Archive for the ‘General Gaming’ Category
Wednesday, February 17th, 2010
Final Fantasy XIII is a matter of weeks away, which means those of us lucky enough to own both an Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 have a difficult decision to make. Okay, so you know the technicalities behind why the PS3’s superior Blu-Ray format pwns the 360’s sub-standard DVD, right? The jist of it is; Blu-Ray single layer capacity = 25GB. DVD single layer capacity = 4.7GB. A significant difference, huh? What this then leave us with, is the fact that Final Fantasy XIII will look hotter running on the PlayStation 3.
This is where tricky decisions come in, the kind of choices that change lives, people! I’ve said from day one of buying my PlayStation 3, which I rarely play, that it would only serve as a Blu-Ray player and for exclusives my 360 fangirlism otherwise wouldn’t see. The rule was simple; any multi-platform releases would involuntary be bought for the Xbox.
Personally, I’m faced with this decision for the first time, as the sheer detail of Final Fantasy XIII means that, while the experience is somewhat preserved on the Xbox 360 by shipping the game on 3 discs, CG has been compressed, and environment/character detail is lower. Basically, it’s not going to look as good on my Xbox as it will on my PlayStation. Therefore the choice should be simple, right? But factor into that my love of Achievements, my gripes with the PlayStation, and the simple fact that gaming without Xbox Live leaves me feeling limbless, I’ve got to weigh things up.
I can experience the full beauty of the Final Fantasy universe on my PlayStation 3, but I’ll feel 100% disconnected and solitary when I do so. I can’t invite a friend who’s also playing into chat with me to talk about our experiences, where we’re at in the game, or keep one another company through some of the inevitably tedious parts JRPGs always posses. I won’t feel the petty delight of an Achievement pinging up and boosting my overall GamerScore I’ve honed for two years. And these, my friends, are important things to me.
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Tags: Final Fantasy XIII, Playstation 3, Xbox Live
Posted in General Gaming | 10 Comments »
Tuesday, February 16th, 2010
My name is Ashley, and I’m a Dragon Age addict. You can assume from my Tweet that not only did I finish Dragon Age: Origins, but I was absolutely blown away by it, especially the ending. Which is funny, as I had approached this game with such apprehension. Why? Given the pathetic year of gaming I had experienced in ‘09, I wasn’t quite sure my attention could hack a heavy Bioware RPG. I was wrong. By about 73 hours. Heck, I’ve probably done more gaming the past couple of months than I did the entire duration of 2009. Anyway, I’ve talked in some detail about Dragon Age, so I don’t want to reiterate anything that’s already been said, yet I still want to ramble on about what a beautiful game this is (of course, not in terms of graphics…).
Very few of my readers appear to be hardcore RPG fans, so it is safe to assume this post will largely go ignored. However, if any of you are reading this and remotely curious about the wonderful world of Ferelden, continue reading, because I’m determined to highlight how amazing this game is, even if it is only to one person.
What’s An RPG Without A Good Story?
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Tags: Bioware, Dragon Age: Origins, RPG
Posted in General Gaming | 5 Comments »
Tuesday, February 9th, 2010
Bioshock 2 is released in Europe today, which is odd given that it’s a Tuesday (we always get new releases on the Friday). I’m not that excited about it. Why? A couple of reasons, which I’m surprised to admit, especially as the first Bioshock was outstanding; one of the few games I will heartily recommend to anyone and everyone, simply because, from start to finish, it is consistently successful in creating a suspenseful environment with an unrivaled atmosphere. So yes, the original Bioshock was stellar, one of the 360’s finest exclusives. The sequel, however, has not only come at a wrong time for me, but it’s also the fact I can’t seem to muster up the enthusiasm to play as a Big Daddy.
What I particularly loved about Bioshock, was the entire story surrounding Jack, the character you took control of. He happened upon Rapture because of an airplane accident, and from the point you entered the lighthouse onwards, everything was unsettling and begging to be explored. Seriously, just thinking back to the first few moments of taking control of Jack and wading through the water towards the lighthouse is making me giddy. Big Daddies, as you know, are an integral part of Rapture. They were a familiar encounter in the original, and insanely fun to go up against. They were pretty resilient, but nothing a dozen electric bucks couldn’t take down.
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Tags: Bioshock, Bioshock 2
Posted in General Gaming | 5 Comments »
Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010
As I lay nestled on the floor, my feet firmly planted in mud, head safely tucked behind a dismembered plane wing, my AK47 barrel stealthily creeps out from within cover; a feeble attempt to catch a glimpse of whoever is responsible for spraying bullets in my direction. Just as I do that, I see a pair of legs whizzing by me as they unknowingly evade my hiding spot. It’s only my mate, Rick, charging towards the enemy in question, emptying his clip and leaving the bastard in a spasm on the ground, giving me the opportunity to safely reveal myself from the wrecked plane I was taking solace behind. You see, my roots are firmly planted in Rainbow Six: Vegas, a tactical shooter that requires you to take it slow and plan your advance, and this game I am talking about, is of course Modern Warfare 2.
There are indeed many differences between Modern Warfare and Rainbow Six: Vegas, but the most notable difference is in the style of gameplay. Vegas encourages you to play it safe, to utilise cover and pick enemies off at a steady pace. It’s tactical. Modern Warfare has a fast and frenzied pace further emphasized by sprinting and your melee weapon. It’s a run and gun. Even after playing the storymode through twice, I still can’t shake my tactical roots.
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Tags: Modern Warfare 2, Rainbow Six: Vegas, Special Ops
Posted in General Gaming | 3 Comments »
Thursday, January 21st, 2010
Okay, so I told y’all (I really can’t get away with saying that what with my Scottishness) that I’d be whoring Dragon Age: Origins up until Mass Effect 2’s release, which is now only a mere 8 days away. Well, work and life are doing what they do best and getting in the way of some serious gaming, so I haven’t played as much of it as I would have hoped. I’m about 30 hours in, however, which has given me a good enough feel of the game to share my initial impressions. 30 hours in and this is initial impressions? I hear you cry. Yep, it’s the crazy, nonsensical world of Role Playing Games.
The Devil Is In The Details
In my eyes, a significant portion of what accounts towards a successful RPG is the detail. The devil really is in the details, and the sheer scope of thought that goes into forming the foundations of the world you’ll be spending so much time in never ceases to amaze me. My Dragon Age: Origins adventure as a City Elf, Buddeigh (do you see what I did there? Huh? Female Buddy the Elf?), is currently sitting at the 30 hour mark, yet I still find myself often overwhelmed as I navigate through a deeply rich and scripted world.
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Tags: Bioware, Character Creation, Dragon Age: Origins, Mass Effect, Mass Effect 2, RPG
Posted in General Gaming | 3 Comments »
Saturday, January 2nd, 2010
A couple of people found it amusing when I casually mentioned my loose gaming schedule I’m attempting to follow. I guess this is one of many sad attributes that explain my prolonged singledom. If I don’t plan, I find it slightly unnerving not knowing what releases are ahead and how I can strategise what games to play around any up-coming titles. Take my current situation; it’s a bit of a busy one with various games vying for my attention, but with a degree of planning I should be able to coincide everything perfectly and have minimal overlap. Yes, I’m that geeky.
Christmas has just passed, and, like you, I’ve added a few new additions to my video game arsenal. To be specific, I currently have Lego Indiana Jones, Batman Arkham Asylum, and Dragon Age: Origins fresh in their wrapper. At least all three were until I decided to play Dragon Age: Origins. You see, it would have been a quick and dirty run-through of Batman (I’ve heard the story isn’t particularly long) if Mass Effect 2 wasn’t released less than 4 weeks away. Make no mistake, the Mass Effect sequel is taking well deserved priority in my schedule, and so I have to plan around that. Comprende?
This becomes tricky considering I stick to one game at a time. If a game has a story, which most do, I’ll see it through from start to finish without interruption from another game. I can break it up by playing something casual a la Trials HD or Battlefield 1943, but to swap between, say, Dragon Age: Origins and Mass Effect 2 would kill me. This is why I need a schedule!
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Tags: Batman Arkham Asylum, Bioshock 2, Dragon Age: Origins, Lego Indiana Jones, Mass Effect 2
Posted in General Gaming | 12 Comments »
Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009
Last weekend, in a bid to fill out my completion percentage, I decided to breath some life into stale releases with fresh downloadable content (DLC). For a couple of reasons I typically avoid DLC. By the time developers ship it I’ve long finished the game concerned and have moved onto something else. I also feel it’s rarely worth the extra cash, and accumulating everything I’ve spent on that one game generally leaves me thinking: “Wow, that was so not worth the £60 I’ve dumped on it”.
With the past few weeks, however, the completion force within me has been strong, and so I decided to revisit some of the older titles I had finished prior to the DLC. Because I had already whored Lara Croft for 1000 points in Underworld, I decided to chase after the additional 250 points. With it being a Tomb Raider game, I figured the extra Achievements probably wouldn’t be too hard to score.
Underworld has two expansions — Lara’s Shadow and Beneath The Ashes. Both are priced at 800 Microsoft Points, with a Gamerscore value of 125 Points each. Beneath The Ashes was the first to be distributed to Xbox Live, and so it was the first DLC I purchased. It was also the cause of controversy when a begrudged Crystal Dynamic’s employee divulged it was originally part of the retail game, only to be cut at a later point and re-branded as DLC. So, Crystal Dynamics are now charging extra for a level that was originally meant to be in the retail game. Cheeky, and just plain unethical.
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Tags: Beneath The Ashes, Crystal Dynamics, DLC, Lara's Shadow, Tomb Raider, Tomb Raider Underworld
Posted in General Gaming | 5 Comments »
Wednesday, December 9th, 2009
2009 was to be the year my concentration for gaming dwindled to a considerable low. People say that gaming is a hobby you inevitably grow out off, but the fact I returned to it on my 19th birthday after a 4 year hiatus, and have since spent a lot of time doing, proved to be the opposite for myself. However, something odd has happened to me over the past 12 months, and I find myself notably less excited about gaming than I ever have been. Where did it go wrong, and why?
On January 25th, my birthday, I found myself having “the talk” with a guy I was seeing. You know the talk, the awkward one where you’re furtively investigating how serious you’ve become, whether you’ve made the leap to exclusivity or are still seeing other people. For whatever reason, having a boyfriend who didn’t game meant that I also paid less attention to my Xbox, especially as only a few months earlier I had finished with a guy who was as big a gamer as I. It was at this point I was playing Skate 2, the follow-up to one of my favourite games of 2007.
Skate 2 was meant to have me as hooked as the original, especially as Black Box had done a great job of building on and improving the foundations of Skate. Somehow it failed to be the game that had me itching to finish work just so I could freeskate around San Vanelona, which was odd as it was undoubtedly an improvement over the original. It wasn’t logical… I loved the original, and now I was playing an improved version of that, so there really should have been no reason I was struggling to get excited about Skate 2. Yet I was. Even though I had put my inability of getting hooked on Skate 2 as a direct result of my new relationship, it was to set the unfortunate tone for the coming year.
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Tags: 2009, Assassin's Creed II, Assassins Creed, Batman Arkham Asylum, Dragon Age: Origins, Infinite Undiscovery, Left 4 Dead, Lego Batman, Mass Effect, Mass Effect 3, Resident Evil 4, Resident Evil 5, Round-up, Skate, Skate 2
Posted in General Gaming | 9 Comments »
Wednesday, November 18th, 2009
I’m not going to review Modern Warfare 2. That would be considered a complete waste of my time; a blog post deemed worthless for a game of this stature. If you want a review, it’s safe to assume mine would go as follows: Fucking fantastic, buy it now. I do, however, want to share some personal highlights after completing the single player campaign. Naturally, there will be spoilers.
Hoops, baby
On the introductory mission, S.S.D.D. (Same Shit Different Day), you’re stationed in the camp alongside other U.S. Army Rangers. Part of your initiation involves running a test course otherwise known as ‘The Pitt’, an opening level which is now synonymous with Modern Warfare (F.N.G - Fucking New Guy - was Modern Warfare’s equivalent). Before that, though, it’s entirely possible to veer off course and explore the camp. Everyday sights of stationed army life play out before you. For example, there were soldiers atop a car fixing up their vehicle in preparation of heading out, others were familiarising themselves with their new weapons, while some soldiers were making the most of their down time and simply relaxing. But what peaked my interest were the two men playing basketball; the sheer realism of their motion was enough to have me stop and spectate for a few minutes. Sounds ridiculous, right? We were at war, yet I was hooked on two men dribbling and taking shots at a hoop.
Snowmobiles
What a juxtaposition of a level. Cliffhanger is a stealth mission, one that - if played correctly - requires you to take it steadily, blending into the blizzard and skillfully remaining undetected. Needless to say, it’s a slow paced level despite tension running high (I felt anxious every time my heartbeat sensor detected a nearby enemy). Then, as the level drew to a close, you were suddenly aboard a snowmobile, zipping in and out of trees at a ridiculously high speed, avoiding obstacles and taking out enemies while speeding full pelt downhill. Exhilarating to say the least, and the first moment of Modern Warfare 2 that really made me go ‘Wow‘.
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Tags: Modern Warfare 2
Posted in General Gaming | 6 Comments »
Wednesday, November 11th, 2009
This post contains spoilers.
When launching the single player campaign for the first time, Activision’s Modern Warfare 2 warns you of a level deemed uncomfortable and controversial, giving you the option to opt out of playing it without any effect on the story or your GamerScore. I’ve not played too many games where I’ve been directly impacted by something harrowing happening in-game, and I certainly wanted to savour the full Modern Warfare experience. Needless to say, I decided to go ahead and play it.
The controversial level is upon you sooner than expected, with the third level (if you have indeed agreed to play it) being the culprit. I have to admit, a sick (or simply curious?) part of me was eager to specifically see what it was Activision were talking about, and when I nonchalantly swaggered out of an elevator with my comrades and proceeded to calmly slaughter every innocent civilian in sight, I knew this was it. Yet I wasn’t shocked.
What did get me, however, was the eerie way in which my men mercilessly meandered through a pile of dead bodies, picking off every scampering civilian in sight. And I was expected to do the same. I came across an injured man slouched against a gory wall, his legs spread out on the floor, drowning in a pool of his own blood, his life slowly slipping away. Should I finish him off? Or should I leave him to suffer simply so I can avoid the bloodstains of yet another innocent civilian on my hands? You see, for those who are reading this and ignorant of spoilers, you are in fact playing an undercover mission where you are required to get close and gain the trust of a nasty Russian; the guy responsible for this massacre. So whilst you are temporarily part of a team of ruthless killers, you are of course the good guy. Yet I lined my crosshair up with his head, both in keeping with my undercover disguise and also wishing to help him out of his misery, and I ended it for him.
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Tags: Modern Warfare 2, No Russian
Posted in General Gaming | 27 Comments »
Hmm. Uhh. Yeah. Skyrim. It’s massive. The quests are never-ending. My character has a mohawk. My class is Breton. Don’t 