War Veteran

O hai, it can be blog time nao? Okay. So you'll probably wanna know what I've been playing, well not really but I'm gonna tell you anyway. This week has mainly been all about Halo Wars, but I've also played Halo 3, Half-Life 2 and Rock Band 2. In fact Rock Band 2 has got a bit more appealing now that I have a working set of drums to fumble through my favourite songs with. Interestingly although I didn't buy it (my brother did) I've still found myself somewhat reluctant this week to return to Grand Theft Auto IV: The Lost and The Damned. I don't think it's because the DLC is bad, in fact despite some unfortunateannoyances when I first played I was impressed with what I had seen of the overall package, I mean it wasn't quite the original GTA IV but it seemed none the less worth my attention, but for whatever reason I just haven't felt like going back to it.

But back to things I have done I completed Halo Wars much earlier this week, you know 15 campaign missions doesn't sound like a lot but I was actually pretty contented with the length of the campaign and with all the gold medals, achievements, skulls and black boxes to get it certainly has plenty of replayability value. From the whole thing I think my favourite levels have been 11 and 12, which both had awesome environments and the hardest level for me was the 10th which for some reason I found much harder than any other level in the game. With any luck I'll be able to complete the whole thing again on Heroic, however Legendary is way outta my league. The only one thing that has disapointed me about the campaign is that it is not possible to play a local co-op game so you must either go system link (not an option for many people) or via Xbox LIVE to team up with your mates against the enemies of the UNSC. But don't let my obsessive focus on campaign mode fool you into thinking that it's the only thing in the game of any worth, there is heaps of fun to be had online or in skirmishes, although I personally have had trouble connecting to games of four or more people online, maybe it'sa NAT-related issue. Oh and before I move away from the subject I do have to emphasise one more time that the cutscenes are freakin' epic.

Onto games that are looking awesome for the future I've still kinda got that voice in the back of my head telling me to pick up The World Ends With You and Pokemon: Leaf Green/Fire Red. The last couple of times I've checked in my local GAMEs they've had shelves lined with all sorts of rubbish (to put it as best I can without attracting the attention of the mods) but not a single copy of TWEWY and to get Pokemon I'll either look at the only other store near me that sells video games properly or I'll have to search the internet, seeing as GAME doesn't do GBA games anymore. Actually speaking of GBA games I've been thinking about the DSi and its lack of GBA slot and you know what? This is actually something that strongly deters me from buying the console, the size for compatibility trade-off just doesn't seem worth it. Oh well, nobody is forcing me to buy itand according to recent reports the console was forged in the darkest pits of hell by evil child predators anyway. Bringing things back down to March 2009 again I like what I've heard recently about Dawn of War 2, it sounds like not only a solid RTS but also an original one and I think in this genre of games something new would be a really great thing to experience, of course I have an RTS to keep me occupied for now but it's definitely on my wishlist for future purchases. Further light has also been shed on Sims 3 this week, I've seen previews of it before but I like the sound of new public events for Sims (I am totally taking my Sim to a rock concert), moodlets and the number of traits that are actually available for your Sim (65).

I think that'll about do it for this week, I'd just like to highlight Bungie's amazing news of the 1 billion games of Halo 3 that have now been played (although Halo 2 is no lightweight, coming in at 798 million). This week I'll leave you with a shoutout to my Gamespot friends Kingrich06, PJ24 and Zxv33 and this little gem of animation which while not directly video game related is undoubtedly inspired by video games (warning: do not watch if you have epilepsy or awesomephobia).

-Gamer_152

O hai, it can be blog time nao? Okay. So you'll probably wanna know what I've been playing, well not really but I'm gonna tell you anyway. This week has mainly been all about Halo Wars, but I've also played Halo 3, Half-Life 2 and Rock Band 2. In fact Rock Band 2 has got a bit more appealing now that I have a working set of drums to fumble through my favourite songs with. Interestingly although I didn't buy it (my brother did) I've still found myself somewhat reluctant this week to return to Grand Theft Auto IV: The Lost and The Damned. I don't think it's because the DLC is bad, in fact despite some unfortunateannoyances when I first played I was impressed with what I had seen of the overall package, I mean it wasn't quite the original GTA IV but it seemed none the less worth my attention, but for whatever reason I just haven't felt like going back to it.

But back to things I have done I completed Halo Wars much earlier this week, you know 15 campaign missions doesn't sound like a lot but I was actually pretty contented with the length of the campaign and with all the gold medals, achievements, skulls and black boxes to get it certainly has plenty of replayability value. From the whole thing I think my favourite levels have been 11 and 12, which both had awesome environments and the hardest level for me was the 10th which for some reason I found much harder than any other level in the game. With any luck I'll be able to complete the whole thing again on Heroic, however Legendary is way outta my league. The only one thing that has disapointed me about the campaign is that it is not possible to play a local co-op game so you must either go system link (not an option for many people) or via Xbox LIVE to team up with your mates against the enemies of the UNSC. But don't let my obsessive focus on campaign mode fool you into thinking that it's the only thing in the game of any worth, there is heaps of fun to be had online or in skirmishes, although I personally have had trouble connecting to games of four or more people online, maybe it'sa NAT-related issue. Oh and before I move away from the subject I do have to emphasise one more time that the cutscenes are freakin' epic.

Onto games that are looking awesome for the future I've still kinda got that voice in the back of my head telling me to pick up The World Ends With You and Pokemon: Leaf Green/Fire Red. The last couple of times I've checked in my local GAMEs they've had shelves lined with all sorts of rubbish (to put it as best I can without attracting the attention of the mods) but not a single copy of TWEWY and to get Pokemon I'll either look at the only other store near me that sells video games properly or I'll have to search the internet, seeing as GAME doesn't do GBA games anymore. Actually speaking of GBA games I've been thinking about the DSi and its lack of GBA slot and you know what? This is actually something that strongly deters me from buying the console, the size for compatibility trade-off just doesn't seem worth it. Oh well, nobody is forcing me to buy itand according to recent reports the console was forged in the darkest pits of hell by evil child predators anyway. Bringing things back down to March 2009 again I like what I've heard recently about Dawn of War 2, it sounds like not only a solid RTS but also an original one and I think in this genre of games something new would be a really great thing to experience, of course I have an RTS to keep me occupied for now but it's definitely on my wishlist for future purchases. Further light has also been shed on Sims 3 this week, I've seen previews of it before but I like the sound of new public events for Sims (I am totally taking my Sim to a rock concert), moodlets and the number of traits that are actually available for your Sim (65).

I think that'll about do it for this week, I'd just like to highlight Bungie's amazing news of the 1 billion games of Halo 3 that have now been played (although Halo 2 is no lightweight, coming in at 798 million). This week I'll leave you with a shoutout to my Gamespot friends Kingrich06, PJ24 and Zxv33 and this little gem of animation which while not directly video game related is undoubtedly inspired by video games (warning: do not watch if you have epilepsy or awesomephobia).

-Gamer_152