It's funny that pretty much every post I've made for the last few months has started in the same way: with me apologising for not posting more and generally promising to buck up my ideas. I'm not going to bother making that same promise this time around as I will inevitably break it and then come back to renew the vicious circle once again.
I will try harder though - honest.
Since I last put up a post I've been pretty busy......so busy in fact that I started writing this particular update on the 2nd November and I've only just got back to it, ha ha!
As ever I'm full of good intentions, and I had planned to do a regular blog to detail my progress through the murky world of Dark Souls. Considering I've had the full 1k for nearly two months now that would seem a bit redundant but I may do a retrospective on it at the end of the year (so not too long to wait). Suffice it to say that the game blew me away - so much so that it is probably my own personal Game of the Year.
However, that is a bit of an unfair label at the moment as there are so many top drawer games that, in typical fashion, I simply haven't had the time to get around to. The problem is that I tend to complete (as in, get all the achievements) every game I play on my tag. So all the terrible games I've been reviewing this year have somehow taken priority over a bunch of amazing releases that have sat gathering dust.
Batman Arkham City, Deus Ex, Skyrim, Dodonpachi Resurrection, Shadows of the Damned, El Shaddai - the list could go on and on. Hopefully I'll find some time over the festive period to sit down and sink my teeth into at least one or two of these bad boys, though as ever I'm still playing catch up to finish off a few outstanding bits and pieces. Namely the latest COD (spec ops stuff) plus a few bits and pieces on Gears 3 (not Seriously though, screw that) and Eternal Sonata.
Whether or not I really get anything done will depend on the other halfs tolerance for my gaming shenanigans, plus the fact it's Christmas and the fact we may be moving in the New Year so the dread prospect of boxing stuff up may rear its ugly head. Yay?
In a week or so I will do a bumper breakdown of how this year has panned out, especially as it's been a very hectic one both professionally and personally. Certainly I've done more gaming related writing this year than ever before, but hopefully I'll be able to transfer a bit of that time and effort back to some personal musings all well. You never know.
Wednesday, November 02, 2011
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Been a while........
Suffice it to say that my recent blogging activity has barely registered as a blip on the heart monitor of life, but hopefully I'll be able to turn things around and become a tad more proactive in future.
Obviously August was a bit of a write off, as I was whisked away to Gamescom by x360a. It was probably the best year yet in terms of the social side of things, as I met up with Mr Webb and Alex once again, plus had the pleasure of meeting Mr Richard Walker as well (the man tasked with doing all of the news and writing on the site on a daily basis - pity and fear him).
Pretty much every night saw us going out to meet up with a variety of other games writers and PR staff, and it was nice to put some faces to names and meet so many awesome people. Enough brown nosing though, as I also had plenty of games to see and previews to write which is why I was a little snowed under upon my return.
Even after shifting the backlog I then had a bunch of reviews to get to grips with, such as the latest incarnation of Madden and NHL, not to mention Dead Island. In fact the scenic zombie slaying title led to a veritable barrage of messages, friend requests and hate mail on live. I've never played a game like it, with so many people wondering how I'd gotten a copy early and saying that I was a hacker and/or retarded. I kid you not. Obviously I invited such naysayers to read my pending review the following Monday when the embargo was up, but this being the internet it was obvious that some people were being dicks just for the sake of it.
I actually enjoyed the game to be honest, and the vast range of review scores does puzzle me somewhat. I can certainly appreciate that the game does have its faults, but when someone scores it a three out of ten then I have to question their sincerity. Reviews are opinions at the end of the day, but surely each writer will have to endure the same strengths and weaknesses of a particular title and draw fairly similar conclusions? Obviously personal preference and some bias may well creep in along the way but, personally I try and play each game on its own merits and discount whether or not I like zombies, or racing games, or banana peeling simulators. My job is to review the game based on its own merits, rather than perceiving slights based on other titles or my own personal feelings at the time. It seems that some reviewers do tend to forget that fact and people are left confused when a game can divide opinion so widely.
Anyway, in between smacking zombies around I've also had time to go back and polish off a few other titles that have been cluttering up the old gamertag. First onto the chopping block was Need for Speed Shift, well the DLC to be more apt. To be honest it took me a few hours to get everything done so it certainly offered value for money, though I would have to say that whoever decided on the lap time targets you need for some of the challenge stars could do with a swift kick to the nether regions. The amount of time and frustration that it took me to beat some of the times, even after recording flawless laps, is exactly why I tend to avoid racing games in the first place.
I also went back and knocked off the zero point achievements I needed for NBA Ballers and Battle for the Pacific, meaning they are now 'officially' complete in the eyes of both my peers and Jesus himself. I also found out there was a Ticker only style Horde event running on Gears 2 to celebrate the impending launch of the trilogy concluding finale. So naturally I suited up and went to town battling wave after wave of exploding manaces (though mildly irritating nuisances may be a better description). I roped in a few chums to help me get through the longer waves, and I also found a way to do some of the maps in autopilot (assuming they had a boomshield), though there were a few that required me to beat up my foes solo for 10, 20 or 30 waves which soon got old. Still I've now done all of the Horde achievements and managed to knock out 1999 rounds to boot - leaving me with just Seriously 2.0 to grind through before I can move onto playing Gears 3.
I'm a a bit of a lull at the moment, just finishing up some older games and playing whatever I choose, but the review season is well and truly upon us and that will mean a bevy of new titles to sift through and write about. Bring on the pain.
Obviously August was a bit of a write off, as I was whisked away to Gamescom by x360a. It was probably the best year yet in terms of the social side of things, as I met up with Mr Webb and Alex once again, plus had the pleasure of meeting Mr Richard Walker as well (the man tasked with doing all of the news and writing on the site on a daily basis - pity and fear him).
Pretty much every night saw us going out to meet up with a variety of other games writers and PR staff, and it was nice to put some faces to names and meet so many awesome people. Enough brown nosing though, as I also had plenty of games to see and previews to write which is why I was a little snowed under upon my return.
Even after shifting the backlog I then had a bunch of reviews to get to grips with, such as the latest incarnation of Madden and NHL, not to mention Dead Island. In fact the scenic zombie slaying title led to a veritable barrage of messages, friend requests and hate mail on live. I've never played a game like it, with so many people wondering how I'd gotten a copy early and saying that I was a hacker and/or retarded. I kid you not. Obviously I invited such naysayers to read my pending review the following Monday when the embargo was up, but this being the internet it was obvious that some people were being dicks just for the sake of it.
I actually enjoyed the game to be honest, and the vast range of review scores does puzzle me somewhat. I can certainly appreciate that the game does have its faults, but when someone scores it a three out of ten then I have to question their sincerity. Reviews are opinions at the end of the day, but surely each writer will have to endure the same strengths and weaknesses of a particular title and draw fairly similar conclusions? Obviously personal preference and some bias may well creep in along the way but, personally I try and play each game on its own merits and discount whether or not I like zombies, or racing games, or banana peeling simulators. My job is to review the game based on its own merits, rather than perceiving slights based on other titles or my own personal feelings at the time. It seems that some reviewers do tend to forget that fact and people are left confused when a game can divide opinion so widely.
Anyway, in between smacking zombies around I've also had time to go back and polish off a few other titles that have been cluttering up the old gamertag. First onto the chopping block was Need for Speed Shift, well the DLC to be more apt. To be honest it took me a few hours to get everything done so it certainly offered value for money, though I would have to say that whoever decided on the lap time targets you need for some of the challenge stars could do with a swift kick to the nether regions. The amount of time and frustration that it took me to beat some of the times, even after recording flawless laps, is exactly why I tend to avoid racing games in the first place.
I also went back and knocked off the zero point achievements I needed for NBA Ballers and Battle for the Pacific, meaning they are now 'officially' complete in the eyes of both my peers and Jesus himself. I also found out there was a Ticker only style Horde event running on Gears 2 to celebrate the impending launch of the trilogy concluding finale. So naturally I suited up and went to town battling wave after wave of exploding manaces (though mildly irritating nuisances may be a better description). I roped in a few chums to help me get through the longer waves, and I also found a way to do some of the maps in autopilot (assuming they had a boomshield), though there were a few that required me to beat up my foes solo for 10, 20 or 30 waves which soon got old. Still I've now done all of the Horde achievements and managed to knock out 1999 rounds to boot - leaving me with just Seriously 2.0 to grind through before I can move onto playing Gears 3.
I'm a a bit of a lull at the moment, just finishing up some older games and playing whatever I choose, but the review season is well and truly upon us and that will mean a bevy of new titles to sift through and write about. Bring on the pain.
Tuesday, August 09, 2011
Zero points and completion
I have a bunch of games sat around on my tag that, while I have all of the gamerpoints available, still have a few annoying zero point achievements left hanging around.
Now back in the day nobody really cared about those little critters, but the most recent dashboard update has basically meant that a game does not show up as complete unless you have all of the achievements unlocked. This is a pain in the balls if you ask me, and I've never really bothered to go back and tidy things up. This week I decided to sort out the ones that would require minimal effort and leave the ones that would be more of a chore.
On my immediate hit list are the following, along with my expectations for difficulty:
Halo 3 - I have the full 1750 but still need two zero pointers for having 7XP on the 7th of the month (not too taxing) and completing the last level on 4 player co-op in Ghosts. The latter will be a touch trickier mainly due to the issue of finding required players as pretty much everyone I know did this ages ago. I have three peeps at the moment though so I'm hopeful that it can be knocked off in short order.
NBA Ballers - One zero pointer left, simply for losing five online games in a row. I can boost this in no time at all. Easy.
Battle for the Pacific - One achievement for being killed 250 times in online play. I can boost this myself but it will take a bit of time. Plus I'm actually a bit gutted as I was number one on the online leaderboards for ages due to the fact I'd never died, ha ha! Oh well.
Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts - One achievement for grabbing a mystery box. You cna only unlock these by completing the Banjo XBLA game, which I bought in a sale not long ago. So I'll gain 200 points for the arcade title AND finish up this game once and for all.
So that will be four games completed without earning a single point. Must be some kind of record. I also have zero pointers hanging over COD: WAW (for prestige - no chance) and Brothers in Arms (about seven, all for online, and requires at least six people. Bah!). So they will stay that way forever.
To be honest zero pointers do not bother me too much anymore (which seems hypocritical considering my plan to go out and get them) mainly because I have no chance of 100% completion anyway. With a few glitched/hard/closed server games on my tag I will never get much further than 98/99% completion at the very most, so no point stressing the small stuff. That said, I would like to complete as many games as humanly possible and this will go some way towards completing that goal.
In all honesty my main aim was to max out all Halo titles, and the others just kind of fell into line due to the ease of what was required. I'm sure most people aren't as anal about this kind of stuff but for me it is always nice looking on my profile and seeing 200+ completed games.
Now back in the day nobody really cared about those little critters, but the most recent dashboard update has basically meant that a game does not show up as complete unless you have all of the achievements unlocked. This is a pain in the balls if you ask me, and I've never really bothered to go back and tidy things up. This week I decided to sort out the ones that would require minimal effort and leave the ones that would be more of a chore.
On my immediate hit list are the following, along with my expectations for difficulty:
Halo 3 - I have the full 1750 but still need two zero pointers for having 7XP on the 7th of the month (not too taxing) and completing the last level on 4 player co-op in Ghosts. The latter will be a touch trickier mainly due to the issue of finding required players as pretty much everyone I know did this ages ago. I have three peeps at the moment though so I'm hopeful that it can be knocked off in short order.
NBA Ballers - One zero pointer left, simply for losing five online games in a row. I can boost this in no time at all. Easy.
Battle for the Pacific - One achievement for being killed 250 times in online play. I can boost this myself but it will take a bit of time. Plus I'm actually a bit gutted as I was number one on the online leaderboards for ages due to the fact I'd never died, ha ha! Oh well.
Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts - One achievement for grabbing a mystery box. You cna only unlock these by completing the Banjo XBLA game, which I bought in a sale not long ago. So I'll gain 200 points for the arcade title AND finish up this game once and for all.
So that will be four games completed without earning a single point. Must be some kind of record. I also have zero pointers hanging over COD: WAW (for prestige - no chance) and Brothers in Arms (about seven, all for online, and requires at least six people. Bah!). So they will stay that way forever.
To be honest zero pointers do not bother me too much anymore (which seems hypocritical considering my plan to go out and get them) mainly because I have no chance of 100% completion anyway. With a few glitched/hard/closed server games on my tag I will never get much further than 98/99% completion at the very most, so no point stressing the small stuff. That said, I would like to complete as many games as humanly possible and this will go some way towards completing that goal.
In all honesty my main aim was to max out all Halo titles, and the others just kind of fell into line due to the ease of what was required. I'm sure most people aren't as anal about this kind of stuff but for me it is always nice looking on my profile and seeing 200+ completed games.
Monday, August 08, 2011
Finishing things off and heading to Germany
This week I'm making a last ditch effort to get through Call of Juarez: The Cartel for the third time in order to polish it off. To be honest the games seems to get worse each time I play it and some of the errors are bordering on the ridiculous. When the subtitles don't even match what is being said and are often riddled with spelling errors then you have to wonder who the hell put this through QA. As I completed it for the second time yesterday one of my partners glitched into the floor so that only his head was sticking out - I just had to laugh really.
I reviewed the game recently and it is easily the worst FPS game I've played in a long time. It trumps even Duke Nukem and at least that game had the excuse of being stuck in development hell for an age. On the plus side, Juarez is a pretty easy 1k barring the fact you need to complete it with each character. So I should get it done, and out of my house, some time this week.
I also blitzed through Cars 2 over the weekend, which was a fairly fun racing game although some of the A.I was a tad brutal in places for what is ostensibly a kids game. I'm not a massive racing gamer myself, but this was easy to pick up. However, that made the difficulty spike in later races even more perplexing as if you dropped down the field early on then you would struggle to get back to the front. It seems like there was a very specific style of rubberbanding in place - whereby the cars immediately in front of you and behind you would always be on your shoulder. While those a few places behind or in front would continue to fall away/surge ahead. It was rather weird and meant that if you were in fifth, for example, then you could potentially catch fourth and the sixth place car would be right behind you - however, your odds of then catching second or first were pretty much minuscule and they would often finish about 15-20 seconds ahead no matter what you did.
Still it was easy enough to max out and fairly entertaining in parts, so I'd recommend it for kids looking to have a bit of fun with their favourite characters - or anyone looking for an easy 1k of course, ha ha!
I probably will not do much gaming this week other than Juarez, as I'm off to Gamescom soon. I may well putter around on Eternal Sonata or Fairytale Fights seeing as I've started both of them, but other than that I'll probably not bother with anything new.
Gamescom is lining up to be as interesting as ever. There are more of us going this year which means the workload will be spread out a bit more, instead of having 15 previews to write up (As I did last year) I'll have about ten or so instead. It's good in a way as it means less pressure and more time to experience the show floor instead. However, it also means less time with developers and less games to see behind the scenes, which is a bit sad.
Still I'm sure it will be a kickass time once again, and I'm looking forward to seeing some quality titles first hand. As well as having a break from work of course AND getting to do plenty of writing and, hopefully, meet up with some of the journos that were out there last year.
If you are heading out and bump into me then be sure to say hi. I'll probably be wearing some kind of geeky t-shirt and making a tit of myself. Good times.
I reviewed the game recently and it is easily the worst FPS game I've played in a long time. It trumps even Duke Nukem and at least that game had the excuse of being stuck in development hell for an age. On the plus side, Juarez is a pretty easy 1k barring the fact you need to complete it with each character. So I should get it done, and out of my house, some time this week.
I also blitzed through Cars 2 over the weekend, which was a fairly fun racing game although some of the A.I was a tad brutal in places for what is ostensibly a kids game. I'm not a massive racing gamer myself, but this was easy to pick up. However, that made the difficulty spike in later races even more perplexing as if you dropped down the field early on then you would struggle to get back to the front. It seems like there was a very specific style of rubberbanding in place - whereby the cars immediately in front of you and behind you would always be on your shoulder. While those a few places behind or in front would continue to fall away/surge ahead. It was rather weird and meant that if you were in fifth, for example, then you could potentially catch fourth and the sixth place car would be right behind you - however, your odds of then catching second or first were pretty much minuscule and they would often finish about 15-20 seconds ahead no matter what you did.
Still it was easy enough to max out and fairly entertaining in parts, so I'd recommend it for kids looking to have a bit of fun with their favourite characters - or anyone looking for an easy 1k of course, ha ha!
I probably will not do much gaming this week other than Juarez, as I'm off to Gamescom soon. I may well putter around on Eternal Sonata or Fairytale Fights seeing as I've started both of them, but other than that I'll probably not bother with anything new.
Gamescom is lining up to be as interesting as ever. There are more of us going this year which means the workload will be spread out a bit more, instead of having 15 previews to write up (As I did last year) I'll have about ten or so instead. It's good in a way as it means less pressure and more time to experience the show floor instead. However, it also means less time with developers and less games to see behind the scenes, which is a bit sad.
Still I'm sure it will be a kickass time once again, and I'm looking forward to seeing some quality titles first hand. As well as having a break from work of course AND getting to do plenty of writing and, hopefully, meet up with some of the journos that were out there last year.
If you are heading out and bump into me then be sure to say hi. I'll probably be wearing some kind of geeky t-shirt and making a tit of myself. Good times.
Thursday, August 04, 2011
Job done and moving on
After taking eleven days to master Extreme mode on Lost Planet it only took me a few more to blitz through both Normal and Hard difficulties and find all the respective target marks on each. That snagged me the final, and rarest, achievement Master Pioneer for finding all marks. I'm surprised that a bunch of people have taken the time and effort to finish off Extreme mode but then not bothered with finding the rest of the marks.
Sure it can be a pain in the ass, but the other difficulties are soooo much easier that a player that suffered through extreme mode should find them a breeze. Plus there are a few handy guides to the exact locations of all the marks, which makes your life that much easier. I didn't miss a single one in either of my final run throughs.
Strangely enough this game is nowhere near the top of my completion pile when it comes to time spent, though the skill level was certainly higher than for things like Oblivion or Borderlands. It was certainly an entertaining test of my abilities and I never really got bored of the game, which is a pleasant surprise considering it requires four playthroughs as a minimum.
As my reward (kind of) I have gone back to Call of Jaurez: The Cartel in a bid to finish it off before I head out to Gamescom. I'm also hoping to polish off Cars 2 as well, mainly for review purposes, and even get a little bit further in Eternal Sonata and Fairytale Fights if I have the time. My to do list never seems to shrink but I'm hopeful that I can crack 95% completion by the end of the year.
I'm currently at about 91.50%, which includes all my available DLC. So my main aim is to finish up a few games that I have DLC sat around for (Tomb Raider Legend, COD WaW and Need for Speed Shift are the main culprits) as well as a bunch of easier titles that I started but never finished. After that my next big game will be finishing off either Risen or Supreme Commander as I started both and really should go back to them at some point. I'm also keen to get World Snooker 2007 polished off if I can.
It is certainly a lengthy to do list but one that I'm kind of chipping away at as I go along. Hopefully I'll get it all done and dusted as soon as is humanly possible, but frankly things have a way of cropping up and review titles will need priority and so on.
Oh, and I need to finish off Halo ODST and Gears 2 before the respective new releases land. Though trying to round people up for Firefight and Horde (which is all I have left to do) is a trial in itself.
So many games, so little time.
Sure it can be a pain in the ass, but the other difficulties are soooo much easier that a player that suffered through extreme mode should find them a breeze. Plus there are a few handy guides to the exact locations of all the marks, which makes your life that much easier. I didn't miss a single one in either of my final run throughs.
Strangely enough this game is nowhere near the top of my completion pile when it comes to time spent, though the skill level was certainly higher than for things like Oblivion or Borderlands. It was certainly an entertaining test of my abilities and I never really got bored of the game, which is a pleasant surprise considering it requires four playthroughs as a minimum.
As my reward (kind of) I have gone back to Call of Jaurez: The Cartel in a bid to finish it off before I head out to Gamescom. I'm also hoping to polish off Cars 2 as well, mainly for review purposes, and even get a little bit further in Eternal Sonata and Fairytale Fights if I have the time. My to do list never seems to shrink but I'm hopeful that I can crack 95% completion by the end of the year.
I'm currently at about 91.50%, which includes all my available DLC. So my main aim is to finish up a few games that I have DLC sat around for (Tomb Raider Legend, COD WaW and Need for Speed Shift are the main culprits) as well as a bunch of easier titles that I started but never finished. After that my next big game will be finishing off either Risen or Supreme Commander as I started both and really should go back to them at some point. I'm also keen to get World Snooker 2007 polished off if I can.
It is certainly a lengthy to do list but one that I'm kind of chipping away at as I go along. Hopefully I'll get it all done and dusted as soon as is humanly possible, but frankly things have a way of cropping up and review titles will need priority and so on.
Oh, and I need to finish off Halo ODST and Gears 2 before the respective new releases land. Though trying to round people up for Firefight and Horde (which is all I have left to do) is a trial in itself.
So many games, so little time.
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