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cracking on with mario galaxy, which is nice enough, but not toally engrossing. Main problem, sadly, is that all the 3D stuff looks quite bad on my tv. It's a good game, but really I can only play it for an hour at a time before I want something else..
..Like Rez HD, which I played for some time yesterday. Very engrossing. I never played the original, so I was kind of blown away when I started really getting into it. I even turned on a second controller and clenched it between my thighs (with clothes on) to get the trance vibration going. I got as far as world number 3, but I was mostly replaying the first world to try and get points. Looking forward to carrying on with that tonight.
I haven't finished Assassin's Creed, but I'm getting near the end I think. I've got to do yet another "stab 5 people in 3 minutes" challenge, and it's now really boring. It's just a painful slog to beat thorn at points. I don't know if I'll carry on. There's no fun to be had in finding flags. I quite like the thing where you have to seek out and kill the Templar knights, but it's usually juts a random encounter. The fighting has got dull... just hitting the same two buttons over and over again. I want to spend more time in the 'future world'.
Guitar Hero 3 - finished medium level, started on hard, and I can't get past the first encore. I am ass at that game. But I have enjoyed just firing up "cliffs of Dover" on medium and having a go on that. I like the game, but overall I think I do prefer #2. #3 seems a bit more punishing, and sometimes it's not even fun, just a grind, pressing buttons that either are't anything to do with the song, or hammering the same one or two over and over again. Unfortunately, #2 recently found it's way under one of the spikes at the base of a speaker, and it's got a big dent in it.
Advance Wars Good game, still enjoying it, although that's getting quite hard as well now. I'm at mission 16, and I'm starting to slow down a bit. Haven't played multiplayer because of the DS using fucking WEP wireless security. I've now managed to get the psp, my phone, and the wii all on wpa-psk, all working, so I'm not screwing around with that any more.
Mostly I've been playing Ubuntu Super Challenge. I'm at the level where you have to try and get a wireless usb dongle working on the famous linux distro. I like how you have to use the real world for clues, like googling "zd1211rw debian kernel .tar.gz" and then wading through fifty pages of forums where people have seemingly beaten the level using the same tactics that aren't working for you. It's hard, often frustrating, but quite a good sense of progession. The main problem is the female character who keeps interrupting the flow of the gameplay, to ask about 'dinner' and 'going out' - WTF? Is there a way of bypassing that?
[ 31.01.2008, 05:34: Message edited by: Dr. Benway ]
quote:Originally posted by Dr. Benway: The main problem is the female character who keeps interrupting the flow of the gameplay, to ask about 'dinner' and 'going out' - WTF? Is there a way of bypassing that?
That's no way to talk about your girlfriend, dude.
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I've tried playing Dead or alive 4, but there appears to be something wrong with my disk. Whenever I complete it, I don't get a cutscene and it doesn't allow me to view the ending movies. Considering the major point of the game is to complete it so you can watch the pre-rendered jiggling it takes a lot away from the game and I'm really just left with a sub-par fighter.
I picked up a second hand copy of Condemned last night which seems quite interesting. Very tense to start with. Excellent directing, very good soundtrack for building up tension so far. I suspect I shall enjoy it a lot and it's something to play when my girlfriend is out and I'm not allowed to play oblivion.
Still waiting for Mass Effect to be delivered even though it was ordered on the 17th. I've phoned gamestation who say it was sent on the 18th but apparently I've got to wait until today before they'll send out another copy so I'll see if that has arrived when I get home.
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I have not got very far at all. I'm a level 9 stealth mage and I've done approximately none of the main story. I'm working through the thief missions at the moment and have just done my first mission for the grey fox.
I would be much further into it, but my girlfriend who I mentioned in an earlier post saw me playing it and then got quite into it and so now it's a game that I can only play when she's around which is slowing things down a bit.
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my girlfriend also enjoyed watching me play Oblivion. I think it's very soothing.. The lovely sunshine bouncing off quaint cottages and castle gardens. Mmmmm. All that harp music and clipped voice acting. The bloke who does the voices for the elves is fantastic. Also, it nice to have lots of people smiling at you. It's nice to just go around making everybody like you isn't it. If only I could do that in real life.
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I particularly like making people like me then after they say goodbye and start to walk away, stealing their money and the key to their house. I think I'd enjoy that in real life as well.
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yeah, but don't you always feel like a bastard? Whenever I did that, I felt really bad that I'd tricked them into like me, and now there I was, breaking open their special little box where they keep their treasured silverware. I didn't do much burglary because I really felt like I was betraying my friends
quote:Originally posted by Dr. Benway: psssst! London! That's the joke! There's no such game as 'ubuntu super challenge' - I'm talking about real life there!
quote:Originally posted by Dr. Benway: I haven't finished Assassin's Creed, but I'm getting near the end I think. I've got to do yet another "stab 5 people in 3 minutes" challenge, and it's now really boring. It's just a painful slog to beat thorn at points. I don't know if I'll carry on. There's no fun to be had in finding flags. I quite like the thing where you have to seek out and kill the Templar knights, but it's usually juts a random encounter. The fighting has got dull... just hitting the same two buttons over and over again. I want to spend more time in the 'future world'.
I never got round to finishing it for the same reasons. I think part of the problem is that although you can put a fair bit of effort into stealthily getting to your mark, then taking them out on the sly and then getting out covertly, there's no actual reason to do so. So you just find your way there, maybe take out a few roof guards on your way to make your escape a little less irritating. Watch the cutscene, kill the target, then fight your way out.
The free running is also so basic that there's really very little interaction with the scenery and no call to use the landscape to your advantage.
It's an entertaining game for the most part, but there's just no variation in the gameplay. It's not quite interactive enough to have any real sandbox appeal either. The graphics are really really pretty though, and I'd say probably the best value in the game is to be foundjust exploring the cities and seeing the various sights there are to be found.
But I think most of all it's frustrating because it's so nearly an incredible game, it just manages to fall slightly short for reasons you really feel the developers should have picked up on.
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Ringo and Benway are correct about Assassin's Creed: The Nearly Game.
Mostly I've been playing Ace Combat 6, very badly. My ability at this game is dismal, my special move being the over-ambitious strafing run on ground forces which invariably includes misjuding the apex of my swoop and smashing my plane unheroically into the ground.
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I've just started playing Forza 2 a bit, and when you get out of the Burnout mentality it's good fun.
I'm driving an Audi TT at the moment which is a bit meh. Am I better to spend money upgrading that or just saving for a new car or does it not make much difference in the big scheme of things considering there are starving children and ralph can't get a trampoline that isn't surrounded by rabid elk?
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quote:Originally posted by Dr. Benway: ..Like Rez HD, which I played for some time yesterday. Very engrossing. I never played the original, so I was kind of blown away when I started really getting into it. I even turned on a second controller and clenched it between my thighs (with clothes on) to get the trance vibration going. I got as far as world number 3, but I was mostly replaying the first world to try and get points. Looking forward to carrying on with that tonight.
quote:Originally posted by SilverGinger5: I've just started playing Forza 2 a bit, and when you get out of the Burnout mentality it's good fun.
I'm driving an Audi TT at the moment which is a bit meh. Am I better to spend money upgrading that or just saving for a new car or does it not make much difference in the big scheme of things considering there are starving children and ralph can't get a trampoline that isn't surrounded by rabid elk?
I started with the TT and spent thousands on it. I think the general consensus is to start with the VW golf. I can't remember, it was so long ago. Nowadays I'm cruising around in Jags, ferraris and aston martins. (Level 35)
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I got given an old Ferrari for being ace or something. It looks cool and the stats make it look good but it's rear wheel drive which means it is just about impossible to actually turn a corner without spinning so I've had to go back to my Audi.
At the moment it is D class but I see that if I make any more adjustments to it, it will go up to C class. Does this mean that everyone I race will also be in better cars or does it not really make much difference?
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No the other cars stay the same no matter what you upgrade your car to. The only downside to upgrading it to the MAX is that you may not be able to enter it into some races with restrictions on Horsepower or Class D only etc. Mind you, you can always downgraded it later if you need to.
Generally though, you win at least one car if you complete a set of races and before you know it you have a car for most classes. You don't generally have to buy cars until much later in the game.
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finished Assassin's Creed. Bit of a weird ending, but that's customary these days I suppose. I've been mostly playing Rez. I love that game. It totally sucks me in with the way it looks and sounds. After going through all five stages in one sitting, I feel like I've just come out of a rave, really amped up, throbbing all over, disorientated. Haven't beaten it yet, but came quite close today.
I tried Call of Duty 4 online, but sucked very badly, to the point where a scottish team mate sounded like he was about to throw his xbox out the window in a fit of rage. Really going apeshit about how shit I was
Still going through Advance Wars. Still liking that.
Also, fans of RPG's and ROFLs should check out Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden. It's a fan made old skool rpg based in a dystopian future NYC where basketball has been outlawed. And the game revolves around basketball. Really, you've got to see it for yourself. Might need DX10.
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I've played quite a bit of Forza this weekend and am up to about level 14 or something. It's very good. I like it a lot.
At the moment I'm playing with a joypad which is great as I can get under a duvet on the sofa and not have to pay for heating which is obviously a bonus. Howver, would my Forza experience be greatly improved by the purchase of some sort of force feedback steering wheel? Anyone tried it with one of those or is joypad the way to go?
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I've started dabbling with Forza2 again, I can only manage 1 race per go as it's just too samey. Essentially driving around the same old tracks in a different car for a longer time. Still it's nice to have some decent cars in the garage.
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I nearly played forza, but remembered that I'm now at the stage where I have to keep restarting races because my dangerously overpowered and badly tuned supercars have to hit every corner with textbook precision in order to prevent spins. There's nothing quite like the feeling of getting a nearly undrivable Diablo GT-R or Enzo successfully around nine laps, only to lose confidence on the final stretch and fuck up the last corner.
What is it about that last corner? I always screw it up. Or go too slow on the last lap to try and prevent coming off, and end up being nudged off anyway. Grr.
Also, I've tried some R3 / R4 races, and fail at them every time.
[ 04.02.2008, 12:13: Message edited by: Dr. Benway ]
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I'm still lame and haven't sorted myself on Live I'm afraid. It's something I will do one day soon as soon as I convince myself that there isn't a foolproof way of avoiding the £60 sting that is a wireless adapter and just pay the money.
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Hey, there's some new cars availalble. The Ferrari FXX looks pretty fucking sweet actually. May have to get some horrible microsoft points and pay for some DLC
quote:Under the Hood: As you would expect with a 1.8 million dollar car, the FXX’s specifications and performance are mind-blowing. For starters, Ferrari bored-out the V12 engine found in the Enzo, settling on a new displacement of 6.3 liters. Then the redline was increased to an ear-piercing 8500 rpm. In case you wondered, no that isn’t a typo, the FXX really does have a 6.3 liter engine which spins at 8500 rpm.
The result is 789 horsepower and 506 ft-lbs of torque, a modest 139 horsepower increase over the Enzo! The latest in Ferrari’s sequential paddle-shift technology results in shift times of 80 milliseconds, virtually on par with Formula 1 cars of a couple years ago. This figure includes disengaging the clutch, switching gears and re-engaging the clutch. With a curb weight of just over 2700 lbs (1227 kgs) the acceleration figures are staggering, 0-60 mph is done in 2.8 seconds and flat out you will hit 217 mph.
The Verdict: As if the numbers aren’t impressive enough, the FXX accelerates that quickly while producing 40% more downforce than the Enzo! Perhaps the best way to summarize the FXX is taking a look at the lap times it can turn. Around the 1.86 miles of hallowed bends at Ferrari’s Fiorano test track it is capable of a 1 minute 16 second lap time, an average speed of 89 mph. This puts it a full six seconds clear of the Enzo and only 17 seconds a lap slower than the Ferrari F2007 Grand Prix car! Go to youtube.com and watch some of the speed comparisons between road cars and Grand Prix cars, and you will begin to see how blisteringly fast this car actually is.
quote:The Verdict: In fact they are so extraordinary that the CCR holds the world record for the fastest speeding ticket in history. During the Gumball 3000 rally in 2003, the first CCR in the United States was pulled over in western Texas reportedly for doing 242mph in a 75mph zone! Needless to say the Koenigsegg lineup provides a great starting point for building a highly competitive GT1 racecar. Development and testing programs are in their final stages, so look for the CCGT to be tearing up the racetracks of Europe sometime in the 2008 season.
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I played call of duty 4 at the weekend, it was incredibly professional, but it didn't move me.
I also played the 360 version of PES and it was very similar to every other iteration. I scored some great goals though, beause fortuantely my friend had made England's stats incredibly high by some trickery.
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Played a lot of Halo3 and Call of Duty 4 on sunday. That's all I did, all day. Getting into Call of Duty multiplayer now, although it took some time. In terms of online shooters, I'm only really used to Halo. Initally, CoD seemed really hard and confusing. Compared to the wide open spaces and bright colours of Halo, CoD feels too cramped and chaotic, with gunfire everywhere, and everybody is quite well camoflaged in the browns and greys. So, the multiplayer plays much like that single player in that you're often firing semi-blindly into clouds of smoke, as all around you get picked off by grenades, helicopters and snipers
I really didn't like it to begin with, mainly because it all seems so serious. There are no people flying through the air in the wake of a forcful punch in the face, no huge vehiclar pile ups, no real chances to find myself laughing as the action unfolds like some kind of slapstick animation. Instead, I'm sprinting between doorways and alleys, firing off rounds at shadows until I'm sniped in the head from half a mile away. I think that there's lack of a feeling of being able to quickly control your envinroment. But this can be compelling in the same way that the single player campaign is, in that the excitement comes from the sense that you are never safe, you have to keep moving, and that you could die at any moment.
Anyway, I think if I was pressed, I'd still prefer the big battles of Halo 3 to those in CoD4, but I'm going to be playing a lot more CoD, now I've managed to get into the atmosphere.
[ 11.02.2008, 06:32: Message edited by: Dr. Benway ]
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I played quite a bit of Halo 3 multiplayer when I was off work, and for some reason when I was playing during the day I'd always wind up teamed with a bunch of foreigners. I remember one time I was the only English guy on a team of French people, jabbering nonsense through my speakers. At one point three of us set of in the same direction in some semblance of teamwork, but I accidentally wandered into the path of my teammate's flamethrower and heard the following conversation:
![[Frown]](frown.gif)
![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
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