MetaUpdate

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.

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

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

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

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

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!

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!