Published on Thursday, January 25 2007 .
So what have I been doing while I was moving host?
I completed Lost Planet on the standard difficulty. Let me say one thing first: you can never have too many giant robots, especially ones with power blades, rocket packs and the ability to fly. But yet I don’t feel the urge to play the game through again for the other achievements. Oh and I don’t get why everyone is complaining about the story. Yeah its not great, but it makes sense and the ending was pretty cool.
After that I’ve been playing the Crackdown demo. Its great fun jumping over small buildings, throwing cars at people and then jumping away. I have a feeling it might get quickly repetitive, but then I remember that the demo features accelerated development, meaning you can level quite a way up in half an hour. I do wonder if they’ve shown too much in the demo. I’ll probably buy it anyway but not for the reason everyone else seems to be buying it- the Halo 3 beta. I could never really understand the fascination with Halo, probably because it was shaping up to be a killer PC game back when it was abducted by Microsoft for the fledgling XBox, er 1, and I wasn’t really a part of that console wave.
Oh and apparently the PS3 is actually going to release in March. Its official I will eat my hat as I have always claimed that it won’t come out in the EU until September. However things change and it seems that its not as hot a property as everyone thought, so there will be more to go around. It will sell out of course however I can’t see the key demographic- the families, wanting to by a £425 beast of a machine in March. It would seem that everyone I know is playing on their Wiis, or camping outside the shops waiting for more stock to turn up. Of course if there is still a Wii shortage in March the PS3 might be a (expensive) rebound purchase. Not for me though. Once the Wii has some more diverse titles and is actually in stock I’ll pick one up, but I refuse to give Sony any more of my money.
Published on Thursday, January 25 2007 .
Post host move, I have squashed all the bugs and am ready to accept submissions for the OcUK gamertag database again here
There are now over 160 gamers on the list, hope you are all finding it of use!
Published on Monday, January 22 2007 .
I’ve made the jump to Vidahost, though if its all gone to plan you shouldn’t be able to tell at all!
Please let me know if you find any 404s or other strange goings on.
One thing I’m glad about is that the single quote bug seems to have fixed itself. You may have noticed if you enter a comment with a single quote, for example I’ve, it would appear as I`’ve. The only solution was to enter single quotes as the html entity & # 3 9 ; which was a pain in the rear end. No one as yet has seemed to nail down the bug, it seems to possibly be some kind of misconfiguration in PHP. So it would seem my new host doesn’t suffer from this.
Published on Saturday, January 20 2007 .
I'm moving web hosts over the next few days so there will be no new posts until the domain and pages have been moved.
See you all on the other side!
Published on Monday, January 15 2007 .
I'm currently spending my free time on Lost Planet. I'm quite chuffed with it, though I was worried at first about it as it's been getting 'average' reviews. They all seem to be missing a certain point though: it's a Japanese game. Here are some helpful pointers to those not familiar with Japanese games:
- The protagonist will often only have one parent and if this parent is the father and he will often be killed in the opening scenes setting up the 'avenging my father's death' plot.
- There are always giant robots, and often as the story continues stronger and more powerful mechas will show up, often denoted by their wing like appendages and power swords/chain-saws/scythes/whips etc.
- There will be a friendly female member of the team, whose only role is to feature in chest level shots.
- The plot is not designed to make sense at all. It will of course revolve around some kind of scheme planned by some kind of agency (who get the best mechas apart from the hero mecha) to destroy/take over the world.
The game is far from without its faults, but I wish people would judge this game for what it is, not what it is not.
Published on Sunday, January 14 2007 .
Pfft. Not even an end movie. You jump a bridge and get a message telling you that you're number one. Happy day.
Published on Sunday, January 14 2007 .
I finally beat the last racer to get the final 350 gamerpoints. There's a police chase afterwards before I'm 'treated' to the end movie, and the 50 different challenges to complete, but I really can't be bothered.
The game seems quite promising, the police chases are fun but the races are controller throwing-ly frustrating. The cheating AI means its not a test of skill to win but of pure endurance to see if you can make it to the end without wanting to set fire to the Xbox.
I really, really don't want to play it any more. I might fight my way to the ending to see the laugable FMV, then I'm trading it in. I don't care how much I get for it. I dont even mind if I have to pay them to take it off my hands. Its like the One Ring. Ive got to ditch it before it destroys my very soul.
Published on Friday, January 12 2007 .
Just hit 4000 gamerpoints thanks to Lost Planet. I hit it exactly on the 4000 mark by managing to take out a worm, a mile-long boss. Netted me 50gp. Shame that as soon as it went down another one came up- queue me running like a girl.
Published on Wednesday, January 10 2007 .
So who caught the new series of BSG on Sky One last night? Glad to see (as far as I can tell) its not cut in any way differently to the US version, and I'm also glad its not been 'Lost-ed' with adverts every time someone finishes a sentence. They have however seen fit to put in those annoying adverts for Yell that they use for Futurama, the ones with the 'alien from the planet Zargon'. Annoying. Anyway enough about BSG without actually discussing the episode!
I plan to put up a short review soon.
Published on Saturday, January 6 2007 .
I just read the casting line-up for upcoming Command and Conquer 3. Quite a bunch:
- Joseph D. Kuncan: He's always played Kane, he IS Kane.
- Billy Dee Williams: Yeah, Lando from Star Wars.
- Michael Ironside: You might not recognise his name, but chances are he's been in a movie you've seen. I remember him most in Top Gun and for his role as the incompetent bad guy in Total Recall (well he was up against Arnold Schwarzenegger).
- Tricia Helfer: Number Six from Battlestar Galactica. She seems to be filling the part of the blonde evil woman that the previous C&C games have had. My money is on her being asked to put on an 'evil' accent, perhaps Russian, German or even perhaps Middle Eastern (as in movies Russians are KGB spies/or torturers, Germans are Nazis and people from the Middle East are terrorists).
- Grace Park: Sharon from Battlestar Galactica.
- Josh Holloway: Lost's Sawyer.
There are some very talented actors there, but I bet that the acting comes out all hammy for two reasons. Firstly, this isn't a Hollywood production, and secondly as a rule C&C games must have hammy cut-scenes.
I'm still sceptical about the game as a whole as the series really went down hill after Tiberian Sun, and has become another EA franchise. Yeah I'm one of those many people who have a distinct dislike for all things EA. The game looks like the latest graphical revision of a stale genre. My money is on Supreme Commander, but I won't pass judgement until I've at least played a demo of it.