No more Mr Nice Gaius
The Grand Theft Auto IV trailer was just released, which caused the instantaneous implosion of Rockstar’s website and any game site foolish enough to mirror it.
Its back in Liberty City and from the few seconds of footage it looks schweet. Jury’s still out on revisiting old ground again though.
I’m trying to get into Oblivion on the PC. I bought it at launch but never got on with it but now cash is extremely tight (switching jobs means no cash for a couple of months) I’ve decided to play some of the games I never got round to finishing.
I spent about 2 hours downloading the recommended mods to make it look pretty, and another 3 playing with the character editor to get the perfect looking person. I haven’t even left the starting cell yet. The annoying thing is I know that I’ll play it for a while and get bored again. I must persevere!
I’ve been so busy of late, I don’t think I’ve turned on the 360 for at least a week.
I don’t like talking about work on here, but its been causing me stress. I recently quit my current job for a new one that’s closer to home and has more career opportunities. Problem was I have a 12 week notice period (I kid you not) and I was pleading to be let go sooner or I might have ended up with no job at all. Despite some pointless dragging of heels they’re letting me go in a couple of weeks. On the upside this means I can finally get (as I need it) a car, the downside is I’ve spent every evening either fretting about my notice (now solved) or car hunting. So I’m knackered. Very knackered. Another weekend of car hunting to go and hopefully I’ll have everything in place by the middle of the month so I can actually play Crackdown and possibly Supreme Commander if it will run on my PC.
That reminds me, the fan on my PC’s northbridge started emitting a whine. Its happened before and giving it a jiggle has done the trick, but not this time. I went to unscrew it but one of the screws was threaded. As I was tired and irritable I literally tore the thing out of the heatsink, bending half of the blades and ripping the screw out. After bending the blades back again, replacing the duff screw and putting a bit of oil on the bearings I put it back in and now its silent. How I get away with being so abusive to my PC I’ll never know, but the beast has served me well for quite a while now.
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.
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 game is far from without its faults, but I wish people would judge this game for what it is, not what it is not.
Pfft. Not even an end movie. You jump a bridge and get a message telling you that you're number one. Happy day.
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.
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.
I just read the casting line-up for upcoming Command and Conquer 3. Quite a bunch:
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.
I'm getting back into multiplayer Gears of War after a short break. I've only been playing with people I know as everyone else seems to only use the game's exploits, rather than attempt to actually play properly. Playing multiplayer is great fun and hilarious at times, though I must learn not to scream down the headset so much. Speaking of which, I've abandoned the expensive wireless headset as it just doesn't work as well as the wired one.