What’s this all about?

As you may well know, recently I decided to purchase a PlayStation Vita. I am not entirely sure why. The catalogue doesn’t really stand out to me, I never use my PlayStation 3 and I didn’t see many opportunities to game on the go. But I own everything else, so why not? Why not make it a console “full house”? I had no answer to those questions so on a whim I ordered the FIFA 13 bundle from Shopto.net (go check the site out its pretty damn great)

Anyway,

What's in the box?

The bundle I ordered came with a 4GB memory card (which is pretty damn useless), the handheld console itself, some AR cards (which I am yet to use, and probably will never use), A code for the digital version of FIFA 13 and all associated cables to charge and connect the system to the PC/Playstation 3. The first thing that hit me was that the pack in stuff was kind of lacking. Where is the awesome charging stand that I got with my 3ds or the neat little pouch to put the handheld in when I am on the move like I got with my original PSP? Hell I didn’t even get a cloth to wipe my grubby little finger prints off of the touch screen.

The system, tell us about the system?

The first thing that hit me about the Playstation Vita was the beautiful 5 inch oled screen. Its big, for a system this size anyway. And it looks beautiful, bright enough to use outside without any problems (at least for me so far). As far as I am aware the screen resolution is 960x544 which isn’t exactly as good as say an iPhone 4 screen but believe me the games still look amazing. Like many iOS devices the screen is also a multitouch, touch screen. It really baffled me that the 3ds didn’t decide to go with multi touch so its really nice to see that Sony has used it in their device.

The Vita also has a touch panel on the back. To be honest this is a huge pain in the arse. I catch it all the time with my fingers and to be honest its pretty useless. In games such as FIFA 13 where the option to turn it off is given that is my default choice.

Control wise the Vita is very similar to the Playstation 3 gamepad. You have your 4 face buttons (triangle, X, blah, blah) 2 analogue sticks (that don’t push in, so no L3, R3 action) and a D-pad that is very similar to a dual shocks. I love the familiar layout and I don’t see how sony can ever change this now. I do however dislike how there is only 2 shoulder buttons. I would have loved it if Sony had managed to find a way to fit L2 and R2 buttons in there somewhere. It probably wouldn’t have been that ergonomic for a handheld, but I dunno 4 shoulder buttons just feels right nowadays. I also wish the shoulder buttons would have been analogue (like the PS3 and Xbox). It just makes it so much easier for throttle control in racing games and feels so much better (for me at least).

The final flaw I have with the system is the memory management. No onboard memory, this seems really cheap. Especially now in the days where my phone has 16GB of memory and no SD card at all. The fact that Sony is making you pay over the odds for their own memory card format is disgusting. You need the memory too. With games coming in at 4 gigs a pop a small card just won't cut it. You pretty much have to shell out another £70 for a 32GB card. Rip off!

So online on handhelds, not really a big thing right?

Download speeds on the Playstation 3 are shitty to say the least. It seems to me, in fact I know that the Playstation Vita’s speeds are a damn site better. Like mentioned above games are around 4GB in size and speeds seem comparable to Steam or Xbox live. Which is awesome because I have downloaded every game that I own so far. That is mainly thanks to Playstation Plus. The Playstation Vita has really justified my PS+ purchase. Having an instant game library of 9 or so games is amazing and a new game every month, Awesome. Seeing as we are talking about the internet capabilities of this system, I suppose its worth mentioning the online gameplay. So I have only really played FIFA 13 online so far and the gameplay is really laggy and at some points unplayable. I really hope this isn’t the similar in other Vita games but I guess only time will tell.

So what can I do with this thing?

Allot of the software on the Vita is pretty generic, You know youtube, probably netflix and all your other music and video services. That has no interest to me on this type of screen. The web browser is pretty basic and useless too. Definitely not my first choice while I always have an iPhone handy.

What is interesting though is the base level system software. Stuff like Near, an app that lets you know what gamers are in your vicinity and what those people have been playing recently. The content manager lets you move games and apps from your Playstation Vita to your Playstation 3 or PC which can be handy with the limited space you have available even on the biggest memory card. Another interesting app is remote play which lets you stream certain PS3 games onto your vitas screen. I originally didn’t see a big use for this but I have been using it every so often to stream games to my vita while I watch TV on my big screen. There is also a basic party chat and group messaging app.

I also much prefer the Vitas “bubble” home screen layout than the X media bar of the Playstation 3 and PSP. It just seems a lot more intuitive especially with the touch screen.

Enough fannying about already, talk about games

I currently own 7 original Vita games. Those being Persona 4 Golden, Uncharted Golden Abyss, Metal Gear Solid HD, Mortal Kombat, Gravity Rush, FIFA 13 and Wipeout 2048. I also own 4 Playstation 1 classics. Oddworld: Abe’s Exoddus, Crash Bandicoot, Final Fantasy VII and Rayman.

I have only really played 3 of those games enough to properly talk about

:

Wipeout 2048

was the first game that I got into. I have never played a Wipeout game before and I have to say I really enjoyed this game initially. The further on I played the more tedious the game became though. There is very little to no variety in the game which is a real shame because the sense of speed and chaos was really fun at the start.

The second game was

Uncharted

I have only really put about an hour into this game but it seems solid. Whether Uncharted works on a small screen is yet to be seen for me but I love all 3 PS3 games so bring it on.

The game that I have been putting most of my time into though is

Persona 4 Golden

. This game is amazing. I think I have put about 20 hours into the game so far and I don’t even think I have scratched the surface. I haven’t played a good JRPG since Final Fantasy X and this is an awesome JRPG. Believe me. The integration of a social system that also aids you level up your characters is great. That addition means that like other JRPG’s Persona 4 isn’t one big grind fest. The story, although it is kinda dumb as hell it’s actually pretty interesting. Wow who would have thought that I would like a game where 50% of what you do is talking to people and maintaining relationships. I fucking hate talking to people it's such a ball ache. Somehow Persona makes that fun.

So when all’s said and done, What do you think

I really like the Vita and have been shocked by how much I use the thing. I don’t know if thats just my Persona 4 addiction though, only time will tell. The games look great, not quite as smooth as Playstation 3 graphics but a damn site better than last generation consoles. Its actually really impressive. Whether the handheld is worth the money aaaah, I’m not too sure. I would either wait for a price drop or maybe wait to see what the Playstation 4 compatibility is like. Hopefully the PS4 will better integrate the handheld and console experience. Just imagine raiding a “dungeon” in Bungies new game Destiny on the Playstation 4 at home then carrying on the same save file on your way to work on your Vita. I hear that MGS HD allows that with its dumb ass trasfarring mode so I should probably check that out.

So if you didn’t get that I like this thing but erm maybe not enough to justify a £200 purchase (£280 IF YOU WANT TO ACTUALLY HOLD GAMES ON THE THING).

Last weekend was a pretty crazy weekend for me. It was a close friend's birthday and we all decided to make our way up to Newcastle to celebrate.Newcastle for those of you that don’t know is a city in the North East of England (about 4 hours drive from where I live). I would love to say its a nice city to visit but I honestly don’t know. We saw little of the city itself. Mainly the inside of a Travelodge and multiple bars and clubs.

Before we took part in the local night life though we decided to partake in a couple activities. Quad biking and Clay Pigeon shooting. To set the scene, it was around midday and me and 7 friends pulled up on a farm in Durham. Met a couple of blokes and paid them a fair amount of money for the days activities. First of all Quad Biking. We all suited up and rolled around for an hour or so spraying each other with mud and nearly killing ourselves ragging the small 4 wheelers round country lanes and tight corners.

The thing that I was more interested in though was the shooting, having played first person shooters for as long as I can remember. Never really thinking about what it would be actually like to handle a gun. This exercise really interested me. Would any knowledge picked up from gaming help me in any way while shooting a real gun or are all shooters just full of bullshit and would I know nothing at all in how to handle this weapon in front of me. I think the answer is pretty obvious. I had no clue. I didn’t know that a shotgun had to be horizontal while cocking it. I never actually knew how accurate a shotgun could be. In games if a target is even an arms length away from you, you have no bloody chance of hitting it with a shotgun so why in real life while clay pigeon shooting did these guns feel extremely accurate to me. I also expected more of a kick from the guns. Where in all honesty I didn’t really feel too much at all. All in all this was really fun for me. It is nothing like it is shown in gaming and there are allot more technical steps to shooting a gun than what is shown in Call of Duty or Halo. All in all though I did pretty well, hitting a majority of the targets and even beating out a soldier from the British Armed Forces. I think that may be partly down to gaming. The hand eye coordination picked up while playing games surely at least contributed to the skill shown on the day. I found clay pigeon shooting a hell of allot of fun and hope to do it again some day. I also urge anyone who plays games on the regular to try shooting a real gun at least once. It is a real experience and will change the way you look at shooters and guns in games.

Capping off the weekend was a hell of allot of drinking in the great city that is Newcastle. We as a group have been to a fair amount of places on nights out and I have to say Newcastle didn’t disappoint. Getting back into the hotel at 4 and not getting back to bed and our own room till 7. All I will say is the weekend was fun. A lot of fun.

Not another one of these?

Yep Another week another blog. I hope last weeks was in the least slightly interesting. I am planning to stick to a similar format for the time being at least. If anyone has any constructive criticism I honestly welcome it. This is the first thing I have ever done that involves writing in any kind of form and I am looking to hone my skills so please let me know if you have any ideas to make this blog better in any way. Enough with the bull shit, lets get on with this.

Whatcha playin?

If you read last week you will know that I have been playing Dishonoured and I wasn’t too sure about the game. Well guys good news. I have piled a fair bit of time into the game in the past week and my opinion has changed....slightly. Mere hours before sitting down to write this up I played the last 2 levels of the game and completed it with low chaos, therefore getting the better of the two endings. Saying that, the thing that changed my mind on the game was when I stopped worrying about my chaos level. Last week I played the game worrying, in the back of my mind always thinking if I kill this guy I won't get the better ending. Take my advice people, fuck that. Play the game in whatever way you enjoy and don’t worry about your chaos.

I found the most fun in approaching the levels like a puzzle, using blink and dark vision to get around enemies without being seen and to be honest that was hell of fun.

The game as a whole though is really short. My final time on steam counts it at 5 hours. That is with me basically mainlining the game. Not following the side mission, just making my way to the main objective killing my target and fucking off as quick as possible back to the boat.

So yeah as you can tell in the end I generally kind of liked this game. I wouldn’t recommend it as a buy to anyone, maybe just rent it. If you do though stick with it the first hour or 2 is kind of slow but after that the last 3 or 4 become kinda fun.

Anything Else?

• Guardians of Middle Earth - Downloaded this as one of this months playstation plus titles. I don’t like MOBA games and I fucking hate Lord of the rings. I can't say that I am expecting much from this game. I played through the tutorial and tried to get in a game. Sat and waited ten minutes and fuck all. I will probably give it another go later this week.
• Guild Wars 2 - Finally started the game. I actually bought it when it was released and never actually touched it. I decided to roll a human elementalist. I have so far played about an hour and the game seems pretty good. I am not really a big MMO fan but I loved the original so I can't wait to pack a bit more time into this.

What have I been watching?

Last week I mentioned for some fucked up reason that I have no clue of, that I started watching the fourth season of Prison Break. My god is that season bad. I just feel an obligation to finish up the story. Even after the god knows how many years break from season 1,2 and 3. I have always wondered how it all ended. Well now I know and even though the season as a whole is pretty damn shite, the film that caps it all off is really good, in my opinion. It brings it all back to a, well a prison break again. Yeah the reason Sara is locked up is full of bullshit but the events that pass after that moment in the film are actually kind of awesome. So I guess watching the fourth season wasn’t a total waste of my time.

Anything else happened?

Erm not really. A lot of work, Dishonoured and Gym. Yeah I finally hit up a proper regulated gym schedule. I decided to go 3 times a week and during those session I do 20 minutes cardio (usually running), 20 minutes weight training and then a further 10 minutes cardio. When I am not at the gym I am trying to find time to hit up a few push ups and sit ups at home too. I honestly don’t know too much about working out and getting fit so any help from the community would be met with thanks. I am not looking to get hench I just want to lose a little weight and tone up. So yeah guys if you have any ideas how I can change my plan please butt in with comments.

The End

With dishonoured done I am left wondering what game next? I did Pick up DmC this week. I also have Xcom, Sleeping Dogs and Hotline Miami on my backlog.

Again thanks for reading, any constructive criticism is welcome.

What exactly is this?

In all honesty I don’t exactly know what this blog will be, or even turn into. I recently decided to do a weekly write up of what I played, watched or if I am lucky enough to actually leave the house and do something interesting in the week what I did. Most people may find this boring (I hope not), but in all honesty its for me. I want to do this to hone my writing skills and I dunno, I guess its just something to look back on a little while down the line.

What have I been Playing?

Gaming has taken a back seat a little recently. I am not totally sure why but I am finding myself watching more TV in my spare time than playing games. When I do play games though I tend to only stick to one main title and focus most of my time on that. At the moment that title is Dishonoured. I have never really been a fan of stealth games. To put it bluntly I am shit at them. I don’t have the patience to sit there and wait for the most opportune moment to take out a guard or sneak past a security camera. I would much rather run out there and fuck shit up.

As far as dishonored goes I have gotten through the tutorial and the first two missions. I like the game I guess but its just not drawing me in. I never have an urge to play it. I think the problem is, I want to like the game more than I actually do (if that makes any sense). The art style is amazing and the game looks beautiful on the PC. I just don’t have the patience for stealth games. With that in mind and only being about 1 and a half hours into the game, I feel I have a choice. Do I carry on playing and hope that the later game content (the powers and story) is enough to keep me interested or do I give the game up as a bad job and just say it isn't for me?

Any other games?

This weekend I decided to do fuck all and just lounge around watching shitty tv and playing random games:

• Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 - Jumped into multiplayer for the first time in a couple months. Really not that bothered about the game any more. I think this will be the first year that I do not buy any of the dlc.
• FIFA 13 - Played a few matches of my Manchester United Career, again I jumped back into this game after a hiatus of a few months. I really like the FIFA games. I just can't play too much in one sitting. After 2 or 3 matches I get bored and want to play something else.

What have I been watching?

I actually went to see Django Unchained this past weekend. Oh my fucking god is this film great. I have always been a Tarantino fan, but this by far is my favourite of his. The cast are perfect, the soundtrack is amazing and the plot my god is the plot entertaining. This film is 3 hours of pure entertainment. It just hits every note. Its funny when it needs to be. It has amazing action sequences and the music in the film fits in with the theme perfectly. The stand out star of the film has to be Samuel L. Jackson, even though all the cast’s work is great Samuel L. Jackson’s character is amazing. You know what thats all I really want to say on the film for now just go and watch it.

What else have you seen?

In this section I just want to briefly outline anything of note that I watched be it TV or Film.

• Prison Break Season 4 - When this show was originally on TV I lost interest after season 3. I can see why now. The first season was amazing and, well it just went downhill from there. Season 4 is bad. Really bad.

Anything else happened?

Nope not really, I did go back to the gym for the first time in what. god it must be 7 months. I am really going to make an effort this time. I have cut down on junk food, 3 trips to the gym a week and at least for this month I have totally cut out alcohol. It feels good living a little healthier. I am not too sure if it is psychological but I do tend to feel more lively and generally happier.

The End

And thats it for the first in what will hopefully be a series of blogs from me. If I decide to drop Dishonoured (I am still not sure) most of my time will probably be spent with XCom Enemy Unknown, another one of my 2012 backlog games.

Thanks for reading and any constructive criticism is welcome.

Shall we start?

I received a Nintendo WiiU for Christmas, well it was a present from myself to me. So in the next few paragraphs I will put forward my early opinions of the console, a few of the games and probably go off on a few tangents along the way.

So what do you get in the box?

I purchased the premium bundle which set me back a little under £300, to be honest thats pretty cheap for a brand new console. Especially with what you get in the box with this. Not only do you get the console and the screen controller thingy (what do you call that?) you also get a charging cradle, sensor bar and stands for both screen and console. Even though these extras seem meaningless they are pretty nice to own. The charging cradle being the most important in my opinion. Just sit the WiiU controller in it when you are finished playing and you should never have to worry about low battery problems.

What's the setup like?

The WiiU is as simple to set up as any other home console. Plug it into the wall and into the TV via HDMI and you are good to go. The problem comes after you connect the console to the internet. As soon as you connect the Wii U to the web you are pushed a mandatory update and fuck me is that a big update. It took me about an hour to download and install which can be a pain in the arse if you expect to open this up Christmas morning wanting to play a few games. When all that bullshit is over there are also a few things you can optionally set up. The main thing being you TV settings. You can set your controller up to control your TV and satellite/cable box. This is really easy to do. Especially when compared to other universal remotes with their bullshit codes. All you really have to do is enter your box and TV brand and sorted your controller now works your TV.

So that Other Shit, You Know the miiverse Social Network Bollocks. What's that like?

The Miiverse is actually kind of interesting. Full of bullshit and nonsense of course but quite funny to browse. You can post pictures directly from a game and chat to other Wii U users. Of course its all child friendly being a Nintendo property and everything. No swearing no abuse. So basically it looks like a forum but everyone has to be nice and polite. Its really quite jarring.

Nintendo has never been big on media. The other consoles have that down, What's the Wii U like?

Media playback on the WiiU is good but not great. In the UK at least you have Netflix, Lovefilm and YouTube. Netflix is the best of the bunch. You can swap the video from TV to controller, browse films on the controller and also fast forward and rewind what you are watching from the touch screen. Unfortunately though even though the WiiU discs are some form of Blu Ray you can not watch Blu Ray movies on this console.

Come on enough shit talk what about the games?

Now here is the main problem. There are barely any. There was around 20 on release and allot of those are bad ports of games that have already been released on other consoles. I only picked up 2 games. The first being ZombiU and the other being New Super Mario Bros. U. You also get Nintendoland packed in with the premium bundle.

Nintendoland is basically a mini game collection. Its pretty damn boring to be honest. I don't really see me putting any time into this at all. It was okay for the few family parties we had over the Christmas period but I seriously see that staying on my shelf to never be touched again.

New Super Mario Bros.U is another Mario game. Nintendo have pushed way too many of these out recently and I don't really find this game that fun at all. Its okay to play for 20 to 30 minutes but I can't really get invested in the game. I want to see a new Mario game. Something fresh like galaxy was back on the Wii

Finally ZombiU now this game is fun. It uses the touch screen really well. Its also a hell of allot of fun. Its bloody hard but probably... in fact easily the best game out on the Wii U at the moment.

So what's the final word on the Wii U, any good?

I love the Wii U its a really solid console it just really doesn't have any sort of games catalogue at the moment. If its a HD Nintendo console you have been looking for then we finally have it. But if you want to play games on that console you will be shit outta luck. If you want to pay £350 to play ZombiU then get a Wii U but I wouldn't recommend that. Even though the game is good it is no way £350 good.

When I got to thinking about making this end of year list, it really seemed to me that 2012 was a really bad year for gaming. But sitting down, looking at my collection on steam, psn, xbla and on my physical shelves it seems I was wrong. Dude there was a shit ton of games in 2012. My list to be totally honest with you will be pretty much generic. Mainly big ass, mainstream AAA titles. So I wouldn’t really expect any gaming surprises on my list this year.

This year was the year of the PC for me, most of the games I played I chose to play on the PC. Thats not to say that console gaming is bad but games at the moment look so much better and run so much smoother on a fairly recent rig compared to the 7 year old consoles.

Before we begin with my list of games I would like to mention the games that never got the chance to appear. Not because they are bad per say. Its actually because I didn’t manage to find enough time to play them to completion. Games like ZombiU which I received a few days ago. After dying over a dozen times I really got this game. It just hit me. This is a first person shooter game that totally steals from Dark Souls. The game is fucking brutal but tense as hell. Also XCom: Enemy Unknown, my first foray into turn based strategy. I usually do not have the patience for games like this but XComs style and story really hooked me. What about Sleeping Dogs too, a free roaming sandbox game set in Hong Kong where you ride both sides of the law in a hope to bring down a huge triad gang. Sleepy Dogs’ combat really feels amazing in an Arkham City kind of way. With combat like that how can you go wrong. Finally Dishonoured, bought earlier in the week in the steam sale. Dishonoured is a game I haven’t even managed to put a single second into yet but the stealth action gameplay I read about really interest me.

10. Diablo 3

To be honest with you Diablo 3 barely made it onto my list this year. Up until the last minute I really couldn’t decide between this and Counter Strike: Global Offensive. In the end I just had to think what game I had put more time in to and of that time which was more entertaining. In the end that answer was Diablo 3. Playing this game with friends is too much fun. Dungeon crawling, sharing loot and shooting the shit while taking down huge bosses is an amazing experience and one that I am really glad I had this year.

9. Forza Horizon

There are some games that you just sit down and play for hours on end, there are other that you can bang some music on zone out and pick up and play anytime. Forza Horizon would fit into the latter category for me. The driving is so much fun, the realistic feeling the handling model has is really enjoyable. But I love this game because I can bang a podcast on, zone out and not really pay that much attention and still have fun with the game.

8. Spec Ops: The Line

Spec Ops was honestly a really late entry on to my list. I actually only completed this game a couple of nights ago. The story of this game is fantastic. This is how a shooters plot should be told. I don’t care that its 5 hours long, I don’t care that the shooting feels altogether only mediocre. Spec Ops is on my list of favourite games for the sole reason that the storyline and the choices given to the character are purely amazing. The way the game makes you feel after the late game plot twist as well...damn do you feel like shit.

7. Max Payne 3

I have never even touched the first 2 Max Payne games by Remedy Entertainment, although I am told they are pretty good games. I just can not see how they could be any better than Rockstars attempt with Max Payne 3. The gritty noir style to the gameplay really stands out against other third person shooters. The game looks fantastic too especially running at max settings on my PC.

6. The Darkness 2

The first Darkness game came out way back near the launch of the Xbox 360 ad it was good,but you couldn’t really call it a great game. I personally think The Darkness 2 is great. The plot is quirky and stupid as fuck but really fits in with the comic book style the game has. The look too damn the game looks great. The Darkness 2 decided to adapt a comicbook, cell shaded style and it really stands out next to your greys and browns of the common shooter. The game feels great too, quad wielding 2 guns with your 2 Demon arms is really unique and they are so much fun to use.

5. Call of Duty: Black Ops 2

Are Call of Duty games still fun or am I just playing them because my friends do? I honestly don’t know because truthfully even the worst game is fun with a group of mates. But if this list were a list of games that gave me enjoyment in 2012 Black Ops 2 has to be on it. The story is short and thrilling as ever and the Multiplayer which to be honest is really the Black Ops draw is a laugh with a group of friends shooting the shit, killing fools and making them cry and shout racist remarks to me. By the way I am white why would that word insult me.

4. Halo 4

I am a Halo fan and I would be lying if I said I wasn’t worried about a Bungee less Halo game. Saying that 343 have really done Halo right. I like the new enemies and new weapons and even though it is most peoples criticism of Halo 4 is love that they still brought back the covenant . Chief is back in Halo 4 and it does not disappoint a Halo fan.

3. Need For Speed: Most Wanted

The single player sucks, lets get that out of the way right now. The multiplayer though, damn is that hectic as hell. Even getting to the start of an event is a competition. The game really promotes high octane crashes and doing whatever possible to get the job done. The driving feels amazing too. I would say if you think that Forza’s driving style is a simulation and is realistic, Need For Speeds is quite the opposite. It looks and feels like a childs imagination when he or she is playing with toy cars. Swinging your vehicle round corners and bashing and crashing into other vehicles in a spectacular manner. Need For Speed looks and feels amazing to play.

2. Far Cry 3

What is not to like about Far Cry 3. A vast beautiful island to freely roam around in. Great side quests, hunting missions and crafting. Yes I said it. Great crafting. I never, ever like crafting in a game but in far cry 3 collecting the animal skins and making your new wallet or ammo bag is actually really fun. Imagine this, getting in a boat and driving it out to the middle of the ocean. Sitting on the deck looking overboard and spotting a fin. Then climbing onto the boats turret and blasting the fuck out of that shark. Finally jumping in the water diving down and skinning the shark to later make a holster that will carry 4 weapons not 3. Far Cry makes things like that which I would usually find tedious and boring allot of fun. Okay so the story became a bit of a let down but everything else surrounding it is spectacular.

1. The Walking Dead

I would really struggle to call The Walking Dead by Tell Tale a game. Its a choose your own adventure is what it is. Its also extremely entertaining. By no means though is it fun, its actually brutal, terrifying and extremely tense. But that is why I enjoyed the walking dead. The characters are amazing. So is the voice acting, the writing and the overall plot. The Walking dead is by far the best thing to come out of “gaming” in 2012. I also think it was to the games benefit that The Walking Dead was released in episodic format. It built up suspense for the game. I was constantly waiting for the next episode to hit wondering what would happen next. Where next would my choices take Lee and Clem.

I have just started to play Guild Wars 2 recently and although I haven’t managed to put too much time into the game I am having a lot of fun with it. I don’t generally get into MMO games. Not because they aren’t fun (actually most do bore me) but because of the monthly subscription method most good MMORPG games use. Now hearing that Guild Wars 2 has no such payment method I thought what the fuck, give it a try at least.

I am really glad I did. I decided to go with a human race and elementalist class which tends to be my norm with games like this (I just like playing with fire). That choice resulted in me playing as Nathan “fucking” Drake. I don’t know about anyone else but I am really getting sick of hearing Nolan North’s voice. He just needs to give Voice over work a rest for a few years. Its just too much.

The character creator is pretty detailed and I managed to get a avatar that looks well pretty much like every in game character I make. After that you get dropped straight into the game, no tutorial just go. The first thing I realised was that there is no click to move control method. That seemed really strange to me especially as that is the way I generally control games like this (and after coming off of Diablo 3 and getting pretty good at playing like that). But I suppose I can get used to W,A,S,D if I have to.

So far the quest system has been your basic MMO questing. Fetch this go kill that, nothing really new and unique to talk about. The unique part of Guild Wars 2 that really interests me is the upgrade system. When you level up you get points to put into some new abilities which unlock at certain levels and your stats raise while levelling but your main abilities are linked to the weapons you use. The more you use a weapon the more skills you unlock for that weapon. I think that’s a really cool way of opening up new skills and powers, but at the minute it does seem that they unlock really quickly. Well only time will tell but so far I am fucking loving it.

As of now I am loving Guild Wars 2 and if it wasn’t down all of last night I probably would have had a fuck ton more to say about it.

Well that was my initial thoughts and feelings of Guild Wars 2. At the moment I strongly recommend you try it out. I will have more to come in the coming weeks I hope

This week was my first week back at work after my 17 day vacation time. On Wednesday morning I really couldn’t be arsed, back up at 6.30 in the morning to do a long ass tiring days work. Did I enjoy being back at work? Lets just say, I want another holiday already. I really put some weight on during my holiday too I realised that when I tried to squeeze into my work trousers and they were tight as fuck, looks like its time to make more of an effort at the gym. This week bought on the steam sale . I happened to miss 3 days of it while I was on holiday but I have still made a few good purchases. Saying that the sale seemed to rack truly interesting deals this year. I didn’t go as mad as I thought I would. Being back from holiday did mean more gaming time so...

What Have I Been Playing?

I bought Payday: The Heist in the Steam summer sale. In fact I bought it about 5 seconds after stepping off of the plane home using the Steam App on my iPhone. After putting a good hour or so into it I really like it. Its a really original take on the Left 4 Dead style of first person shooter and although it maybe doesn't feel as good as Left 4 Dead. The heist aspect of the game is really intriguing to me as a fan of films like Oceans 11 and Heat.

I also bought Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater HD on release day, wednesday. This Xbox live game is a new game in the pro skater series that sees the Tony Hawk’s games going back to its roots. It really brings back memories of the early Playstation 1 games. I personally loved the original Pro Skater games with the second being my favourite. The game takes levels, music and characters from the first two THPS games (but also adds a few new ones in for good measure). Because the game riffs mainly on the first two games a lot of technical aspects you may have become used to in the Underground games or Project 8 are no longer possible. Such things as reverts not counting towards your combo, spine transfers being non existent and not being able to level out your skater if you fuck up a jump. I really did miss that stuff and hope at least some of it will be used in a sequel or in the Pro Skater 3 patch that is incoming soon. The career mode is pretty short in total, on the first night after downloading the game I had opened up every level and now after 4 sessions on the game have 100% of the objectives on 5 or 6 of the levels. The objectives mentioned above are your regular THPS objectives of collecting skate, high score, pro score, sick score and getting the secret tape (well DVD in this). Even though the game does lack many aspects of Tony Hawks that I came to love, and to be totally honest some of the levels are total bull shit (mainly the downhill ones) I fucking love this game and I would recommend it to anyone that loves skating, Tony Hawks games or just skating games in general.

That is basically all I have been playing even though I have bought a fair few games from the Steam sale. I may try S.T.A.L.K.E.R some time next week. I have never played a S.T.A.L.K.E.R game before and they always seemed interesting to me. I also want to play a litte more Skyrim here and there. Do some quests I missed and play through the DLC. Anyway enough of games what about,

What Have I Been Watching?

Breaking Bad started its new season this week and may I say it started with a fucking bang. Breaking Bad is my favourite TV show period. I think Bryan Cranston is amazing as Walter White, the chemistry teacher turned drug kingpin. His Character has become so dark and evil and I think he pulls it off perfectly. I really can not wait for the rest of the season and I am really sad that the show is coming to an end after this year.

I also went to the cinema on friday, and even though my girlfriend fell asleep during the film (she came off a 13 hour night shift) The Dark Knight Rises was fucking amazing, a perfect end to the trilogy of films. I really wish I could talk in detail about the film but it is so good that I do not want to spoil it for anyone. Bale plays batman perfectly and I think that Tom Hardy’s bane was scary as hell. I have to say though that for me Michael Caine stole the film in terms of acting. In one scene he has a monologue that even made me well up ever so slightly (I didn’t cry though damn it I am a man). I really won't talk too much about the film because everything I say could spoil it. I would love to start a thread on the NooBTooB forums, maybe where us that have seen the film could talk in detail without the risk of spoiling the film for others. Maybe I will do that tomorrow, if I get the time.

Well that was my week, I can not stress enough how amazing The Dark Knight Rises is, go watch it as soon as you can.

Next week, I don’t really have too much planned. I wanna go into Nottingham at some point.... I proper fancy a burger from TGI Fridays but I can't think of much else I have planned. Maybe I will pick up the Amazing Spider Man game if I can find it on sale somewhere. I am not paying full price though.

My last week at work this week, after Friday I have 17 full days off. I really can't fucking wait. Also on the 9th I go to Tenerife for a week with my girlfriend. Its gunna be amazing 4* hotel, all inclusive, nice weather. Bring it on. Anyway this isn’t about what I will be doing this shambles of a blog is what I have done in the past week.

What Have I Been Watching?

Me and my girlfriend got chance to go to the cinema on Sunday, we decided to watch Rock of Ages. For those of you that do not know the film is a musical set in the late 80’s around a rock and roll bar called the Bourbon Room. In the film you follow the lives of multiple people and see how the club and the music affects their lives. The cast in this film is amazing, Alec Baldwin, Tom Cruise and Russell Brand to name a few of the stars. Overall I loved the film and not even Brand’s piss poor Brummy accent could spoil the movie. I love Russell Brand, I think he is a comedy Legend but I have to say I am starting to wish he would try something a little different. By that I mean that I wish he would play a different role, not just a cheeky chappy englishman. I know that is how he is naturally but it would be nice to see him stretch as an actor and play a totally different part to that he is used too. The film was great though. really good camp acting (it is a musical after all) and I was surprised how great singers all the cast were. Especially Tom Cruise, his rock voice is amazing. I’m not really a cruise fan but is there nothing this man can not do. My only criticism would be that the film (to me) seems to be pandering to the “Gleeks”. The big finale was the terrible Journey song that Glee made famous and to me it seemed to be set up exactly the same as the Glee version (female and male lead parts blah blah blah).

What Have I Been Playing?

I have finally finished Ghost Recon: Future Soldier. This game took me way too long to complete. Especially taking into account that when I first got the game I couldn’t get enough of it. It seemed like such a great tactical shooter, a game where you really needed to think about your moves and not just run and gun. 3 levels in though the game started to become really boring. Nothing really mixing up the missions. A basic stealth section that sometimes just seems like trial and error and then an all out firefight to the extraction point. That is the same for every fucking mission. The only time the game even slightly mixes it up is the second to last mission and all they do is take your fucking teammates away. So its just you following the bull shit outlined above. The gameplay is really tedious and the story is really bloody boring. I don’t actually think I could recall the story I was that bored. Erm something to do with a group of russian arms dealers and oh hell I don’t know or give two shits to be honest. The game looks terrible too and it seems to be on purpose. They have put some sort of interference on top of the image for some reason. I dunno, probably to give the gamer a sense of technological advancement but it just makes everything look shite. I hated this game so much. I could only bring myself to play 1 level for each gaming session. The game was just no fun at all.

Now that Ghost Recon is done I can finally start Max Payne 3. I actually started this yesterday and played through 7 chapters in 1 sitting. Not many games can actually get me sat down and paying attention for 3 hours straight now a days. This game is so refreshing after Ghost Recon. It looks beautiful on the PC running everything on the highest setting. Probably the best game I have seen. I love everything about this game. The darkness of the character and the bleakness of the world and its environments. Max’s narration really adds to this too. The game however seems really hard (playing with free aim) but it seems to be checkpointed really well. Thank fuck because that can be really frustrating. I can’t praise this game anymore, this game is up there with the Darkness 2 so far this year as my favourite game.

The only other game I have been able to put any time into is Forza 4. I got back into this game thanks to Littleg and his upcoming Friday Night Forza Gamenight. I haven’t really participated in any races, I have mainly been playing around with a car to get it up the scratch (along with Littleg’s guidelines). I chose a Civic Type R and have so far put 2 or 3 hours into tweaking it and making it look good (in my eyes anyway). I can’t wait to test the car out properly on Friday, its a real shame that I suck ass at Forza.

So is that it?

Yepp that has been my week. I will hopefully have allot more to talk about in the next one of these (after my 1st week off) because I have allot of stuff planned. Me and my girlfriend are set to go to a zoo and to a theme park as well as going to watch the new Spiderman film in iMax 3d. Then the week after that I will be sunning it up in Tenerife. I can not wait.

My gaming has really taken a dive recently, saying that though I managed to finally finish up Diablo 3 (after fucking hours attempting the final boss) with thanks to a workmate who gave me a hand with his level 60 character, but then I kind of just hit a wall. I think the main reason for that was I have decided to stick to one game at a time and it just so happens that the game I chose after Diablo has become really tedious to play for me. Why carry on playing you ask? I have no fucking clue, I think its my personality type. If something is started it has to be finished before taking on a new task, I can't leave the game undone especially as I know I am over the halfway point now.

That game is Ghost Recon: Future Soldier. You may recall me singing the games praises a few weeks ago, so what changed? Well the game just became fucking tedious. I went into the game with the impression that it was a tactical shooter, think things through first and then steadily make your way around puzzle like shooter missions. In all honestly the first 2 missions actually gave off that impression to me. But getting further into the game I realised that the levels followed a set pattern , a long tedious stealth section If you get caught its mission over and then an all out firefight at the end. The start of the missions seem to be nothing more than trial and error, no skill involved at all and in some cases a lot of luck. In one certain case i tried a scenario once and failed, I got caught. Later on trying the exact same thing worked out perfectly. Now to that I say fuck right off. The later firefights do nothing really to break up the boring early parts of the missions either. They are extremely easy and in most cases too short. For those reasons alone I am really disappointed with Ghost Recon. Its a shame because The GRAW games are some of my favourite shooters on this generation of consoles.

I mentioned earlier that I had finally played through Diablo 3. Oh my god was the last boss a pain in the back side. I tried and tried but could not beat Diablo at all. I feel a little ashamed that I had to cop out and bring a friend with a level 60 character in to ‘help’ finish off the game for me. But I have to say I am glad it is over. The experience was great, I loved the game totally but towards the end I just seemed to be getting frustrated, I rarely got loot that helped, the last couple of boss’ were fucking horrid to fight and I really can’t be doing with the auction house bull shit. And for those reasons I doubt I will re-enter the game again any time soon. I am not the type of person that gets addicted to loot drops and positive reinforcement (which the game does perfectly). I mean yeah its nice but I don’t need it to enjoy a game, I don’t really have an addictive personality I suppose. So the whole Diablo addiction never really hit me. I have finished the game on normal. I am glad I experienced the game but now its time for something else.

That's it for what I have been playing recently I think. Oh one more game I was searching the app store the other day and came across a game that I loved as a kid. That game is Lemonade Tycoon...seriously, yupp Lemonade Tycoon used to be a shareware PC game and back in the day I was hooked. In the game you basically run a stall that sells lemonade and you have to set different variables to try and make a profit. I know it doesn’t sound like much but it is really good. Its a perfect little game to sit on public transport with and jab away at for 20 minutes or so. I have just today done what I would consider finishing the game is. I have bought the biggest stand, hired all the staff available and I am constantly making a high enough profit. So I guess thats it. There is nothing else to do in the game. I would really recommend checking the game out, it is free (ad supported, but they don’t affect anything). I am now looking for something else to occupy my time on the iphone, especially as I will be going on a 5 hour flight in 2 weeks time. Any recommendations would be great. I would also like to extend that to 3ds games if anyone can think of any also.

Thats about all I have been playing recently, I hope to get Ghost Recon polished off in the next few days and then move on to Max Payne 3 on the PC. I also bought Playstation Plus recently so that will open up a hell of allot more games for me to play at the low, low cost of £0 (well besides the £40 i payed to join the service). I did actually have a problem with playstation plus in the beginning and if you're at all interested in that check out my last blog, update on that is well, I have no update it's still fucked up. I am going to check a few things out when I get time over the weekend. Thank you to everyone who reads this drivel, I know it's probably boring as fuck but I guess I like writing them.