I made a mistake buying my Xbox 360, I think I knew it when I bought it. For a bit of backstory for those unaware, this 360 was my second 360. I got an Xbox Elite last year in January, I bought Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts, Mass Effect 2 and Left 4 Dead and the two Banjo games of the XBLA. I didn't really enjoy the three games that much and even though I really enjoyed the Banjo games I was not going to have a console just for games that I already had. I liked this idea of getting achievements, but I was already invested in Playstation trophies so I ended up selling my 360 in a few months.
Then later that year towards Christmas time, I went and bought a Xbox 360 Slim. I sit here writing about it and I really did not know why I decided to buy one, I remember instantly regretting it as soon as I left the shop. I bought Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts again, Left 4 Dead 2, Halo 3 ODST, Fable II, Deadly Premonition, Gears of War and a few XBLA games. This time around I spent more time with it and got into BKN&B, I even finished it, but I never got in to any of the other games. I went and bought the two Banjo games again and beat those, and then it has sat there, untill a few weeks ago.
My sister went and moved my 360 to her room, she does not have a job and with 360 games being cheaper she asked if she could borrow it and buy some games for it. I agreed and since then she has bought a few games for it and is having a good time. So I think now I have decided to just give her the 360, I have my reasons but mostly its because I don't like having the 360 set up in my room. it is just a reminder of how stupid I was. Some would say get rid of it, but my parents would not let me trade it in because my sister has games on it now, so this is a nice choice. I'll get her a few cheap games to get her started and then I am down one 360, which to me is a good thing.
I have nothing against the 360, it's selection of games on there online store is really good, Super Meat Boy, Raskulls, ilomilo, Bastion, fucking Doom II. But I am so invested in the PS3 is so many ways, I have 1100-1200 trophies and I am level 12. I've built up a cool selection of friends on the PS3 through 4+ years with being a member of the Playstation community. But the most important thing is I think the exclusives are better on the PS3, some may argue but I really do enjoy the games Sony produce.
So yeah this started as a forum post but now its a blog, WABBAJACK!
Only once in a life-time is there a date such as that, the next time there is one of these is 12/12/12. After that it won't work for 88 years, so get the jokes in now because you will be dead before you can make them again. But aside from the awesomeness of it being the 11/11/11, something else happened on that date, something I along with millions of others have been waiting for, Skyrim happened. It was a terrible work day though which was such a bummer, I started at 8:30 and finished at 6. I went and bought it just before work started in fear that it would sell out and I would have to wait a day or more to get it, I would die inside if that actually happened. Funny thing, I got ID'd for Skyrim, now I look quite young for my age (19), but getting ID'd for a 15 game is pretty pathetic. So work dragged as I knew it would, especially the afternoon, those were some dark times. I made it through the day and literally ran home, clutching the shopping bag to my chest in fear of paranoia. I got home, grabbed a Red Bull, some snacks and locked myself up in my room, in the dark, ready for Skyrim.
Without going into to much detail, Skyrim is a fantastic game, not only fantastic, but the best game I have played this year. Not only that, one of the best games I have played for a few years, now thats a statement. The game is just amazing in every way, looks great, sounds great, plays great and there is a shit load of things to do. I usually play games in 2 hour chunks, I stop because I get bored or want to go and do or play something else. But with Skyrim I have played sessions lasting 5 hours. And I only stopped because I had to go out someplace or family came round, as soon as it was done I was back in the world of Skyrim.
I've played just under 20 hours, which is like Uncharted 3 played and finished 3 times, and I feel like I have not really done anything. I've done about 5 missions from the main quest, which for the first time I'm really enjoying. I never really enjoyed The Oblivion main quest line, but Skyrims so far has been pretty great. I've done a fair bit of exploring the lands doing mini quests, I did enough to afford a house in the first city and buy all the improvements for it. I have yet to get a horse, but so far traveling by foot has been fine, I have also only fast traveled about 4 times. Sure the land is massive, however the land is so packed with things I never got bored. Whether meeting strangers, coming across random events or hey year fucking Dragons!
I was skeptical about the Dragons, unlimited Dragons, I mean that sounds like it would get either boring, or I would not be able to walk far without being interrupted by a dragon every 5 minutes. But alas no there evenly spread out and each fight I've had so far has been some of the coolest and most epic fights this year. I've beat about 3 with people and 2 by myself, and when I beat it myself, I felt pretty proud. There really difficult, not Dark Souls tough but you have to come equipped with mad health potions and arrows before fighting a dragon. Thats also if you have a chance, one of them was sitting on one side of this wall and I wasn't aware it was there till I jumped over and was face to face with it.
So yes, Skyrim is pretty great, YOU should go buy it, right now.
I was sat in my chair, watching X-Men First Class on my Playstation 3, which to be honest was not as good as I remember it being, but still a really good movie. I was also super happy that day because my Whiskey Shirts and poster arrived, which are being washed as I speak. I then followed it up by pigging out with various food in the fridge, bits of chicken, cheese, ham and yogurt. I then got in to bed and finished the last Ocktobercast Podcast and was laying in bed eargly awaiting tommorow (Today) because I was after work going to stop by Tesco and buy Uncharted 3, which I can tell you now did not happen.
I woke up at 2AM, which is not all that strange, I useally tend to wake up super early due to my weak bladder. So I cursed and laid in bed for about 20 minutes before realising this was not going to go away, so I got up and went to the bathroom. Only to then discover that I have diarrhoea, and soon after that discovered I had a bug. I hoped it would go away, but by 6AM I was also being sick, so I called work and that was that. I've pretty much been in bed all day long, going hot and then cold, always rushing to the bathroom and being very bored. I don't think I've ever been in bed that long before, I've only just got out now to have some toast.
So with all of this I have not been able to go and get Uncharted 3, even though I feel better now work have recommended I take 24 hours off so I don't come in tomorrow either. But that means that even if I feel fine I really can't go to the shops and buy Uncharted 3, which just so you know, totally sucks. I haven't been able to eat all day either which also sucks, that toast I just had tasted so good! So yes I won't be playing Uncharted 3 until Friday it seems, which really is no good at all, but to be fair I'm secretly pleased. I mean could you just picture what would happen if this happened on November 11th, I would be crawling in to town to pick up Skyrim no matter what!
Over the past year I have bought a whole bunch of new releases, I posted the correct amount in a topic and I think it was like 30 or games released this year. Now not all of these games are great games, some of them are not even passable games, but the vast majority were at least good games. But not many of these games were games I personally was excited about or that I've been following, let me elaborate. Dead Island, Resistance 3, L.A. Noire, Portal 2, all of these are fantastic games that I had a great time with. But none of them were games that I was highly anticipating, I was not sitting there a month before it comes out saying "OMFG PORTAL 2 FUCKING COMES OUT I'M SO EXCITED I'M GOING TO SHIT MYSELF!!!!" I was just like "Yeah that game looks good from the quick look I just watched I think I'll pick that up."
The only games that I was really excited about was Pokemon White/Black, inFamous 2 and Dead Space 2, this is not a bad thing of course because it was a nice year of me buying games that I don't know much about. For instance I had never seen any Dead Island videos or screenshots or anything, I watched the quick look and was like "Man that game looks good, I'll buy that" and so I bought it and had a great time. This weekend has consisted of a bunch of games that I really enjoy just playing, Banjo-Kazooie, Burnout Paradise, Tiny Toons, Black Ops etc. Because this is the last weekend of the year that I will probably be able to play any of these games, starting next week the games I really care personally about start to come out, they are as follows.
These are not the only new games I will be buying this year, I will probably pick up Saints Row The Third, Mario Kart 7 and a few others but the ones above are ones that I really REALLy want to play. Having that list makes me feel worried because most of these are out in November, I do not know where I am going to find the time to play all of these games. The main ones I am worried about are Modern Warfare 3, Uncharted 3 and Skyrim. Uncharted 2 and Black Ops have fantastic multiplayer, I played Uncharted 2's multiplayer for about a year on and off and I still play Black Ops regularly to this very day. I spent over 400 hours with Oblivion and it was my Game of the Year for three years running (Old Gamespot 2008 awards, it totally beat MGS4!), and Skyrim looks to just be a better version of Oblivion, which is fantastic but also will leave little room for all of the other fantastic games I want to play. I do not want to rush Batman or Ratchet but i feel if I do not complete them both before the first of the big three (Modern Warfare 3) I will not get back to that game until sometime next year.
I usually do not play video games on weekdays, I use that time to spend reading my Kindle, but it seems my Kindle will have to go away for a while why I work my way through this. It's not even as though there is a lawl at the beginning of next year, I'm afraid there really isn't. A few of the games above you may even question them being on the list especially if you know me. I for instance am not a big Sonic fan, but I played the demo and it looked and played awesome. I'm not really a big Zelda fan, I have Twilight Princess, A Link to the Past, Minish Cap and the original Legend of Zelda, all unfinished, but I really like the way they have took the art direction.
I do not know what I would have done if I was still playing Club Penguin...
So in the past two weeks I have spent over 15 hours with Club Penguin, that is more Club Penguin than any human being over the age of 12 should endure. I'm not going to sit here and say Club Penguin is complete garbage, but I am going to say I would rather sit through a Justin Beiber concert followed by a Rebecca Black concert than play this game for a year. I added up the hours of what I could have spent on that "game", basically if I pursued on with my Club Penguin Year Long Epic Quest, that would have meant I would have spent about 360+ hours with Club Penguin.
That is a lot of Club Penguin...
More Club Penguin than I think I could handle, I apologise for all of the people who have since followed me hoping me to complete this quest, but I really do not have the time or energy to do this. It occurred to me yesterday as I was on the phone to a friend who wanted to go to the cinema, I told them I had plans. Those plans were to walk around Club Penguin chatting to 11 year old girls, about half way through sense kicked in and I said to myself what the hell am I doing! Also games are sorta coming out, just think I may have had to limit my Skyrim time to play fucking Club Penguin, CLUB PENGUIN!
So yes, goodbye Club Penguin, I will however be posting a "review" up of Club Penguin over the weekend. I am unsure whether it will be an article or a review, I do not know how I feel giving a bad score to a free product, but I'll decide later on.
Join me as I spend a year with Club Penguin and let you know whats what!
Week 2 - Sombreros, Ghost Busting and the did Mass Effect style dialogue trees!
And so the fair ends, it was a cool time I suppose but that music really started to grate on my nerves. As the fair has now ended normality has resumed on Club Penguin Island, it looks barren now as most areas are now empty, also no music on any of the outside places. Inside the buildings however they all have there own set music, I really dig the Pizza Pallor music, very classy. But I can tell its going to grate on my nerves, because all it is is the same 10 second track looped endlessly. Anyway as well as the fair leaving it seems that the pirate ship has left, I later discovered that it comes and goes, usually every few months it will return brining with it a bunch of new items, hopefully bigger and better mustachios.
The puffle hats were released on Tuesday, they are what you think they are, hats for your puffles. So like any normal 19 year old I went and bought Cool baby an oversized Sombrero which is double the size of her, because thats how Cool Baby rolls. I also found out that you can buy puffle hats in the real world (I know right!) and you can put them on your plush puffles, it also comes with a code so you can get that hat in the game which you can't buy in the game, I may need to try this! Also this week the new clothing catalog appeared, brining with it a plethora of halloween costumes, I ended up going with a Ghostbusters costume. It comes with a Ghostbuster 3000 which when used with the right attire, you can hunt for ghosts. So when you have the gun and the costume on and just them, when you press the dance button you get your gun out and go and bust some ghosts! I'm over selling it a little because all it is a different dance, no impact on anything.
But enough about all of that, I was sent a iPad like tablet via the mail service, it was blank but had EPF in the top left. I had no idea what it meant until a fellow penguin told me top visit the "Everyday Phoning Facility". There it was revealed that it was not a phoning facility but instead a front for the EPF (Elite Penguin Force.) What I had got sent was an invitation to join, which is only sent to Penguins of good standing. I passed a simple test involving problem solving and agility, and then was granted access to there HQ. Inside was all James Bond, it had cool music, machines everywhere and a bunch of new things for me. I got given my own Spy phone which I can use to teleport around Club Penguin island, receive messages, trade in medals I earn as a member of the EPF and field ops.
Field ops are updated every week, its a riddle that you must solve and once you go to the place it mentions you get given a medal, which you can exchange for cool agent gear. It was a really tough riddle and only once I asked a Penguin for help did I get it, I ended up going with a cool ear piece, but now I'm going to save up for these awesome Sam Fisher Night Vision goggles. I also undertook a mission, these are unlike field ops and take you to a point and click adventure game. The mission involved me finding Aunt Arctics (Club Penguin's Journalist) puffles. This is the first thing in Club Penguin that I actually found not half bad, it was quite simple but it was just a training mission. But it shows good promise and there are things like combining items in your inventory to make something to proceed and translating messages and even Mass Effect style dialogue tree's. I only did this earlier today and started the next mission just to see whats ahead, and yes there are totally dialogue trees!
If you will excuse me I need to go and ponder why i started this, waddle on!
Join me as I spend a year with Club Penguin and let you know whats what!
Week 1 - Cool Baby, The Fair and I bought a fucking car!
This has been my first full week of Club penguin, and man let me tell you that shit has been going down in Club Penguin! I really do not know where to begin as there is a lot to talk about, I suppose I shall begin with my new friend Cool Baby. I built up a large amount of coins in the week, I bought a bunch of clothing items in the week and some items for my igloo, but seeing as I already have what i consider to be the best apparel in the game (See Last Blog) I do not really need any more. But I bought a few cool ones such as a squid hat and a rubber ring, but thats when I came across a pet shop. Now there are these small creatures called Puffles, they are the pets of Club Penguin and if you don't have a puffle you are not cool. So I gave in and decided to head on into the shop and buy one.
I was surprised to see that there are ten different kinds of Puffle, each Puffle has its own personality and colour, so for example the red Puffle has a dare devil personality where the black one has a depressed personality. I did not know which one to pick, but thankfully Club Penguin provide a quiz to determine which Puffle suits you best. The questions included what would you buy if you had a large amount of coins, what game you like, what your style is etc. In the end it told me that the Pink Puffle would suit my tastes, irony aside I was quite happy with it and bought a pink one. Once you buy it you are given a certificate that you keep in your inventory and you can even print it off, oh and did I mention her name is Cool Baby? Your puffle is then brought back to your igloo, I went back and took her out for a walk, but then got laughed at because apparently pink is a girls colour. I took her back home and gave her some food and played with her some.
Puffles don't really add much difference to the game, you need coins to feed them and if you do not feed them over a long period of time they will run away and never return. Aside from that you can bring your puffle all around with you, it will follow you and always be next to you. There are also certain games where your Puffle will join you in, not to big of an impact though. So yes I am now a proud owner of a Puffle, you can have up to 16 I think which is a crazy amount, but I may go to those lengths because I love the Giant Bomb community that much. The fair is still going strong, no new games but on Monday (I think) a ton of new items were added, so I went and farmed a whole bunch of tickets. It took me almost an hour to get enough tickets to buy everything, but dude it was worth it because one of the items was a fucking car. It comes under clothing but dude it is a fucking car! I'm looking forward to the fair going though, I wish to see Club penguin island un fair related.
I checked the Club Penguin website and theres this section called "Whats new", that is where the post updates and upcoming features to the game. The latest one was there first ever video blog, the video is at the bottom so you can see all the new features there. But dude I must get that hat!
So this is the first instalment of my Club Penguin Year Long Epic Quest in which I intend to let you guys know what is going down in Club Penguin. I signed myself up for a Years membership to Club Penguin, in that year I will keep you updated every single week up until my membership runs out. I will limit myself to one hour per day, this I feel is a decent time. This is my way of doing my bit for the Giant Bomb community, so you better damn well appreciate the sacrifice I'm making!
Thank you, and enjoy.
Week 0 - Moustaches, 8 year old stalkers and bad coffee.
Entering the world of Club Penguin for the first time in years was daunting, I really did not know what to expect. One of the things that made me feel quite weird was when signing up for Club Penguin, there is no option to put your email address in. Instead it asks for your parents email address, your parents then get to choose whether your allowed to type freely or you have to use pre-set messages. Upon booting Club Penguin up I was greeted by a GIANT Orange Penguin, he then walked me through a tutorial showing me how to move, type and throw snowballs. This seems to be a new feature, because before I'm sure it just dumps you in the world and says there you go. After completing his stupid tasks I was then dumped into the world, however, Club Penguin Island was not as it usually is.
Thats a sweet hat.
It seems that there is a huge ass party going on, called The Fair. Theres lights everywhere and there is this funky music going on in the backround. Think carnival theme and you have the idea. After a some asking around it seems that there are exclusive games that are only available in The Fair party, which happens every year. In these games you collect tickets (As you would in amusement arcades) and with the tickets you can spend them at a booth to buy some things. (See Picture) Seeing as these items would not appear again (Possibly next years fair party?) I thought it would be a good idea to get them. So I went and played all of the fair games, there was a whole bunch of them. There simple enough, and because I am such a hardcore gamer, I ended up with hella tickets. I was able to buy everything on the stall. It says that more items are coming soon, so I checked the paper - The Club Penguin Times which is released every Thursday(?) and delivered to your Penguin - and it seems that the new items will appear on September the 29th, so this party is going to be on for a while.
What bugs me is that you can't save tickets, every time you log off you loose all your tickets. So it means when September the 29th rolls round I'll have to go and play those stupid games again. I also forgot to mention there is a members only area with exclusive fair games, there not that great. Those member only mini games made me remember that as a member, I am able to buy clothes and items out of the various shops around Club Penguin. As a free member you can buy only colours for your Penguin and backrounds. As a paid member you can buy clothes and things to personalise your penguin. So I went and played some mini games.
I started doing the coffee game, and dude that game is hard, in fact most of the games on Club penguin are quite difficult. I didn't get to play them all yet, but yeah the ones I played were pretty hard. I couldn't even get to the last truck on the coffee one, I was crushed by the coffee bags and supposedly knocked out? Anyway after making some coins I went and looked round the various shops, first at the "The Stage" which is a theatre room. I bought a sweet Red cape and hat, but in needed something more, it needed a moustache! So I looked in the main shop but alas no moustache, I did however change my colour to a greeny/blue colour. I did encounter a pirate ship out by the lighthouse though, and inside was a small shop and they sold moustaches, my Penguin was now complete.
I strolled around in my new attire and showed off my moustache, which seemed to attract the attention of this other Penguin. She came over to me and said. "Boy or Girl?" I responded in the best way possible "Duder". She then asked again because she didn't seem to understand what Duder meant, so I politely said boy. She then asked to be my boyfriend. I was thrown a back by her offer, I told her I was not interested, but she then came over and made the heart icon appear and sat next to me. She then told me she loved me though, I was freaking out at this point and just kinda ran away. I went and sat in the coffee shop and thought I was free, but oh no, she followed me. She then invited me to her igloo to play some games, thats when I logged off.
Thank you for reading, hopefully it will get more interesting in later weeks, once I get in the flow of how this is going to work it should be a lot better. Also I would love feedback and also let me know what you would like to see. I would also like tips on the screen shots, as you can see the added pictures are really crappy, any tips with this would be great. I may also do this in video form later down the line, if I ever work out to record off my iMac that is.
I have been thinking about doing this for months now, I've just been trying to find the right game to do it with, and what better way to do it than with Disney's very own Club Penguin. Ok so basically whats happened is I went and bought a years worth of Club Penguin membership, this alone is a crazy statement, but it gets even crazier. Every Sunday up until thee last Sunday of September, I shall do a blog telling you what I have been doing in Club Penguin. Even as I am writing this it seems like such a bad idea, but hey Club Penguin is a game that Giant Bomb does not follow and you guys need to know about the goings on in Club Penguin!
Ok a little backstory is needed I suppose, Club Penguin was officially released in 2005 on October 24th. It was a small run thing run by a few dudes in some basement someplace, I started playing in April 2006. I played constantly for about a year or so, but then in 2007 Disney paid £350 Million and bought Club Penguin. I was so pissed off because at that time I hated Disney, mostly because of the shit they were putting out on TV, so I said goodbye to my friends and left. Now after 4 years, I'm going to jump back in and I want to share this experience with you.
I also never had a membership before, I was a free member for all of those years, so it will be cool to see both how things have changed and all the features I should get. I'm going to try to spend about an hour or so on it each day, and I will be letting you know about everything thats going on. I'll play around on it today and tomorrow then post week 0 tomorrow evening, this will give me time to get familiar with it and for you to prepare yourselves for the content that is to come!
I could use some ideas for names for this blog series, also props to IkariNoTekken for making the banner.
Video game consoles in 1996 where black or grey, there were a few exceptions but back then companies didn't really seem, to care what there console looks like. Consoles were just a thing you played games on, not something you would sit at and admire. When the N64 launched, it seemed to follow the same trend as consoles before it, and it's rival the Playstation. It stuck to dull colour pallet of black/grey console with a grey controller. But not soon after launch Nintendo started a trend that other consoles would follow even to this day, they introduced colour.
The time for Hot Pink consoles is now!
His foot is the reset button, his foot is the bloody reset button!
When N64 introduced colour to the market they did more than just do a white version or a red version. In total N64 made 16 colour console variants over the course of 4 years, when you look at it like that, that alone is amazing. And the variants that they did produce were very different at the time, such as transparent N64. Nintendo decided to release N64's that were translucent, so you can see inside the console and see all the pieces that make the console work. They first did this with a bundle, a Jungle Green edition with Donkey Kong 64. This was followed by a Fire Red, Smoke Grey, Grape Purple, Ice Aqua and Watermelon Hot Pink N64's. All of them were translucent and were at the time very in, the cool kids at school all had one of these. When friends came over you would show your friends how cool the Watermelon N64 was. If you were a huge Pokemon fan you were in for a huge treat, a console that was a Pokemon fan's wet dream. The console not only had a Poke ball and Pikacku's feet as buttons, but when you turned it on Pikachu's cheeks flashed on and off and then stayed lit.
My moneys on red controller fuck blue controller!
Red beta blue..
Ok so four friends meet up too play some Super Smash Bros and you decide to play a team game of red vs blue. You can take this to the extreme and have two people using a blue controller and two people using a red controller. Thats right the colours were not just for the consoles, but for the controllers too. Most of the coloured consoles had a controller counterpart, but the controllers also had a few additional colours such as Atomic purple. The see through controllers really were awesome because you could see whenever you pressed a button or moved the joystick the inside would move around. There were a few cool controllers to that would have one colour one side and one colour on the other side. With my personal N64 I have a red controller, and whenever I play against a friend I always play with the Red controller while the rest have to play with the grey controller. When I went to a friends house even though they had enough controllers, I would bring my red one, it's like a lucky rabbit foot.
Just to remind you, Carts continue to be awesome!
The colours keep on coming with the release of coloured N64 carts, as the same as the console at launch it was just grey carts, but this soon expanded into really cool colours. There was green, yellow, red, yellow, black and even a few limited edition gold carts. Some of the carts were both in grey and in coloured version, the gold carts especially now are very rare and are worth a lot of money. But dude gold carts!
Thank you for reading Part II of my blog series about why the N64 is so great, incase you missed the first part you can find it here. Let me leave you with one last cool thing.
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