Ok yesterday we talked films and tv, lets talk games today.

Ok, so what have I been playing recently.

Fallout 3 – Ok, so far so good, haven’t played it as much as I would like, but the comment that was made to me and continues to feel right was “It’s Oblivion with guns”.  Now I loved Oblivion and so far I am kind of loving this, must get back to playing it and I will certainly recommend buying it.

Lego Batman – This one is not quite as good as Lego Star Wars but certainly better than Lego Indy, great fun for any one, any age etc etc etc.  Wouldn’t push to buy it rent it for a couple of weeks and you should be done.

Mirror’s Edge – OMG such an awesome game but oh so short.  This is a game that really does focus on the the movement rather than the action, what other game has an achievement for completing the game without actually shooting anyone.  The parkour effect is really starting to break into games now, we had Crackdown to start with, then Assassins Creed and now Mirror’s Edge.  Definately a rental, but oh so worth it.

Call of Duty 5 – World at War – Just finished this on the first run through last night.  The single player mode focuses on the Russians push into Berlin and the Americans fighting the Japs island by island.  Out of the two, the Russian mission are certainly my favourites ones, however it is as the Americans that you have the Flame Thrower which is just about as much fun as you can imagine.   I have also been playing the Multiplayer and really at the end of the day the difference between this and COD 4 is minimal, obvious this is set during WWII whilst COD 4 was set in a modern, if slightly futuristic setting.  Other than that it’s all good.  It’s down to you whether to rent or buy this one, if you are into the WWII shooters then it should be at the top of your list, if you are happy with COD4 and are looking for lots of new things, this isn’t where you want to be.

Tiger Woods 09 – It’s Tiger Woods 08 with a few new features, the swing seems to have been fixed from 08 where every other shot ended in the trees for me.  The ability to tune your swing to compensate for you constantly putting the ball to the left is great, the new Tiger Challenges are a lot better than the 08 version and the Season mode seems to be more challenging as you get later into the year.  Not a rental it’s too long and unless you are a diehard fan, if you have 08 don’t bother with 09.

I am sure there have been others but that will do for now.

Nose to the Grindstone

Yes I am back at work and boy does it suck.  Well at least I have a nice new location with a window view, Chad & I can just about see where El Matador and DM sit, although we do need a pair of binoculars!!!

Well as far as my wife’s recovery goes, her mother is up to stay with us for a week, thankfully she is someone I get on very well with and between the two of us we are able to help my wife when ever she needs it.

As far as the Xbox goes, I have got stuck on Force Unleashed, although I will come back to it, have just beaten Tiger Woods in his 2009 version and after a weeks playing the dreadfully ordinary Blacksite (or the online version Blackshite) and the awesome NHL09 (both rented from Blockbusters), I am currently playing Band of Brothers Hells Highway.  I have not played any of the previous versions of this and so far I am quite pleased with it.  I have played Medal of Honor and Call of Duty many times so I was looking for something a little different to keep me interested.  So far I have not been disappointed, the squad aspect of the game, controlling one or more additional groups of troops, allows you to have one squad of men lay down suppressing fire, whilst either you or another squad, flank the enemy (I said flank) and get the kill shots in.  The achievements for the game are I think almost spot on, however I think the Multiplayer ones won’t interest me as they are all worth 0 points, and there are 4 acheivements for playing this game over time periods, every day for a week, at least once a week for 3 months, every day for 100 days and on Sept 17th.  Come one those are just a little ridiculous, the question is will someone come up  with a way to cheat those as I can’t see people holding on to the game for 100 days before trading it in, however I can see me renting the game out Sept next year for the 50 points it would bring (I am an Acheivement Whore, I have been Achievement free for for 12hrs and 43 mins).

Boring, Bored, Fed Up, Depressed……….

Time just seems to drag at the moment, 3 weeks to my wife’s op and I can’t even get the enthusiasm to blog.  At least my wife and I are going away for a few nights holiday next week and then we have to start organising things for her stay in hospital.

People ask how I’m doing but it’s difficult to say when I’m not sure myself.  The funniest thing is that at times I’m almost cheerful and that just doesn’t feel right to me.

Wycombe seem to be doing well, 3 wins and a draw in the first 4 matches of the season sees them in 4th Position in the table, however the 3 teams above us are only there on goal difference, I have a good feeling about this season (someone bookmark this and send it to me when we get relegated!!!).

Gaming front, following a small trade in yesterday (gaining £114 in credit) I have re-invested in Tiger Woods 2009, Too Human, Smash Court Tennis 3, Conan, Tomb Raider Anniversary and Crackdown (again).  Expect some reviews over the next few weeks.

Film front, a little quiet at the moment, however I have found a rather nice bit of software to catalogue my collection http://www.invelos.com/.  More than likely a bit of software I will actually register!!!

Book front, my writing has slowed down to a snails pace at the moment, having written two and half chapters over 3 days 2 weeks ago, I have not written a word since.  I know that one of my proof readers will be chasing my soon.

Anyway that’s kind of where I am at the minute, although my head is usually some other place for the most part.   Catch ya on the flip side.

Ok Ok, I know it’s been a little quiet round here….

Yes it’s been over 2 weeks, would like to say I have been busy, but it would be a big fat lie.  The wife and I went away for a rather relaxing stay with her mum & step-dad, unlike many people I get on very well with the in-laws and really find I relax when we are down there.  Given the holiday also co-incided with her birthday and a rather nice spell of weather things were great.  Spent time on the beach, ate some nice meals (also tried squid for the first time, something I will definately do again) and generally relaxed.  I had planned to spend a lot of time writing my novel, however with the weather going from what had been forecast to be a wet few days, the laptop stayed off most of the time.  However now I am back Chapter 8 needs finishing.

Anyway hopefully I will get back to regular posting and writing now.

Couple of things to review currently, firstly lets start with Civilisations Revolution for the 360.  I am really having a hard time with this game, I love it and enjoy playing it, but every time I finish a game I feel un-fullfilled.  It’s just too small and too short, it’s still really good and Deity level is bloody hard, but it’s still not as much of a challenge as say Civ IV feels because of the complexity and scale of options.  With Civ IV I can have a game that takes months to play due to the the size of the maps, no. of units etc, but Civ Rev can be over in a couple of hours.  My recommendation is that if you have never played Civ before (shame on you) the get it, it’s great fun, if you have played Civ before and enjoyed it, get it you will love it.  If you a Civ nut, then probably get it but it’s going to leave you feeling like something is missing.

Film Review : Shoot-em Up

Ok so the plot goes like this, people fire guns at Clive Owen, Clive Owen fires back people die.  Simple premise and little other plot for some time into the movie.  If you like action films this one is not going to disappoint, the stunts are amazing although so far past  un-believable it’s untrue.  Not the worlds greatest film by some miles, but it certainly is the best film for having a “I’ve been killed and a carrot was involved” body count running into double figures.

Circle the date on the Calendar

Yep, this is 2 posts in 2 days, prior to that, I think it was 2 posts in 2 months.

Not a huge amount to say really, but can I just say that GTAIV is the absolute dog’s gonads.  I mean this is just the perfect balance of single and multi-player gaming. The more I play it, the better it gets, the story line is interesting and moves you through the game, however the way that missions open up is decidedly un-linear which is likely to make for a different experience for different players.  Can I just confirm the “go buy it” message from yesterday.

Anyway on the Novel front, Chapter 5 has now been written, although it needs a couple of review sessions.  I will be posting at minimum, Prologue & Chapters 1-3 somewhere online this weekend I will keep you posted.

Happy Birthday!!!

Yep, unless you have been living under a rock for the last 50 years, you will have heard/seen/played with those little plastic bricks. Yep Lego turns 50!!!!
Ahh the memories, building space ships, cars and planes, then taking the model and chucking it down the stairs, Dad stepping on the pieces and shouting at us. Ahhh the memories!!!!
Anyway managed to finally get some good reading done this weekend and Chad & DM, can I just say the “The Lies of Locke Lamora” absolutely rocks!!! Having only managed to get the first 20 pages read, before this weekend, it hadn’t really grabbed me, however after another 150 pages I can see what your talking about. This guy really knows how to describe a scene to you and then drag you into it kicking and screaming. Scott Lynch is certainly an author who has plonked himself on my radar for future reading!!
Finally for the gamers out there we have Burnout Paradise, IMO Criterion have taken the tried and tested formula from the previous Burnout offerings and thrown into the mix the free driving elements from Test Drive Unlimited. Rather than simply having a list of races and crash junctions to attempt, you simply drive around the map and activate races at any traffic junction. The first of my two criticisms is that unlike Test Drive you can’t simply jump back to the start of a race to retry it, the second one would be that there appears to be no option to add a manual marker to allow you to work back to the start of a race, or a particular junction/drive thru. Even so this is a very enjoyable game and definitely gets a recommendation from me.

Come on the Chairboys http://www.wycombewanderers.premiumtv.co.uk/page/Home/!!!

Halo 3 Sucks, Bioshock rules all.

Well there’s a surprise, NOT,Bioshock is named game of the year at the Spike TV awards in Las Vegas. I am sure that there are some teenage idiots out there, a high percentage of them American, who can’t understand why Halo 3 didn’t take the crown. Let me enlighten you, IT’S A STEAMING PILE OF DOGGY DO!!

Finally cracked Lego Star Wars on Friday and managed to collect all 160 gold bricks, sadly enough about 3-4 hrs after Chad, which does annoy me somewhat!!! Currently replaying COD4 and picking up the Laptops for the Enemy Intel achievements and looking out for opportunities to pick up the others. Once the Single Player mode is polished off, I think it’s back to Assassins Creed for some time before I pick up Mass Effect, probably next week and just in time for the Christmas holiday.
And yes I said Christmas, that’s a Christian Holiday, it’s not “The Holiday Season”, it’s Christmas, we don’t say “Happy Holiday”, we say “Merry Christmas” and for all the members of the baa humbug brigade or the PC brigade who don’t feel that we should push Christmas onto people of other religions, can I just remind them that we have The Church of England, headed by the Queen who is the monarch to us all. So just shut the fuck up and let us have our celebration, no one kicks up a fuss if Muslims want to celebrate, no one shouts about Jewish holidays being non-pc and if they have one, and I don’t know they might, if a group of Scientologists (kicked out of Germany) wanted to have a party and put up some decs, I wouldn’t mind a little bit. So let’s just take a dose of sensible pills and let the party season begin.

Link

Come on the Chairboys http://www.wycombewanderers.premiumtv.co.uk/page/Home/!!!

Things just got interesting

Activision and Blizzard are merging!!! I can forsee some interesting games being produced from this partnership
Call of Warcraft
Tony Hawks Guitar Struming

Any other suggestions??

Come on the Chairboys http://www.wycombewanderers.premiumtv.co.uk/page/Home/!!!

Bloggers Block

Well today bloggers block has hit me big time, at least in this blog, I have all kinds of interesting things to do and talk about in the new blog. Coming to an RSS Reader on 19th or 20th November, link to be provided soon!!! Having said that my new blog that simply has a page saying coming soon has already started getting hits!!!!

Today I am just going to start typing and see where we go with this one, so anyway back to the bloggers block, once this sets in, you desperately look around you for inspiration, Chads tea & stairs incident, but he didn’t burn himself so no interest there. Meeting with a mad Scotsman tonight, best to save for tomorrow. Imminent arrival of Rhubarb & Custard, our India Notes Developers, much blogging opportunities there but not really anything to say until they have arrived. Xbox 360 stuff, hmmmm FEAR now that could be a subject to talk about.

FEAR, (First Encounter Assault Recon) a first person shooter that is anything but run of the mill. The basic premise of the game is that you are investigating reports of a paramilitary force taking hostages in an industrial compound, you have to go in, contain the situation, find out what’s going on and at the end of the day basically kill anything that moves. Sounds like many other FPS games on the market at the minute, but what really sets this game apart are are the AI and the horror elements.

The AI in my view is spot on, the enemy will take cover, retreat from you, throw grenades your way and even in some cases ambush you rather than attacking the moment you come in range. This does mean that whilst going gung-ho will at times work at others slowly checking out the area and performing sneak attacks is much more successful. The enemy has a wide range of weapons and thankfully you have the option to pick them up, lets face it you piddly little hand gun you start the game with is not going to get you anywhere.

The Horror elements of this game is set in motion by the atmospherics of this game, one of the first sections of the game is chasing an enemy into a building, you and your partner follow him through various rooms, never quite seeing him to get a shot off, eventually you come across a body that used to be a human and you partner declares “I’ll secure the scene you check the rest of the building”. It is at this point you start planning the recruiting process for you next partner once you have somehow got rid of this toaster. Checking the rest of the building introduces to you just how atmospheric this game is, you just know that at some point, something is going to happen and the longer the game goes on with nothing happening the more tense you become. The supernatural element of the game introduces itself fairly quickly and having played the demo I kind of knew what to expect, however even so, playing through the same level as the demo and knowing when the fright was going to happen I was still tensing up as I thought “Right, around this corner is the ladder and when I do this, ********* is going to happen”. The fact that they had changed the level from the demo and it didn’t go as expected made the final scare even worse as I was immediately even more on edge than I had been for any other part of the game.

I have only played through the first 4 levels of the game as I find that I can only take it for about 30 mins at a time before I have to take a break. This game is certainly one of the best shoot-em-ups I have played in a while, Call of Duty 3 which I am also playing is brilliant, but really the plot and atmospherics are not in the same league as FEAR, with COD3 ever step is made under fire, with FEAR every step is made in near terror as you don’t know what is round the corner and your imagination is put into overdrive.

Come on the Chairboys http://www.wycombewanderers.premiumtv.co.uk/page/Home/!!!