General Update 29: I'm Not Dead! Promise!

It's been a long time since I last posted and I've been busy not just with work but at home as well. I've started baking which has meant even less time on the Xbox, but it's not all bad, as I've still managed to get some games from my pile out of the way. 


So what have I been up to on the Xbox? I've completed Mass Effect 3 to 100% as well as Metro 2033, Skyrim and LA Noire. I really enjoyed Mass Effect 3, it was sad to see the story come to an end but I was satisfied with the ending. I know there was a big kurfuffle about the ending on the internets. I most recently completed Metro 2033, it was good game, I have read the book it was based on, and they are obviously different if the game was to follow the book it wouldn't make a very compelling game, however I'll touch more of that in my review. 


Before I move on to the next game in my pile, which I still can't decide on what its going to be, I thought I would go back and clean up one of the games that hadn't been out in long while. Fable 2, my housemate has the classics edition that contains the all the DLC which also allows me to clear up the last achievement for the main game as well. The thing I notice most is the fact that the game hasn't aged well in my opinion, don't get me wrong though I'm enjoying playing it but the graphics can be a little flakey in some places. 


So I can't decide on my list as to what I'm going to play next, it's either going to be Assassins Creed Revelations, Rage or Ninety-Nine Nights 2. All 3 of which have been started but I'm not sure which it should be. My house mate has also started ACR so if I do work in that well be able to discuss it as we're going through it, I've also got the fourth novel to start as well, which I want to read only after I've finished the story as that's what I've done with the order books in the series. 


The other thing I've been up to is thinking about possibly give the blog a little over haul. This would mean actually spending more time on it, which is party other reason for me putting together another post. I also felt I should, try and get a review done as I've not done one in like forever. I have been meaning to get back into my writing, a while back I picked up some post-it notes so that I could write down blog post ideas, and it has worked as I've got a few ideas written down, I just need to refine them and get them written up. 


And with that I think I shall leave it there, after all these games aren't going to play themselves. Thankfully!

General Update 26 : New Year, New Beginnings!

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

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 14: Merry New Year!

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

General Update 13: The Wanderer Returns!

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.