Poor showing recently

My blog has been kind of neglected for the last month or so, but that is mainly due to the fact that I've been bogged down with grinding few the same few games over and over again. I figure no one wants to read about that shit, and I certainly do not want to write about it and so here we are.

I have played a bunch of games for review recently which were ok but not great.

Green Lantern is a fairly decent movie tie-in for once, I mean it is hardly ground breaking stuff but I really did kind of enjoy playing through it - unlike Thor recently. I'd recommend it for anyone after a quick 1k as it will only take you about seven or eight hours if you stick with it. Plus, the gameplay is actually not too bad and Ryan Reynolds helps to keep things ticking over.

I also played Hunted: The Demons Forge which is a co-op dungeon crawler/RPG Lite in the diablo mould. It is decent enough, especially with a buddy, but does get kind of repetitive after a while. It is a shame as the characters are actually pretty well realised and really deserved something a bit more engrossing than a fair to middling hack and slash affair.

Both games slot into the 60%+ category as while they have their moments there are also a few flaws to stop them knocking on the door of being a true gaming neccessity. It is something I've spoken about with Webb before, as a lot of sites seem to think that 70% is a 'bad' or average game, whereas surely 50% is an average game and anything above that is above the norm while anything below that is clearly saddled with issues.

It just seems like few places use the whole 1-100 (or 1-10) spectrum in a good way, and most games will end up with a score of 7-10 with very few other scores being used except for on rare occasions. It's weird, but so is writing reviews about entertainment products which are highly subjective in the first place.

Away from reviews I managed to coax my lady into plenty of Lego gaming, so that we have finally finished off Lego Star Wars 3 and Lego Pirates. I only have the Complete Star Wars saga on my to do list now, so I really should get around to it. I also completed Green Lantern (shock) in double quick time and I'm FINALLY closing in on finishing C&C Kane's Wrath with 73/90 of the Kane's Challenge missions done. It will be nice to play the last mission for each faction one after the other and see those achievements pop up let me tell you.

I also recently started boxing up some of my old stuff with a view to moving house and it's impressive just how much gaming crap I have. I managed to discover my old PS2, N64, Xbox and a plethora of games for each of them. My PS1 and PS2 RPG collections are pretty huge to be honest and it upsets me that I was never able to get around to finishing them all off. Maybe when I retire........

What's been happening?

Well after a good start to the year my blogging has kind of taken a hiatus in the last few weeks. I think the main reason is down to the fact I've done nothing but replay WSC Real 11 in order to finish up the last few achievements that I was screwed out of when my save corrupted. As a result I was pretty busy just plugging away at the same few events I'd already slogged through which is hardly the best way to get those creative writing juices flowing.

Luckily I finally finished the game off at the weekend, though there was one final twist in the tale. I unlocked the last trophy (which was, ironically, for winning ALL trophies) and didn't get the achievement. As you can imagine, my patience by this point was already worn pretty thin so I was not best pleased. My last resort was to try and play through one more event as a few people had reported success with that method. Fortunately it worked a treat and the relief was palpable.

I do find it odd that I will play a game for hours in order to get a review done, without even the slightest hiccup, and once I then go back to finish the game up a bunch of niggles and glitches will rear their ugly heads. It boggles my mind, and I recall this exact scenario popping up with VT09 back in the day too.

I also managed to smash through Morph X at the weekend too. In case you've never heard of the game, and why would you have, it is a pretty awful third person shooter that can be pimped for a full 1k in about a day if you were feeling up for it. Honestly the graphics are poor, the achievements and subtitles have spelling mistakes and the story is terrible - but at least it was something a bit different and got me moving in the right direction again.

I've also been playing some Lego Pirates with the missus as well, which is a lot of fun though I think my devotion to Lego games may be waning. Pirates is one of the best out there but it is still just more of the same really and I still have to go back and finish up Lego Star Wars 3 as well - which I'm not looking forward to at all, as I felt that game was a let down.

I'm actually at the point now where I'm toying with starting something new, but I'm not entirely sure what yet. I think an RPG like Eternal Sonata may well be in the frame, as I'm still hankering after something a bit different at the moment. I also have C&C: Kane's Wrath to finish up and I've decided to do a level on each of the Challenge missions at a time - as each of the nine factions take on the otheres in exactly the same order/maps so I may as well just do the same map for each faction and work my way up. As it will mean I can just find a successful strategy and stick with it. I've done 21/90 missions this way so far, so hopefully I can blitz through it in time. I also have Splinter Cell: Double Agent on the way from Lovefilm too - so I can get all the online stuff done on that bad boy and chalk another game off of my list. Boo yah!

So what's the target?

I've been chipping away at a few old games recently, with the overall goal of improving my completion percentage as well as clearing the decks of a few games and creating some much needed space.

The thought occured today about what my overall goal would be, as I'd never really stopped to think about it. At the moment I have nearly 92% completion without DLC or nearly 91% with DLC, so fairly close really as I do tend to pick up all available DLC when I can. With that in mind it should be reasonable to expect a figure of at least 95% to be well within reach, as I can think of at least five games off the top of my head that are sat on my tag with less than 150 points unlocked.

In order to get there I will probably have to complete at least another five - ten games on my list and I'm aiming to do just that. Currently I'm still working on WSC 11, C&C 3 Kanes Wrath and Battlefield 2. All of which should see me creep up at least another half a percent. Then I may do some of the easier stuff I have lying around like Fairytale Fights, Lost Planet, Lego Star Wars and the like. These games should give up a bunch of simple points, though will also take plenty of time to complete in their own right as well. Choices, choices.

In positive news I did fianlly manage to hit 500 games played on Battlefield 2, so purely have single player stuff to focus on in future. I've also maxed out the multiplayer in WSC 11 as well, which is annoying really as if my game save hadn't been corrupted I would have the full 1k by now pretty much. Instead I will have to slog through the career a second time to get this done. Same goes for C&C with only the rather tedious Kane's Challenge tasks needing my attention. All of which are major time sinks. Perhaps I need to fall back on something nice and easy to tide me over?

A busy month

It has been another busy month both personally and gaming wise, hence my recent drought of blog posts. Though considering the current dearth of gaming blogs that I regularly follow then it appears that I'm not the only one.

I had actually toyed with the idea of moving my whole blog over to Wordpress as that would give me a more direct web address as well as a more professional layout. The main reasoning behind such a move was my increased interest in the blogs of full time gaming writers and the fact that a well done blog can generate a lot more publicity and interest.

For now though I'm more than happy staying where I am, as the initial phase of moving my work and formatting things just how I want them to be is likely to be a touch time consuming and I really do not have much spare time at the moment.

The main reason is the fact that I'm currently house hunting with my lovely wife, and we have spent the last week tidying our property and boxing up as much stuff as we could do without. You just do not realise how much crap you have around the house until you get around to cleaning and moving it all - honestly the amount of stuff that we have thrown away or donated is ridiculous.

Luckily I managed to keep all of my gaming gear present and correct so I've been able to chip away at a few games in the mean time.

My project of clearing up old games was helped by an event on Phantasy Star Universe that basically meant you can beat the hardest online boss at any level (if you have help). So I managed to get all 250 online points in a few hours, and then spend a few more hours helping a friend do the exact same thing. Nice and easy, and certainly easier than having to grind up to level 90 for the same thing. Yay!

I also went back to Battlefield 2 in a bid to polish off the online aspect of the game. I've managed to snag everything now barring 500 games played. Luckily I can chip away at those in clan matches with two consoles, which take a couple of minutes each as opposed to a full match of 20 minutes a time. At the moment I'm at 345 games played so hopefully I can have it done with by the end of the week. Then I can start with the single player stuff and see how I go.

In other, rage related, news it turns out that WSC 11 has a pretty major glitch. As it turns out that the game will sometimes be unable to find your save - which doesn't seem that bad until you realise that it will render said save unusable in the process. I lost two weeks work in this way and now have to basically start from scratch, backing up my save to a USB stick after every game just in case. To say I was pissed off when this happened is an understatement, as I was only two tournaments away from 100% completion of the single player aspect of the game.

In light of this tragedy the game has gone on the backburner for now, along with Kane's Wrath, as I've had Thor to review. Suffice it to say that the game is pretty poor, and is the perfect example of a bad movie tie in. Still it was a fairly manageable 1k in terms of points so should appeal to people on that basis alone.

I also went ahead and played the first Portal seeing as I'd overlooked it until now. I loved the game though it was far shorter than I'd expected. Still it was worth it for the ending theme alone. Pure genius.

Pot as many balls as you can..........

Yes, I've been bashing some balls around......let me rephrase that.

Yes, I've been playing with my cue.......hang on.

Yes, I've had a Snooker title to review, better. To be honest it has been quite a lot of fun as well. It is nice and relaxing to play a game that relies on tactics and patience rather than balls to the wall action for once. Obviously it is not a title that is for everyone but for those with even the slightest interest in snooker or pool then I would heartily recommend it. Hopefully I can put in the time required to finish it off, and then I can go back to Snooker 2007 and finish that as well. Doh!

Still my OCD tendencies aside what else have I been up to? Oh yeah, even more OCD issues. I swear that some kind of medication may well cure me but until that day I will continue to chip away at all of those games that I foolishly threw onto my gamercard at one point or another.

Beautiful Katamari was first up and the main concern there is the need for 100 hours played. I seemd to get to 50 hours pretty quickly and Raptr claims that I've clocked 55 hours played recently (which didn't include all of my previous time spent) so I must be there or thereabouts. Hopefully this weekend will finish it off but it has been nice to dip back into the zany world of the King of all Cosmos. The random one liners, and stupid put downs are just the best of all time.

I also finished up Command and Conquer: Kane's Wrath. Well I finished off the story, and all the skirmish achievements to boot, but now I have to plough through Kane's Challenge with each bloody faction. Which is ten levels times by nine (ever so slightly different) groups. Oh joy. Whoever was the brain child behind that little set of tasks will feel my wrath one day, but for now I'll just plug away at it when I have a chance.

In fact the only thing I have managed to finish was The Club which proved to be fairly straightforward if truth be told. It was nice to get rid of one of the games I've had sat around for so long, and I may well have to dig out some other simple stuff and get them out of the door too.

In other news I think that I will try to aim for 250k before Gamescom (assuming I end up going this year) as that would be a nice little milestone to get done. Right about now 300k is looking like it is a long way off, but to be honest I don't have too many designs on rushing to meet it.