Missing The Normandy

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!

Assassin's Need (To Post More Regularly)

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

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

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!

iUpdate

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!

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!

Plants of Mass Destruction

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!

Schmupdate

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.

Ich bin ein PSP owner

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!

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

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...

Hardware Heartache

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.

Quest Completed; Rolando

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

Platform Wars; PC (Part Deux)

Right, where was I? Ah yes, Simon 1...

6. Simon The Sorcerer

Yeah, this one is alright. Like I said before, I think I preferred Simon 2. This one was a tad linear, and a bit too short for my tastes. Also I got stuck for aaaages, cause I didn't know there was a compost heap behind the house. Duh. Interestingly, Simon is voiced by Arnold Rimmer himself, Chris Barrie. I honestly did not know that.

5. Half Life 1, 2, and 2.1

This is three years old... Wow. But I only got it 2007, by chance for Christmas. If I'm honest, I've only completed Half Life 1, but it was AWESOME! Seriously, not a major fan of FPSs, but this was awesome. To the MAX. But HL2 plays kinda laggyily on my laptop so... Meh, I'll struggle. Note to self; Put Half Life 2 on list of games to play this summer.

4. Full Throttle

Oh yeah, now we're into the gems, and the third of Tim Schafer's games I've ever played... Full Throttle kicks arse. If you've never played it, do so, it's absolutely brilliant. Not only does it have some excellent puzzles, it's also got a wicked storyline. Kicking a door into a guy's face definately a high point. Oh, and jumping over a canyon. And hitting a bloke in the face with a chain as he rides off. Brilliant.

3. Maniac Mansion 2; DotT / Sam and Max Hit the Road

Okay, so technically two games but screw you, I got them as one. Both awesome, both funny (the latter moreso) and both point and click brilliance on a single disc. MM2 (first Schafer game I played) actually has the original on it, which was a nice touch (note; hard as nails). Sam and Max was awesome, and genuinely made me laugh out loud. Much better than the newer ones, which were also good =)

2. Grim Fandango

Oh yes. Probably one of the best looking games I've ever played (big fan of both Art Deco and Aztec architecture) and by far the most compelling. Second Schafer game for me. A fantastic storyline, a brilliant concept, some amazing puzzles, hilarious dialogue, brilliant voice acting and ultimately a fantastic game. Also, I got this from Woolworths (RIP)... Probably the last great adventure game, and maybe the best ever... Or perhaps it's...

1. The Monkey Island Trilogy

Yeah, it's a trilogy. In my mind, the last game was a travesty. A robotic monkey? Yeah, okay... But seriously, these games are, in all seriousness, the greatest ever adventure games, pretty much defining the genre for years to come... My personal favourite is LeChuck's Revenge, for the awesome puzzles, closely followed by Curse, mainly for the art style. If you've never played these, you should. If you own a PC, get them. In fact how awesome would it be if these came out on the iPod... AHH MINDCRUSH!

Actually, speaking of the iPod, I gots me a new game for it... It's got Gekkos =)

Till Wednesday, stay awesome y'all!

Platform Wars; PC (or laptop, whatever)

Since I have bugger all else to write about (except completing Wolfenstein on my iPod) I thought I'd rabbit on about old games that no-one cares about, just like internet phenomenom, Yahtzee. It has nothing to do with the fact that all my PC games are already neatly stacked like that coz I just cleaned out the PC cabinet. To the left, we can see said stack. So, let's get started. I'm working from bottom up, in no particular order, although it's essentially order of preference.

12. World of WarCraft

I should point out, it's not at the bottom because I hate it. It's there because if I leave it lying around, it might attach to me Venom-style and cripple my already struggling social life. Maybe one day I will return to Renegade, the Troll Hunter... But I really doubt it, that bitch took half a year of my life, and I sucked at it.

11. Sonic Adventure DX

Oh Sonic Adventure DX.... Where SEGA first decided what Sonic fans wanted was to play as a bunch of characters no-one had ever heard of. Yeah, that makes a whole heap o' sense... In a sort of kitch way, this isn't too bad. The fishing mini-game was crap, the story was awful, but it has the "so-bad-it's-good" vibe going for it. Oh and Chaos is a fantastic word, so you know, bonus points there.

10. The Simpsons Hit and Run

Like GTA meets the Simpsons. Honestly, bit of a train wreck on the PC, but I managed with it. Didn't run too well as I recall, but that's because my computer is like 4 years old... Actually, now that I think of it, this came free with Season Four of The Simpsons. I got it from Woolworths, sadly no longer with us...

9. The Sims 2

Technically, this game isn't mine, but I don't care. I played it the most, so it counts as mine. I never really got the point in the Sims... It just stressed me out that I couldn't manage a family... But sometimes, it was a laugh, especially when you could have surreal soap opera families going on. Mort and Demi had a child, but Mort died, and Demi married Jamie, but then Morty (the baby) got abducted by aliens. Which is still vaguely better than "Desperate Housewives"

8. The Longest Journey

First point and click of the pile! Yay. Unfortunately, this doesn't work any more, which is sodding annoying since I was half way through and actually enjoying the damn thing. Slightly annoying dialogue can be excused for nice visuals and a slightly mental story. Puzzles are good, if not a tad abstract, but like I said, visuals = awesomeness. As a side note, a present from my good friend Oisin.

7. Simon the Sorcerer 2; The Lion, The Wizard and The Wardrobe

Yay, another point and click, but this time retro style. Sort of. It had voice work, so I guess it's not that retro. Simon is English, which makes a nice change from American pirates and Mexican skellingtons. I don't know why I have them this way round, I actually prefer this one. The story is much better for one, and is by far a hell of a lot funnier. MUCH better than Simon 3D, which was poooor. Turns out there's a Simon 4. That completely escaped my notice.

...and that's all I got time for, mainly because it's late and I wanna stretch this over to the weekend. Come back then for the second half and why I like these games, and also what that odd envelope is. Until then, stay awesome!

G4M3 H4XZ0R5... Or something

So as previously mentioned at the weekend, I got Uplink and Darwinia at the weekend off Steam for a low low price of only 6 quid, which works for me. I've been playing them all this week, all though not as much as I'd liked to, having to fit it around revision, but I've given it my best shot. Although I've only played Darwinia once. But I'm entitled to my opinion, so there.

Uplink is a hacking game, which I had no idea about prior to download, except it was a hacking game. Set in some kind of bizarre future where hacking has become so prominent, it qualifies as employment, you take on the role of an "Uplink Agent", whose job it is to, unsurprisingly, hack things. Right from the outset, you really buy into this illusion that it is REAL hacking. The game asks you to put in a username and password, and asks you to wait to connect to the network. It's all very nice.

Visually, there's not a whole lot to see, but it's not really necessary. It reminded me a little bit of text based adventures which I've never played. It is fun to hack computers though as the trace tracker makes you really impatient for the password to be cracked before you get traced and fined and OH MY GOD IT'S SO STRESSFUL!

Onto more relaxed things, Darwinia. I had no idea about this game either, cept it was a sort of real time strategy in a virtual world. Which is sort of what it is, but also sort of not... If that made any sense.

Set in "the world's first virtual theme park", Darwinia is a strategy game with a difference. You don't build troops, you run programs. You don't research upgrades, you get upgrades by collecting Research. You don't collect resources, you collect DNA spirits... Okay several differences. It's a nice change from your average strategy game. The visual design is very good, and does sort of look like what the internet might look like if it were visualised.

The only bad thing about Darwinia is that I feel I'm playing it in the wrong way, although I guess that's my fault, not the game itself. My strategy is to shoot everything, then send my little Engineers in to scoop up the DNA so they don't get hurt. But this strategy doesn't work, since the DNA fades away quite quickly. Ergo, I need to be braver. Actually that's true in real life =)

So that's my take on the first two Introversion games. I'll be playing them for a while yet, so expect to hear more about them.

Three things to cover, very swiftly, since this is already way too long;

1. My iPod has some how fixed itself. It seems to do that a lot. I think it has a learning chip in it.

2. I've been eyeing up the classic Fallout games in preparation for getting Fallout 3 on the XBox (that I don't have yet) Only 6 quid for all three on Amazon? Yes please.

3. View this for me;

This is what I've made using Word and Paint. I know it's not funny, but that's not the point. The point is that I did it. I desperately wanna do a Link's Awakening webcomic but ComicGenesis doesn't like breach of copyright, and I'm worried it wouldn't work.

Meh. What happens happens I guess.

Anyway, I've wasted too much of your time already. Catch you at the weekend.

Me Have No Game Time

Yes, I've had very little gaming time over the past couple o' days. What with school, revision, girlfriend, and family, anybody would think the world is trying to stop me from playing games.
Today I was unfortunately too busy to game as I was tidying a garden. Might not seem like something that would take an entire day, but I'm being paid £120 pounds for it, to give you some scope.

HOWEVER, this evening, I made a purchase via Steam of the Uplink/Darwinia pack. Initially I had only planned to buy Darwinia, because I've recently started following the Introversion Software blog, but since Uplink is essentially thrown in free, I thought I might as well get the whole kit and kaboodle.

As of yet, I've only played Uplink, which for those of you who do not know is a hacking game, and I've very much enjoyed it. I don't wanna go into it too much since it'll gimme something to talk about during the week, but first impressions are good. I find it's more exiting if I pretend it's real, but at the end of the day, that's the same with all games!

Anyway, until I get back to this blog mid-week (probably Wednesday) I bid you adieu...

OH. I'm still playing Wolfenstein, but my iPod has become slightly broken, which makes it a tad difficult to play.

I'm done.

Castle Moars

One of the things I'd never expect to ever do would be to yell out "F***in' Hitler!" in my sixth form common room, but I'd be wrong...

As previously mentioned, I've got Wolfenstein 3-D on my iPod and it's been the only thing I've been playing, bar a coupla Flash games on teh Interweb. I had absolutely no prior knowledge of Wolfenstein, but I doubt story was top of id Software's agenda. You American soldier. Everyone else, enemy. Shooty-shooty.

Two reasons I got this;
1. It's an FPS and I've played a dismal amount of those in the past
2. It's got zombies, and I enjoy shooting zombies

As I played through the first mission, I had a laugh shooting the basic enemies, which I nicknamed Nigels, and then the ones with machine guns, which I dubbed Nehman, after the sound they make when I shoot them. Towards the end of the first mission, I was worried that there weren’t gonna be any zombies, and I got scared when the first boss was not one of the living dead, but a bloke with miniguns for hands, who I called Sponge.

But THEN, zombies started turning up, and I was happy. Weirdly the zombies had machine guns embedded in their chest and fired them by dancing like MJ, but that was alright, because I was shooting them.

As a game Wolfenstein is alright. Sometimes when you are legging it through the corridors you feel like you've stepped into that windows screensaver, but this game only cost 2.99 and originally came out in 1992, so whatever. The gameplay is pretty simple, and it's never really that hard... That said, I have died quite a few times. There are loads of "secrets" in the game, which are basically sliding walls that reveal treasure, or occasionally an enemy, but I seem to have some trouble finding them... Oh well.

But the reason I yelled out the Fuhrer's name was that the third boss turns out to be a bunch of FIRE-BREATHING HITLER CLONES. Weird, I hear you cry, but it gets weirder. You go through a door and, oh, there's Hitler, IN A GIANT ROBOTIC SUIT WITH CHAIN GUNS ON IT! So I'm legging it around, blasting away at him, as I should. I decide for one last push and leap out firing everything I can into him, and hooray! I'm told that I've killed the last enemy, so I relax. BUT THEN! Hitler, the cheating bastard starts shooting at me with more guns! The cad! Who’d of thought you couldn't trust Hitler to fight fair? Honestly...

In conclusion, I like this game. Retro-ness is always good for a chuckle. Oh and it's got Nazi Zombies. Instant Epic-Win.

Also, I've been playing this thing after hearing about on a podcast. It's not a whole lot, but it's an interesting concept and the developer seems to have some good ideas.
Well, until the weekend, stay awesome =)

Bioshocker of the year...

Gasp! Surpise! Epic plot twist! And other such sentiments!

Bioshock 2 has been revealed... again. Re-revealed. Whatever, I don't know. Point is, Gamespot revealed some new footage and interviews with the guys from 2K Marin chatting about the game and so on.

And I'm kinda worried for it. I mean it looks okay, and I wanna play it... But... eesh.

I'm interested by the new concept of being a Big Daddy as opposed to the same character as before. There was the section before where you "dressed up" as a Big Daddy, but actually being one... I dunno. Of what I played of Bioshock, I liked the plasmid powers and the weapons, and both of these look to work quite well in the sequel. The pyrokinetic ability is pretty cool, especially combined with gunplay.

But the reason I'm catiously optimistic is that I think that what made Bioshock so atmospheric, bar the tons of sea water (yes I just made a pressure joke, deal with it), was that the Big Daddies were ever present forces, that you didn't feel you had to attack. When you did, you really felt threatened by them, and would run around trying to dodge them, because they were a great strong hulking mass, that had no intelligence, just hatred. But now, you are the Big Daddy... And the only thing you have to be scared of is the "Big Sister"

Which are essentially athletic Big Daddies and who I forsee will result in many gamers swearing a lot at their televisions... But ce la vie, I'm sure it'll be brill =)

In a complete different, could-only-be-vaguely-linked-via-genre, change of subject, I have bought Wolfenstein 3-D on my iPod. And why the hell not? I know little about this game, apart from;

- It's got Nazis
- It's got zombies
- It looks a bit like DOOM
- The guy looks like the guy from DOOM

But yeah I only bought it this morning and I've played it a little... The controls aren't great but it's good for a laugh, and the minimap is handy. More on this next time.

And finally, I've joined Twitter. Hooray for this;

Some kind of Zelda pun...

I am actually going to have to stop this blog soon, since all I'm bloody ever playing is Zelda. I mean, I like it but I'm not an effing fanboy. Me and a gaming friend of mine were chatting about it a lot the other day, and I was saying how I didn't really enjoy it that much. He argued that it was a lot better than Twilight Princess because there was so much to do, but I said I found it really dull. I promised him that I would go back to play it, and so yesterday, I started it up on the Wii.
Don't get me wrong I don't think that it's a crap game. I can see how at the time it would have been the best thing since... well since "A Link to the Past" got released. No-one had ever seen Hyrule in 3D, and I'll be honest, Nintendo did a pretty decent job of it. But I just don't really get it. When I played Twilight Princess (which I really enjoyed, by the way) I always felt really driven to get to the next area. Even when I would arrive at a new area, I'd still storm straight through it on Epona, because I actually felt that if I didn't get to where I was supposed to be, the thing I was trying to stop might actually happen. But in Ocarina of Time, I don't feel driven to do anything. There's no sense of urgency. It's partly because the storyline is really dull, but partly because Link walks so bloody slowly. How I am I supposed to be motivated and rushing when I don't have a horse? I went to Lon Lon Ranch, there's like twelve of them there! I could really easily steal one but no, the game won't let me. Damn Nintendo with all their wholesome values.
I'm sure the game will eventually pick up for me. I know that about half way through the game you do the whole Master Sword thing and you become Adult Link and so on, but that seems like an age away... That’s totally an unintended pun right there.

In other news, I'm still playing Rolando. It's still good, if not a tad samey. But I'm still enjoying it, which is the important thing. Good to know that my £3 wasn't wasted.

I've been thinking about retro games a lot recently. I did a random Google images search the other day for Monkey Island, which if you don't know about, you don't deserve the Internet, frankly. I found a really cool fan-made image of what the Monkey Island DS box might look like;

http://vgboxart.com/view/11547/the.secret.of.monkey.island.ds/?replies=20

Remember, people, FAN-MADE. Not official. Probably never gonna happen. Might, but probably won't.

If anyone is interested, I'm learning to play the harmonica at the moment. I can now play "Blowin' in The Wind" pretty well, so there we go.

Oh, and Majora's Mask is available now on VC, which is annoying since I only have 100 Wii Points, and I really want it. You might be thinking this is a tad hypocritical after my dislike of OoT, but you have to understand that this is my Holy Grail of games. Link's Awakening got me into gaming, and at the time, Majora's Mask was just coming out. The concept of playing Zelda in three dimensions blew my seven year-old mind right out the window. So that's why I want it so much. Oh, and fish bone guitar FTW.

Finally, Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 looks awesome. But more about that on Thursday.
End Communication, y'all.

Welcome any newcomers!

I guess this is slightly odd but what the hey.

If you are visiting this blog for the first time because of its being mentioned on Gamespot UK, I bid you a hearty hello! I don't usually talk like that, but I thought I might as well go all out. I'm really grateful to the guys over at Gamespot for mentioning me, and I hoping that it will lead to an increase in my followers... An increase from zero =) But I update every Monday and Thursday (hopefully) and talk about games, games and occasionally my boring personal life. But it'll be mainly games, thankfully

Right, back to our regularly scheduled blog. What have I been playing recently? Well I'll tell you what it isn't. It's definately not a game about a green-tuniced young boy washing up on a mysterious island and fighting hordes of monsters to get to a giant egg. Definately not.

I'm still doing a bit of Rolando, and I've been getting quite aggrivated with it, but in a good way, if that's not an oxymoron. The puzzles are tough, which is good as it provides a challenge. I can't just roll my way through it HAR HAR HAR.

I read today on Gamespot that a new Jak and Daxter game is on the horizon, which made me a little sad. The original "Jak and Daxter" was the game that begun my love affair with the platform genre. Jak 2 taught me the best word in the English language (renegade) and was also brilliant. And Jak 3 had confusing time paradoxes and gladiatoral battles, a winning combination in anyone's book. But then I gave up my PS2 (well it broke actually, but same thing in essence) and I left Jak and Daxter behind. It wasn't that I didn't like it any more, simply I didn't have the resources to play them. When Daxter came out on the PSP I flirted breiefly with the idea of getting it and the console, but this was back in my simple Nintendo fanboy days, and I would never have considered lowering myself to the "evil men" of SONY.

But now Jak's back (baby) and he has a new game coming out on the PS2 and PSP. It's being made by High Impact Games as opposed to Naughty Dog, so it should be interesting to see where they go with it. The subtitle "Lost Frontier" suggests a new big explorable world for you to... uh, explore. I would love to get this game, but alas, I do not have the capability to play it... Unless I buy either a PSP or a PS2, which I guess isn't entirely out of the question... You never know.

My laptop's interent is awful tonight, I'm really gonna have to sort it out. Or just get a MacBook. Yeah, that's a better option, a MacBook...

Ah, webcomics. If only I knew how to make one... NO, BAD EDD! DON'T GET INVOLVED IN ANOTHER HALF BAKED INTERNET PROJECT LIKE WHEN YOU DID ALL THOSE VLOGS ON YOUTUBE!!!

Pretend I didn't say that...