pretty lackluster, so to set the handheld free with no download service feels unjustifiable. I'm looking forward to it's launch, but in late March, after two months after launch? It doesn't seem to make any sense.

- The SD card will probably be useful. Some of the photos I'm taking do look nice, but mainly because they are 3D. The camera quality otherwise is pretty poor, so I'll only really be viewing them on the 3DS itself.

- I know it sounds daft, but I really like the charging cradle. It's just a simple piece of plastic, but it's nice to have a place where you can drop the 3DS to instantly begin charging it. It's also nice to have the option of disconnecting it to charge the device directly. Has anyone worked out what the little hinged bit on the back is for yet?

So there we have it. Overall, I like the 3DS. It looks good, the 3D works thankfully, and the features all show some, if not quite a bit, of promise. I can't say it's fantastic yet because I haven't really been able to play a proper game on it yet, but come late May and the 17th of June respectively, I'll be all over it.

See y'all next time

The Big Ten; My Favourite Games of All Time

2011-04-21T13:59:00.001+01:00

It's a ritual every games writer must go through at some point; the traditional run down of his or her top ten favourite games.

After scribbling down a shortlist and then using an advanced method of moving bits of paper about on my desk, I decided on an order. I'm still not a hundred percent sure about the order of the bottom five, but the games that matter are all there. So let's begin;

10; Wario Land 3, GBC, 2000
Probably the least known game on the list, but one that has always stuck with me, WL3 is a 2D platformer in a similar vein to the other Wario games. The game features a linear upgrade system where Wario's powers develop over the course of the game. This allowed for an element of the game which probably is the main reason for it sticking in my top ten; after gaining new abilities, you would go back to older levels and unlock new routes through them, resulting in new levels unlocking. A night and day cycle that altered the enemies and layout of certain levels was a clever feature, as well as some fantastically ridiculous boss fights and an ingenious power up system that beautifully exploited Wario's invincibility. Wario Land 3 showed me that small cartridge games didn't have to be small in vision.

9. Team Fortress 2, PC, 2007
Although I have only really just started playing it, I've already sunk 36 hours into it, and in that time it has gone straight into my list of favourite all time games. I've never really considered myself much of a PC gamer or a multiplayer gamer, but TF2 has proven both of these false. I never thought I could have so much fun online, let alone in an FPS. There's something about TF2 that makes it different. Perhaps it's the fantastically well defined classes that each has their own role to play. Perhaps it's the astoundingly unique art style that actually helps you in gameplay. Perhaps it's the surprisingly deep storyline that has been introduced across the slew of updates. However, it's mostly likely a combination of all of these, plus the fact I'm actually quite good at it.

8. Mass Effect 2, Xbox 360, 2010
It was probably the critics' favourite game of last year, and it was a close second favourite of mine. So many of the things that had bugged me about the original had been removed or modified, although I would still argue the Mako sections didn't need to be removed. The plot was strong despite being completely malleable. Some of the dialogue was fantastically written and the side missions were absolutely perfect, mixing gameplay and depth of story in a way never before seen. Also Garrus.

7. Half-Life, PC, 1998
DOOM created the first person shooter, and Half-Life revolutionised it. The story of the bespectacled theoretical physicist's escape from Black Mesa is now a seminal one, and still holds up today. I would argue that the original is better than the sequel but that's not why I'm here. HL is probably the first FPS game I played from start to finish, if you don't include Wolfenstein on the iPod. One of my favourite things about it is the fact that it takes about half an hour for the game to actually get started. That might sound like a criticism, but it really serves to get across the point that Gordon Freeman is no hero. He's not the leader of an elite black ops team, or a specially trained mercenary. He's a guy with an orange hazard suit and a crowbar. Your fight through Black Mesa is a constant struggle, and with your workmates dropping like proverbial flies about you, it constantly reinforces the sense that you won't be surviving the next encounter.

6. Assassin's Creed series, Xbox 360, 2007-10
Yes, the series. This is my list of top ten games, and I get to decide how it works. The Assassin's Creed series is often applauded for the way each new instalment. (at least within the main series) has introduced new and innovative gameplay features. The original introduced the concept of travelling across vast open sandboxes spaces using free-running, adding a new element to gameplay. AC2 features the same great gameplay, but adds new mission types, more varied locations and one of the most compelling character development arcs I've ever seen in all of entertainment in the form of Ezio. AC:B took a winning concept ran with it, to create what was probably my game of 2010. Th innovative multiplayer was one of my favourite features, but I also enjoyed the Brotherhood micromanagement as well as the side missions which were far more fleshed out than either of the predecessors. I would also like to quickly mention my enjoyment of the Facebook game Project Legacy, which provides superfluous, but deep and compelling extra narrative to the AC universe. Hats off to Ubisoft for creating a well rounded game to bring the gap between now and AC3

5. Jak and Daxter series, PS2, 2001-04
Before 2007, I wasn't as serious about games as I am now. It was more of my hobby than my passion. But there was one franchise that I took seriously; Jak and Daxter. The original game often felt like a spiritual sequel to Crash Bandicoot, but with the fantastic cast of characters and the wonderful open world to explore, I was far too busy having fun to notice (I was also ten). The sequel however, was probably my first step on the way to "grown-up gaming". Jak was back, in a gritty, futuristic city, crushed under the boot-heel of a suppressive tyrant and under threat from invasion by hordes of ravenous monsters. Guns were on the menu. Jak could transform into a rage-fuelled dark alter ego. Gone were the power cell collecting missions, to make way for infiltrating hostile enemy bases to subvert their oppressive regime. The third game in the series opened the world out even further, and brought all of the plot lines and characters together for a suitably epic final act. The entire series was a brilliant fusion of platforming and action-adventure, supported by some stellar characters (such as Sig, Krew and of course, Daxter).

4. Monkey Island series, PC, 1990-2009
I can still remember my first experience of Monkey Island. It was Curse of Monkey Island, running on my friend's PC, in a tiny spare room, and at first I was unimpressed with the cartoony world I saw before me. But after playing it, I suddenly realised what this was; a game that taxed my intelligence, not my trigger finger. A range of genius puzzles were lain down in front of me, and they were surround by some of the funniest dialogue and characters in any game ever. Soon after, I went out and purchased the triple pack which contained (unsurprisingly) the first three games. The original was so beautiful in its simplicity. The forest on Melee remains a high point, along with recipe making on-board the ship. The second game, probably my favourite in the series, has some of the best humour in the series as well as the best locations. Guybrush's sense of humour and dry wit are unmatched even today. Curse of Monkey Island has a fantastic art style, and the voice work of Dominic Armato continues to make me laugh. The banjo duel and insult sword fighting also make a welcome return. I'm willing to forgive Escape from Monkey Island due to the quality of the series before it, because it really was not a good game. The latest set of installments, Tales of Monkey Island are fantastic episodic adventures which really fit themselves in well to the universe and introduce some new characters which have some hilarious dialogue. It's been said before, but the Monkey Island games really do ask what is sharper; your sword or your wit?

3. The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening DX, GBC, 1998
In 1998, I wanted a Game Boy Colour more than anything. My parents promised me one if I did well in Year 3 of primary school. I did, and along with my shiny new purple GBC, I got a copy of Link's Awakening DX, the remastered version of the similarly titled 1993 game. Prior to this point, I had virtually no knowledge of the Legend of Zelda franchise, so as I first stepped onto Koholint Island, I had no idea what to expect. What I was faced with was a island full of downright bizarre characters, an amazing variety of environments and some of the greatest dungeon puzzles I've ever seen in a LoZ game. The heartbreaking story of Link's quest to free himself from the doomed island is so well structured that it would make a fantastic novel. You battle forwards through the dungeons in a traditional manner, but as you do the mystery surrounding your quest thickens, and you begin to question the very nature of the game. There's so much to LA which on the surface feels like a simple isometric Zelda quest, but when the game starts asking questions about the ethics of your perceived heroics, it suddenly becomes something else entirely. The game is due to be re-released on the 3DS Virtual Console, and for me it will be a Day One purchase.

2. Fallout 3, Xbox 360, 2008
Recently I was trying to remember how I spent the summer between finishing my A-Levels and going to uni. I couldn't think of what I was doing all the time. Then I remember; I spent most of it inside, playing Fallout 3. The summer I got my 360 was the summer I spent roaming the Capital Wasteland, hunting ghouls and playing a stealth-suit wearing shotgun-wielding private detective (because of the hat). I don't actually know why I got so excited about F3. In early 2009 I decided that I was going to get an Xbox, and somehow, I suddenly started watching videos on YouTube about the game. It became the thing I wanted more than anything. When it finally arrived, I played it almost non-stop for the whole day. F3 takes you from humble beginnings all the way through to captain of a spaceship. What I truly love about it is the non-linearity of the world. Often, I would just travel to a random location and walk in a random direction, just to see what I might come across. Sometimes it would be nothing. Other times I would stumble on a gang of raiders. A pack of deathclaws. A house which had very little in the way of items, but told a sad story nonetheless. The main storyline is good, but it pales in comparison to the experience of playing through the Dunwich Building (arguably one of the scariest gaming experience I've ever had). Yes, there are bugs. Yes, the character models aren't perfect. But the world, oh the beautifully realised apocalypse. I can cope with a few glitchy doors if it means I can climb to the top of the Washington Monument and watch the sunrise over a Super Mutant filled Capitol building.

1. Grim Fandango, PC, 1998
It's one of those best games nobody played. It one numerous game of the year awards. It was porbably the last of the great adventure games, and by far the greatest. The genre chose to go out with a bang, and what a bang it was. Grim Fandango's storyline of film noir fantasy set in a land of the dead sounds like the pitch for a Tim Burton film but provides the backdrop for some of the most incredible characters and locations you will ever come across in a game. From the stale offices of the game's opening, to the bright lights and broken dreams of Rubacava, to the hellish torment of the Edge of the World slave colony, each locations makes a greater impression than the last. The cast of characters you interact with is just as unforgettable. Whether it's Glottis and his desperate need for speed, or Domino and his very smug, very punchable face, or Salvador and his fanatic revolutionary spirit, each character is as well though-out and scripted as the last. Never has the death of an incidental character been so moving.
Grim Fandango has made it's mark on my life in many different ways. It's the reason I've got an interest in some strange things (film noir, jazz and blues, Aztec and Art Deco architecture). But mainly, it showed me that video games aren't just toys. With the right people behind them, video games CAN be interactive art. Whole worlds to be explored, wonderful stories to be told and unforgettable experiences to be had.

No Fooling. This is an Update

2011-04-01T18:52:00.000+01:00

Seriously. There's no joke to be found here, just posting an update. I figure I can still keep this blog active if I do at least one post a month.

So the Minecraft post I've been working on is somewhat dead in the water. I know exactly what I want to say and I have some great images to go with it but unfortunately I don't have the motivation to get the damn thing written. So for the time being I'm sticking on hold. Minecraft isn't going anywhere. In fact I booted up the single player again the other day to try and find a wolf, but after running around for a while carrying a bone, I didn't find any.

Echo Bazaar has been making up most of my gaming in the past few weeks. I've really been enjoying the developing narrative and have been trying to role-play the character as much as possible. The new profile page (and you can find mine here) really encourages the development of a journal, and I've been trying to create a really character to portray. I recently built up my Casing quality so that I could rob from the Bazaar itself, which would have been incredibly risky if I'd have failed. Chronicling the plans I was laying down in the Journal really made the whole experience feel more visceral and also exists as a nice record of my activities.

I've been catching up on my TF2 recently. I bought one of the hats for Japan, as it seemed like the right thing to do. It's a great thing when the gaming community can rack up three hundred thousand dollars over about six days. I think charity and games really go well together. Giving players virtual items in exchange for donations is really the way forward. People are far more inclined to donate when they get something out of it, and virtual items don't actually cost anything to produce, so everybody wins.
TF2 game-wise, I've been getting slightly better! Sure, I still die a lot, but I've been staying alive for longer. As a sniper, I've actually surprised myself by getting a few headshots. As an engineer, I've got far better at placement of sentry guns, and feel far more useful now that I actually build teleports. As a medic, I'm getting far better, although there is nothing as depressing as when you are paired with a Heavy and he turns into giblets in front of your eyes, despite being fully over healed.

Way back in late January, I pre-ordered a 3DS with the full intention of cancelling it a few weeks before launch. Unfortunately, I totally forgot to do that, and so whilst I was still deciding what to do about it, I got an email saying that my order had been dispatched, so that decision was very nicely removed from my hands, along with two hundred pounds from my bank account. The 3DS actually arrived a day early, but for some reason still unbeknownst to me, it was delivered to my home address, as opposed to my student digs. Overall, I'm not that upset about the entire thing. There's nothing on the handheld I'm particularly clamouring for, and until either Link's Awakening or Ocarina of Time come out, I think I can manage without.

Finally, Tom of Newb Review fame very kindly posted me a copy of Left 4 Dead 2 that he picked up cheap from EA Headquarters recently, which I am incredibly appreciative of. Expect a post about that soon.

But not next time. Oh no, next post is my one hundredth blog post, and I'm celebrating by creating my definitive Top 10 Games of All Time. It's gonna be a big one.

See y'all next time.

To Boldly MMO; A Captain's Log from Star Trek Online

2011-03-15T12:05:00.000Z

I am a geek. I accept this. I'm into comic books, video games and I spend a lot of time on the internet. I'm well and truly at peace with my geekitude.

However, one element of geekdom has always eluded me; Star Trek. It's not like I have a particular problem with the series. If I catch an episode running on Virgin, I'll sit down and watch it. The real problem I have getting into the show is the assumed knowledge. I always get stranded in a mire of Romulan-Vulcan tensions and deflector arrays. Star Trek is something of an undiscovered country to me.

However, thanks to Troy, who co-hosts one of my favourite podcasts World 1 Stage 1, I was able to get hold of a trial copy of the game.It's been quite a while since I've played any MMO. The days of Ren'jan the Troll Hunter are far behind me and I can't really remember much of Champions Online. So it was with something of a nervousness that I clicked "Engage" after the eight hour install (I wish I was joking.)

STO uses its source material to great effect; the game is structured into episodes, with appropriate titles appearing as you warp into the system. The game opens, as seems to be the norm in MMOs today, in the middle of a heated battle between a Federation vessel and the Borg. After dropping in as my character, a Vulcan Science Officer, I headed towards the bridge as directed. The controls in STO feel odd to say the least. It uses the normal WASD set up, but A and D strafe the character, with the right mouse button controlling the camera. It took a little getting used to, but after a few minutes I got the hang of it.

After receiving a quick mission debriefing (read; quest) I beamed over to the ship that needed rescuing, and started attacking the invading Borg. Combat is the standard MMORPG interface that everyone has been using since WoW. First I selected an enemy, then I pressed the 2 key, then 1, then 1 again, then 3 when he got too close. The bonus damage provided by flanking an enemy was a nice touch, but unfortunately STO's ground combat is another case of number poking.

After killing a designated number of the Borg, I beamed back to the ship, which for some reason I must have skipped now fell under my command. Suddenly, I was at the helm of a starship. This was the big time.

Space combat in STO plays out in a very similar way to ground combat, with each number button assigned to a weapon, and the WASD keys controlling movement. However, it is far more intense and exciting than face to face combat. Perhaps it's moving to full impulse to come sweeping past for a flanking attack. Perhaps it's boosting power to the aft shields whilst you swing around for another run. Perhaps it's weakening your opponents shields enough to launch a crippling proton torpedo attack. But whatever it is, the space combat is genuinely some of the most exciting action I've seen in any MMO to date.

After a few more ground missions and another dramatic space battle with pirates, I was returned to Starfleet, and informed my demo time was over, or rather that I had exhausted the two quests that the demo allowed. After putting on some new armour that made me look like a TRON character and running around Starfleet for a while, I decide to log off.

Star Treak Online is a relatively stable MMO. The ship combat is fantastic, blurring the lines between RPG and real time strategy, but unfortunately, the ground combat doesn't offer anything new to the table. At least Cryptic know their audience; so many of elements of the game are fan service. The sound of the phasers. The klaxon as you engage in space combat. The melee move being a paralysing palm strike. Opening a hailing frequency. The whole game smacks of fan service, but in this case, it's the best thing they could have done.

See y'all next time.

Dr Medic or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love Multiplayer Gaming

2011-03-08T16:36:00.000Z

If you are a follower of me on Twitter, you'll have probably noticed something of a theme in my recent tweets; Team Fortress 2. I've recently started playing. Probably an unhealthy amount.

I'm not normally a huge multiplayer fan, in that up until very recently, my Xbox Live account remained staunchly Silver. This changed when I started playing Assassin's Creed Brotherhood. I had read many a review stating that the multiplayer was "pretty good". This didn't really ever affect me, multiplayer was always something for "other people" to play, gaming snob that I am.

After completing the majority of the single player of AC:B, I decided to use a free trial of Gold I had thanks to a flier that came with Fable 2. I was nervous as I went into my first game. My hands were shaking as the Abstergo logo shifted about, connect me to a server. I selected the Harlequin. And I started playing.

Everything about AC:B multiplayer appeals to me. It's not a test of lightening fast agility or well developed twitch skills, but rather a battle of wits. Who can be the best assassin? Who can blend into a crowd, disappear in the blink of an eye, vanish using the environment? The upgrade system attached to the multiplayer adds a level of customisation that keeps the gameplay varied but balanced.

AC:B is my kind of mutliplayer. Players who try the run straight at their target are swiftly put in their place as they target the wrong model or get dispatched by a hidden opponent. Skilled players will walk alongside you, lull you into a sense of security then pounce as you target your folly. The untraditional multiplayer is a place where I can not only enjoy myself, but actually shine.

Team Fortress 2 on the other hand is much more traditional online mutliplayer. If you haven't heard of it, you've clearly been under a rock for the past four years, or perhaps just really dislike the FPS genre. Here's a thing; Team Fortress 2 was released in 2007. In all that time, all the content updates have been entirely free. In fact, until recently, all of the in-game items could be obtained just by playing the game.

It's tough for me to decide on my opinion of TF2. I can't decide whther it's the best multiplayer game ever, or just the best game ever. Valve have covered everything. The classes are balanced. The maps are not only balanced, but also constantly increasing. Yesterday, I had a sniper duel across a crowded canyon. A few days ago, I created a teleporter way point for my team and kept them healed whilst we were pinned down in a tunnel. The number of stories that game produces is phenomenal.

If you'd like to play a game with me, you can send me a message on Steam. I'm lavalampbamboo, and I'm probably playing as The Medic or The Engineer.

Nightmares and Narrative; A Hastily Scrawled Note From Echo Bazaar

2011-02-20T22:25:00.000Z

The world of free social MMOGs isn't exactly small. There are the big ones, the multi-million dollar ones, like Farmville. And then there are your smaller social experiences, like Echo Bazaar. Made by London based developer FailBetter Games, Echo Bazaar is one of the few online games to use Twitter as its platform.

For a set-up, it's quite a concept. London is the fifth in a line of cities that has been stolen, dragged below the very surface of the Earth by bats to play host to a mysterious marketplace, the eponymous Echo Bazaar. You take the role of a newcomer to the city, but, as is so often the case in these scenarios, you start off in jail. After escaping you are given free reign over your story.

Echo Bazaar is, at it's heart, a choose-your-own-adventure book. You read the storylet set-up, and then choose your option. A basic stat-check takes place, and you either succeed or fail. It is this simple design that makes EB such a success. The enjoyment found in the game is in the narrative, not the gameplay. Whilst other social games force you to find rewards in selling your watermelon harvest, EB rewards you with a beautifully scripted story, and a development to your character.

The dark humour of the storylets is wonderful, and the world sculpted magnificently. One of the things that I enjoyed is how you are dropped into the world, with no explanation of it. For a time you fumble somewhat blindly with the strange vocabulary dropped into conversation, but slowly you come to recognise these words as the norm, and the city truly feels like your home. This simply technique immerses you in the world so effectively, and yet so subtly.

The character development in EB is also to be noted. You have four primary stats; Dangerous, Watchful, Persuasive and Shadowy, and these all develop as you succeed or fail in the appropriate stat checks. However, it is the Qualities which define who you are. These stats are hidden away in your character sheet, but they allow you a greater understanding of the path you have taken. Some chart your connections with the various factions of the city. Others mark your exploits and the choices you made. Your Quirks label you with qualities you might not desire, but are stuck with due to your choices and failures (or in some cases, successes). It is this almost natural character building that makes EB stand out for me; as opposed to crafting who you wish to be, you are truly defined by your actions.

I cannot claim EB to be perfect. There is somewhat of an element of grinding to be seen when your stats are too low to unlock newer challenges, although it is difficult to avoid this. FailBetter are also constantly added new content, so combined with the four novels worth of content already freely available, grinding will become bearable, if not enjoyable.

Most interestingly, as I finish writing this post, FailBetterGames have announced the launch of a new subscription system, on top of the already present Fate system. The Fate system allows you to purchase more storylets, almost like DLC. The new subscription raises the number of actions per day raised from 70 to 100, which seems fair enough. Non-subscribers, on the other hand, are having their actions reduced to 50. I don't feel this is unfair. The subscription is about £4 a month, and I've already gotten hours of free entertainment from the game. I personally would consider subscribing, but it should be interesting to see how the market reacts to it.

Echo Bazaar is quite a unique game. It's social but not to the point of annoyance. It has deep, involving storylines, and a dark, dry sense of humour. It's also free for the most part. Immersive games are often thought of to have to be visually arresting as well as well structured; EB only needs the one. I have never been drawn into a world so much that I willing drove my character insane in order to progess a storyline.

Assassins Of Future Past

2011-02-05T19:12:00.000Z

Ubisoft have been very clever with the design of the Assassin's Creed franchise. Not only is the Animus one of the most original framing devices used as a novel game interface, it also allows a great deal of choice in selecting the setting for any future games. It's a hot topic on forums across the internet as to the time period and location of AC3, so today I'm going to have a look at the top suggestions as to where the game might go next, and comment on their likelihood.

Feudal Japan; This one has been going about for a couple of years now, and I don't see why it couldn't work. I think a lot of people would like to see an Assassin running about with a katana, and the architecture in Japan does lend itself to free-running. However, it would be quite a challenge to try and work the Templars into this setting, so unless Ubisoft create a new enemy, it seems unlikely we'll be assassinating samurai any time soon.

World War 1/2; Probably the setting that has been asked about the most, I don't think that we'll be seeing either world wars as the background for AC3. For one, the wars have been done so many times in gaming that many gamers are simply bored of them. Another reason is that the addition of automatic weaponry to the series would make gameplay far harder. It's one thing to dodge a bullet fired from a matchlock rifle but to dodge a spray of lead from a machine gun is somewhat stretching belief. Finally, the designers have gone on record saying that it is not a setting they are particularly interested in covering, so I think that it is safe to say we won't be travelling to war-torn Europe in AC3.

The French Revolution; This one has the most force behind it right now, mainly because of the teaser at the end of AC3 mention two symbols appearing only in the time of French Revolution. On the face of it, I can understand why this could be a likely option. Like the games before it, it features a period heavy in conflict, guns aren't so advanced as to make free-running deadly and the Templars could very easily be behind the revolution (or maybe even the Assassins). The only thing that makes me doubt the use of 19th century France is that technology would not have moved on that much from the 16th century. Writing this down, I know it sounds ridiculous, but in an AC game setting, I am at a loss to think of what changes could be made mechanically if it were set in the 19th century.

The Modern (Future) Day; Ever since the not particularly exciting Desmond sections in AC1 and the marginally more exciting bits in AC2 and ACB, the fans have all been asking (and to an extent almost expecting) a Desmond game. Given the way the game are moving, with the constant training of Desmond, it would make logical sense to have the last game in the trilogy (of four) to have him being the ultimate assassin he is destined to be. But again the flaw lies in the gun element; once Abstergo starts rolling out the automatic rifles and shotguns, no amount of eagle vision is going to help. It would be nice to see some more action sequences with Desmond, but I don't think it's realistic, gameplay-wise, to have an entire game of him.

Mayan/Aztec; A while ago now, a news story came out about how AC2 was going to be set in Aztec or Mayan times. Obviously, this never came to pass, but it does seem to make sense as a location. Given the series focus on the 2012 apocalypse, one of the Mesoamerican cultures that originated this idea would make sense. The city of Tenochtitlan would make an ideal location for free running, and would provide a unique setting for any game. The crystal skulls could be interpreted as Pieces of Eden. The time period would also not block the Templars involvement either, as they could arrive in the form of the Conquistadors (although I am aware this has briefly been touched upon in Project Legacy)

So there we are. Of course, it could easily be another time period entirely, and I'm not even mentioning the end of Brotherhood, and my theory that the whole game series is going to turn out to have been experience through Desmond's descendants. But until Ubisoft reveals AC3, I guess we will be left in the proverbial dark.

See y'all next time.

Back In The Nick of Time

2011-01-31T21:10:00.005Z

Yes. I'm back, just in time to do at least one post in January. And there is no way you can prove I'm writing this in February.

So I'm back, as promised, and although I don't have any stimulating content just yet, I do have something just as exciting.

Say hello to Mycroft;

Yes, I named my new computer Mycroft, deal with it.

Of course the real computer is out of shot, sitting under my desk. It's a Dell Inspiron 580, with a 3.2Ghz i3 processor and 4GB of RAM. It's also black.

As you might be able to make out in the picture, I've been downloading a lot of my unplayed Steam library. Torchlight I've admittedly played before, but it's nice to be able to run the thing without it running at 1 FPS. Tales of Monkey Island works far better than it ever did on the Toaster (Requiescat in pace, Toaster).

I also spent some time downloading TF2, and when I say spent some time, I mean about four hours. The bandwidth in the flat is all over the place. It runs okay, and whilst the graphics aren't perfect, it's still a better experience than playing it on the XBox.

As we speak I am downloading S.T.A.L.K.E.R Call Of Pripyat which I'm quite looking forward to, ever since I read an article detailing the Emission events. I'm not sure how well I'll be able to run it but I'm hopeful. I'm sure it will be able to cope.

So there we are. A new year and a new computer. Also a new phone but that's not really relevant at this juncture. Stay tuned for compelling updates. Next time; the future of the Assassin's Creed franchise.

MetaUpdate

2010-12-15T23:05:00.000Z

Here's the thing. I've been playing a bunch of games recently. I've got a new phone, with games on it. I've also been playing a lot of App Store distractions. But I just haven't got around to writing about it.

I could blame it on not having a decent computer, which is half true. I switched on for the first time in a month yesterday, specifically to write a lab report. It's a poor piece of machinery and I generally now dislike using it. I'm writing this on my girlfriend's laptop to avoid using it. Hopefully, by Christmas I'll have a whizzy new computer that can actually run stuff. Fun fact; I've only played 45% of my Steam games. Not because I don't want to, but because I can't. Portal breaks when I use a portal, Trine just refuses to start, and I'm not even bothering with TF2 after the free weekend debacle.

But really I can only blame the lack of content on myself. I just don't have the self control to post. I get bored writing down my own thoughts, or get stuck on the title or the opening paragraph. I lack motivation. It's why I got 40% in my first year of university and it's why I'm writing this now. I originally started this blog because I wanted to go to E3, although that's a bit of a pipe dream really.

So here's the thing; I'm going to start afresh. Not in any blog-changing way, but I'm going to go for more regular status updates, with better content, that isn't just me talking about sentiments that have already been expressed by everyone. Hopefully, next year I'll have a podcast on the go as well so fingers crossed for that.

Basic gist of this post; coming in 2011, compelling content, and maybe a podcast. See y'all then!

And also, ilomilo. I've got a WP7 now, and I want this more than anything.

Use A Potion... Maybe.

2010-11-12T23:26:00.000Z

So Fable 3 is pretty fun.

Thought I'd open with that. Get it out of the way. Mix things up a bit.

Fable 2 was the first ever game I played when I first got my XBox and I absolutely played it to death. It was a lot of fun and despite a few flaws I really had a lot of fun crafting a character who, for some reason, wore sunglasses.

So on to the sequel, which I have been waiting for since it was announced back in 2009 (possibly) and I was waiting on the courier for aaaages until it turned up. For some reason, despite pre-ordering it at least a month ago, Amazon decided to send it out on the say of release. Play were smart enough to send out New Vegas two days in advance so it arrived on release day, but Amazon... Well I certainly won't be using them again for any pre-orders. Not that I can afford another. Saving up for that 3DS.

Fable 3 was always very pushed as removing many of the features that were apparently clogging up Fable 2, and that's obvious from the get go. The health bar has been stripped away, the weapon equipment screen has been removed, and the emotes wheel has been taken away. It's a bold choice and it feels like something you might see in an experimental indie game as opposed to one of the 360's flagship franchises. Personally... It doesn't gel too well with me. The pause screen is clever I suppose and Jasper's dry humour is something I enjoy, but I didn't particularly ever feel that Fable 2 was clunky. The choice of only two emotes when interacting a character seems to detract from the level of interaction in the previous game and I liked having a health bar to indicate when I should start panicking. In Fable 3, it's more guess work.

The combat is still fun, striking the balance between challenging and manageable. There are some surprisingly vicious flourishes, like the other day when I jumped onto the shoulders of my enemy and BROKE HIS NECK WITH MY KNEES. It was pretty horrendously awesome. I also enjoy weaving spells together, with my personal favourite being a mix of fireball and lightening. Burn 'em and stun 'em. Just like Bioshock. Ranged combat is still ranged combat, and it's still great fun to blast away at enemies as they charged toward you. The weapon morphing is a nice feature, but doesn't really seem to be as dynamic as initially suggested.

The story is progressing nicely and has a more fantasy based plot-line than the previous. Whilst it took a while to get going, the cave sequence was very intense and really got under my skin. Freaky skull this are freaky.

Fable 3 will keep me busy for a while and gives me something to play when I'm tired of New Vegas, and vice versa. I have to see between the two I prefer F:NV, but they are both top notch games, and I heartily recommend them both. Although play Fable 2 first.

Next time... Something else. More New Vegas. See y'all in the Dino's mouth!

Viva New Vegas

2010-11-04T23:59:00.000Z

I went for the easy option with the title today. And why not?

So yes, as should be clear by now, Fallout: New Vegas is here, and has been for about a week and a half now. I really wanted to write about it but the problem was that it was so damn good. The reservations I had about it after playing it at Eurogamer were completely unfounded. After I had starting playing for a while and I had recovered from being shot in the face by Matthew Perry, I really got into the swing of things. The attack on Goodsprings was a really good start, and it felt great to rally the people around town. There is a lot more variety in quests, and a lot of the story telling is much more compelling. I've also enjoyed the humour which is much more obvious.

Obsidian clearly wanted the player to have more choice in the direction of the plot, as I've been bombarded with options as to who to support in the grand battle for New Vegas. I'm currently supporting the NCR, in the hope that we can push Caesar's Legion right out of the Mojave. I've even toyed with the idea of disguising my self as a Legionary and assassinating Caesar to get it over with, although I get the feeling that killing him wouldn't really put an end to things.

My character, who travels by the name of Zach, is a gun-toting science geek with a penchant for smoothing talking, which is not entirely dissimilar to my Fallout 3 character (also called Zach). There are a lot more stat checks in the conversations, which I really love because passing them makes me feel as if I'm cheating the game somehow. It's also a bloody marvel that Zach isn't addicted to Mentats because the amount of them I take to pass repair and science checks is unbelievable.

New Vegas is really great fun, maybe more so than its predecessor. If you enjoyed roving the Capital Wasteland, you'll equally enjoy moseying through the Mojave dressed as a cowboy. If you didn't enjoy Fallout 3... There's something wrong with you.

I'll be posting more updates over the next few months. I've even thought of turning a few of the quests into short stories, just for a laugh. Who knows?

Next time; Adventures in Albion with John Cleese! See y'all on the throne!

DLC: Downloadable Complaining

2010-10-13T18:39:00.006+01:00

Okay, that might be a bit unfair. I don't actually have any problems with the stuff I've downloaded (well, maybe a bit) but you'd think being about two metres away from a wireless router would affords me some favourable download speeds. However, I am in a flat where five people are all trying to get internet access from a 6MB connection, which is suppose to be 20MB, but isn't. MARG BLARG INTERNET STUFF.

So, I've been busy downloading a few things recently. XBLA has, in my opinion, had a run of really fantastic releases recently, I'm very swiftly going to run down a few of the ones I've been firing up on the ol' 360.

DeathSpank; Thongs of Virtue was released a week or so ago and although I failed to get it then, I did get it a couple of days before I went off to university. It's really good fun. It's a direct sequel to DeathSpank, which was released way back in July (which I intended to write about but it got lost in the ether of Mass Effect 2). My personal favourite is definately the latter. Whilst some of the humour is not as cutting as the original the gameplay is much more well rounded, and also, you can have a ray gun. And a chain saw. And a cowboy hat. And space boots. It really appealed to the childish side in me (so, it appealed to the only side of me) with aliens, soldiers, cowboys and robots all turning up, and then later being shot. Overall best part; Shooting a dinosaur with a laser. Screw high fantasy.

Alan Wake was good. I really enjoyed it, as it had one of the most compelling stories of any game I've played in a while. However, one of the downfalls of the story was the ending. I found I was left stranded not really understanding what the hell had happened to Alan. The first bit of DLC help a little; it seemed to suggest after defeating the Dark Presence, Alan had somehow regressed into his own dark mind. However, I still wanted answers (dammit) and The Writer DLC was all set to provide them. Which it sort of did. The pacing of The Writer is very good, and it has a very clever final fight which I didn't see coming. The storyline is still left relatively open though, and there are some major unfinished plot points (e.g. Mr Scratch?) Let's hope despite middling sales, Remedy are working on a sequel. Overall best part; Either the ferris wheel of death or the giant typewriter of self reference.

Comic Jumper is some what of a media darling at the moment, garnering positive reviews from almost everyone, and for the most part I agree. The different art styles and comic book universe world swaps are a feature I absolutely love and the humour is really some of the best I've seen/heard in a game. I just wish it was more enjoyable to play. I really loved 'Splosion Man, but one of my major criticisms was that it was just too damn difficult at points, and CJ suffers from exactly the same problems. I died about six times on the first level of the second world. If you are gonna make it so easy for me to get hit, Twisted Pixel, at least give me a way to gain back my health. It's a real shame but I am going to persevere and upgrade Captain Smiley to make it easier. Overall best part; "Why do you hate birds so much?" "I don't know, I just do!"

Finally, before I go, quick shout out to two internet based companies; GamePointsNow.com, who provide me with cheap Microsoft points via email, and Insert Coin Clothing, who have garnished me with an incredibly brilliant Quantum tee. Go visit them.

Right. Posted. I'm off. New Vegas and Fable 3 are just around the corner. See y'all when the post arrives!

Video-Game-Conferencing

2010-10-08T11:56:00.006+01:00

Coming to you from a small room, above a Londis, near a graveyard, it's The Return of The Starting Village!

So I'm at university after three months of... well, work but now work is done! It was at Buckingham Palace, which I feel I can probably say now the job is over. Working in a gift shop was FUN.

So the last weekend, I went to Eurogamer, which was really great fun. After an embaressing situation where I may have queued up in the wrong queue for like twenty minutes, I got in and started looking around my first ever games thing.

First thing I saw; Fable 3. Off to a good start it was really great to finally have a go on it, and I enjoyed what I played of it. There was definitely more of an emphasis on story, with the player character having a voice, as well as interactive cutscenes. The art style is similar and I really cannot wait until it comes out. You know the tie in novel is already out in America? It wouldn't wind me up so much, but Lionhead are a British company.

I also had a go on Fallout New Vegas, my other most anticipated game of the year, and it was... It really pains me to write this. I have so much love for Fallout 3. My whole summer was spent playing it to death. And playing on NV should have left me awestruck. But something just seemed off. The graphics looked really quite dated, and the game seemed a bit slow, although I'm hoping this is because it was a demo character. I've still got the game on pre-order, cause I really want my caravan shotgun and binoculars.

Other things I had a go on; Move. The Fight was, ultimately, shit. Punches seemed ineffective and didn't land with any degree of force. There was also three-dee support but it really didn't seem to be working, putting the glasses on just seemed to reduce the blur on the screen. Echochrome 2 was kinda fun, although it didn't particularly use the Move controller in a innovative way. From what I saw of all the Move stuff, it really seemed like they had just recreated the Wii controller, but with knobs on. Literally.

A quick run down of other stuff; Assassin's Creed Brotherhood looks fun, had a quick go, quite enjoyed it, but I'm more interested in the single player. Brink was insanely popular, watched a few people playing but didn't really look like my sort of thing. Dead Space 2 was also popular, but did look really good. Despite not having played the original, the sequel looked intensely atmospheric with some real blistering action sequences and a clever alternative to quick time events.

It was also my first time meeting the guys from the Newb Review, and we all had a real laugh. We recorded a podcast, which you can listen to here. I also sat in on an interview with Ian and the producer of Hunted; The Demon Forge. It hasn't gone up on the site yet, but when it does, you can hear me ask one question about multiplayer. Exciting stuff I'm sure you'll agree.

Overall, I had fun at Eurogamer. Whilst there was not a whole lot of new stuff, there was clearly a lot of effort put into the show. From what I heard, the developer chats were really interesting, and I'd love to be able to go to more of them. I will strive to be there next year, for at least the first and second day.

Well, I'd best be off. I'll be back soon to talk about... I dunno, downloads or something. See y'all when I next get bandwidth!

Missing The Normandy

2010-09-29T22:00:00.003+01:00

I've had to ditch the older post because it's been well over a month, and I can't just start again as if nothing has happened.

So here's the problem; I was finishing Mass Effect so I'd have something to write about, and then I moved onto Mass Effect 2. Turns out this was a poor idea because ME2 is wildly addictive, and meant that all of this time that I could have spent talking about games and stuff, I was saving the galaxy from overgrown bugs.

And now I'm putting off writing this as well, so lets just run with this;

Mass Effect is an outstanding game series. Buy the first, play it, then port your character over to the second, and play that, so when Mass Effect 3 comes out you have a universe which is entirely unique to you.

Right then. Hi.

I've played a lot recently, or more accurately since I last posted, so in the last month. Let me see...

DeathSpank, Mass Effect 1 and 2, Monkey Island 2 SE, Angry Birds, Mega Worm, Rayman 2, Limbo...

And that's pretty much it. There's so much stuff I meant to play and write about over the summer, but I just haven't had the time. Any time I'm not working, I'm playing games, and that's basically stopping me from writing.

Here's the kicker; I'm back to uni on Friday, which means I'll have the time to write about the games, but not the time to play them. But this time I've got my Xbox with me. And fable 3 comes out soon. Good times.

This has been such a non-post. I may as well have written Mass Effect on the top of the page then rubbed my face on the keyboard for ten minutes then written this bit.

Finally, I attended a BAFTA Q+A session the other day for the upcoming action-adventure Enslaved, and it was a really great evening. I met a load of great guys there, including Jon Porter, whose blog can be found here. It's great if you like valid, insightful commentary on games, as opposed to the stream of bullshit you get around these parts.

Right, I'm gonna go a watch a video about MineCraft. See y'all after Eurogamer!

Bright Falls? More like DARK Falls!

2010-08-17T12:00:00.000+01:00

There are some dumb people out there. I know, Bright Falls is ironic. Just covering my tracks.

So Alan Wake came out this year and although it wasn't a massive hit on the charts, it still was critically acclaimed and received plenty of praise from the press. A couple of weeks ago now, just before my birthday in fact, I picked up the Limited Edition copy off GAME for 20 quid (the same price as the regular edition, for some reason) and started playing some of it. Before I go into that, I really liked the Limited Edition. The book that accompanies it, The Alan Wake Files, is great at filling in the backgrounds of some the characters, and also expanding the story. It's actually written by Clay Steward, the guy that gets killed in the tutorial (spoilers, I guess). It also has a great packaging designed to look like a novel, that the game, book and extras pack all fit into. It's pretty neat.

So to the game. Alan Wake dubs itself as a psychological thriller, but it's basically a survival horror action adventure game. The game mechanic of burning away the darkness is a clever one, and the use of flares, flash bangs and the environment shows that the developers clearly looked at the best way to make the most of the mechanic. The lighting engine in the game works beautifully, as you expect it would, and really highlights some of the great character models on show. At the time of release a lot of people said Alan Wake was to the Xbox what Heavy Rain was to the PS3, and I agree, the narrative, character driven structure of both games is fantastic.

There's a lot in Alan Wake I didn't really get. Half the time, I didn't get what was happening, I just knew that I had to GET AWAY FROM THE SCARY MEN TRYING THE AXE MY FACE IN. The end of the game is a bit of a let down. I know they've released the DLC, which adds on to the end, but I'm still a bit whisky-tango-foxtrot about the whole thing. I'm sure it will be cleared up in the next episode. That's another part about the game that really worked well for me; the TV show structure was a great touch.

In terms of playing the game, I've beaten the game once, and on Hard mode for some reason. I think I'd set it that way for the Achievement at the start, and entirely forgotten about it, which explained why I died so many times throughout. What's even stranger, is that I'm now playing through in Nightmare mode, which is aptly named. The bigger enemies are almost impossible to burn down, and I haven't even got to the ones with chainsaws yet. But this shows that I'm willing to take on bigger gaming challenges. I'm already planning to play New Vegas in Hardcore mode, which is why I intend on having a high Strength stat and a knife at all times.

Wow, semi-regular posting. This probably means I'll disappear in a few days. Or perhaps not. Maybe I'll be back on Friday to talk about XBLA or something...

Hint; I probably will.

See y'all when the darkness is vanquished!

Needs More Shotgun

2010-08-14T23:30:00.000+01:00

Still working on posting more regularly. It's getting there. Maybe I'll post twice this month. Who knows?

Bioshock 2 was released, what, in March, possibly? I actually got it on release day for 35 quid, and it's now 7.99 on Amazon. Ah well time makes fools of us all.

Anyway, after playing it for a bit the day after release I remember thinking that it was vastly similar to Bioshock, which at the time, I had just finished playing. It wasn't bad but it seemed kinda samey which, when considering Bioshock, isn't all that bad. I got up to the second Little Sister Gather, and died quite efficiently, which led me to get stuck in a rut of not having enough money to buy ammo, and not enough ammo to kill Splicers. After a couple of attempts I quit out, and wandered off to go to a job interview.

About four months later (having passed the interview and training for the aforementioned job) I decided to pop back into Rapture, to see if anyone had fixed that leak (Spoiler: No)

It's more of the same. The plot might be a bit more convoluted, and some of the characters might be stereotyped, but under the skin, Bioshock 2 is almost a mod of the original. That's not to say that I didn't like it. The weapons started off disappointing, but once I got hold of the double barrelled shotgun, I was kicking ass all over again. The final upgrade to it left me somewhat disappointed. Random electro shocks? If I wanted to electrocute people I'd use Electro Bolt. Although I don't see why I would. Incinerate! is clearly the way forward.

Aside from the weapons and the plasmids, there's something a bit off about Bioshock 2. Nothing ever really felt as scary as it did before. There was a moment when I walked into a toilet and saw an EVE hypo on the floor I picked it up. When I turned around, a Spider Splicer dropped from the ceiling. Normally this would scare the crap out of me, but instead I went "Oh", hit him in the face with my shotgun, and blasted him across the room. It was then I realised I wasn't worried anymore. This was towards the end of the game and I was fairly tough, but still, I felt some of the magic had gone.

Speaking of the end of the game, the final area is a real plateau. The game builds up to a big crescendo and then just flat lines after a cool fight in the dark with a couple of Big Sisters. There's a interesting bit where you play as a Little Sister (Spoilers, I guess), but apart from that the end drags on for way too long.

Overall; I liked Bioshock 2, but I can see why it didn't go down too well. It didn't really try anything new.

Gasp, a new Bioshock Game! What a strange coincidence! Almost like I planned this post!

Immediate impressions; Apart from a dumb name, looks really REALLY promising. Can't wait to see where Irrational Games go with this.

Next time, shootings things in dark forests and being arty, it's Alan Wake, y'all!

Assassin's Need (To Post More Regularly)

2010-07-25T21:22:00.000+01:00

It's been well over a month since I last posted and I've been getting myself bogged down in trying to start the next post so I'll summarize quickly;

Back home, got my Xbox, working over summer, secret job, not very content friendly.

Right. Assassin's Creed. Creeds.

I've had Assassin's Creed for ages, ever since I originally got my Xbox, when I was lent it by a friend. After said friend traded in his 360 for a PS3 and didn't ask for the game back, I figured the game was now mine. I'd never got round to playing it, but when I came back from uni, I needed something fun to play. Since Bioshock 2 seemed a bit heavy, I decided to scuttle around the streets of Damascus, introducing knives to people's jugulars.

AC is pretty good fun. The assassinations and the run up to them are all relatively formulaic, although it's still fun to pickpocket people in a busy street. The missions that involve hunting down guards in the street were quite annoying, but relatively satisfying when I pulled them off successfully. The plot wasn't fantastic, and I knew the twist was coming, although frankly, it was pretty obvious. So, I generally enjoyed AC. It reminded me a bit of the old Sly Cooper games. Only with more stabbings and crusaders. Overall thoughts; AC is pretty fun, but a bit aged.

As a result of my enjoyment of AC, I decided to get the sequel. And by decided, I mean I accidentally stumbled on it in GAME for 15 quid.

As it goes, AC2 is pretty good. The character of Ezio is much better formed compared to that of Altair. He develops from a hot-headed youth to a more mature, yet vengeful assassin. Also, he gets a very cool armour set, and has much better finishing moves.

The game is set in Italy, a country I have actually been to (hooray, I guess). I've actually been to Florence as well, so running around the city and climbing the Duomo was quite cool because I've been there. What was really weird is that I've also been to Sam Gimignano, meaning I'm fairly sure Assassin's Creed 2 was designed around me. I am probably an Assassin. Go figure.

Quick notes about AC2; Better, story, better locations, better weapons, better side quests, generally a better version of the first game. Pretty much everything I didn't like was improved, and it had Leonardo Da Vinci, which was cool. Overall thoughts; AC2 is better than AC, and still plays great.

I also got Altair's Chronicles on my iPod touch but the less said about that the beturrrrggghghhblzzzzzzzzz.

**This blogger has been almost killed by the godawfulness that is Altair's Chronicles. And honestly, I gots know idea when he'll be back. See y'all when it next occurs!**

Hobbits, Zombies, and Conventions

2010-06-09T09:36:00.000+01:00

Sounds like a a post about cosplayers or something.

Lord of The Rings Online never particularly interested me before, but I've been reading Shamus Young's in-character diary of the game over at The Escapist, and I decided to take a closer look. I'd seen LOTRO before when a friend was playing it, and I really only had one thing to say about it; it's just WoW reskinned. I couldn't see the point in going back to a game which I'd already been playing for a year.
However, after reading the articles, I decided to have a look at the game's site to see if there was a free trial available, which there was. The specs for the game were a tad too high for the Toaster, so I decided to wait until the summer and my new computer to try it.
A few days later, Turbine announced that LOTRO was going free-to-play. Yet more evidence that the universe in fact does revolve around me. This is good news for me. It means I can play LOTRO as much or as little as I want, and also that there is finally a high budget game that's relatively successful that I don't have to pay for. I think my social life can take another hit.

I started playing a bit more of Nazi Zombies on the iPod recently, primarily because I have nothing else to play at the moment. I didn't realise that Treyarch had released Shi No Numa, but as it turns out, it was there ready to be downloaded. It's impressive that they've managed to squeeze the whole map (and all the weapons) onto the handheld, but the game still runs perfectly. Hellhounds are still a bitch, mind. In Apple related news, where's my fourth-gen iPod touch, Steve? HUH?

It's E3 next week, and normally I'd be excited, but for the third year in a row, my exams are getting right in the way. This year, I'm sure my uni has planned my exams around the show, with one every day starting on the 14th right up until the 17th. I swear, one day I'll be able to stay up all night watching live coverage of games I don't really care about. I'm only looking forward to a few things at E3; MI2 SE, New Vegas, Fable 3, the potential Half Life 3 announcement and the cost of Natal. I'm also kinda interested in the 3DS, but mainly from a tech point of view.

Until next time, I'll see y'all at the aftershow.

Sick Note

2010-05-29T14:00:00.000+01:00

Not dead! Still not dead!

I have been ill however, which is why it has been over two weeks since I last updated. I went home last weekend (a trip which lasted until Wednesday) but felt so bad most of the time that my only gaming related activity was to change my Xbox display pic from my avatar looking confused to a gun-toting fedora-wearing Vault Boy. In the meantime, I rolled around on my bed, clutching my stomach, looking forward to the day when most of my body is artificial and illness just requires a reboot.

As a side note, being ill is now a rather strange experience for me. Last Thursday, I spent most of the morning in bed with a fever, and it was a rather odd feeling that I knew exactly what was wrong with my body. I could tell you that pyrogens had raised the set point of my core body temperature in the hypothalamus and so my body was desperately trying to reduce heat loss, which was why I felt so cold. I'd imagine it's kind of how a game designer might feel when looking at a game. Except more ill. Unless the game was Daikatana.

Been playing Guerrilla Bob and Minigore recently. I may do a Newb Review for them because I haven't submitted any content for a while. Eyes peeled.

I'm gonna have so little money and so many decks of cards. I should learn to play poker or something to justify these purchases. Might even win some of my money back.

I probably won't update for a while. My exams are literally just around the corner (my first one being this coming Friday) so I'm gonna be revising hard until about the 20th of June, which seems like an age away right now. But when that time comes, it's gonna be gaming Nirvana for me.

See y'all in the summer!

Hey Riddle Riddle, The Bat In The Middle

2010-05-11T19:11:00.000+01:00

Just like the Riddler, me. We have the same first name, so I'm halfway there. Next I plan to commit overly complicated crimes, although since I have no nemesis, there's no real point.

It's no great secret that I'm a fan of comics, and although my main graphic literature of choice is normally of the Marvel persuasion, I was quite interested in Batman: Arkham Asylum when I saw it in a trailer. My main attraction was that the Joker looked like a fantastic character, with all his craziness and fantastic voice work. I wasn't a big fan of Dark Knight Joker, but that's just me.

I picked up the game fairly cheap second hand over Christmas and played a little bit of it, fighting random goons and having fun introducing peoples' noses to Batman's shoes. But this time around I decided to knuckle down and get to work putting the Joker behind bars and solving the mystery of Arkham Island.

Batman is a well structured game. It merges story and gameplay better than most I've seen. The combat system is fantastic, and although I might be useless at stringing together combos, it's easy to use and when you really get to grips with it and are knocking down enemy after enemy, it feels well made. Having said that, I'd love to have a go at the original rhythm action beat-em-up style combat. Just for a laugh.

The riddle system was funny and I really enjoyed looking for the answers to some of them, although others were clearly designed to show off the locations that the developers had made. This said, this is exactly the sort of thing The Riddler might do himself, a point well made in one of my favourite podcasts. A part of the game that disappointed me was the lack of any really good boss fights. None of them were particularly bad, but for a superhero game I expected some better showdowns. Maybe in the sequel.

Batman: Arkham Asylum. Great game, great story, great combat, great voice acting. Buy it.

Finally, wrote a piece for the Newb Review the other day, which I haven't for a while. Read it soon mind, because it's a time sensitive piece of semi-satire, which sounds very pretentious. Just go read it.

See y'all when I next sign in!

Deliverance 2277

2010-05-03T20:51:00.004+01:00

Point Lookout is big, dark, moody and disgusting. It's also pretty good.

It's with some what of a heavy heart that I headed into the Swamps of Maryland, as it was to provide the final chapter of my Wasteland Adventure. Sure, I can go back and play as my evil character but it won't be the same as charging around the Wastes with my Stealth Armour and my Shady Hat, electrocuting Super Mutants.

Anywho, after installing the add-on, I got the obligatory message on my Pip Boy telling me to get down to the docks to hop onto a steamer, after paying 300 caps for a ticket. That bastard Tobar. I mean I could totally afford it, but it's still a lot.

After riding the steamer all the way to Point Lookout, I began exploring the surroundings, as is the style, and got used to the area.

Point Lookout is REALLY creepy. I mean seriously, it's pretty much always grey, and when the sun goes down, the trees block out a lot of the light, meaning you can barely see whats around you. It's not a good area if you've got a cowardly stealth character like me. The fact it's a swamp means having to cross several rivers to get around, meaning I have to break my cover. I don't like being attacked. I like attacking people from the shadows.

The main story is actually really good. The first "defend the house" mission is enjoyable, and pretty fun when you can use a bottlecap mine to fling your enemies into a balcony. The hallucination sequence was very strange and didn't really work for me. I didn't really get the point, but it gets better when you are attacked by a group of Tribals whilst attaching a radio transmission blocker to a Ferris wheel.

When the Tribals showed up, they actually killed the only trader in Point Lookout, which I felt bad about, but I felt better when I liberated all of her inventory from her locker. You know, so it wouldn't go to waste. The main quest wraps up when you can either kill one jerk or a different jerk. In the end I decide to kill the slightly less likeable jerk, but only cause the other jerk was slightly British.

The end result? A microwave gun, which depressingly didn't fire microwaves at people, and 100G more gamerscore.

Overall, I couldn't help but be a tad disappointed with Point Lookout. Others had really praised it for being such a fantastic new area, but I couldn't help thinking that there really wasn't that much to do (excluding the main quest, and that good one with the Chinese Agents and the Sub) But still, it got me to Level 30, and made me better at killing things when I'm standing still, so that's... a benefit is suppose.

So until New Vegas comes out, my Wasteland roaming adventures will be put on hold. I'm sure the Brotherhood will handle the Super Mutants fine without me, since my character is headed to New Vegas. YES I KNOW THAT THE CHARACTER IS DIFFERENT.

Next time, riddles, mutated henchmen and batarangs! See y'all at the Asylum!

Cleaning Up The Wastes

2010-04-20T22:12:00.004+01:00

I've made a return to The Capital Wastelands, since I can't think of any other games to play it the moment. It also satisfies my desperate craving to play New Vegas, which is looking brilliant. FORE!

Aside from collecting up all the unique weapons (and then immediately putting them in storage) I finished the main story campaign for Broken Steel. Three quests doesn't seem like much but there's quite a lot to do in each of them. The first one kills off the best character in the entire game (Liberty Prime!! NOOOO!!), the second scenes you to a sewer full of Deathclaws and the last has you laying siege to Enclave's headquarters. Overall, it rounds up the story well and allows you to get a pretty sweet weapon (the Tesla Cannon) out of the deal.

When I first got Broken Steel back in August, I didn't actually play any of the games missions. Instead I just used the raised level cap to allow me to gain some experience from killing Super Mutants (as if I need a reason) By the time I got round to the campaign, I was at round about Level 25, so most of the enemies I encountered weren't much of a threat. The exception is the Super Mutant Overlords, who appear to be immune to pretty much everything I can through at them. I've tried everything and nothing slows them down (except the dart gun).

It wraps up the storyline in Fallout 3 nicely, and it's nicely prepped me for my final Wasteland excursion into the swamplands of Point Lookout. It's gonna be fun on the bun!

Until next time, I'll be gathering as many cameras and sensor modules as possible to repair Liberty Prime as I can. See y'all alongside me!

Certain LOOM

2010-04-14T22:20:00.006+01:00

No prizes for guessing what today's post is about, but first, some housekeeping. Or possibly blog-keeping. Whichever.

I am home now for an month or so, which means I'm back on the 360 for a bit. I've hooked it up to the big 1080p screen in the living room which makes all the difference. SMI:SE looks amazing in full high def on a big screen, but the best thing is definately Just Cause 2. Although admittedly it's just the demo. I've been really psyching myself up for it, and I have to say that it does fufill my exceedingly high expectations. To list the awesome things I have done would take far too long, but safe to say, military attack choppers are awesome.

But enough of that. Onto the point. LOOM. Because it's looming over me. Ugh. I apologise.

So released in 1990 as the fourth SCUMM game, LOOM puts you in the shoes (or possibly sandals, it's never really established what Bobbin has under his cloak. Could be stiletto heels for all I know) of Bobbin Threadbare. Old Threadbare is a weaver, which apparently in the world of Loom means he's some kind of magical reality-manipulating wizard. Within the first ten minutes, a magic sparkle had spoken to me, my stepmother was turned into a duck and a swan turned a bunch of people into swans. It was clear from the outset this was going to be a far cry from Monkey Island.

Loom doesn't feature your typical adventure game interface, lacking an inventory or verb list. Instead, you are in possession of a magic distaff which allows you to manipulate the environment via playing the notes of a musical scale on it. The game features a wide range of "weaves" which have a variety of magical effects on the environment around you. One of the first weaves you learn is "open" which can be used on a variety of objects (such as the sky, for some reason), but what is really clever about it is that reversing this weave by playing the notes in reverse order causes objects to close. It's quite a clever touch when you can reverse a weave designed to turn straw into gold in reverse and make a temperamental dragon's horde become worthless.

Unfortunately, Loom fails in some crucial areas. First of all, it's rather short. I think I must have played through it in an hour, two hours tops. I was all set up for a big epic story to unfold, there with my pen and paper (actually Notes on my iPod) to note down all the weaves, and then before I knew it, it was over. The plot seems to rush along, as if it had a lot to do in a short space of time. Backgrounds are left unexplored and characters half-developed, although this leads on to the next point; The ending. Without giving too much away, Loom ends on an epic, if somewhat confusing note, which is apparently a set up for a sequel that never was. Reading a description of the planned sequels from the lead developer Brian Moriarty, Forge and The Fold would be perfect for a revival right about now. Perhaps a surprise announcement at E3.

Well, it's late, and I have more Fallout 3 to play tomorrow. Gotta reach Level 30.

See y'all next time!

iUpdate

2010-04-07T23:04:00.002+01:00

Yes, it's another one of those blog posts. Deal with it.

Can't say I've been up to anything major recently, which is why I haven't been posting much. Also, I've been bogged down in university assignments, as we are coming up to the end of term. There's nothing fun about those. Except log graphs. Sort of. Look, I think log scales are cool. Screw you.

My iPod's busted, again. This time, the home button has become stuck, so I have to press it REALLY hard to elicit any response. And this is a mechanical failure, so all of that "press the home and off button at the same time on the unlock screen" bullcrap ain't helping. Hopefully, I can get it fixed. Or replaced with a new one. That'd be cool. But, breakage or not, I'm still using the thing for Internet perusal.

Been playing more of Zenonia recently, for no real reason other than that I saw the sequel had been released on the App Store. I'm thinking I might complete the original then by the time I'm ready for the sequel it will have come down in price. And I might have a newer, faster iPod. Or an iPad. That'd be sweet.

I've also been re-discovering Ron Gilbert's blog Grumpy Gamer. If you don't know who he is, well then, you are not allowed the Internet back until you find out. I appreciate that'll make it harder to find out, but that is your challenge.
Anyway, to those of you who do know who Gilbert is, his blog is genuinely funny and refreshing. I say genuinely funny as if I expected him to be dull and sombre in real life. I have seen one video of the guy and he seemed neither dull nor sombre. So. Grumpy Gamer. A good blog. Go read it.

Finally I've been watching quite a few videos for Just Cause 2 via YouTube. On my iPod. It's vaguely related. The game looks really fun, and from what others are saying, it's apparently a fantastic toy. The epic open world, combined with the variety of vehicles looks awesome, and I'm really looking forward to blowing everything up. And I mean everything. Cars, buildings, planes, myself, you name it, I'm gonna turn it into shrapnel/giblets.
This video is pretty good. The guy is a tad over-excited, and it would have been better if he had just managed to land it, but it's still good for a laugh.

Well, until next time, I have work to be done. Work that increases by a factor of ten every cycle.

QED, y'all!

WHAM!

2010-03-28T21:22:00.008+01:00

KAPOW! ZORK! KERSMAF! BAJOINKL! AND SUCH LIKE!

Comic cliches. Cause they never get old.

Haven't blogged for a while. Not sure why. Been trying to think of something to write about. Uh-oh, that's a direct quote from XKCD. But I've been doing this for a year, I'm much cooler.

But it's a good start to a blog post about comics, since I've been reading a few of them recently.

I recently downloaded an iPod app called Comics X (or X Comics, I'm not sure), and it's got a ton of free comics available to download. I've been sampling a few, and a few were pretty good (Atomic Robo, Hunter Killer, Elephantmen, Wanted) but one that really caught my attention was Chew. In fact it caught my attention so much, I bought all of the comics in the volume.

Chew follows cop-turned-FDA agent Tony Chu, who is cibopathic (fantastic word) meaning he can take a bite out of anything and get a psychic impression of its history. Of course, this means lunch time can be a bit of a struggle, but it also mean that he is a brilliant detective after a slight round of cannibalism. The comic features some fantastic dark humour, as well as brilliant realised characters, all of which are expertly drawn. For more info on Chew, check out the official blog here.

So, until next time, I'll be doing... something... else. I don't know what. Biology probably.

See y'all on my next blog post!

Birthday Cake Joke

2010-03-19T15:03:00.001Z

Although the 19th of March might not seem a big deal, it does represent a rather momentous occasion for me. One year ago today, I finally got around to setting up the blog I'd been thinking about doing for a while, and I made that first post about fishing in "Twilight Princess". A hell of a lot has changed since then. I changed the name and layout of the blog, changed consoles in July, became a semi-serious journalist, and went to university. And so, in lieu of any actual gaming updates, I'm gonna talk about my most anticipated games for this year.

And you are going to listen.

Fable 3; Can't wait to start making swords out of dragons teeth or guns out of fog or whatever. I really hope that this doesn't get delayed, cause then I'll have to set fire to something/one. I'm also gonna have to increase my GamerScore if I want really awesome weaponry.

Enslaved; might not have heard of this but it's a new action adventure from Ninja Theory, based on Monkey; Journey to the West. In future New York. And there are robots. So you know, that's cool.

Just Cause 2; I'm aware this comes out very soon, but I won't be able to play it for a while due to uni. Flying round a tropical paradise with parachuting and Spiderman-style sling shooting. And awesome cars.

HD Monkey Island 2; Cannot come soon enough.

Star Wars; The Old Republic; Although I'll probably never play it cause it's on PC and subscription, I'd love to have a go at a free trial, cause this game looks awesome. Smuggler or Bounty Hunter?

Fallout New Vegas; Might not be out this year cause of potential delays, but considering how much I loved Fallout 3, I know I'm gonna love this new iteration. Mainly because there will probably an awesome fedora hat in there somewhere.

Mass Effect 2; Although it came out earlier this year, I still have yet to play it, mainly because I haven't to finish the original. I don't want to start the game without a saved ME1 Shepard to use. Looking forward to more space opera fun. IN SPACE.

L.A. Noire; Film Noir style detective stories have always interested me so I'm really looking forward to this open world crime solving action adventure from Rockstar. And more fedora hats.

SMG2; The original is pure platforming elegance, so surely the sequel will be more of the same. It'll give me something to play over the summer on the Wii, which is good. I should really finish my second playthrough with Luigi at some point...

Half Life 2; Episode 3; Yeah, right.

You know, I never did get that Frog lure. Hm.

Singing the News

2010-03-10T16:26:00.001Z

COMING TO YOU LIV- Sorry that's too loud.

Coming to you live, across the globe, report from nowhere near the front-line, this is...

The Starting Village News Network!

Last week, Portal 2 was revealed in a flurry of updates, ARG hints, radio transmissions and ASCII art (god, I hate ASCII art). It seemed odd since the whole ARG set up looked like it was going to unfold over time, slowly revealing the game bit by bit, but I guess that got kicked in the head somewhere along the way. Probably when people hammered through the radio transmission in super-quick time. Perhaps the ARG will carry on, even after the game is released.
I read the scans of the GameInformer article, and the game looks very different, but also very interesting. I've made my feelings about Portal clear, but one of my major gripes was that I didn't feel the game was long enough. The fact that this new game is full length speaks to me as I feel I would enjoy a longer game. There's also the co-op play, which could turn out to be fun. Only time will tell I suppose.

Although this is only rumour and speculation at the moment, Kotaku informs me that a Monkey Island 2; LeChuck's Revenge remake could be in the works. This is major news for me, as I adored this game as a child. It had so many fantastic puzzles and vibrant characters, and as I said previously, it's an infinitely better game than its precursor.
I remember reading... something a few months back saying that the developers were not too keen on doing MI2, but since the last one sold so well, perhaps they were persuaded. So now MI2:LR:SE is going straight to the top of my "Most Anticipated of 2010" list, slightly ahead of Fable 3 and Enslaved. Although I insist on calling it Super Moneky Island 2 Turbo HD Remix.

ROLL ON GDC Y'ALL!

Plants of Mass Destruction

2010-03-07T10:39:00.000Z

So, as February levels up into March, I peek my head out of the trenches and survey the battlefield that is gaming.

Unnecessary metaphors aside, I've been playing two games recently. Both of them quite heavily feature plants. Let's go!

Eufloria is an indie game by two developers, Rudolf Kremers and Alex May, and is a sort of exploration/RTS hybrid. It's very much as describe on it's site, an ambient game. The goal is to send your seedlings to other asteroids and plant them, so that they can create new seedlings. You encounter opposition in the form of rival seedlings and have to fight them off using defensive trees and the seedlings themselves. One rather cool feature is the ability to zoom in and out of the battlefield using the scroll wheel. From far away, you can view all of your asteroids, with dots representing your seedlings, but you can zoom right down to the level where you can see all of your seedlings firing at the enemy. It's a neat feature.

Plants Vs. Zombies... It feels weird typing this, since originally I was not a big fan of the whole concept of tower defence where your towers can be destroyed by the enemy. But PvZ has really grown on me. It's a fun game with a fair amount of longevity, since you can replay the adventure mode again with a slightly harder difficulty level. The games sense of humour is fantastic, and the final boss fight in the adventure mode is a good laugh. The achievements give the game a real sense of depth and give you something to aim for.
I take it all back, Plants Vs. Zombies. You're alright.

I started this post on Wednesday evening. So much has happened in terms of gaming since then. Grr.

See y'all in the garden!

Postcards from; Machinarium

2010-02-20T17:30:00.008Z

The hectic pace of day to day life getting you down? Want to escape the tensions of work, and just relax for once? Well, here at VideoGame Travel, we're committed to finding you the best possible travel destinations that games companies can create. Today, let's take a look at what you can get up to in the world of Machinarium...

Visit scenic Hull!*

Meet drug-dealing robots!

Bump into Jewish robots on the stairs!

Pretend to be in the circus for no reason!

Hang out in a dilapedated greenhouse!

*Hull, I don't really have any problem with your town. We cool. Sorry by the way. Must be tough to live in Hull.

Schmupdate

2010-02-20T16:26:00.000Z

Lotsa things been occurring. Therefore, this is the next in the series of general updates, which I title by putting random letters in front of the word "update". DON'T ASK, I DON'T KNOW WHY.

Had a rather expensive month this month. Valentines Day was more expensive than usual, because I was buying many a present for my lovely girlfriend, who is lovely. And I'm sure she won't be reading this blog. I'm sure of it. Sure. Hey.

Went home on Monday evening, to see Jimmy Carr at a local theatre. A very fun evening, but more relevantly, I took the opportunity to use the 360 to have a go at Bioshock 2. I picked it up cheap from GAME cause I traded in Dante's Inferno for it. I only got to play the first hour or so, but what I played of it I enjoyed. The storyline could be interesting, and the simultaneous plasmid-and-gun combat feels great. I didn't really like the rivet gun, it didn't seem to have that much "umpf." I'm really looking forward to sitting down for a big play session at some point.

I also managed to grab six (that's right SIX) indie titles for the cheap sum of 12 quid. The pack is comprised of Machinarium, Eufloria, Osmos, Aztaka, And Yet It Moves, and Auditorium. Admittedly I haven't heard of some of them, but all the descriptions looked really interesting. That, plus Machinarium cost £15 on Steam. BARGAIN! Expect a NR review for some of them soon. I'll probably do a "Postcards From" for Machinarium as well...

Plants Vs Zombies got released on the App Store the other day, and I thought I may as well pick it up, since it's cheaper on the iPod than on Steam. I had a few reservations about it on the PC which stopped me picking it up. As a big fan of online Flash games, I've played my fair share of tower defense games, and PvZ seemed all over the place. After having a go on the iPod version, I have to say that I do enjoy it, but I still don't understand why it was such a media darling when it was released. The resource gathering is questionable at best and the plants don't feature any upgrades, which is a feature I always enjoy. That said, there's a wide range of plants to choose from, and the game has quite a good sense of humour. DOOM-SHROOM!

Right, that's that then. I'm gonna walk away from this blog post as it explodes behind me, as I strut forwards. In diamond covered boots.

See y'all next time.

iWant... So Much Stuff

2010-02-13T16:48:00.000Z

It sucks being a student. You get up, go to a place to do some work, and then LOSE money. And now I want stuff. SO MUCH STUFF.

New Laptop/PC. Been thinking about going in for a PC instead of a laptop. It's not like I need to move the thing around anymore, so it would make sense to have reduced mobility for increased power. The way I described it there was like having a choice of weapons in an RPG. In Borderlands, I always seem to choice rate of fire over accuracy. I do use a lot of shotguns. I guess I assume the more I can fire, the more likely I am to hit the Jason-Vorhees-a-likes trying to kill me.
Tangents aside, I'm looking at something around the £400-500 mark. I think I can get something quite good for that, right? RIGHT?

iPad. Apparently, I'm one of about twelve people on the Internet who is genuinely excited about this thing, although that twelve does include Stephen Fry, so I'm with good company. A lot of people are saying it's just a bigger iPhone. As far as I can remember, the iPhone is doing pretty well for itself. I was very excited by the idea of iBooks, which is insanely hypocritical of me, because I've been against the idea of electronic books since the start. eReader, Kindle, nook, all of them, but then Apple does it and bam! I'm desperate to start reading off a screen.

This is all just me talking rubbish though. I definitely can't afford both, and buying even one would result in me having to save money by eating roadkill.

You see if I was employed, I'd be loaded, and be able to buy "dis shit". This is my understanding of how having a job works.

On the M2 to Hell

2010-02-09T00:00:00.003Z

Back from the depths of Hell, and my hometown, I have returned, truimphant and bloodied, to type into a keyboard about Dante's Inferno. Hooray! Relevant gaming news!

I've got a copy of the real Dante's Inferno and I've tried to read it a few times, but unfortunately it's a poem translated from Italian, and a lot of the flow is lost in translation. I sort of get what's going on, but when Virgil is chatting for a page about something, and I realise I haven't got a clue what he's talking about.

However, Dante's Inferno THE VIDEO GAME forgos all that talky talky crap and just throws you into Hell, with the SCYTHE of DEATH and a MAGICALLY HOLY CROSS and says "Kill the crap outta everything and save yo lady" which is a lot simpler than a page full of text talking about sinners.

I picked up the Death Edition of the game, which, amongst other things, contains a code to download a Dead Space costume for Dante. Although it doesn't add anything major to the gameplay, it's quite fun to see Isaac waving a scythe around and blabbering about honour and God.

Dante's Inferno is a good game. It's not great and it's not revolutionising any genres. My major issue with it is that it isn't just similar to God of War; it IS God of War. Visceral Games haven't just taken inspiration from GoW, they've used some of the same ideas. I won't go into too much detail, cause I've thrown in my two cents to a review Crofterz over at the Newb Review wrote, so go and have a look when it goes up. Possibly today. I am not sure of these things.

I've actually completed DI, and in one weekend, which for me, is generally unheard of. I've also got quite a few of the achievements (side note; Dante's Inferno is a great achievement game). I thinking about taking it back to GAME and returning it to get all my money back, as opposed to a trade in, and then use the money to buy Bioshock 2 (and I'll still have some left over. Maybe I'll get this)

Well. I'm hungry so... Yeah, it's about lunch time. See y'all in Purgatorio!

MASS EFFECT 2 (BOX) REVIEW!

2010-02-01T03:15:00.002Z

I got Mass Effect 2 the other day! YAY! I I CAN'T PLAY IT! YEAH! SO HERE'S MY MASS EFFECT 2 REVIEW.

OF THE BOX.

SO. Let's get started.

As with all new games, it came in some stupid plastic wrapping. Normally these are pretty tough to get into, but this was something else. I ended up jabbing at it with a knife, which finally got through, and only slightly damaged the box art.

The box art! At the top is MASS EFFECT 2 in BIIIIG letters, which makes sense since... that's what it is in. The image below shows three of the characters, starting with Shepard. I never really noticed till now, but if you squint, and turn your head slightly, he looks like an angry Matthew Fox. With an assault rifle. Miranda looks oddly happy, considering she is probably fighting for her life, and the lives of thousands of others. But then I realise who she looks like and think... AWESOME. Jigsaw-Face man looks like he had a very late night. Or is on drugs. I am aware of his real name, for the record.

Owards, breaking through the seal on the box (which is a certificate of authenticity, telling me... it's definately a plastic seal.), to the discs. Quite surprised when the first disc swang outwards, revealing... ANOTHER DISC! Totally wasn't expecting that, but I guess it's more to be expected than say... I dunno, a cougar. That'd suck. 30 quid for a cougar mauling. That's a total rip. Side note; the disc has a little note on it which says "Do not make illegal copies of this disc" Presumably, Microsoft thinks pirates won't break the law if asked nicely.

Manual! It's got the same front as the box, unsurprisingly, but it's got black and white stuff on the inside. I'm sure the original had colour artwork, but I guess it's not the end of the world. Although from what I read on the blurb, whole planets are vanishing, so it's the end of some worlds, I suppose.

Finally, the Cerberus Network membership, telling me I case access a wealth of in game stuff. The code itself is printed on a card in the middle of the flyer, and has cut out lines. I'm thinking about cutting it out. Perhaps getting it laminated, keep it in my wallet and flash it at random strangers. I dunno.

And so that concludes my review of the Mass Effect 2 box.
It's taunting me.

Sitting on my desk.

Wanting to be played.

blurgh.

There Is Nothing for Me To Talk About...

2010-01-21T11:45:00.003Z

...so this is a non-blog post.

What am I meant to say? That I'm still really excited for Mass Effect 2, and I have preordered it? That I really want my Xbox? That I want a new laptop so I can play Team Fortress 2 which I bought but haven't played yet?

Until something exciting happens to me (don't hold your breath) just stick at the Newb Review. There should be a podcast featuring me going up at some point, and I've got a couple of reviews there as well.

Till then... Yeah, I got nout.

Hack N Slash N Tits

2010-01-18T14:08:00.005Z

I'm back at uni. My 360 isn't. Lame.

But, briefly before I left I had a go at two demos; Bayonetta and Dante's Inferno. And since they are fairly similargames I'm going to compare them in a simple and concise way.

Bayonetta features a main character, who is apparently a witch, but looks more like Sarah Palin at a dominatrix NRA meeting. The whole game uses her"sexual attractiveness" all the way through, by which I of course mean, her tits. I was fighting a giant... thing and then all her clothes came off and turned into a dragon. This is a game entirely marketed towards slightly perverted gamers. Which is all of us. The point is, the entire game you are wondering if you are gonna catch a peek at her lady dumplings, and I have it from a reliable source that you don't. Spoilers I guess.

Dante's Inferno, on the other hand, clearly establishes that there are tits from the outset. For some reason, Dante's wife always appears naked, because apparently there are no decent places to go shooping in Hell. I wasn't really listening to the plot of the game, so as far as I understand it's like this; "There's a pair of sweet tits at the bottom of Hell. Off you pop." I've checking in my copy of Dante's Inferno and it's exactly the same. Trust me on this.

In actual real people world, I do enjoy Dante's better. It's ripping a lot off from God Of War, but it's got a decide amount of scope to be good. The enemies in the demo were all pretty samey, but the potential combo moves looked good, and the later levels were enough to move me from "indifference" to "interest".
Bayonetta, whilst appreciate is going for the crazy Japanese thing, is just about as sensible as a new pair of shoes for a pirate. Assuming the pirate had a pegleg. There's another bunch of people who are showing diversity in the work place. Pirates have amputees, and people with one eye. Pirates and cyborg detectives.

It's late, people. I need to go to BED. Catch y'all when I wake up. Peace out.

I Wish I Was A Spaceman

2010-01-13T16:16:00.003Z

HELP ME. MASS EFFECT IS SLOWLY CONSUMING MY LIFE. AND WORST OF ALL THE ACHIEVEMENTS ARE ALL REALLY OBSCURE, MEANING IT HASN'T GONE UP IN AGES.

Right then, now that the insanity is out of the way, onto the matter at hand; talking about Mass Effect.

Mass Effect is good. The story is captivating and very immersive. The talking sections have plenty of options and allow you to explore the plot as much or as little as you want. The driving sections admittedly aren't the best but as previously mentioned, I find it hilarious to drive into absolutely everything. Randomly searching the galaxy for things to do is also good fun and helps to make my character better, which I desperately need.

As I said in my last blog post, I don't enjoy the combat in Mass Effect. It feels clunky, and shooting enemies doesn't feel as gratifying as say Borderlands or Fallout 3. The biotic powers are good, so long as your opponent is standing still, and your teammates can use them properly. Admittedly I have started to adapt my play style to suit the game better. It's all about seeking cover, you can't just run into combat scenarios and expect to come out the other side unperforated. Having said that, what is the point in seeking cover if the enemies just walk right behind you, perfectly shielded and shoot the hell out of you?
I've also levelled up more efficiently, putting more points into armour, shotguns and the Barrier biotic. I need all the help I can get, and my logic is, if I can stay alive longer, I have more chance of hitting the bastards.

It's still a hard decision on Mass Effect 2. The collector's edition costs a grand sum of £54.99, and that's a fair amount. Requires more thought. Must resolve problem.

Until next time, I will see you all on the front line, ducking for cover from a missile behind a small crate, y'all!

Vehicular Menace

2010-01-05T20:26:00.002Z

It says quite a lot about my mental state that when someone offers me control of a vehicle in a video game with a gun attached my thought process is less "Oh, that's useful, a fast and safe way of getting from Point A to Point B, with the added safety of a gun which can be used to take down roadside enemies" and more along the lines of "Cool, now I can mow shit down."

Borderlands has got cars. Admittedly, they're sort of dune-buggy style cars that have entirely independent front wheels, but a car none the less. They also come with a choice of machine gun or rocket launcher, the latter of which has officially been designated "the nuts" at taking down... Pretty much anything. Despite this, I still find the best way to take down enemies is to just drive into them. Skag? Drive into it. Bandit? Drive into it. Rakk? Go off a jump, into it (I haven't done this, but it would be freaking sweet). The more I play of Borderlands, the more I like, and I haven't even left the first area yet. Great Crimbo present =)

Another thing that does what be havin' cars is Mass Effect. Well, not a car. It's an ATV with ridiculous suspension and jump jets. In a similar way to Borderlands, it gets you from Point A to Point B, and it's got a gun on it. However, it's more fun to run the Geth over. Admittedly, the Geth Armatures don't go down so you have to machine gun 'em a bit, but it's brilliant if you can slide the Mako just right and take out three rocket troopers. Alternatively, jump jetting onto their heads. Both of this work well.
Mass Effect is fun, but the combat is shockingly bad. I love the talking bits, and just navigating around the ship and the Citadel. The voice acting is absolutely spot-on, which is obviously of vital importance. It's just a shame that the combat is shockingly poor. I was having a great time, right up until the point I had to start shooting things. Then suddenly, it all fell apart. But I'm persevering. I have until Mass Effect 2 comes out to start liking it more, and get past the point I am at now. I'm thinking about pre-ordering the GAME Collectors Edition, with the exclusive stuff in it. Good times.

And that's me done for the evening. I've got to go pack my bags, because I'm off for little under a week, but I shall return Sunday evening to chat to you about... something. See y'all on the bridge!

Happy New Fear

2010-01-02T11:49:00.002Z

Hooray! Rejoice! And other such sentiments! It's 2010, the start of a new decade, moving on from the zeroes to the tens (I'm insisting on calling them the tens. "Tenties" doesn't make any sense.) I think 2010 is officialing living in the future. I'm making this year my best ever. I'm gonna buy more lottery tickets.

So I didn't really say what I got for Christmas since I've been ill for a lot of it, and I've also been distracted by all the awesome games I've been playing. Here's a quick run down of what's on the table;

Borderlands; Really fun and awesome FPS and RPG hybrid, bit grind-fest at points, but always quite humourous
Bioshock; Brilliant-ness, but I can't go on about it, cause I'm writing something for NR
Mass Effect; This was really good, right up until the point when I actually had to start shooting at things. Then it all fell apart, cause the combat doesn't work.
Batman: Arkham Asylum; Holy crap Batman, it's the NewbReview GOTY!
Prince of Persia; Ehhhh....

ALSO. For Christmas I got iTunes credit. Hooray for that. So I bought DOOM Ressurection for the iPod. Why? I dunno, I was bored. As opposed to being a real first person shooter, it turns out it's a on-rails dealy, with a few interesting weapons, like a chainsaw, but apart from that, it's a pretty standard affair. Sometimes the accelerometer would become badly calibrated and I'd have to reset the game to fix it. Overall, not bad but not overly fantastic. I shoulda bought COD WAW Zombies...

Sorry about the lack of quality in this blog post. I've been busy with games and I'm still a bit sick. Also I'm lazy, and easily distracted, so I spent most of the time whilst I was writing this watching The Big Bang Theory. Go figure.

Right, I'm going to write an email. You didn't need to know that. GOOOOOD-BYE.

Snow Mercy

2009-12-21T17:39:00.002Z

Just some business to attend to before we get started. I am now home for a month, it being Christmas and all. I am also quite sick and have a terrible sore throat. Apart from that I'm doing great.

Also, it's snowing. A LOT. I had to push a car today, I almost fell over in a road. Not the best of times.

Right onto the matter at hand; LEFT 4 DEAD 2

After the whole Tesco Entertainment debacle, I'd been itching to give this game a go, and when Robb told be that he'd got it, I was over to his place faster than a Survivor into a safe house. When I got there, he still hadn't opened it, stating he was "worried about zombies leaping out of the box" After beating him over the head with an 360 controller for being an idiot, we started up the game.

I don't have a great history with shooters. My aiming ability has never been fantastic, and I panic under pressure and end up flailing wildly around, hoping somebody chooses to walk into the path of my bullets. Having said that, I performed pretty well in L4D2, mainly because of two things; shotguns and katanas. I charged wildly through hordes of zombies, varying between blowing faces off with a combat shotgun, and slicing limbs with manic cuts of my ninja sword.

L4D2 looks very pretty and plays beautifully. At first, me and Robb had a manic strategy of shooting anything that moved. But after a while we started to work together, with me on close-range combat, and him on automatic, long-range weapons. It was really amazing to see how our team skills developed. At the start, we would leg it from any group of zombies bigger than us. By the end of our play session, we were co-ordinating tactical attacks on Tanks. As well as hitting people with guitars.

The game really won me over, and I'd love to get it. I may pick it up in the January sales and then play some co-op over XBox Live, but this all remains to be seen.

I've been playing a lot recently, ranging between Bioshock (really scary), Prince of Persia (needlessly repetetive) and Batman (excellent) as well as Wario Land 3 (it works! Also, it's great) so I may randomly post about them at some point.

But right now I'm sick. Leave me alone, y'all...

The Potential Death of A Cartridge by Perpetual Rain

2009-12-15T23:03:00.002Z

I dunno, what do you think? This blog post title sounds like the name of a really pretentious art piece you might get in the Tate modern. It would feature neither cartridges, nor water, and be made mainly of polystyrene. And feature an apple somewhere. Okay, tangent completed.

Here's the thing about Amazon or eBay ettiquette. The moment something is sent, and I mean literally the moment (using your iPhone from the post office) you mark it as sent. This is so the people (in this case, me) who are waiting for the item in question (in this case, Wario Land 3) know to check their post box to see if it has arrived. Otherwise, it sits in the post box, ALL Saturday, a day filled with showers of heavy rain, resulting in the cartridge absorbing a fair amount of water.

Admittedly this rage could be mis-placed. I haven't actually tried the game yet, so it could work fine, but I know these cartridges. They struggled if they got a little dust in 'em, I can't bare to think how it'll handle a day of British precipitation.

However we are coming ever closer to my return to London, and my epic splurg of gaming that will ensue. I'm really psyched for Bioshock. Wolfenstein can't hold my interest for much longer.

Until next time, this is me, a guy who doesn't understand the words "end of term revision", saying I'll see y'all after the storm!

Stocking Up Shop

2009-12-11T10:51:00.006Z

Tis the season to be gaming! That's right, I'm going HOME!... next weekend. BUT I'M STILL EXCITED!

In preperation for getting back on the Xbox, I am getting in a load of cheap old games to play until Christmas, which should both pass the time and boost my pitiful gamer score. So, in the fashion, let's run those games down together, shall we?

BIOSHOCK! Partially inspired by the recent coverage of Bioshock 2 (which looks very good) and also by the fact I've played it on a mate's console and it was pretty awesome. I like the idea of being able to upgrade a shotgun, and the fact I can combine that with telekinesis is basically my idea of some bizarre FPS-RPG nirvana. However, Bioshock is slightly scary and I haven't had a great history with scary things in the past. HOW WILL I MANAGE?!??

PRINCE OF PERSIA! (THE NEW ONE!) I liked the look of this game the moment I set eyes on it. I'm not entirely sure what you would call the art style (cell-shaded realism, perhaps?) but it looks beautiful. As far as I know the game got fair to good reviews, although apparently it's quite easy. For me this is a good thing. Easier games = faster gamerscore. I'm a wannabe achievement whore!

WARIO LAND 3! I am well aware this is not a 360 game, or infact a current generation game, but I was thinking about it the other day and remembering how brilliant it was. I have to say, maybe apart from Rayman and the original Super Mario Bros., it's probably the best platformer I've ever played. It's got non-linear level choices, multiple level endings, a wide range of enemies and power-ups, mashes platforming and puzzling brilliantly and has lovely visuals considering when it was released. I'm may even dig out my Game Boy Colour to play it as God intended. Although if I can't use it I'll use the SP.

This is all still a week away. I'm killing myself writing this.

Until then, this is me, a guy who HATED Wario Land 4, signing off until I make it back home y'all!

Fupdate

2009-12-05T14:30:00.003Z

'lo internet peeps. Rather subdued blog post today. I feel I have had one too many bamboo martinis, an entirely fictional drink I just made up, although I'm not sure why... Meh.

First up, I recently worked out how to hook my iPod up to the WiFi in all of my lecture halls, meaning that I can access Twitter, Facebook, the App store and the internet at large during my learning sessions. It also has the negative side effect of reducing my attention three-fold, but as any good mathmatician will tell you, zero divided by anything is still zero. But onward, to the new games!

EARTHWORM JIM! This is an old game, but has now been re-released on that developer's lottery ticket, the App Store. I've never actually seen Earthworm Jim but I've read a lot about it, and how it is actually a geniunely funny game. And here's the thing; Earthworm Jim is actually funny, and not in a bad way. The only way to describe it is like playing through a cartoon. Being attacked by several crows? Just hold down the fire button and Jim flails around comedically, blasting every which way. Want to cross a spiky chasm? Whip your OWN HEAD around a chain. There's not really many new things I can say about a game released almost 15 years ago 'cept this; IT'S FUNNY STUFF

WOLFENSTEIN! Talked about about this a long time ago, and at the time said it was fun, if not dated (shockingly) I've now downloaded the newer version, which has the Spear of Destiny levels. It's pretty much more of the same, aim in the general direction of the baddies and shoot at them. Occasionally there's a guy with miniguns. A nice way to pass the time in a particularly dull biochem lecture.

LEFT 4 DEAD 2! Well, I haven't actually played this yet, although I would like to. The other day, via a certain games journalist's Twitter feed, I found out that L4D2 was selling on Tesco Entertainment for the amazing sum of 15 quid. As a student, I lapped up this offer and looked forward to playing it as soon as I returned home for Christmas. However, Tesco then emailed me a few days later telling me the producted was "incorrectly priced" and that they had cancelled my order. How. How do you mean to price something at £37.70 and accidentally put it on at 15 pounds? If it was on for £3.77 because someone dropped a decimal I can get that, but that's not a pricing error, they just hate me. However, they very kindly (SARCASM) gave me £2 off anything in the store, so I'm trying to decide between L4D2 or...

THE SABOTEUR! This game was another one of those games that snuck up on me. When I first saw it at E3 I passed it off as a sort of Assassin's Creed clone set in WW2, but I got more interested when I found out the main character was Irish, not French. Yes, I know, casual racism is wrong and everything. I like the colour concept, and the missions look interesting. Plus, boobs.

Kay, I'm done here. Let's roll out, y'all!

A Text Adventure (WITH SECRET MESSAGE)

2009-12-02T13:16:00.003Z

You are in a room. It is dark.

> Look at room

The room is dark

>Turn on light

The room is light. You see a door

>Open door

You go out into a wooden glade. There is a "The Starting Village"

> Look at "The Starting Village"

There is a tape recorder sellotaped to the front of the "The Startign Village"

> Play tape recorder

The note says;

Hey there. My laptop is fundamentally broken, both the charger and the battery, meaning I can barely get an hour out of it, and the screen keeps fading in and out. Sucks that I can't play Torchlight... But I've ordered a new charger, so hopefully that should get here soon... *crackle* Oh no I'm losing receptio- *static* Listen, you must go through the por-*buzzing* -ing the blue key, grab the final glyp-*shrieking* place all the energy crystals in the al-*barking* then once the demon is dead, report back to me, okay?

A portal opens beside you

>Fuck this

Do you really want to fuck this without saving? Y/N

>Y

NoClip and Further Dungeons

2009-11-23T19:27:00.003Z

Before we get started, lemme just say I wanna go to a PAX. This is now my goal. To go to a PAX. They are at sucky times of the year for me, and also in America, but I'm still going to one of them. So there.

Re-installed Half-Life 2, purely so I could abuse the console to get the Super Gravity Gun and stuff the bloody trash can cop into the god-damn trash can then laugh hysterically. After about twenty minutes of basically hitting the corpse into the can, it went in, but it really wasn't worth after all the effort. I was so bored by that point I even forgot to get a screen shot. I also mucked about with a bit of noclipping, but usually ended up trapped in NoWhereVille (the name I give to the blank areas behind the drawn walls) so that got dull after a while. I turned the game off when killing the Metro Cops got old. I like shotguns. However, the whole experience has me thinking of a few ideas for a G-Mod comic. Don't hold your breath though, since I wouldn't even think of getting it till I get a new laptop, as HL2 staggers along on this one.

I finally bought Torchlight, and it is SWEET. As in like absolutely fantastic. I honestly can't remember the last time I enjoyed a computer game this much. I haven't been playing it as much as I've wanted to (i.e. the whole day) but I am writing a review for NR, so there's that. Next time I blog it'll be a proper post about the game, with a suitably appropriate pun as the title...

But until then, watch this, and I will see y'all when you next turn up!

Wicky-Wicky-Wickah

2009-11-20T01:11:00.005Z

I think my DJ name would either be DJ Tongue Skills, or DJ Improbability. Both of these would look pretty good on a flyer.

I've been mucking around with this interesting little distraction a bit recently. I've always liked the idea of being able to make my own music but unfortunately I have never the cognitive cpacity or the intiative to actually get into. "DJ Sheepwolf" is good for a laugh, but I'd like something like that with more samples, and maybe if I could get a keyboard set-up with it... Here I go off on my wild fantasies of creating crazy rock-electro fusion bands... You'll know if I've made it cause the band will be called "GoneFission".

Mixing up some "phat beats" on the web inspired me to have a look at DJ Hero. Although it has a hefty price tag, it's something I'd love to play. I may even consider buying it at some point in the future, although not until I've tried it first. Despite looking at numerous videos and reading several descriptions, I can't understand how you carry out the on-screen instructions.
The price point is way too high though. The basic pack is almost 100 quid, and the Renegade edition, despite having an AWESOME name, just isn't worth the 170 pound outlay.

Well, that's all for now, but you can find me, DJ Mousemat, at the venue, y'all!

Oh, and by the way, if you wanna find out more about Dj Hero, check out this rather nifty site; http://djhero.org.uk, it's pretty good on info about the game.

UF-OMG

2009-11-16T23:44:00.003Z

Ugh, it hurts to have a title that cliche. I'll go flay myself after this.

No blog posts for a while. I went home at the weekend, but I didn't update the blog because I'd left my laptop charger back at the flat, and I didn't realise until the second the train pulled out of Canterbury East. Just my luck.

I had a go on this weird white box next to my TV, which I'm pretty is called a XBox or something like that. I finally finished Mothership Zeta on F3, which was good. There's a very weird space battle section at the end which involves pressing three buttons, and that's pretty much it. Although there is an awesome explosion at the end. Upon returning to Earth I wandered around the Wastelands aimlessly, and it rekindled my love for Fallout 3. Plus, alien lazers are pretty awesome.

I also am looking to buy Torchlight, mainly because I need a new game to play, and also something to review on NR. I'd spent most of last week entering a six-word story competition to try and win a copy. On one hand, I like the idea of a contest that isn't entirely luck based. On the other, HURR ME CANT WRITE GOOD WORDS.

Finally, go read this webcomic. It's clearly designed for cool people, so god knows why I'm reading it.

As you may be able to tell I'm feeling a tad self-depricating this week. Thumbs up though.

See y'all at some other point in the future!

Nothing Doing

2009-11-09T12:03:00.002Z

There has been a lack of updates here recently. Reason; I've honestly got nothing to talk about. The new laptop fell through, I've been slowing been turning my room into a Coca-Cola advert (and seriously suffering from the effects of this) and hammering my head against a wall because i STILL don't have Torchlight. Curse you, ambiguous god-like entity.

This also has the impact that I've had nothing to write for the Newb Review, so I may wheel out my old review of Grim Fandango. I am probably going to be appearing on the podcast this week so check it out on the site

Finally, my one sentence review of that Tekken game that was on PSP;

You can play as a kangaroo.

Take from that what you will. Now go 'way...

Revenge of the Free Weekend

2009-11-01T17:02:00.010Z

Rising up from the depths of the sea like some ancient, eldritch god, it's the return of the most terrifying event in my PC gaming history...

THE REVENGE OF THE FREE WEEKEND!

...the horror.

Ever since my last experience with a free weekend on Steam, I've been wary of them, although this has been about as effective as telling a magpie to lay off the shiny things; I'm generally attracted to the word "free".

After giving this post such a bad intro, it actually went quite well. You may or may not know the superhero MMO "Champions Online" is getting a new update quite soon, and to promote this (as well as the game itself I suppose) there was a free weekend. And so, I blindly plowed in, although this time I expected to be stopped in my tracks at start-up.

However, getting to the start up turned out to be quite a challenge. Observe;

Now, this might not seem like a big deal, but this was after 4 hours. FOUR. HOURS. 50% in four hours. I actually slept over night and when my laptop went into low power mode, it stopped the thing so I had to restart the entire process... Fortunately when I did, it went a lot faster, only around 45 minutes. When I finally did start the game, as I expected it froze and sent me back to the desktop, but fortunately, this helpful window popped up;

This cheered me up, as most games (I'm looking at you, Portal) throw a hissy fit and decide that my computer doesn't deserve them. So after clicking this option, the game started running and I made it through to the main menu, and then onwards to the character creation screen.

In CO, there are a ridiculous number of customizations options that you can choose from. Everything from nose postion, to colour of your socks to the shape of your shoulder pads. It took me a while to get to used to all of the options, but once I had, I designed a pretty cool character... Although I forgot to get a screenshot of him on his own. So instead here's a picture of him shooting some giant alien bugs called the Kula or something;

As you can see, he's basically a private detective, although he does have a cyborg hand. Who says that amputees can't be superheros?

So after shooting a million more of these things, and then fighting a giant robot and blowing up an alien mothership (which sounds really exciting but essentially requires pressing the 1 key a lot, and then every now and again holding down the 2 key) I headed into the desert... For some reason.

At this stage, I finally got to "buy" more superpowers, something that had been confusing the hell out of me. I'd been leveling up for ages, and yet I still only had my "shoot" and "shoot for a bit longer" moves. When I got to this so-called Powerhouse, I got to trade in my points for more moves. After careful deliberation, I settled for "Bullet Ballet", because that sounded the coolest. Unfortunately, this move seems to comprise entirely of elbowing the bad guy in the face, which was a massive dissapointment. However, I did get the jet boots power, so I instantly flew as high as I could. This became a problem when I realised I couldn't get down, so I turned the boots off, and ended up a very broken robo-detective on the desert floor.

Overall, CO has got a lot going for it, but it's just not implemented in the right way. Powers are distributed badly, quests are nothing new, and the combat isn't breaking any major convetions. If I could afford it, and I had the time, then I might look into playing it for a few months, but right now, Renegade, cyborg gunslinger and licensed private eye is going to take a crime-fighting vaction.

See y'all at the headquarters!

Life is one big RPG...

2009-10-29T12:27:00.003Z

Or so it would seem that way. It's all about the upgrades, people!

Finally. Finally, after literally years of complaining, I am upgrading my laptop. Yeah, the E System 3115 with it's 1.73Ghz processor, 1MB of memory and 80GB of hard drive has served me well enough in the past (ignoring the problems with Portal and Time Gentlemen, Please) but now I'm moving on up.

THIS is the laptop I'm getting, although, technically it's not, sort of making that link pointless. Whilst it's still the Acer 5738, it's got a 320GB hard drive instead of 250GB, and actually has real graphics card (the main reason I like it). It's also got an AMD Athelon processor (I think) which only runs at 2.0Ghz, but I'm perfectly happy with that. Oh and it's rocking up Windows 7, which honestly isn't a big deal for me, although apparently it can give me 15% more battery life, although I have absolutely no idea how.

So there we go. I should be getting it sometime around next week, so The Toaster isn't finished yet, it's still got some time left before I sell it to someone, then run off laughing about it.

On a similar vein, I've been getting excited about Torchlight, which I can honestly admit I only found out about three or four days ago from the Steam frontpage. It's sort of Diablo-esque click-a-thon, probably because it was made by a load of the guys who did the first two Diablos. I don't know what interested me about it, but it's a low-spec game, with an cool gameplay idea (procedurally-generated-item-collecting-dungeon-crawler-with-a-wolf-sidekick), and I've downloaded the demo. I'll be honest, it doesn't run as well as I'd hope, so I may need to get a laptop... HEY. I just realised...

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is a full circle.

The other day I bought EDGE. I've given up all hope.

See y'all in the Dungeons!

Size Matters

2009-10-25T17:21:00.005Z

God bless Steam and its digital distribution prowess. We all love 'em.

T'other day, I was perusing the virtual shop of Indie games, and my eyes came to rest on "The Wonderful End of The World", created by Dejobaan Games (bringing you quality video games for over 75 years).

I've been interested in DG for a while now, ever since I heard about the ridiculously named "AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! -- A Reckless Disregard for Gravity", and when I checked out their site, I found myself enthralled by the concept of TWEOTW (great acronym by the way)

The backstory to the game, as taken from their website, is as follows; "A joyous trek around the Earth to gather everything you can before it's eaten by a giant fish head".

Yeah...

So the basic premise of the game is this; go around and pick up as much stuff in the level as you can. The challenge comes from your size. You see, your character is made up from the items you collect within the level, and the more items you collect, the larger you grow. This allows you to collect larger items, and as a result, grow taller, and then you can... you see where I'm going with this.

I really like TWEOTW. The art is well done and works well. There's a diverse range of levels, each with individual jokes in them. The props in game are all used in multiple levels, but the effect works well. The music is a real stand-out point for me, it sounds brilliant. Each of the levels has it's own unique track and they are all perfectly suited to their level.

TWEOTW came out in 2007, and it's taken me this long to get around it. Next week I'll be bringing you breaking up to date news about Skullmonkeys.

See y'a- WAIT!

I conducted an interview with the guys from Mode 7 Games the other day, and it's now up on The Newb Review. Check it out here, why not?

See y'all on the new homeworld!

Border-Line Psychopath

2009-10-21T23:37:00.004+01:00

ShackNews has no function to embed video into your own site. How utterly strange.

Borderlands is a game I really want, and as per usual I have no idea why. It's like Fallout 3. I couldn't care less about it then suddenly BAM. I want it so bad.

The general consensus on the net seems to be this; good, a few flaws, but I'm still playing it. The RPG elements have been slightly criticized, but the art style and the co-op aspects have been praised. I, for one, like both the art style and the range of characters. I'll probably play as the soldier, because shotguns are clearly the most superior weapons. Ever. So here's hoping for a shotgun that fires lazer-grenades. Oh man that'd be so damn awesome.

So yeah, I'll probably get Borderlands for Christmas once the hype has died down and some of the DLC has been released. Fun times.

On an entirely unrelated note I got X-Men Origins: Wolverine on DVD today. Fun fact; it comes with an easy-to-obtain digital copy on the disk, which I will put onto my iPod very soon. But more importantly...

And with that thought children, I'm gonna leave y'all to the wolves.

Ich bin ein PSP owner

2009-10-19T22:16:00.004+01:00

Well sort of. I have one on me. It's just not technically mine.

But first to business! This late blog comes to you courtesy of a shoddy internet connection and several coughing fits. And also my lectures. Those take up lots of time.

Went home at the weekend, on a rather long train journey. I started to fall asleep towards the end, so I played a little CivRev on my iPod. Nothing makes a train journey more exciting than dropping a nuclear ICMB on Paris. Except nachos. Nachos make anything more exciting.

At home, I actually ended up playing no Fallout 3, a fact that surprised me most of all. Instead I recompleted Shadow Complex with all of the items collected (for no real reason) and also played a little bit of Halo 3. Halo 3 is okay, but a tad dull at times. I really should have adjusted the controls because they felt way too sensitive.

I also watched a lot of The Simpsons Season 11, because my parents gave it to me as sort of a well-done-for-surviving-one-month-at-uni-without-resorting-to-theft. I think I deserved that one. I haven't stolen anyone's milk. Yet.

I also missed out on the oppotunity to get StarCraft for £10. This is because I am an idiot. Learn from my mistake, children.

But to the crux of the matter ; das PSP. Although I've yet to take the plunge and actually buy one (with all that money I don't have) I have borrowed one off of my neighbour, who got it a few years ago but never played it.
I've been playing a bit of God of War; Chains Of Olympus, which is fun but fairly tedious. Although I got to fight the bastard offspring of the Cloverfield monster and a dragon. Can't complain...

Right, gotta sleep. Oh an speaking of Shadow Complex... GO!

A Time for the Signs

2009-10-14T20:40:00.005+01:00

I don't think I should feel bad about paying such a small amount for a game.

I mean the reason that I only paid a dollar was that I figured it would be in pounds anyway so I could tell exactly how much I was paying. But it wasn't so a pound seemed like a round amount.

World of Goo. It's an incredibly popular game on both the PC and the Wii (and I also hear rumours of an iPod version), and to celebrate its first birthday, the game's designers 2dboy decide to do one of those "pay what you feel like" events that have been gaining in popularity recently. I thought it was a sweet deal, because WoG costs 17 quid on Steam, and I can't afford that in a reccession.

This made me laugh way more than it should have

A physics based puzzler, WoG presents you with a crazy world, filled strange globs of goo that can stick together to form different shapes. The goal in each level is to reach the pipe, which carries the blobs of gunk off to the shadowy "World of Goo" corporation. The story progresses in the form of short cutscenes, which give away small bits of the background story, although still enough to keep you in the dark (or should that be goo?)

That's one of the things I like most about WoG; the shadowy coporation behind the whole set up of the game. I've just finished Chapter 2, and I sort of think I know what's going on, but the story is very well laid out. The signs left about by the Signpainter are a genius touch, giving you a different angle on the event unfolding around you. The art style is also fantastic, and works with the gameplay so brilliantly, I almost fell over. Oh, and it runs well on The Toaster, which is good.

This is a weird sentence. However, this cutscene had brilliant music (which obviously you can't hear)

So, World of Goo. It can be very cheap now, if you want it to be. It can also be ridiculously expensive, but I don't see anyone paying a million dollars for it. Although that would be fantastic if somebody did. 2dboy would go on forever with that backing.

Next time, on The Starting Village...

Edd returns home and re-discovers the 360!

Aliens get shot at in slow-motion in all new Fallout 3 DLC!

And Edd wishes he had a decent game to play on the train ride to London!

All this, and perhaps more, in the next exciting installment of The Starting Village!

Here Be Dragons...

2009-10-10T18:00:00.002+01:00

I dunno. Dragon Age Origins seems okay. I've got a real craving for open-worlds with lots to do in 'em at the moment.
The video slightly pushed me more towards buying it. Apparently obese multi-breasted tentacle monsters sell. Shocking development.

I'm still undecided on the PSP. If I get it, I have to regulate myself. Only in the evenings, after some study. And maybe at weekends. And sometimes over breakfast. And maybe take it to a couple of lectures... Ah.

Okay then. I may (read; slight chance) be putting another video up next weekend, this time featuring me and the other Midnight Marathoners. Crash 3 seems like a good choice. Stay tuned for more on that.

Finally, let's all check out The Newb Review. Because we're not all hardcore.

Stay alert and watchful, y'all.

On PSPs and Podcasts...

2009-10-07T20:10:00.002+01:00

Fresh from killing thousands upon thousands of mean in pink sweaters wielding baseball bats, it's me with...

The mid-week blog, here at The Starting Village.

The PSPGo! has been released and the entire gaming community has replied with a monumental "Who cares?" I actually saw one today. It's amzing how a) much it looks like an iPhone and b) crap it looks. But more to the point I've been thinking about getting a PSP 3000. Now that the new version is out, retailers have reduced the prices of the older models, so now seems like an apt time to buy. There are a variety of games on the PSP that I'm interested in, ranging from the older games (such as Daxter and the Ratchet and Clank games) to some of the newer releases (like Monster Hunter Freedom Unite, or Dissidia), so it's not like I wouldn't have a variety of stuff to play. As I student I really shouldn't but I did make a lot of money selling old games on eBay... World of Warcraft's sacrifice will not be in VAIN!

I've also been looking into making a podcast with gaming cohort of mine, Robert Akehurst. We've talked about a lot in the past and it's something that could be a bit of a laugh to do. We don't actually live near enough to each other to feasibley commute ever other week so we are looking into doing it over Skype. It does mean I have to buy a microphone, but I should probably get one anyway. You know, for all that microphoning that needs doing. So yes, stay tuned for more on that. I still gotta think of a name.

Finally, I just recieved Crash Bandicoot 3 in the post and it doesn't work. GOD DAMN IT. If I had a PSP, this wouldn't be a problem... mutter mutter mutter.

See y'all in the future!

Midnight Marathon; CTR

2009-10-03T12:03:00.004+01:00

The following is the so-called minutes of a marathon session of CTR. Me and roomates Rowan and Tom set out with goal to beat the game 100% (yes, we know it's 101%) in one single play through. These minutes chronicle this, and also the decaying state of our mental faculties throughout the night. Enjoy!

9.40; Starting from new, using Crash as he’s the only character well balanced enough
10.00 Edd has first go.
10.01; Edd walks off in huff
10.02; Rowan does time trial perfectly
10.10; Rowan finishes first pack of biscuits
10.30 Rowan defeats first boss Ripper Roo, considers that Roo’s Tubes may be an entendre
10.40; Tom calls Coco a “blonde bitch”
10.45; Edd celebrates very easy win. Probably the only of the night.
10.50; Unlocked new world, completely owned first
10.55; Tom offer Papu-Papu victory cake
10.57; Papu-Papu gets no cake.
11.03; Rowan and Edd astounded by Tom’s shortcut genius; both in-game and real life
11.06; Edd thinks that the piranha plants are a Mario rip-off
11.08; Memory card issues are a bitch
11.16; We all buy Crash 3. Go platformer games
11.18; Tom forgets he is doing a CTR collection. Panicked collecting follows
11.19; Tom wins, because he is inhumanely good at this
11.29; Break for pasta
11.54; Game starts again, Edd has started drinking coke from a mug.
11.55; Tom hits a seal
00.01; We discuss how Sonic sucks now.
00.02; Tom comes dangerously close to losing. I mean only like a three second lead.
00.05; Komodo Joe, according to Tom is “a little wankstain”
00.06; Tom wins. Komodo Joe commits ritual suicide. Probably
00.15; Edd is stunned that there was a PS1 game called CyberTiger
00.20; Tom has yet another go at Coco, calling her a slut this time. Some issues there.
00.23; There are 7 games in a series called Every Child Can Suceed. The world is strange.
00.32; Tom achieves platinum, we rejoice with claps and well dones
00.41; No-one can pronounce Kristen Kreuke’s name
00.42; Dead or Alive breast discussions
00.46; Tom lists the average contents of a toilet. He’s maddened, apparently01.02; hulabooga
01.03; Pinstripe is, apparently, a potoroo.
01.08; Pinstripe has an unnecessarily long course
01.11; Pinstripe can go to hell.
01.12; CTR probably had a lot of extra memory space...
01.14; “A Faceful of TNT” sounds like a great album title
01.19; Tom; “It’s ass-kicking time”
01.20; Manure to butter alchemy riles everyone
01.24; Crash Bandicoot... IN SPACE!
01.27; A fall into the void causes a loud WHAT? from Tom
01.34; WHERE’S THE TEA?
01.36; Rowan is mentally deficient in some way. His words
01.40; Third memory card fail of the evening, fixed by blow job
01.43; Edd needs to relieve himself – thus Rowan is in charge of minutes
01.44; Very slow save of our minutes
01.45; Edd walks into door in attempt to prove his existence
01.47; We finally resort to “your mum” insults
01.48; ...shortly followed by gangsta talking, bra
01.50; We suddenly realise what we are doing with our lives.
01.51; Tom establish command as head gamer
01.56; The French for “warp orbs” is “boules de teleportation”. Just in case you were interested.
01.58; Rowan is official off his tits on sleep deprivation
02.00; 88%
02.01; Tom stops for toilet break; imprint in bed is left
02.05; Rowan has lost all mental reasoning. However, can still make self-scathing jokes.
02.10; Tom threatens an endangered species. He is now a man.
02.16; What’s in those nitro crates anyway?
02.20; Tom takes all the harsh comments back when he sees Coco’s new design
02.21; She’s still a slut though.
02.28; Silence
02.30; Tom Trehearn is... THE WALL RIDER.
02.36; Edd has a dressing gown on now.
02.43; Playing pranks on flatmates passes the time.
02.45; Where are the teams?
02.53; Excellent recovery by Tom, from 8th to 1st. He’s still playing by the way.
02.58; Missle is too negative, try rocket instead.
02.59; Tom is taking on all the bosses at once.
03.02; Talk of characters knifing each other illustrates our mental state
03.07; Eye of the Tiger. It’s about damn time.
03.08; Tom can do a handbrake turn in CTR. The world is still strange.
03.10; Memory card fails for the fourth time
03.14; Two platinum relics, and Tom is ready for N. Oxide...
03.15; 97%
03.19; Final boss = surprisingly tough...
03.20; AND THAT’S THE GAME!
03.21; Credits have never tasted so sweet.
03.24; Credits, now with political satire!
03.27; Thanks to Tom’s tireless tire-burning tricks, CTR has been bested. GOODNIGHT!

Track, Bash, Do it Again...

2009-10-01T16:33:00.005+01:00

Coming to you live from a creaky office chair next to a window overlooking a poorly tended lawn it's...

The Starting Village (DUN DUN DUN!)

Two games have been taking up my time. I shall now divulge information about them, before my extraction team turns up.

Trackmania Nations Forever, which is like the shorter, slower, less attractive brother of Trackmania United Forever. TNF is free, and generally fun, and as I said before, I've yet to come across a free game that I didn't like. Although...

You see, when I started playing TNF, I really enjoyed it, having to improve my time a desperately shaving off extra points to try and beat the gold ghost. But around the mid-difficulty level, the races suddenly become impossible. Jumps that have to be hit at exactly full speed and at just the right place with incredibley twist run ups mire your enjoyment of the game. Stupid camera shifts and split second timing make the gravity-defying tracks a nightmare. When I was struggling to beat the bronze medal, I just quit and gave up. The point is, the tracks get TOO stupid. Loop-the-loops I can handle. 180 sideways twist can suck a rock.

Crash Bash. It's like Mario Party... But with Crash. So Crash Party. My flatmate has a PS2 and Crash Bash is one of two multiplaer games that I'd play (note; the other is CTR, so there we go). It's amazing how many swears you get from playing this game. Some of the goal defending levels are piss-takingly difficult, and the ones where you play off a handicap are so amazingly nerve-testing. It's also fun to play because of the chunky graphics. I've always found it weird how we never really saw the blocks at the time, we just thought the graphics were awesome. I'm not saying I don't like them mind. Being retroactively critical is unneccesary.

Also, BFH, but I don't need to talk about that again, do I?

Aha, bow before my jetpack-and-armour might!

See y'all at the finish line!

Ice, The University and Everything

2009-09-27T13:22:00.003+01:00

This weekend's installment of "The Starting Village" comes to you live from a brand spanking new location; a small room in a flat to the north of Canterbury!

Yes I have moved. And after soom furious battling with the internet, I established a connection, and got back to what really matters; teh interwebs.

Over the past week, I've been using my laptop a lot more than I normally would. I've downloaded a few demos off Steam (because I have no money and my Xbox is at home), and here's a short sentence for each of them;

- Gish; Jumping is too hard, lighting is nice
- Psychonauts; Good length, if I heard the word punch again I'll explode
- Blueberry Garden; Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?

I've also bought the LucasArts Adventure game pack, or whatever its called, and I've been playing both Fate of Atlantis and LOOM. FoA is very... cheesy, and LOOM... Well in the first 10 minutes of LOOM, all of my friends had turned into swans and my mother turned into a duck and flew through a rift in space time. Yes.

Another thing I've been playing is this, or for those of you who are scared of links, Icycle, a bike game set in an icy apocalypse. Insanely tough and incredibly well designed, it's a great time waster.

Because I'm now using a wired connection, I've been playing more BFH. I still suck, but at least I can get better because I won't have "THERE IS A PROBLEM WITH YOUR CONNECTION" popping up every ten seconds.

Well that's all for now. I'll be doing a "Postcards From..." for all the LA games I just got, but until them, don't feed the Yao Guai, chiiildren!

I miss Fallout 3 =(

Trench Warfare Fun in the Snow

2009-09-23T17:49:00.000+01:00

Rejoice, celebrate and so on. After spending a whole half a day bouncing up and down staring out the window, just when I had decided to give up, the postman FINALLY arrived and I literally snatched the parcel from his hands. Maybe a slight over-reaction but I didn't care.

The result of this perplexing display of anti-socialism? I had gained the first two DLCs for Fallout 3, although because they came on a disk, we shall now be referring to them as add-ons.

First up was Operation Anchorage, a military simulation set during the communist occupation of Anchorage, Alaska. After investigating an emergency signal from some Brotherhood Outcasts, I found myself in the middle of a small battle between said Outcasts and some Super Mutants. After reloading my game because I accidentally shot one of the Knights (who decided walking into my line of fire was a sensible strategy) the group and I bested the Muties and moved onward to a Pre-War armoury containing a military simulation of the Anchorage ho-down. After leaping in without a thought for my personal safety, I found myself half way up a cliff with very little in the way of weapons. After receiving some exposition from a cliff-climbing American soldier, I wandered off along the cliff face to shoot some Communists, which cheered me up. Actually that was the second best part of OA; Shooting commies. It's more fun if you shout "Better dead than red!" or something similar every time you shoot them.

Anyway after fighting invisible Chinese ninjas and blowing up some rather large cannons, I found myself in command of a squad of troops, and this was where OA got slightly confused. You are given the option of putting together a squad of soldiers (or robots) to help you in fighting the Chinese, but there doesn't really seem to be much point to it. Allies can be respawned almost instantly, which bears no penalty, so the threat level is minimal. You also get to choose between a rather crap selection of weapon packs, and unfortunately there's no option of Chinese Assault Rifle. As much as I slag off the commies, they knew what they were doing with the Xuanlong.

The long and short of Operation Anchorage is that you get access to a ton of cool armour and weaponry, most prominently, the Chinese Stealth Armour. This is possibly the coolest piece of tech I've seen in pretty much seen in any game ever. Ever. Probably. Invisibility is awesome...

So the end word on Operation Anchorage is that it plays out well, with some odd squad based combat, but worthwhile rewards. Next time, I'll be shouting about The Pitt, and why I think everyone needs an Auto Axe. See y'all then!

So Long, and Thanks for All The... Um...

2009-09-18T13:17:00.002+01:00

There comes a time in every person's life when they realise they must move out from under their parents roof and go and live in expensive student housing with a shared kitchen, along with a bunch of people that they've never met before, and then spend the next four years learning about what make living things work like what we does. And also have no money to spend on anything except ASDA's own brand mayonnaise (41 pence a jar). Jesus, what have I done?

So as you may have deduced from my terror induced rambling, I'm leaving home to join the university circus. I'm more worried than... something very worried. Of course, moving away means I'll be living in my own flat (sort of). This means that I wish to even take a television, I would have to pay somewhere in the region of £150, even if I do not watch the wonderful range of BBC programs (that's not sarcasm, I actually quite like the BBC's programming) The knock on effect of this is that I can't use my 360, until some kind of solution to this is found. It's a bit of a kick in the teeth but I really cannot afford a TV licence. I'm just waiting for Scribblenauts. Then things'll be better.

So that's all that. I have a blog waiting in the wings about the first two Fallout 3 DLCs, and I may put that up on Wednesday (maybe, I'll be very busy next week) Till then, keep your eyes on http://www.newbreview.com/

Well it's been fun in South East London, but Canterbury is calling me, and I feel I've outgrown this town.

So, to paraphrase an ex-security guard on a train, I'll see y'all when I see y'all!

Unnecessary Update Column

2009-09-13T13:56:00.003+01:00

A skewed look at the week's headlines in the gaming world...

The PS3 sales have gone up either 300% or 999%, depending on who you pay attention to. Sony have released a statement indicating a "300 percent lift in PS3 hardware sales". On top of this, Chart Tracker announced that the sales had rocketed 999% to 40,000 overall sales.
I just want to quickly shoot down all of the Sony fanboys stating this is everybody realising that the PS3 is clearly the best console. The reason for this rise in sales, incredibly enough, is the price cut, and also the fact that the adverts now actually mention what they are selling. Those "this is living" adverts where almost as poor as that original Xbox "life is short" advert.
I guess the positive of this is that Jack Tretton will finally have something else to talk about, because it's getting dull hearing him constantly tell us how incredibley powerful the PS3 is. We know Jack. We all know.

There will be no Halo Natal "until it makes sense" says ODST producer Alex Cutting, following with "...we are not going to produce a gimmicky feature that just takes advantage of motion controls when it doesn't feel right."
It's good to see that MGS aren't going to do a Nintendo on us, but I can't see Natal EVER being right for any FPS, let alone Halo. Unless it can actually scan me pretending to hold an assault rifle, then tracking my finger as I pull the trigger, Natal can't beat dual analogue controls. Even if it could track this, movement would still be an issue. I don't want to have to jog on the spot to avoid laser fire.

Courtney Love, or at least someone on Twitter who may be Courtney Love, is getting up in arms about Kurt Cobain's likeness. Going by the twitter moniker courtneylover79 (which sounds incredible fake, although that of course may be the point), she has stated "FOR THE RECORD I DID NOT APPROVE KURTS AVATAR FOR GUYITARHERO5" which completely goes against Activision's claims that they "secured the necessary licensing rights from the Cobain estate in a written agreement signed by Courtney Love to use Kurt Cobain's likeness as a fully playable character in Guitar Hero 5"
Apart from telling us that Ms. Love talks like a angry twelve year old fanboy, this story also gives us an insight into Activision's business dealings. courtneylover79, who has now blocked her twitter feed from unnaproved followers, states that "i was forced with literally a GUN to sell RIGHTS". Apparently Activision have decided to start holding people at theorectical gunpoint to get hold of lucrative rights. Of course they have.
I'm sure the only reason Kurt is in Guitar Hero 5 is so this sort of thing can appear on the internet.

Wasteland Survival 101

2009-09-09T19:53:00.003+01:00

Welcome to the Capital Wastelands, stranger. Here's a gun, here's some irradiated water, and here's a futuristic wristwatch/PDA that can stop time so you can aim at specific parts of your enemies body. Good luck.

So here's the deal with Fallout 3. It's probably the best game I've ever played, hands down. It's atmospheric, it's open-ended, it's brutally realistic (except VATS, but VATS is excellent anyway) it's visually astounding and it's compelling. I know this is an year-old game, but I would say to anyone that hasn't played yet to buy/rent/steal/pickpocket a copy and give it a go.

In terms of genre, Fallout 3 is a survival RPG with some light first person shooter elements. This suits me just fine, because my FPS skills are lackluster at best. VATS is also a brilliant tool for me as it makes aiming, and killing, makes more satisfying. Admittedly, the stats might be off, but nine times out of ten it hits the mark (bad pun alarm)

But what makes Fallout 3 so brilliant (I hear you cry)? The survival aspect of the game is so well implemented, it creates a whole new level of gameplay. Because you have a limit of how much you can carry, your weapon and healing items are limited to only what you carry. Weapons steadily degrade meaqning you have to find, scavenge or buy new ones to keep them in good condition. And almost all healing items you can find give you radiation, which steadily builds up to do damage to your stats.

There are so many things I could talk about in Fallout 3, but a lot of it has been said before. I'm currently at Level 19, and I realise I'm soon going to hit my peak at Level 20, but I'm already looking into getting the DLCs. I'm also on a mission to collect all the bobbleheads, as well as some of the unique weapons, so wish me luck...

What I am trying to say is that Fallout 3 is one of the best games I have ever played, and anyone he thinks otherwise is a FOOL (obscure reference). I'm sure there'll be more posts in the future about F3, especially considering the aforementioned DLCs. But right now I've got a sniper rifle and a violin to find...

See ya at the top of the Washington Monument, y'all!

...and now for something completely different

2009-09-02T21:46:00.006+01:00

Oh man this is embarrassing. Remember last time when I said that my brain would be exploding from joy due to the arrival of Fallout 3? Well I can firmly say that my grey matter is still safely encased inside my cranium. Turns out the best time to order things from Amazon is not the Friday before a bank holiday. Go figure.

So there is no new epic Fallout 3 stuff for me to natter on about. Instead... Uh-oh, I have nothing to talk about!

Uh... I beat 'Splosion Man. This officially wins the award for strangest final boss fight ever. For the most part it involves the normal running around dodging attacks stuff, but the way you beat the boss is amazingly inventive and the sequence at the very end of the fight is bizarre. Also, Hardcore Mode is ridiculously unnecessary. Seriously, who would do that to themselves?

I've been playing Battlefield Heroes again, in no small part cause of the new outfit I've got. For a free to play game, BFH is a surprisngly good game. Sure, the lack of maps is annoying, but the vechicles and classes make it interesting, and the RPG elements mix things up. I'm getting better at it too, although connection issues are still a bitch. Check me out, yeah?

I'm so cool. With my jacket, and weirdly shaped legs, and holster I can't use because I use a shotgun.

Fianlly, I used the PC Zone DVD to install The Elder Scrolls II; Daggerfall to my laptop. This was the whole game, for free on the DVD, and as you all well know, I've yet to resist a free game. Unfotunately, I have little to no idea about how to install the game, so the closest I got was clicking a lovely little install button in a lovely little dialogue box with a lovely little dragon in it, and getting absolutely no where swiftly. Richard, if you're reading this, help me please! If you do, I'll buy your magazine forever and also mention it on this blog every week (if I remember to). PC ZONE MAGAZINE IS AWESOME. There, free marketing.

Right, I'm just about out of information, so I'm signing off. If I never do another blog it's because Fallout 3 hasn't arrived and I've topped myself. Although there's equal chance it has arrived, and I can't stop playing it to do the blog. I'm sure I'll be alright.

See ya in The Wasteland, y'all!

Arcade Cavalcade

2009-08-29T23:18:00.002+01:00

Most people who play games for hours on end only to get the achievements are often accused of having no life. This hasn’t happened to me yet, but only because I didn’t have a life to begin with. This means I am free to play games non-stop until my eyeballs bleed just to get one achievement.

Now that I’ve cleared that up, I can talk about what I’ve been up to games-wise, and barring the problems I’ve been having with a certain beta game, they’ve all been on that wonderful white cuboid that sits next to my TV and hums loudly whenever it has to do anything. To be more accurate they all have been downloaded from XBLA, which in my opinion is a very good marketplace for downloadable games.

So what’s on the menu for this downloadable feast? Up as a starter, the spellcheckers nightmare, ‘Splosion Man. A 2.5D platforming puzzle set-up, you control an exploding man, surprisingly enough, who uses his ability to explode to blast his way through the levels, turning scientists into meat for some reason. The controls are incredibly simple with analogue stick controlling movement and every other button makes explode, flinging you into the air (having said that, the right trigger makes you “self-detonate”, killing you. I found this out the worst way). You can ‘splode mid air to continue a jump, and ‘splode once more for a third mid-air jump. The game is fairly robust, sporting 50 single player levels and 50 multiplayer modes (I think), although as is the major complaint with this game, they go on for too long and get too hard. Overall, ‘Splosion Man is a good XBLA title. The levels are interesting, the character is very quirky, and the boss fights spice things up. I’d like to see more boss fights in the sequel actually. Take notes, Twisted Pixel.

For a main course, the game I refuse to refer to as a “Metroidvania” style game, Shadow Complex. This game is also a 2.5D platformer, except this time you play as Nathan Drake-alike, Jason Flemming, although from this point on he shall be called Jason Asskicker. The story, inspired by an Orson Scott Card novel and written by Peter David, involves Asskicker and his girlfriend of apparently one day Claire going into some caves, but discovering a group of well-equipped home-grown terrorists who are preparing to cause civil war in the US of A. After Claire is capture Jason fights his way through the shadow complex, risking his life on several occasions to save the girl he’s known for one day. Plotholes aside, Shadow Complex is a good game. At the start of the game, you have a flashlight, climbing gear and a gun, and that’s what makes it so brilliant. As you hang from a ladder and blast a guard’s head in, you feel badass. When you jump off a ledge and punch a guard in the neck, you feel badass. When you fire at someone with anti-riot foam and then fire a grenade at the foam and it explodes, you laugh for a bit, then realise how badass it was. This game should be sold as a badass simulator. Seriously. It’s just a shame that towards the end, the sheer amount of enemies turns the game into more of a run and gun affair. Closing statements; Solid all-round game, few niggles.

For dessert, a classic given a new dressing, it’s The Secret of Monkey Island; Turbo HD Remix, or whatever. Although the game remains exactly the same, this new version features full voice acting, hand-painted HD backgrounds and characters and some smoother animations. First of all, SoMI is my third favourite MI game, after Curse and Revenge. My feelings towards this new game are slightly odd, in that I feel that a bit more work could have been put into it. Some of the voice acting seems weak, and whilst Earl Boen does a fantastic job with LeChuck, some of Guybrush’s lines sound slightly tired. Sorry, Dom... So to summarise, nice to hear the voices in the original, but doesn’t exactly meet my expectations. Here’s to the sequel, an infinitely better game.

So that’s that. I’ve also got the two Fable 2 DLCs but we can cover those another time. Coupla weeks, I dunno. I might do a bit about Fable III as well.
Next time on The Starting Village, I get Fallout 3, then my brain explodes from joy. See ya then!

Four Halves make a Box

2009-08-23T22:55:00.003+01:00

Half Life 2;
I’ve been waiting to play Half Life 2 for a long time now and it was definitely worth the wait. The gameplay is good. The graphics are pretty as you fire wildly into them. The music is very good, and makes the whole experience much more cinematic. Considering this came out in 2004, it still stands up against some of the newer games that turn today’s market into a junkheap of armoured space marines and colourful family games. So yes overall, HL2 is awesome. However, I do have one problem with the story of Half Life 2. Don’t get me wrong, it is told in a very compelling and believable way, but it feels so far removed from the original they could be from entirely different franchises. I should point out this didn’t make the game any less enjoyable, it just confused me. However, G-Man is still a fantastic character in the changed context.

Half Life 2 Episode 1;
I’m not entirely sure how much time was between the two episodes but I’m glad I had the next episode ready to go, because I thought the ending to HL2 was really strange, and also a tad anti-climactic. Ep. 1 confused me at the beginning as for some strange reason you are given the regular gravity gun, which then becomes the Super Gravity Gun in exactly the same way as the previous game. But I digress. Episode 1, picking up exactly where HL2 left off, focuses a lot more on the relationship between Alyx and Gordon, and not only because you get a first person hug. The gameplay is exactly the same, although I would say that combat and puzzles mix more frequently. Apart from that, it’s pretty much the same in quality as HL2.

Half Life 2 Episode 2;
Episode 2 gets off to quite a slow start but very quickly becomes more exciting, partly because of the addition of the Hunters, and partly due to your Vortigaunt companion. I felt the story was much better than Ep. 1 and probably even HL2 itself, as I was always drawn into the story, whereas previously I had felt like somewhat of an observer. Ep. 2 also wins points because it does the see-saw puzzle on an epic scale, and the car is pretty swish as well. The Strider battle at the end is truly nothing short of epic and was definitely a high point. Whereas previous Strider battles had been a duck-and-fire routine, firing a sticky bomb onto the Striders then firing at them whilst been attacked by the Hunters is possibly the most tense gaming moment I have ever found myself in.

And whilst I’m on the topic of Half Life Games...

Half Life; Blue Shift;
Although I failed to get this in the sale, it’s still only three pounds, and in a recession, we all have to try and cut down on spending. Blue Shift is essentially Half Life told from Barney Calhoun’s point of View, and follows him throughout Black Mesa during the resonance cascade, and also briefly into everyone’s favourite border world, Xen. First of all, BS is very short. Even for me. It took me roughly about 5 hours, and that was not really concentrating and finding the hidden chumtoad. I sure I could speed-run this in about two hours, perhaps less. Having said that, my computer actually struggles to run the game anytime there is a flickering light, so perhaps not. Overall, BS feels like a bit of a fan-game but provides a nice little side story to the main game.
Onto the rest of the Orange Box...

Team Fortress 2;
I’ve actually been interested in the game for a while, even before the free weekend debacle. The Spy class had piqued my interest a while back and I’d been looking forward to stealthily backstabbing some dastardly snipers. Unfortunately, this dream got kicked in the head very early on when I found out being a Spy is effin’ hard. Every is suspicious of everyone else so disguises are fairly useless, and I’m always forgetting to come out of my cloak. So instead I decided I’d try the engineer. Now there’s a class with balls. Sentries are brilliant, teleporters are handy and dispensers... Well I guess dispensers make good shields so there we go. Apart from crippling connection issues and lack of map variety, playing Team Fortress 2 has been a laugh.
And finally...

Portal;

Yeah, it’s alright.

Viva la Resistance!

2009-08-22T19:20:00.002+01:00

I'm not dead yet, don't worry about me.

My holiday didn't overshoot, I've just had a bit more to worry about over the past week than my lonesome blog. LIKE MY A-LEVELS. Which went quite well, thanks for asking. In about a month I'll be shipping out to Canterbury for about 4 years to study Biology (fun) and in my spare time I will attempt to play games, eat pizza, learn code, finish that novel I've been working on (joke) and maybe see if I can build a cheap gaming PC (not a joke).

I've beaten tons of games over the past two weeks, and played a few as well, but there's no time to go into all of them right now. I've done the Orange Box to death, and now I'm just trying to get some of the more obscure achievements (like playing through Episode One using only one bullet. I believe in myself!) I've started writing a quick summary so I might put it up tomorrow.

Well must dash, I'm off to a party, social butterfly that I am. Catch you all on the morrow, friends!

Shutting Up Shop

2009-08-08T08:58:00.004+01:00

There was a reason that I didn't do a blog post the other day, my internet service provider is rubbish. And that's why I didn't post. Ha.

So this blog is going to be slightly stunted because I'm actually going on holiday at some point today. I'm off to Suffolk for a week so I'll be out of contact with the internet for a similar amount of time, assuming there isn't some kind local Wi-Fi that I can ste- make use of whilst I'm there.

In terms of games, I (finally) got The Orange Box for the 360, meaning I can kick back and play Half Life 2 all wee- OH WAIT, I'm going to SUFFOLK. Grr. Actually, I've already beaten Half Life 2, Episode One and Portal, so I guess there's less for me left to do. I'll be working on a post about them on holiday so that'll be up when I get home.

Because I'm not going to be at home for a week, I decided to get my laptop sent to the shop to have the left arrow key finally fixed. It's been broken for bloody ages and was starting to cut into my finger if I played any platform game for more than ten minutes. Unfortunately, I also found out later, after it got taken away, that Tales of Monkey Island has a demo out. Ah. So when I get my laptop back, that'll be the first thing I'll do, to see how it runs. Then I will finally be able to decide whether or not to buy it.

And finally I got 2100 Microsoft Fun Bucks the other day, which I then instantly spent on the Fable 2 DLC See The Future, and then XBLA game 'Splosion Man. One word to describe 'Splosion Man? Insane.

All this and more in the next exciting installment of The Starting Village, going live on the 17th of August! Catch you then, y'all!

Dis-Fable-ed

2009-07-30T13:45:00.002+01:00

Why can I never think of any decent puns to go with my blogs? Next time it'll just be words about the post, not some crap joke.

So Fable 2. It's a fantasy game, and a sequel to a game I've never played. The plot is alright although the amount of freedom you have to do whatever you want means that the story is ignored most of time. Also, Stephen Fry does one of the voices, so the game gains lots and lots of Awesome Points (tm).

I guess the big thing about Fable 2 is the concept of freedom to do whatever you want, with your character being a reflection of these moral choices. Now, a lot has been said about moral choices in games and that's not particularly something I wanna get into now, but I think Fable takes an interesting approach to it. Bar the end of the game choice (which was completely stupid, by the way) the game doesn't make an epic deal of the decisions, compared to, say, Bioshock or Spider-man Web of Shadows. The majority of the choices that you make affect your characters alignment, meaning your character is a better reflection of YOU. YOU. THE PLAYER.

Fable 2 is a nice looking game as well. There are some lovely looking locations in there like Oakfield and Bower Lake. The caves are also nicely designed, and there are some brilliant light effects on the exits of them. Some of the characters have crappy models, but they get the job done, I guess.

I've actually beaten the game, and I thought the ending was incredibly anti-climatic. SPOILERS AHOY!

So you collect together the three heroes, and they all give you power or something, it wasn't very well explained. Then, evil Lord Lucien shows up and kidnaps everyone, which is expected of him, because he is generically evil. Then he goes on to talk to you, but I wasn't listening at this point. Something about chaos. Then he shot my dog. NO! MR WOOFYPANTS! Although his real name was Maxwell. Then he shot me and I died. But I didn't and you have to go through this whole creepy dream sequence with your (dead) sister, and then you run off into this horrible battlefield and get the music box from the start...

So you finally reach the spire and Lucien is draining magical power from the three Heroes, for no apparent reason other than it's evil, although I had been doing the exact same thing ten minutes earlier. Then you hold A to activate the music box, and this stops Lucien (somehow) and then I shot him, and he died.

And that's how Fable 2 ends. What a gyp. Okay, you get to make the decision to resurrect the dead people, or the dog, or just get loads of gold. Admittedly, I was gonna get the gold, but I decide to bring back the dog, a decision which the game then yelled at me for. Stupid game. Mr Woofypants must LIVE!

Speaking of live, I got a wirless router t'other day and am now online. Go me. My connection is pretty awful, but it works well enough for me to download some trial games and some free DLC for Fable.

Also, you'll have noticed the new layout. Mmm, coffee-coloured...

Next time, Portal, y'all!

eXtreme game-fest

2009-07-25T20:43:00.002+01:00

Several things have happened over the past week. For one I am no longer a Wii owner (technically). I am however, now an XBox 360 owner, which explains the lack of updates.

Fable 2 came with the console, and I've been playing that quite a lot. First impressions are good, but it's a little repetative and doesn't know where its head is at most of the time. I also got given Web of Shadows by a friend as a birthday present, which is also good, if not a little dull at times.

I've become a real achievement junkie, fufilling certain criteria just to get them. I like the ahievements system it's a good little meta-aspect to the games which makes it feel more connected to the console. I like the dashboard as well, which is a lot friendly than the Wii menu screen. The avatars aren't too bad either. They have arms. Go them.

I have yet to get online because the wireless router costs an absolute fortune, so that's a bit of a kick in the dental region, but I'll be getting one soon enough. I'm not so much looking forward to the multiplayer as I am to getting DLC, demos, and other such things.

I've also played a bit of GTA4, which is fun, although turning a corner at speed usually results in me slamming into garbage truck, then getting jammed in an alley way. Joy. But overall, it's a laugh. Although I can't understand a word Little Jacob is saying...

Right. I've already wasted valuable gaming time, so I'll see y'all mid-week some time, when I'll be speaking about Fable 2 some more, and the problems I'm having with Portal. Oh and one last thing, thank you to Richard from PC Zone magazine for the kind words and so forth. I WILL be getting the next issue via the internet =)

Stay frosty y'all.

In the Zone

2009-07-20T23:12:00.004+01:00

Okay firt off, I really the following story is both dull and makes me out to be a really geek, which I guess is technically accurate, but the the hey.

Anyone who plays Battlefield Heroes will know about outfits, but for anyone who does not yet play (WHICH YOU SHOULD cause it's free) they are essentially different items of clothing you must pay real money for, but don't actually provide any gaming upgrade. Now I'm not rich enough or stupid enough to actually fork out any money to buy the clothes, because that would be a) a waste of money I don't have and b) just too damn sad for someone as cool as myself.

But.

When I went onto the BFH site t'other day, I accidentally stumbled on this little gem of info, which was about how to get a rather cool outfit, permenantly, for free. Well sort of. The codes to get the outfit were contained inside copies of PC Zone, a magazine which I don't think I'd ever actually heard of prior to this point. So I decide I would go out and invest in one of those magazines, not just for the code, but also because it'd probably come with one of those free DVDs full of stuff.

The amount of effort I had to put in just to get that damn magazine completely outweighs the boots and trouser and DVD and strange magazine I got from it. PC Zone despite being, and I quote "Britain's Best PC Games Mag" is not sold in any of the several news agents on my high streeet, nor the supermarket, nor a service station on the M5, nor a Tesco's in Norfolk. In fact the only place that actually sold it was a WH Smiths in Bluewater, which, I point out, is miles from my home. Ultimately it was a lot of effort and an expensive magazine, although I'd imagine double sided DVDs cost a lot to produce.

But I won in the end. I got the first part of my outfit (which, incidentally I won't finish until I've started at uni) an "intresting" magazine and a disk full of freeware games (which is good because I've yet to come across a freeware game I didn't like).

Well, I'm going to bed. And as it goes, I'm eighteen years old in 11 minutes. Go figure.
G'night y'all =)

Too late for me to think of a title

2009-07-16T23:26:00.002+01:00

Oh, aren't late night blogs fun?

Answer; No, they aren't. I need to keep this up to date. Grr.

I've been watching too much Chuck tan is healthy for me recently on the magical device we call the Internet. Apart from having a few plot holes here and there, it's a pretty good show, with a nice mix of comedy and action. Oh and Yvonne Strahovski is hawt, so you know, that's cool.

I have also been going to the gym a lot because I've paid 30 pounds to join for a month, which might seem odd, but I'm going off to Uni in September, meaning a year membership would be pointless. TO make the most of it I've been every day this week, and it's cool, except it's REALLY HARD WORK. Which was to be expected, it's a gym, that's the point. It's also causing my old knee injury to act up, meaning I'm now walking like a arthritic tortoise again. Great.

I've been thinking about trying to change the layout of the blog. I like the colours on this one, but the column is just too narrow. There's masses of space on either side of the screen, I just wish I could use it. Any time I write more than say five long paragraphs, it stretches half way down the page, which I feel makes it less inviting to read. I'd much prefer a layout similar to this. Or possibly this.

And finally, the first of Tales of Monkey Island got released the other week, and there aren't words to describe how much I want it. Well there are, only I never bothered to learn them. ZING! Ahh, references. How I love 'em. Anyway, the point is, I can't get them. Well I can but it involves a terrible risk. See, the game requires a 2GHz processor, and mine is only 1.7... I've been through this before, but I don't want to buy it and then have it run like an arthritic tor- Oh wait, I already did that joke. Oh well. I guess I'll just get "The Dig" and pretend it's an episode of The X Files. In space.

I leave you with this, something, which if proven to be true, would make me cry tiny tears of joy. Don't hold me to that mind.

Machineguns, Shotguns and Bazookas, Oh My!

2009-07-13T18:53:00.006+01:00

It's probably time I do a new post. It's been a while...

I tried Battlefield Heroes again, and by "tried again" I mean I've been playing it all week, but under the guise of a new character, the scruffy haired gunner Kaboomish. My commando was all uptight, and was called KnightHunter. Take a look.

Kaboomish just sounds awesome. Look at him. You know he's cool cause he's not wearing army uniform. Damn right.
So yeah after my previous post about how lame I am at Battlefield Heroes, I wasn't expecting anything different, just less invisibility. But as it turns out I'm much better at being a Gunner, probably because I requires a lot less skill, and more pointing the gun in a random direction and firing until whatever it is until it dies. I'm much better at that than all this aiming crap.

Playing a gunner is quite a different experience than being a commando. Mainly, you get to blow stuff up a lot more, with barrels or a bazooka. Tanks become a lot less daunting when you can take them out from afar with a rocket. I also get to use a shotgun, which is my "Weapon I Would Go For In Case Of Zombie Invasion", and I'm not too shabby with it, connection issues aside. I've been killing a lot more people, and coming last a lot less. More mid-table.

Driving vehicles is also much more fun, because when you jump out of the car/tank/plane, you actually have something to shoot people with, as opposed to a knife, which kinda sucks. The barrel is also a brilliant weapon for clearing capture points before attacking them, although I also use it as a parting gift for anybody who is killing me. I got the greatest kill on some guy who waved after shooting me, only to get blown up a second later. That'll learn you to taunt.

I've also been playing Cave Story, the freeware-to-WiiWare success story, but I'm gonna do a "Postcards from:" on that when I get a few more shots.

Until next time, keep on truckin', y'all.

Men in Tights, Pointless Updates, and Adventures in High Definition

2009-07-05T22:16:00.004+01:00

Yeah, I could have updated yesterday. But I didn't just because I could. So there.

Ever since watching "Superman Returns", I'd been wondering about Superman films generally, and I remembered I actually have the original on my DVD shelf. So I put it in and watched it (as I believe is the current style). It wasn't too bad actually, apart from being INCREDIBLY camp. It's amazing how much of the dialogue was essentially stolen for "Superman Returns", although I guess it could be called a "reimagining". Also, Superman is the only film I've ever seen that sets up the plot of the sequel before establishing the plot of the actual film. KNEEL BEFORE ZOD, and so forth.

I bought the update for the iPod touch the other day, purely so I could get Rolando 2, which I have REALLY been looking forward to. But, because I only have an iPod touch, it's apparently my job to pay for the update. Grr. SO I bought it, but unfortunately I now don't have enough iTunes credit to buy the new Rolando, which sucks big time... So I now have the ability to copy and paste text, but no new game. I fail at everything =)

I've also been watching many a high definition video recently, just because the option is there and I've got the time to let it render, or buffer, or whatever. Videos on YouTube are quite good, especially Fallout 3, which is a noticeable improvment from all the blur you get on regular videos. The Simpsons looks very strange in HD, but the new intro sequence is cool. Unfortunately, I don't know anything about the specs of my screen so it could be a waste of time really... Meh.

Oh, I have the Determinance demo on my PC. I should really play it at some point...

Man Of Stale

2009-07-01T23:31:00.002+01:00

11.34.

Wednesday.

Eyes blurry cause of lack of sleep. Probably need caffeine. Or Lucozade.

My hands smell of octopus. That's not a euphimism, I cooked octopus for dinner.

Just spent 2 hours of my life watchin' "Superman Returns". TWO HOURS. I ain't gettin' them back... Okay, okay, here's a quick summary of how that film goes;

Nothing happens for a hour and a half, then a coupla of action sequences happen, then Superman gets the crap kicked out of him, then nothing else happens, then the film ends.

Seriously, this film was ultimately the dullest superhero film I have ever seen. Superman Returns made Spiderman 3 look like The Dark Knight.

I am so very tired right now. Narg.

Come back later, me tired.

FYI I'm a (crap) Spy-per

2009-06-27T19:50:00.006+01:00

I don't have much experience playing the Battlefield series, except when I used to play a lot of Medal of Honour at the Internet Cafe, since Battlefield gave me something else to suck at. I enjoyed it quite a lot as I liked using the different vehicles, mainly as offensive weapons. Like my patented "Kamikaze-Air-Bomb Attack", which maintained my perfectly balanced kill/death ratio for a while.

I'd been keeping half an eye on Battlefield Heroes, primarily because I'd been told it was built to run on low-end computers, which to me was a god-send. A laptop with 1.73 GHz can never be classed as a gaming PC. Fortunately, BH only requires 1GHz, so viva la download.

In case you were unawares, Battlefield Heroes is an EA "Play 4 Free" title, meaning the download is FREE, and playing the game is also FREE. The payment comes in the form of microtransactions for cunique clothing, so and so forth. Obviously you don't have to buy anything, so for people like me, it's free =)

After a few starting up issues (like not realising you had to create a character first, and not being able to find a server) I finally got into a real game. It's very hectic, especially at the start when everyone is slamming together in various vechicles, and some idiot decides the best way to get a capture point is to use a bomb on it. But it all works together quite well, despite the graphics not being up to much. Not that it really matters, because it isn't about the graphics at all.

I'd decided to take on the role of a commando, which is essentially a sniper-spy combo, being able to disappear, but also shoot people with a good ol' scoped rifle. It might just be my suckyness, but the knife really doesn't kill people the way you'd like it to. Meh. The sniping is good, especially from the top of a lighthouse. When you are invisible.

There's also a decent levels system where you go through ranks for kills and captures, which then leads to upgrades. It works well, and it's a nice little metagame aspect to it. It also gives you new abilities and access to new weapons, which is good in terms of variety in the long term.

Despite all the good things I've said, Battlefield Heroes probably isn't the game for me. Why? Because I absolutely suck at it. There aren't words to describe how god-awful I am at it. Seriously, there are people who can't even use a computer who are better at the game than me. I seriously am awful. I crashed a plane because I forgot to accelerate. It's hard to explain how bad I am, so here's a visual representation in the form of an Excel graph, an idea I in no way stole from Chris Livingston;

I awarded myself a coupla points there because I did get a few headshots in, but still, these were when I was hidden up a lighthouse, in stealth mode, whilst crouching.

I guess I could blame it on my dodgy web connection that lead me to be running into a wall more than once, but at the end of the day, I just plain suck at it. Oh well. That's not gonna stop me =D

Postcards from; Beneath A Steel Sky

2009-06-25T11:04:00.008+01:00

Isn't it funny? I have all the free time in the world and yet I still can get around to doing my blog. Shucks.

I recently played and completed adventure game Beneath A Steel Sky, which is FREE on the SCUMM VM website (go and get SCUMM VM, it's really great if you have old adventure games). I'd never played BASS before, so I didn't particularly no what to expect... and now, after completing it, I don't really now what to say... so here are a series of screenshots with witty comments. Enjoy!

Hang around with dead people!

Bully depressed artistic types!

Learn about fish in some dead guy's apartment!

Pretend to be Dr. Manhattan in poorly decorated rooms!

Watch illegal surgery!

Get tentacle-raped!

Die of "zeta radiation poisoning"!

Oh yeah, and I also beat Day of the Tentacle. I didn't get any decent screenshots, but I think this one sums up the entire game. See ya at the weekend!

Looking to the future....

2009-06-22T20:42:00.003+01:00

I was actually free yesterday evening, but I didn't feel like doing a blog. So there.

So I'm finally done with my secondary education. And now... three months of gaming, more or less. I was gonna call the whole thing "The SCUMMer of Xbox Live" but I realise that sound dumb. So instead here's a list of all the stuff that's coming up;

The Secret of Monkey Island
Monkey Island 2; LeChuck’s Revenge
The Curse of Monkey Island
Sam and Max Hit The Road
Cave Story
Fallout
Fallout 2
Fallout Brotherhood of Steel
Fallout 3 (when I get it)
Fable 2 (if I get it)
Super Mario Galaxy (with Luigi)
No More Heroes
House of The Dead; Overkill
Punchout!! (Maybe)
Zenonia (iPod RPG)
Darwinia
Uplink
Half Life 2 + Episodes
Portal
Team Fortress 2

Hellz yeah =)

Day of The Tentacle and Beneath a Steel Sky narrowly missed this list because I beat them yesterday and a few days ago respectively. That gives me something to talk about midweek then. And Zenonia =)

See y'all on the flipside.

Hardware Heartache

2009-06-14T21:22:00.005+01:00

It has NOT been my weekend...

Apart from feeling physically lousy from hayfever, and mind numbingly bored from revision, all my tech stuff has been going to pieces recently.

My iPod was crapping out on me all over the places yesterday evening. I couldn't establish a connection at all, although it turned out that the wireless router wasn't working, so I reset that. Then Twitterrific stopped working, which sucked, so I deleted it and reinstalled it, and it kept telling me I was entering it wrong... *breath in* Then I uninstalled it again, and went to reinstall it, and I saw it had caught something called the Twitpocalypse bug, which I assumed was bad, so I got annoyed and put my iPod away.

Today, perusing the Interweb, I found this article on engadget, rumouring the "new" Xbox, with Natal being the corner stone of its tech. I was in response to an article from 1UP, who seemed pretty damn confident, despite not actually citing any sources. This gives me mixed views. As is probably clear now, I am in the (long, drawn-out) process of buying an Xbox 360, and I don't want it to become last generation a year after I get it. Recently, I read somewhere that Xbox was going for a 10-year life cycle, which is neat, but it would really annoy me if it did become slightly outdated... Some how, I think this isn't the case. It doesn't seem like Microsoft's style...

Wii HD may be a reality in 2010, according to this pre-E3 news article on Gamespot. Again, mixed feelings. It links into a What They Play article from last year, which suggests Wii HD is a brand new console. That'd really piss me off. I've had a Wii from the very start... I'd prefer it if the Wii HD was some kind of add-on to the existing console... I don't see Nintendo killing off their golden goose though. According to the Gamespot article, there won't be any new consoles till around 2013. Works for me.

But the biggest annoyance for me was finally learning about what the iPhone 3GS was/is. I don't have an iPhone and I particularly wan one. I don't understand what tethering is. I do, however, have an iPod Touch, which is essentially an iPhone without a phone and a camera. And mobile internet. This latest development means something quite important. Because this new iPhone has a better processor (insert long string of numbers and letters as appropriate) it means it can handle better games, in terms of visuals and gameplay. I'm really tired of the iPod Touch playing second fiddle to the iPhone. Okay so it's not as good, I get that. But Apple need to give it some love. The new software is out on the 17th of June, and I'm probably gonna buy it. Don't know what it will do though. I'll check before hand to see if it's worth it.
If Apple released a new iPod Touch with, for example, a camera and a better processor I might buy it. My iPod Touch has had a pretty good run of it... Meh. I'll play it as it comes.

This is me signing off. I won't be doing a blog on Wednesday, because I have three exams this week, and I'd like to ace them, please. I'm not sure I'll manage one on Saturday either, since I'm at a wedding, but it's worth a try.

This has been the blog post that I've done the most research for. Good for me.

Peace out y'all.

Tin Men of the Apocalypse

2009-06-10T22:55:00.004+01:00

Since we last spoke, I've done too much revision, watched the lame last episode of Ashes To Ashes, got a week ahead on The Mentalist, beaten Super Mario 64 DS with minimum everything in three days, completed MGST, missed the season finale of Smallville, flunked my psychology exam, considered buying Fallout 3, watched a lot of Fallout 3 videos....

And I've seen Terminator Salvation. Oh yes.

I really don't know how to feel about it. I really wanted to hate it, I really did, but it was kinda alright... Marcus Wright was a very good character. The first half of the film mainly centres around him, which is good. In fact, it would have been better if that's who the film was about. John Connor's plight is boring, and he spends the entire film yelling at people for not listening to him. On the other hand, Marcus Wright has actual character development. Oh and he's a robot. So you know, he's awesome. When I was watching it, so many moments reminded me of games. The whole look of it was very Fallout 3, with maybe a touch of Half Life 2. Actually there's a moment in the film which is very much like this part of Concerned, the excellent Half Life 2 comic by Chris Livingstone. If you've seen the film, you know what I'm talking about =)

Terminator Salvation isn't a bad film. It's not brilliant, and it's lacking something, but I'm not sure what. I think they are making a sequel and it might have Robert Patrick in it, which can really only be a brilliant thing.

Stay awesome, y'all

Quest Completed; Rolando

2009-06-06T22:10:00.003+01:00

Warning, may contain spoilers.

Made available on the App Store towards the end of 2008, Rolando remains one of the best games on the platform. A physics-based platformer, the aim of game is to guide your "Rolandos" to the end-of-level gate, avoiding the numerous pitfalls and enemies along the way. The control scheme is simple yet incredibly effective. You select a Rolando by tapping it, then tilt the iPod left or right to move them in the desired direction. You can drag a box around more than one to move them as a group, and simply swipe upwards anywhere on the screen. If a Rolando is unselected, then it does not move when the iPod is tilted, meaning your work will not fall apart with one wrong tilt.

The story in Rolando may not be the most important aspect, but it works none the less. Rolando Central is under attack, and you, the Almighty Finger, must help the Rolandos back to the Sages to save them. Surprisingly, they've alreadt been kidnapped, so the Rolandos must enter Shadow Valley in an attempt to find them. It's not threatening Half Life 2's storytelling crown, but it's a nice addition.

There are four separate worlds in game, each containing nine levels, making a total of 36 individual levels. The first world is a good introduction to the game, introducing the different kinds of mission you can expect. The second world adds more puzzle elements, such as the use of bombs, lift and catapults. The third world sees you drawing paths to reach the end of the level, and the final world has you charging through enemy territory to defeat your foe. Each world has a distinct visual style, all of which are charming to look at, as well as being practical for game play.

Whilst ngmoco have included different kinds of Rolando, such as the King and Queen, who must be pushed around the level, or the Prince, who rolls in a given direction until bumping into something, you feel others could have been included to mix up game play. An example could be a Rolando that could survive in hazardous materials, like lava or acid. This lack of variety in Rolandos means that you'll find yourself doing a similar set of missions in each world. It's not noticeable enough to ruin the fun, but sometimes the "escorting the King" missions get slightly tedious.

Throughout Rolando, I had a great time playing the game. Each level presents a new challenge, and you really beginning to get attached to the different Rolandos. It might just be my weird attachment to game characters, but I hated letting any of the little guys get killed. Sometimes I would restart a level just so I could get them all through safely. But ultimately, Rolando let me down at the last fence. As I approached the final level, I couldn't help wondering how the game would wrap itself up. I couldn't see there being a conventional boss fight, since the game isn't focused on combat. But unfortunately, there was a sort of boss fight, with some simple platforming elements. It was a relatively easy level and felt like a slightly weak finish. It didn't ruin the game, but just made the ending seem a little less special.

Finally, Rolando has heaps of replay-ability. Each level has three medals, one for saving all Rolandos, one for beating the level within the time limit and one for getting all the hidden diamonds. These mean you will be coming back for more on each level, to see if you can beat the game fully. On top of this, ngmoco are releasing regular level updates until this summer, meaning you won't be short of a challenge for long.

If you have an iPod Touch, this is a must-have, whether you be a serious or casual gamer, and is a great cheap buy, especially considering the sequel is released this summer. Rolando may just turn out to be the iPod's killer franchise.

Rolando

Going through the Motions

2009-06-04T18:12:00.006+01:00

E3. Every year we get together on the internet to watch the press conferences, and every year we are disappointed. Except we weren't this year! Well, except Nintendo.

As is the norm on the net, I'll whiz through each conference and what I thought of it.

Microsoft; Almost bloody missed this thanks to Gamespot's live feed... Which would have been lame. But Microsoft was good. Actually that's a lie, it was the best of all three. It had Beatles which the other two couldn't top. Both Tony Hawk and Modern Warfare don't particularly interest me, but Final Fantasy XIII did. Weird since I left that franchise after the problems I had with X-2. I think that's where FF lost it's way. Shadow Complex = yes. Joyride = meh. Left 4 Dead 2 shocked me, very fast sequel release. Splinter Cell looked good, but I wouldn't buy it. Forza 2 is a racing game, next. Halo ODST looks pretty generic, Reach interested be cause I read the book. Alan Wake = looks interesting. Facebook and Twitter on the 360 isn't really surprising. MGS Rising on the other hand is. Awesome. In my opinion, stuff like Project Natal is the future. I was honestly amazed by the menu scrolling crap. Milo is PROBABLY not that good, but it doesn't matter. Microsoft Conference = good.

Nintendo; Missed both the beginning and the middle of this, but I'm caught up now, and this had a rising scale of interest. New Super Mario Bros. Wii will be really popular, but also lame. Wii Fit Plus must have pissed off a lot of people. We saw Wii Sports Resort last year, altough I like the idea of the island becoming a constant thing. Crystal Bearers looks quite interesting, may investigate further. I'm sure that Bowser's Inside Story wasn't news. Explain what kind police force offers jobs to criminals, I said as COP appeared. User generated content rears its head on the DSi, as well as Facebook. Damn. Oh yay, Spirit Tracks, again. Iwata, in my opinion talks too much about too little. I'm copyrighting the idea for using the Vitality Sensor in some survival horror game. Also, it's a downright stupid idea. That's it Nintendo, I'm leavi- OMG SUPER MARIO GALAXY 2! But seriously, that's cool. Yoshi in 3D. The Conduit = meh. Darkside = weird camera. Dead Space = hmmm. I don't even like Metroid that much, but Other M looks sweet. Eat lazer beem, spaze dragon! Boring press conference, too many numbers, some interesting things.

Sony; First off, I hate the guy who presents this, Jack Something. He always seems really smug. But this wasn't a bad conference... Just it wasn't good either. The flashy intro sequence was TACKY as hell. Lots and lots of numbers. Hooray for stats. Uncharted 2 looked nice, and the sidekick was English, which made it go up in my ratings. The game then dropped when the idiot main character said "We could have been in that!" refering to a collapsing building. Idiot. MAG again, oh fantastic. Nobody cares! PSP things feels a little ironic when UMD has failed epically... But I still want one. SenseMe... So it's Genius then. If I had lots of money, I'd get a PSP Go... Grand Turismo PSP... Is a racing game... Which I have nothing to say about. Hideo Kojima making another MGS game, unsurprisingly... with millions of Snakes. Not for Indy then. RE; Portable... Great, another game I can't get. Lots of PSP games coming out. You know, there was two many montages. No-one else did montages. Last year Sony used LittleBigPlanet for a presentation, this year... MONTAGE! Agent appears... for three seconds. Assassin's Creed 2 looks pretty much exactly the same with more flying. I'm playin' dat. Final Fantasy XIII again, and suddenly, Final Fantasy XIV! Gasp! The guy unvailing the new EyeToy thing was as nervous as hell. Probably because he realised he was just combining the Wii with Project Natal. Modnation looked dull. I really hope The Last Guardian is some EPIC pet sim of your crow-dog. GT5 is visually spot on. GoW3, despite what the guy says, bears no resembelance to real Greek mythology. LONG press conference. Completely irrelevant for me.

Two words sum up the conferences; motion control. Apparently it's the future. SURPRISE.

Good night y'all.

HOLY THREE-HEADED MONKEY!

2009-06-01T17:38:00.004+01:00

Okay, I didn't blog yesterday. Sue me.

But more importantly; new Monkey Island, and a rehaul = pure awesome. Bring on the press conferences!

Click here and then here. Woo!

Let's reschedule for Thursday. I'll yell at you about E3 then.

To Boldly Go Where No Badge Has Gone Before...

2009-05-27T22:28:00.002+01:00

Mnargh. It's too late to be writing this, but I'm gonna rush through it all.

Still playing Yoshi. Making progress. Want to soon have perfect on first two worlds.

I saw the new Star Trek film today. It was really good, in my opinion. Good mix of humour and drama. I'm not much of a Trekkie, but I do like the series-es, in a guilty pleasures kind of way. JJ did a good job with it. Quinto was great as Spock, and Simon Pegg was brilliant as Scotty. Here's hoping for a good sequel. The film deserves a full blog post for a review, but I just don't have the time, although that does tie in to something this summer...

Saw an advert for Transformers; ROTV at the cinema. Made me wanna see the first one so I can go and see the second one. Go figure, persuasive advertising.

I spent the end of today trying, in vain, to get my GameSpot badge onto the bottom of the site, but only succeded in getting a big lump of code. It's still down there, just in case it decides to suddenly change. I've pinged a message off to GameSpot to see if it's me or the code that is busted. I'll be honest, it's probably me.

Finally, I got "No More Heroes" today, for the low low price of £9.74, which had been reduced from £19.99, which in turn was reduced from a whopping £40. Closing down sales. Gotta love 'em.

Right, I'm just about ready to fall over due to lack of sleep. Me need bed now. G'night y'all...

...and when IS this free weekend?

2009-05-24T22:29:00.003+01:00

So, I've done it. I've changed the name of the blog. Welcome to the grand (re)opening of The Starting Village. I think it works, and I googled it prior. There is no website called the Starting Village so I'm set, thankfully. I decided on it because the starting village is always where you take your first tentative steps of gameplay, which I think mirrors my situation quite well. So there we are =)

In a completely unrelated story, it was the TF2 free weekend... this weekend, and I thought it would be fun to download it.

Biiiig mistake.

It took so long to download the damn thing for a start. When I started, it had 3.3 days left on it. When it finally finished downloading, it had 3.1 days left. Not that it matter because I never got to even see the damn thing in action. After waiting about ten minutes looking at a simply delightful picture of a spy, medic and heavy, I got to the menu screen. I knew it wouldn't work when the screen froze for a few seconds when I clicked on the characters option. It then took another 10 minutes to fail to connect to a server.

Overall, it didn't go well. The closest I got to gameplay was starting my own server and staring at some nice blue and red crates. I thought I'd be able to just run around on my own shooting walls. Alas, Valve had foiled my scheme. So that concludes my view of Team Fotress 2; it won't work on my laptop.

I'm busy all this week, but I'll pop in for a mid-week chat about things. Stay awesome.