Fupdate

'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!

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!

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;