I got Skyrim on the PC [well, my laptop] since the week of its release and have not played it at all this year. In fact I can’t even remember the last time I did play it, but think it was after Christmas. I even took my laptop to Germany with me hoping I would be able to play some there which, but, thanks to a mixup with travel plugs, I couldn’t.

I have nothing to blame at the moment – I have the time and I have the means right here as I’m typing this post on my laptop. Yet at the same time I’ve had a long day of shopping and getting a haircut and time at my friend’s house that all I want to do is eat the white chocolate brownie I bought from Workhouse Coffee and have some Kindle time in bed.

In the past I blamed having incompatible hobbies, such as knitting and reading [though that's slowly starting to work together with the Kindle], but I can just as well play Skyrim from bed as the desk is next to my bed and I’m playing it with a 360 controller anyway. It’s not even that I don’t like Skyrim – I think it’s probably one of the best games I’ve ever played and every time I’ve played it has been rewarding and brilliant.

So why does it feel like a chore?

I’m still not sure why I bought and played the game. I don’t like scary films or scary books, but particularly not scary games. For some reason I saw Condemned for £5 and decided it would be a good idea to buy it. Spoiler alert: it wasn’t.

Initially I didn’t get past the first level as I became too scared to play any more. Some weeks after that my housemate at the time got the game for the PC and practically forced me to sit by him so he wouldn’t be too scared. We screamed at quite a few places.

Some time later I finally completed the game myself, all the time while talking to @Spidermatt on voice chat whilst he was playing the game at exactly the same parts as me. It’s like co-op without being co-op. I still admire him for listening to my random screaming despite knowing when they’d occur!

One of the creepiest moments of the game is also one of my favourite gaming moments. It’s scary, very scary, but it’s incredibly well done and I love how a game can have this much of an effect.

Setting the scene: This is about 3/4′s of the way through the game in an abandoned department store. The player is searching for a serial killer who prides himself on torturing victims. Completely out of the blue this happens.

Yes, shop mannequins coming closer and closer is terrifying to me and it’s made a lasting impression on me.

..finding that the 360 hard drive with my games saves, particularly my Mass Effect 1 and 2 games saves, wasn’t stolen after all.

Now I just need to read through my posts about Mass Effect 2 to remind myself what I’ve done when I last played it almost a year ago!

• Things I’d like to see improved in Mass Effect 2
• It’s time for Mass Effect 2!
• Mass Effect 2 – First Impressions
• Mass Effect 2 – Some more thoughts
• Mass Effect 2 – “Oh no, here comes disc 2″
• Mass Effect 2 – “Who observes the Observers?”
• Mass Effect 2 – Oh yes, there was that whole saving the galaxy thing..

I know that several people reading this blog are reading it, because they know me through gaming or gaming communities and they’re probably disappointed that there haven’t been many gaming related posts in recent months. Of course, there’s that whole argument that I blog for myself which is true, but I do know most of my audience on here.

So what happened?

Around April my gaming practically stopped. First it was me being busy and stressed and then I had to sell my 360, as I couldn’t afford it for the time being. Those who have known me for a long time know that this is by no means the first time, something similar happened back in May 2008 and it took me just over a year to buy another one as I ended up moving around like a crazy person and wasn’t settled long enough to justify a gaming console. However, in those 13 months I still fully kept up with all the gaming news and remained active in some gaming communities. And I tried playing some PC games, amongst them Deus Ex, Call of Cthulhu and the Sims 2.

Bring on summer 2009 and here I am back in full on gaming mode with another 360 playing everything I’ve missed out on and some old favourites, like Halo 2 and 3, SCDA and new games, like Dragon Age and Mass Effect 2. The latter I’ve yet to finish due to originally dragging it out and later being unable to. Yes, the game I have, in conversation, called ‘the best game I’ve ever played’™ is still incomplete.

Since May I’ve tried playing a few games.

There was the Sims 3 which keeps me captivated for a few days or so and I then get bored of the game glitching on me. Nothing new there, I seem to pick that game up every quarter or so.

There was Deus Ex which I’ve tried playing again. This time I got used to the controls fairly quickly and made better decisions on upgrades. As such I have a, what can only be described as kick ass pistol and I’ve actually progressed through the game reaching a major twist in the story and being able to make decisions affecting the outcome of the game. But strangely it bored me and I’ve stopped playing it.

I’ve tried playing Dragon Age again, this time on PC, obviously. I originally said I didn’t like Dragon Age much [the comments on that post are hilarious!], but later changed my opinion as I realised I didn’t dislike, but rather expected another game instead and allowed my initial opinions to stay with me until completion. That’s not to say that the game doesn’t have issues, but it’s also a lot better than I give it credit for. However, I don’t like the PC controls. I have reached Ostagar with my human, female noble, but don’t see myself progressing much, as fighting the controls for 40h+ doesn’t seem like my idea of fun.

I’ve played and completed KotOR for the seventh time. Playing it on the PC for the first time meant I was able to use some of the mods to improve the game and I’ve also been able to yet again discover new things about the game, despite playing the game with my usual female light side soldier. I have nothing but praise for that game and the PC version is incredible, especially the controls. Let’s not mention the bugs at this point though..

The only reason I replayed KotOR was to have it all in the back of my mind [not that I actually needed to!] to replay KotOR II. Which has issues with Vista. Which doesn’t work on my laptop. I’ve tried patches, searched the internet for hours, downloaded a copy seeing my retail disc didn’t work, reinstalled my disc based version.. Nothing worked.

Moving on to a recent game I’ve played, GTA San Andreas. I’ve had a love/hate relationship when it first came out which has continued. I like the game, even love it at times, but its missions can be so incredibly tedious. I played it a few weeks ago over a long weekend that I was too ill to leave the bed or do anything. In fact the only time I could play GTA was when the flu medication had just started working and I was able to stay focussed for a couple of hours before hideously failing every mission again. As it stands I have just completed several mission in San Fernando.

So why am I not playing GTA now instead of writing this blog post? The answer originally was going to be that I don’t know, but in the process of writing this post I’ve realised that it’s not actually the games themselves [minus KotOR II, of course], but rather the platform.

I’ve given PC gaming a chance by trying several genres and playing some games at length, but at the end of the day all the games are incredibly buggy and have me despair at DRM issues [which is a whole other thing I'm not going to go into at this time] and the controls suck. For me. Playing on my laptop with keyboard and mouse isn’t comfortable. It’s not intuitive and even hours down the line I still had to take a step back with Deus Ex or San Andreas, though painkillers can probably be blamed a little for the latter one! I understand that I’m in the minority, but I can’t get used to it. There are so many great games I’m missing out on, like Deus Ex, but I don’t think I will ever be able to enjoy them.

As for where that leaves me with gaming as a whole? I’ve stopped keeping up with gaming news around April this year. I read two sites’ RSS feeds on a daily basis and skimread the others when I can be bothered. I’ve been getting annoyed with the general reporting of gaming news for a while and love reading GJAIF, but it’s more than that. I dislike what happened to the gaming community, going after new big titles like it’s the best thing ever only to completely forget a title exists after a week. I dislike the constant criticisms on everything. I dislike most of gaming ‘culture’. Yes, the freaking cake is a freaking lie and the fucking princess is in another fucking castle. We know this.

I’m aiming to finish Mass Effect 2 by the end of this year, hopefully, as I’m looking to borrow a friend’s 360 for a short while. I would also like to finish Fable 2 and have a crack at Red Dead Redemption as Rockstar hasn’t let me down so far. As for buying my own 360 I’m unsure at the moment as I have far too much on my plate.

I don’t follow many companies on Twitter, as I’m fairly selective with the people I’m following. One of the few companies I do follow is @XboxSupport. I’ve contacted them several times in the past and some of the issues could not be resolved, just like when a friend once contacted them with a straightforward issue and they made him jump through several hoops. I have mentioned this to them directly in their feedback reports and via direct messages.

I have nothing but the highest respect for anyone working in customer support and appreciate the difficulty of only having 140 characters to help customers. Their customer service has improved vastly over time and I’m sure it’ll carry on to do so in the future.

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At the same time I also think that customer service should work and, where it can’t be dealt with on Twitter, should be taken to other communication methods. @BTcare do this exceptionally. This is a brief summary of my interactions with them over a four months period at the beginning of the year:

1. I contacted the Twitter account to ask to be removed from the BT marketing lists. This involved me emailing my landline number and account holder name to their email address. The matter was dealt with in less than a day.
2. I contacted the Twitter account as we didn’t appear to have any service, even though the bill was paid. Based on my Twitter account and the previous interaction they were able to look up my details and tell me that my housemate’s direct debit hadn’t gone through, even though he claimed he had. Matter was dealt with in an hour and one reply tweet.
3. I contacted their Twitter account to get information about changing the account holder. I was linked to information within hours.

Their support works, because they have the database to back it up, something @XboxSupport are hopefully working on.

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Coming back to the game problem. It’s now 24 hours and 47 Tweets from the customer [over half of them soapboxing] later and the issue is finally resolved after standard troubleshooting methods to eliminate causes. Based on the tweets it could have been resolved after 21 tweets or even earlier, but it was dragged out to involve at least four other people over a few hours. Granted, I may be more or less responsible for it as I wouldn’t let it drop.

Twitter is a public platform and often has people that want to further their own agenda and, well, complain about anything. Tonight is just yet another example of someone starting with a support question which ended up getting out of hand with insults and sarcasm.

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What are the differences between the support accounts? There is no need to follow either of them as questions can be answered without it, but the @XboxSupport account actively encourages people to follow it by tweeting about game news and sweepstakes. Moving that to another account, such as @XboxOfficial or something similar would reduce that. This would also reduce the amount of people that see long and public conversation and would overall reduce the internet drama at least some.

I love that companies provide customer service on Twitter and hope that more will continue to do so, even if the DailyMail paints it as something bad whilst completely missing the point as usual!

So what does everyone do? They take it to Twitter. I think about 20 of the people I’m following are in Los Angeles at the event with another 50 or so watching the live streaming at the moment. And they’re all tweeting about it at the rate of one tweet per person per minute, some of them a lot more. Tweets like:

• Gears3NaoPlz
• Holy SHIT> Gears of War 3.
• Oh no
• this guy is a tank!!!
• meh, Fable, Halo…. yawn.
• Elites are tough!

I love Twitter for news and information and communication and follow each one of them for a reason, but I doubt I’ll ever understand the point in Live-Tweeting something pretty much all your followers are watching anyway. If someone was interested in getting live information they can follow one of the many accounts from gaming sites that have live tweeting with actual content.

What is the point of random shouting like that when no one involved is going to read it anyway as they’re too busy shouting their own stuff and anyone else can’t relate to something they’re not watching?

For what it’s worth I somewhat care about the announcements, but not enough to watch it live right now and am perfectly content with reading about it in a condensed article later tonight. You know, when all the hyping’s calmed down again.

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I have played many games based on a film or TV franchise including Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Shrek, Pirates of the Caribbean, Lost, Buffy and more. I would even consider some of them to be amongst my favourite Xbox 1.0 games.

Games directly based on films or shows have to be fairly linear to not stray too far from the canon, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be fun. For example I quite enjoyed the game based on Star Wars Episode III when it was released back in 2005. It was nothing groundbreaking and extremely linear, but still fun at the time. Just like the hack ‘n slash Lord of the Rings games released as movie tie-ins. Nothing groundbreaking, but nevertheless fun at the time.

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Today, Slitherine Software [can't say I've heard of them before, but the name is rather awesome!] announced their latest title – The Tudors.

The Tudors is an intriguing and exciting adventure game based on Season 1 of the critically-acclaimed, award-winning television series which air on Showtime in the US. Follow in the footsteps of King Henry VIII at the beginning of his epic 40-year reign or choose the path of Anne Boleyn, and realize your dream to become Queen of England. As the story unfolds, you will meet over 20 characters from the series, including Cardinal Thomas Wolsey and Sir Thomas More and roam the corridors and staterooms of the Palace of Whitehall, the main residence of the King.

Full press release.

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Pretty much everyone should be aware of the history regarding the Tudors; Henry VIII and his six wives with four annulled marriages, two beheaded wives after annulment, one dead wife and another one lucky enough to outlive him. Whilst the TV show has taken many liberties, it is still quite correct with the major events and I can’t see anything the game can innovate there. So what is the point?

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Going back to games I have played I remember being very put off when Ubisoft first announced Lost: Via Domus thinking that a game based on a continuity heavy show with all events tied in can’t have anything worth playing as surely the player would effectively just mirror the episodes of the show. However, the game strays from the show’s canon and invents a new character that crashed with the other survivors and interacts with some of them during the course of the game. Overall I very much enjoyed the game. Exploring the island was fun, the mini games decent and it had many things I love about the show from flashbacks to visions and a gripping story.

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The Tudors game has two playable characters, King Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn which, granted, appears to add a bit of versatility to the game, however, it still sounds to me like it’s basically an interactive video with clicking through line after line of dialogue to eventually get to the end.

Do we need a game like that? Most likely not.

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I am and always will be sticking to the idea that more people should play games. Whilst I roll my eyes at the mere mention of Farmville, I love the idea it has so many players, especially people that don’t normally game which I’m sure many gamers will agree that it’s only downhill from there!

Regarding a debate about the planned banning of games in Germany following a mass shooting last year I wrote a post on how gaming is viewed by non gamers:

Gaming isn’t a mainstream past time, most people don’t have access to a high end PC or consoles and it is a foreign concept to them meaning gaming has to be explained to them. [...]

It is our [the gamers] responsibility to educate others about our hobby, just like it is the responsibility of many game companies.

FarmVille does that and if The Tudors has a similar effect I’ll be the first in line to welcome it with open arms. Does that mean I want to see more games like it? No, but it will do for now.

Note: This post is entirely based on the press release, trailer video and screenshots linked above. I have not played the game and most likely won’t as I don’t own an iPhone and the game is currently only available on the US and Canadian app stores. However, I would love to hear some feedback about the game though, even if it proves me wrong! If you have a spare $1.99, the direct download link is here and please don’t forget to come back to post a comment with your impressions!

Gamer Banter is a monthly gaming discussion of multiple bloggers. More info is here and please contact Terry from Game Couch if you wish to take part.

May’s topic is set by Cat at carocat.co.uk: Which game character do you identify yourself with most/least and why?

Today’s entry for the ‘You really shouldn’t do this again as it’ll just be embarrassing’ list: Suggesting a topic for Gamer Banter at the beginning of the month, because I couldn’t get motivated about last month’s topic and then being late with my post, because I’ve not even spent one minute thinking about it due to so much going on in my life. Which I know is just an excuse.

I originally had the idea about the topic not because I already had a post in my mind, but because I wanted to actually force myself to think about game characters and what draws me to some of them and not others. I have always played games for their story and my favourite games tend to be roleplaying games made by BioWare which tend to have very deep character development. Alistair, Carth, Garrus, HK-47, Mira [not a BioWare, but an Obsidian character], Mission, Morrigan and Tali are just some of them I’ve fallen in love with over the years. Some of them for their witty dialogue, others for their excellent voice acting, backstory that perfectly fits with the character’s actions or generally powerful moments.

HK-47: Query: Can I kill him now, master? I’d like ever so much to break his neck. It’s been a long time fantasy of mine…
Revan: Maybe later…
HK-47: Did you hear that meatbag? I will be back!

But it’s not just BioWare RPG’s, there are many more characters I’ve fallen in love with over the years. Some that come to mind now are:

• Pey’j from ‘Beyond Good and Evil’.
• That wise cracking soldier from ‘Full Spectrum Warrior’.
• Leo from ‘Deus Ex Invisible War’.
• The NPC’s from ‘Destroy all Humans’.
• Lady Grey in ‘Fable’.
• Kent Paul from ‘GTA Vice City’
• The grunts from the Halo series.
• Diana from all the Hitman games.
• Rico Rodriguez in ‘Just Cause’. Strangely I didn’t like him so much in the sequel.
• Munch from ‘Oddworld: Munch’s Odyssey’.
• Serious Sam!

I’m glad games are evolving to the standard they are at now. For example Mass Effect 2 [which I still haven't completed!] blows me away every time I play it. The impact decisions of the first game have on the experience are extraordinary guaranteeing different experiences for everyone.

I hope there are going to be many more characters in games to fall in love with!

Have a look at the other Gamer Banter posts. They aren’t as rushed as mine!

• Pioneer Project: The importance of character creation
• Silvercublogger: Will Sing Opera For Italian Food
• Game Couch: Gabriel Knight
• Aim for the Head: Friends Through The End
• Extra Guy: Who I Identify With
• Next Jen: I’d Rather Be Me
• carocat.co.uk: A rushed love letter

It’s now far into May and the GOM month is long over, but I thought I’d update with how far I eventually got.

To recap, the Married Gamers Game Over Month is every April and meant to give you a chance to finish old games that are collecting dust on the shelves. I was going to attempt finishing Fable II , GTA IV – The Lost and the Damned, Need for Speed Undercover, The Saboteur, Top Spin 3, Tomb Raider Underworld and Lost.

In my first post on the topic I mentioned I had finished Tomb Raider Underworld. Sadly I didn’t do much more. Here is the remainder of my GOM taken directly from the forum thread:

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26/04/10

Haven’t played any more since my last update and think I’ll have to leave it with just one game complete.

I did play some more Splinter Cell Double Agent last night though and am very close to having 1000GS on it. Not bad considering I put in hundreds of hours and none of the achievements are boosted!

Only one more map achievement to go! Woohoo!

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28/04/10

1000/1000 Achievements on SCDA! Only took me 3 1/2 years! Woohoo!

I know it doesn’t technically count in the GOM as I’ve finished the single player mode in 2006, but I’ve only completed all the multiplayer challenges two days ago and I’m very proud of it!

I think this is it for me though, even though I attempted GTA IV’s TL&D yesterday I don’t see myself continuing that in the forseeable future as I need to be in the right mood for it I guess.

Ended up starting GTA Vice City again, a game I’ve completed several times, once even 100%! And yes, I did get the T-shirt of it back in the day!

I should really take a picture of it if I ever complete it 100% though I’m not sure I want to put all that work in again! I think it took me close to two years to get 100%.

Anyways, I digress..

The GOM has been fun, thanks for the idea!

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Thanks again to the Married Gamers for the fun idea. I’m a bit disappointed that I didn’t get round to playing more old games, but I was playing a lot of SCDA at the time and Splinter Cell Double Agent took up a lot of time.

So did Tomb Raider Underworld which was a lot of hassle and pain to finish. I’m hoping it’ll serve me as a reminder to not buy any of the future Tomb Raider titles no matter how good or rebooted they’re meant to be.

This month I’m taking part in the Married Gamers Game Over Month or GOM for short.

Started in 2009, Game Over Month offers gamers that chance to catch up on games that fell through the cracks or got lost in a sea of newer game releases. Games can be on virtually any platform including retro consoles and the PC.

There are some more requirements posted over on their site.

This is how the GOM has been going for me so far, the below is mostly taken from my GOM thread on their forum which I believe is only accessible to those registered:

This is a great idea, there are so many games I’ve been vowing to finish for years yet still haven’t. Damn all these new releases!

Let’s see, games I have sitting here that want to be finished:

• Fable II [Currently on some rather annoying bit sort of towards the end I think]
• GTA IV – The Lost and the Damned [Haven't even started the DLC!]
• Need for Speed Undercover [Don't actually ever see me finishing this one.]
• The Saboteur [Such a great premise, such bad execution, but I'm determined to finish it before trading it in.]
• Top Spin 3 – Might as well add this one to the list, loved the previous two, but couldn’t really get used to the changes in the gameplay.
• Tomb Raider Underworld [I've managed to get stuck on the Thailand level and can't find the way out, even with walkthroughs as I can't even figure out where exactly I am..]
• Lost - Liked this a lot actually though got stuck in one of the levels and never carried on. Should only be a couple of hours left on it, too!

Let’s see how it’ll go seeing I’ve still got Mass Effect 2 to finish and am currently completely engrossed in Just Cause 2′s Panau!

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05/04/10

Well.. I did boot up ‘The Saboteur’ yesterday, does that count?

Not been doing very well, been getting sidetracked with having friends over for Easter and playing too much Live, as usual!

I was actually determined to play one of the games on my list today, but am now finding myself on the third Indiana Jones film after realising I hadn’t seen them for a couple of years!

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06/04/10

I’m determined today. I’ve just woken up, so I’ve still got motivation for things and I’m going to play one of those games today! Probably GTA IV!

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07/04/10

So I’ve started. Put in Tomb Raider, restarted the Thailand level, found a Youtube walkthrough and played through the Thailand, Croft Manor, Mexico and Mayen Island levels. And I’ve realised that I really really really don’t like the game. The puzzles are silly, even compared to past Tomb Raiders and there’s never any indication what needs to be done. I hate playing games with a walkthrough, but seeing that I got frustrated with it makes me glad I had it.

I think I’m close to the end now though, here’s hoping!

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08/04/10

Tomb Raider Underworld – complete!

What a let down of an ending, too!

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09/04/10

Moving on, I’ve carried on with my Top Spin career and seem to finally get the hang of it. Progressed through the Challenger stage and the Junior stage.

Of course there was that moment when I was really impressed with a set I’d done, went to change some sound options and realised I’d been playing the game on easy all day..

I’m surprised at how little I appear to get used to the new mechanics. I’ve put in about ten ish hours I think and whilst I’m winning the easy career tournaments I’m not doing too well on the hard ones [Overall profile difficulty plus two choices each simulated month].

So I’m confused that either I’m suddenly doing badly at a gametype I’m actually really good at [without sounding too full of myself!] or that I’m doing something fundamentally wrong in the game!

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14/04/10

Been extremely busy on the weekend and I’ve been ill since, so there’s barely been any gaming.

Mostly gone back to Top Spin 3 though the tournaments [12 per year, 5 per tournament, 2 sets per match, 3 games per set] are taking a lot longer now. Plus I’m encountering pro’s now, like Maria Sharapova.

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17/04/10

Haven’t really been playing quite as much as I should. I’ve been busy this week and still a bit leftover cold.

Somewhat progressing with Top Spin 3, got two or three tournaments left on the pro career and I’ve had some achievements that didn’t unlock with shop items bought which bugged me a little. Encountering pros seemed like a good idea at first, but playing against Miss Sharapova in every single tournament isn’t quite that exciting as her style is easy to beat..

Played a little bit of Force Unleashed last night, too. Completed the game when I first bought it last summer, but had been meaning to complete it again on a harder difficulty collecting more things. Thing is there are quite a few things I didn’t like about the game. I loved the overall gameplay, but some of the level setpieces just sucked.

This morning I’ve jumped onto Rainbow 6 Vegas 2 which I didn’t list in my OP, because I really despise the game, yet at the same time want to finish it so I can finally get rid of it. I’m at the bit where the entire team’s gone and a game laid out for squad based combat is suddenly just an FPS. Who thought that was a good idea? I’ve managed to get irritated at least five times in less than an hour, yey?

It’s been over three years that SCDA was released and if I remember correctly Splinter Cell Conviction was meant to be released in 2008, making it 1 1/2 years late. Back then the developers mentioned that they wanted to polish the game which I was happy with as I’d rather have a good game versus a rushed game. Then doubts started to appear as more images surfaced showing a game set in big open spaces and videos showing multiple kills. Yet I kept my faith thinking that the developers knew what they were doing as they had after all already shipped four titles.

The Splinter Cell Conviction demo came out this week and things have changed a lot.

• The controls have changed, crouch is now on the left bumper.
• It’s no longer possible to pick up and hide bodies which was a major feature before. It begs the question how found bodies will impact on the overall alert and rating.
• It’s no longer possible to switch the camera angle behind Sam’s body when having a weapon equipped forcing the player to use the coversystem.
• Climbing pipes has become more automatic; jumping on a pipe causes Sam to automatically pull up his legs.
• Sam feels lighter and faster, pretty much like the spies in SCDA’s multiplayer mode. This makes it easier to just go on a rampage versus having to carefully plan ahead.
• Enemies drop ammo. A lot of ammo.
• Some lights cannot be shot out, as in Sam won’t shoot if a certain light is targeted. This made the second part of the demo a bit annoying as I could have avoided all the enemies in the big room by climbing through the window, shooting out the light and sneaked past them while they were confused.
• It’s very light altogether, though that could just be the location in this demo.
• The indication on whether Sam can be detected has changed and been replaced by some generic shooter-like circle whenever he is seen by guards.
• Game information, such as new mission objectives is now displayed on the side of buildings or walls. Shiny, yes, but it completely takes any immersion away.
• Also taking away immersion is the constant reminder on every freaking box and low wall and railing that I really should be pressing A to jump. I don’t want to jump over it, I just want to sneak in the shadows, thanks.
• It’s now possible to build up some kind of ‘look at me, I’m pretending to be a super spy, yo’ meter by doing hand to hand kills which can be performed on enemies pretty much in front of other enemies without anyone caring. Building up the bar gives the option to mark enemies and kill them in some slow motion thing. Cause nothing screams super spy more than leaving hundreds of bodies behind, right?
• Unlimited pistol ammo. What?
• No night vision?!

So yes, I’m disappointed. I love the series and this is a game that’s got nothing to do with the original series apart from cashing in on the name. It’s a third person shooter that reminds me a lot of the Bourne films, but it’s not Splinter Cell. Splinter Cell is all about hiding in dark shadows, observing guard paths and then either sneaking past them or taking them out silently before hiding their bodies somewhere.

Sure, there are some interesting changes, for example the interrogation sequence with the videos playing on the side of the wall at the beginning was interesting, but at the same time there was more blood than the scene needed.

I understand that the series has to constantly evolve, but it’s clear that it’s moved on to allow more casual players to pick it up and play. It seems too easy and all the stealth elements have been taken away. Even storywise the game had to move on, but they could have taken and modified SCDA’s engine and taken the HQ missions for something else, like walking through the park meeting informants which the first screenshots indicated.

Also, I agree with this demo review:

For fans of the series, you’ll be in for a very different experience. I think Conviction may gain as many new fans from this change, as it loses. To be quite honest, this doesn’t even feel like a Splinter Cell game to me – it’s that different.

It’s a shame that any existing Splinter Cell fan will have to wait for a reboot of the series to come out in about ten years. Until then I guess I’ll be playing the others again.

I’ve finally completed Dragon Age Origins and overall it’s the first BioWare game I’ve mostly not enjoyed, despite wanting to like it all the way through. The last three hours were painful and, although final bossfights tend to let me forget how much hassle they were moments after beating them, I still can’t forgive DAO after half a day and feel I’ve wasted far too much time on this game.

So wasting another 40 minutes on a spoileriffic post that shouldn’t be read by anyone who hasn’t completed the game yet [@PCurd, I'm looking at you!] to allow me to vent, seems perfectly reasonable to me.

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First the good things:

• The writing is brilliant which is to be expected from BioWare.
• The voice acting is good, especially with Kate Mulgrew and Claudia Black.
• Morrigan, Zevran and Alistair are great characters.

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Onto the bad things:

DLC. I hate that the game gave me conversations with people for missions that could only be played if I’d pay and download the content. I get that you want to make money, EA, but that’s low. A Mass Effect 2 like Cerberus network on the main menu would have been much better.

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I hate how the game has messed me around with the party members. This is actually my biggest dislike of the game. Overall the game sucks if not playing it as a rogue. I wasn’t playing as a rogue, but instead as my default female warrior and by the time I realised the error of my ways I was past the beginning part and in no mood to go back. I also never had some of the more popular characters for various reasons:

Characters I didn’t have:

• I never met Leilana. I heard she is an amazing character, a great rogue and whatever else. Even though I spent hours in the first town and thought I’d explored everything I never found the tavern/pub and never met her. By the time I was told where to find her, the place was overrun by orcs darkspawn and I couldn’t get her.
• I couldn’t find Wynne after originally telling her I didn’t want her to join me just that moment after completing the Mage’s tower, even though both her and the internet told me she’d hang around there in case I change my mind. She didn’t.
• I started the game when I didn’t have the internet and never remembered to download Shale after that.

Characters that abandoned me:

• Zevran. Turns out my approval rating wasn’t high enough and I didn’t just lose my only rogue, but also an unstoppable archer and pretty much the only one, except Morrigan, with any ranged attacks. Losing Zevran made me stop playing the game back in November.
• Which brings me to Morrigan. My only witch and the only character I’ve used consistently since the beginning. Her entropy spells were brilliant and something I relied on, especially since Zevran’s death. Alas she left just before the last few hours of the game.

Characters that were in the end:

• Sten sucks and even though he was one of the remaining characters, I didn’t choose him for the final battle. I built up his two handed fighting early on, but no matter which tactics I chose he still couldn’t kill a fly.
• The dog/Hawkes was actually better than Sten with fast attacks. I still can’t believe it.
• Gimli or whatever the dwarf was called. Never thought much of him, he didn’t seem to die all that much though.
• I tried developing Alistair as a tank early on, but never quite succeeded. He died often and early, even if trying to deflect some of the attention to my main character with threaten or other talents.

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Other things I didn’t enjoy:

It’s just like Lord of the Rings:

Before I started playing the game I was sure that I’d like any game that positively reminds me of Lord of the Rings. After all, I like books, the films and, especially the soundtrack. Here are some reasons why it didn’t work for me with DAO:

• The score, whilst definitely listenable in its own right, feels too much like a bad copy of Howard Shore’s excellent Lord of the Rings score. This is particularly obvious during the orcs darkspawn sequence at the end of the intro story.
• Orcs. I know they’re called darkspawn, but they look just like orcs! Half the enemies look like this charming fella.
• Gimli. Maybe I’m discriminating against dwarfs, but the companion looked just like Gimli. And sounded similar.
• Ents. There’s this part in this forest doing this thing for this elven clan [I played it in November, so shoot me for not remembering or bothering to look it up!] and there’s a talking tree. A slow talking tree talking about tree things. Come on, couldn’t you have picked a bush or a waterfall or something instead, BioWare?!
• Not remembering all that much about it now, but I recall the cutscene at the end of the prologue copying one of the LotR battles almost verbatim with rain, build up of tension and the first mistaken arrow fired by the good side. I think I’m thinking of Helm’s Deep, though again it was back in November that I played it.
• The clichéd ‘look, here are your secretive dwarfs, your reclusive elves, your humans that think they’re all that that’. Would mixing the formula up a little really have hurt anyone? As far as I’m aware, though correct me if wrong, DAO is based on a whole new universe not based on any other canon? It’s like handing someone a carte blanche and they just copy something that’s already there.

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As evident by now most of my frustration with the game stems from the inability to pick up characters, good and developed characters I’d learned to rely on abandoning me without any option to change that and the fact it felt just like a cheap version of Lord of the Rings to me. That isn’t all though.

The Fade: I have never been fond of dream sequences in games or anything that randomly changes the game dynamics for no reason at all. Jade Empire did this by having the main character die and fight through the afterlife back to life. Cue a lot of messed up blue swirls and generally randomness. Rainbow Six Vegas 2 had me stop playing at a point where it took away my entire squad for a mission. This is a game I’d spent five or more long levels playing it as a squad based shooter just for them to turn around and change it. I’m all for innovation in games, but don’t change the dynamics for just a short strech just because you can.

Orzammar: This isn’t so much criticising the dwarf place, but rather long sequences in general. Entering Orzammar starts a billion and one quest leading through three main maps and countless houses and pubs with more quests up to the point where I lost the will to live or rather play the game. But oh, that wasn’t it, no, there’s a whole lot more to go in some deep underground roads that lead to even deeper underground roads and, you guessed it, even more underground roads. Due to the mission layout it wasn’t actually possible to leave the deep roads once starting the quest and I ended up spending several days in identical looking caves relying on my map fighting some dragons and darkspawn. Mass Effect 1 kind of did the same, the bits on Noveria and Feros were too long with no option to return and do some sidequests in other locations. If I know that the game will just dump me at the same place for many hours it makes it difficult for me to come back to it.

The final fight: After doing this and that and so on and so forth, the game cuts to the Landsmeet, the evil guy gets killed [at least he did in my game] and then the endgame starts. This is where I lost interest in the game. Morrigan left and voila, I was without my strongest character just as I’m about to fight all ogres known to exist and what seems like all the orcs ever made. For hours and hours and hours and hours and hours and hours. This is where I lost interest in the game. Thanks to IM conversations I actually know how much time I spent on the end:

• 2.10am – Morrigan leaves me.
• 2.20am – I start fighting in the first area after choosing my final companions. Bye bye Sten, hello Hawkes [the dog], Gimli and Alistair.
• 2.40am – Got bored of fighting. Already.
• 3.40am – Changed the difficulty to casual after dying on my fourth attempt to defeat the first of two of the orc generals I had to fight in the market of Denerim.
• 4.02am – According to an IM convo I was on fire at this point. As in literally. Which greatly amused the person I was talking to. Also at this point I was surrounded by about five ogres.
• 4.14am I finally enter the castle. Cue another three floors of the same stuff I’ve done before. It did make me wonder though, how did the ogres ever make it through the castle doors?
• 4.26am – I hit level 20. I’m playing on easy. I’m majorly struggling.
• 4.39am – Rooftop, cutscene, dragon, final boss, yey.
• 4.41am – I’m dead.
• 4.43am – I’m dead.
• 4.45am – I realise I have no chance on Earth of defeating the final boss with the characters I have.
• 4.47am – Google reveals there’s a glitch, huzzah!
• 5.16am – Game completed after 26 minutes of firing a trebuchet dealing 47 damage with a five second reload at a boss with 4100HP. That was.. fun.

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The obvious question is, why did I keep playing it if I didn’t like it? Well, initially I waited for the game to get better, but then I reached the point sometime after the Fade where I realised I’d invested too much time into the game to not finish it. I like to complete games and after 32 hours [which is where Zevran left] it was simply too late to just ignore it. There are things I enjoyed about it, mainly the writing and the different ways the story is influenced, though it did make my game so much more difficult as I was missing vital characters.

I’d want to play it again just to see what would be different, but I don’t think I can.

I can’t believe it’s been a month since I last played Mass Effect 2 and yet it feels much longer. I don’t really have any valid excuses either, though there was the annoyance of losing two hours of gameplay when my housemate picked up the game to “I’m not doing anything, just walking around talking to people” and being ill. After that I barely had any quiet time with my housemate off work, a friend staying with me for nearly a week and other things. Plus then there was Splinter Cell multiplayer to be played, too.

Tonight I’ve got the flat to myself and from Friday onwards I’ll be here alone, so it’s about time to start playing this again to avoid having anything else spoiled!

Now, where was I? Oh yes, there was that whole saving the galaxy thing.. Based on my last post I was just off to the Krogan homeworld to hopefully see Wrex and to complete some of the missions there. I’ve also got a lot of mining in front of me, as I want to fully upgrade the Normandy and my weapons. Mining is just too cumbersome to be real fun.

I’ve finally landed on Tuchanka. Krogans really are a friendly bunch, aren’t they? Overhearing a conversation between two of them reminded me of a post about the voice acting in games on the Guardian website today. Mass Effect 2′s voice acting is spot on and I could feel the emotion behind it, even though the two Krogans were just standing there motionless.

“You look well for dead, Shepard. Should have known the void couldn’t hold you.” – Wrex.

All the Krogans I’ve encountered so far are extremely bitter, though they clearly have enough reason to be with the genophage and general council politics. The conversation between the two Urdnot Krogans re their children and families was interesting though. All in all they remind me a lot of Klingons though which makes Michael Dorn voicing Grunt a stroke of genius.

“Takes me back to the old days. Us against the unknown, killing it with big guns. Good times.” – Wrex.

The Krogan Rite of Passage can only be described as boring. The first two waves were far too long and the Thresher Maw at the end was just the plain old ‘shoot it with everything you’ve got while strafing’. Would have liked to have a bit more of a challenge there.

Decided to do the Tali loyalty mission and I can’t believe it’s taking me to the Flotilla! I’ve been wanting to see the Flotilla since I’ve first heard about it during the first encounter with Tali in Mass Effect 1! I liked seeing the trial, though it was quite predictable. I didn’t share the information found on the Alarei and instead defended Tali using her past of saving the Citadel.

“It’s fun watching you shout.” – Tali.

Other missions I’ve completed were the Jack loyalty mission which wasn’t that impressive, though the confrontation between her and Miranda certainly was [Thanks to @CooperHawkes and @HeartbreakRidge for advising me to not immediately do it after Miranda's to keep the loyalty of both, although it could have been due to my high paragon], and a ship that was taken over by the geth and needed to be repaired within a few minutes which also wasn’t all that impressive on its own, but fit in well with the whole game.

Loyalty missions left are the ones for Thane and Samara. There’s also one more squad member to get, but I’m not sure where to find him or her. Stats: 54 hours playtime, 345GS and a whole lot of mining still left to do..

UNO: This was actually the most pleasant game to watch him play. He didn’t fully know the rules of UNO, but picked them up within a minute and came close to winning a few times.

BioShock: Watching him play BioShock was downright infuriating. The random movement of looking up and down almost made me dizzy and every enemy took about ten to twenty bullets to be killed on easy difficulty. Not to mention great quotes like the one in the title of this post referring to a security bot or the following referring to a female splicer:

Friend: Why isn’t it dying?
Me: ‘Cause you’re not hitting it.

Kingdom of Keflings: By all means KoK is a very easy game to pick up for non-gamers. The tutorial covers most of the things needed to progress and the overall gameplay is mostly stress free. There were a couple of issues there to do with finding a tool necessary to harvest crystals. The main annoyance for me in watching him, however, was that he made so many errors, or rather, that he missed things, like extra Keflings or didn’t manage them meaningful.

I’ve never really enjoyed watching other people play games though, with the exception of watching my housemate at the time play Condemned on the PC and we both got scared the entire time through.

Watching my friend play some games made me think about gaming in general and how it is and will be a niche for quite some time longer. It’s been seven years that I got into gaming and since then have played games a lot and I seem to have forgotten how difficult gaming can be for those that don’t regularly do it. By no means am I perfect at games or the best game player, but I could pretty much pick up every game and play it. My aim is more or less steady and I can figure out objectives based on previous experiences with games of which I undoubtedly have a lot.

I’ve mentioned before that gamers have should an obligation to educate non-gamers on the content of games, but now I think that needs to be extended to the actual gameplaying, too.

My mission for the next few months is to convert one of my friends into a gamer! Wish me luck!

The demo for Just Cause 2 came out today and, though I didn’t think it possible, it’s improved a lot.

The demo is on a timer and there are 30 minutes time to explore, attempt missions, blow things up and whatever else starting from the moment the original base is left. So far I’ve done five playthroughs, yet by no means completed much in the game.

Things I’ve done:

• I’ve killed people by attaching them to things.
• I’ve shot gas tanks, attached myself to them and flown into the sky. Very Münchhausen!
• I’ve killed people by hitting them with some weird wire thing somehow attached to my arm. Took me ages to remember it was there after running out of ammo!
• I’ve stolen and flown a helicopter.
• I’ve taken a helicopter as high up as possible and basejumped!
• I’ve completed the ‘Desert Dash’ race in a plane which has amazing controls.
• I’ve performed air based flips with a plane.
• I’ve crashed planes in spectacular fashion.
• I’ve attempted a faction mission which involved:
  • Attacking a base.
  • Finding a door on a high up level.
  • Killing an officer with a keycard to the door.
  • Accessing the GPS system in the room after being surprised by a turret in there.
  • Got flown to a convoy to kill one of the cars.
  • Eliminated all but one car until the demo timed out again.
• I’ve destroyed more things than I can count, including radio towers, cranes, pipelines, gas tanks, water towers, petrol stations..
• I’ve driven over 15 different vehicles, from motor bikes to cars and trucks.
• I’ve done several basejumps.

And I’m sure I’ve not even experienced half of what there is in the demo!

Overall the demo is very, very awesome and I’m really looking forward to the game. There are a couple of things I miss which is the agency vehicle supply drop [though that and the teleport option could be included later] and the unlimited ammo for the basic pistols. I’ve found myself run out of ammo a lot. Also, the vehicles seem to be even less stuck to the ground and the driving is definitely something that will take a while to get used to.

Things that have definitely improved are the camera angles, especially when using the parachute and I love the fact the grappelhook can be used on anything now compared to just vehicles from the first game. It makes reaching hich places that much easier. I also like that he actually needs to breathe underwater now and the O2 display is brilliant!

I’ve encountered a handful of bugs as well including a glitch where there were no more vehicles anywhere for over 15 minutes until the demo timed out and I twice crashed continuing after dying, though I’m confident that is probably due to the demo code.

I might just have to play the first one again until Just Cause 2 comes out on the 26th of March!

There are several Indie games I’ve since played, here’s a selection of them:

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Office Politics [since renamed to Office DisOrders]:

The game centers around Jennifer, a temp sent from the agency to the company. It’s got several elements from the Sims, for example Jennifer needs to eat, drink, go to the toilet and power nap, but that’s just a small part of the game. Tasks include finding the colleagues around the office, sorting and re-sorting the same newsletters over and over again, organising meetings and dealing with the difficult colleagues, some of which walk around in their underwear.

Of course there’s also Doug Bader and generally hilarious quotes!

Regardless how short the game is, it’s 80MS points that are very well spent!

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The Impossible Game:

It’s just a block jumping over blocks in a sidescrolling game and yet it’s incredibly difficult and incredibly addictive! Another well spent 80MS points, though I think I’ve only played it twice since the original purchase as I fear becoming too addicted to it!

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Pixel Boarder:

I didn’t buy this game as I thought 240MS points were a bit too much for it, but the trial is a lot of fun once I became used to the control scheme. Anything below 200MS points and I would have bought it. The concept is simple, it’s a 2D snowboarding game with jumps, tricks and the like. And some annoying yet fun music.

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I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MB1ES!!!1:

I had heard of this game a lot last summer and I can’t say I know of anyone who didn’t like it. So far I’ve only played the trial of it, as I don’t even have the 80MS points needed on my account! It’s intense, insane and a lot of fun with some crazy music and a constantly changing background and, although its premise is a lot like Geometry Wars, it’s much better and enjoyable gameplay.

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Globe Clicker:

This isn’t technically a game and more a geography quiz that’s far too expensive at 240MS points. I’ve played the trial and it’s pretty simple. The challenge game starts with ten questions about capitals all over the world and all there is to it is rotating the globe which just has the oceans and borders marked and placing a marker closest to the capital with points for speed and proximity. This is followed by a round pinpointing towns around the world on a night globe which only has the borders and the lightpollution displayed. Some can be outright tricky, such as Kazan in Russia, a town I had never even heard of. The third round is the furthest I’ve gotten due to the trial timing out after a certain amount of time. It consists of pinpointing US cities and is by far the easiest one.

The game has shown me how much I need to improve my geography knowledge and, how much I wished the curriculum at school was better. Yes, blaming school for a lack of geographical knowledge after over ten years isn’t right, however, most of the things I know are from that time.

I do think I will buy Globe Clicker one day as I definitely see it as a fun way to improve my knowledge and it’s quite fun playing it with other people.

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Gamefarm Math Quiz:

Saying I suck at math is not expressive enough. I really suck at it and I’m incredibly slow working out the simplest things which is why I prefer using a calculator or writing things down. Sure, off the top of my head I can say 4×4=16, but 12×15 would leave me stumped for a while. Along comes this math quiz and, despite my lack of math skillz, it’s actually a lot of fun!

There are nine different difficulty stages ranging from ridiculously easy to ‘OMG, no one can work that out this fast’! Within the challenge mode there are three different modes from a multiple choice quiz to differentiating wrong and correct functions. The music is catchy and the sound effects weird to say the least. 80MS points well spent!

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Dont B Nervous Talking 2 Girls:

I only downloaded the trial, because the name seemed hilarious. 80MS points are far too much, but it did keep me and my housemate entertained for a few minutes until the trial expired. The game is build around videoclips of a girl in different locations, such as the park or the library and contextual conversations, such as ‘Can you help my with my maths homework’ or ‘Is this seat taken’. Conversations are multiple choice and the aim of each location is to ultimately get and remember her phone number as the game will give points if it’s been remembered.

The ‘game’ showed me one thing: I should never chat up girls as I’m clearly not very good at it!

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I am taking recommendations for other Indie games!

Continuing from where I last left the game I decided to finally complete one of the Liara missions.

Traipsing around Illium I obviously looked for the terminals in the wrong area and ended up spending a good ten minutes trying to figure out what I was meant to do. After hacking all five of the terminals I got the conversation option to tell Liara that it wasn’t any of the five suspects and the original intelligence date must have been incorrect. All good, however, I could have finished that mission after two minutes had it given me the conversation option after the first terminal I hacked which was terminal 5 at the bottom of the stairs from Liara’s office. It’s a shame that the game didn’t really pick up on that.

“We can disobey suicidal orders? Why wasn’t I told?” – Garrus.

To be fair, although I’ve played about eight hours of the game in the last two days I’ve done very little. Most of it was spent mining planets which, as @JoeGizzle pointed out weeks ago, is extremely soul crushing. I invested into the scanning upgrade very early on, but each planet takes about five minutes and only increases the resources by 5-10k if I’m lucky. I don’t think I’m doing anything wrong either..

“I’ve never considered cross-species intercourse. And damn, saying it that way doesn’t help. Now I feel dirty and clinical.” – Garrus.

Garrus has definitely become my favourite character. His writing has improved so much and pretty much every conversation makes me laugh. Thank you, BioWare writers and equally shame on you for not making him more interesting in the first game!

“It’ll either be a night to treasure, or a horrible interspecies awkwardness thing. In which case fighting the Collectors will be a welcome distraction. So, you know, a win either way.” – Garrus.

“Wait. That metaphor just went somewhere horrible.” – Garrus.

I’ve done some other missions, like the Miranda loyalty mission and picking up the Justicar, neither of which were particularly interesting or memorable. The game seems heavily based around Asari again and I’d really like to see more of the Salarians, Turians or Batarians. As for the Krogans, I’m on my way to the Krogan homeworld now..

Stats: 48hours playtime, 295GS, all characters minus the unknown one recruited and remaining loyalty missions left from Jack, Mordin, Grunt, Tali, Samara and Thane. Off to Krogans!

As soon as I started carrying on from where I left the game earlier I was prompted to change discs. Even though I know that Mass Effect 2 only uses the second disc for it’s middle section, or at least that’s what I remember reading, it’s still a sign that I’ve made considerable progress and that the end of the game is near.

“The geth might get me, but I’m not going to die from an infection in the middle of a battle. That’s just insulting.” – Kal’Reegar.

I liked the mission to pick up Tali; having a planet that damages shields in direct sunlight is an interesting way to spice up the missions and it was quite nice to see and encounter other Quarians though I’m still disappointed I’ve been unable to visit the flotilla! Bringing Tali back to the ship I loved the interaction between her and Jacob at the end of the debriefing where Jacob encourages her to familiarise herself with the ship’s AI. If looks could kill Jacob would be dead by now and it was a nice reference to the first game and the Quarian/Geth story that happened before the events of Mass Effect 1.

“There are no decent galactic dating services. To have a shot at romance you need to talk to people.” – Loading screen.

Jacob’s loyalty mission was interesting as for once someone turned out to actually be responsible and unrepentant instead of just being misunderstood and having a nice family reunion. Garrus’ loyalty mission was similar showing off that the game really is going into a different direction. Not everyone in the galaxy is good or can be turned to the ‘light side’.

Grunt is funny and I never thought there would be any Krogans with a sense of humour. I look forward to his loyalty mission on the Krogan homeworld and am of course hoping to run into Wrex there.

I much prefer the mission layout to Mass Effect 1. Going on main story missions was always a bit of a hassle as they took forever, but Mass Effect 2 so far has had missions that were just right in length and didn’t require me to spend ages on the same planet running back and forth through the same corridors talking to the same people. Noveria was a particularly bad example. Not having to spend ages outfitting characters is also a bonus as it allows for a more flexible quad though I currently prefer a combination of Garrus and Jack.

I don’t like the levelling system at all. It’s incredibly limited to the first game and I miss levelling up when and where I can rather than having to wait until the end of missions.

“You know what else is bad for business? A broken neck.” – Garrus.

Illirium is beautiful and has a lot of exploration, but at the same time it’s the first planet in the Mass Effect universe that reminds me of Star Wars or, more precisely, Coruscant during Episode 2. This isn’t necessarily bad, but it makes me wish they’d have made it differently as I don’t feel the Mass Effect universe is quite as up to scratch in comparison.

Liara has had the most unbelievable change from Mass Effect 1; she’s changed from a naive archaeologist to some kind of high powered business woman. I didn’t think it was possibly for the writers to make her even more unlikable, but the writers have definitely proven me wrong!

“He showed me some of his schoolwork and asked if we could dance crazy. We did that when he was younger.” – Thane [about his son].

If there’s anything BioWare games have taught me, it’s to look out for hints on the story to come. I missed them on my first KotOR playthrough, but caught them on my first Mass Effect 1 one when the council discusses if I can make a decision that will ultimately result in the death of some people. That conversation is just after completing Feros and not too long before having to sacrifice either Kaiden or Ashley and the whole Wrex thing. So Garrus asking what I would do if someone betrayed me set all the alarm bells ringing. I’ve previously likened Miranda to Kreia from KotOR II which, admittedly, was not a BioWare game, but followed the same principle and it’ll be interesting to see if she will betray me and, if so, how.

The Ghost ship? Apart from it being far too much like Prey, a game I hated, it also had a trap so obvious even flashing neon signs with ‘It’s a trap!’ wouldn’t have made it more obvious. Admiral Ackbar would have been proud.

The thought of Keepers having been something else before being transformed by the collectors is an interesting idea. I’ve noticed that they are still on the Citadel and have been reparing it since the attack by Sovereign and it’ll be interesting to see if there’s even more to them than has already be revealed.

Shepard: “I couldn’t do this without you, Garrus.”
Garrus: “Sure you could. Not as stylishly, of course.”

“The Collectors killed you once and all it did is piss you off. Can’t imagine they’ll stop you this time.” – Garrus.

As it stands I’ve got 275GS, roughly 32 hours of playtime and two squad members and a majority of loyalty missions to go. I’ve also killed my fish, though I kept feeding them!

As I’ve mentioned in my last post I met Garrus and the conversation has been brilliant. Upon returning to the Normandy, Shepard smiled which is one of the first times Shepard has smiled all together and it was quite nice seeing it reflected what I was thinking, too. It is nice to see Garrus and more so seeing him alive and well. All the interactions with the crew and former squad members such as Joker, Doctor Chakwas and now Garrus have been great. True, some seemed a bit too much reminiscing about the good old times, but perhaps that’s just because I’ve been playing Mass Effect 1 so much lately.

“Some women find facial scars attractive. Mind you most of those are Krogan.” – Garrus.

“Hey, Commander, we got Garrus back! That’s great, because he was totally my favourite. With that pole up his ass.” – Joker.

“There’s something about him. I just want to hold him close and whisper, “It will be all right”. – Kelly [about Garrus].

“With barely contained terror: You drive a hard bargain, human.” – Harrot [after convincing him to let the Quarian set his own prices].

The prison ship was interesting yet very short. I expected to be double crossed the minute I spoke to the guard, though I expected a full blown prison riot instead. The concept of having a prison ship for prisoners of all worlds for a fee is an interesting idea though as it allows each respective government to ignore what is really happening.

Exploration would have been nice though; the two side characters presented on a silver platter at the beginning were interesting, but there wasn’t enough.

“Shit, you sound like a pussy.” – Jack.

I’m not sure what to think of the combat so far. I miss the Mass Effect 1 combat and leveling system and this seems very limited. It’s a shame the squad members only have limited abilities and I can’t have a mixture of Liara/Tali and several biotic or tech powers each. I’m also not all that sure that I’ve understood the equipment menu, but seeing that I’m not struggling against enemies, I guess I’m all good?

The game does seem very easy, or at least the combat is. It’s shifted from enemies already present in a room and lack of cover to having cover coming out of your ears and being rushed constantly which I don’t think is varied enough. I’m playing this first playthrough on normal [which I always do with new games] and the only time I’ve had a little bit difficulty, which is to say I’ve died once, was closing the shutters in Garrus’ hideout, but that was only as I rushed to the switches expecting enemies to come at me for the end of time.

The options don’t seem to work that well either. Just like Mass Effect 1 I’ve set my squad to use only their defensive powers and abilities independently, yet they always use Overload which I would class as an offensive power.

“Ok, Shepard, glad you’re back, but keep an eye on that last one. We can only hold so much crazy.” – Joker [about Jack]

“It seems like Garrus has finally worked that stick out of his butt, but now he’s trying to beat guys to death with it. I can’t believe I like the old Garrus better.” – Joker

The first genuine dilemma occured on a Cerberus assigned mission to locate and secure an imprisoned Cerberus’ agent. The agent was interrogated and the information saved in a computer. EDI informed me that “the information could adversely affect Cerberus if it were ever circulated publically” and the options available were to upload the date to the Alliance or to Cerberus or keep it for myself. One would assume that the order is ‘good’, ‘without consequences’ and ‘evil’, yet whilst I wouldn’t have hesitated to help the Alliance as much as I can in the first game, I’m not sure it is something I’d fully support now as there have been plenty of changes I don’t particularly agree with. Yet on the other hand Cerberus has been helpful bringing me back from the dead and giving me a ship, but I’m under constant surveillance by EDI and clearly not fully in charge. Keeping the information to myself could prove useful in the future, perhaps using it to gain information from Aria or others.. After deliberating it for a while I decided to upload it to the Alliance.

Upon completing that mission, I received a message from someone called Billy. Who is Billy?

“A stubborn enough person can survive just about anything.” – Zaeed.

“‘Citadel’. A film by Risa Uvardsen.

“Why don’t you just go to Fishdog Food Factory. Ask for their Tummy-Tingling-Tuchanaka Sauce.” – Turian shopkeeper.

One of the things I would have loved to have seen at least a snippet of in Mass Effect 1 was Francis Kitt’s theatre production of Hamlet featuring an all Elcor cast designed to let the viewer judge Hamlet on his actions rather than emotions. The Elcors are quite fascinating, although perhaps a little bit too reminiscent of HK-47 minus the desire for constant killing. My wish has been fulfilled! One of the advertisment stands in the Citadel had a short advert on it, including this Elcor quote:

“Insincere endorsement: You have not experienced Shakespeare until you have heard him in the voice of Elcor.”

I have started endorsing stores on the Citadel and I’m already getting the feeling that this is going to be a problem later on with me endorsing every store. Also curious why every endorsement gets me paragon points!

“I’m Commander Shepard and this is my favourite store on the Citadel.”

“You look out there and sometimes it’s just like… you know, there’s all this… it’s like… you know?” – Joker.

A little while ago I’ve finally met Kaiden on ‘Horizon’ and we parted ways on rather bad terms. The conversation with him sort of echoed that dilemma I had earlier whether or not my loyalties lie with the Alliance, Cerberus or myself and I found myself trying to explain that there’s a bigger picture to everything whilst knowing that’s a standard excuse.

It’s interesting how the game makes me think about good or bad and that there’s not really an ideal way. Yes, the Illusive Man orchestrated the attack on Horizon, but civilian losses aside it gave us a chance to explore it and the Collectors would have most likely attacked another colony instead anyway.

I’ve also been thinking about the choices that carried over from Mass Effect 1. Side characters aside, I’ve had conversations with the council, seen the arguments between Udina and Anderson and met Kaiden. Had Kaiden died would I have seen him as a picture at the Normandy crash site instead of Ashley? Saying that, it did bug me a little seeing her picture there. The Normandy crash site mission was beautifully done, yet she didn’t die in the attack on the Normandy but months before that on Virmire. As for the council, would Anderson or Udina have put a new one in place? Who would have reinstated my Spectre status?

“I’ve been around. Ran with ganges, wiped out some gangs, joined a cult. Kept the haircut. Murder, assault, kidnapping, drugs, stealing, arson. Done it all. And that’s the boring shit. Piracy, theft of military craft, destruction of a space station and vandalism. That was a good one. There is no reason I should be alive but I am. You know why? Instinct. It’s worked for me so far and I’m not going to change.” – Jack.

I am now on about 23 hours playtime and I’ve got Zaeed, Mordin, Garrus, Miranda, Grunt, Jacob and Jack on my team. Achievements stand at 210GS. Time spent mining is about an hour. Next up: Recruiting Tali! Fingers crossed I’ll get to see the Flotilla, even though part of it was detroyed by Cerberus.

I finally started playing Mass Effect 2 Saturday evening and so far I am loving every second of it!

Just over two hours in and I am in love with #masseffect2. I already don’t want it to end!

So far I’ve done very little fighting and a lot of exploration. The following are some of my thoughts and they’re completely spoileriffic, obviously.

.

• The first cutscene was great. Seeing the Normandy in action for the first time and seeing familiar faces like Doctor Chakwas [such a great voice!] and Navigator Pressly was an added bonus.
• Playing the first part on the Normandy was intense, especially going from the loud noises to the part where the hull was broken with nothing but the sound of breathing.
• The awakening sequence and the part that followed getting off the station felt very similar to the beginning of KotOR II on Peragus, including being guided by a voice and figuring out what happens. I hope that Miranda doesn’t turn out to be like Kreia.

“Is this a volunteer job or am I being volunteered?” – Shepard.

• Armor modifications are great, although I had to resist the temptation to use pink armor!
• ‘Freedom’s Progress’ was interesting, but seriously, what are the chances to run into Tali there of all places?! Surely the galaxy is huge enough?
• It’s great to see Joker again, although with all of Cerberus abilities of the Lazarus project, why couldn’t they fix Joker’s condition to make him more resistent in case something happens to the Normandy v2?

“What can I say, I’m a people person.” – Kelly.

Like some creepy kid staring at the back of your head in comp sci you just want to punch him but he’s “special” and sets fires or something. – Joker.

• I like the new Normandy a lot, it’s got toilets, crew quarters, a cook and real beds! Mass Effect 1 almost had me believe that real beds were outlawed in the future!
• I’m very suspicious about Jacob. He comes across as being far too nice.
• Getting drunk with Doctor Chakwas was great. Gives it a more realistic feel and her mentioning her possible inappropriateness then was a great touch.
• Conversations have received such a big overhaul, characters move more or even stand up and sit down during conversations. So far I’ve especially liked the animations during conversations with Miranda on the ship.

“We’re off to kick the collectors right in their daddy bags. That’s enough for me.” – Ken.

• Love the references in the news to Toombs, Kahoku, Chairman Burns, the Shepard foundation.. Almost sad hearing Ashley mentioned.
• I bought a space hamster!! And it squeaks! I knew about the fishtanks, but didn’t expect that. Also bought some fish and both of the Mass Effect books released so far. Great little detail!
• The personalised advertisements on the Citadel are scary, although I assume it’s a lot like Google ads.. Interesting how the five I’ve watched all told me to get a job though!
• Shame to hear Chora’s Den is closed, although to be fair that place was dodgy anyway with Fist running it, C-Sec investigations with undercover staff and a full on assault.
• I can’t believe my favourite non-approachable NPC from Mass Effect is back! And he’s still trying to get a replacement after over two years! One would have thought that he’d ignore it by now what with the near destruction of the Citadel and all..
• I loved the Krogan discussing the fish in the Citadel. Felt pretty sorry for him when I dashed his dreams by telling him there aren’t any fish in the Presidum lakes!
• Pretty disappointed that I can’t explore the Presidium area. I would have loved to see what, if anything, has changed. I believe that also means that I won’t get to see Sha’ira again, unless the news reports are true and she is leaving the Presidium for another area before the game is over.
• Buying drinks in certain bars isn’t a good idea. Especially when said bar is called ‘Afterlife’!
• Shepard’s dancing has definitely not improved!
• Hello Fist! Hello Helena Blake! Whilst I appreciate running into Mass Effect 1 characters to give the game the ongoing story, it makes the galaxy seem a lot smaller. Having just a handful of previous NPC’s with others perhaps referenced would have been better. And I believe the woman with the unborn baby in Mass Effect 1 was also in one of the shops on the Citadel still arguing with her brother in law.
• I can’t believe I have to buy fuel!
• Getting used to the new mission layout and the completion screen at the end of each will take a while longer getting used to, just like the revamped hacking system which reminds me a lot of another game I’ve forgotten the name to.
• The game feels very overwhelming at parts. The Citadel is full of flashing images, sound and while it feels a lot more real, it’s also a bit too much. And then Omega is just taking it that step further! I don’t even think I’ve seen half of that station so far! The bars and clubs on both stations are crazy, especially the ‘Afterlife’ with the fires as decoration!
• Garrus!!

So far I’m about nine hours into the game with 105GS unlocked and four squad members: Miranda, Jacob, Mordin Solus [The Professor] and Zaeed. I’ve just met Garrus [Archangel] and I’m about to shut the blast doors to prevent the mercenaries from invading via the basement. Seeing and talking to Garrus has been absolutely delightful so far, I’ve really started to like him in my last Mass Effect 1 playthrough which was the first time I’ve used him properly.

Knights of the Old Republic is the game that got me into gaming. I remember playing it at work [in Spanish!] not understanding a word and not really knowing what was going on. All I remember is walking around in a beautiful environment talking to people and completing missions. Shortly after its release I bought an Xbox with the game and played it for about a week until finally completing it. I remember being stuck on Korriban [that freaking pillar!!], dancing on Taris and the big twist. A rainy Sunday afternoon that’s forever in my memory. The game had such an impact on me that I also watched Star Wars for the first time as I’d never been exposed to it as a child.

Jade Empire and Fable were the next big role playing games. The dream sequence in Jade Empire initially made me angry until I realised how well it worked with the story and I didn’t know anything about Fable beforehand either apart from Peter Molyneux’s promise of ‘growing a tree’ and ‘decisions that will impact the world’ neither of which were actually in the game. I still enjoyed every minute of it though.

Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords on the other hand was spoilt for me early on. Prior to the game’s release I knew who the main bad guy was and whilst I still loved the game [Yes, I love both KotOR's equally!], it wasn’t the same experience as being able to experience everything myself.

Mass Effect came out in 2007 and I tried my hardest to stay away from any videos or articles about the game, until I caved two days before its release and ended up watching all the videos Gametrailers had of it which was quite a lot! I saw how the different classes affected the gameplay [not that it matters seeing I always play a soldier anyway!] in an area I now know to be on Virmire shortly before encountering another beacon and every time I get to the area I think about watching the videos, even on my just completed sixth playthrough.

I’ve mentioned how many things I know about Mass Effect 2 so far in this post and there are only a few more things I’ve read on Twitter about it, such as a character called ‘Subject Zero’, loyalty and crew missions and how annoying the mining is. Of course I have heard how everyone loves the game, but I didn’t expect anything else!

As I am typing this, the second Mass Effect 2 disc is installing on my 360′s HDD. I’ve completed my sixth Mass Effect 1 playthrough a few hours ago and finally have the character I want with all sidemissions bar those pesky collection ones completed.

Ciara Shepard, Earthborn level 60 paragon soldier with Assault/Sniper Rifle specialisation and sole survivor of Akuze, although based on a later sidemission that is obviously not true. Her love interest is Kaiden Alenko and Ashley Williams died on Virmire having been with the Salarian troops when the last geth staged an attack. Decisions made:

• Allowing Fist to live.
• Sympathising publically with aliens several times.
• Letting the Rachni Queen escape.
• Convincing Wrex to destroy the facility on Virmire.
• Refusing to hand over Cerberus files to an agent of the Shadow Broker.
• Convincing Helena Blake to abandon her gang.
• Saving the colony on Feros and convincing the ExoGeni rep to rebuild it.
• Saving the trapped scientists on Asteroid X57.
• Having Chancellor Burns look into legislation for biotics.
• Convincing ‘Father Kyle’ to surrender.
• Saved the Council.
• Suggested Captain Anderson as the Human Council member.
• Suggested to the fan he might be better suited staying at home with his wife.

I’ve also found the shifty looking cow twice!

Time for Mass Effect 2!

In no particular order:

iPhone Sleep Cycle: my nights with a strange bedfellow [Guardian]: Sounds like a great iPhone application. That and some games make me really want an iPhone. Damnit!

Cutting to the choice [EDGE]: Great post about multiple choice in gaming.

New Xbox Live Indie Game explores Office Politics [Joystiq]: This post pointed out Indie games to me and I’ve played many great ones since. Office politics is simply brilliant. Tumblr post one and two.

The player: cheat codes [Guardian]: A post that’s proved controversial in the comments. Personally I think it’s up to everyone whether they want to use cheats or walkthroughs. I’ve only ever used cheats a handful of times, but regularly rely on walkthroughs or internet searches.

Oblivion: RolePlaying [UESP.net]: Found in the comments from the previous Guardian post. I’ve used uesp.net myself plenty of times and I’ve posted about Oblivion a lot. This is taking the game to a whole new level though!

Eat three meals a day at the appropriate times (or less if you are poor). Breakfast should consist of grains, rice, bread or fruit. Lunch can be more bread, fruit, and vegetables. Save the meat and potatoes for dinner, along with your character’s preferred alcoholic beverage.

A post from the producer of Splinter Cell Conviction regarding the lack of a multiplayer versus mode [Ubisoft forums]: I am really disappointed with that. Whilst I’ve always liked the single player of Splinter Cell games, like SCDA, it’s the multiplayer that’s always shone through. Yes, a co op mode is great, but is that going to keep me playing for months or even years after it’s release? SCDA was released in 2006 and it still has a fairly active community and I’ve played it almost daily since last November due to it being different. Very unhappy about their decision and it’s made me reconsider if I really want the game day one.

Gamesradar‘s Assassin’s Creed 2 review and guide: Loved this game a lot and I’m very much looking forward to the DLC, although that will have to wait until after Mass Effect 2!

Assassins Creed 2 glitch [GameSpot forums]: As much as I liked Assassins Creed 2, this nearly turned me off the game minutes after it started. Thankfully that was the only major glitch I encountered and was fixed with a simple reboot.

Blood sugar sex magik: examining Dragon Age’s Morrigan [Destructoid]: Great post!

I was never quite sure how to feel about her — and I mean that in the best way possible. She’s extremely useful in combat, but she’s also the most unrepentantly amoral character in the entire game. Her sarcasm and occasional (and very, very brief) moments of goodness makes her strangely likable, yet I never, for a second, trusted her.

Chasing Alistair [EDGE]:
It’s no secret that I love Alistair and this column makes me realise I’m definitely not the only one!

I don’t know how it’ll work, or what I’ll do with it when it comes. But I do know one thing: I’m in love with the next king of Ferelden, and before this is over, he’s going to make me his Queen. Or he’s never getting his armour back.

Space Cow and Shifty Looking Cow [Mass Effect wiki]: Came across the space cows randomly during one of the sidemissions and googled it just to find out what they are. Made it my mission to find the shifty looking one and was successful after over thirty minutes! Time well spent? I don’t know.. However, I absolutely love this description from one of the designers on the official Mass Effect forums:

I love the history of the Shifty Cow easter egg. When the character artists designed the space cow with two extra arms, Preston, our lead designer, was a little creeped out. His comment was “You can’t trust any animal that can milk itself.” Those extra little hands look so… grabby. So Preston came up with the idea of Shifty Cow. Turn your back on him, and those creepy little hands are going to go to work. Kiss those credits goodbye.

Progress made, now down to only 14 tabs! Back to Mass Effect I go!

I’m currently on my fifth playthrough since the game’s release, although only the second one on this 360 as I sold my original one back in 2008 and had to delete the saves. I still love the game as much as I did when I first played it and when I first completed it, but there are a few things I would like to see improved in the second one. Perhaps some of these improvements have been announced before, but I haven’t read or watched anything about the game since last summer due to not wanting anything spoiled with the exception of the ‘fishtanks’ article, the one announcing the celebrity cast, the news that Jack Wall will again be scoring the game and the save import.

In no particular order:

• A better use of the A button. Currently the A button is both run/sprint and interact and more often than not I find myself running just to trigger a conversation or look at a sign.
• Fewer doors that are just scenery to give the impression of a much larger area. Noveria is a particularly good example for this. The main administration section has at least four doors that are just part of the scenery and inaccessible. Don’t show me areas I can’t access, it takes away the realism.
• The inability to talk to some people. Sure, many people in the game don’t have anything to talk about or repeat a set number of phrases, but some, again especially in Noveria, can’t be highlighted in the first place. Why let me highlight this ERCS guard yet not the one ten metres away?
• Only being able to talk to party members on the Normandy. Of course people would rarely consider the heat of battle to talk about their problematic upbringing or the imminent death of their entire species, but there’s plenty of downtime on planets in between missions. Time that could be spent with a little chat here and there to break up the constant collecting and fetching. Dragon Age Origins had a good system in allowing some private chat on missions with only the very private and intimate ones in camp.
• Too many weapons upgrades. Yes, customisation is awesome, but there are limits. Too many different bullets/heat sinks/combat sensors/barrels/combat optics/stabilizers for every single weapon and party member. Talking about items..
• Too much loot. Of course realism would dictate that every killed person drops an assault rifle, a shotgun, a pistol, a sniper rifle and their lunchbag and even though Mass Effect doesn’t enforce this a hundred percent all the time there are still far too many items. That’s excluding storage containers and wall safes.
• Money is worthless. Due to the game having far too much loot and the shop items rarely being better than items already equipped money is entirely useless. In my current playthrough which is about 40% into the second one with this character I have over 8.8million credits and I wouldn’t even be able to gamble that all away!
• The hacking/overriding system. I like the button sequencing, even though I don’t tend to be a big fan of Quick Time Events or the like, but seeing the game drops far too much loot and there’s no point in selling it, it’s too easy to just convert it into Omni-gel and use it to bypass all the hacking and overriding.
• Inconsistent gameplay settings. I’ve just realised that for some reason unknown to me my difficulty setting has reverted from hardcore down to veteran. I’m not sure when it happened, but even completing this playthrough will not unlock the higher difficulty. Why did the setting change?
• Party members weapons selections. So Wrex has this ability with the shotgun which obviously means he never uses the shotgun. If I want him to use it, I first have to get him to switch and only then can activate it. This is only a few seconds, but when pausing/unpausing during battle surrounded by multiple enemies it’s a few long seconds.
• Thresher Maw’s. I still can’t stand them..
• This. BioWare, please elaborate.

The next few weeks will be busy with several things going on in my life and I’m hoping I’ll still remember to take the pictures!

The images and additional explanations of them can also be found on cat on tumblr:

• #8 – Will I ever read this book?
• #9 – In which there’s plenty of mulled wine! [also a SatScene]
• #10 – Splinter Cell Double Agent
• #11 – What’cha lookin’ at?
• #12 – Rats! They’re everywhere!
• #13 – It’s 1vs100!
• #14 – 360 controller

Project365 is an attempt to chronicle my life in 2010 by taking pictures for every day of the week which I already attempted in 2009, but didn’t progress beyond day 19. Weekly updates will be posted here using the Project365 category and all new pictures are uploaded to my tumblr using the Project365 tag. If you want to find more pictures by other people, do check out the @365_Project Twitter account.

A while back I’ve had a conversation on Twitter with @PCurd and @jamesbmarshall:

PCurd: @craigyd I bought Torchlight in it off your recommendation :) Also Kotor as I’ve lost my pc copy. #
carocat: @PCurd KotOR again?! Aren’t your saves on the Xbox though? #
PCurd: @carocat I have saves on 1.0, 360 and pc. Can never remember which is most advanced but I was playing on pc before I lost the disks. #
carocat: @PCurd That’s just insane. Question is just if you’ll ever finish it! #
PCurd: @carocat I think it’s unlikely. I don’t finish games, as a rule. #
jamesbmarshall: @PCurd @carocat One of the only games I’ve ever actually finished is Metroid II: Return of Samus. It took me about 2 years. :$ #
jamesbmarshall: @PCurd @carocat I’m amazed I completed Metroid tbh. Most games fizzle out about 3/4s of the way thru for me. They become ‘samey’. #

Surprised by their answers I thought I’d ask the rest of Twitter:

First up the answers I expected:

• Assassin10k: I would say at least 1000 or so.
• DjDATZ: Played too many of them. I’d reckon about 40-ish on the 360?
  DjDATZ: I wouldn’t say much more than that… 50-60-ish? (includes the PS2 & PS1/X)
• citizensparks: I’ve finished every game I’ve ever owned (aka about 70) bar the metal gear solid games; I get to the last level and just fail them.
• Gazimoff: I used to be religious about finishing games, but now I have a stack that I’m waiting to get through!
  Gazimoff: played to completion around 50 or so. Currently have about 30 on Wii, xbox and pc waiting for me to finish
  Gazimoff: that’s old school though – mega drive/gameboy and old pc stuff
• Goon360: From start to finish, prolly around a thousand. I’ve been gaming since I was 5.
  Goon360: On NES alone I owned about 200 games and finished a good chunk of them, and I’ve owned every console there is.
• JoeGizzle: Oof, that’s a tough one. I’ve played most consoles and handhelds starting with the NES, so I’m guessing a couple hundred?
• Mr_Marty: 100%’d, not many. But storyline completion is about 70% on my Xbox and PS3 games. =)
• olliboote: um 100% perhaps 1 maybe two, as for completing main story line (i pretty complete all games I play in that sense) so I’m saying 50.
• Phoenix8424: I think I’ve completed around a hundred, give or take. Since the very beginning!
• Peterocc: Between Odyssey, Intellivision II, NES/Super NES, Genesis, Sega CD, Xbox, PS1, PS2, Xbox 360 & PS3… I’d have to say over 100+.
  Peterocc: On Xbox 360??? 10-12 since launch, only 1 GS/Achievement completed (XBL Arcade Game). PS3? 1 (Killzone 2)
• strayjohno: I’m actually quite good at cleaning up games. Apparently I have 7 with a full 360 GS, for instance. If I had to guess how many? ~30
  strayjohno: Some of my proudest: Sonic & Knuckles, because it had no save points, and Baldur’s Gate II, because it took me bloody ages!
• spritesbites: Shit the bed! How the hell am I supposed to guess that? It must run into many hundreds.
• _Tugsy: Over one hundred I would say…
• Zyber: More than a hundred. Probly past 2 hundred realistically.

Followed by some answers that were different to what I expected:

• Esko: Have completed 15 titles for all of the achievements. Fallout 3 is probably the favorite that I have 100% on.
• GeminiAce: In my entire gaming “career”? I’m gonna say maybe 15 or 20.
• MacP_: About 10-15. The most memorable being all MGS series and GTA series.
• TimmyTenga: 10 maybe? Not very many considering how many games I’ve played.
  TimmyTenga: Actually, that’s wrong. Probably more like 25.

And then the really surprising ones:

• cornellfinch: Three. All tony hawk’s skateboarding games on the PS2.
• Dreamsthedream: 3-4, with my lifestyle games generally don’t get finished due to lack of time lol
• FallingBullets: About 2 maybe, if I was allowed cheats.
• noirem: One: Final Fantasy 7. Even Portal I watched the end of on YouTube (’cause I couldn’t play anymore).
• PCurd*: Duck Tales, Fable, Halo, Halo2, Call of Juarez 2, COD, COD:BRO, HalfLife, Another Code. I think that’s it.
• sarahfenn: 3 games: Dizzy the Egg (speccy 128k), a racing game on the super nes, & Super Mario World.
• talldavek: If by completed you mean got to the end and beat the boss, 5 or 6. If you mean get *everything* in game 2.

*[Yes, I know he said earlier he doesn't finish games as a rule, but who am I to judge his changes of mind?!]

Well, and then there was this reply!

• PMSHarlequin: I was going to respond to your question but got distracted by your super cute colorful fluffy wallpaper!

—

A few days ago I finally finished a book I spent months reading. I wasn’t enjoying it as much as I hoped I would, but I couldn’t just ignore it. Partially because I kept hoping for it to improve, but mostly because I need to finish books and dislike half finished stories. The same with TV shows, films and games.

I’ve played a lot of games in the past few years:

• There’s the long list of Xbox games out of which I’ve completed about a third.
• My favourite Xbox games which I’ve mostly completed at least twice in some shape or form with the exception of two.
• On the 360 I’ve completed about 40 games.
• And another 10 games on other platforms/PC.

Yet it never seems enough. My aim for 2008 was to finish a bunch of games and I didn’t get around enough of them to this day. Looking at my current games collection I count around 20 games that want to be completed which doesn’t even include Xbox Live Arcade games! And I’m pretty sure that I will complete them at some point even if that’s going to take me a few more years.

The images and additional explanations of them can also be found on cat on tumblr:

• #1 – F.A.R.T.
• #2 – The clean living room of giants! [also a SatScene]
• #3 – Diner Dash obsession!
• #4 – Clean clothes!
• #5 – Food shopping!
• #6 – Cup!
• #7 – The GTA achievement!

*Snowmagedon stolen from @chrisbrownsell!

Project365 is an attempt to chronicle my life in 2010 by taking pictures for every day of the week which I already attempted in 2009, but didn’t progress beyond day 19. Weekly updates will be posted here using the Project365 category and all new pictures are uploaded to my tumblr using the Project365 tag. If you want to find more pictures by other people, do check out the @365_Project Twitter account.

TwitLight is a Twitter Spotlight posted every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Also have a look at all the previous TwitLights and you are more than welcome to take part, too!

Welcome to the TGI Friday edition of #TwitLight and it’s participant @chrisbrownsell!

I first came across @chrisbrownsell a couple of months ago when I was looking for people in Reading. He plays a lot of Halo 3, is obsessed with Star Trek and is generally a geek all around!

In this TwitLight he talks about gaming, Firefly and asks an interesting question!

Welcome @chrisbrownsell!

1. Where are you from?
Originally from a town called Blyth, just north of Newcastle Upon Tyne, but currently reside a few miles outside of Reading.

2. How old are you?
24.

3. What do you do for a living?
Currently not much. I used to be a Software Tester for Electronic Arts back in the day though.

4. What does your alias/nickname mean and how did you come up with it?
It’s my name. My parents gave it to me, so I can’t really take credit for coming up with it. All I did was shorten it, and remove the space to create the alias. It’s not massively original, but it seems to suit me well enough.

5. What do you want to be when you grow up and has that changed at all since you were little?
Every kid wanted to be an astronaut surely? That would have been awesome. I do remember when I was younger I was massively into Dinosaurs (Dinosaurs are cool). After seeing Jurassic Park with my Dad all I wanted to do was be a palaeontologist. Quite advanced for a nine year old. I’m impressed that I could even say it properly. Sadly that didn’t happen.

Although I would still like to be an astronaut. NASA, if you’re reading this, come find me.

6. What song are you thinking about right now?
I’ve had The Staunton Lick by Lemon Jelly running through my head all day. A few friends were talking about Lemon Jelly earlier on another social networking site that shall remain nameless, and I remembered they had a tune in the last episode of Spaced, so I looked it up on Youtube and now it’s been running around my head all afternoon.

7. Do you have a Last.fm profile?
I do not, but I do have a Spotify account. Does that count?

8. What are you reading at the moment? [Book, magazine, website, Wikipedia article..]
Currently reading the novelisation of Metal Gear Solid by Raymond Benson. It’s not great so far, but it’s Metal Gear Solid, and I’m a sucker for anything Metal Gear. Hell, I bought my PS3 just for Metal Gear Solid 4. Now that is dedication.

9. Which video game are you playing these days and is it as good as you thought it would be? [provided you play video games that is!]
I’m playing through Fallout 3 again, mostly to pick up the achievements I missed during my first play through. It doesn’t have the same feeling of wonder that it did during my first playthrough, but I suppose that’s to be expected since I know what to do with the game now.

I’m also trying to play through Oblivion for the first time. I’m finding it hard to get into it properly, although I suspect that has to do with me playing Fallout 3 before Oblivion. To me it just feels like a gimped version Fallout 3 in a fantasy setting.

10. What is the weather like at the moment?
Sunny with some cloud. Fortunately it’s not too warm. I’m not a massive fan of the heat. I tend to get quite grumpy when I’m too hot.

11. What are your plans for the rest of the day?
I’ll probably end up playing some more Fallout and watching some more Deep Space Nine. Might even break out the Firefly Bluray. Nothing like a major geek-out when you have nothing to do.

12. If you could replace anyone in any TV show, who would you pick?
Probably James May. He may get some grief from Clarkson and Hammond on Top Gear for being Captain Slow, but he gets to do some seriously awesome stuff. A few weeks back there was a programme where he got to fly in a U2 spy plane, which can fly at altitudes of 70,000ft. That’s almost to the edge of space. That would be seriously cool.

13. If you had the chance to work on the Enterprise [Star Trek ship!], what job would you have?
Well, ideally it would be Captain. Failing that, Tactical Officer. Knowing my luck though, I’d end up being a TOS era Red Shirt and get killed by some silly looking alien on my first away mission.

Although, I have to ask, which Enterprise? There have been a few.

14. Seeing that I’m a grumpy person in the morning I’ve realised I can’t live with people that are overly happy as soon as they wake up. Would you be a good flatmate?
I’m fairly grumpy at the best of times, never mind first thing in the morning. So unless you could deal with mild grumpiness most of the time, I’d probably make a pretty poor flatmate. I do have an awesome collection of video games and a love for sci fi though, so that might count as a positive.

15. What is the best website you’ve come across recently?
Emails from an Asshole. Some of the stuff on there is pure comedic gold.

16. How long have you been on Twitter for and when did you realise you were sucked in by it?
Well, I’ve had my account since January this year, but didn’t really start using it until later in February. I’m not sure if I’m totally sucked in by it yet. If I haven’t got anything I want to say or moan about then I won’t say it. I don’t yet feel the need to tweet my every waking thought.

17. Settle this question for me: PC or Mac?
I like to play video games. So, PC. Not that I have anything against Apple though. I love my iPhone.

18. And another one: ice cream or cake?
Ice cream. But only if it’s Mint Choc Chip.

19. Fill this out however you want: “Today I am ____ and I ____, but ____, because ____.”

Today I am wandering the Capital Wasteland looking for new places to explore and I will probably spend hours doing just that, but I need to sort things out in the house, because I’m the only one in to do them.

20. What do you want everyone to know about you, who are you, what makes you tick? [aka describe yourself]
I’m not sure where to begin with this one. I guess one thing I could say about myself is that I’m really not very good at describing myself. (I think I dodged that one quite well don’t you?)

21. What is the last thing that you’ve felt proud about?
Getting 100% notes hit on Gimme Shelter on Expert difficulty Drums in Rock Band.

22. If I wanted to stalk you on the internet where would I have to go? Feel free to mention any of your sites/projects/accounts here:

I can be found on Twitter as @chrisbrownsell.

I also have a gaming blog. It hasn’t been updated for a little while, but I’m sure I’ll find something to write about soon.

And finally, I’m on the staff over at the Green Hill Zone forums. It’s quite a small gaming community that splintered off from another forum a few years back. Come and say hello.

23. Any more comments?
If a tree falls in the woods, and no one is around to hear it, do the other trees still point and laugh?

I think by the time the trees have realised what’s happened there will be people around to hear them. Plus I’m sure they’d be much more interested in talking about the consistency of squirrel droppings! Thanks for taking part, Chris!

TwitLight is a Twitter Spotlight posted every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Also have a look at all the previous TwitLights and you are more than welcome to take part, too!

It’s TwitLight Wednesday and today it’s all about @SFX_LADYJ!

She has her plans for world domination all laid out and is well underway with the community site SFX-360 she co-founded. She’s funny, obsessed with Twitter and loves gaming! Read on to find out which job she would take on a spaceship, her obsessions and a generally entertaining read!

Hello @SFX_LADYJ!

1. Where are you from?
Fort Lauderdale, FL.

2. How old are you?
Old enough to play games until 4am in the Morning WOOT WOOT!

3. What do you do for a living?
I’m the founder of SFX360 and I’m the Florida Sales Rep for GameJuice! and Part Time Designer.

4. What does your alias/nickname mean and how did you come up with it?
Lets see I’m a Lady and my name is Julie so Shazzam! LADYJ!

5. What do you want to be when you grow up and has that changed at all since you were little?
Well when I grow up I would like to be a World Dominator, I hear the benefits are off the rocker!

When I was a kid growing up in NYC I use to spend hours drawing buildings and my father said that one day I will be an Architect. I pursued my dream of being an Architect but once college was over and I entered the real world of Architecture things changed. After 6 years of working for a firm I decided it was just not for me.

So World Domination here I come! ShamWow!

6. What song are you thinking about right now?
“Don’t Say Nuthin” The Roots.

7. Do you have a Last.fm profile?
I didn’t have one but now that you mentioned it my curiosity took me to the website and now I have another thing to obsess over! THANKS ALOT!

8. What are you reading at the moment? [Book, magazine, website, Wikipedia article..]
Well I try to read about every game news out there! You should see my Google homepage OY VEY! As a daily ritual I read all the posts on SFX360 forums! Gotta give love to our members!

9. Which video game are you playing these days and is it as good as you thought it would be? [provided you play video games that is!]
Fallout 3 is my current poison and I have to admit I didn’t think I was going to like it. I can’t put it down even though it gets me in this dark depressing mood lol (don’t ask) I can’t stop playing it! God only knows how many times I have vowed not to play it anymore but I’m hooked! DAMN YOU BETHESDA!

10. What is the weather like at the moment?
Wow it’s picture perfect! The sky is blue the water is crystal clear all the beautiful people are on the beach and life couldn’t be better!

11. What are your plans for the rest of the day?
Well if I manage to escape from Twitter then I’m off to drop off some dry cleaning (what did we do before dry cleaning?) do some groceries then come back home. Then wrestle with laundry (I’ll probably lose!) walk Rocky (my chihuahua) sit in front of the computer and work on getting carpal tunnel. Do some World Domination work and get dinner ready for my Hubby :)

12. If you could replace anyone in any TV show, who would you pick?
OMG OMG I love this question! I would totally take over Heidi Klum’s place on Project Runway! She has no game! She needs to be more Diva when she says “Your in or you’re out!” I would totally be all over that job and say “Listen Fabric Jedi you need to get cutting cause your either IN like Gucci or OUT like Wal-mart” SNAP! SNAP!

13. If you had the chance to work on the Enterprise [Star Trek ship!], what job would you have?
The counselor of course! I get to sit back and look pretty with a badass outfit and I’ll probably make up an accent just for the hell of it. I’ll probably advise the captain to pimp up his ride. Let’s see talk all day and not really give out advise hmmm sounds like my life already!

14. Seeing that I’m a grumpy person in the morning I’ve realised I can’t live with people that are overly happy as soon as they wake up. Would you be a good flatmate?
You would love me as a flatmate! I’m like a ninja in the morning you won’t see me nor hear me so it would be a great mix!

15. What is the best website you’ve come across recently?
Wow this is really tough because this is the part that I would totally plug my website! LOL but really there are so many out there that I couldn’t just pinpoint to one! I want you to know that I wrote this answer like 10 times and erased it 10 times and finally came down to the answer that I just gave you! LOL.

16. How long have you been on Twitter for and when did you realise you were sucked in by it?
March 19, 2008 according to Twitter we will celebrate next year with chocolate covered strawberries and champaign! At first I really didn’t think much of Twitter and thought it to be a waste of time but then 3 months after I finally realized Twitter is the tool for World Domination! So I’m Hooked!

17. Settle this question for me: PC or Mac?
Mac and PC I go both ways! LOL (dirty minds)

18. And another one: ice cream or cake?
CAKEEEEEEEEEE! with Ice Cream?!?!?!?

19. Fill this out however you want: “Today I am ____ and I ____, but ____, because ____.”

Today I am fabulous and I will finish this questionnaire, but number 15 was tough , because there are so many sites I love.

20. What do you want everyone to know about you, who are you, what makes you tick? [aka describe yourself]
I’m a pretty laid back kinda gal but I work hard to achieve my goals. I will open my heart and home to you if you are a sincere person and I will treat you like family. I’m a true believer that life is full of consequences and it’s up to you to choose your path. I don’t give out advice but I can be someone who will really listen to you and help you if you need it.

I have a great understanding that we are all human and our first instincts is to be selfish and that doesn’t bother me. I know life can be crazy at times and worrying about other people is a gift not many of us have. I will worry about those who are part of my life as well as those who I just met. I like to find that special something in each individual and make you feel like the world is in your hands!

I will always be a positive energy and never a negative one. Life is too short to be bitching all the time, so why bother?!

My Motto! “The quality of a person’s life is in direct proportion to their commitment to excellence, regardless of their chosen field of endeavor.” – Vince Lombardi

21. What is the last thing that you’ve felt proud about?
I spent the day with my parents helping them with their errands it made me feel proud to be that close to them and have them as parents.

22. If I wanted to stalk you on the internet where would I have to go? Feel free to mention any of your sites/projects/accounts here:

Well you can join my other stalkers at Twitter, SFX-360.com and Xbox Live!

23. Any more comments?
I would like to thank you for letting me participate :) Carocat FTW!

Thanks so much for those entertaining answers! Good Luck on your world domination!! ;)

TwitLight is a Twitter Spotlight posted every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Also have a look at all the previous TwitLights and you are more than welcome to take part, too!

It’s yet another Monday and it’s about time to cheer you up with the latest TwitLight! Today’s TwitLight is all about @DjDATZ and I can’t actually remember how I came across him first, but I do know it’s been way over a year!

He is obsessed with fast cars, an avid Formula 1 watcher [although he tends to watch the races weeks later with his dad], loves gaming and has a very strange taste in music with Tiësto! When I say that he loves gaming I actually mean to say that he’s completely obsessed with it! And don’t ask me to pronounce his surname! ;)

If you’re not following him already you shoud do so right now! Of course, only after reading his TwitLight in which he elaborates on some of the things mentioned above!

It’s an honour to present @DJDATZ!

1. Where are you from?
Originally, I was born in Croatia, which is a small-ish country in Europe. Most of my family is back there, we moved here when I was 3. Only my parents and my brother are here in Canada.

Currently, I reside in Toronto.

2. How old are you?
22, turned in July…

3. What do you do for a living?
I do 3 chief things in my life right now that have a direct impact on my living: I’m a 4th year Commerce student at UOIT (my last exam is next Saturday), I’m a lab coordinator for Manulife/John Hancock, and I’m an associate editor for 360Sync.com.

Love the job at Manulife and writing for 360Sync, and since school is going to be done VERY soon, I can’t complain.

4. What does your alias/nickname mean and how did you come up with it?
It’s really easy actually. The Dj part comes from some toying around I did with sampling of mixes and making one of my own, and the DATZ part comes straight from my initials.

5. What do you want to be when you grow up and has that changed at all since you were little?
Hmm, I always wanted to be a fighter-jet pilot or a race car driver. (F1 or anything with fast cars and nice tracks not NASCAR because NASCAR is not really racing to me, it’s simply “turning left.”) Well, I can’t be a fighter-jet pilot cuz I don’t have 20-20 vision, and as for a race car river, well, you definitely need to start early on that. So neither of those came to fruition.

My next goal: getting paid to play and write about video games! Almost there!

6. What song are you thinking about right now?
I don’t usually think. I wait.

7. Do you have a Last.fm profile?
DjDATZ37, the 37 is added on there because it’s my favorite number. I was kind of really late to the last.fm party, so someone beat me to the DjDATZ username. I’m thinking about looking into getting it from them…

8. What are you reading at the moment? [Book, magazine, website, Wikipedia article..]
Truth be told, nothing really. I don’t read much, I prefer playing my games instead.

9. Which video game are you playing these days and is it as good as you thought it would be? [provided you play video games that is!]
Right now, mostly some achievement friendly games. Recently I got ‘Splosion Man, so I’ve been creeping through the co-op campaign in that, played some Halo 3 to pick up the last 2 achievements I needed of all the available ones and playing some Gears of War 2 with friends like @Esko, @Goon360 and @Sedington86 [read his TwitLight!] to pick up some more of the achievements in the game. Also, I’ve been racking up my kills in Gears of War 2 towards the Seriously 2.0 achievement and I’m currently at 84,000.

Dream bike

10. What is the weather like at the moment?
We just had a massive rainstorms this weekend, but other than it being very dark, it didn’t really do much. This morning things seem much more calm.

11. What are your plans for the rest of the day?
Finish up with work for the day and recording our overdue podcast with Shane. (We’ve been trying to get together since Thursday and things on both ends keep throwing our schedules out of whack.

12. If you could replace anyone in any TV show, who would you pick?
Am I allowed to replace an F1 driver in an F1 race? :D

13. If you had the chance to work on the Enterprise [Star Trek ship!], what job would you have?
Never really followed Star Trek, so I can’t say.

14. Seeing that I’m a grumpy person in the morning I’ve realised I can’t live with people that are overly happy as soon as they wake up. Would you be a good flatmate?
Kind of, mostly because I hate mornings, and if I have a choice, I make them non-existant by sleeping through them. My girlfriend hates me for it as she’s an extremely-early riser.

15. What is the best website you’ve come across recently?
Twitter, Facebook, and 360Sync, each for it’s own reason.

Twitter for being like a massive group chat, Facebook for me being able to connect to people I haven’t seen in ages, maybe even over a decade, and 360Sync, well for obvious reasons.

16. How long have you been on Twitter for and when did you realise you were sucked in by it?
I joined in April of 2007, according to my TweetStats. (What?! It’s been 2 years already?!). I got sucked in in December 2007 when I realised how awesome it could be, and how many people I could connect with.

I think it’s also partially responsible for getting me this sweet writing deal at 360Sync.

17. Settle this question for me: PC or Mac?
I’ve always been for PC, but I cannot stand Vista. We still use XP on all of the millions of computers in my house. (Or at least it seems like that.) With the release of Windows 7, I believe Microsoft can recapture their customers.

As for physical hardware, recently I’ve been reading and hearing more on how awesome Macs are and I’ve been wanting to “Jump In.” (See what I did there?)

18. And another one: ice cream or cake?
Ice cream FTW. Unless it’s ice cream cake.

19. Fill this out however you want: “Today I am ____ and I ____, but ____, because ____.”

Today I am rested and I am grateful for the gf’s birthday surprise on Sunday, but I am sad more people couldn’t come out, because the weather was slightly crappy.

20. What do you want everyone to know about you, who are you, what makes you tick? [aka describe yourself]
I’m what you would call a “nice guy” and I’m all about instant gratification. I love my games, especially racing. And this all stems from my love for speed. Yes, I love my exotic cars and luxury cars, but more than that I love my sport bikes. I’ve got my bike license, but no bike as of yet.

My favorite three game genres (in order of preference) are racing, sandbox and shooters.

Gaming setup. Click image for bigger picture and notes on flickr. I bet you don’t know what’s in that bottle!

21. What is the last thing that you’ve felt proud about?
A presentation I did a couple weeks ago for a massive 4th project I did with a group of 6 other friends. I pretty much did the whole powerpoint behind the presentation, which took a total of about 8-10 hours, and it came out amazingly. I would love to share it with everyone, but we signed a confidentiality agreement at the beginning of the project. If we break the contract, they break our mark.

A couple things as of late: finishing up my course and consequently my Bachelor of Commerce (well, I’ve only got to do on final exam, and I only need to get 2/50 multiple choice answers right on that for the course to count for my Bachelor, so I’ll consider the course “finished”), getting my gamertag back and the start of our podcast over at 360Sync.

Regarding my gamertag, here’s the short form of the story: when my account was reverting from Gold to Silver, there was a glitch in the system, and Xbox Live couldn’t tell what membership I had, and wouldn’t let me sign into Xbox Live (via my 360) nor recover my account. After 2 weeks of regular support not helping, @jamileh was helping me out on a 1-on-1 basis, and actually fixed my account herself. Props go out to her!

22. If I wanted to stalk you on the internet where would I have to go? Feel free to mention any of your sites/projects/accounts here:

*sigh* You just had to do this to me didn’t you. I am all over the interwwwebz.

• A personal page with links to where you can stalk me
• 360Sync (author link)
• 360Sync Forums (user link)
• RHRiders (recently defunct)
• Gamertag (via MGC)
• Twitter
• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• IntenseDebate
• Blogsmith (comments on blogs like X3F [recently renamed to Joystiq Xbox] and Joystiq)
• Halo 3 Service Record
• Flickr
• Last.fm
• Wikipedia
• Digg
• 360Voice

I’m sure there are way more, but you can find those if you like stalking me. I can’t make your life TOO easy.

I’ve got both AIM and WLM, but you’ll have to ask me for those…

23. Any more comments?
Thanks for an awesome survey! I tried to have as much fun with it as possible!

Thanks for taking part, it’s been awesome! And if any of the people mentioned in this TwitLight want to take part in a future one, just let me know!

There are some exceptions, of course. My Twitter avatar has been a changing picture of myself since Summer last year and I use changing avatars on some of the forums I’m on.

I try to keep my Xbox Live avatar consistent, too, but didn’t realise quite how consistent until the other day. Whilst looking at my 360Voice profile I discovered a link to 360vui [360 voice user info] which provides a ton of stats. And I do love stats!

Gamertag: Fear the CAT (is the ninja cat)
Gamerscore: 21517
Achievements: 998
GS Increase from yesterday: 0 (Best: 1085 on 6/29/2009)
Achievements gained yesterday: 0 (Best: 31 on 7/6/2009)

Date joined 360voice: 7/23/2006
Days a member of 360voice: 1092 days
Gamerscore first recorded by 360v: 895
Average daily gamerscore since joining 360voice: 18.88

It also gives a breakdown on the gamerpictures used and, more importantly, how long each gamerpicture was used for.

This is a list of all the gamerpictures I’ve used to date:

I bought my 360 sometime in March 2006 and this was the first gamerpicture I used. It’s one of the default ones available. Used for ~100 days.

I remember dismissing the idea of ever paying for trivial things, such as gamerpictures or themes [I've purchased four themes so far, all to show support to BioWare/Bethesda/NinjaBee/Ctrl+Alt+Del], however, I still had MS points left over after buying the Lego Star Wars characters set for ‘Lego Star Wars’ and how could I resist Yoda!? Used for 276 days.

This was an unlockable in NinjaBee‘s brilliant ‘Band of Bugs’ and how can I not use a ‘NinjaBee’ as an avatar. Of course I also changed my motto to ‘is the ninja cat’ which it still is today. Used for 142 days.

There was a time I religiously read the Ctrl+Alt+Del webcomic until, well, I guess I just moved on. I do still like Lilah as a character though and, just like the NinjaBee avatar, it was a quite rare one on Xbox Live which appealed to me. After all, who doesn’t like to stand out of the crowd?! This avatar was also active in the last year when I didn’t have a 360, but I already used it before I sold my 360 for ~150 days. Used for 565 days.

Of course once I got another 360 I fell in love with the avatar options available, even though they are quite limited, especially relating to hairstyles and none of them looks remotely like me which is why I chose to take a close up picture of my avatar. So far used for 44 days.

And to show what I don’t really look like, this is my avatar. I was quite content with the similarity based on the limitations until a friend asked me the other day who that was meant to be.. Guess not then!

What gamerpictures have you used?

• How to donate to the temple of light in Fable 2?

It appears standing in the middle of the room as the game indicates you does nothing, instead it’s the hidden away and inconspicious thing on the sidewall. Obviously.

• How to accept a gift in Fable 2?

It’s by pressing the A button whilst highlighting the villager wanting to give a gift funnily enough.

• How to manage a shop in Fable 2?

Why did no one tell me I don’t even get a discount if I own a shop!?

• How to lose weight in Fable 2?

Apparently just by eating celery. Does this also work in real life?

• Marry two villagers in Fable 2?

Hey, what can I say, I made the wrong choice of husband! Well, actually I married him to get store discount, but little did I know that marrying him would turn him into an ungrateful househusband? This is leading to the next question:

• How to get divorced in Fable 2?

Yes, I know I could just kill him, but that would be evil, right? Divorcing him gives him half my money/estate however, so that isn’t an option. Plus, I should probably wait for the kid to grow up. That kid has been a baby for a long time. I wonder..

• When do children grow up in Fable 2?

It appears they don’t unless a certain mission’s done in Fable 2. Seeing I don’t want anything spoilt I stopped reading there.. Coincidentally that point was soon moot when my husband left me. Yey. Shocked I was to discover, however:

• Fable 2 child gone!

Apparently they go to the Orphanage once there’s a divorce. There must be a lack of child minders in Albion.. Also:

• Where is the orphanage?

According to the official Lionhead forums it was taken out of the game. I’ll never get to see my little Steve and Adam grow up! Yes, the game chose those names!

Stats so far:
Husbands: 2
Wives: 1
Left by partner: 3
Children: 2
Children taken away by social services: 2

As for the matter of that drunk guy in Bowerstone that is madly in love with me and must have an obsession with Seafood, well, that’s for another time..

Over the past years I’ve seen a lot of internet drama which, seeing everything on the internet always has to be so goddamn serious, has destroyed entire sites or friendships between people. Sure, I have been involved in some and in retrospective I wish I hadn’t been and wish things would have turned out differently, but it’s difficult distancing oneself when things are kicking off. In the past year I’ve mainly stayed away from most sites and left before drama was about to take place or didn’t join sites I knew were going to be involved in drama which so far has served me pretty well.

I don’t need to mention again how great Twitter is as I’ve done it ad nauseum before and the TwitLight series shows just how much time I spend on there. It allows people from different groups to have casual contact and works great as a tool between different communities and interests. And that’s precisely why it’s never nice seeing a Twitter fallout like it was on Monday involving @Trixie360 and @Haymaker360J [now renamed to @POLMGamer], as well as to an extent 360Junkies.

Here’s what you missed:

Haymaker360J: wonders what XBOX has for an answer now about the codes… .
Haymaker360J: @trixie360 any word on the amazon code screw up? .
Trixie360: @Haymaker360j I handed you off to the peeps who can help. It’s not something I can do anything about beyond that, sorry. .
Haymaker360J: @trixie360 oh ok oh well looks like I wont get an answer *shrugs* everyone handing it off to someone else .
Trixie360: @Haymaker360j no need to be snotty. I pointed you in the right direction and had your problem escalated. I CAN’T do more than that. .
Haymaker360J: @trixie360 so you are saying you cant go to that department and say hey whats up with this? forget it thanks for the help! .
Trixie360: @Haymaker360j I DID that. I’ve done it several times. Next time I won’t help at all. It’s not my job. .
Haymaker360J: @trixie360 you did? then silence is golden I suppose? since I only heard from you 1 time .
Trixie360: @Haymaker360j omfg! I exchanged like 5 emails with you trying to help you out. Do YOU do every task at your company? .
Haymaker360J: @trixie360 5 emails. the last one giving 1 update, and I could probably do every task at my company .
Haymaker360J: sad part about it is that the people actually lay down and take it up the ass from MS and like it. I am not one of those people .
Trixie360: i think i’m done with the Internet today. People fucking suck. .

Yes, the situation wasn’t great and I think @trixie360 did a great job trying to sort it out, even though it really isn’t her job in the first place. I have the utmost respect for her as a community manager. I can also understand @Haymake360J’s frustration, although I firmly believe that he shouldn’t have snapped that way and accepted the fact it’s nothing she can do and that she DID try and sort it out. She didn’t have to after all.

Overall, that was a rubbish exchange, but it’s not the main reason I’m writing this blog post. Twitter being what it is meant that hundred if not more people were able to follow the dialogue in real time and more later on when the repercussions were still ongoing and some of the things being said were shocking to say the least.

On with the situation, 360Junkies quickly demoted and distanced themselves from the situation:

I apologize on behalf of @360Junkies for what happened, especially to @TriXie360. He is no longer affiliated with us. No more douchebaggery. .

Overall, I can see where @seeson is coming from, but it does make me wonder if that move didn’t just serve cause more drama. I do think @Trixie360 can differenciate between a site and an individual and nothing during her original argument led me to believe that it was 360Junkies speaking instead of @Haymaker360J himself. Loosing the site he had put so much work in in the last months could only serve to fuel the fire and if I was in his situation I would have been annoyed, too.

Nothing, however, explains the behaviour of some members of the gaming community on Twitter.

A selection of Tweets I made during the fallout that I still believe are valid:

@Haymaker360J You really should step away from Twitter for some hours. You’re not doing yourself any favours with @trixie360 & everyone else .
@Haymaker360j *shrugs* It’s all your decision, but a Twitter fallout’s never been good. .
@seeson Dropping him from 360J seems a little drama inciting and harsh though? .
@leocomerlato All I’m saying is that yes, he’s out of line, but all the crap from people on Twitter ain’t better. It’s like everyone’s.. .
@leocomerlato ..trying real hard to get their best/funniest insults in. You know, all the people that never showed problems before.. .
@leocomerlato And sure, his behaviour is out of line, but to drop him from staff so early on seems wrong to me. .
@Haymaker360j Fair enough, I won’t bother to help then. Take care .
@leocomerlato Not really. You’ve got to give people like @trixie360 more credit than that! 1 ‘bad’ staff doesn’t make 1 ‘bad’ site. .
@leocomerlato I said ‘bad’. ;) Everyone makes mistakes and sometimes it’s better talking about things than publically removing from staff. .
@leocomerlato I don’t get the penguins thing? But all I mean is this is AFTER he was dropped meaning it pissed him off even more. .
@leocomerlato All this OMG drama should’ve been reduced early on, but so many people on Twitter just seem to pile on. .

I’m just going to link to some of the tweets here and here and here and here and here and the search for ‘@Haymaker360J’ on Twitter.

A large majority of the Tweets doesn’t show up on search, probably because the accounts are protected, but really, people, was there any need for those comments? We are a community and overall we all want the same things and to pile on with insults when something’s already happened isn’t the way to go.

Yes, @Haymaker360J’s behaviour was way out of line, especially after all that happened, but you all egged him on and didn’t let it rest. Is it that hard not adding your two cents after it all happened and just ignore him?

A related post by @mdk2002 explains things much better than I ever could, even though it’s on an unrelated subject. Some excerpts:

1. Be professional
2. Be polite
3. Don’t demand anything
6. Treat people like you want to be treated also known as the Golden Rule.
7. Use tact, which means, you can intelligently get your way without cursing or pouting.
11. No one is a god by any means; everyone is human and should be treated as such.

When did we go attacking people and to what means? THINK before posting and treat people with respect, even if there’s an argument. We are one community and there is no need to break apart at regular intervalls.

Note: Even though I’ve pointed out specific people and sites in this post, I do value every one highly and I’m only commenting on this situation, so don’t take this the wrong way. And I still think 360Junkies is a great site, even after differences and that’s not just because I got a free game from them!

Some days ago I had another vivid dream that made no sense at all.

—–

I dreamt that a government official had announced during a press conference with representatives of all the game companies that game developers worldwide would receive substantial financial backing if they all developed one game and each provided daily DLC updates depending on their region. Once he had finished explaining the rough outline in a couple of sentences massive discussions started between the different companies and the noise level in the hall was unbearable.

The government official tried speaking, but even though the microphone had previously transmitted his voice loudly across the room it had become nothing more than a whisper and so everyone missed his explanation until he said “based on current news”. Suddenly the room was quiet enough to hear a pin drop to the floor and everyone who had gotten up and stood together in groups or leaned over the chair had stopped in mid motion and just stared to the front in disbelief.

Several minutes passed until a representative from Ubisoft raised her hand and said, the hand still raised, “Excuse me, could you repeat this, please?”.

The government official, worried about the surprising reaction by the assembled crowd, started talking again, his voice shaking: “As I said, it has been unanimously decided by all the nations in the world that games are no longer allowed to contain fictional material. All the companies now have to work together with the creation of one game that will contain daily DLC updates based on current news. People no longer just have to watch or read the news, but play the news to feel more of a part of it.”

It was like a storm erupted in the hall as everyone had started laughing.

—–

It definitely is one of the more ‘out there’ dreams, isn’t it? I spent a good few days trying to think on how my mind came up with it, as surely there couldn’t be any real world relation to it? As a last ditched attempt I decided searching my Google Reader archives thinking that if there’s a relation I would have read it via RSS.

And one of the first search combinations I tried yielded a result:

“BlackBerrys, iPods and Kindles are not enough anymore. Let’s add a joystick to the expanding repertoire of tools available to news consumers. [...]

In order to interest readers and keep them interested, news organizations should come up with ways to incorporate news in video game format without extricating the two.”

Whilst I obviously had far richer detail and fleshed it out a bit, or rather a lot, in my dream, the basis is still there. There really is an idea to combine news with gaming and use the medium gaming as a news source. Sure, it’s along the same lines of having campaign adverts for Obama ingame, but it still is a completely ‘out there’ idea.

I agree that a large majority of people don’t show sufficient interest in current affairs, but inserting them into games seems the wrong way to go at it. Rather traditional news reporting should be made more easy to pick up as it’s very difficult understanding most things without knowing the entire backstory. This is also something Charlie Brooker mentions in his new TV series ‘Newswipe‘.

One of the best ways is how BBC news does it. Every article on there contains one or more paragraphs at the end briefly summarising all the related events to date as well as links to the archive on the right hand side. For example the latest story on the Madeleine McCann disappearance includes:

Madeleine was almost four years old when she disappeared from a holiday flat in Praia da Luz, in the Algarve, on 3 May 2007.

—–

Coming back on the gaming story some of the comments left at Kotaku sum it up quite well:

So let me get this straight. There is a idea that would allow people to “Play the News?” WHy on earth would anyone want to do that? “The Prime Minister has raised the Tax on Fuel today!” Would we have to press a Button to continue and raise it? I want to play games, not do Virtual News. #

I don’t honestly like the prospect where an individual can say they learned about current events because they played a game. Even if print journalism is dying, at least you can say you got your information from an established outlet of news. #

Better online support and user/reader interactivity is key, but I’m not sure “games” like this are the way to go. If it’s just raw, unbiased information you want to get out, do it in small blurbs and easily digestible chunks–that’s what the internet is all about. As a previous commenter said, I don’t think this could be done without a bias, and even if it can, it would make a terribly boring game. I’d rather just read an article. Not to mention the development time these things take–it’s not news anymore by the time they are finished. This is only going to work for larger, ongoing stories. #

instead of spending funds on this kind of thing, wouldn’t it be better spent on more reporters instead? #

By incorporating videogames you are bringing more senses and ruining news. You change importance you change focus. You will not play Konami’s new wargame to find out about Iraq, you do that in support of other information.
I read the dying breed of newspaper, and even that is broken down into very few good papers; The Guardian over here, NY Times over there and a few others, and to mix these with the tabloidesque gaming industry will never work.
Games can be taken seriously so let them develop on their own. They’re not interactive movies. They’re not forms for journalism. They are nothing more than videogames.
Keep the arts apart. #

How do I get passed the giant enemy Lion in level 3? #

Game music is an integral part of the game playing experience so it’s hardly surprising that most of the game music I own is from my favourite games and it’s also probably not very susprising that I listen to the game music of some games a lot.

These are all gaming related soundtracks that I currently own and I do most definitely recommend all of them:

• Buffy the Vampire Slayer by Christophe Beck.
• Beyond Good & Evil by Christophe Heral
• BioShock by various. [Previous post on it here]
• Burnout 3 by various.
• Burnout Takedown by various.
• The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay by unknown.
• Crysis by Inon Zur.
• Deus Ex by Alexander Brandon, Dan Gardopée, Michiel van den Bos and Reeves Gabrels.
• Deus Ex Invisible War by Alexander Brandon.
• Fable by Russell Shaw and Danny Elfman.
• Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter by Tom Salta
• GTA III by various.
• GTA Vice City by various.
• GTA San Andreas by various.
• GTA IV by various.
• Gun by Christopher Lennertz.
• Halo 1 by Martin O’Donnell and  Michael Salvatori.
• Halo 2 by Martin O’Donnell and  Michael Salvatori.
• Halo 3 by Martin O’Donnell and  Michael Salvatori.
• Halo Wars by Stephen Rippy.
• Hitman 2 by Jesper Kyd.
• Hitman Blood Money by Jesper Kyd.
• Jade Empire by Jack Wall.
• Mass Effect by Jack Wall and Sam Hulick.
• Splinter Cell Chaos Theory by Amon Tobin.
• Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic by unknown.
• Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords by unknown.
• Star Wars Republic Commando by unknown.
• Stubbs the Zombie by various.
• The Elder Scrolls III – Morrowind by Jeremy Soule.
• The Elder Scrolls IV – Oblivion by Jeremy Soule.
• And anything done by the Video Game Pianist [and it's even better his music can be downloaded for free on his site].

My Last.fm stats aren’t very surprising to me. Within my top 100 artists the following game soundtracks are among them:

• Mass Effect – 349 listens.
• GTA [all] – 277 listens [this should be more, but unfortunately most of them are untagged and I'm too lazy to tag them correctly!].
• Halo [all] – 271 listens.
  
• Deus Ex [all] – 198 listens.
• Video Game Pianist – 178 listens.
  
• Buffy – 164 listens.
  
• Beyond Good & Evil – 143 listens.
  
• Jade Empire – 121 listens.
  
• Fable – 114 listens.
  
• KotOR [all] – 112 listens.
  
• Gun – 105 listens.
  
• Oblivion – 73 listens.
  

There some soundtracks I’ve been unable to find, however, including:

• Assassin’s Creed
• Black
• Broken Sword
• Call of Duty 4
• Destroy all Humans
• Freedom Fighters
• Hitman Contracts
• Just Cause [especially the chilled out music playing when parachuting/gliding!]
• Oddworld games.
• Rainbow Six Vegas
• Splinter Cell Double Agent.
• Voodoo Vince
• Wallace and Gromit in Project Zoo

Back in February I saw the following tweet from Haymaker360j:

The next person who signs up on 360 junkies and DMs me that they did will recieve a copy of F.E.A.R. 1 and 2 courtesy of me and the junkies staff

Of course I did sign up on their site [which by the way you should, too!] and was the first to message him back.

Long story short, F.E.A.R. 2 arrived in the mail today and F.E.A.R. 1 should do so in the following days.

Thanks, guys!

Now I just need another 360!

• Der Markt verlangt nach Sensation [Zeit.de] – It appears that I’m not the only person outraged at the media presence in Winnenden. This is a great article summing up things like paying students to hug tearfully to get better pictures.
• “Active” gaming is healthy, says study [CVG.com] – Obvious article pointing out that Wii and Eyetoy games are healthy. Who would have thought?
• Galeria Kaufhof: Ab April 2009 keine USK 18-Spiele mehr im Sortiment [PCgames.de] – Kaufhof, a large German retailer is taking all 18+ games off the shelves and will not be selling them any more citing:

“Mit diesem Schritt möchte das Unternehmen ein weiteres Zeichen für eine soziale und gesellschaftspolitische Verantwortung setzen”
“With this move the company wishes to set another sign for a social and socialpolitical responsibility.

• Only 3% of Games are Adult, says MP [EDGE] – Gavin Brown, Conservative MP for Lothians said yesterday in a tax break discussion:

we “must ensure that a positive perception of games is promoted, instead of the negative perception that some games might have attracted.”

• Study Shows No Link Between Violent Games and Crimes [IGN] – Other linke here and here and here. Whilst claiming more research into videogames needs to be done, researcher Patrick Kierkegaard says:

Despite violent games becoming more mainstream within recent years, statistics show that violent crimes committed from juvenile delinquents have declined since the early 1990s. “With millions of sales of violent games, the world should be seeing an epidemic of violence… Instead, violence has declined.”

• So schützen Sie Jugendliche und Kinder vor Killerspielen [Bild.de] – They’re trying to provide a public service to people by showing several ways to restrict a teen’s access on the family’s PC which is all fine and dandy, but there really wasn’t a need to continuously use terms such as Killerspiel, Ballerspiel, Brutalo Games, Gewaltspiel, Amoklauf-Modus..
• Interview with Christian Pfeiffer from January 2009 [Computerbild Spiele] – He mentions among other things that he never plays video games himself.
• Was ist ein Killerspiel [Bild.de] – A more or less sensationalist view about the phrase and the games considered ‘Killerspiel’.

I did like this comment left by someone on an article about how violence isn’t in correlation to violent games:

When I visited Miami for the first time, I saw lots of people rollerblading in thongs, dudes with loud shirts and cigars, and high-end sports cars parked randomly on sidewalks.

I thought, “Wow! Just like GRAND THEFT AUTO: VICE CITY!”

Did it make me want to smash the window of the nearest banana-yellow Ferrari and drive it across the beach? Kinda. But I didn’t, because I know the difference between right and wrong; my folks taught me this.

I have a hard time believing that kids think games are real, and parents and guardians have a responsibility to their children in this respect: teach them. Lead by example.

Those who know me know that I like to play video games. I like a variety of games, as the list of my favourite Xbox games shows, as well as many 360 games, such as Dead Rising, Oblivion, Mass Effect, Rainbow 6 Vegas and other games more commonly referred to as ‘kiddie games’.

I have been known to play through the entire night, on occasion even weekends when a new title I have been anticipating gets released and I don’t even want to think about how many hours I have spent on Halo 2 or Rainbow 6 Vegas combined over the years. In fact, I realised the other day that it had been two years since I had last played Halo 2 yet could still remember the locations and spawn times over every single weapon on all the Halo 2 maps [with the exception of Waterworks that is!], including specific strategies.

In addition to that I read about video games, listen to some video game music, talk about video games and have worked in the video games industry and will most likely do so again.

I have written about games politics on this blog before; once praising the state of Delaware launching a campaign to make parents aware that games carry ratings and another time on how Germany passed a new legislation disallowing games on the index to be advertised in shops back in May 2008.

It was speculated among people on Twitter early during the first news of the shooting In Winnenden that somehow games would be blamed for this and whilst it initially seemed like they were wrong and fellow students mentioned how he never had much to do with computers this soon changed and suddenly video games are everything people talk about.

Cue the arrival of the ‘usual suspects’ and right at the front of it all Christian Pfeiffer [do yourself a favour and read his Wikipedia article!] who I strongly believe to be someone on his path to becoming the German Jack Thompson. Coincidentally he has just completed a study into the behaviour of teens which has concluded that 15 year olds play around two hours a day on the computer, ergo addicted and are also xenophobic and prone to violence.

However, unsurprisingly all concentration since the weekend is on video games. Every now and then I hear in a debate the quiet whispers of ‘We’re still looking into gun laws’, but the majority of the media is about gaming. For example, the radio news in the late afternoon only briefly mentioned the letter Tim K’s parents had written yet spent a considerably longer amount on gaming addiction. Also curious where all the different outlets are suddenly finding all the supposed game addicts.

Phoenix, one of the political news channels in Germany, has dedicated much of yesterday’s programming on the issue of video games by calling up experts, broadcasting live from several press conferences and having discussion rounds. These are some of my tweets during the press conference and a documentation from 2007 [Gewalt spielen] that Phoenix broadcasted:

• Far Cry 2 a more brutal game than Counter Strike?
• Anyone in Germany interested in games should watch the pressconference on Phoenix and shake their head in disbelief..
• Yeah, right.. A documentary about gaming with a ten years old playing GTA SA. Cause it’s the game’s fault, not the retailer, obvs. /sarc
• Another: “I broke a kid’s jaw just ’cause.” He DIDN’T say he played games, so what’s that got to do in a documentary about violent games!?
• LOL: “He also plays real violent games” as they’re showing King Kong [that linear game to the film] and Jedi Academy in the background.
• “I want to feel like a man, so I play shooting games.” Just where did they find these people?!
• Kid’s theatre: ten kids all pretend to stab each other [Macbeth], somehow that’s meant to be better than playing a game? Really? How?!

And about a discussion group later on:

• Christian Pfeiffer is the German Jack Thompson..
• Apparently STALKER confuses history. I thought that game was set in the future in a different reality?!
• @capo42 It was yet anther joke. Pfeiffer, some random ex addict who wants to ban games, two defending games, but host didn’t give them much.

I have yet to see gamers make much of an impact in any of the documentaries or reports I’ve seen, this whole situation is again just people talking about gamers and not with them and journalists are scrambling to get anything together leading to badly done documentaries that don’t help the situation. Tell any gamer that King Kong is a ‘real violent’ game and they’ll laugh as a vast majority of us has seen much worse from BioShock to GTA to games depicting any of the wars.

Yet it seems like there’s not much coming from the gamer community. I see silent protests everywhere from gaming accessory companies giving away free T-shirts ["I don't vote game killers"] to flickr groups in which people post pictures of themselves with captions [For example: "I have killed many people with shotguns in Halo. I have never killed anyone in real life. Not because there are no people. There are no guns. Not in my life"], but nothing that substantial enough.

Gamers just have this instinct to get defensive everytime the topic turns to gaming which perhaps is a result of ongoing bitter console wars or perhaps it’s just a sign that they feel misunderstood by society at large that has yet again pointed the finger at them. Some reactions I’ve read on blogposts and internet forums over the last days have also been discraceful and almost made me ashamed to be a gamer. Some gamers just use expletives, others talk about illegally importing all future games and the like. How can gamers expect to be taken seriously if there are so many bad apples in our midst?

On the other hand I, too, have been getting angry at some of the comments I’ve heard over the last days from the people wishing to ban/restrict games, however that is mainly just aimed at the ignorance and uneducated nature of them. Some examples:

• Several programs claimed that the driving force behind gaming is that gamers are able to be God-like, control life and death, feel powerful and reign destruction all of which are things I wouldn’t even place on the list of top ten reasons why I game.
• It’s been mentioned that gamers have less social contact which I’m sure has been true at some point, but with more and more people having access to the internet and online gaming I believe that’s something that isn’t true any more.
• According to a documentary people playing games waste their time which may be true for some games [I do not believe Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing has any redeeming features, sorry!] yet not for most others. Sure, some see Counter Strike as a simple game to practice headshots, others will see it as a game that teaches communication, tactics, judging of situations and most of all teamwork.
• The fact people make up games that don’t exist, such as the game that pays 35000USD extra for letting someone bleed to death or where cutting off every limb with a chainsaw gives extra points.
• Specifically citing blackmailing/beating up shopkeepers in The Godfather as bad which after all is taken from a [arguably] Hollywood classic from 1972?

The main problem at the moment is, however, that the whole situation is nothing but everyone running around like headless chickens. A boy or rather teenager has gone and killed 15 people and committed suicide. People are scared as nothing appeared to be wrong with him and I doubt we will ever find out the real reasons behind his motives which can be anything or nothing.

Gaming isn’t a mainstream past time, most people don’t have access to a high end PC or consoles and it is a foreign concept to them meaning gaming has to be explained to them and gamers have to act responsibly and not just blindly defend their stance. It is still a new industry and people have a right to ask why there have been an increased number of shootings or stabbings in recent years when gaming has only now become so popular and weapons have been around centuries.

That’s why I do think gamers have to do a better job at, well, being gamers. There have been over 35 studies in the last years about the effects of video games and whilst most have been inconclusive some others have proven games increase the level of tolerance with violence or increase aggressiveness. Sure, others at the same time have disproven any findings.

Gamers have to participate in future studies, it is our responsibility to educate others about our hobby, just like it is the repsonsibility of many game companies. Active approach, active positive explanation of games needs to happen from gamers who have to enter this discussion with the politicians and the groups that are against gaming.

And at the same time all those calling for measures need to listen. The whole situation currently is a big mess with politicians abusing the fact it’s a major election year for their own purpose by demanding and condemmning whatever comes to their minds. Germany already has the strictest gaming laws in Europe and many games available in other countries aren’t available here and whilst many gamers would like games to be seen as culture they know not every game deserves to be called that just like a dime novel isn’t a great work of literature. Rushing into action without fully investigating the entire background of the shootings and having discussions about this isn’t what you have been elected for by the people.

I have to admit I’ve been finding it difficult writing this post as there has simply been too much information in the last days and I have not been sure what my opinion on the matter is. I don’t think the attitude of some gamers in defending every game blindly is commendable as there are many games I wouldn’t consider enrich anything, yet of course the same can be said from films. And others are works of art and again, the same can be said about films.

Some games are taking it a bit far; I was honestly shocked by Manhunt and have not played the second one and there have been moments during Condemned that have affected me a lot, although I have always been a ‘jumpy’ person and do not watch horrofilms. And there are gamers that actively wish their games to have more blood or graphical content which could be considered questionable.

And I feel rather angry at being chucked in this big pot of people that play games and having to be told I just play games to feel like God. Yes, I play a lot of games, but that’s not everything. I’m still an individual person with many interests including knitting [One day I'll blog about that, too. Maybe if they talk about banning wool soon..] or reading books.

And I hope that a tweet I made yesterday will not be true..

Mark my words: A large number of videogames [16+] will be banned in Germany by the end of 2009.

Some further reading touching up on things I’ve mentioned [some links are in German and you'll have to use a translator]:

• World of Bullshit [taz]
• Zu schnell geschossen [Die Zeit]
• Winnenden und der Mörder, der nicht in den Kram passt [Handelsblatt]
• Amok Koma [Spreeblick]
• Streit über Computerspiele neu entbrannt: “Killerspiele sind Pornos für die männliche Aggressivität” [Tagesschau.de]
• Comment: German shooting linked to Far Cry 2. Really? [Gamezine.co.uk]
• Violent Video Game ban requested in Germany [Gamezine.co.uk]
• Why Do Americans Own Guns Again? Teen Kills Mother Over Halo 3 [Gamezine.co.uk]
• Merkel für unangekündigte Kontrollen bei Waffenbesitzern [Spiegel Online]
• Programmhinweis [Stigma Videospiele]
• Killerspielverbot: Bayern entscheided Donnerstag [Stigma Videospiele]
• Sind Computerspiele „Kulturgüter“ oder handelt es sich hierbei um „Schund“? [Deutscher Kulturrat] [.pdf book download]
• Jeder siebte Jugendliche “sehr” ausländerfeindlich [Welt.de]
• Einen Amoklauf lernt man nicht durch Counterstrike [Welt.de]
• Neuntklässler spielen täglich 130 Minuten am PC [Welt.de]
• Niedersachsen drängt auf strengere Altersfreigabe [Haz.de]
• Schäuble: “Was läuft schief in unserer Gesellschaft?” [Deutschlandfunk]
• Schluss mit dem Gewalt-Tabu [Pfarrer Thomas Hartmann]
• Gehet hin und prügelt euch [Focus.de]
• Games do not kill. Guns do.
• “Ich wähle keine Spielekiller” [3Dsupply]
• Computerspiele unter Beschuss [piratenbrandenburg.de]
• Winnenden und die Schuld der Medien [Spiegelfechter.de]
• Researchers Suspect “Perfect Storm” of Political Opportunism in Game Violence Studies [Game Politics]
• Wird sich die Gesellschaft zu einem wirksamen Jugendschutz durchringen? [Zeit Fragen]
• Amoklauf durch Gewaltspiele? [Krawall Gaming Network]
• KFN profile for Christian Pfeiffer [KFN.de]
• Malte Behrmann, Vorsitzender GAME e.v. [Malte-Behrmann.de]
• Armin Laschet
• “Wir verkaufen nicht an Amokläufer!” [Bam-Stevinho.de]
• Wieder die ‘Killerspiele’ [Gamestar.de]
• Was Sie über Videospiele wissen müssen [Stern.tv]
• Über GTA und Aggression [dreisechig.net]

Image sources: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7

Phoenix program links: 1 | 2| 3|

Since then I’ve had many people contact me with more specific questions, for example if it’s possible to get a name changed if enough people complain about it [not to my knowledge, no] or why it’s so expensive [ask Microsoft, but probably so not everyone changes their tag once week as enough people do it at the moment even though they have to pay 800 points].

This, however, isn’t like any I’ve seen before. I’m speechless!

I’ve linked him to the updated guide on the Xbox support site and let’s all wish him luck!

Of course this list doesn’t mention the other brilliant people I follow on Twitter, including @cory_grimes, @CooperHawkes, @elibrody, @akaSylvia, @nomadikkitty, @raincoaster, @ruhi, @geekwrestler and many, many more!

………

Guides and reasons for using Twitter written by me:
Twitter revisited
Why you should give Twitter a try
How to: The Beginners Guide to Twitter

Applications I recommend:
Spaz
m.slanrd.net [also brilliant via phone when mobile]

Sites that offer great Twitter integration:
Tweetstats
Twitpic
Twitterfeed

………

People/accounts to follow:

Gaming:

Employees:
Major Nelson – Xbox Programming manager
SixOkay [GeoW community manager]
fourzerotwo [COD4 community manager]

Companies and Games:
Sega America
SonyPlayStation
Stargate Worlds, all about the Stargate MMO
SWTOR, all about the Star Wars MMO

Community sites:
PSU.com
PSHomecentral
Gamer Contests
FrugalGaming[Great gaming bargains for people in the UK]
[From the MTV gaming blog]
GamerscoreBlog
Cheap deals for US gamers
360sync
PS3 Evolved
Raptr, gaming stats and friends site
AddictedGamer, gaming site
Platform Nation

………

Celebrities:
Stephen Fry [Yes, it's the real Stephen Fry!]
Wil Wheaton
John Cleese, yes, the Monthy Python John Cleese
Brea Grant [The running girl from Heroes]
Greg Grunberg [The psychic cop from Heroes]
David H. Lawrence, villain on Heroes
MCHammer, again, the celebrity
Andy Murray, tennis player
Dave Matthews
Richard Branson
Sara Bareilles

Politicians:
Al Gore
Barack Obama

Writers/Journalists:
Paul Carr, writer for the Guardian
N’Gai Croal, gaming journalist, incl Newsweek
Darren Waters, BBC tech journalist
Agent M, Marvel writer
Petra Bauer, German novelist

………

TV shows:
TheBluths, all about Arrested Development
DrHorrible news

………

Gimmicks:
The Large Hadron Collider!
The tower bridge
Pothos, a plant

………

Blogging related:
WordPress.com news
WordPress.org news
Six Apart
Lorelle on wordpress
Matt Mullenweg, Automattic co founder

………

Projects:
Satscenes, a Twitter/photo project
NaNoWriMo updates

………

Me:
carocat, my main account
insomnicat, my link account

I was happy that the internet wasn’t as aggressive when Fable came out, there weren’t the constant videos or images or weekly updates or if they were there they most definitely passed me by. It was good in a way as that means less hype was build up. I’ve tried my hardest to ignore most Fable 2 stuff; I’ve not watched any videos of it [bar the trailer from a week ago which contained no ingame footage], ignored most screenshots, only read maybe 10% of the interviews, previews, etc.

I loved Fable, it was a great, albeit short game, but I enjoyed every minute of it. There are several good memories I have to it, for example finally figuring out how to open the demon door next to the old Lady’s cottage and just watching the character progression and watching the characters entire life. Made a nice change to all the ‘memory loss’ stories from other games. The thing I liked about it most , however, was it’s quaintness. The little villages, the music, the fact it wasn’t huge like Morrowind.

All that being said, if anything, the trailer made me realise that I’m not all that disappointed that I won’t get to play it for a while. Sure, the trailer had the whole tempting ‘good vs evil’, ‘this is how different you can look’, ‘ooh, a dog’ stuff going on, but it just doesn’t have the same feel. In fact, there are two scenes in the trailer that I didn’t like, the mineshaft and the monster/shotgun thing. Two very minor things, but they somehow bug me.

I suppose I dislike evolution and change which is the real reason and the too high expectations, but maybe it’s moved on to far from what I enjoyed?

Of course, this post is pretty much entirely pointless as I know I’ll buy and play this game at some point even if it’s only to wear the chicken suit I got last week:

I’m having an incredible amount of incoming searches for the BioShock music which is most likely due to the game finally being released on the PS3. I loved the game and I’m happy for everyone that now has a chance to play the game.

The Orchestral score was made available as a download on the ‘Cult of Rapture‘ site just after the 360 release last year. It is incredibly beautiful and I recommend everyone to download it. And whoever said no to free stuff?!

BioShock Orchestral score tracklist:

1. BioShock Main Theme (The Ocean on His Shoulders)
2. Welcome to Rapture
3. Dr. Steinman
4. The Docks
5. The Dash
6. Step Into My Gardens
7. Dancers on a String
8. Cohen’s Masterpiece
9. The Engine City
10. Empty Houses
11. This Is Where They Sleep
12. All Spliced Up

• Download the BioShock Orchestral score. [rightclick, save as]

The limited edition of the 360 version also contains three tracks by Moby:

1. Beyond the Sea
2. God Bless the Child
3. Wild Little Sisters

The game furthermore uses a variety of songs from the era. I am so used to hearing them on BioShock that I’m unable to listen to them without being reminded of BioShock! The full list of licensed tracks is:

1. Django Reinhardt – La Mer (Beyond the Sea)
2. The Ink Spots – If I Didn’t Care
3. Noël Coward – The Party’s Over Now
4. The Ink Spots – The Best Things in Life Are Free
5. Django Reinhardt – It Had to Be You
6. Bing Crosby – Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams
7. Johnnie Ray – Just Walking in the Rain
8. Bing Crosby – Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?
9. The Andrews Sisters – Bei Mir Bist du Schön
10. Django Reinhardt – Jitterbug Waltz
11. Billie Holiday – Night and Day
12. Django Reinhardt – Liza (As the Clouds Roll Away)
13. Noël Coward – Twentieth Century Blues
14. Django Reinhardt – Please Be Kind
15. Bobby Darin – Beyond the Sea
16. Pytor Llyich Tchaikovsky – Nutcracker Suite: Waltz of the Flowers
17. Stanley Black – Academy Award
18. Rosemary Clooney – It’s Bad for Me
19. Perry Como – Papa Loves Mambo
20. Billie Holiday – God Bless the Child
21. Cole Porter – You’re the Top
22. Mario Lanza – Danny Boy
23. Patti Page – (How Much Is) That Doggie in the Window?
24. Noël Coward – World Weary

Enjoy!

“Auf dem Index” ist ein Spiel, wenn es keine Jugendfreigabe erhält. Erwachsene dürfen es kaufen, aber nur “unter dem Ladentisch”, es darf nirgends offen angeboten werden. “Bundesweit beschlagnahmt” ist ein Spiel, wenn nach dem Strafgesetz seine Verbreitung verboten ist. Wer ein solches Spiel besitzt, kann es zuhause in Ruhe spielen, denn Besitz und die Herstellung sind nicht verboten.

Or translated to English:

A game is listed “on the list” if it’s not allowed to be sold to minors. Adults are allowed to buy it, but only from “under the counter”; it is not allowed to be advertised/on the shelves anywhere. A game is classed as “confiscated nationwide” if it’s circulation is prohibited after the legislation. Anyone owing such game is allowed to play it at home as owning and manufacturing are not forbidden.

Netzeitung

As an aside, that took me far too long to translate!

As a whole rating films and games is a good thing as it gives an indication on the content and means that children and teenagers only have access to media which is suitable for their age, for example GTA IV which can only be purchased by anyone over 18 or various films over the years.

That doesn’t mean it isn’t without it’s flaws. The way the rating, especially for games, is established is broken and the ratings differ between the countries. And then there are always the shops themselves that don’t necessarily honour the ratings and sell ‘over 18′ games to minors or parents buying them for their kids with the misguided belief that ‘games are for kids’.

Maybe it is because I won’t be affected by it, but I support any kind of purchase restriction for minors and have never found myself disagreeing with the rating a game I’ve played has received. Ratings are there for a reason and looking at the big picture it works.

The new scheme Germany is set to introduce does disturb me though. Taking ‘over 18′ games off the shelves and only selling them from ‘under the counter’ isn’t the way to go, especially as films are retailed, advertised and broadcast on TV without any restrictions. In addition, even over 18 games in Germany are different to their American or even UK counterparts with most of the blood or the violent scenes removed, such as ‘The Suffering‘ cutting to a black screen for the most violent cutscenes or ‘Mortal Kombat: Deception‘ removing the violent Fatality scenes.

The legislation sets a bad precedent; adults should still be able to purchase games normally. There rather needs to be more clarification as to what the ratings actually stand for to parents and the general population and to an extent how people perceive games. Attempts have been made in the USA to inform people about the ratings and that is what Germany needs. There is so much talk about so called ‘Killerspiele’ [Killergames] that a positive mainstream news article about gaming is seen as a big surprise that some Germans feel it necessary to write about their surprise. But then there’s always the tabloids with their take on things.

I hope Germany soon realises that this isn’t the way forward and that ratings exist for a reason. And I hope even more that other countries don’t get similar crazy ideas.

**********************

According to my incoming search results there are many people getting to this blog unclear on how to change their Gamertag and even more unsure on what name to choose. I can definitely relate to the latter, ‘Fear the CAT‘ was not my original choice, but sadly ‘carocat’ and other forms of ‘Cat’ were taken. And I never quite fancied the ‘xxxCatxxx’ approach. After all it’s about originality and names like ‘XIo SnIPer oIX’ are hardly original!

Which reminds me, if the [apparently] South Korean person with the Gamertag ‘carocat‘ comes across this post and wants to change it to something else, feel free to contact me. :)

Before you change your name you obviously need to know what you want to change it to and this is a feature I miss from the original Xbox which had a Gamertag generator during the account creation in case all the names you wanted to choose were already taken. To this date I know of several people who created their account with that generator and most of them have pretty good names. Alas, it’s no longer there, so in case you’re unsure, there’s always online name generators for all sorts of things you can have a look at for some inspiration.

Just make sure you remember that Xbox Live accounts can only have a maximum of 15 characters including spaces, have to to start with a letter and cannot contain any special characters or symbols.

• Bandnamemaker.com
• Fantasy Name Generator
• BurnoutAholics Generator [I thought this one was pretty awesome]

And, to make sure the name you want isn’t taken already, search the MyGamercard.net Leaderboards.

Now I’ve never thought changing the Gamertag is such a difficult thing to do, but with each new update I’m finding it more and more difficult navigating the Dashboard and I’ve spent a lot of time looking for things in the wrong places and I’ve been using a 360 since release. It’s not actually difficult, but may this will help you:

• Switch on your Xbox360 and sign into the profile of the account that you want to change the name to.
• Select your Gamercard –> Edit Profile –> Gamertag.
• Select Continue.
• Type in the Gamertag you want to change it to. Remember, check for any mistakes as you would have to spend another 800 points if you notice them after you’ve changed it.
• Accept it.
• Pay the 800 points [at this point you can also press X to add more points if you don't have enough].

Voila, you have a new Gamertag.

Hope this works for you, any questions, you’re more than welcome to contact me.

And yes, you will keep all your friends and your Gamerscore. And you won’t need to update any other settings.

Cat

Blog Banter is a group of bloggers passionate about anything and everything video games. We enjoy getting together once a month to write about the same subject. You will be amazed at the different viewpoints so many people can have on the exact same topic! Links to all the participant’s articles can be found here. If you are interested in participating, contact bs angel for more information. Enjoy our stories!

I’ve never bothered with New Year’s Revolutions. In fact all in all I don’t care much about New Year at all. It’s nothing special and just over commercialised. But then I thought I’ll just go with the flow, go and throw myself out there.. which didn’t help me at all and I can tell you one thing, staring at the laptop for an hour is not fun. See, I could’ve done some quality gaming in that time!

I decided to cheat a little and get some help.. Although ‘cheating’ is such a harsh term. Let’s just say I asked some pr0′s for help.

Your New Year’s Resolutions

1) Get a pet bunny 2) Eat more cheese 3) Travel to France 4) Study Latin 5) Get in shape with ballet

Considering I’ve already got five cats, I don’t think the bunny is such a good idea; the cheese I can do, France isn’t on top of my list. Although, do you think it counts if I fly over France to get to another country? I already did four long and gruelling years of Latin at school and ballet was never my thing. I do love ballet shoes though, but I don’t suppose buying a pair of those counts?

Well, that wasn’t too great, but hey it’s not all over yet, right? I thought above site looked very trustworthy so I decided to give it another go:

You Probably Won’t Keep Your New Year’s Resolution

Something isn’t quite right with the resolution you’ve selected. Maybe it’s time for a different one?

But this result confused me even more. Does that mean the above aren’t quite right for me or whichever ones I do?

I wonder what other people set themselves… *cough* Muppets *cough* Top Ten New Years Resolutions:

1. Spend More Time with Family and Friends
2. Fit in Fitness
3. Tame the Bulge
4. Quit Smoking
5. Enjoy Life More
6. Quit Drinking
7. Get Out of Debt
8. Learn Something New
9. Help Others
10. Get Organized

Well, I don’t smoke, don’t drink much, enjoy life, help others and I’m not in debt. Being unorganised is definitely one of my weak points, so I could work on that.And considering I’m now a new person being organised and no more procrastinating [It's not just you, bs angel, we all procastrinate!], I’ve decided to make some more New Years Resolutions. 53 in fact. I think I went a little overboard!

All these are games I’ve got yet never completed. It is my aim, no make that my first New Years Revolution in my entire life, to complete these games in 2008.

Alien Hominid HD
Amped 3
At World’s End
Band of Bugs
BioShock [New stuff!]
Burnout Revenge
Call of Duty 4
Call of Juarez
Cloning Clyde
CSI-Hard Evidence
DEAD OR ALIVE 4
DEAD RISING
DiRT™
DOOM
EXIT
Far Cry Instincts
Frogger
G.R.A.W.
Gauntlet
Heavy Weapon
Hitman: Blood Money [I will get Silent Assassin on more levels even if it kills me!]
Just Cause
Kameo
LEGO Star Wars II
LEGO Star Wars: TCS
LOST PLANET
Luxor 2
Mass Effect [Gotta play it again and again!]
MOH Airborne
Need for Speed™ Carbon
NFS Most Wanted
Oblivion Shivering Isles
Outpost Kaloki X
PGR 4
Prince of Persia
Rockstar Table Tennis
Root Beer Tapper
SHReK the THiRD
Shrek-n-Roll
Small Arms
SWOS
Tenchu Z
Test Drive Unlimited
The Darkness
The Godfather™
The Orange Box
Tomb Raider: Anniv.
Tony Hawks American Wasteland
Top Spin 2
TotemBall
Track and Field
Viva Piñata
Yaris

Tune in next month when we check on Cat’s progress. Has she managed to complete any? Has she got any more games? Next month only on Blog Banter.

See, I told you we need a jingle, but does anyone ever listen to me?!

Cat

This post may or may not have been written under the influence of too much caffeine.

00:28 majornelson: Yes, we know some people are having issues w/ LIVE. They ARE working on it. As soon as I get an update, I’ll make a post.
00:36 majornelson: I know some of you can’t recover your gamertags. That is being worked on. It will get fixed ASAP.
00:45 majornelson: Yes, e’s team is working on the issues. Thanks for the messages…
00:55 majornelson: Updating my LIVE STATUS post
01:17 majornelson: If you were having LIVE issues…please try again now. We may be out of the woods.
01:26 majornelson: BTW: Thanks for bearing with us.
01:46 majornelson: So far things are looking good.

To ‘great’ messages such as:

01:50 majornelson: It bums us out when we have problems. Trust us.

Back to it:

01:51 majornelson: Also, just so you know any issues on Xbox.com are completely different.
01:53 majornelson: Those are being looked at as well, but right now the priority is making sure the Xbox LIVE service is working and stable.
02:06 majornelson: Thx for the messages. If you had issues w/ LIVE….please try again as things are being updated/fixed very quickly
02:21 majornelson: …and if you ARE still having problem, rest assured they are being looked at.
02:29 majornelson: IMing with some of the engineers about our status. Things are trending up.
02:32 majornelson: Engineers continue to tweak-n-tune to make the service run better
02:48 majornelson: Grrr. We hit a little bump. It’s being looked at.
02:54 majornelson: Ok…I need to step away from Twitter for a bit (per the wife’s request) the issues are being worked on, and I’ll update when I get back
03:00 majornelson: I am following all replies on Twitter. If you are having a problem, please know we are aware of them. Thanks.

A little bit of Comic Relief:

03:04 majornelson: Just because it is the holidays does NOT mean the Operations Team is working hard….

Realising his mistake:

03:06 majornelson: …they are working hard. Very hard.
03:08 majornelson: err…yea. Operations is working hard. That’s what I want to say. Ok..stepping away from Twitter before I get smacked :)
04:12 twitter: majornelson: Ok, no more updates until I have something more to say…but that does not mean work has stopped. Much work is happening to get us on track

And now, at 06:15 it’s still not working properly.. This is what I’m paying £39.99 [$49.99] a year for? For a service that’s been problematic since September/Halo 3′s release?

Talking about it, can someone explain to me why I can’t download films and just get errorcode 8007019c? It’s been like that for a week now..

Cat

Someone looking for help with Animal Crossing:

I read with interest your information about Animal Crossing. I am new to the game and am an older player. I haven´t much of a clue. My house is ridden with cockroaches or rats or something. I have no bells. I do not know how to find Tom Nook´s store. I have a pocketful of fruit. I don’t know how to write a letter to my housemate, who is sleeping (of course). I figured I could sell fruit if I could find the store. I wander around town but don´t get much help from anyone. Entered someone´s house who was about to put dinner on the table but was told she didn´t have enough for me and I should have brought something.

Talking about games, I’ve created some new pages partially so I’ll remember it in a few years!

List of games I’ve played:

• List of Xbox Games.
• List of Xbox360 Games
• List of Xbox360 Xbox Live Arcade Games

Cat

Over the last years I’ve never had much of an interest in another console than the Xbox or the 360. Sure, there are some games I feel like I’ve missed out on, such as Eternal Darkness on the GameCube and Bully on the PlayStation2, but in general all and more that I’ve wanted has been on the 360.

With the release of this generation’s consoles there was a lot of hype surrounding the hardware and the games and that certain games are exclusive to certain platforms, even though there are more multiplatform titles than ever before. And all the exclusive games I wanted are on the 360, such as BioShock [well, it's on the PC as well, but that doesn't count!], Mass Effect, Halo 3, PGR4, Dead Rising, Top Spin 2, Viva Pinata and of course all the games on the Xbox Live Marketplace, Carcasonne, UNO, Exit and many more.

But there are a few games that I just can’t get on the 360. One of those games is Afrika. Afrika is a game for the PlayStation 3 with no set release date or any other information and should probably be renamed to the game no one knows what to do in. And Afrika is not to be confused with Africa which apart from being a continent [see, I did pay attention in geography!] is also an announced, upcoming game for the PC. Apart from it being an MMO no one knows what to do or what it is either. I can definitely see a pattern there!

Back to Afrika with a k.. There have been two released trailers, both not showing much about it. They depict CGI scenes of African wildlife and a car and a person with a camera.

Second trailer for Afrika. The first one is here.

I think the main reason I’m so attracted to this is that I just don’t know what it’s about. Is it a shooter? Is it an game in which you take photographs? Or do you protect the animals? Or all of the above? Nevertheless it should be nice to have a game that’s not set in the future or the past.

Cat

• Assassin’s Creed: As I mentioned in my ‘first impressions’ post I wasn’t too impressed with Assassin’s Creed. My opinion didn’t much change throughout playing the game. There were many, many moments in which I hated it and was close to breaking the disc and very few good moments, such as the twist in one of the two storylines and a couple of funny moments when escaping/fighting. All in all it was very repetitive though and just a wasted opportunity all around.

• Lego Star Wars: The complete saga: I loved the previous two and the promise of extra levels/areas, more characters and two player Co op over Xbox Live was just too hard to resist. Matt and I played some of it the other day and whilst it has it’s issues, such as camera angles and the inability of advancing both player’s saves, it’s still a lot of fun.

• CSI Hard Evidence: I’m a big CSI fan, especially CSI Las Vegas [the original one] and for that reason it was clear to me that I’ll get the CSI game. I previously played the one on the Xbox, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, and it should have really told me a lesson that CSI games just won’t be any good. Ever. There are a few things that save the game though, such as the voice overs being done by the original cast [with the exception of Jorja Fox [Sara Sidle]], complicated and intriguing storylines and the Las Vegas helicopter flybys.

• SWOS – Sensible World of Soccer: I was looking forward to this game for a while as I have some good memories to playing the Xbox version. I played a few games of it, but it’s going to take some time to get back into the flow.

• Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare: I’ve never liked any of the previous ones. Against popular belief that is not because they were set during WWII, but rather that they felt slow, sluggish and featured uninspiring levels. Number 4 in the series is set in the near future and has a much better feel to it. It’s faster, has a really intriguing story and some great levels. I’m not too interested in the multiplayer at the moment, but the single player has definitely grabbed my attention.

I really want to play some BioShock again, especially as a few extras have been released and the game was very good, albeit too short.

There is also some extra Oblivion content, which has been sitting on my 360 for weeks and not yet been played. I never did finish the ‘Shivering isles’ expansion pack.

Oh and Mass Effect. I think enough time’s gone past now and I can play it again without constantly being reminded of my first playthrough.

And then there’s my Nintendo DS with Hotel Dusk that’s waiting to be completed or at least played a little more so I can find out just what the game is meant to be all about!

I guess I won’t be bored!

Cat

Personally I think that’s a great idea. Games only seem to be in the press whenever another school, mall, college shooting happens, regardless if the assailant ever played a game. There are still too many people that have no idea just how far games have come; someone I was talking to recently hadn’t played a game since Tetris. Compare that to games like Mass Effect that are a completely different level.

And all the people that don’t realise that games aren’t just for kids. According to a BBC study, the average age of UK gamers is 28.

Cat

• Overlong tutorial.
• Tutorial computer voice. Can she speak any slower?
• Too many too long cutscenes. Who cares I was demoted? Why did the guy with the beard go on about it so much? Why did I have to bother listening in to the conversation with the doctor and the woman? Why are they so long?
• Camera angles. Yes, I know you can move them, but but I really don’t like them disappearing behind walls mid fight. Games should know better by now.
• Fighting. Who the hell came up with that? It’s like Fable, but even more unimaginative. Press one button, press the same button, oooh, press the same button again…
• Cutscenes. They are so annoying, they deserve to be mentioned twice.
• Horse riding. First of all what is the point? Second of all do they have speed cameras in the Holy land? Has no one ever seen someone go a little faster on their horse? Why do I raise suspicion for trotting along instead of nearly going backwards striding. They must have had horse messengers or peopel in a hurry. Surely?
• Blending in with scholars and no one sees that big sword on my body?!
• He can’t swim… Why not? He’s a trained Assassin for Christ’s sake. Training since he was little. And they forgot to teach him how to swim?
• Tearing display. The game may look shiny, that doesn’t excuse the tearing display.

The worst thing about the game is that it feels so automated. Yeah, you can jump along beams, climb buildings, but it’s not really you doing it. All you need to do is hold the right trigger and move the thumbstick to climb or hold the trigger and press A to jump. Press A to hide in a group of scholars, then put the controller aside until you’re where you want to be..

People have said it’s got some Prince of Persia in it, but Prince of Persia is a very different and far superior game. It requires you to time jumps, direct the prince to where you want him; it needs reflexes and a clear strategy on how you’re going to get somewhere. Assassin’s Creed fails.

And I thought he was an Assassin, secretive, in the shadows, yet he is supposed to help citizens, thus drawing attention to himself?!

Of course Mass Effect was so good that no other game will be able to compare for a long time [ever?], but this is far worse than I though. So far anyway…

Cat