...and now for something completely different

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

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!

Shutting Up Shop

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!