Alexander
Alexander's last update: Mark Knight, my highlight of Creamfields
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Nov. 19, 2009
Nov. 18, 2009
Nov. 5, 2009
  • ooo I like it! Voting sounds like a great idea, some things people aren't going to want to hear about, achievements for example, and some will want rid of other things.
    2 weeks, 1 day ago
  • Alexander replied to the topic No love for AnimeVice?
    All are Western sites, there are far more fans of video games in the Western audience than there are anime or comic book fans... I'm guessing?  I'm not active on either.
    2 weeks, 2 days ago
  • @Hailinel said: " @TwoOneFive said: " @Hailinel said: " @TwoOneFive said: " WHAT THE FUCK?!?!   IW went and hired fucking children to write this story LMAOOOOOOOOOO   THIS GAME IS GOING TO BE FUCKING RETARDED HAHHAHAHAHA  i just saw the trailer on the world series. i started laughing so hard when i saw the space scene. just..wow really?!    ps. phillies makin me sad tonight :( "You're judging the game's story as a whole based on ...
    2 weeks, 2 days ago
Nov. 4, 2009
  • I was always getting this game on the 360 but this is such a dick move, I guess it's not so surprising when you consider there are no dedicated servers, but it's an aspect of that that I never thought about.
    2 weeks, 2 days ago
  • Tesco need to try the customer service training they do over at Waitrose. I used to work in the wine section, one of the easier ones for sure, the customers aren't like the hellish ones at the deli counter. I quite enjoyed Christmas, the days would whizz by.
    2 weeks, 2 days ago
  • @Gizmo said: " @CitizenKane said: " @Gizmo said: " Played Bad Comapny 2 today, the game is superior. "So you have played Modern Warfare 2 as well? "I didn't see Modern Warfare 2 there. I was at the Eurogamer Expo in London, if that was some poor attempt at trolling me.  Star Trek Online and the new Super Mario was there though, they were pretty neat. "I think he's just ...
    2 weeks, 2 days ago
  • @Sparky_Buzzsaw said: " Call me old-fashioned, but I like to leave a little bit to the imagination when I read a review.  I think Giant Bomb's reviews are generally pretty spot-on as far as length and depth of the reviews. " I read reviews to make an informed decision, why would anyone want to leave anything to the imagination?
    2 weeks, 2 days ago
  • I got one from HMV for ODST before release, it came a week late. Don't get too excited just yet.
    2 weeks, 3 days ago
  • Well I'm pretty sure that this time round one will be getting more than a stupid emblem (it has been hinted) so I'm going to go with yes.
    2 weeks, 3 days ago
  • @TheMustacheHero said: " Lame. Now I can't sit in party chat and talk about how everyone on our team are morons! "This would be one of my complaints.  @TwoOneFive said: " if you dont like it dont buy it. stop bitching. its their game they will make it how they want to.  "So the solution to lamenting the exclusion of party chat in some playlists is to not buy the ...
    2 weeks, 3 days ago
  • When one makes a list it would be nice if the image is one that can be selected from the page of that object/character etc. rather than being lumped with the default.
    2 weeks, 3 days ago
  • @Geno said: "What "bar" are you referring to? Graphics? No. Sound? No. Gameplay? Maybe. Wait, probably no.   The fact that it's getting a lot of attention doesn't really mean it's setting some sort of bar, it just means it has a good marketing team.  "Call of Duty set the bar, CoD4 set the bar, MW2 may possibly do that also but it would be premature to say so. The graphics ...
    2 weeks, 3 days ago
Nov. 3, 2009
  • At this point I'm glad I didn't make a preorder for MW2, ODST got a substantial delay and as a result I picked up Forza 3 in store.  If I were to buy online I guess I'll just have to pony up the cash for an alternative to Royal Mail delivery.
    2 weeks, 3 days ago
Nov. 2, 2009
  • I think if I came to the site today I'd listen to a few old ones, but as it is I've heard all of them once and that's usually more than enough for me. Sometimes I'll listen to an episode twice if I've been distracted but I've never gone back to old ones.
    2 weeks, 4 days ago
  • Yeah the Amon Tobin Chaos Theory album is pretty great. Jesper Kyd is also very good.
    2 weeks, 4 days ago
Sept. 1, 2009
  • Mark Knight, my highlight of Creamfields
    2 months, 2 weeks ago via Twitter
June 13, 2009
  • a.farr or alexander.farr?
    5 months, 1 week ago via Twitter
Added by Alexander on Oct. 24, 2009

Twitter
 
A quite useless addition. One key reason being that you can't follow links of any kind - no surprise there, the 360 doesn't have browser support, but I hadn't fully realised how crippling that could be until I opened my account on my 360. Almost everyone I follow links to one thing or another, the exception being where one wants to tell me how good the sandwich they just had was and even then if they want to show me a photo of how well they stacked it - they can't. the other main point is that Twitter, for most users I would suspect and certainly for myself, is not something you do exclusively. By that I mean you Tweet and read Tweets while doing something else, whether that be browsing Giant Bomb or on your commute to work. When you use Twitter on the 360, Twitter is all you can do.
 
Facebook
 
It's nice going through photos on the large screen. It's a shame the resolution is so low. Other than this Facebook on the 360 fails because it doesn't have a wall. It's been stripped down, as far as I can see, to being a photo and status feed browser. Even the status feeds are a pain: you know how going through Live friends is a pain in the ass unless you do it via the Guide Button? Well it's the same thing here and browsing status updates shoehorned onto the NXE design is just bad. It's really bad. You can't send people messages, you can't view video, you can't use Facebook chat. The one good thing is that there aren't any ads, nor should there be for this bare-bones piece of uselessness.
 
Last.fm
 
Last.fm is probably the most useful and functional out of the three. Having a jukebox in the living room could prove useful and the sound quality is pretty ok - I'd suspect 128kbps as it is over the last.fm website. Twitter and Facebook are about what I expected, Last.fm on the other hand has ads; something I was not expecting at all. As a user of Last.fm for some time, I've enjoyed listening to my recommendations and other people's radio stations ad free on my PC with no subscription. Spotify has ads, and I'm ok with that (although less so these days as the ads seem to be getting longer and more frequent) because it functions more like a media player with a massive library than a radio station. Last.fm shares the same problem with Twitter in that using Last.fm is all you can do, I don't normally sit down and just listen to music and there isn't an option here to play your stations while in-game.
 
All in all I'm quite indifferent if a little disappointed. Perhaps I will find further use and hopefully there is added functionality and an overhaul in design where needed coming in the future. Is there anything I've missed?


Added by Alexander on May 15, 2009

People use the word inspire too freely. But... a certain GB member inspired me to play CoD4 and record my face.

That's about it and unfortunately I don't have such outbursts; I just tend to mutter and puff a lot and rub my eyes; in order to get something really entertaining I'd need to film for a week.

  

Shot over just 2 rounds of Free-For-All, one of which crashed. I get like that every time I play, if you catch me right after a round I can't say much it's like I'm having a come-down or something. If I do this again I'll stick another camera on the screen.

Would be cool if some moar GB users do the same thing, I'm sure we'd see very different and interesting things!

I know End-Boss was up for it.

Track of the Week #8 & 9


I've just realised I missed one from my last blog so here are 2:

I heard this on As Heard On Radio Soulwas Pt. 2 a long time ago and had to get a hold of it.

Hanayo - Joe le Taxi
  


This song just kicks ass with it's buildup.

Freeland -  Under Control (Alex Metric Remix)
  



Added by Alexander on May 13, 2009

Back in 2007 when I posted at Gamespot on The Virtual Underground board I had an idea:

"On another note I have a vision of putting Steven Segal, Dolph Lundgren, Van Damme and Stallone in one film - only this time have it win 6 Oscars and best film at Cannes. Actually it's all working out nicely in my head....Schwarzenegger should be in it too"

After another GS user Tequila-Zaire came up with the title "Hard Death" I came up with this image:



Now it seems a film much like it IS indeed being made. You may have heard of this already, but for those that don't know Silvester Stallone is directing a movie. And not just any movie this is going to be something special. It's called The Expendables and the cast contains 3 out of the 5 I depicted plus a larger, star-studded cast of the B-list. This is the greatest action star ensemble ever.

The Plot



The Expendibles have been hired to overthrow a dictator in South America. That's all you need to know.

The Cast



Silvester Stallone (Rambo, Rocky), Arnold Schwarzenegger (Terminator, Conan)


Dolph Lundgren (Masters of the Universe, Universal Soldier), Jet Li (Once Upon a Time in China, Lethal Weapon 4)


Danny Trejo (Desperado, Con Air), Jason Statham (The Transporter, Crank)


Stone Cold Steve Austin (The Condemned, ...WWE..), Eric Roberts (The Dark Knight, Dead or Alive)


Micky Rourke (Sin City, The Wrestler), Terry Crews (Terminator: Salvation, Balls of Fury)


Randy Couture (the only five-time champion in UFC history), Rumour: Bruce Willis (Die Hard, Pulp Fiction)


With screen names like Lee Christmas, Tool, Gunnar Jensen (Lundgren), The Brit and Hale Caesar we know exactly what kind of film we are dealing with. Something very self-aware and I don't see how it could possibly fail.

People that turned down roles or were unavailable include Kurt Russel, Jean Claude Van-Damme, Forest Whitaker and our beloved 50 Cent.

Filming started in March and we should see an early 2010 release. Click here for set photos.


Stallone's hat reads "Live Simply"... Statham's Badge reads "Global Wildlife Conservancy". This could be the greatest film of all time.

"Boys will walk into the theatre. They will leave men. Women will also leave as men"


Added by Alexander on May 12, 2009

It will be another game built from the ground up years from now. It might not be called "Forever" although if I got hold of the licence that would be the name I would use.


Added by Alexander on May 6, 2009


.
.
I've wanted to be good at Street Fighter IV for a while. For once here is a game where a large number of my friends who do not normally play games have taken an interest and made a purchase. The problem is that I am really no good at the game. This is even worse for someone like me as I'm pretty damn good when it comes to my main-stay shooter titles, I'm not used to losing so badly. After a while of waiting the SE Fightstick became available and since I have bought one, only to have my ass handed to me once again by a friend of mine online. This may be something I will just have to accept and move on from, but for some reason I feel compelled to persevere for a little while longer.

Customising my Fightstick and sorting out some artwork was always something I was going to do regardless. Just something about making something your own really appeals to me. For those in the UK reading this, there are two sites I have come across to get your Sanwa pushbuttons and joysticks and that's http://www.gremlinsolutions.co.uk/ and http://www.arcadeshop.de the latter has some colours not available on Lizard Lick, such as white, green, red, yellow and blue buttons with black rims. I'm almost getting these purely on an aesthetic basis and I have a question for those of you that do play SFIV and have installed Sanwa parts: do these things actually make a difference to your game? One thing I find hard to do is pull off super moves under duress, I just keep fucking it up. Does an 8-way joystick help at all? Also, how does a Sanwa compare to the standard joystick?

I may well do a video guide for this easy mod process so watch this space. Any excuse to use my DV camera, or in this case, Wacom tablet that hardly sees any action.

I must say the Fightstick has lead to an improvement, especially for someone using a 360 pad. Even if my being devoid of Street Fighter skills continues and I give up, I remember being pretty good at Tekken and we have a sequel round the corner, so this stick won't go to waste. Speaking of other fighters I have always preferred the Dead or Alive series over any other for it's countering system. That was a game where I could hand out an asskicking or two. All said, the fighting genre is not my forte, maybe I should stick to headshots and kill-streaks.

Anyone else out there buy Street Fighter IV on the back of the hype train only to find a game you weren't any good at?

And a noob question: what does the Turbo function do?

Change of subject:


I'm going to New York next month, is there anything in particular one could recommend? I like art, drinking, clubbing, live music and I'm 21. I hear the Sullivan Room is supposed to be good? I have a passion for strawberry milkshakes... if that helps.

Track of the Week #7


I'm not blogging that frequently so it's not like this is going week by week. And I'm not wasting my time blogging about a single track that you probably won't like.

I really do like CSS, their lead singer Lovefoxxx (what a cool name [no it's not her real name silly]) can't sing to save her life, but they've been a great deal of fun the two times I've seen them (and she's kinda hot). Just yesterday I stumbled upon a cover they did of Blondie's One Way or Another versus The Undertone's Teenage Kicks.

  

There are a number of tracks I have in my head right now but I'll keep it to one per blog post.


A few things I noticed:


These are just a few things I noticed while writing this -

Consoles and console accessories should be included in the Wiki (imo), not because they might be in a game like Katamari, but because it's information people like to know and it has everything to do with videogames. A page on the SE Fightstick would save me asking about Turbo.

If you are embedding video the real-time editor doesn't show you what the embed will actually look like. Say for example you are embedding a Youtube vid and you have the code configured for it to play in HD and at a particular size, it would be nice to just get a regular preview option to see what the post will really look like. It would also be handy for just testing out some code without having to post it and go back to edit or delete if it isn't right.

Also when you delete a blog post, it remains on your wall and simply links to a 404.

At the moment there is no option to remove a caption from an image.

It would be nice if there were a way so that if you stray from the page on which you've written a whole paragraph, you can hit back and the text will still be there.

The option to retroactively attach a blog post to the forums within a time limit of say a day would be nice.

Other things:

The password manager in Firefox doesn't seem to work with logging in (3.5b4)

The abbreviations for some games should be enough to find them in searches. For example cod=call of duty, graw=ghost recon advanced warfighter, dmc, mgs, doa etc. etc. etc.

It would be nice to be able to pause the download of the Bombcast in iTunes.

Bombcast page archiving was a good idea I read.

When someone sends you a friend request it would be nice to accept that request straight from the PM rather than having to click one step further to the requests page.


Alexander's Reviews
A Must-Buy for Shooter Fans (X360)
Call of Duty is back and better than ever. Ditching the WWII theme in favour of “Modern Warfare” is certainly what makes this instalment stand out from the rest. With the change in theme you get to play as either a British SAS soldier or an American Marine - with ...
Reviewed by Alexander on July 26, 2008


Date Joined: July 23, 2008
City: London
Gender: Male
Alignment: Neutral
Points: 222 Points
Ranked: Ranked #2257 of 60,734
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SC-20K
thing - 84 points
SC Pistol
thing - 60 points
Cross Com
thing - 40 points
John Mullins
person - 11 points
Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter 2
game - 3 points
Headshot
concept - 2 points
Silencer
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Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Essentials
game - 2 points

jakob187 2 hours, 29 minutes ago
Gonna have to find out if I can get a phone charger w/ a longer cord. This one barely reaches my nightstand.
RHCPfan24 7 hours, 19 minutes ago
Modern Warfare 2 is COD4 all over again. A lot of campers!! I'm holding my own but some dudes take it way too seriously.
GamerGeek360 8 hours, 24 minutes ago
I just purchased a Xbox 360 Wireless N adapter off of Newegg for $83. There's 83 casualties of my crappy through-the-PC connection.
LordAndrew 10 hours, 1 minute ago
I definitely prefer the new Giant Bomb frontpage to the NXE-styled frontpage.
Sweep 10 hours, 53 minutes ago
is loving the sexy new giantbomb frontpage :D
Jeff 12 hours, 28 minutes ago
New Giant Bomb homepage is rolling out right now. Site might look crazy for a couple of minutes.
Brad 20 hours, 49 minutes ago
Feeling strangely liberated since I quit using QuickSilver. Plugins didn't work worth spit in Snow Leopard anyway. Spotlight for life?
MattyFTM 1 day, 14 hours ago
Won the pub quiz. That makes me £8 richer (and when you're trying to survive on £50 a week, and extra £8 makes the world of difference)