Well, since the last time I blogged, I have acquired a few more games. It would be fair to say that I've got a bit of an oversaturation of games right now (there was a big package deal I couldn't refuse), so here's the usual wall of text with just the highlights.

First, I finished Mass Effect. In 36 hours, doing 40 side-missions (including the free DLC) and completing 23 achievements. Game was well-made and interesting, but wasn't really all that enjoyable, especially at such length. Also, I got really annoyed with the enemies who can one-hit-kill you.

I went vanguard (shotguns, pistols, force-pow......I mean biotics). Once I got a decent level, equipment and the explosive rounds upgrade, I did have a bit of fun with the sniper rifle, but the lack of scoping really ticks me off, though that might have worked with another class....
Only got the neutral ending. Was going to go for renegade, but I kept helping other people when it seemed important

Also quickly got through Monkey Island Special Edition. I do own the original, but it was going cheap so I got it for voice-acting. Didn't really do all that much for the humour for this 3rd or 4th playthrough though. And the new art...ugh..too artsy. Especially Guybrush's hair. Curse had simple, cartoony art, and it was great. There was also this weird detail that moving sprites (guybrush, mostly) looked like they weren't part of the picture. Like.....those little cardboard cutout puppets....or something. The art problems may have been related to the new art being slapped directly in place of the old.

And of course, there were other niggles. No line skip, and I actually had to memorise what key brought up which verb (using scroll wheel was annoying). All in all, not worth it if you've played the original, IMO. At least it was cheap.

What else.....I'm almost finished Phoenix Wright. If you don't know, it's part adventure, part logic puzzle, with you in the role of a defense attorney. Quite good, nice and funny writing, interesting characters, interesting cases. Possibly a little short, but not as bad as I expected.

Also got a few other games, but haven't gotten far with them yet.
Evil genius
Mirror's Edge (just a little painful trying to figure out where to go sometimes, even with the ability to look in the direction of the next waypoint)
Red Faction: guerilla (Destroying stuff = Fun. Trying to drive through small towers while under constant fire = Grrrr)
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War 1&2 (just need to figure out which to start with)
Saint's Row 2 (Just walking along, minding my own business, and a car careens off the road into a pair of pedestrians a metre or so in front of me Glad to see a world where I'm not the only guy who'll be ignoring traffic laws)
Titan's Quest (really not sure if I can be bothered with this)
Company of heroes
Full Spectrum Warrior
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. (...........)

Just a round-up of game purchases since last blog.

There was a set of indie games on sale on steam (some time ago now ), so I've now got:

Audiosurf - Nice idea, take any music, and it becomes a little racetrack with coloured blocks to collect and make sets, like a puzzle game. Unfortunately, I'm not that into trying to beat online scoreboards, so there's not much insentive for me to play this.

Blueberry Garden - More a piece of art than a game. Haven't played it much, but I know it involves finding things that can be used to build a makeshift tower.

Braid - Platform puzzle with temporal physics and a lovely artstyle. Quite good, though I was really annoyed when I found out the reason I couldn't complete a puzzle was the fact that the game didn't tell me I could change how fast time rewinds. One puzzle. One, single, puzzle in the whole game needed this. If it wasn't for that puzzle, the feature wouldn't be necessary. But the puzzle existed, so it was necessary, so why didn't they tell me about it? *rage*

Crayon Physics Deluxe - Draw shapes to make a ball roll past obstacles to the star? Nice idea, but this game doesn't really feel like they've done it right. Example - Creating swinging objects to knock the ball. Okay, the first time, with an outline is fine, but ever time after you have to judge the distance yourself, and it's tempting to go find a ruler or compass so you don't have to watch the hammer you just made run into the ground for the umpteenth time. Actually, the original (free) CP, which restricted you to rectangles, was kind of fun.

Darwinia - A minimalist RTS, with a style reminiscent of (really) old shooters like Robotron. The story and feel are nice, but pretty much every level involves going through the same motions, with only a handful of available strategies. and since you can't really lose, it's not that difficult. One nice thing, you get upgrades over time, so if you do get a bit stuck (if), you'll eventually get some improvement to assist you.

Everyday Shooter - Static screen shooting game, but with a bit of music and flair. From what I remember, the main hook is that by shooting stuff, you create additional notes that add to the background music. It was a nice feature, but not really all that. Still, the actual game was solid, and each level was interesting to play. Though, I found it quite difficult to get through all the stages with just the default amount of lives, but that's why you can buy more.

Gish - Platform game with a mildly physics-based character: A ball of tar. The abilities are: stick, slide, heavy. But the physics aren't really a puzzle thing. Small gap? slide. Enemy/small wall? Jump and heavy. High platform? Stick and climb the wall. Not really a bad idea, but sometimes it's just too difficult to do what you want. You can sometimes get stuck while sticking (ha), and trying to get a decent jump is annoying, bouncing up and down until you've got enough height (which doesn't always work properly).

Mr. Robot - Part isometric puzzle-platforming, part RPG, with a nice story. The platforming and puzzles are solid, though the isometric angle can be a little difficult. The RPG part is decent, but a bit on the easy side (last boss is a pushover). One thing, the upgrading/equipment part made me feel like there should have been more to find, for instance, some equippable items have slots. I started finding slot equipment about half-way through the game, but only found a couple of items to use in them until right near the end of the game, and then, there were only two different types. Oh, and the stat boost items, well, raising your max HP by 1 point is alright when you have about 10, but once you've got 20 it becomes a bit pointless. At least those boosts can be switched to something else.

The Path - Little spooky exploration game, with a red-riding-hood theme. Not really horror, just a spooky atmosphere. Is interesting, but can take a little long.

World of Goo - Physics puzzle, attach blobs of goo together to form a structure that takes them where they need to go. Very nice, with quite a bit of variety.

That's all for the pack. I also wanted to mention that just yesterday I got a few more games, Assassin's Creed for the PC (Draw distance on some of those objects is terrible, is that just the graphics not being set high enough?), along with a few DS games, Scribblenauts (just had to), Pheonix Wright and Sonic Rush adventure.

Okay, I'm done, I'm not even going to proofread this thing, bye.

Well, thought I should mention, I've started my yearly work. Would have considered the announcement more important if it actually made any difference here, but with people being boring, it doesn't really.

Badly-drawn al-X raises an eyebrow at you. You take 9999 damage.

Got little King's Story for the Wii. Nice so far, though it can take a little long to get places and sort out particular things, I also keep kinda wishing there was another layer of control.

What's that? You're bored as well as boring? Okay, couple of good old-arcade-type flash games: Dodge & Boomstick.

One blog, ingredients: 0% content, 100% spam.

Here is an appropriate song. Now, on with the spam.

I occasionally find links to various flash games, but I'm starting to notice a trend, that many of them, particularly the better quality ones, seem to be found on one site, a place called Kongregate. And since I was ending up there regularly, I thought I might as well create an account and see just how much of my life I end up actually spending there, by accumulating points and achiev....I mean, badges. They also have a referral thing, not sure why people bother, since the points have no actual use, yet anyway.

A few examples of fun/interesting games I've tried out on Kongregate: Spewer (liquid-physics platform-puzzle), Crush the Castles (trebuchet firing), Shift 4 (perspective-change platform-puzzle), Gravitee (planet golf). Apparently there are also things called 'multiplayer games' on there which I have yet to explore.

What? Trying to get people to do stuff to boost a pointless score on some website? No, no. If I was trying to do that, I'd tell people to go visit MyBrute and give my guy an exp boost. What is it? Well, I guess you would call it a little, pyramid-schemish, raise a guy to fight thing, where most everything is random/automatic, apart from choosing who to fight. There's not really much to it, but it does look nice.

Let's see, what else.....

The Escapist is home to some nice video series, like Zero Punctuation (Cynical and humorous game reviews at sports-commentator speed), Unforgotten Realms (Animated D&D parody), and I suppose I'll mention Unskippable (Game intro movies with added humorous narration).

If there are any Team Fortress 2 fans reading the blog, you might want to check out Nerf Now. Best TF2 webcomic I've come across so far, though I suppose that's mostly because it isn't a Garry's mod thing

Hmm, alright, I seem to be out of spam, for now.
Blog Ends.

To the weak, I seem as a god,
To the strong, I am indistinguishable from the sea of people.
I am both revered, and in reverence.
It is a curious balance, one of many I see in my self.
I appear a creature, determined to balance, no matter the situation.
I could strive to improve myself,
but then, the balance would shift.
I could stop trying,
but then, the balance would shift.
However, to remain, to stay absolutely still,
I become stagnant, stale, and lacking in purpose.
And thus, the balance is entirely lost.

Got a couple more games since last time. since I've recently gotten a way of purchasing games via steam, I'm now an owner of Left 4 Dead, and all the Sam & Max episodes.

Sam & Max, well, it's just a great adventure series, so just go download the 4th episode. It's free.

Left 4 Dead is interesting, but it doesn't quite have the compelling grip of Team Fortress 2.

And speaking of TF2.....Valve just released the 'Meet the Spy' video. Even if you're not a player of TF2, I still recommend watching it, because.....it's awesome Oh, yeah, one little, tiny disclaimer of violence, though I'm sure everybody reading this will have seen worse. Linky.

There are 3 types of people,
Those who say the glass is half-full,
Those who say the glass is half-empty,
and those who learnt to use the verbs filled and emptied, so they didn't have to be a part of this kind of philosophical survey.

Picked up a copy of Boom Blox for $30au. I think that's the cheapest price I've ever seen a new (as opposed to second-hand) console game. Seems fun, though I think I'll have to wait till I can get someone to play with me before it reaches it's true potential. For those who don't know about the game, it's a lot like having a rickety jenga tower, then throwing a tiny ball at said tower. Simple, destructive, fun. Okay, not quite that simple, since the what I've played so far has mostly been puzzles that task you with figuring out which peice to knock out for maximum destruction. The only unfortunate thing is that the camera really doesn't let you get the most out of explosive ends. Anyway, there's also an adventure mode, which I have yet to delve into.

Sonic Unleashed, the verdict. Keep in mind, this is the Wii version, which was apparently developed by a different squad to the PS3/360 version.

I like it. But still, there are many problems with the game.

Probably my biggest complaint, is that the ratio of werehog-to-hog is tipped heavily in favour of the werehog. However, when I think about it, I realize that this is the only time they'll be using these exact mechanics, so they probably wanted to do it as much as possible. And while it's not incredibly interesting, the werehog bit is (generally) solid. Apart from the walk/run detection, which stresses me out, trying to tap Sonic a little closer to the edge, then running right off it, or wanting to run, but taking 5 taps before it shows interest.

On the other hand, the hog levels are wild fun, zipping around all over the place, skidding/drifting around corners, and there's plenty more paths for me to find. Still, I'm not too fond of the couple of quicktime events where failure kills you, or even the ones that don't. And if you want to actually kill a single unimportant enemy in your way, you can lose a lot of momentum, unlike Secret Rings. The bosses aren't terribly complex, but they definately feel right. Some kinda feel like an old arcade shooter, dodging those little bullets.

Until I finished the game, I thought the amount of lives was a bit too tight, until I realised I was ignoring a way of permanently increasing my lives.

Anyway, I like it, maybe not quite as much as Secret Rings, simply for the feeling of constant momentum.

Oh, I will note that I went with the GC controller, as tacked-on Wii-waggling was kinda obvious, and pointless.

Got Shadowgrounds off Gametap, nice. Kinda like an updated Alien Syndrome, with rotating camera and spiffy light effects that have a little usefulness. Hour-long missions with no mid-level save option is a bit annoying though. Wonder how the co-op would be.

Hmm, had a bit of difficulty with my intenet, for about a week. Though it seems I've missed little.

Got Sonic Unleashed and De Blob for the Wii, both on sale. Haven't really played them yet.

I've played about half-way through Far Cry, and.......wasn't this game supposed to be good? Because I just can't find the good game in it. I get the feeling that it was held up by it's graphics, but they aren't aging well.

Prince of Persia: Two Thrones is alright, but doesn't feel as interesting as Warrior Within. There are also a few frustrating things.

Anybody familiar with Team Fortress 2 and informed about Portal may find the following interesting. Would have used spoiler tags.....

Heavy is Still Alive

This was a triumph
I'm taking a vote here
"Huge Success!"
Its hard to overrate my competition
So me and Sasha
We turn all to dust, because, we can
For the good of all of us
Except the ones who are Red
But there's no sense trying to run away
Natascha here says she wants you to stay
And the shooting get's done
With my very big gun
At the babies who are Still Alive!

I'm really quite angry
I'm going, to kill, you now
That's because you broke the man who healed me
And blew him to pieces!
And burned every piece, a-with, your fire
As it burned, it hurt, because, it was a-burning me too!
Now these bullet holes don't go in a straight line
But I'm quite sure
They will find you many time
So you laugh that I got burned
But now you're going to learn
Not to leave a Heavy, Still Alive!

Go ahead and leave me,
Yes go, and run, and hide
Maybe you'll find someone else to help you.
Maybe that medic
That was a spy, HAHA, cry more
Any-way this sand-vich is great!
It's so delicious and moist.
Look at me still eating when there's shooting to do
When I look out there, it makes me glad I'm not you.
I've got babies on the run
from my very big gun
Oh the babies who are Still Alive!

Believe me I am STILL ALIVE!
I'm dominating and I'm STILL ALIVE!
I feel good! and I'm STILL ALIVE!
While babies are crying I'll be STILL ALIVE!
And when they are dead I will be STILL ALIVE!

STILL ALIVE!

STILL ALIVE!

Christmas? I got a new axe, clothes, and a clothes voucher.

Why an axe? Well, a picture speaks a thousand words:

In this case, that includes the word 'chop' about 200 times. Though it doesn't speak of the roots that go for metres in every direction.

Now that's over, onto things of more importance.

During the holidays, my mother's computer fried. It was getting on, anyway, still running windows 98. So, I decided the best course of action would be to upgrade my own computer, and give mum my current one. I also decided to avoid pre-builts, so I travelled over to the next town, rocked up to a computer shop, found that it was closed for the holidays, then changed to another computer shop. Didn't really look around, just got prices one week, but they didn't have it all in stock, so I came back the next week, grabbed all the parts, and went back home to start putting them together. And since mum also gets a computer out of this, she paid a chunk of the price too.

Had a few difficulties, like the stuff (accidentally) not including any SATA cables (necessary), and my copy of Windows Vista coming with the wrong version code (basic instead of the premium I payed for), but now, it's all sorted, and my new comp is running beautifully.

Oh yes, specs. 2.8Ghz Intel core 2 duo (I assume that means duel core). 2 Gig of RAM. Nvidia Geforce 9500 GT.

I did pick up some budget games, but they don't really push the limits of the machine. I got FarCry, which is alright so far, but not as great as I remember hearing, perhaps it hasn't aged well, but I still have a lot more to play. Prince of Persia: Two Thrones, nice, but very familiar after completing Warrior Within. Also, Rainbow 6: Vegas, which I haven't gotten around to, yet, think I'll need to focus when I do, I did complete Rainbow 6 on the N64 before, co-op, it was tough.

But none of those matter, because I'm still playing a ton of Team Fortress 2. Really getting value for money with that. May have to get Left 4 Dead. And I'm seeing how high I can get on the local TF2 server's rankings. There aren't that many people in it, but there are some good players.

When I first turned on TF2 after getting the new comp, I was quite surprised by how much smoother it seemed to run. It almost seemed too smooth.

Of course I've also been watching anime. Watched Excel Saga, 'twas crazy, and now I'm onto Dragonball Z, season 2 & 3, and I'm at the last couple of eps of Freiza right now. Do have a couple more DBZ collections, but they don't go all the way to the end of Cell Games, so I'm not sure whether to wait till I get that set or not.

Still got plenty of anime, either way, and I should receive the rest of my backorders soon. I'm starting to worry my anime shelf is buckling.....

Okay, just taking a short break from playing Psychonauts. I can see why that game is considered to be underappreciated.

Lately I've been leaching a few of the games available for free off the Gametap service. The way I understand it is that you pay for a subscription and then you can play any of the games available while that subscription lasts, but there are a few free games to try and entice new subscribers. It's not much of a pain. Logging in and working through the interface can take a minute or two, but that's not bad for some decent free games. Ads try to come up when I start a game, but fail for some reason, so I don't have to bother much with them.

The only thing that bugged me was an option (set by default) that downloaded enough to start playing, then downloaded the rest while you were playing. This bothered me, because I live in Australia, land of download limits, and a) it didn't show the full file size, b) I wanted to download during my off-peak download limit, and play without downloading during my peak limit. But I've sorted that out now.

So I've played a few games off Gametap so far:
Sam & Max: episode 4. I really love humerous adventure games like this, just need to find the full-season set on sale somewhere.
The cla$$ic arcade games, Metal Slug 1, 2 and X.
Second sight, A decent psychic 3rd-person action game (with a story!) that I'd never heard of before. Just think Star Wars with real guns & stealth, and you'll probably have a reasonable idea. Made by the same guys who make Timesplitters.
Mr. Robot, a 2D isometric puzzle-platformer with an RPG hacking system.
A few old fighting games, Samurai Showdown (seemed weak), and Last Blade (better, but sudden difficulty spike was a pain).
And now, Psychonauts.

In a while I'll start on Dues Ex and Hitman 1 (the sequels are available too). Tomb Raider Legends (I think) is also available, if I can spare the download. Of course, it's not all decent stuff. There's a lot of lousy-looking stuff that I'm afraid to touch.

I won't go all out with a detailed review, but I'll add a little note about Second Sight down here. They added one tiny little detail I found interesting. During one cutscene, a guard gets up from a computer, confronts the main character, and gets (unintentionally) killed. Then if you use the computer and one of the programs, you can see the guard was just having an IM conversation with his wife A happy conversation And now he's dead and since you logged on as him to see the conversation, she starts leaving more messages It's almost enough to make you feel guilty about all the killing. You could miss it easily enough, but it's such a creative little detail, I'd like to praise the developer for it.

In non-gaming related news, between my last two blogs, I bought a bunch more anime on sale and watched it, still waiting on some backorders, and also waiting for the anime I just ordered to be delivered, which was on sale, by the way, 50% for one day.

I won't go into details

I have been somewhat absent from this blog lately.

Like many others these days, I find myself unable to maintain the enthusiasim that I used to hold.

You might be wondering of my current condition.

All in all, the answer is 'fine'.

***SPOILER***

Okay, if all goes to plan, there will be 3 videos uploaded for this blog.

First, a bit of talking from my face. Kind of a public service announcement. Followed by some poetic nonsense. Oh, you may want to ignore the middle bit, though

And the other couple are just bits of music, that I played using my cheap MIDI keyboard, and recorded using my digital video camera. First is normal piano, and the second is Synth ensemble or something. I'm not going to say they're good or anything, just decided to upload them because I could, so the usual 'dangerous content' warnings.

All the videos have been hanging around on my desktop for a while. The first because it took too long to upload last time I tried, and that annoyed GS, or something. The other two, well, I just realized where I'd seen the option to rip the audio straight off the videos, so the file sizes are a lot smaller. Still an avi file though.

EDIT: GS needs video in the files to work. Not that I can actually reuse the audio-only files for anything, lousy program that doesn't do what it should be expected to

EDDITIONAL: Done, links added.

And what's the big idea? Taking the colouring off the spoiler tags, geez.

To cut a long story short, then expand it pointlessly, these are 'desperate measures'. And the verb is 'resorting'. There is also a 'to' stuck between them somewhere.

Why did the chicken cross the road?
He was tired of those stupid jokes.

Why did the plucky chicken cross the road?
I don't know, why did the plucky chicken cross the road?
To peck a fight.

Why did the giant chicken cross the road?
He probably didn't notice it now, did he?

Why do you call the chicken 'he'?
Please wait while your call is directed to popular culture.

Why did the angry chicken cross the road?
I don't know, why did....gaaah! The pain......It is painful....and sharp.....like a beak!

.....A beak attached to an angry chicken!

Why do I have to stop telling jokes when there's no-one to tell jokes to?

Why did you cross the road?
There was a hospital.....and a KFC.

Why did the barbecued chicken cross the road?
I didn't want to leave my meal behind.

Why did you cross the road again?
Because I'm tired of those stupid jokes. Goodbye.

Got Puzzle Quest yesterday afternoon. Cheap. Got home and played for something like 9-10 hours. Was thinking of blogging, but chose to play that instead.

Okay, they're not really finished yet, and I still need to work on my momentum, but....

Oh yeah, last idea for a name: Incarnations of a Creative Soul.

That would tie-in with my book.

....here are the links, 1, 2, done.

Continuing on from the last blog, let's try a couple more names:

al-X: Creative Genius *in training*
Oh to be a card-carrying creative genius
The Life Creative
A Creative Twist
Creative thinking
Creative Shadows
If creativity was a person, it would have red hair
Inspired to Create to Inspire

Not really sure how many of these are serious Thanks to Kirby40, indirectly, for that last one

And if you're wondering, yes, one day I plan on calling myself a creative genius, it's just a matter of whether I've earned the title beforehand

Okay, I'm almost ready to provide links to the blogs. Not a typo, by the way, I'm going to do two, the updated-when-it-is, creative one, and a regularly updated GamerDiary. I'm really not sure how the latter will pan out, but if I can get myself into the habit of writing regularly, then I've gotten something out of it either way. Anyway, almost time, but I should probably put up at least a few things that you haven't seen before first

Wow, I'm surprised how easy it was to whip this up:

Now I just have to figure out how to do a book for it to go on. Then I'll have my GamerDiary logo

Darkness binding, light that's blinding,
a seperation of soul, pay the final toll,
go on through, start life anew,
forget the past, it couldn't last.

I suppose I should tell you, I intend to do a creative blog, on Blogger. I am having a little trouble with a name though. My current idea, 'Shadow of a Creative Soul', just seems a bit.....much. Of course, the word 'creative' or some iteration of that word, is likely to be involved in the title. It's probably not going to matter, but does anyone who bothers to read this blog think they know what a creative blog by me would be called?

EDIT: Well, the other option I have is something along the lines of, "Creating with Red Hair." but I get the feeling that just sounds too simple.

Song I currently can't stop listening to. I'm curious if it has the same effect on others. Sound quality is probably a bit off.

Where are the lines?
The choices to be made?
I see no lines to cross.
I only walk onwards.
When will I see the lines?
A life should be full of choice.
Yet still I see no lines to cross.
I only walk onwards.

***SPOILER***

Guess the song. I dare you.

My current spate of spending continues, acquiring me more stuff of want, but not need.

Firstly, I got Smash Bros. Brawl, finally. YAY.
Then I saw a sale on, so I HAD to check that out, and I came away with.....
A cheap copy of F.E.A.R. Apparently a director's edition. It came with some extras, including a little comic, though after reading it, I almost wonder why they bothered. Will have to wait until after I've finished HL2: Eps 2.
And a $30-off copy of DBZ: BT3. This decision ended up as "What the heck." so I'm half expecting to regret it, though I did think 2 was nice. Will wait until my initial excitement over Brawl has subsided.

I also just received my latest order of anime, all of which were on sale, by the way, so now I've got:
Neon Genesis: Evangelion. I have seen it before, but it was so long ago, that I can only remember bits, and I was probably too young to get the full experience.
Love Hina. Looks fun.
Afro Samurai. Sounds interesting, though I'm debating whether or not to watch it in english, because they keep pushing Samuel L. Jackson as the main voice actor. Probably won't.
Barefoot Gen. Some 'horror of war' movie (like Grave of the Fireflies) I've never heard of before, but it seems well rated, and it was cheap.
And the first season uncut collection of Dragoball Z for $40. Those who have been paying attention will know that I already spent $120 (individually bought DVDs) for half the first season uncut, however they brought in a new edition before finishing the previous one, so it's impossible to get the remaining episodes any other way. Grah. And it probably would have cost me more anyway.
Also have Biohunter on backorder. Cheap.

I'll have to stop spending money someday

Nobody ever commented on the last episode of Druaga. I thought the ending was a nice reference to the game it's based on. I wonder what the next Gonzo anime is going to be.

EDIT: Turns out Afro Samurai is only in english, but given the setting, it's probably the only way it would have worked.

Hi.

More anime:
The remaining episodes of Dragonball. Watching 2nd tournament right now.
Second series of Ranma.
Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz OVA. Grr, expensive. Gundam Wing, 49 eps=$99 (I got it for half that price). OVA, 3 eps=$20.

Completed a couple more XBox games since last blog. Both FPS. And I can't do the multiplayer, so that's not discussed.

Pariah: Halo wannabe with numerous faults, upgradable weapons and I'm sooo going to rant now. First there's the weapons, which generally feel lacking in power.
You get a big knife for a melee attack, but I'm not going to run up to my enemies to hit them 3 times with it when they don't even flinch. Oh, and you actually have to switch to it first.
The shotgun isn't deadly unless you're at point-blank range and hit them in the body. That's right, the body, not the head.
The pulse rifle takes longer to bring down an enemy than the machinegun you get at the start of the game, even with the extra accuracy.
The uber-gun you get at the end makes a big explosion, but you can't kill anyone with splash damage
The other guns seem fine. Machinegun is a little inaccurate, but still effective. Grenade launcher was probably the best with remote detonation. Sniper rifle was deadly, had thermal vision, but only one zoom setting. Rocket launcher, never really had much reason to use.

While there were only a few occasions where the environment looked like it would possibly let me stray outside the game zone, I still managed to find odd invisible walls hanging around in outdoor environments, even when there was a solid wall 3 feet away.

In a similar way, I kept getting the feeling the enemy could shoot through walls, because I would go right up to a corner, ready to pop out and shoot at an enemy, and then I'm getting shot. I can't actually see the enemy yet, but I'm taking damage. Makes me think the designers didn't line up the physical and graphical walls properly. Also, when a turret fires, the bullet seems to hit you just a split-second before leaving the barrel.

Waiting for the two enemy factions to kill one another takes forever. I'm sure they're hitting one another, but a weapon that can take near a quarter of your health in one hit obviously can't kill your average grunt in 10. I'm kinda hoping they were actually doing SOME damage.

Vehicle sequences, a perfect way to break tedium if used properly.
First sequence, drive around in a jeep for a while. Same as halo. Then someone else gets into the drivers seat, and you get the homing-missile launcher and machine guns. Probably the most fun in the whole game.
Second sequence. Drive around in something that looks like APC with a dual grenade launcher on top and try to hit a few fast-moving hoverbikes. Had trouble just killing one bike with those grenades, so I gave up on the APC. The easiest way to get through the section was to park the car close to a wall, get out, and stay out of the line of fire. The AI will try to get sight of you, but ignore the APC, running into it and instantly killing themselves I would have sniped the guys off the bikes, but you can't hurt anyone while they're inside a vehicle.
Third sequence, you get a bike, but you only really get to your destination a little faster.

The storytelling is broken, and there's a lot of odd jumping from where you were standing to where a cutscene takes place, and vice-versa. By the end you'll only have a vague idea of what happend during the whole game, and quite possibly be uncertain about what exactly just happened right at the end.

There are two bosses near the end of the game. Both painful, because they both have instant-hit attacks. The first just sort of stares at you for a few seconds, then an explosion takes off a fair chunk of your health, unless you've miraculously manged to put a wall between you and the boss. The only indication he's doing the attack is that he's not doing his other, easily dodgable, attack.

Then you've got to continually attack some generator while this ninja-like thing flips around. If the ninja jumps at you, you take damage, the few feet you moved to the side makes no difference.

I think that covers everything I can remember.

Project Snowblind.

The first thing that happens when you select 'new game', are the words:

"All characters and events depicted are true to historical fact."

First, this game is about a cyber-enhanced soldier trying to prevent a crazy general from detonating several EMP bombs which would send the world back to the stone-age, and the first scene has you defending a military base against a small army, which includes a few small, chicken-walker type robots.

Now, I'm wondering exactly what 'historical facts' they're referring to, exactly, but I get these images of giant enemy crabs.

Okay, summary. You get a super-soldier, an array of guns, secondary weapons (grenades, etc), and cyber powers, and then take on all-comers, sometimes with the help of allied soldiers. And, well, you don't have much trouble winning.

All the guns work well, and have a secondary function, which uses the same ammo. The rifle you start with has a grenade launcher. Shotgun can spray stickybombs. The electricity gun can send out an orb which will stick to a wall and zap anybody who goes past. The fletchette gun sends a swarm of energy balls out to hunt down and slowly electrocute nearby enemies to death, an attack which can be spammed. You also get a laser which can fire through walls. You can also punch anyone who gets close, which can be fun, as you send weak enemies flying.

For secondary, you get the usual selection of grenades, frag, EMP, flash, gas. You also get spiderbots, which are nice, but didn't see much use. And riotwalls, which are basically a forcefield, but I didn't even think about using them until I got to the last level and went, "Hey, I wonder how those riotwalls I've been carrying around half the game work." and tried it once.

Cyber powers are probably what you'd expect. Enhanced vision, which is mainly for seeing enemies through walls, but doesn't get much use until you get the laser. Slow time. Ballistic shield aka, temporary invincibility. Cloak. And lightning, which looks like some sort of cloud, which I guess works kinda like the fletchett gun's secondary fire, I didn't get much use out of it before the game ended. You have a limited energy bar and have to rely on items to restore it.

Now, I do have some problems getting the maximum fun while playing games with easily expendable weapons, such as grenades and rocket launchers, since I generally err on the side of caution, and wait until I really need to use them against 'tough' enemies. This also goes for the cyber powers.
Thing is, there's never any real need to use your cyber powers, or your secondary weapons. Your regular weaponry is more than enough to deal with any threat presented, and there's usually enough ammo to keep your favoured gun in action, but if you do think to use everything at your disposal, you'll probably find things a bit easier.

Personally, I like games which put you in a situation, then you figure out how to best deal with it. This game usually gives you a few options, which is good, but when the same strategy works in almost all situations, it loses it's impact. The strategy in question is hiding behind cover while the flechette swarm kills every enemy soldier in the room, then turn off the alarm, and move on.

It's not too difficult to die, but as long as you've got an instant-revive item handy, you won't have to restart. The only time I had to load was in an 'escape before the bomb goes off' level where I got a bit lost.

There is an element of stealth to the game, there are security cameras, and guards can set off alarms, but generally, the reprecussions are so minor, that you might just ignore stealth altogether. The worst possible reprecussion is a couple of small hoverbots and a mounted turret. A couple of EMP grenades deal with the bots, and simply turn off the alarm at the nearest switch to turn off the turret. If that's too hard, you can just wait a minute until the alarm goes off on it's own.

You can also hack the security systems, turn off cameras and tripwires, or have defenses shoot your enemies instead of you. While I like having a turret change sides, there's rarely any enemies around for it to shoot at. The device you use to hack can do so from a long range, which is nice, but for some reason you only get limited ammo, which can be annoying if you find the console you just hacked controlled those two tripwires you jumped past a few seconds ago. And if there's a turret, no alarm, and no enemies for the turret to shoot at, you may as well just walk up and punch the turret to death instead.

Vehicles are included, and while they don't handle very well, they do a good job, unfortunately, in the two spots where a large chicken-walker type mech was available, I'd killed all the enemies in the small available area before trying to drive it

As for storytelling, well, after Pariah, this had brilliant storytelling. It was also occasionally funny.

I just realised I haven't really mentioned the AI, I suppose I just didn't really notice anything about it. No major flaws, no stand out actions that I can recall.

Overall, the game is well designed, but feels easier than it needs to be, mainly thanks to powerful weapons. There are no alternate difficulty settings, so I can't try for a harder challenge that way. It's also not a very long game. But in the end, I probably wouldn't regret putting the game back on sometime in the future and trying to make better use of my arsenal, or challenge myself by never reviving.

I don't know how long I've been here typing. I only know that it was a lot easier to see my keyboard when I started. I'm not spellchecking.

The coming of the age of stars

In the beginning, there was darkness.
After much time, the light came.
The light was strong in it's youth, removing the darkness wherever it went.
But the light could only stretch so far, and if it moved, the darkness would swiftly reclaim it's place.
The darkness pressed in on the light from all sides.
The light fought with all it's might, never lowering it's guard.
But the light's power waned against the tireless darkness.
The darkness ate away at the light, until only small, scattered points remained.
And the darkness spoke to the light, "I will spare your life, foolish youth."
"Even though my reign will be incomplete, you may live."
"For while you live, I may be defined. Thus all shall know of me."
And so, the age of dark ended, and the age of stars began.

Light builds and wanes,
Darkness is eternal.

Robots (Based on the CGI movie) - Generic platformer with guns. Easy (made for kids probably) but with occasional, annoying difficulty spikes due to poor camera, and touchy first-person aiming. Also, I find it weird that your gun has a limited range of effect, but there's no visual to show it, such as your projectiles disappearing.

Futurama (Based on animated TV series) - Funny episode with unnecessary interactive bits inthe form of platforming. Occasionally poor level design, part of which would not have been if it wasn't for the camera being in the wrong place. Combat can feel both too easy and quite unfair. Little effort seems to have gone into Leela's in-game one-liners. Last boss is boring. Getting 100% of the collectibles in a stage is meritless.

Halo 2 (Based on Halo) - Yay duel weilding, yay energy swords, yay covenant cloak. Apart from that, feels like more of the same. That's not entirely a bad thing, though. Multiplayer isn't really something that's going to happen anytime soon, so I can't comment on that.

Atari Anthology (based on all the games included) - Well, there's not really anything to complete, but I dare say I'm not going to put it in the drive again. 18 first-generation arcade games and 67 Atari 2600 games, some of which overlap (example: Asteroids arcade, Asteroids Deluxe and Asteroids 2600). I put the Atari 2600 behind me a long time ago, and have no desire to return, and vector graphics were mostly out-of-date for games before I had my limited experience with arcades, so there's no nostalgia there.

Well, when I mentioned that I was getting a DS to my brother, he suggested trading-in his unwanted Xbox and games. Conversation follows. In the end, he did get rid of it, just into my hands instead

So I've now got an Xbox, 16 games of varying quality, and a couple of random game manuals Highlights include Burnout Revenge, Halo 2 and both Lego Star Wars games. LSW looks like it would be better with a second person, but that's unlikely to happen. Now if I could just see what's happening on the screen properly in the smaller games

Of course, this has been a bit of a distraction from coming on here, not that it takes much these days. Also been doing a bit of training for work.

Nothing more to report.

... So I went the way of the dual screen!

And thus opens the blog on my purchase of a Nintendo DS.

Yep. I got me a DS.

Got a pack with More Brain Training, and also picked up the game that drove me to get the system....
***SPOILER***

I'm considering getting Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, but I have heard it does have some faults, so if anybody who's played it can give me an opinion.