Canis Canem Edit
Splinter Cell: Double Agent
Prey
Crackdown
Tiger Woods PGA 07 (career completed)
Call of Duty 2 (regular)
Double Dragon
Resistance: Fall of Man
Loco Roco (All Stages Cleared)
Colin McRae DiRT (Career completed)
Daxter
Forza Motorsport 2 (Career & Arcade 100% complete)
Medal of Honour: Airbourne (Casual)
Halo 3
Bioshock
PGR4 (World No. 1 Career & All medals silver Arcade)
Half Life 2
I can't think why I ever stopped playing this now. To get so far through and not finish it was pretty criminal. It's an excellent adventure. Really enjoyed it. Next up: Episode 1.
The Valve people certainly now how to pack the value in.
Tuesday, 30 October 2007
Wednesday, 24 October 2007
Currently Playing: The Orange Box
I picked this up in Game the other day (Got £25 trade in for MoH:A which I was quite pleased with). I've been waiting for a while. I played through a lot of Half Life 2 on the original X-Box (released I believe at the end 0f 2005) but I got the feeling it wasn't really doing it justice. Then upgraded to a spanking new 360 and decided to wait for the 360 version to replay and finish the story. Now the Orange Box is with us and what a generous package it is.
I decided to get stuck into Half Life 2 itself. What surprised me was how much of the general stuff I remembered whilst actually remebering very little of the specifics. This wasn't a problem to begin with as the first part of the game is quite straight forward and scripted however once into the game proper a large of amount of exploration is sometimes required to advance.
Technically it's much better looking on 360 (as you'd probably imagine) with the water effects most noticeably improved along with certain sections being noticeably more packed with stuff..The section just before you get the hover craft has way more junk and stuff in it.
What hasn't improved is the loading. It's frequent. Rather long and causes teh entire game to pause. Which does rather spoil the immersion a little bit. The levels are huge and apparently the PC version was teh same but having played bioshock and Halo 3 recently I think more could of been done to harness the power of the 360. Either loading on the fly a la Halo 3 or less of it. Bioshocks levels are, if not quite as huge as HL2's pretty damn big.
Anyway so far so enjoyable but I seem to remember it get's better as it goes along.
I decided to get stuck into Half Life 2 itself. What surprised me was how much of the general stuff I remembered whilst actually remebering very little of the specifics. This wasn't a problem to begin with as the first part of the game is quite straight forward and scripted however once into the game proper a large of amount of exploration is sometimes required to advance.
Technically it's much better looking on 360 (as you'd probably imagine) with the water effects most noticeably improved along with certain sections being noticeably more packed with stuff..The section just before you get the hover craft has way more junk and stuff in it.
What hasn't improved is the loading. It's frequent. Rather long and causes teh entire game to pause. Which does rather spoil the immersion a little bit. The levels are huge and apparently the PC version was teh same but having played bioshock and Halo 3 recently I think more could of been done to harness the power of the 360. Either loading on the fly a la Halo 3 or less of it. Bioshocks levels are, if not quite as huge as HL2's pretty damn big.
Anyway so far so enjoyable but I seem to remember it get's better as it goes along.
The "Complete" List
Canis Canem Edit
Splinter Cell: Double Agent
Prey
Crackdown
Tiger Woods PGA 07 (career completed)
Call of Duty 2 (regular)
Double Dragon
Resistance: Fall of Man
Loco Roco (All Stages Cleared)
Colin McRae DiRT (Career completed)
Daxter
Forza Motorsport 2 (Career & Arcade 100% complete)
Medal of Honour: Airbourne (Casual)
Halo 3
Bioshock
PGR4 (World No. 1 Career & All medals silver Arcade)
Splinter Cell: Double Agent
Prey
Crackdown
Tiger Woods PGA 07 (career completed)
Call of Duty 2 (regular)
Double Dragon
Resistance: Fall of Man
Loco Roco (All Stages Cleared)
Colin McRae DiRT (Career completed)
Daxter
Forza Motorsport 2 (Career & Arcade 100% complete)
Medal of Honour: Airbourne (Casual)
Halo 3
Bioshock
PGR4 (World No. 1 Career & All medals silver Arcade)
Thursday, 18 October 2007
Normal Service Will Resume....
Shortly.. (Honest) it's just that Project Gotham Racing 4 is sucking up all my spare time like some kind of gaming Dyson.. It's insanely addictive. Like Dyson inventing a new better crack cocaine. With out a bag. Or something.
Anyway I've got ADSL installed at work now so that should leave at least 8 hours a day where I can't hold the 360's joypad and stare, slack jawed, at the Bravia while concentrating on piloting my Aston Martin DBR9 around the citys of the world.
More soon. Promise.
Anyway I've got ADSL installed at work now so that should leave at least 8 hours a day where I can't hold the 360's joypad and stare, slack jawed, at the Bravia while concentrating on piloting my Aston Martin DBR9 around the citys of the world.
More soon. Promise.
Wednesday, 10 October 2007
Great Expectations
The PGR4 excitement continues to grow. Downloaded the demo from X-Box Live this afternoon.
First things first it's a very generous demo. There doesn't seem to be any time constraint and there's an arcade challenge with 5 or 6 events giving you a good flavour of what's on offer and they can be attempted in a small selection of vehicles. As usual you can attempt them in five flavours of medal (tin, bronze, silver, gold or platinum) and there's an online leaderboard which will show either worldwide or friends based leaderboards. For the gamer on a tight budget you could easily spend an evening in it's company and not get bored.
Secondly it looks and sounds very good. Especially when the dynamic weather kicks in. Racing a Ferrari in the dry is tough work. When the rain starts pouring not only does it look amazing it becomes a whole new ball park. I couldn't decide what was scarier.. The occasional flash of lightening or the sound of the tyres aqua planeing across standing water.
The track design is as devious as it was back in the second game and once again getting a feel for the circuits and knowing what's coming up is as important as skill behind the wheel. The driving model is slightly different with the cars seeming to be a lot less tail happy which means when you power drift or induce hand brake over steer it feels well earned and needs a lot of skill to carry the Kudos earned out of the corner.
The risk/reward balance seems very good and it'll take a lot of effort, one feels, to start nailing perfect laps.
Overall I'm very very happy with how this is shaping up. Roll on Friday. I'm in Love.
First things first it's a very generous demo. There doesn't seem to be any time constraint and there's an arcade challenge with 5 or 6 events giving you a good flavour of what's on offer and they can be attempted in a small selection of vehicles. As usual you can attempt them in five flavours of medal (tin, bronze, silver, gold or platinum) and there's an online leaderboard which will show either worldwide or friends based leaderboards. For the gamer on a tight budget you could easily spend an evening in it's company and not get bored.
Secondly it looks and sounds very good. Especially when the dynamic weather kicks in. Racing a Ferrari in the dry is tough work. When the rain starts pouring not only does it look amazing it becomes a whole new ball park. I couldn't decide what was scarier.. The occasional flash of lightening or the sound of the tyres aqua planeing across standing water.
The track design is as devious as it was back in the second game and once again getting a feel for the circuits and knowing what's coming up is as important as skill behind the wheel. The driving model is slightly different with the cars seeming to be a lot less tail happy which means when you power drift or induce hand brake over steer it feels well earned and needs a lot of skill to carry the Kudos earned out of the corner.
The risk/reward balance seems very good and it'll take a lot of effort, one feels, to start nailing perfect laps.
Overall I'm very very happy with how this is shaping up. Roll on Friday. I'm in Love.
What's on the Box(set) ?
Recently I've discovered the joys of the DVD boxset. Most can be picked up at a reasonable price if you shop around and it enables me to watch things that I've forgotten to watch or missed the first time around at my leisure.
I've loved every minute of 5 series of The Shield, 2 series of House and last but by no means least 4 series of The O.C.
Anyway in these posts I'll be updating you on what I've watched last.
On this occasion that's season two of 24.
I watched season one and whilst it was an enjoyable romp it didn't blow me away quite as I'd been expecting.
Season two is an improvement. The story line (concerning a plot to detonate a nuclear missle in down town LA) is more gripping and the 24 hours strung together with better pacing. It doesn't have a shock reveal in quite the same manner but each episode ends with something of a cliff hanger and whilst I find the 'real time' effect a bit of a gimick (each episode cuts between several characters much like a normal show) it's gripping TV. Jack develops as a lead and though my main complaint would be the shoe horning in of a story line for Kim (Jacks daughter) I did get emotional when he thought he was going to die and was saying goodbye to her.
Suffice to say I've ordered season three.
I've loved every minute of 5 series of The Shield, 2 series of House and last but by no means least 4 series of The O.C.
Anyway in these posts I'll be updating you on what I've watched last.
On this occasion that's season two of 24.
I watched season one and whilst it was an enjoyable romp it didn't blow me away quite as I'd been expecting.
Season two is an improvement. The story line (concerning a plot to detonate a nuclear missle in down town LA) is more gripping and the 24 hours strung together with better pacing. It doesn't have a shock reveal in quite the same manner but each episode ends with something of a cliff hanger and whilst I find the 'real time' effect a bit of a gimick (each episode cuts between several characters much like a normal show) it's gripping TV. Jack develops as a lead and though my main complaint would be the shoe horning in of a story line for Kim (Jacks daughter) I did get emotional when he thought he was going to die and was saying goodbye to her.
Suffice to say I've ordered season three.
Tuesday, 9 October 2007
The "Complete" List
Canis Canem Edit
Splinter Cell: Double Agent
Prey
Crackdown
Tiger Woods PGA 07 (career completed)
Call of Duty 2 (regular)
Double Dragon
Resistance: Fall of Man
Loco Roco (All Stages Cleared)
Colin McRae DiRT (Career completed)
Daxter
Forza Motorsport 2 (Career & Arcade 100% complete)
Medal of Honour: Airbourne (Casual)
Halo 3
Bioshock
So in back to back completions I've gone back to Bioshock and polished it off prior to the slew of games that will be coming my way in the next few months.
Two things to say. I feel compelled to write a full review of Bioshock very soon so I'll save all my comments on it now for that.
Secondly, whilst not reaching PH levels of completeness (a fair few games have fell by the way side for one reason or another this year) I've completely out done myself this year in completed titles.. Perhaps I'm gaining a little more patience with old age.
Splinter Cell: Double Agent
Prey
Crackdown
Tiger Woods PGA 07 (career completed)
Call of Duty 2 (regular)
Double Dragon
Resistance: Fall of Man
Loco Roco (All Stages Cleared)
Colin McRae DiRT (Career completed)
Daxter
Forza Motorsport 2 (Career & Arcade 100% complete)
Medal of Honour: Airbourne (Casual)
Halo 3
Bioshock
So in back to back completions I've gone back to Bioshock and polished it off prior to the slew of games that will be coming my way in the next few months.
Two things to say. I feel compelled to write a full review of Bioshock very soon so I'll save all my comments on it now for that.
Secondly, whilst not reaching PH levels of completeness (a fair few games have fell by the way side for one reason or another this year) I've completely out done myself this year in completed titles.. Perhaps I'm gaining a little more patience with old age.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
