*Hopefully* that will be enough to fight off the craving for another couple of months, but we'll see...
Monday, 28 July 2008
World of Addictioncraft
*Hopefully* that will be enough to fight off the craving for another couple of months, but we'll see...
Friday, 25 July 2008
Games of 2008 for which to look forward unto (Part 2)
Continuing from the Monday post (which was actually submitted Wednesday due to shockingly having work-related things to do inbetween), here's the continuing games coming out in the rest of 2008 that I'm very much looking forward to!
Left 4 Dead
Yes the "4" in the title is a bit unfortunate, but it is being made by Valve, which makes up for it a bit. When was the last bad game that Valve made, hmm? They certainly know everything they're doing with FPS games, and it's zombie survival co-op. I really think that's all that needs to be said!
Soul Calibur IV
I was a bit unsure if SC IV was going to make it into the list, but with Kotaku's recent coverage highlighting the many improvements to this edition, I couldn't resist pre-ordering this based on the fact it's the only game I might buy between now and when Spore comes out. A week today in fact, maybe I'll do an amazing review once I've had some "hands-on" time with it?
However, I'm still not at all convinced at the inclusion of Yoda, Vader and ridiculously named Force Unleashed guy. I'm just completely at a loss for words on what has to be the most bizarre crossover I've ever heard of (that includes Frank West in Lost Planet, and Solid Snake in Smash Bros, those made much, MUCH more sense). Ok, leave it for the review, then I'll decide!
Fallout 3
A bit undecided on this one - Oblivion in a much-loved post-apocalyptic setting should be great, but I never got into the original fallout games. I probably would have loved them too, in an X-Com or Jagged Alliance style, but I tried Fallout 2 the other week and couldn't get very far past the horribly dated UI. So we'll see, could be good, but this one currently isn't a pre-order for me (yet).
Far Cry 2
This, however, DOES look very promising to me. Now that I have a PC which surprisingly has a very good chance of running this to an acceptable level, what is shaping up to be a fun (possibly somewhat Mercenaries 2-like) sandbox environment, but in a shiny FPS engine, sounds hard to turn down. There's not much else to go on at this point, there's some very shiny tech demos, even some surprisingly long gameplay vids, but there isn't much in the way of indepth previews, which almost makes it look dubious for a 2008 release, but I think they'll pull it out of the bag in time.
Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm
This is a PS3 exclusive, and I don't have a PS3, so Naruto UNS has done well to even make it on this list. I am a big fan of Naruto (unfortunately), and the cel shading in this game is so absolutely amazing and true to the source material that it was pushing me towards getting a PS3 at some point - until the FFXIII announcement that was!
The only thing that bugs me about this is - why didn't they base it on the Shippuden time span? (Apologies to non-animé-viewing readers)
And that's it for part 2! This was the list of sort of inbetween "hmm, to buy or not to buy?" games. The concluding part (part 3, for those still keeping count) will have just two games in it, because they're such (hopefully) amazing quality! But which two games could they be? What do you, the non-existent reader, think? Find out at some completely unknown time later!
Left 4 Dead
Yes the "4" in the title is a bit unfortunate, but it is being made by Valve, which makes up for it a bit. When was the last bad game that Valve made, hmm? They certainly know everything they're doing with FPS games, and it's zombie survival co-op. I really think that's all that needs to be said!
Soul Calibur IV
I was a bit unsure if SC IV was going to make it into the list, but with Kotaku's recent coverage highlighting the many improvements to this edition, I couldn't resist pre-ordering this based on the fact it's the only game I might buy between now and when Spore comes out. A week today in fact, maybe I'll do an amazing review once I've had some "hands-on" time with it?
However, I'm still not at all convinced at the inclusion of Yoda, Vader and ridiculously named Force Unleashed guy. I'm just completely at a loss for words on what has to be the most bizarre crossover I've ever heard of (that includes Frank West in Lost Planet, and Solid Snake in Smash Bros, those made much, MUCH more sense). Ok, leave it for the review, then I'll decide!
Fallout 3
A bit undecided on this one - Oblivion in a much-loved post-apocalyptic setting should be great, but I never got into the original fallout games. I probably would have loved them too, in an X-Com or Jagged Alliance style, but I tried Fallout 2 the other week and couldn't get very far past the horribly dated UI. So we'll see, could be good, but this one currently isn't a pre-order for me (yet).
Far Cry 2
This, however, DOES look very promising to me. Now that I have a PC which surprisingly has a very good chance of running this to an acceptable level, what is shaping up to be a fun (possibly somewhat Mercenaries 2-like) sandbox environment, but in a shiny FPS engine, sounds hard to turn down. There's not much else to go on at this point, there's some very shiny tech demos, even some surprisingly long gameplay vids, but there isn't much in the way of indepth previews, which almost makes it look dubious for a 2008 release, but I think they'll pull it out of the bag in time.
Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm
This is a PS3 exclusive, and I don't have a PS3, so Naruto UNS has done well to even make it on this list. I am a big fan of Naruto (unfortunately), and the cel shading in this game is so absolutely amazing and true to the source material that it was pushing me towards getting a PS3 at some point - until the FFXIII announcement that was!
The only thing that bugs me about this is - why didn't they base it on the Shippuden time span? (Apologies to non-animé-viewing readers)
And that's it for part 2! This was the list of sort of inbetween "hmm, to buy or not to buy?" games. The concluding part (part 3, for those still keeping count) will have just two games in it, because they're such (hopefully) amazing quality! But which two games could they be? What do you, the non-existent reader, think? Find out at some completely unknown time later!
Thursday, 24 July 2008
Childhood Remixed
In my future games of 2008 (part 1!) I embedded the fantastic Mystic Cave Zone theme from Sonic 2. This, somehow, got me on a train of thought web surfing (I've no idea how it started now) onto classic 90s (video) game music remixes, and the end result is discovering the wonderful world of last.fm and Overclocked Remix.
The surprisingly useful product of this is I now have a last.fm library I can share here, which is currently made up of Sonic, Final Fantasy VII and Streets of Rage music track remixes! Enjoy, I suppose.
The surprisingly useful product of this is I now have a last.fm library I can share here, which is currently made up of Sonic, Final Fantasy VII and Streets of Rage music track remixes! Enjoy, I suppose.
Wednesday, 23 July 2008
The herald of a new age
Wednesday is becoming something of an unofficial "we have no work to do so let's go to the pub for lunch" day instead of the OFFICIAL Pub Lunch Friday (with which it co-exists peacefully).
So we went to the Old House at Home (pictured! Though I'm pilfering somebody else's flickr photo of it. Thanks random flickr guy!)
Thinking I would go for something slightly healthier than the standard bhurgher (not always in a fake Irish accent), I ordered a chicken burger from the fancy new menu (we were expecting soon-to-be-axed Barleycorn prices, but alas). However the surprisingly attractive waitressette (sorry, no pics) told me there were no burger buns! DISASTER! They did, however, offer to put the chicken burger on a baguette. Which I thought would be interesting so I said it was fine. "That's fine" I said. But also when we were sat outside she also said there were no chicken burgers/fillets/meat products! Double disasteroni! So I said I'd have a beef burger instead if that was ok. "That's fine" she said. Anyway, the point of all this rambling is that when it did actually come to the table, it was a burger... on a baguette... and so it was the birth of -
THE BURGETTE!
Brilliantly I didn't take any photos of it, so here's a video of my truly awful parking I did as we got there. I am the king of rubbish parking.
Monday, 21 July 2008
Games I'm looking forward to this year (hopefully this year) - Part Uno
If you know me at all (and if you don't, how did you ever find this blag among all the other rambling thousands?) then you'll know one of my big (possibly biggest) interests is in games. Vi-de-o games as some luddites call them. And by all accounts, 2008 is shaping up to be a truly awesome (half of a) year for games. With very little further ado then, here are the games I'm most looking forward to that are currently (hopefully) coming out in 2008.
Spore
I don't think I could start this list with anything but Spore - mostly due to the insane length of time since it was first unveiled (when I was still in uni!), but also just because, well, it's Spore.
There's also the fact that Will Wright is no doubt one of the industry's leading creative geniuses (genii), and I don't lay such praise lightly; back when The Sims was in development some critics expected it to turn out as a relatively niche title with an odd concept that wouldn't be accepted by the hardcore crowd - now it's by far one of the biggest selling franchises ever, and even better its responsible for pretty much single-handedly introducing the "casual" gamer crowd to "real" games. You know it's true. I've just realised I've managed to ramble on this far without even saying anything actually about Spore. Oh well. I'll just go with my prediction that even though, again, some critics don't think it will be very mainstream due to the odd premise, it's going to be huger than huge, in a big way thanks to the ridiculously easy usability of the editor bits in it.
Mercenaries 2
Getting this in here as it rather unfortunately is due to come out on the same day as Spore. Seems like a terrible decision but they're probably looking for a different "target demographic". Anyway, the original Mercenaries (I think I had the Xbox version, not PS2) was in my opinion the best sandbox game to let you actually play at your objectives in a free-form manner. Plus much destruction (just remembered the cliché subtitle was "Playground of destruction", so I guess it's living up to that quite well). I think I'm going to enjoy this much more than the overall almost disappointment that was GTA 4 and the "good but slightly lacking" Crackdown. I'm almost prepared for a disappointment here too, but the preview enthusiasm is still holding out for now.
Guitar Hero 4 (I.e. "World Tour")
*Controversy warning!* I enjoyed and still enjoy Guitar Hero 3 (yes, 3) MORE THAN ROCK BAND! Sorry everyone. The note charts are just more fun because they're almost insanely difficult, but getting used to that and then playing RB just felt like GH lite on easy mode, plus vocals and drums. Discovering that I don't have the co-ordination for drums and that the world as a whole is a better place if I don't attempt to sing, GH3 has easily won me over. Other than all this though, GH4 will have a music editor built in, letting you create tracks for all instruments other than the vocals, and that, my friends, can only mean one thing: classic 16 bit era game music in GH form:
Warhammer Online
Probably the least likely from this list to make it out this year(!), but thanks to the shiny collector's edition pre-order I'm guaranteed a place in the open beta (whatever that really means), which is the next stage of the beta (apparently). Age of Conan was a massive disappointment (and I didn't even notice when it was released, just picked it up from GAME one day - yes I was desperate and used GAME) but *something* has to replace WOW, right? Ok maybe not, but a lot of people (me included) want a change from WOW although still with a somewhat mainstream MMO, and I'll really be into the Warhammer IP from being a bit of a Games Workshop geek back in the day. We'll see!
This is going to end up being one epic blag post unless I split it up a bit, so this'll do for now, check back at some indeterminate time later for some more of Ross' games of 2008 to look forward to! It's actually a brilliant 2nd half of a year for games. Woo.
Spore
I don't think I could start this list with anything but Spore - mostly due to the insane length of time since it was first unveiled (when I was still in uni!), but also just because, well, it's Spore.
There's also the fact that Will Wright is no doubt one of the industry's leading creative geniuses (genii), and I don't lay such praise lightly; back when The Sims was in development some critics expected it to turn out as a relatively niche title with an odd concept that wouldn't be accepted by the hardcore crowd - now it's by far one of the biggest selling franchises ever, and even better its responsible for pretty much single-handedly introducing the "casual" gamer crowd to "real" games. You know it's true. I've just realised I've managed to ramble on this far without even saying anything actually about Spore. Oh well. I'll just go with my prediction that even though, again, some critics don't think it will be very mainstream due to the odd premise, it's going to be huger than huge, in a big way thanks to the ridiculously easy usability of the editor bits in it.
Mercenaries 2
Getting this in here as it rather unfortunately is due to come out on the same day as Spore. Seems like a terrible decision but they're probably looking for a different "target demographic". Anyway, the original Mercenaries (I think I had the Xbox version, not PS2) was in my opinion the best sandbox game to let you actually play at your objectives in a free-form manner. Plus much destruction (just remembered the cliché subtitle was "Playground of destruction", so I guess it's living up to that quite well). I think I'm going to enjoy this much more than the overall almost disappointment that was GTA 4 and the "good but slightly lacking" Crackdown. I'm almost prepared for a disappointment here too, but the preview enthusiasm is still holding out for now.
Guitar Hero 4 (I.e. "World Tour")
*Controversy warning!* I enjoyed and still enjoy Guitar Hero 3 (yes, 3) MORE THAN ROCK BAND! Sorry everyone. The note charts are just more fun because they're almost insanely difficult, but getting used to that and then playing RB just felt like GH lite on easy mode, plus vocals and drums. Discovering that I don't have the co-ordination for drums and that the world as a whole is a better place if I don't attempt to sing, GH3 has easily won me over. Other than all this though, GH4 will have a music editor built in, letting you create tracks for all instruments other than the vocals, and that, my friends, can only mean one thing: classic 16 bit era game music in GH form:
Warhammer Online
Probably the least likely from this list to make it out this year(!), but thanks to the shiny collector's edition pre-order I'm guaranteed a place in the open beta (whatever that really means), which is the next stage of the beta (apparently). Age of Conan was a massive disappointment (and I didn't even notice when it was released, just picked it up from GAME one day - yes I was desperate and used GAME) but *something* has to replace WOW, right? Ok maybe not, but a lot of people (me included) want a change from WOW although still with a somewhat mainstream MMO, and I'll really be into the Warhammer IP from being a bit of a Games Workshop geek back in the day. We'll see!
This is going to end up being one epic blag post unless I split it up a bit, so this'll do for now, check back at some indeterminate time later for some more of Ross' games of 2008 to look forward to! It's actually a brilliant 2nd half of a year for games. Woo.
It's...... ALIVE!!
Hello, this is my blag for being random.
Seeing as I do practically no work these days (which is fortuitously outside of my control, hence I still get paid while sat around at work doing nothing) my good friend Dave suggested I write this blag about my random adventures whilst, clearly, not doing any work.
To start things off then, today I learned the wonderful happy happy joy joy news that Red Alert 3 will feature elite Japanese schoolgirl psionic commandos. Brilliant.
Also, being a blag, I get to use fancy (slightly Web 2.0-ish) stuff like HYPERLINKS which may or may not have any relation to the words they highlight. Finally, the future is here.
Also - IMAGES! Also from being bored and having extremely little to do, here's an amazingly accurate (to scale!) rendition of a Viper from Battlestar Galactica I did in MSN messenger handwriting mode thingy:
Due to the size of the window I started in it's a bit short at the top, which is clearly the only thing keeping it from greatness, and indeed, being included inthis next year's Turner prize. Enjoy!
Seeing as I do practically no work these days (which is fortuitously outside of my control, hence I still get paid while sat around at work doing nothing) my good friend Dave suggested I write this blag about my random adventures whilst, clearly, not doing any work.
To start things off then, today I learned the wonderful happy happy joy joy news that Red Alert 3 will feature elite Japanese schoolgirl psionic commandos. Brilliant.
Also, being a blag, I get to use fancy (slightly Web 2.0-ish) stuff like HYPERLINKS which may or may not have any relation to the words they highlight. Finally, the future is here.
Also - IMAGES! Also from being bored and having extremely little to do, here's an amazingly accurate (to scale!) rendition of a Viper from Battlestar Galactica I did in MSN messenger handwriting mode thingy:
Due to the size of the window I started in it's a bit short at the top, which is clearly the only thing keeping it from greatness, and indeed, being included in
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