Bad Gamerscore Whore

General Update 28: So Long And Thanks For All The 'Chievos!

2012-01-31T21:59:00.000Z

It’s a sad day today, because I go back to work tomorrow after being off for nearly a week and a half. The reason for the time off was because I needed to burn off some holiday before my new allowance came into affect on the 1st. I didn’t go anywhere as I didn’t want to, instead it was to try and tackle my way through that list I posted in my last General Update.

I started the first weekend by finishing off Space-marine, as I said before, I enjoyed the story and I’m working on the review for it. I did have some trouble near the end and found a video to try and get some tips for playing. In the end I persevered and beat the final boss. Following that I then went onto to finish Timeshift. I had gotten stuck but again I looked up a video which gave me some Ideas which I was able to use for the rest of the game. After completing time shift I picked up Bayonetta as I was not even half way through it and I finished that as well. It will require another 2 playthrough’s at least, but not yet.

With 3 games complete I thought I should try and knock another title from the list. Seeing as i had completed and action game I started American McGee’s Alice. My first impression is that it hasn’t aged well. The control scheme does feel like a dated platformer, not that this is necessarily a bad thing. I also went back to try and put some more hours into a more lengthy game, but completing a few cases on L.A. Noire. I’ve completed 2 of the DLC cases and I’ve got one more Vice case before I move onto the last case desk so progress, despite being slow, is being made.

Oh yeah, before I started back in on Timeshift I went back and started something that I needed to do before March, play Mass Effect 2 as my fem-Shep. According to Raptr, an achievement tracking service, I’ve sunk 33 hours into that play through, and in my defence I did do ‘ALL OF THE THINGS!’. Everyone was loyal and survived, I explored every planet and did every side mission, including some that i hadn’t found before. I also completed the last DLC, Arrival, which I thought add some good narrative to the story but I did think it may have been a little on the short side.

Bioshock: Rapture is finished as well and seeing as, I’ve not made it to Assassin’s Creed Revelations yet, I thought I should pick up some new books. I made my way to Waterstone’s and picked up the 4th Mass Effect novel, Mass Effect: Deception, and Deus Ex: Icarus Effect. Obviously I’ve started Deception, and I’m really enjoying it. It’s interesting to see someone else’s take on the Mass Effect universe as the other 3 were written by Drew Karpyshyn who was a lead writer on the games.

One last thing to mention is that Inversion, the interesting third person shoorter, has been delayed. It was supposed to be released on Feb 10th, but it has been delayed until the vague date or early 2012. This means I’m not going to be buying a new game until march 9th when Mass Effect 3 is launched. Incidentally the demo for Mass Effect 3 is to be released on Feb 14th.

It is now time for bed as I’ve got to try and get used to having early nights and early starts. The rest of this week is going to be long!

Review: Ghostbusters: The Video Game

2012-01-16T23:13:00.000Z

Everyone loves Ghostbusters, it’s a fact. Almost everyone wants there to be a 3rd film. I’m not sure if I do any more. They first two are legendary but I’m not sure if the actors would be able to pull it off now! However if there was a way they could make them immortal then they could still come up with a cracking idea that stays true to the films. Immortality is not possible, but the likenesses can be used and generated in CGI and with the actors voices used to voice the character as well it’s as good as the real thing, which is lucky because that’s exactly what they have done with Ghostbusters: The Video Game.

The story is based 2 years after the last film and a Gozer exhibit is being shown at the museum and things then start heating up from there. You play as a rookie joining the team which means the tutorial feels natural. The story and humour feel like a Ghostbusters film, and they’ve pulled it off very well, probably because Harold Ramis and Dan Akroyd were the writers. The graphics and character models look really good and the voices, voiced by the original actors, are the icing on the cake. During the game you run in to characters old and new and it really does feel like the whole thing has been nurtured and not forced.

I must admit that to start with catching the ghosts is does feel a little clunky but once you get used to it you can really enjoy it, and as silly as it sounds you do start feeling like one of the team. The rest of the controls are easy enough to get to grips with. Another thing I will mention is the multiplayer. It’s no secret that if you provide multiplayer that is a little different from the norm then you are usually onto a winner, take Bioshock 2 for example. Well Ghostbusters fulfils that as well, however I was a little disappointed because it was subject to a lot of lag, this may have been my network but it was a little disconcerting. I believe there was also an achievement glitch that meant one of the achievements wasn’t obtainable this was supposed to be a fixed in a title update, I’m not sure if this is still the case. Having done a quick wiki search to check my facts it says that they are still unachievable.

Overall if you’re a fan of the Ghostbusters franchise then by all means go ahead and get this game. I have at least one friend on my friends list that has it, and as far as I know he enjoyed it. it’s a well made game and will definitely satisfy the child in you.

General Update 27: Famous last words!

2012-01-14T16:02:00.001Z

“I’m not going to buy any more games!” - Chris Pragnell

It’s a bold statement to be sure, but and one that comes with a couple of caveats. Firstly there are 2 exceptions to this, Inversion, to be released on Feb 10th, and the second is Mass Effect 3, to be released on March 9th. The second caveat is that is my birthday is in February, so it’s possible I may receive games as presents.

Why have I decided that this is to be the case simple, I need to get through a lot of games. My list spans around 20 titles, that I need to start/finish the main story line. That does mean that it doesn’t cover those games I need to go back and put more time into. Here is the complete list, in no particular order.

Spacemarine

L.A. Noire

Assassins Creed Revelations

Halo Anniversary

Bayonetta

Timeshift

Alice Madness Returns (which includes a download code for Alice)

Metro 2033

Sonic Generations

Wolfenstein

Ninety-Nine Nights 2

Skyrim

Deadspace 2

Battlefield 3

Dead Rising

Dead Rising 2

Star Ocean

Rage

While I was looking through the stack of games I did notice an awful lot of first person Shooters, so my aim is to try and mix it up a bit so I’m going to start out with Spacemarine and L.A. Noire. Last weekend I managed to make some good progress on Spacemarine, and I'm liking the story which is always a bonus we all know I'm a sucker for a story. As for L.A. Noire, it’s a fairly long game and probably one I can get a decent amount of ‘Chievo’s on, plus a lot of my friends have completed it so I’m trying to catch up with them.

My To Do List. . .

What else have I been up to? I’ve tried to go back and get through a few more games on my phone i picked up IloMilo earlier in the week, as there is no reason why I haven’t got any further on it. I also tried to pick up my xbox Arcade version as well but I'm stuck on one of the bonus levels. I completed Gears of War 2 on Insane with the help of my housemate. I enjoyed that, it also means that he’s able to now start Gears of War 3.

This week saw the demo of Final Fantasy XIII-2 released. I downloaded it along with Asura’s Wrath and Choplifter HD which is an arcade title. I really enjoyed the demo for FFXIII-2, it looks very pretty, and has added some new features to that of the original that are interesting, and it does mean I’m looking forward to it, even if I do need to go back and put some more time into FFXIII. Asura’s Wrath intrigued me when I heard about it, and after playing the demo I’m not so sure. The demo included 2 boss battles and after doing some searching on youtube, for game play between boss fights and I’m worried that, as far as gameplay is concerned, it’s going to lack depth. Choplifter HD, is an HD remake, that I hadn’t heard of, but I thought I would give it a go anyway. It’s a good game but I don’t believe it’s worth 1200 MSP. It doesn’t have any multi-player, but it does have leader boards. In the trailer that plays as you exit from the demo it announces that there will be DLC for it, and following a quick google, it looks like that DLC will be free. Will that be enough to entice me to buy it, not at the moment, if I see it in the deal of the week then it’s possibly I’ll pick it up.

General Update 26 : New Year, New Beginnings!

2012-01-02T21:29:00.001Z

So it’s fairly safe to say that the end of last year saw me getting a little slack with the old blog. Naughty Praggers. However that doesn’t mean I was being lazy, far from it. December saw me being the busiest that I've been in probably for the entire year.

I had plenty to be getting on with gaming-wise and sacrifices were made. I was very tied up with Gears of War 3 and Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. As well as Batman: Arkham City, Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Lego Star Wars 3. That doesn’t include the games I've bought that are still in their cellophane wrapper, or those I've just not started; DeadSpace 2, Alice Madness Returns, Ninety-Nine Nights 2, Dead Rising 1 & 2, Wolfenstein, Battlefield 3 and the game of the year edition of Red Dead Redemption. That list also included Assassin’s Creed: Revelations, Lego Pirates of the Caribbean and Shadows of the Damned, the last two I got for Christmas, but I’ve started all 3 and finished the last 2 already.

My to start list!

There are a load of mammoth games on the horizon with Final Fantasy XIII-2, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, and culminating in Mass Effect 3 at the beginning of March. This is to go on top of Skyrim which still has loads of legs left is in it as does Gears of War 3, especially with all the latest DLC, and I still need to try and finish LA Noire and Rage.

|Gingerbread and Shortbread

The other thing that has been tying up my time before Christmas, is that I've started baking. I baked some Gingerbread, emphasis on the bread, some shortbread and then I went a bit crazy for brownies. It’s something I’ve going to carry on with this year as i do enjoy it and there is a sweet, or savory payout at the end. I have also thought about incorporating it into this blog, giving it a major overhaul and renaming it. We’ll see but in the mean time expect to see a few more baking related posts. I’ve got some ideas, so lets see if I can get them to fruition first. I suppose the first thing I should do is update the blog more often. *winking smiley*

Double Brownies

Just to make matters worse I went out today and picked up Sonic Generations and Halo Anniversary Edition with money I was lucky to receive for Christmas. Happy Gaming.

General Update 25: The Spark of Life?

2011-10-25T13:44:00.000+01:00

Halloween may almost be upon us but, don’t be scared by thisstrange visitation! I know it’s been a while since my last post, I also knowthat I tend to say that beginning of most posts as well, but I’m still tryingto work out a routine for making time for my writing. Unfortunately it’slooking more and more likely that it make have to be at the cost of some of myprecious playing time. I’d like to say that the cause of my lack of writing isbecuase I have been busy playing a host of this year’s big releases, but thestack of un-played games as well as the stack of games I’ve only started wouldsay otherwise.

So a quick rundown of what I‘ve actually been playing inretail;

DeusEx: Human Revolution,

X-Men: Destiny,

Warhammer 40k: Space Marines,

Rage,

Batman: Arkham Asylum,

Gears of War 2 and 3,

And Briefly LA: Noire.

“What about on Xbox Live?” I hear silently you ask;

The Maw,

Hydrophobia,

Dungeons & Dragons:Daggerdale.

I’ve been having a little difficulty sticking to one gamefor any amount of time. Deus Ex and Xmen we completed to 1000g, Gears 3 I’vemostly been playing Multiplayer which makes a change for me, Gears 2 I’mworking through on insane and co-op-ing with my housemate. LA:Noire I wanted togo back and try and get a few more completed cases to 5 stars but I keptmessing one up so I gave up. both Space marines and Rage I’ve only had one sitting on and I’m enjoyingboth, Batman was in preparation of getting Arkham City, which arrived lastnight, and me trying to perfect my combat for the Combat Challenges. This isn’tworking out so well, but I’m not giving up yet! It does mean that Arkham Citywill have to wait for a little while.

So what does the future hold? Well if I can find the time towrite a couple of blog entries I’m hoping to put together a couple of Collector’sEdition un-boxing posts, for Gears 3, Arkham City and Fallout: New Vegas. I shouldalso try and get a couple of reviews up, seeing as I do have a few things tosay especially about X-Men: Destiny.

Review: Pirates of the Caribbean At World's End

2011-09-06T13:41:00.000+01:00

Pirates of the Caribbean: At Worlds End is a Movie Tie-in game. It’s loosely based on the second and third films but makes come creative license with the ideas on some of the levels. The game starts in the prison in Dead Mans Chest, with Jack Sparrow trying to escape, and uses this as a tutorial are a to teach you the basics you will need to make it through the game, from there it follows the films narrative to the climax fight between Davey Jones, Captain Jack Sparrow and Will Turner.

I first played this game on the Wii, and didn’t really get on with the controls, so when i was in Game recently, no that recently now, I decided that I would pick it up to make up my 3 for £30 as I thought that the controls might be slightly easier to get on with, and I’m happy to say they were. This might be to do with the fact that this game is nothing like the other version. I had only played the first few levels on the Wii and it was only the start of the first level that was similar and once you had gotten out of the first room it changed completely.

The visuals are quiet good in this game and the locations do look good and are fairly accurate to the same locations in the films. Shortly after completing the game I watched all 3 films in one evening so comparing them was inevitable. The voices in the game were fairly accurate but a little ropey in places, as are most of the character models.

One of the things that i did like in this game were the collectible achievements, each one of them had something to do with the level in question or at least the films and were fairly easy to pick up most of them. For example on the tribal island that has Jack is leader of, there are 7 can’s of paprika to find. One of the more tricky aspects I had to master was trying to daze the tougher enemies so that you could then perform a finisher on them, this is the only way you can finish them. It can get a little frustrating when you have weaker enemies re-spawning and hammering into you from the sides so you can get a combo off to daze the tougher enemy.

I recommend picking this up if you’re a fan of the films, or wanting a fairly easily achievable 1000 Gamerscore, as it appealed to me for both of those reasons. As long as you don’t take it too seriously then I'm sure you can over look the few flaws that this game has.

General Update 24: Reach for the Stars.

2011-09-05T20:20:00.000+01:00

So it’s been a little while since I last wrote and not a whole lot has happened since I broke the 60k Gamerscore mark, but that’s mostly because of the fact that 3 of the games mentioned in my last post still haven’t come down in price, however Lego Star Wars 3 was on offer in Tesco so it was rude not. I’m going to rant about Game being Rubbish and then write up for this blog but it sort of leads into a big can of worms, and the other reason I've not done mush is because I had been playing Mass Effect again! This must be my 7^th play through? And it’s a massive game and I did all the side quests. After completing Mass Effect I completed Lego Star Wars 3, and then after hearing very good things, I picked up Deus Ex: Human Revolution, which I'm loving at the moment.

It’s that time of year again for the Summer of Arcade, I maybe a little late as this is the last week that it runs for. This year the games were Bastion, From Dust, Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet, Fruit Ninja Kinect and Toy Soldiers: Cold War. I downloaded the trial version of Bastion and really enjoyed it so I bought the full game which I am still trying to work my way through. The other trial I tried was for Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet. I think there are some interesting mechanics in this game, and once I’ve managed to clear some of the back log from my arcade list then I’ll definitely look at getting the full game. I’ve still not invested in Kinect yet so Fruit Ninja Kinect isn’t feasible at the moment. From Dust looks intriguing and I should look at getting the trial to see what all the fuss is about.

General Update 23: Onwards and Upwards

2011-07-26T23:51:00.000+01:00

Hi All, I thought I should put up a post that shows that I really did reach the 60000 Gamerscore milestone. Those who follow my twitter @Gamerpraggers will have already seen that I have indeed reached 60K. It was the last achievement for Just Cause 2 that got me over the line as well. In fact below is a photo I took once I had finished the game.

Proof that I did reach 60K!!

I've started on the next milestone of 75k, by playing some Timeshift. It's not a bad little game, that has some really interesting time mechanics in it. I also tried the demo of Bastion which is the first of the titles in this year's XBLA Summer of Arcade. I really enjoyed the demo and I did buy the full game, but then I got back into Mass Effect as a fem-Shep. I must be getting into character as I already don't like her hair style!

Previous GamerScore:   59975
Current GamerScore:     60130
Increase:        +165

General Update 22: The End Is Nigh!

2011-07-20T18:00:00.000+01:00

No I don’t mean the end of the world! I’m talking the end of a long slog. That’s right; I’m on the verge of breaking the 60K barrier. I am also looking to tie it in with the 100% Achievement completion of Just Cause 2. I’m still working towards the 75% completion but I’m getting there, I’m currently on 69.31% and I’ve found a way that doesn’t seem as much as a grind as I thought it would be.

As I was away this weekend I wasn’t able to play on the xbox, however with my schamncy Windows Phone 7 I’m still able to get Chievos, and I did I finished Women’s Murder Club, as well as got a handful for both Angry Birds and Plants vs. Zombies. With all of those won, I was 25 points away from that big 60k which has been hanging over my head for a while now.

I do have a list of games that I need to play once I’ve finished Just Cause 2, first of all I’m going to go back and finish LA Noire. I loved what I had played so far and can’t wait to play more, plus with my Rockstar pass, I’ve got all the recently downloadable content for it as well. Then I’ll start on the following list;

Mass Effect – Fem-Shep

Mass Effect 2 – Fem-Shep

Fable 2 - DLC

Ninety-Nine Nights 2

Bayonetta

Lego Pirates/Star Wars 3

This is only a shortened version of the list and the only one I need to actually buy is the Lego Games and that all depends on whether the price is dropped, so we’ll have to wait and see. I really can’t wait to go back and play Mass Effect and I’ve decided on how I’m going to play her, she will be all pleasant natured in the first game, but towards the end she’ll become more of a badass as people should have listened to her, and then in the second game she’ll be a right bitch!

The reason I want to go back and play Fable 2 is because I really want that last achievement for the dolls. Which are all available to dig up in the DLC. I really enjoyed N3, Ninety-Nine Nights, but when I tried the demo for the sequel I found it rock hard, but I’m really looking forward to it. Bayonetta should be good as well, as I really enjoyed the demo plus it will be something different and a bit faster paced.

Also as well as all of this going on I’m also working on the Borderlands DLC with my housemate, we’ve completed both the Zombie Island and the Underdome and we’ve made some good progress on ‘The Armoury’, and then it’s the Claptrap revolution. Hopefully all of those should give me enough XP to level up to level 60 and should net me the last achievement. After that I think the plan is to start on Gears of War, or possibly Left 4 Dead 2.

Wow that was a long post, now I think it’s time for me to get on and get cracking with this plan.

Previous GamerScore:   59565
Current GamerScore:     59975
Increase:      +410

General Update 21: Just 'Cause!

2011-07-04T13:30:00.001+01:00

I have actually been fairly busy recently, and some of that was actually playing on the xbox, some of that was even writing future posts. They’ve not been posted yet as I need to go back to each one and amend/change/rewrite where necessary, and given that some of the reviews are for games I’ve not touched in a year it may take a little while longer, but I am getting to them slowly.

So what have I been up to then? Mainly trying to slog my way through Just Cause 2, so I can get back to playing LA Noire, I’ve done all the story and difficulty ‘chievos but I’m now left with all the collectables and completion ‘chievos. It doesn’t help that I’ve also had a bit of a splurge on games for my phone as Plants vs. Zombies and Angry Birds have now both been released, and last week’s Xbox Deal of the week on Pop cap games didn’t help either as I picked up both Peggle and Plants vs. Zombies on there as well. At the moment I’m trying to decide whether I can justify getting Lara Croft: Guardian of light as it’s on offer until Wednesday (6^th July).

Hopefully I will be able to finish both LA Noire and Just Cause 2 fairly soon as I already have 4 games I want to pick up. Alice Madness Returns, Shadows of the Damned and then both Lego Star Wars 3 and Lego Pirates of the Caribbean. I do feel guilty as I still haven’t played Bayonetta or Star Ocean yet. I am however making some progress on the Borderlands DLC. I’ve now finished Mad Moxxi’s Underdome and helped my housemate do Zombie Island of Dr Ned. That just leaves Armoury of General Knox and Clap Trap Revolution.

After listening to the OST for Mass Effect, I really want to go back and play the original. Despite having played it through completely half a dozen times I still have something I want to try. Fem-Shep! She’s going to be kick ass, not sure if she’s going to be a Renegade but I will be playing on Easy so I can rocket through it without getting stuck, plus it will make her look even more bad ass!

I’m very close to getting the big 60K gamerscore, I’m only about 500 points away, but it’s feeling like a real slog. It does help I’m getting some good games on my mobile, it’s just a shame I’m not able to get more time on the actual xbox to make a real big dent in the backlog of games I’ve got so I can then take a good run up at the new games coming out between September and Christmas. Yes Gears and Skyrim I’m talking to you! Maybe it’s time I booked a week off work!

Previous GamerScore: 57730
Current GamerScore: 59565
Increase: +1835

General Update 20: I'm not dead, just busy! (Promise)

2011-06-17T13:48:00.000+01:00

A friend of my, Maggie, send me a link to this video so I thought I would share it. Incidentally I'm getting this game tomorrow and I feel I must confess that I've never played this one!

Friday LOL 10: Link to the Future

2011-05-27T13:49:00.000+01:00

So it's been far too long since I did one of these mostly due to the fact that Bobs House of Video Games is no more. However I saw this video today and had to post it almost immediately. It’s Geeky, it’s awesome and it’s game related!

Enjoy!

General Update 19: “I’m mad as hell,and I'm not going to take this anymore!”

2011-05-17T00:41:00.000+01:00

The quote above is part of a speech from a film I’ve not seen called the Network. Where the actor Peter Finch has a rant about how bad things are getting. Anyway this week, yes I know it’s only Monday, but I’ve been getting annoyed. Not because I'm not getting enough time on the Xbox, not because I've got loads of games to try and play through and I'm running out of time to play them in. But I’m hearing more and more things that annoy me. The first, but not the main, shouldn’t really be on here but it’s to do with movies.

My Housemate read out a list of 95 films that have been green lighted sequels. Some of these are films that aren’t even out yet and there are even more films on that list that are from long running series, and there are some from films that don’t need sequels. In a similar vein, I've recently got into the Syfy series Stargate:Universe and although this second series is a little slow to pick up I really enjoy it, but because SyFy are re-branding it’s been scrapped.

Are we that complacent in this day in age that we can’t think of something new? I know that part of the reason is because the costs of making a film are pretty astronomical and in the current climates much more of a risk, but if the film companies won’t take the risks then we won’t see Cult films, like Rocky Horror and Empire Records, “Oh Rexy your so sexy!”, in the same way we do now, and this is disheartening.

The second is this PSN catastrophe. “My name is Chris, and I am a . . . Microsoft Fanboy.” I’ll admit it and i have to qualms about it, and while it has been know for me to dislike some of the things on the PlayStation I don’t go around and hate on it. We’re all gamers here we’re all looking for the same enjoyment out of games aren’t we? so why do the other team in? If karma does exist then all these people saying Xbox Live isn’t hackable are asking for trouble. I’ve always said that one thing I really like about Sony is the trophy system and in particular the gold, silver and bronze medals, but I wasn’t happy that you got Mass Effect 2! But good luck to Sony in keeping the PSN up and welcome back to gaming to those who haven't’ been able to scratch that itch we all get.

Third a double edged sword. Mass Effect 3 has been delayed until next year. First of all this a good thing as it means I won’t have to rush through Skyrim in order to get it. However I've also heard that part of the reason that it’s being delayed is so that it can be ‘laser focused’ on bringing a game that will exceed expectations. However according to this article they are tweaking the game to appeal to a wider market. Mass Effect 2 has sold over well over 6.6 million copies. Do they really need to do this? If they do then people who want to go back to experience the story will be disappointed. ME2 was by no means perfect. I’m sure every time I heard “Probe away!” I died a little in side, but it was a good game and I'm hoping that they are only going to be polishing up the game as it will be the end of an era.

There is a silver lining on the funk in which I seem to have fallen. LA: Noire. The game is released on Friday and I have my pre-order ordered. I can’t wait to see that opening cut scene and to start taking on my first case. I do feel sorry for a friend of mine who had his birthday recently as he’s a PC gamer and at the time of writing this there is no release date for it on PC. It’s a shame that he will be missing out.

Anyway time for bed now, if you folks are lucky i might even write another post before the end of the week, but I will leave you with the video of the speech that the title was taken from.

General Update 18: Where does the time go?

2011-05-02T23:44:00.000+01:00

Um Yeah so I said last time that the hiatus was over. and then I didn’t write for a month despite not being at work for the last 11 days! So what have a I been up to? Well I've been on a bit of a game splurge. I bought Pirates of the Caribbean: At Worlds End, Bayonetta and Star Ocean: The Last Hope in a bundle deal. The reason i got POTC was because I had it on the Wii and thought that it would be better on the Xbox, but its a completely different game! It wasn’t a let down though and did lead me to watching all 3 films back to back.

I’ve not gotten to Bayonetta or Star Ocean yet as I went back to finish Dragon Age 2, as i hadn’t done it yet. Oh Yeah, before I did get back to DA2 I picked up Portal 2 and completed the Solo campaign. I took me a few hours and it was really good. They’ve really nailed the humour in that game. So yeah after logging in at least 45 hours in my first playthrough I then went back and played it again to get the rest of the achievements, and today i completed it to 100%.

So I’ve got to decide what to play next, as LA Noire is coming up on the horizon so that would sway me towards Bayonetta as Star Ocean would be a long slog, and I’ve also got a load of Arcade games to work through as well as I picked up Shadow Complex in the sale, and I’ve still got Kingdom for Keflings to finish and some poker to get back into.

Right I’m back to work tomorrow so I think I'm going to have to head to bed. I will inevitably try and get a review up this week, seeing as I have a few to catch up and try and write. I think the running total is near the 20 mark!

Previous GamerScore: 55470
Current GamerScore: 57730
Increase: +2260

General Update 17: The Hiatus is over.

2011-04-03T23:52:00.000+01:00

Some would say that it’s been far too long since my last blog post and you know what? Those people would be right. The last post was at the beginning of February. Although I did try and write one around the time of my birthday as I received the T-Shirt in the picture below but I never actually got around to posting it.

Free Publicity!

Praggers Wins!

As you can imagine my list of games to review has gotten longer and longer as is my list of games to play. I have been slightly slacking on the playing of games but I do have a bloody good excuse for that, and that’s because I've uprooted from the the North of England and moved back down south. I’m all setup now and hopefully I should be able to get back into the swing of doing more posts. I may try and write a post a night for the next week. They may not all get published as I write them but then I can keep you guys tided over with my Xbox news.

For those that are interested, I mentioned in my last post that I was invited to a Nintendo 3DS pre-launch event but I wasn’t sure if i was going to make it. Well I did and it blew my mind. It was incredible, and while i decided that I did want one I wasn’t sure if I was going to actually get one. Well I am really weak willed and as launch day came around I decided that I would get one, however I made the wrong choice of starting game. I went for Sims 3, but then remembered, shortly after starting to play, why I don’t like playing Sims games. But to make up for that I have now bought Monkey Ball 3D which was what the girl in the shop said I should have got.

My Shiny New 3DS

So what have I been playing lately? Well, Dragon Age 2, Torchlight, Full House Poker, Bulletstorm, Homefront, Fable 3. All of which are great games.

Previous GamerScore: 53370

Current GamerScore: 55470

Increase: +2100

General Update 16: The Blog Post With No Name

2011-02-01T13:15:00.001Z

For the past week and a bit I’ve not been at work, which means all I’ve been doing is gaming. When I started I was playing Assassins Creed Brotherhood, which I have not completed. I even tried out some of the multiplayer as well. It’s something a bit different to the usual multiplayer that’s with most games that come out. Once I finished Assassins Creed Brotherhood, I started Final Fantasy XIII. It was my hope that I would tear through it and be able to pick up the big release for January, Dead Space 2. However the Friday came and went as did Monday, but as I felt I was getting closer and closer to the climax of the story I got stuck on a Boss. I have now decided that I need to grind some more before I go back and try that boss again.

Other than that I’ve not really done much. I know there is a Demo that I want to check out, that being Bulletstorm. I tried this game when I was at the Eurogamer Expo and didn’t really get on with it, but I think that was because I was being watched and cracking under the pressure. My biggest problem with it was that after you had whipped someone when I tried to kick them it didn’t behave with the smooth transition that you see in some of the skill shot videos as seen online. So I want to try again with the demo and without the pressure of people watching me.

One thing that may be worth mentioning is that I may get a chance to see the new Nintendo 3DS this weekend. You may be asking how I managed that. The e-mail was from Eurogamer Expo so I’m guessing I was put on a mailing list. Anyway I had to sign up for a specific time on one of the two days. At the time of writing this I don’t know if I am going as it’s a first come first served deal, but I should find out tomorrow. I’m quite excited about this as I’m really intrigued as to how the 3d works without glasses.

Previous GamerScore: 52270

Current GamerScore: 53370

Increase: +1100

General Update 15: Only A Ninja Can Sneak Up On Another Ninja (or Assassins!)

2011-01-11T18:00:00.001Z

So this is really my first post of 2011, but before I get into the New Year I do have one thing to clear up and that is my Christmas gift list. I received Nier, Gears of War 2, Assassins Creed Brotherhood, and Dead Rising 2, I also picked up FEAR and Dead Rising in the Game sale. I completed my First play though of Nier before returning home, I then moved onto Gears of War 2 which I completed on Saturday evening.

I started the game on hardcore and managed to get to the last chapter of act 4 on hardcore and then when I loaded up to finish off the game for some reason it changed the difficulty back to casual so when I completed the game I didn’t get the achievements for the other difficulty settings. I do aim to go back and play the remaining levels again in order to get the outstanding achievements.

After completing Gears 2 I tried Dead Rising, the original, as I want to know the story first before playing the sequel. Unfortunately I’m not sure if I am actually playing it right as I keep dying when trying to save survivors. It could just be that my getting the priorities wrong and I should just try and focus on the story until I get more experience.

After dying several times I moved off that and started Assassins Creed Brotherhood. While I’ve not get very far I have changed my mind about something. uPlay. I touched on uPlay in my post about Online Play for all, but it would appear I had it a little wrong. The points you unlock for completing certain tasks in the game allow you to download certain rewards related to that game. For example in Assassins Creed 2, the rewards are an xbox dashboard theme, a new map to explore, a new outfit and an increase on the number of throwing knives you can carry. I like this idea because the amount of points you earn from the game is the same amount that you can spend.

For Assassins Creed Brotherhood which has the same system and number of points available, there are more rewards than there are points available, which means you need to choose which rewards you want but can’t have them all unless you buy a different game and choose not to download the rewards you unlock for that game but it seems to me like a fair trade off. I’m not everyone wants the theme for the game they are playing. If you’ve completed the game you might not want to increase the number of throwing knives seeing as you’re probably not going to be playing it again.

Demos: Ilomilo & Raskulls

Over the weekend I tried a couple of demos from XBLA. I’ll admit now that I never actually finished the Raskulls demo, not because I didn’t want to, but because I was cooking my dinner. I enjoyed what I played, it’s an action-platformer that plays well, and looks great.

Ilomilo is a puzzle based game where you play as both Ilo and Milo who are two characters that you have to work out how to get them to meet. The premise is simple enough; get the two characters to meet and the game looks great as well.

Out of the two my money went on Ilomilo, and while I’ve still not finished the prologue it’s defiantly one I will play, when I get some time.

Previous GamerScore: 51555

Current GamerScore: 52270

Increase: +715

General Update 14: Merry New Year!

2011-01-01T22:53:00.000Z

So there we go another year gone and another one stretching out in front of us, but before I rush headlong into the new year and decade I’m going to take a little more time to look back at the year 2010.

What did I achieve? Well I suppose the main thing would be breaking the fifty thousand gamerscore mark. I’ve also started playing games on the harder difficulties rather than starting on easy or normal, I’ll jump straight in on hard. What else? Completing Mass Effect 2 on Insanity, it took almost 8 or 9 months, to do and that was with a 6 month hiatus!

However looking back 2010 hasn’t been all good. Probably one of my major sticking points was the news that Mass Effect 2 was to be released on the PS3. I know that the original was published by Microsoft so I know that will never be released on the PS3. I’m just a little confused as to why they would release only a portion of a series. My other big disappointment with the year was E3. I know Microsoft had to show off Kinect and give it a full reveal. But it didn’t seem to show much of anything else. Don’t get me wrong they showed a lot of stuff, but aside from the Kinect stuff there wasn’t a whole lot of Exclusives to be shown. I’m hoping this will change in this year’s show.

What do I want to achieve for 2011? I guess my main goal is to reach the seventy five thousand gamerscore mark. But I also want to try and make more of an effort to get into the online community. So I’ll try and make some posts on some forums and try and get involved.

What am I looking forward to in this new year? Two major events, the first one being E3. Although I’m not actually going I will be watching the live keynote speech as I have done for the past 2 years. The second event is the Eurogamer Expo. Or E2 as I think I’m going to call it. It will be over 4 days this year and be around the same time. Hopefully they will have Mass Effect 3 there and I will be able to try it out as it’s due to be released this holiday season. The other game that should be good to see will be the next game in the Elder Scrolls series. Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim as that is released 11/11/11. See what they did there?

Current Gamerscore: 51555g

Review: GTA IV

2010-12-20T23:00:00.000Z

Fresh of the boat from Eastern Europe you arrive at in Liberty City in the land of the free. You meet up with your brother who has been feeding you lies about how good things are for him. This is how the game starts, shortly after you end up getting in to trouble with thugs and it all spirals out of control. The feeling of disillusionment is much how I felt about this game.

The game looks ok, with a slightly cel-shaded cartoon type look and the soundtrack will depend on which radio station you choose to put on in the car. I will say that the size of the city and the various routes that you can take around the city show a wide variety of buildings and areas that you typically get in a big city.

The thing that really got to me was the controls, while running around on foot the controls were manageable and while in a car they were also ok, but the controls for when you are on a bike or in a helicopter, and it was this last one that really buried the game for me. Two of the missions need a helicopter to complete them and one is the finale. But I found it really difficult to control it. You had to push the left thumb stick forward just enough in order to move forward, but do it too much and the copter goes into a nose dive. Around the same time I was playing Crackdown 2 and the controls for a helicopter in that were so much more concise.

As far as playing the game again I don’t think I’ll be rushing out to get it. Apparently there is a multiplayer element where you can tear up Liberty City with your friends but I can’t see why you would want to with controls that are this bad. Also once the main story is complete the game turns into that really annoying part of the Sims where you have to keep up appearances with your “friends”, but that was part of the Sims that I really didn’t like. As far as toughness goes some of the missions were difficult and not just because of the controls but it does seem to manage a good balance between easy and difficult missions.

Overall I really didn’t like this game bad controls spoiled the game for me, something else that may or may not have spoiled the game for me was that one of the achievements was to complete the game in 30 hours so I might not have got the most out of the game as I was rushing my through the story.

Review: Alan Wake

2010-12-19T23:12:00.000Z

You are a writer on holiday with your wife when she disappears. While searching for her you discover pages of a book that supposedly you’ve written. There is also a terrible dark presence that is hanging around the town hindering your search. That is the introduction to Alan Wake, from there the game plays out as a mini psychological thriller TV series. This game has been a long time coming it’s been almost 5 years since it was first announced at E3 2005.

The story is really enjoyable and really makes you think, the ending is a confusing, overall in it’s entirety the story is a good length and there is no doubt about it that the game does give you the chance to make your own mind up as to what it means. At the time of writing this I have played the first of the DLC, so I do have some extra knowledge however I don’t think I'm going to see any answers any time soon.

Your main weapon is a torch which you need to use in order to get rid of the darkness that surrounds the enemies, then once that's out the way you can unload with your choice of firearm. As a unique method or combat i thought it worked really well. it also makes you think a little more when jumping into the fray.

The game’s soundtrack is really good with a few tracks taken from actual bands that work really well in the game, the orchestral soundtrack as well helps with the building the tension as well as the setting the mood. Although some of the character models are a little ropey in places, on the whole they are good and the cut scenes are superb. The pinnacle though has to be the environmental vista’s you get of the valley that the game is set in.

There is re-playability in this game, the hardest difficulty is only unlocked after the first play through, there are also some collectibles that are only available in the Nightmare difficulty. As far as difficulty goes the game has a good balance. I’ve just finished my Nightmare playthough and it makes you think before you get into it with a group of enemy's.

Overall I really enjoyed this game and I'm slightly disappointed that the game wasn’t as well received as it was hoped, this has meant that the sequel is not necessarily confirmed. Is the game worth a 5 year wait? No I'm not sure if it is, don’t get me wrong the game is good and is really enjoyable but I do wonder what took it so long.

General Update 13: The Wanderer Returns!

2010-12-12T23:14:00.000Z

So you may remember I wrote a couple weeks back about how work was crazy busy? well lucky for me at least work has calmed down a bit, however Christmas is just around the corner so that means present buying and card writing and trip planning and preparation. so things may be quiet on the blog front for the next two weeks, but I'm sure that you are used to that by now.

Christmas will be spent at my dads which should give me a chance to catch up on at least writing my reviews. and hopefully work out a standard for future reviews. I didn't have many games on my list and the only one that I actually know I am getting is Assassins Creed: Brotherhood. The other games on my list were Spiderman Shattered Dimensions, Dead Rising, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, Gears of War 2, Neir and Bayonetta.

Last night was the VGA's, The Video Game Awards. these were shown on Spike TV in America, and I did try and live stream the show, however the stream wasn't great and it went off-line about half way through so I only caught the first half. However that worked out well as it meant I got to see two trailers that are worth talking about. The first was one I was hoping for, as Bioware were looking to announce an as yet un-announced game, this turned out to be, as I was hoping, Mass Effect 3. Below is the trailer that was shown.

Video Games | Mass Effect 3 | VGA 10: Exclusive Debut Trailer HD

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

The second trailer that made me very excited is below and was for Elder Scrolls V.

Video Games | Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim | VGA 10: Exclusive Debut Trailer HD

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

And finally, this year has been building up to one defining moment in my gaming career and this was realised on Tuesday. That's right I managed to reach 50000 gamer score. It was dragging on and I had had enough of not breaking the 50k, especially as I was only 10g away. So I looked through my achievements and tried to find a nice 10g achievement in the end I had to settle for two fives. The two achievements were Start Of A New Era from Soulcalibur IV as well as The Creator from Trials HD.

As far as what I've been playing it's really been a tidy up of achievements as I'm working through Castlevania Lord of Shadows on the hardest difficulty and working on the trials on each of the level. I also traded in my copy of Borderlands for the Game of the Year edition which has all the DLC included, and while I've completed the Zombie Island of Dr Ned, I'm a little disheartened by the fact that the Mad Moxi's underdome Riot is really for mutliplayer as it's too hard to do on solo.

Right I'm off to bed as I have work in the morning, but hopefully I should finish Castlevania Lord of Shadows to the full 1000g before I head off on my Christmas Trip.

General Update 12: Shouting from the roof tops!

2010-11-25T18:29:00.000Z

Work has been crazy busy for the last week or so and it’s not looking to get any better. I’ve not let work before 8 this week it’s that crazy, which I guess just about evens out the awesomeness I had at the weekend. That’s right It was my friend Maggie’s Wedding, she and her new husband both looked very happy and beautiful, I’m sure they had a great day. So a heartfelt congratulations go out to the newly weds!

It has been a little frustrating though not being able to play on the Xbox as for those who follow me closely will know that I’m very very close to the 50K mark. However I should be able to break through it before the end of the year. I still have a list of game to go back and play to try and get the full 1000g. Alan Wake, Dragon Age: Origins, Wet and let’s not forget the fact I need to complete Red Faction: guerrilla.

However for those who follow me on the Twitter, you will already know that I won a competition for a free Pacman Championship DX download code from Xbox Live’s very own MrPointyHead. The ask with all the gritty remakes being done including Disney’s Mickey Mouse how would we re-imagine PACMAN. “Vegetarian Det. P. Ackman is hunting a group of drug dealers known as 'The Ghosts ' through Neon Japan's Rave Scene!” That was my entry and here was the tweet where I found out I’d won. “For a re-imagining worthy of whoever wrote the Super Mario Brothers movie, @GamerPraggers earns the Pac-Man C.E. DX code!” I’ve very excited and frustrated as I’m not able to go home and play it now!

So this was a quick post to say I’ve not forgotten about you and to gloat over my win, and now back to work! *sigh*

Friday LOL 09: If Only. . .

2010-11-12T07:00:00.000Z

No posts for nearly a month and then two in the same week, what'g going on?

Seeing as I've been playing Fallout New Vegas, I thought I would keep with the theme of that.

Enjoy!

General Update 11: We Don't Talk Anymore. . .

2010-11-09T18:00:00.002Z

I suppose I should be grovelling to you for forgiveness due to my being absent so long, no blog entries or twitter tweets and you are right of course, but I blame my friend Mags, who is getting married in a couple of weeks, she got me hooked on the telly series House. I am now all up to date with the series and can hopefully focus on my writing. I did plan a few entries but never got around to write them the plans are still there and while I do still plan on writing my second entry about the EuroGamer Expo, some of the news stories I want to write about are long gone. But I could use them for writing practise.

So things that I’ve been up to in the past few weeks, I got the Fallout New Vegas Collector’s Edition, and I’ve taken photos of it being unboxed so that will get its own special dedicated post. I didn’t get Fable 3, I was financially short that month and I have plenty to be getting on with games wise, I’ve also got the Awakening DLC for Dragon Age:Origins as well as Ironman 2 on top of this I want to add the Borderlands Game of the year edition for all of the DLC.

As far as actually playing goes, I’m only about 20 hours into Fallout New Vegas and I’ve only completed the first mission on Ironman 2. You may also remember that in General Update 10, I mentioned that I had 3 more achievements for Mass Effect 2 DLC. It just so happened that the following Mondays Deal of the week was on Mass Effect 2 DLC, so I was able to pick up the last one for the last few achievements, making Mass Effect 2 the newest entry to my 100% Club.

Review: Eurogamer Expo (Part 1)

2010-10-17T16:20:00.001+01:00

While this was my first Expo I'm not going to be talking about the expo itself, the only reason we went was to check out the games so below is my take on what I got to see.

Fable 3
The game as a whole looked really good, and after playing the game for about 15 minutes I had already built up an idea of what I thought about the game. The idea of having an easily accessibly hub area for weapons outfits etc is a good one, and while what I got to play was only in the early stages of the game which meant that I didn’t have much in the way of choice i could see that it should work as a concept. My problem with this game was the fact it was mentioned that the combat has been updated to make it flow more smoothly, I don’t believe that this has been ultimately achieved. The changing from melee to Magic is seamless as it should be however the melee-melee-gun shot combo leaves a lot to be desired. You have to wait 2 seconds while you wait to put away you’re sword in order to whip your gun out and shoot a fool which in the midst of a battle with 4 or more enemies isn’t going to work, as while your changing your weapons said fool will be all up in your grill giving you a slap around the chops. Don’t get me wrong this isn’t going to put me off the game, just using a gun.

Assassins Creed Brotherhood
This was another good looking in fact i don’t think there was a bad looking game at the expo. This was also one of the games that was showing off the Multi-player mode. Where there was some multi-player in Assassin’s Creed 2 I didn’t play it the thing about Assassins Creed is the story, and you can’t really have a story in Multi-player. However much like Bioshock 2 and its take on multi-player it’s different which means that it sets itself apart from everything else out there. I only got one match which didn’t really give me enough time to get to know what was going on but it was enjoyable.

F1 2010
I was purely interested in this game for its aesthetics as i had seen a screen shot in Official Xbox Magazine and it looked amazing. I can now confirm that it does indeed live up to expectations the visuals are stunning but I still won’t be getting this game. It’s a proper Racing game, and I am rubbish at those games. So if you are into those types of games then you won’t be disappointed.

Enslaved Odyssey to the West
I was interested in this game because I know that it’s based on a story, which means there is more to the story that what your playing. Which is something I really like in games, it’s also the reason why I've got all the Mass Effect novels. However I have now had a chance to play the game and I can see that the side character is going to be annoying as hell. I also get the feeling that the game would become a bit of a button masher.

Crysis 2
Again this was a game that was showing off the multi-player mode rather than the story and to be honest the multi-player mode hasn’t sold this game for me. You can choose your role when you respawn and this gives you a different ability for each class as well as specific weapons beneficial for the class. However it did feel and play like every other multi-player shooter I've played which is a deal breaker for me.

Gears of War 3
It was while I was at the Expo that I read that it had been delayed by 5 months, but I did get a chance to have a go on the beast mode that was being shown. It’s something new for a multi-player shooter which isn’t a bad thing. It’s enjoyable and while I haven't played Gears 2 yet the delay means i have a chance to play it before I get Gears 3.

Dragon Age 2
I was a little worried as i knew that Bioware had changed the focus from 6 possible characters to one and that they had made some changes to the combat. After playing the demo i like the change to the combat. it makes it feel more like an action RPG as i did think that just pressing one button to launch an attack put a barrier up between yourself and the game and you didn’t get the immersion that you might want however that has changed each button press translates to an attack. The other change is with levelling up, instead of all the skills there there are smaller skill trees and you can spend the points on the trees you want which is an idea I like. One thing that did confuse me was when it was set but I wasn’t paying that much attention to the story as I wasn’t going to be able to get into it.

That’s it for the first part of the Expo. Stay tuned for Castlevania Lord of Shadows, Halo: Reach, Brink, Bulletstorm, Hunted Deamon’s Forge, Mafia II, and Fallout New Vegas.

General Update 10: In Space No One Can Hear You Shout "Wohoo!"

2010-10-10T21:34:00.000+01:00

So this is my first post in a little while, but I’m back now. I’ve been semi busy, what with having a full time job but I was also in London last weekend for the Eurogamer Expo. I managed to get a look at some of the top new titles that will be coming out in the next 10-12 months and being my first Expo I wasn’t disappointed.

Before I went away for the weekend I started a new run through of Mass Effect 2 on Insanity. As I said in a blog post earlier this year I was giving up as I didn’t want to hate the game. This week has seen my plough through the point at which I was stuck and all the way through to the end. Yes i have now got the 1000g avaliable for the main game. I have also done the Lair of the Shadow Broker DLC. So I only have 3 more achievements to get for me to have the full compliment of achievements for the game, but they can wait.

The one think I thought I should mention about the Expo, before I do my full write up which I will try and put up during the week, was that I found a game that I didn’t originally think I would be interested in but after trying it out at the expo I decided that it’s worth a go. The game was Castlevania Lord of Shadows. I’m not entirely certain what it was about the game that I liked, the graphics are pretty awesome, but it also looked like there would be plenty to do as well. It was released last Friday and I did pick it up on the day of release. I tried it Friday night but then I was called off to save the galaxy!

I almost wasn’t going to get it as Fallout 3 is released next week and Fable 3 the week after that, and with the fact that I have just ordered Dragon Age: Awakening and Iron Man 2 I’ve got plenty to be getting with for the time being.

General Update 09: I believe I can fly. . .

2010-09-22T18:00:00.001+01:00

I should have tweeted about this yesterday but I didn't, bad me. A news story was made Monday morning, or evening for those in the UK, about a new Bioshock Infinite video being released exclusively to Xbox Live for 24 hours before being made available to everyone on the irrational games. “What’s so important about this video?” you may ask, that’ simple, it’s a game play video. You can see the video about. If you’re reading this and the video has been taken down. I do apologies but it’s not my video in the first place, I’m only borrowing it to pass on the news.

When I first heard that they had announced a “3rd Bioshock” game I’ve got to admit I was very dubious, as it seemed that Bioshock 2, despite being a good game, it was short in terms of the story you can always read the full review yourself. But I wasn’t sure they could drag out a third one without ruining 2 great games, and a really interesting story. But it did look like it was going to be done correctly as it was going back to the same team that came up with the first one. The teaser trailer also didn’t calm my nervous disposition about a 3rd game. It felt as though it was so radically different from the previous two as well as being a prequel time wise, as Bioshock Infinite is set about 50 years prior to Bioshock.

But it wasn’t until I heard someone say in an interview that it’s “a spiritual successor” to the series, that I stopped and actually thought about what that meant. In my opinion it meant that the story would be completely set apart from that of Rapture and the previous two Bioshock games that it would have its own space to grow. I hope this is the case as if they try and make this game lead into the other games it’ll end up a mess. Do you remember when you were a kid and did an ace drawing of a machine and how it would work and someone would suggest adding something and when you added it, it ruined the whole thing? It would be like that only much worse, as it would ruin the memory of the original.

So what do I think after seeing this trailer? I like it. I’m definitely more optimistic about this game now than I was when I first heard about it. It looks different enough as there is a lot more colour in the pallet from what I could see. I’m interested to see how the “Tonics” work in this game as there didn’t seem to be any swapping between them, but this could be just because it’s not the full game play as we will see it. This is a good thing as I’d be wondering what they are going to be doing all next year.

What about you guys? What is your opinion of Bioshock Infinite from this trailer?

Weekly Round Up 01: Week Commencing 13/09/2010

2010-09-21T18:00:00.000+01:00

Last week was a quiet one for me gaming wise, purely because I got into a couple of TV series that I’ve started watching the box sets of, but that’s now why you are here. I did have a good weekend before last week in that I managed to gain the last few achievements for The Secret of Monkey Island. Last week I did get an evening on the Xbox on the Wednesday, a mate was over and I showed him a couple of indie games including AppleJack, which got voted OXM’s best Indie game, so it’s not just me that thinks it’s great. The other Indie game I should him was The Impossible Game. A really simple to pick up and play game that is very addictive but as I only had the trial it didn’t take long for us to reach the end.

I did get some more time on Dragon Age: Origins towards the end of last week. I’m still working on my second full play through and I’ll admit I’m starting to get a little bored of it, weather that’s because I’m playing as a Mage or because it’s just the same over and over. I know that you can go either way on some of the major decisions in the game, but I’ve completed all of the origins stories so I know which origin will make the story more interesting when I come to make those decisions. I think I’m going to have to complete this play through and have a rest from it and pick up Mass Effect 2.

What else has been happening? The Tokyo Game Show 2010 was last week and while a few new connect titles have been announced, I can’t think of any major that was announced, but then again I can’t say I was paying much attention. I’m still looking forward to the EuroGamer Expo which is in a couple of weeks. With Fable 3, Fallout New Vegas, Brink, Assassins Creed: Brotherhood, Crysis 2 and Dead Space 2 all playable on the show floor, I’m very excited. Nothing has been announced for Kinect yet, but I’m hoping they do so I can see for myself how well it reacts to your movements.

Another thing worth mentioning is the fact that Microsoft has announced that it will be raising the price of some Gold Membership options at the start of November. For where it matters the most, here in the UK, we get of very lightly the price change only affects the 1 month option. And raises it from £4:99 to £5:99, so an extra 12 pound a year, which makes a full year’s subscription out right cheaper but about 20 quid. So what are you waiting for?

Friday LOL 08: My kinda guy!

2010-09-10T08:19:00.000+01:00

see more Bob's House of Video Games

I personally didn't think this would need explaining as to why I put it up.

General Update 08: DLC Dilemma

2010-09-09T13:30:00.001+01:00

Hello Gaming Fans. I am back from my un-explained absence. But this will change shortly. I’ve been a little quiet on the update front with having a full time job which is a pain in the ass, so when I get home all I want to do is chill in front of my XBOX? So I hardly get the time to write entries, which is probably why I have a dozen or so entries lined up for me to write. The majority of which are reviews.

So what has been happening with me? well I gave up on GTA IV and returned it to my friend who I had borrowed it from. He in return gave me back Call of Duty: World at War and Red Dead Redemption. I did try COD:WaW when I got it back as I had found that I got stuck around half way through my veteran Difficulty play through. The level I was stuck on was Burn ‘em Out. And after a solid 3 -4 hours I did manage to make it to the end of that level which was when I turned off the Xbox for the evening, and I’ve still yet to go back to CoD:WaW.

After CoD:WaW I pick up one of my Christmas Presents from last year. Ghostbusters I really enjoyed this game I even managed to play through the main campaign on the hardest difficulty although there is a slight glitch than can be exploited to make getting this achievement a hell of a lot easier. Following my ghost busting career, I picked up sword and shield and ventured forth into the kingdom of Ferelden in Dragon Age: Origins. I have finished the game on one of my characters and as of Last night I managed to complete the origin story of 2 more characters.

The final game I’ve completed in my absence was Wet I got it cheap from amazon and it was so cheap it was hard not to buy it. Wet, while a little fiddly to start with does become very entertaining, and while I’ve completed the story once I still have another 3 or four play throughs to get some more achievements.

Speaking of achievements, I have now broken the 47k mark on my gamerscore and from looking at my stats on TrueAchievements.com, which gives me my stats without DLC included, it shows that I am almost on my goal of reaching the 70%/70% mark I had set myself. The 70%/70% stat is worked out by the percentage of total achievements and gamerscore of the games on my gamertag. My current stat is 69.42%/69.07% for Retail games.

DLC is something else I have been thinking about recently. I have at least 2 DLC add-ons that I have yet to play, and yet more are being released. With half a dozen being available for Dragon Age: Origins which include the expansion pack awakening, there are a few for Mass Effect 2 as well that I need to try for, and the Toy box for Crackdown 2 is also now available. Is now the right time for me to take a break from the retail side of things and try and get the most out of the games I’ve already got? Some of which the core games still hold achievements for me to get. Yes, Alan Wake I’m talking about you and your Nightmare play through!

Friday LOL 07: The thing about playing RTS's is not to get all high and mighty!

2010-08-27T17:45:00.001+01:00

Friday again gaming fans, and I found this little beauty on Bob's house of video games so enjoy. I've not played Star Craft 2, but I have heard of it. I'm more of a C&C fan myself.

Friday LOL 06: Revenge is a Dish Best Served Cold . . . A lot like a Sammich!!!

2010-08-20T18:00:00.000+01:00

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

So I almost didn't have a LOL for you today, until I found this Video. Warning there is some bad language.

Review: Lego Harry Potter

2010-08-18T09:00:00.001+01:00

Lego Harry Potter is everything we have come to love about the Lego games, its humorous, it's pretty to look at as well as conveying the story in the way the Lego games pull off so well. The game covers the Harry's first 4 years at Hogwarts School of witchcraft and wizardry. For those of you who have seen the movies or read the books then the story will be all too familiar.

The game play hasn't been tweaked much from the previous games, if it's not broken don't fix it, is a good way of looking at the Lego games. The controls are easy to get to grips with which makes this game great to be able to just pick up play by anyone. My girlfriend isn't a harry potter fan so this meant that I would be playing this one alone so I have no idea if the problems I talked about in my Lego Indiana Jones Review have been addressed. Also being a Lego Series game it more directed at Kids so while adults who are a fan of the series will enjoy the game they can be safe in the knowledge that their younger cousins/nephews/nieces etc will be able to play this a not come away scared like Mad Eye Moody, and yes that's a reference to a character.

The visuals of the game, just like the others in the Lego series, are easy on the eye, although if I had to make any criticisms on the visuals it would be that the blinking arrows showing where the various hidden items are can be a little misleading at times.

One element that has been added specifically to this game was the Hogwarts castle, a free roam area that acted as a go between for the different chapter parts. I felt that this added extra game play to the story, as it meant that you could make the story last longer while you were exploring the castle looking for students to help as well as finding secret areas and some of the hidden items I mentioned earlier.

Overall I found this game a lot of fun much like the rest of the Lego games, aside from Lego Indy. It's a lot of fun and I look forward to the next one when ever that will be. Probably not until after the last film has finished showing in cinemas I wouldn't have thought. So if you're a fan of the books, the movies or both or if you enjoyed the previous Lego games then you will enjoy this instalment.

General Update 07: Visitation Rights

2010-08-17T18:00:00.002+01:00

So it's been a while since I've given an update on what I'm playing. In my last update I was working towards the Liberty City Minute achievement in GTA IV. This I am pleased to say I have now done, however the game then became a real grind for me to work on the other achievements. Liberty City (5) is makes me feel like I'm playing the Sims as I have to keep up appearances with the other characters. So the weekend before last I decided that I would try another one of the many games that I have laying about waiting for me to get around to them.

In this instance it was Darksiders. It's a good little game which I picked up at the same time as I got Dante's Inferno and I must say I much prefer Darksiders to Dante's. I managed to finish it just before last weekend as I was going to lend it to a friend however before starting this game I did look to see if there were any missable achievements. There were 4 and I'll admit that I did look up how to get them because as I keep saying my list of games still to play consists of;

Dragon Age: Origins
Left 4 Dead 2
Red Faction: Guerrilla
Ghostbusters

These are just the games that I have to finish for the first time, I also have a list of games that I need to go back and play again including;

Alan Wake - Nightmare play through as well as the Signal DLC
Mass Effect 2 - Insanity play through and additional DLC
Monkey Island SE

Then there is my list of games that I still want to get;

Dead Rising
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed
Bayonetta
Brutal Legend
Gears of War 2
Wolfenstein
Metro 2033
Final Fantasy XIII
Neir
Prototype
Dark Void
Iron Man 2
Sacred 2

Don't even get me started on games I'm still waiting for. Maybe I should buy an old game with every new game I buy that should provide me with a decent spectrum of games. I've also borrowed Ninja Gaiden 2 from my friend in exchange for Darksiders, Singularity and Lego Harry Potter. Before I left for my mates at the weekend I was thinking about trying a couple of demo's from the games market place, but I was running late and didn't get around to it. But while I was at my mates he had a two of the games downloaded.

First up was the demo of a Kingdom for Keflings, a nice little base building game that from the demo seemed quite addictive. I downloaded the full game when I go home and I'm glad I did it's a fun game with it's heart in the right place, it's also a good choice as a game for young kids. The second was a game that he had downloaded the full game for when it was on offer and that is Shadow Complex. I only tried out the challenge rooms which were enough to make me want to get it but not enough for me to shell out the 1200 MSP for it.

The other thing I should mention that I tried at the weekend for the first time was the Zune Video Marketplace. I was very impressed with the service. I chose to download the movies rather than stream as I wasn't sure what my speed was going to be like and it took about an hour to an hour and half for half of the movie to download and then I was able to start watching it. The pricing was good as well at £3.28; converted from 380 MSP for an HD film it's slightly cheaper than some other rental places, so if you're stuck on a Friday night for a film then give it a go, i highly recommend it.

Friday LOL 05: Based on Japanese History

2010-08-13T09:00:00.001+01:00

moar funny pictures

It's Friday again so here is another gaming funny for you. If you don't get it then you'll need to watch the video below which is from Sony's 2006 E3 presentation and if you don't want to watch all of this train wreck then skip ahead to 1:03.

Friday LOL 03: Damn!

2010-08-06T18:05:00.000+01:00

see more Bob's House of Video Games

I couldn't post what I wanted as there wasn't the code to embed it readily available, so here is something else, as the first DLC episode for Alan Wake was released a couple of weeks ago and I've still yet to play it, I also still need to go back and complete the game on nightmare difficulty which I want to do before I try The Signal.

Gaming Gripe 01: Losing Control

2010-08-06T18:00:00.001+01:00

You know how some things you take for granted until something comes along that really makes you notice how much you've taken it for granted? I had this happen to me just recently with game controls, at first I noticed it on Red Dead Redemption which I've still got to write my review for. In Red Dead, I found that when you try enter a door but you hit the frame if you then try and turn to go in the middle your turning circle just happened to be door size so you found yourself nose to nose with the door frame on the other side, but I brushed this off, it wasn't often that it happened and the way around this was to back off and come at the door at a bit of a run.

So I moved on and played some other games like Crackdown 2, but I finished the story ahead of my friends so they weren't looking for orbs just yet so as sort of stop gap between games I thought I would go back and get a few more Gamerscore on one of the games I've thought of as having a black mark on my gamertag, GTA IV. I first saw GTA IV when a friend of mine brought it over and started showing me what it was like, and for whatever reason I never touched it again. I recently borrowed a copy off a friend so that I could try and bump up the gamerscore, and while I've now completed the story I'm not sure if I'll get most of the side missions mostly due the fact that . . . well I can't stand the game.

Some people may think I'm completely wrong, but aside from the fact that I'm finding the game dull a repetitive I'm finding the controls really awkward. You have to keep tapping the run button to sprint and hold it to run which isn't really worth it as it's not really any faster than walking. When you’re driving a boat you can press forward and back make the nose of the boat raise or lower, but this has no effect on the overall speed of the boat but the controls that leave me totally mystified are for the helicopter.

The flight controls are a lot like those knobs in a shower were you have to be a safe cracker to get the water at just the right temperature. You have to push forward on the left thumb stick just the right amount while applying just enough acceleration on the right trigger, while doing all this you have to use left and right bumpers to turn. That's 3 digits working together, but then on the final mission you find yourself in a helicopter and have to use X to fire the guns. Is it just me or is this really complicated? Especially when you compare this to say Crackdown 2 where left and right bumpers control altitude while right stick is the camera, and left stick is main controls. You then use left and right triggers to fire weapons, Oh yeah and you can press the left stick to get a boost.

You may think that I may just be me hating on GTA IV, I think that's what all the cool kids are saying now a days, but really I'm not. Red Dead is a better game by far, I'm not sure if the story is longer or shorter than GTA but it defiantly held my interest a lot more than GTA did, and I think the control issues are probably something that I’m more than likely going to have to live with especially if I want to get some more of the achievements.

Friday LOL 02: They See Me Rollin'

2010-07-30T13:15:00.001+01:00

So I was having some trouble finding a GTA IV related LOL for this week and the funniest thing I noticed recently was this gif file based on the Katamari series of games. So here you go enjoy and have a good weekend.

Review: Singularity

2010-07-27T18:00:00.000+01:00

Singularity is an FPS (First Person Shooter) which takes place on a Secret Russian island where they were experimenting with a newly discovered element called "E99", the soviets version of atomic energy. Throught experimentation the Russians discover that E99 has the power to manipulate time and shortly after arriving on the island you fall through time back to the 1950s, where your presence causes the time-lines to change. It's then up to you to help a group of renegades to restore the time-lines to the way they were.

I really enjoyed the story and I found that it helped with setting the pace throughout the game. I did find that if you're not paying attention when you start you can miss some of the impact of the first few "decisions" you make in the game. The Graphics I thought were really good the effects when you use the TMD (Time mainpulaton device) on items worked really well, I also liked when items would retro grade around you.

One of the things I was a little disappointed in was you could only use the TMD in one way, press . Yahtzee made the same observation in his review, not that I'm comparing myself to him. The Graphics I thought were really good the effects when you use the TMD (Time mainpulaton device) on items worked really well. I also liked when items would retro grade around you.Although the shooting aspects of the game we're good I'm not sure if I can truly call this game an FPS as the set pieces are sporadic, it's not in the same league as the CoD games but I did find that it worked well enough.

This was one of the very few games that I thought I would try on the hardest difficulty and although there were a couple of sections that I did find to be quiet difficult I'm glad that I did start on Hard. I think I would go back and play it again, but it won't be anytime soon, not just because I've got plenty of other games to be getting on with but it will also allow me to forget the story somewhat so that I can get back into it.

Overall I found the game really enjoyable and if your looking for something a bit different to your usual FPS's then I definitely recommend that you pick this game up.

General Update 06: From Pacific City to Liberty City and back again

2010-07-26T08:03:00.000+01:00

So we come to the end of yet another weekend. I did quite well, I managed to clock up 10 achievements for 170 gamerscore. These were all in Crackdown 2, the other game I played this weekend was GTA IV. I went back to GTA as I have finished everything I can do on my own in Crackdown 2. I've still got some achievements left to get but these are co-op ones that I'm getting my friends to help me with.

GTA IV is still a grind especially as the main achievement I'm looking to get is Liberty City Minute, which is to complete the story in 30 real time hours. as this is the only missable achievement that will require a second play through and considering my distaste for the game I really don't want to have to play it again.

I did watch an Inside Xbox video on the dashboard from Comic Con about Spiderman Shattered Dimensions which, being a massive marvel fan, I am really looking forward to, another reason is one of the dimensions is based in the Noir universe.

I know I forgot to do a Friday LOL for the second week in a row, but work has been crazy busy and when I get in I just want to play games and chill out. So you'll have to forgive me, but to try and make up for it in some way I will try and get a couple of reviews up on the site during the week.

General Update 05: A birth (day), a wedding and lot and lots of grisly death

2010-07-21T14:00:00.002+01:00

As you may have noticed I didn’t do a Friday LOL on Friday, this was due to me going away for the weekend. It was my sisters Birthday and a friend’s wedding and I was in attendance of both. With being away I didn’t get much of a chance for getting any gaming in but considering I’ve not posted since last Friday an update on what I’ve been doing to avoid my bloggers responsibilities is probably warranted.

Crackdown 2 makes up the most of what I’ve been playing lately although I did download The Secret of Monkey Island 2: le chuck’s revenge Special Edition that was released last week. While I was at my sisters I did get to play on her Xbox but as it was her Birthday I didn’t play on my Gamertag I was on hers helping her to achieve the last two achievements for Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince.

The achievements in question were Master of Flying, which was to get 5 Stars for all of the Flying tasks, and Duelling Veteran, which was to score 5 Stars on 10 Duels. The Dueling achievement was fairly easy once you know how. But the flying one is only possible with practise. Getting both of those for my sister gave her her first 1000g game.

We are in the gaming release period drought, which is good for me as I still have a few games that I need to go back and finish. Red Faction: Guerrilla, Darksiders (which has had a sequel announced), Ghostbusters and the big one Dragon Age: Origins. Dragon Age has also had a Sequel announced from what’s been said about it it’s only going to have one character.

Friday LOL 01: Say That To His Face

2010-07-09T08:54:00.001+01:00

Seeing as I have been playing GTA IV recently I thought I would try and theme the first of my Friday LOL's. Thanks go to Bob's House of Video Games for letting me embed this into my Blog.

(Yes I aware that the image is overlapped by other items but I am still working on the way the blog looks, and it's something I will sort out.)

General Update 04: Patience!

2010-07-08T11:29:00.000+01:00

Hi All,

just another Quickie, I am working on changing the layout and colour scheme of my blog. So I just ask that you be patient.

Praggers

General Update 03: Liberty City Bound

2010-07-05T23:48:00.001+01:00

Howdy Gamer-folk,

It would appear that I've been slacking off on my blogger duties but don't worry I'm not dead, I have actually been quite busy. Last Friday I picked up Singularity, I was really enjoying it until I got stuck but then I did jump straight in on Hard. It is my theory that if you start on a harder difficulty then your learning curve will be much steeper but I also think that if you don't try this then any strategies that you have used for medium might not be applicable when playing on the harder setting. So I set a challenge for you dear reader next game you pick with a game with variable difficulty why not try going for a difficulty one up from what you're used to?

On Saturday I picked up another new release Lego Harry Potter. I really enjoyed this game as well, it's exactly what you would expect from a Lego game. With previous knowledge of all the Lego games I found I was able to breeze through it rather quickly. So I've now completed both Singularity as well as Lego Harry Potter, reviews to be posted soon, I promise.

So what else have I been up to as it has been a couple of weeks since my last post. Well a two weeks back the Crackdown 2 demo was released. I've not played on it much but I have enjoyed what I've played. The first time I loaded up the demo I was rushing around like a headless chicken trying to pick up a many orbs as I could. This soon stopped when I realised they weren't permanent. however there are 10 achievements that you can earn in the demo that will unlock when you play the full game.

Crackdown 2 is released at the end of the week and I have all of the Solo play achievements for Singularity so I've managed to borrow GTA IV off of a friend and have been running around Liberty City, it's not holding my attention as much as I would like and I'm still not seeing what the hype was all about. In fact I was hoping it would be a lot like Red Dead Redemptionbut it's not.

I have been working on trying to add another page to go along with my Review Leader Board. While I am still trying to work out how to display it, it will be my hall of Fame/Shame it will show all the game that I have gotten the full 1000G, 'Hall of Fame', as well as all those games where I'm lagging behind, 'Hall of Shame'. I will post an update when it is available.

General Update 02: Game Review Leader board

2010-06-18T17:45:00.000+01:00

Just a quick update to say you can now access a new page from the bar across the top that shows a leader board of all the games I've reviewed for my blog. I will be writing a post to explain what I look at in a game to reach it's score.

Quick bit of news as well, the Crackdown 2 Demo will be available from the Marketplace on Monday 21st June. I look forward to seeing you in Pacific City Agents!

General Update 01: E3 Presentations

2010-06-17T17:45:00.000+01:00

So this week has been fairly busy on the gaming news circuit with the Electronic Entertainment Expo, also known as E3. This is where the 3 big companies, Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo, are given a platform to show off/announce what they are going to be bringing us over the next year. I have watched all three of the presentations and I’m going to give a quick round up of the them and then give a summary of who I thought were the winners.

Microsoft

Microsoft got the ball rolling on the Monday morning starting with a game play demo of Call of Duty: Black Ops, which did look very smooth. This was followed by Metal Gear Solid: Rising which again looked very good as well. Gear of War 3 and Fable 3 also got a showing but the majority of the time was spent showing off Kinect. Most of the games shown for Kinect were those aimed at the casual gamer as well as those to be in competition with the Wii. They rounded up the announcement with the new look 360, the shiny black facia along with the touch effect buttons, a 250 gig hard drive and built in wireless router. It was also announced that the new Xbox was shipping that day and would be available in shops by the end of the week (for America). It would also be priced the same as the existing 360.

My main criticism with the Microsoft presentation was that its biggest segment, Kinect, was spent introducing the hardware and appealing it to families and children as well as the casual gamers. I want to know how the more hardcore games are going to make use of the technology. I’m not sold on the Kinect yet as I’m going to need more than just repackaged HD versions of Wii titles.

Nintendo

Next up on the Tuesday morning was Nintendo’s presentation. The biggest announcement was the Nintendo 3DS, which is the latest addition to the DS family. What makes this stand out more than the previous iterations was the fact that the top screen will use 3D without the need for the stupid glasses. They also announced a lot of new games for the Wii. For example Donkey Kong Country returns, the legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, Metroid M and Epic Mickey as well as a few new DS games like Golden Sun and Dragon Quest. They also announced a remake of Goldeneye, being a gamer I know that this was one of the major games that took multiplayer and helped to make it a big deal, however, I have a guilty confession. I’ve only played it once, at a friend’s house party, unfortunately the only thing I actually remember from that party was a new carpet and some very red squash.

Sony

Last but not least was the Sony Presentation. Sony opened with the announcement of 3D gaming as well as mentioning some titles that will be available from launch, Tiger Wood’s 2011, Killzone 3 and Gran Tourismo 5, however you will need to have a 3D tv as well as the silly glasses. Their next announcement was for their motion controller, the Playstation Move. They announced quite a few games for it and then proceeded to show a few of them as well, again Tiger Woods got a mention as well a game called Sorcery and it was also revealed that Move would ship in September. They then went on to announce a couple of exclusive deals with EA, Medal of Honor and Dead Space 2. These special editions would include re-mastered versions of previous games, Medal of Honor:Frontline and Dead Space:Extraction, along with Move functionality for Dead Space:Extraction. After this there were some announcements for the PSP, a new God of War game was teased as well. Their final reveal was for a game called Twisted Metal, which has been on each of the 2 previous Playstations; however I can’t recall ever hearing about it.

I did have a criticism about the Sony presentation and that was that they lowered themselves to having a dig at Microsoft when I didn’t feel it was necessary.

Summary

So to sum up it was a fairly underwhelming E3 this year the biggest reveal of the new Xbox was ruined by a leak the week before. If did feel to me as if Microsoft were complacent with what they had for their current hardcore fan base and were focusing on bringing new and casual gamers into the fold. Sony only seemed focused on trying to get 3D gaming and Move into everything they could but did have more in the way of games for hardcore gamers but my winner of E3 this year was Nintendo. They didn’t feel the need to insult anyone; they had a good line up of games and a good step forward in the hardware department with this 3DS.

So later on this year, in October, is the Eurogamer Expo in London. I am looking at making the trip to London and have a look around the booths. At the moment the line up hasn’t been revealed but I’m hoping that the Nintendo 3DS will be on display as I really want to see how well the 3D screen works. I’d also like to have a look and see just how well both Move and Kinect work. Now that E3 is over for another year I’m hoping that a line up will be revealed for Eurogamer Expo, E2UK. I’ll write a post closer to the time about what I will be looking forward to trying and seeing.

Monday Catch Up 01: Project Natal is Named!

2010-06-14T17:45:00.002+01:00

It's Monday and I hope everyone had a good weekend.

Mine was good, I managed to get a few more achievements on Red Dead Redemption so I've only got the multi-player achievements to get. I also played some more Half-Life 2 and I've got to say my review probably won't be very favourable. I'm not going to go into great detail at the moment as I need something to talk about in my review. Aside from those and a tiny splash of Applejack I didn't play much on the Xbox.

So last night was the big reveal of Project Natal or as it's now officially going to be marketed as 'Kinect'. I had heard a rumour that it was going to be called 'Wave', and I wasn't that impressed with the name and I'm not overly impressed with 'Kinect' either. I know a lot of people are comparing the name change with the Wii, which was called Revolution while in development.

So does the name aim to try and bring families together in their gaming, Kin and ect? Or is it a play on Kinaesthetics? Or kinetics? Or all of the above? There may have been something in the unveiling last night and if there was it's not been reported anywhere I've looked. But will the name mean anything? I'm thinking no, as it will depend more on how the games interact with it.

So far we have only seen marketing video clips of families playing together and how they are all playing high energy games, but I don't tend to play with my family I tend to play on my own and I want to know how 'Kinect' will affect me! Yes the various 'Kinect-' games will probably be bundled with it much in the same way Wii Sports and Wii play were but they don't interest me. What about people like Bethesda, like Epic, like Lionhead, like Treyarch? How are these big name developers going to make use of 'Kinect'? This is what will make or break it for me.

Lionhead have already said that Fable 3 will include 'Kinect' functionality, this is a good start, the fact that Fable 3 has a "Touch System" that will allow the character to interact with other characters as well as Non-player characters (NPC's) will probably have something to do with it. But this is all I've really heard I'm hoping that tonights live streamed show will hopefully reveal some more games from some of the better known developers and fingers crossed some functionality using 'Kinect'.

General Update 00: Change is a coming!

2010-06-10T13:15:00.006+01:00

Hello Gaming Fans!

Just a quick post today to say that I'm going to be looking at a more structured style for this blog, and hopefully a more consistent flow of updates. I'm looking at doing like this one General Updates, which will include various updates on the games I'm playing at the moment as well as demos I've tried, if any, as well as information I've read on anticipated upcoming games. I'm also going to be looking at putting updates on here to show what new releases are out that week both in retails as well as the download on the marketplace.

I'm also going to slightly change the style of my reviews, although the structure will stay the same I'm going to look at creating a proper structure for scoring. I'm still thinking about how I'm going to score them as well as an appropriate acronym for the score if I can. I will also try and go back and update previous reviews to use the new scoring method. In fact you might be able to help me. yes you. I know a couple of things I'm going to think about when I look at a game for example Controls, Story, Achievements, Graphics/Artwork and Atmosphere but I'm not sure what else to consider. If you know of anything feel free to comment below and don't worry though even though there will be a slight change I will still try and keep my reviews spoiler free.

As well as the two above changes I'm also going to start giving games a two hour preview, this will involve me playing a game for 2 hours, see what I did there, and then giving it a short preview of what I think of the game so far. This will hopefully give you readers an idea of the game before going out and buying it yourself.

Is there anything else that I can do on this blog that you think I'm missing? If you can think of anything feel free to leave comments in the form below, you can even do them anonymously.

Review: Dead Space

2010-06-02T17:30:00.000+01:00

Dead Space is a Horror/Thriller game from EA & Visceral Games following the story of Engineer Isaac Clarke as you explore the USG Ishimura and try to find out what happened. The story starts with you and the rest of your team finding the Ishimura to help it with some issue they were having. When you get there, you find the ship deserted and running silent. Working your way through the ship you find out more about what happened to the ship and it's crew.

This game knows how to build tension I remember on my first play through I entered a corridor and I saw a shadow pass on the wall in front of me as something walked behind me when I got back to the corridor it had gone. I was half expecting to be ambushed further down the corridor but I wasn't, it actually happened a little later on.

I played the game on Normal as well as on Impossible. I can't really say if impossible was any harder as I was trying to get the one gun achievement so I was making it harder for myself. I also found that if you play with just the one gun it ramps the tension up even further as you're trying to manage your ammo as well as your health and the feeling of uselessness does help build the tension, I'm glad I tried both of those achievements on the same play through, especially with two of the bosses which are absolutely huge and all you have is the plasma cutter, I felt hopeless but when they fell the feeling of achievement was fantastic.

I recommend this game if you want a decent story and a fairly decent scare. I also recommend trying the Impossible and one gun play through if you're looking for a challenge.

Yet Another Bank Holiday 'Round up'

2010-06-01T23:17:00.000+01:00

Yes we have had another bank holiday weekend and this meant more gaming for me and I really do need more time for gaming, in fact I should probably be playing right now but then how would you know how I was getting on?

So what was I playing? Well seeing as I had finished Alan Wake I thought I would try something a bit different. I ordered Red Dead Redemption early last week and it turned up on Thursday so I've been playing that but I saw that Doom 2 was released on XBLA (Xbox Live Arcade). So on Friday I downloaded the demo as well as the one for Doom. It was fantastic, and seeing as the original had dropped in price to 400MSP (Microsoft points) I bit the bullet and bought it.

I also saw on my Twitter feed, Gamerpraggers if you want to follow me, that the Ninety-Nine Nights 2 demo was released, however when I went to look for it however I was Schtupped, as it looks like it was only released in the States. I have sent a message to SUAM (Sent you a Message) to see if it's going to be coming out over here, so who knows I might get a mention on Saturday. Although now I think of it I didn't put my gamertag on the message so it might not be me getting the mention! Damn it!

So apart from riding my way across the wild plains for southern America and Mexico, and shooting demon spawn from hell on Mars' moon Phobos I also broke the 40K barrier. I've also been thinking about possibly setting myself a challenge but I'm not sure yet what to set, it might be to do with raising my percentages as at the moment, according to xbox360Achievements.com, my achievements Percentage is 59% and my points percentage is 58%. So my challenge could be to raise one or both to over a certain percentage but that's not very original so I think more thought will be needed before I decide on something.

So things will probably be a bit quiet for the next couple of weeks and then it will get quite hectic as we have E3, which will be huge as well as interesting as we'll finally get to see what's been done with natal as well as find out it's real name, as well Lego Harry Potter: Years 1-4, and Singularity released on the same day then I have a week before Crackdown 2. I think I'm going to need a plan. . . but you can count on me, to at least try, to blog about what comes out of E3.

Bank Holiday Weekend Round Up

2010-05-25T13:30:00.003+01:00

Yes I know I've been a little lax on both my twitter and my blog, and no I don't have a good excuse. In fact I even had an entry written about the last bank holiday weekend but it's so out of date that I've scrapped it and started a new post.

I have now fully recovered from my "Gamer's Apathy" and completed Dead Space for the third time. I've even got all of the achievements for it and it is possible to beat the game on Impossible with only the plasma cutter. I've also completed Alan Wake. I've only completed it once so far and it does need another play through but I still need a decent walkthrough for it as there are a couple of achievements that I'm not sure how to get, as well as a list of collectables. One thing I am proud of is that my first play through was on Hard not Normal. Go me!

Hopefully by the end of the week I should be mounted on my steed with my pistol at my side ready to cause some mayhem in the wild west, with Red Dead Redemption.

I will also aim to try and get another post up before the end of the week. Here is a list of what you can hopefully expect from me in the next couple of weeks post wise;

Dante's Inferno - Review
Dead Space - Review
Alan Wake - Review
Bank Holiday Progress

Gamers Apathy!

2010-05-20T08:22:00.000+01:00

I've not actually done much gaming recently mostly because I've not really been in the mind set to do it. I think a lot of it has come from knocking out Dante's Inferno in 4 hours. Don't get me wrong it was still a good game, but some friends have made comments that have made me think. "Am I getting everything out of these games?"

In my defence Dante's inferno isn't the longest of games, nether was Bioshock 2, but did this take anything away from the game play? In my opinion no, I was still enjoying the story, and in the case of Bioshock 2 was exploring to get everything out of it that I could. I was also looking for the little nods that they were giving to the first game.

So what about enjoyment? Am I cutting down my enjoyment because I'm running through the games quickly? Now I'm not in anyway thinking "Maybe it's because I'm just so kick ass at gaming?" I know for a fact that I'm not, one look at which achievements I've got on CoD:WaW shows you that I only got halfway through on Veteran difficulty.

I did manage to get all of the collectables in Dante's Inferno, so in my defence I would say that I have gotten more out of the game than most people. Yes I did use a guide to find some of them but that was only on my second play-through, and it was only a hand full that I had missed.

So where does that leave me? well in my opinion I think that I am getting the most out of what I'm playing. In fact in the case of both Bioshock 2 and Dante's Inferno even Ironman, with each of these games I've played through twice. I don't think that you can only gauge enjoyment on how long you play a game, you also need to think about what you got from the game.

Hellish Weekend

2010-04-19T18:00:00.000+01:00

Another weekend gone and what a nice weekend it was weather-wise. The past week has been a bit jumbled as I’ve been trying out my new games. I started Dante’s Inferno, and then tried Darksiders for a bit. Saturday night I completed Dante’s Inferno. Sunday I completed it again after playing through on a new game+ (a new game with my stats from the first play through). Sunday afternoon I tried out Red Faction Guerrilla and I like it, it’s a bit like Borderlands crossed with The Saboteur, I also had a jam on Lego Rock Band. As I’ve yet to try Half Life, I think that will be next, might give that a go tonight.

That’s all I’ve been up to so what about there in the real world? Well if you remember a few weeks ago I posted about a viral website, www.GKnova6.com which was for a game that as yet still remains unknown. As the first message was decoded it was found to mention April Week 2, this turns out was April 9^th, when the website was updated. People have already worked out the latest message, which, after a slight spelling mistake lead to a local papers wanted section, which gave a, at first glance, random set of letters with a message “you can find me at the cheeping River. It’s near the Cheering Viper.” It was worked out that the clue for the cipher came from the last sentence. And once the message was decoded gave out co-ordinates for several important land marks, including the white house, the CIA headquarters and NORAD. For more details on the exact details of the latest update check out Move Viral.

But does this actually help us? In Short, No. we are a little closer to working out who though as Bethesda has come forward and publically said that this site is nothing to do with them which leaves COD and Singularity. If I find more information I will up date.

Review: Bioshock 2

2010-04-16T08:00:00.001+01:00

In Bioshock 2 we return to the deep sea dystopia and this time play as a Big Daddy, one of the first Big Daddy’s in fact. The emotional bond between yourself and your little sister means that unless you find her you will slip into a coma due to one of the fail safe mechanisms created to keep you in check. This is how your adventure starts, many of the game mechanics that existed in the Bioshock are back including the Big Daddy’s you’re used to; the plasmids and gene tonics as well as some old and some new weapons, which you can now dual wield with plasmids.

The story was enjoyable, and the references to the original game are there if you are willing to look for them. There are some twists to the story that while the events themselves aren’t that predictable the timings are. However the visuals and soundtrack are much the same as the first with the 50’s/60’s art deco style in disrepair throughout. The locations despite being new to the player feel the same as in the first game and that’s pretty much how the game entire game feels.

Now don’t get me wrong I’m not saying the game is bad, but it does feel like slipping into the same old cardigan and slippers that we’re used to and not in the good way. The locations and some of the tasks are really familiar. However some things have changed, the weapon system now lets you use your plasmids and weapons at the same time meaning you’re not wasting time swapping out your Electrobolt plasmid for your solid slug shotgun just in time to blow off a Big Daddy’s helmet before he skewers you on his arm drill. You can zap and blast to your hearts content. The hacking mini game is better this time round instead of playing the pipes mini game you have to stop a waving pin in the middle of the “safe” zone, and the game isn’t paused while doing this, so you need to keep your wits about you.

Overall I would say get Bioshock 2 if you enjoyed the first one, if you’ve not played the first one then I would say play that rather than head straight in with this sequel. I personally would have liked a little more of a new feel to the game but enjoyed what was on offer, and those changes that have been made do help.

I have tried the multi player and found it really enjoyable. It’s your basic online multiplayer games, capture the flag, domination, last person standing and all out war that you’re used to if you play games like COD etc, however each has a Bioshock twist. The flags are sisters and you play as normal splicers. There is a back story for each of the characters that you can choose, and you level up according to how well you do in the games. You don’t get experience points but ADAM instead, with higher levels unlocking more plasmids, gene tonics and weapons as well as masks and melee weapons as well.

The thing the multiplayer was missing for me was my friends, but I think that can be said about any multiplayer game like this. My favourite thing about this mode was that all the locations and weapons in this mode were from the first game. So you could be running around the farmers Market with the cross bow, or through arcadia, or be camped up in Eve’s garden waiting for an unsuspecting victim.

Review: The Last Remnant

2010-04-15T13:30:00.000+01:00

The Last Remnant was the second Xbox 360 exclusive from Square-Enix. It follows the story of Rush Sykes and his search for his sister who was kidnapped from their home. In his search he meets the Marquis of Athlum, Lord David, pronounced Daveed, and his generals.

The most noticeable thing about this game was the battle system. In a break from tradition you didn’t control your main character you controlled their union or team of up to 5 people. You didn’t have control over each members actions rather gave them a broad idea, for example use magic attacks called mystic arts, or combat attacks called combat arts. Each member then used a corresponding action depending on how many Action Points the union had.

The story was enough to keep me playing, I just got stuck on a side quest so had to start again, I explain why in the next paragraph. The battles may seem complicated but they can be picked up really quickly and give you something a bit more to think about. The graphics can get a little heavy when you have a lot of characters/enemies on the battle field, but it’s generally not too bad.

My biggest annoyance with this game was the levelling up system. You don’t get experience from each monster you kill, instead your skills level up depending on the use of them. Now the game tells you to try and get as many monsters into a battle as possible to increase your battle rank, however what you really need to do is avoid battles as much as possible as your stat upgrades come from fighting monsters that are stronger than you. It took me most of a play through to find this out and then started again following the tips I had found on how to do better.

Overall I enjoyed the Last Remnant once I was playing properly. The storyline is strong and the game play is decent. If you want something a bit different to your turn-based JRPG’s then give Last Remnant a go. As a little nugget of gaming gold the voice actor who plays Rush was one of the original Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers.

Weekend in Rapture

2010-04-12T12:30:00.001+01:00

After last week’s poor attempt at a gaming weekend I was determined to make up for it, and as I had purchased Bioshock 2 it was only fair that I worked on that, which I did and completed. I hope to try and get the review up shortly, but I’ll have to do the Last Remnant review first. I also tried the multiplayer as well in the hopes of trying to get all the achievements, and I’ve got to say I actually enjoyed it. Sunday I started again on hard to wrap up the last of the solo achievements and I’m already halfway through again.

On Friday I also placed an order with Game.co.uk, as they currently have a sale on. I’ve kinda splashed out some new some old; it’s a bit of a balance. I’ve ordered Dante’s Inferno, Red Faction: Guerilla, The Orange Box and Darksiders. Incidentally that’s also the planned play order as well, although I may have to try each one first! They’ve been dispatched today but I’m hoping to get another night on Bioshock 2 in the hope of finishing on hard before I start the new games. We’ll see though as I don’t fancy taking on 4 big daddy’s and then a big sister especially as I have low ammunition.

I’ve also joined Twitter so feel free to follow me, I’ll update there to let everyone know when new blog posts are done, I’ll also aim to update with game progress as well. My Twitter name is @Gamerpraggers. I’m hopefully going to try and put a feed up on this blog so you can see my tweets if you don’t end up following me.

UPDATE: I've now completed Bioshock 2 on hard, wohoo go me. It wasn't as bas as I thought it would be but I'm glad I had already completed it with our using the Vita-Chambers. The other Solo achievement I had to get was all of the Power to the people stations, I got that one as well. So now I'm all ready for my new games!

Review: Iron Man

2010-04-11T17:46:00.001+01:00

Being a Big Marvel Fan and a fan of the film I was excited about getting this game, despite it getting really bad reviews. I enjoyed playing the game, it was fairly short in that I finished it in about a week. It then took me another week to get the rest of the achievements.

The game loosely follows the movie although much like Xmen Origins: Wolverine it adds a bit more story so I'm not really sure you can call it a movie tie in. It starts with Tony Stark escaping from capture and then getting the suit up and running and apart from the final boss that's all the game and the movie have in common. The other missions are following Tony as he takes on the people using his weapons and destroying them.

The controls do take a little getting used to, I found the flying most difficult. but the fact that you can "re-route" power to various different areas to improve different aspects was a good one. So you could fly faster if trying to avoid a target or increase your melee attacks, or your repulsers or to your armour.

I had hoped to do the game in one play through unfortunately starting on hard was too hard for me. However by playing through on easy first I was able to unlock all the extra suits which you can then use in the missions. Including one suit that has a shield which I didn't work out how to use until the second to last mission, this made a lot of difference.

The achievements weren't too difficult, the hardest one to get was the playing through on hard, but then that's not too surprising. Overall I liked the game, it was easy enough to get into, and I would recommend this game to anyone who likes either marvel or the film.

Review: The Saboteur

2010-04-09T20:17:00.002+01:00

Pandemic, the developers of The Saboteur, were one of the unlucky companies that has had to shut it's doors, and in this case before their product had even shipped to stores. I liked the look of the game from what little I had seen, and when I had it as one of the choices in my elite bundle it was difficult not to choose it.

I'm glad that I did take the chance and pick this game as I really enjoyed playing it. The game is set in Nazi occupied Paris, you play as the Irish rogue Sean Devlin, a mechanic caught up in the occupation after a visit to a motor sport race in Germany. You then join the French resistance and help in liberating Paris from the Nazis.

In my opinion the game plays like Assassin's Creed crossed with GTA. you can run from roof top to roof top and then fall to the floor and then blast a Nazi in the face with a shotgun.

Overall the game works really well, but there were a couple of things that bugged me with it though. The game gives you "free-play events" which are much like the races and delivery tasks in Assassin's Creed 2 however I did feel that there were too many of these. Also during the game when you died you're spawned at the closest hideout, unfortunately once the main story is finished you only spawn at the first one.

I did like the awards system that allowed you to unlock other abilities and weapons and cars. Speaking of cars you can collect cars and take them back to a resistance garage and you could then keep them, I felt this could have worked with the weapons as well. I also liked the artistic style that had areas that haven't been liberated were in black and white, while areas that have been liberated were in colour.

Overall I recommend this game if you liked Assassins Creed or GTA, although I personally didn't like GTA IV, otherwise try it if you looking for something new.

Curiosity

2010-04-06T01:30:00.001+01:00

While reading some of my news updates I saw one that I left, and I now wish I hadn’t. The title on the RSS feed was “A Mystery USB Drive Arrived Today”. I assumed that this was to do with the recent update that is coming to the Xbox to allow USB drives to be used as additional storage. However upon ready this story it would appear that it’s a viral marketing campaign, much like the Bioshock 2 something in the sea website, for a new game that has yet to be revealed. A USB drive was sent to various gaming sites, such as IGN and Joystiq as well as some COD fan sites, in a plain manila envelope with no return address, however there was a post mark from Maryland, America.

The drive contained 2 items. An audio file with a man’s voice reading out a quote, "What we wish, we readily believe, and what we ourselves think, we imagine others think also", as well as "Don't believe everything you see." followed by this sequence of letters:

MOD ZZZ JNQRYD3FRP

The other item was a text document with the following words in “Cryptography; Isotope; Philanthropy; Hydrogen; Ember; Rebirth”.

The Quote was by Julius Caesar and applying a Caesar cipher, with a shift of three, to the letter sequence reveals it to spell WWWGKNOVA6COM which does in fact lead to a website, with a television set which can be tuned using the dial. The set appears to repeat a message, a quote and then “NOVASIX” repeated along with various images.

Some clever bod, over at joystiq.com has found that the quote is from Francis Bacon, and he like Caesar has a cipher named after him. Bacon’s cipher uses different type faces to hide a message in plain sight, like some robots I know of ;). In the case of this message the “NOVASIX” is spelt by two voices, one male and one female. With the bacon cipher the repeated spelling of “NOVASIX” becomes “April Week Two”

So what does this mean? There are several opinions on which game this might mean, the first is that it’s for the new Fallout Game, Fallout: New Vegas, with the nuclear references it’s possibly and with Maryland being the home of Bethesda it’s defiantly possible. However others seem to think that it might be a reference to the new Call of Duty title this year. The text in the text file seems to contain a Google analytics code use by Activision. But there is a third possibility, and it’s a game that I’ve been looking forward to since I first read about it, and that is Singularity. However it may also be something completely different. I guess we’ll have to wait and see but I will be watching the website and I will update if I hear anything else.

Easter Bank Holiday Weekend

2010-04-05T22:42:00.000+01:00

So with a 4 day bank holiday weekend you would have thought that for someone like me that would mean long sessions on the Xbox and plenty of gaming, and you would be right. However that wasn't the way it turned out it all started so well . . .

. . . Thursday night I managed to get to the final boss, so Friday I spent most of the day grinding on Last Remnant in preparation for that fight. I also had one other achievement that I needed to get as well, Guru of the Mystic, which was going to need a lot of patience for. By Friday evening I was almost ready for the final boss.

Saturday once I had woken up I tried to finish off the last couple of things to be ready for the final boss however it was going to take along time for that, I needed a character to gain a lot more money but there was no easy way for this to happen, so I decided that I would leave it for the time being and I would go and have a crack at the final boss and if he still wiped the floor with me I would try and continue getting this character to learn a special move.

I was also ready for the final task on the Guru of the Mystic achievement which could be taken care of en-route to the final boss fight, and was. So I was all set everything was in place did I do it? No, I got well and truly whipped. Same goes for the second and third tries, which included a slight reshuffle on my tactics but still no joy. In the end I combined my 4 teams into 2 super teams, one for combat the other for healing, and ended up handing the final boss his ass on a plate, in two turns.

After a good few sighs of relief I put the game away, it was a hard slog and the grinding was getting boring after a while. I then had to decide what I was going to play next, which is Bioshock 2. I didn't get a chance to play it as I was heading to the cinema with my girlfriend to see Kick-Ass, which is a really good film. We then had dinner after the film before coming home and starting Bioshock 2.

Sunday everything started going wrong, I woke up early with back pain but this soon changed to a pain across my chest which I couldn't shake, and with being in pain concentrating on a game was out of the question. So Sunday was pretty much written off, however I was feeling better in the evening. Today, Monday, I played some more Bioshock, but the pain has returned so I've left the Xbox off this evening.

So yeah not the gaming productive weekend I had hoped for, but I have now finished Last remnant which is a load off my mind. It does now bring the total of games I've maxed out on gamer score up to 23. I hope you had a good Easter weekend as well.

A[long time coming] Look To The Future. . .

2010-04-01T08:30:00.002+01:00

So I read or heard somewhere recently that this year Microsoft has got a big name game every month this year, doing a quick search I found the quote on the OXM site. "Starting in January we have like a triple A exclusive title pretty much every month for the first half of the year," Aaron Greenberg. He then went on to say "You've got Mass Effect 2, you've got Splinter Cell, you've got Alan Wake, you've got Crackdown 2...you've [also] got things like Fable 3 and Halo: Reach coming later that year. Those are just the exclusives." So I thought I’d reflect on this and give my opinion on some of the hottest games I'm looking forward to this year. So let’s jump straight in with . . .

Mass Effect 2

The much anticipated sequel is set 2 years after the original and follows the exploits of Commander Shepard and his preparation for the invasion of the reapers. Mass Effect 2 is out now, and as I’ve already mentioned I’ve actually completed it as well. My review will be uploaded shortly.

Alan Wake

I'm really looking forward to this game, I saw a clip of the game play in the E3 2009 Keynote speech, and it looked fantastic. So what is it? It’s a horror survival game where you play Alan Wake a writer who’s having some trouble with his craft, and decides there is no time like the present to take some time off with his wife. While away he realises he is actually in one of his stories. That’s the setup and I’ve got to say I’m hooked already, it’s also an XBOX 360 exclusive.

Crackdown 2

This was another game that was announced at last years E3 event and at the time i hadn't played the original. However I picked up the original on the cheap after a friend also recommended it to me and I was very impressed. It's a good game with an interesting story which I really enjoyed playing. More details have been released now and I'm really excited to see how they have improved on the original.

Fable 3

Lionhead studio's biggest franchise is set to follow up with Fable III later on this year. With details emerging that there will be no health bar opting instead for a more Call of Duty/Mass Effect display where the screen will convey your health, a lack of experience points meaning your "level" will be derived from your interactions with the NPC's (Non-Player Characters). I've also heard that there is no fighting in the first 1 hour of game play. The story it's self is set 50 years after the events of Fable II.

Halo:Reach

There is a lot of hype surrounding this game probably due to it being the last proper Halo Game. I say that because Bungie is handing over the Halo name to Microsoft owned 343 studios. While details are scarce the multiplayer Beta will be launched on May 3rd with invitations included in last years Halo 3:ODST.

Review: Mass Effect 2

2010-03-31T18:00:00.001+01:00

To say I am a Mass Effect Fan would probably be an understatement, so I was very much looking forward to this release. Sequels are very tricky to get right, as from a publisher/developer stand point you want to give the fans what they want as well as make it new and not feel like it’s just more of the same. So was I going to be disappointed by Mass Effect 2? The answer in short is not likely!
The story follows on directly from the first game and makes you feel like you've hardly been away, it's a strong story as well. The new characters are introduced well and while you may not feel as close to them as you did to Wrex, Garrus, Kaiden, Tali, Liara and Ashley you do still build up a relationship with them. I think that a lot of the reason you don't feel close to them is because there are more. In the first game there were 6 fellow crew mates that you could choose from, but in this game you have 10, 11 if you have the DLC, characters to choose from.
The level system, has been changed as well you no longer get experience from killing enemies but from completing the missions, and the weapons system now relies on upgrades. However the use of guns has also been changed, you now have ammo, in the form of heat clips, to consider. This is explained in a codex that you pick up, I personally think the idea works, but I don't like it as it's a distraction. You also have to upgrade the weapons using resources that you mine from a planet’s surface. Technically it's a little mini game but I found it tedious and boring after a while. It was the weakest part of the game for me, but I have thought of a way to make it better. A scan of the entire planet could be done from orbit, much like the first one and a probe launched from the ship the mine would be self maintained with the player swinging by at a later time to pick up the resources collected in their absence. the amount collected would depend on how rich the supply is. Side missions could also call for the player to defend a mine.
I really enjoyed playing Mass Effect 2. The story is really strong and should lead well into Mass Effect 3, especially after the cliff-hanger at the end of the game. However I did have to stop playing I was trying to work on the Insanity achievement but I got stuck so before I ended up hating the game I moved on to something else.

Last Remnant? more like Lost Remnant!

2010-03-22T23:27:00.000Z

As you may have noticed I've not written in a while. I would like to say that this was because I've been busy putting the finishing touches on some of the many posts that I have been promising over the past couple of months, or that I was working hard on playing Final Fantasy XIII, or that I had been abducted by aliens. Unfortunately it's not the case for any of the above. So here is a quick run down of what I've been up to.

After completing Wolverine I was in a Marvel Mood, however with a backlog of games only just a little shorter than the list of up coming games, I want to get my grubby little gamer hands on, I didn't feel I could justify getting another game. But my girlfriend helped me out but buying me Iron Man. However I didn't play it straight away. I decided that, as I was most of the way through playing The Saboteur, I would finish it first.

I finished Iron Man in about a week and it took me another week to whore all the achievements. I liked it, mostly because I'm a Marvel Fan Boy, but also I got to play as Iron Man, I mean who wouldn't want to be a millionaire Playboy genius! However there were some very frustrating moments, but I will explain more about those in the review.

After that I thought I would get my fill of JRPG's, what with the then upcoming release of Final Fantasy XIII, so I dusted off my copy of Last Remnant and picked up where I left off. Unfortunately the save file I had going was past a certain point so i had to go back a bit and try again, which has turned out to be a blessing in disguise as I'm actually doing better than I was.

And that's pretty much it, I've taken a step back from playing everyday as my gf has been playing FF13. I will get around to it at some point, but not yet. I've still got Dragon Age, Left4Dead2, Ghostbusters and Dead Space from before Christmas, as well as BioShock 2, Dante's Inferno and numerous others that I still want to buy, I'm sure I will be kept busy.

Review: X-Men Origins:Wolverine

2010-03-03T08:00:00.003Z

Having seen the film and hearing that this game wasn’t just a movie tie in game I was really interested to play it. As I mentioned in a previous blog post, Dude! Where’s my save file, I started and then had a break of about a month or so before I was able to get back into playing it.

Being a Marvel Geek it wasn’t going to take much to convince me the game was good. It looked great and played really well, the story line was easy enough to follow and pretty much built upon what the film had already established. I say built upon as it used its own artistic license to fill in a few of the blanks especially in regards to the Africa mission.

The combat was easy to get to grips with and worked really well, as did the levelling up system. The idea of having special attacks for each type of unit worked well to make the combat varied enough even if I was using the same move. Now I will add here that it wasn’t because the other combos were complicated or hard to pull off, but I found that the old adage KISS, Keep It Simple Stupid, held ground a lot. I mean why pull of complicated combos when a simple 1, 2 will work just as well.

Overall I found the game really enjoyable, in fact the last achievement I had to get was to complete the game on Hard which while not being over the top stupidly hard like some other games I could mention, it was still challenging enough to be called Hard. If you enjoy Marvel or the Wolverine film then do pick this up as it’s a good, fun mauler.

Review: Lego Indiana Jones

2010-03-02T18:00:00.006Z

Lego Indy is in much the same vein as the Lego Star Wars games, in that it follows the story of the 3 films. I got this game after playing Lego Star Wars which I thoroughly enjoyed despite not been that big a fan of the films. I was hoping the same would apply to Lego Indy. I was wrong. Although enjoyable to start with the novelty soon wore off. I started playing the game with my Girlfriend however after we had gone through all the levels the first time it was getting difficult to persuade her to play, not because she’s not a gamer, she is, but because she was bored of it.

I know what she meant because it was, it didn’t have that something that Lego Star Wars or Lego Batman had. Maybe it’s because I’m not that big an Indy fan or maybe it’s because the game is lacking, I don’t know for certain but I did manage to stick through it and get all 1000g. I am a Gamerscore whore after all. The achievements being a Lego game are easy enough to get some are a little time consuming especially the using of abilities achievements.

Overall I would say if you’re a fan of the films or if you really need a Lego game fix until Lego Harry Potter years 1-4 is released then I do think you should pick it up, otherwise I’d probably say leave it, there are more enjoyable games out there to play. So to sum up this is the weakest Lego game at the moment but not a completely horrible game.

“Busy” Weekend

2010-03-01T08:30:00.002Z

Another weekend done with and another game completed as well. Friday night I completed X-men Origins: Wolverine on Hard which game me the last Achievement for the 1000G, the review will be up this week so look out for that. I was then able to get back to playing The Saboteur. I must be most of the way through the story now but I know that completing a lot of the free play events will take up a lot of time.

After The Saboteur I have a choice do I play Ghostbusters, Ironman or Dragon Age: Origins? I have started on both Ghostbusters and DA:O but Ironman is a new one. I’m leaning towards Ironman as I’m interested to see what it’s like, but I do know It didn’t get very good reviews.

So what have you been playing recently? Also does anyone know of any other good Marvel games on the Xbox 360?

Dude, where’s my Save File?

2010-02-24T18:00:00.001Z

It’s been a while since my last post, but I have been busy the past couple of weeks not just with work but with my gaming and socialising. It was also my birthday last week, and I was away for a couple of days however I was able to pick up my X-Men Origins: Wolverine save file as recently I’ve been playing on several Xbox’s so to make things easier I’ve been using a Memory Unit to move my Profile around but I also need to remember to pick up the save files.

At Christmas I went to visit my sister and started playing X-Men Origins: Wolverine. When I got home I was moving my profile and save games off the memory unit onto my main console but couldn’t find the save file for Wolverine, as I had got fairly far I didn’t want to start again so I left it on the shelf until I went back for my birthday. When I booted up my sisters Xbox I still couldn’t find the save file. But when I loaded up the game I could still continue from where I got to. I swapped out the memory unit so I was just on the hard drive still could continue. Just the hard drive could still continue. So I have no idea where the game is held. But I have now finished it, aside from 2 achievements, Walking Death and Devil’s Brigade. Which are to complete the game on Hard and collect all the dog tags. I should be starting that tonight.

What else have I been up to, I went to see a friend of my who hurt his foot while moving house, so they’ve been tied up and we’ve not seen them for ages, but we managed to get together one weekend and had a few games on the Xbox. I was also able to pick up Lego Indiana Jones which I lent him so I was able to finish that which I have now done, look out for the review coming soon as well as for Wolverine.

Once I’ve finished Wolverine I should be back to The Saboteur I’m slowly getting through the free play events before I carry on with the story, but I still have some work to do on getting some of the perks.

Online Play For All?

2010-02-10T08:08:00.000Z

How do you people feel about online play? Well according to an article on IGN EA Plans Online Play, DLC For All New Titles
I've got to say I'm very scepticle about this news, I have played online and there are games that are specifically designed with online multi-player in mind, for example games like Call of Duty, Left4Dead, Left4Dead2 and Burnout Paradise. The best example out of those titles is Left4Dead, it's a multi-player game with a solo campaign. The reverse can be said of Bioshock where it was an excellent solo play game with an excellent story, graphics and atmosphere the developers decided that it needed a multi-player mode which they released with the PS3 Edition, and have developed that idea for the upcoming sequel.

Looking at the titles EA have released so far you have both the Mass Effect games, Dragon Age:Origins which has recently had a sequel announced, Dante's Inferno and The Saboteur. All of these games are single player and we play them for the story, not to reach a cut scene and have your mates talk all over it, I get annoyed when my girlfriend asks if I wanted a drink while I was trying to find out why a massive alien hadn't just killed my where I stood. Now don't get me wrong I know that the article isn't saying that all games will have a multiplayer storyline, but have some sort of multiplayer mode.

Another good example of this sort of thing is Assassins Creed 2. Ubisoft have created the Uplay system an in-game system for downloading extras and additional Downloadable content for certain games. You pay for these by unlocking uplay points by doing certain actions in the game. One of these is an arena that you can play against your friends, I don't see the point personally, because you only have a set number of moves that your friend will know as well, it's like playing rock, paper, scissors. There is no skill and this is surely the whole point of multi-player Vs. modes, showing off your skills against other opponents. I could be wrong about this as I've not played it personally.

A lot of this will depend on how well the multi-player is done, with the Bioshock 2 example, 2K have a completely separate development team working on the multi-player platform so it's not supposed to feel like it's been tacked on.

What Have I Been Doing?

2010-02-05T00:29:00.000Z

I know I said I was going to try and write an entry every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, but I let it slip a bit this week but thats probably due to playing Mass Effect 2. However with posting this update, then there will have been 2 updates this week so it's only one that has been missed, which isn't too bad.

As I said in a previous post I recently bought Mass Effect 2. I've now completed the story, however I'm still working towards 2 more achievements. I've only got Warp Specialist - Warp the barriers of 25 enemies, and the biggest one Insane - Complete the game on the Insanity Difficulty. The latter I am finding a lot more difficult than when trying to complete the first game on Insanity, but as was pointed out earlier today, when you were continuing a game you already head decent weapons, but this time round you have to wait for the upgrades to come, although you do start with the main weapons.

I have seen the teaser trailer for Fallout: New Vegas. Although it's only a teaser trailer and not designed to give anything away, I'm sure there will be plenty of speculation as to what it will include. I'm guessing the figure at the end is either someone from the Brotherhood of Steel or it's the character that you will be playing.

So what does the near future hold for me on the gaming scene? Well, I'm hoping to finish off Mass Effect 2 to the full 1015G (go Figure!), and as the neither pick up Dragon Age: Origins again or maybe go back and pick up The Saboteur. However we are only 4 days away from Bioshock 2 being released, and I'm really interested in that as well, but what with my birthday coming up I've already decided that I'm not going to be getting any games as I already have a large back log of games.

Review: Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2

2010-02-02T18:00:00.001Z

Marvel Ultimate alliance 2 follows the secret and civil war story arcs from the Comics, and then throws in an interesting story twist for the final Act. Having read the civil war story in the Marvel Comics I was happy with the way they handled the story. As you can imagine most of the major players from the first game are back such as iron man, captain America and Col. Fury.

The graphics and story line are much improved over the first game, and the choice of characters should appeal to a wide audience. With the story blurring the lines between good guys and bad guys it also allows for some characters who would typically be called bad guys, for example Venom and Green Goblin.

The combat has remained pretty much the same, with it being simple to get the hang of, but the major attacks that you had in the first game now come in the form of fusions. This allows two of your party to team up and use their abilities together, which in my opinion is a good addition to the game.

The Achievements were fairly straight forward if not a little tedious in places, for example defeating the majority of the bosses on super heroic or legendary difficulty which actually leads me onto my one major peeve of the game, the stats menu. In this menu you can see various stats so you are able to see how far along with an achievement you are. However if you complete a level with our a revival, then that gets marked as done no matter what difficulty you do it on. This can get a little confusing if your first play through was on heroic, and your next was on Legendary.

Overall the improvements to game play and graphics have really bolstered this game, it was enjoyable to play as well as act out one of the more dramatic story arcs of the Marvel universe with only minor issues while going for the full 1000g.You should get this game if you’re into the Marvel Comics or enjoyed the first one.

There is a DLC package out with a few new characters and a few new maps/missions to try along with Gamerscore. I’ve got enough in my back log without having to add anything else to it, so it’s one hold for the moment.

On A Suicide Mission!

2010-01-29T08:28:00.001Z

You may have noticed that I've done a lot of reviews recently, but this is only because I've actually managed to finish a game and get all the achievements. It's ironic that since starting this blog I've actually completed more games to the full 1000G than I had done previously.

I'm very excited today as I'm about an hour away from going and picking up, in my opinion, the most anticipated game of this year, so far. Mass Effect 2. In preparation for this I booted up my previous save games. I then downloaded the "Pinnacle Station" DLC. It was a good combat refresher and I did enjoy it although when you fail a scenario it took a while to actually get back to be able to retry the mission. At the end of the DLC you get a retirement pad of the Admiral running the station, which will be interesting to see if you carry forward the retirement home.

Speaking of carrying through previous save games brings me to my main dilemma, do I start a brand new game with a brand new character or do I use one of my previous save files. Of course I'm not sure how it will work but I am looking forward to it.

What have I got coming up? well there is the the review of Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 that I need to write, I'm hopefully going to have a discussion on Music based rhythm games i.e. Rock Band and Guitar Hero, and who knows I may even have the review of Mass Effect 2, lets see how it goes.

Review: Borderlands

2010-01-27T12:32:00.001Z

I bought Borderlands on the day of release, and finished it shortly there after however I had a few outstanding achievements to pick up, so I've been back and picked up the last few achievements. So now that I have all the achievements I can review the game.

Borderlands is the carnal off-spring of the first person shooter and the RPG, a Role playing shooter. The game has a good story you're a merc on the planet Pandora and your recruited by a mysterious voice to go looking for the Vault. On the way you'll meet lots of interesting people and find a lot of loot.

I really liked the look of this game, and I wasn't disappointed. The unique graphic style really works for the game and i'm glad they decided to go with it. You get a lot of weapons and ammo, and you get to kill loads of stuff as well.

The down side to having loads of weapons is that it becomes really difficult to find a better weapon than the one you have. Each weapon has 3 stats fire rate, damage and accuracy. I think i'm just bitter that I couldn't find a better gun. The main story arc stops and starts a bit as well, but there is always plenty of side missions to keep you busy.

Overall if you like shooting stuff and things with a fast pace then go ahead and pick up this game, you won't be disappointed.

Review: Lego Batman

2010-01-24T21:02:00.021Z

Batman follows in the footsteps of the previous Lego games. You play as Batman and Robin to begin with but soon unlock some of the villains who have their own episodes. There are 3 Episodes for each of the good and the bad guys, each episode having 5 levels, so there is plenty to do. As with the other Lego games it is strangely addictive, and very enjoyable.

The thing that really annoyed me about this game was the way the achievements were inconsistent when two people are playing together. Me and My girlfriend were playing with both of us logged in using our own gamer tags. However the but didn't get some of the achievements. For example while playing the first level as the heroes, you get an achievement for smashing all the Street lights, however this only applies to whoever is player 1. We tried to play through it again but with her smashing the street lights but no achievement unlocked. There is also an achievement for finishing an entire chapter, which player 2 would only get if they played all 5 levels through non-stop.
This essentially meant that Player 2 would then have to play the entire game them selves to get all the achievements. This may have been the same with the other Lego games as this is the first one we've played with two gamertags signed in, but it would have been better if both players had got the achievements.

To sum up, the game is a good romp through Gotham City on both sides of the law. There is plenty to do in the game that helps ensure that a run through of all the achievements isn't dull and repetitive. If you like the previous Lego games, or like just Batman then you will enjoy this as well.

So It Can Suck To Be A Gamer, Who Knew!

2010-01-22T07:49:00.007Z

I, like a lot of gamers, am subscribed to a couple of gaming podcasts. Namely the KOXM podcast and the Australian Gamer Podcast, and from listening to them i heard a couple of news stories that I felt needed bringing to light. Now I’ve been meaning to write this post for a while now, but never got around to it so I apologise if you’re already aware of the stories. I’ve also included links so you can read the full stories.

Only in America

First up is the story of an American man, Alfred Hightower, who was wanted by the police for drug trafficking. Before I carry on though I feel I need to clarify, when I say trafficking I don’t mean a large scale drug ring, it’s a guy who sold some weed to a friend, as well a couple of other “low level” drug offences. From a quick wiki Google, I discovered that selling of weed was the worst offence he had done. But this isn’t a blog about the American Drug Classification System, so the police were tying to find Hightower however he remained elusive until the Deputy Sheriff and the US Marshals, found out that Hightower was an avid fan of World of Warcraft. The Deputy Sheriff, then put a call into Blizzard Entertainment, who eventually came back with enough details for the Sheriff and U.S. Marshalls to be able to get location for him and be able to go and catch him.
Blizzard Helps Cops Nab Drug Dealer Via WoW

Orc Story

Our second WoW story concerns merchandise, in particular a 6ft tall Orc Statue, and its owners ultimatum. Robert Cushnie had owned the statue for nearly 6 years, unfortunately when it came to moving in with his newlywed, she gave him the choice of me or the Orc. Robert made the right decision and chose his wife; however the story doesn’t quite end there, the Statue wasn’t just given away, he was given up for adoption. The “lucky” adoptees were a middle aged couple in Aberdeen, who both along with their 16 year old granddaughter love the statue. I can’t make too many comments on this story as I do own a 4 and a half foot tall promotional Cardboard cut out of a character from Warrior Kings Battles.
Husband chose wife over 6ft orc statue

Aion Roll Back

Imagine you had lived a day of your life, and were then told you had to re do it. Now imagine that on that day you went to the bank in the morning and found 34 Trillion quid in there. What would you do? Probably the same as everyone else reading this, you’d spend it. Send it to your friends. Now imagine that this was in a game, and you’ll probably feel something similar to the users of Aion, a MMORPG. Due to a glitch a small handful of users found 34 Trillion ‘Kinah’, the in game currency, and they did what anyone else would do they spent it and shared it effectively ruining the in game economy. When NCSoft heard about the glitch, 14 hours later, there was only one way around this and that was to roll back the servers. I don’t know about you but if I have to replay 2hours or more I’m pretty grump, in fact stroppy would probably be a better term for it. I do feel sorry for the poor bastard that was playing for 7 hours or more and hadn’t seen any of the money “Sucks to be you dude!”
Aion players get 34 trillion kinah in glitch

DLC dilemma
According to a recent survey about Downloadable Content (DLC) there are 3 types of gamers;

Those that know of and purchase DLC

Those that know of but don’t purchase DLC

Those that are unaware of any DLC

The survey goes on to say that only 15% of the people surveyed are in the first category, know of and purchase DLC, 42% are in the second category, which leaves a staggering 43% of gamers surveyed didn’t know DLC existed.

I have several issues with this survey, first of all the number of people that were surveyed, they only asked 800 gamers. The article I read didn’t specify where it took place only that it was done by a media consultancy firm. Apparently according to the results most of the people who were in the 3^rd category were typically playing consoles that don’t actively promote DLC for example the PS2 and the Wii. I used to think “This can’t be right?” however with the amount or games that I’ve played recently a few check for DLC before you even start, i.e. Fallout 3 and Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2. So maybe this is an issue, although I’m not sure if InfinityWard wouldn't agree what with the popularity of the Map Packs for the Call of Duty Franchise!
Nearly half of gamers dont know about dlc

Review: Assassin’s Creed 2

2010-01-20T08:12:00.002Z

I had to wait until just before New Year to actually get the game but was the wait worth it?

The story follows your ancestor Ezio Auditore da Firenze, from birth to adulthood, and following on from a family tragedy his growing into the role of an assassin. The game starts in Florence but later on takes you to the bustling city of Venice. The story is engrossing and kept me interested throughout the game however I wasn’t too sold on the game’s ending. I’ve thought about this for a bit and I feel that the ending cliff hanger breaks the “rhythm” of the rest of the story.

Much like the first game the locations are visually stunning and fun to run from roof to roof, the addition of being able to swim also helps with getting around and a leap from the roof tops into the water pulling off a flawless dive is very satisfying. However it was pointed out to me by a friend, that in this game the people don’t look like they live there, they look like tourists. There are a few people that are actually doing something like painting or fishing, but the rest are walking around or standing talking. In the first game you had people setting up stalls and selling stuff, but that’s missing in this game.

The achievements did seem to be a step in the wrong direction. While they got rid of all the flag collection achievements which is a good thing, it’s also gotten rid of all the rewards for doing all the side quests. You don’t get anything for climbing all the viewpoints, or for completing the side missions. The game makes a fuss about these codex pages which you can display on a wall in your villa, which once you have them all you get nothing for it, some extra heath squares but that’s it. This doesn’t seem right to me, yes I thought that in the first game the side missions got repetitive, but the side missions in this game are good and varied enough to not get boring, but with no rewards I don’t see the point, and that has to be my biggest gripe with this game.

To sum up it’s a decent sequel that builds on the strengths of the first game, and the few downsides don’t detract from the enjoyment of the rest of the game. This game also has the best gaming culture reference joke I’ve ever heard in a game, I’ve tried to keep this review spoiler free so if you’ve yet to play you in for a real treat.

Review: Nintey-Nine Nights

2010-01-18T08:38:00.004Z

I'll be honest and the only reason I decided to get this game was because it only has 10 achievements but still has the 1000 Gamerscore. However having completed it and getting all the achievements I'm very glad that I did get it.

The story is simple enough although from the first play through the full story isn't revealed in order to find out the whole story you need to complete all of the missions for each of the characters, by doing this you also find out each characters view of the events that unfold.

The combat system is easy enough a weak and a strong attack that you can combine in various ways to pull of combos which get stronger the more you level up. Leveling up is automatic with more combos and more HP/MP gained at each increment.

As I said above the achievements are fairly easy.

There is one for completing the game with each of the characters. More characters become available after completing the story with certain characters.
One for a secret mission which becomes available after completing the game with each of the characters.
One for maxing out the characters and completing all of their missions again.
One for completing the Secret Character's story line and
One for finishing all missions with an A-Ranking.

For the sake of balance the movement was a little annoying. For example there was no run command so movement was slow, there was a dash button but there wasn't that much difference in speed. The other thing was that for each character you had a separate save file which I'll admit did end up with me deleting a save file for another character.

To sum up, N3 is the game Kingdom Under Fire: Circle of Doom wanted to be, an enjoy able Hack and slash with characters that were easy to understand, a story that was complex enough and achievements that were relatively easy.

If you're looking for something to tide you over until Mass Effect 2 then i would highly recommend you give this ago. There is a free demo available from the Xbox LIVE Marketplace so you can even try before you go and buy it.

Apologies

2010-01-18T08:37:00.000Z

So, I know that in my last post I said that "I would post again tomorrow." and I didn't because I've been swamped at work and I just wanted to chill out when I got home, but i'm sure you didn't want to hear me complaining about my life and I now have a renewed sense of purpose with this blog. I'm going to start writing posts every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and to start this off I've even got one ready for today.

As a quick filler I have done the following instead of writing here, I've completed Assassin's Creed 2, got through the majority of Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 and in I'm in the process of mopping up the last few achievements for Lego Batman, so I've been completely slacking off.

Oh and I'm close to the 30k Gamerscore mark!

Happy New Year

2010-01-07T21:33:00.000Z

Hello again Game Fans, I hope this post finds you all well, and that you had a pleasant festive period. Mine was good, I did clocked up a few miles and got a few hours in on the Xbox while I was away as well. Me and the misses loaded out profiles up onto a memory unit and it was like we never left. . . except for the fact that I left a save file behind on my Sisters Xbox. oh well I'm back down there in Feb so I'll get pick it up then.

So I got what can only be described as an immense haul of games over xmas, so before i went away I got Left 4 Dead 2, Lego Batman and The Saboteur in my new Xbox bundle, and i had just recently bought Dead Space. I then got Ghostbusters, Xmen Origins: Wolverine, Dragon Age:Origins, Assassins Creed 2 and Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2. My favourite so far is Lego Batman well thats the one I've spent most time playing, but only because my girlfriend it playing it with me. I also have a major gripe with it, but I'll save that for another post.

My biggest discovery on the trip away started on Christmas Day, when my girlfriend's brother wanted to play 1 vs 100. I've got to say I really enjoyed it. it's free for gold members to play and is a lot of fun to play especially when you have a group of friends around. I do have a few issues with it, the first is every 15 mins or so there is an "ad break", with annoying adverts for Avatar and Bing but they do give you chance to check your stats and achievements. the second problem I've found is that although there is a segment in the live show for a live host, the UK season 2 doesn't have one, which is a shame. Apparently there was on in the Beta version last year, but for this season there isn't. this next one is only a small one, and that is when you load it up for the first time, it does take a while to down load, but once is has been downloaded you can get in fairly quickly.

It's a good little game especially when you are paired up with 3 other people so you can see their answers and see how you are doing in relation to them with regards to score, as it gives you a bit more to think about that just the questions.

Well I'm going to leave it there for now and do another post tomorrow night.

And before anyone asks no i haven't won anything on 1 vs 100.

Merry Christmas

2009-12-26T19:56:00.000Z

Merry Christmas dear readers I hope this post finds you all well stuffed following a Christmas dinner and that you presents were what you wanted, nothing too embarrassing. I've been lucky enough to have gotten everything that i asked for, and more besides.

I recently bought myself a present the week leading up to Christmas. A brand new Xbox Elite, with the wireless entertainment pack and two games, PURE and Lego Batman, and then two other games as well, my choices were the saboteur and Left 4 dead 2. Up until I left for my Christmas tour I was really enjoying the saboteur I tried L4D2 but I think that it's more of a game to play with friends rather than on your own, so I'm going to wait and see if any of my friends are playing on it when I get home.

So far I've gotten Dragon Age: Origins and XMen Origins : Wolverine. so I'm going to be spoiled for choice when I get back. So this was just a quick update to say Merry Christmas.

Catch up! (for want of a better title)

2009-12-16T18:00:00.002Z

So I never wrote an update last week, and my last update was a review of the Game of the Year Edition of Fallout 3. Since I finished that last week I splashed out and bought two more games to tide me over until the Christmas influx. I bought Ninety-Nine Nights (N3) and Dead Space. I’ve not started Dead Space yet as I’ve been playing N3. I’ll have a review of N3 in the next couple of days, as I’ve almost completed it along with all the achievements.

As I touched on in my last post I’m now top of my friends list with Gamerscore, I’ve managed to overtake my rival. So I’m very happy with myself at the moment. N3 helped a lot as there are only 10 achievements and are fairly easy to pick up, but I’ll talk more about that in my review. Fallout 3 is now whored as well which takes my total games whored up to 12, should reach 13 in the next few days.

I’ve got a few ideas for future updates and I don’t want to over load you with updates. But here is a few of the ideas I’ve got for future posts, My Christmas List, Game Glitches, N3 review, Moral Choices and My 2010 highlights. Feel free to comment and let me know which ones you are more interested in seeing and I’ll make sure I do them sooner rather than later. Also let me know what else you would like me to talk about. I’m new to the blogging scene so any tips would be much appreciated.

So that’s it for now I’m going to try and update again in a few days with one of the above entries, not sure which one yet, but you’ll be the first to know it when I update.