I get too excited and worked up about games before they’re released. I can’t help it. I always build myself up and most of the time the game doesn’t meet my expectations. This happened most recently with Red Dead Redemption and in my defence it was hard not to get excited about it. I like the western setting, I like Rockstar and in the 3 day period between the US and EU release date I got even more excited by reading the ravishing reviews it received. So when the time came to actually play the game I was all ready to make sweet tender love to Red Dead Redemption.

The world of Red Dead Redemption is beautiful and highly detailed no one can argue against that but what good is that world if there is nothing fun to do in it. When you take the main story missions out the equation all you’re left with is a bunch of mundane tasks. Do I really want to break in horses repeatedly? Skin animals all day? Pick some flowers? No I want to be a damn cowboy! Now to be fair there are some more action orientated tasks but they become just as tedious very quickly. The only thing that seems to be worth doing is the story missions. The character acting in the cut scenes are great and at this point it’s the only thing keeping me going. The problem comes in the actual game play of the missions. The mission formula Rockstar uses seems to not have changed from GTA 3, just replace the cars with horses. Though the gun play has definitely improved it’s still not strong enough to support missions that offer nothing new or exciting.

After saying all that Red Dead Redemption is definitely not a bad game but after being so full of excitement and seeing its 95 average on metacritic it’s hard not to be a little disappointed. Would I feel the same if I didn’t pay attention to the reviews or the pre-release videos? Maybe but I think it’s a situation I will never be in. I’m constantly reading previews, watching every trailer I can find and getting too excited for upcoming games but like I said... I can’t help it.

 All across the land wherever a server is shutting down, I will be there! As part of the XBOXALYPSE I was playing Halo 2 for far longer than I really should have and recorded most of it. So here is the best of mat the monkey on the last night of Halo 2!
 

This is a dumb video I made but if you have ever seen Black Books you will get it.
 
 
 

  So I jumped on the stimulus map pack today mainly to do these comparison videos. These 2 videos compare Crash and Overgrown to the remade versions of them in the Stimulus pack. Let me know what you think!
 
 

The Splinter Cell Conviction demo hit just mere hours ago and I was up bright and early ready to start downloading ASAP! The demo is actually not that long (around 10-50 minutes) but it does a good job of letting you get used to the new play style of Sam Fisher.

Mark and execute is when you mark up to three targets and take them out instantly with your pistol. It just makes you feel like a bad ass. To stop you from just using it all the time you have to earn it. Every time you take down someone with a melee attack you get one mark and execute token to be used when you see fit. Let me paint you a picture. I’m hanging above an unsuspecting guard and two of his guard friends are close by. I drop from the pipe knocking out the guy below me (gaining one mark and execute token) and then quickly marking the two other guards, taking them out with my pistol. That all happened within the space of about 5 seconds and it was all very smooth and very cool.

Last known position is exactly what it sounds like. When you’ve been seen and manage to run away you leave a ghost like image behind of where the enemy saw you last. At first this doesn’t sound so great but you can really use it to your advantage. To show you a good example of how the AI reacts I recommend watching the video at around 9:25. Unfortunately last known position didn’t always work for me. I’m not sure what the conditions are to get the outline to appear but sometimes I would be seen run away and they would just know where I am.

The demo is just too short to get any idea of the story but playing as Sam Fisher definitely feels better than previous Splinter Cell games and I’m still really curious to see how the multiplayer plays.
 
 

  I managed to get my hands on the Blur beta earlier and man, I am seriously impressed. Blur is really good! Basically Blur is Wipeout/Mario Kart but with real cars. The online can support up to 20 players racing at once and then it gets real crazy! Blur does something I wish a lot of other games did, they just copied Modern Warfare’s online structure... all of it. Gaining levels, challenges, perks, playlist matchmaking and unlocking new stuff. Just take Modern Warfare 2 and replace shooting dudes with racing cars and you have Blur online. I think the best way for you to understand Blur is to watch my video (cheap plug). I knew nothing about this game but now I am completely sold.  
 
 

 Galactic Warfare is a COD4 mod that changes everything to make it look and fell like Star Wars. Yes Call of Duty 4 is a few years old and yes Modern Warfare 2 just came out but if you have COD4 for the PC this mod is worth checking it out (It’s Free!). To download it and get some more information click HERE and I bought a clip of me playing and talking about it.  
 
 

For the longest time my dream has been to attend E3 at least once. I imagine quite a lot of other gamers also have the same goal. E3, where the big 3 show off their new line consoles and games are shown for the very first time. It sounds great but after attending the Euro Gamer Expo, E3 is no longer the dream. I have to say it’s not because the Euro Gamer Expo was bad in anyway, I think they did a fantastic job and it was great value.

Euro Gamer Expo had some great games to show ( http://expo.eurogamer.net/whats-on.php) and going into the convection centre I had one game on my mind, Mass Effect 2 (Oh how I love Mass Effect). So after a quick browse of the games upstairs I head down to the basement where ME2 was waiting for me. Of course there were already some people waiting to play so I just watched for the time being. Finally I get my hands on the controller but I can’t hear a damn thing and I have no idea what’s going on. Trying to pick up and play a game when someone else has just walked away in the middle of a mission with Lady GaGa playing as loud as the speaker system would let it is not the ideal environment to play a RPG like Mass Effect. This situation kept coming up again and again. I think it’s possibly the worst environment to try and play a new game. Here is an example of me and a friend trying to play Star Trek Online, it doesn’t go so well.

I can’t imagine how hard it is to then go away and write something informative about that experience apart from “Yeah it looked good.... I couldn’t really hear over the music. I think it’s about your dude trying to find other dudes to kill this bad dude... I’m really not sure.” I have much more respect for games press attending E3 as I can only guess it’s ten times more hectic than Euro Gamer was.

For some games it was better than others to pick up and play. I had a lot of fun on MAG and Battlefield: Bad Company 2. If someone today offered me the chance to go to E3 I would still go but I would bring a taser.