GAME To Bundle The Wii.

British Gaming Blog has posted about how GAME are doing the 'bundle thing' with the Wii. Although it comes as no surprise after the 360 debacle it's pretty annoying that you can't buy the stand alone console and instead have to cough up for the cheapest bundle - which comes in at £219.99 with one game. You could say that you're saving money by buying the bundle but I'm really not sure you are. It's still an extra £40 on top of orignal price (£179.99) which some of the games will cost on their own anyway. At the most you could be saving £10 if the first party games come in at £50.

This is why I never buy new consoles. Stores just rush to rip the customer off by offering absurd bundles as to control their limited stock and make a tidy profit at the same time. Sure, it's expected, but I always thought the Wii would be different in this aspect. I guess Nintendo's ethic's don't translate to the stores huh?

I suppose you could always go for Amazon (who should really stop letting people review items before they are released) but I can see those going pretty fast.


GAME Wii page.

The Old Generation.

First off, apologies for the lack of updates lately. I'm now back at university so have a tonne of work. Since this is a hobby of mine it has to be put to one side until I've got the work out of the way. For those who are interested ask me for my livejournal url, which is updated every day. I won't be giving the link out here because I found out my brother reads this site from time to time. It isn't really about games though, which I assume is what you come here for.

My purchase of Just Cause for the PS2 the other day reminds me just how far the console has come since the PS2's glory days. Having played both the Xbox360 and PC versions you can't help but feel a little underwhelmed by what the PS2 has to offer. Still, it's a feat to fit all that on the PS2 (over 1,000km of play space) and still keep some relatively half-decent graphics, even if it's not the best graphics PS2 has to offer. In this late stage of the PS2's lifespan you do expect to see them squeezing the last drops out of the PS2 although it looks like the concentrated more on getting the whole world to streem with minimal pop-up. I don't know if they can use this an excuse for one of the very first missions to be terribly bugged but I suppose you could just as likely get this with the other versions.

The physics are pretty terrible at times, although not be to be realistic you'd expect a guy to fall off his motorbike when you crash into it at full pelt. Instead I'm left pushing him along the road. Shoot someone and I guarantee they will fly backwards just like every other of his comrade's just did. The graphics on the explosions leave a lot to be desired, especially when you view the work put into them on the PC and 360 version. Also, I could do without the constant Latin soundtrack.

However, I'm stupid to even begin to compare the PS2 version to a next-gen console or the power of a PC because it can never reach the standard those systems set. People can say that there's plenty to be had from the current gen consoles but I say yes, it's time to move on.

All I can say is that at least Resident Evil 4 get's the best out of the PS2, by a long-shot!

Cardinal Takes Up Blogging.

Looks like the Church has now taken up blogging.

God help us all. Although I must admit I'm strangely intrigued.

(Via ZDNet)

Catergories: Blogging, Blogs, Religion

Weekend Reading

The weekend is fast approaching, a time to let loose and throw up everywhere for most people. If you're not that way inclined, however, settle down with your friendly pal Tom and do a spot of reading outside in the sun, or sit inside laughing at people getting soaked in the rain; as in England.

'So what do I read, oh enlightened one?'

This weeks book is, well, a little different. Safe to say it's not that different in my eyes since I read all manner of weird and wonderful books; books you don't tend to find in any old bookstore, at least not in England. So I turn to the underworld to feed my desire for non-mainstream literature which is known as, um, Amazon? Infact, if you take a look at my wish list you'll see that I'm pretty much obsessed with all books relating to the undead in some way, which is strange because I've never been a 'massive' fan of zombie films, but why should films judge what I read - in the slightest? Although the fact that this book may soon be made into a film is best left unmentioned (especially when Brad Pitt is involved)

The author Max Books will be familiar to anyone who's read The Zombie Survival Guide, a book that takes itself so seriously that you should be more scared than amused. Following this meticiously researched book Brooks wrote World War Z, which was released only two days ago. The book itself is a collection of interviews with people who survived the preceding zombie war, in short, providing an oral history of fictionalised events that will make you think that they're anything but fictional. I've not completed it yet, since I only received it through my letter box today, but the book reads just like something you would expect from a non-fictional collection of eyewitness reports, something which experts and the like would scrutinise over an event such as a war or a natural disaster, or even something relatively minor. What the book covers, however, is anything but minor.

The disturbing nature of these personal accounts requires a degree of courage on the part of the reader. But as Brooks says, we cannot hide behind the mind-numbing statistics of the official reports. It is time to face the true horror of the Zombie War.

It's the emotional events that we never see in the official reports, but it's also what we often want most to hear. The official reports never tell us the true horror of war and the closest we can get without actually being there is by listening to those that were.

It may leave the reader with a sense of feeling that you may have been asleep for the past ten years and missed something terribly big. It just seems that real - although it was never meant to be taken seriously, or taken to heart. Or maybe it was, who knows?

World War Z can be purchased now from Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk respectively.

Half-Life 2: Episode One - Talk About Short!

I completed Half-life 2: Episode One in four hours today. Yup, four hours. It came through my door via Amazon, I installed it, and sat there and played through it in it's entirety (granted I paused a few times, I do eat!).

Obviously it was cheap and I knew it wasn't going to be the length of a full game but I can't help feeling like this whole Episodic content thing might make it more expensive in the long-run - although I guess it means they can pump out content much faster, so it'll probably benefit us in the end. Still, it was good while it lasted and I love the new graphical enchancements that were previously seen in the Lost Coast demo.

Episode Two is looking great, and since Team Fortress 2 comes with the package it'll defintally be worth it this time. Still, waiting until 2007 for the next Episode is a bit annoying, although it's obviously bigger since it's supposed to be coming out for the 360 and the PS3 too.

Gaming Week - 1.

At the end of every week, or Saturday as today would have it, I sit down with a good old beer (substituted for a bottle of Strongbow this time around) and talk about the gaming events of the week. I also take a look at what games have been throwing my social life out the window and attempt to inject some sort of humor into the proceedings. Enjoy.

Let's begin this first edition with a quick announcement. I haven't given up on this blog, and I never will. Regular readers (what? you have READERS?) will notice that I only really update when something interests me and I think it's worth my time talking about it. I also like to post long posts like this so you're actually getting something original from this blog and not just a copy of what all the other gaming blogs are posting with a few boring-ass comments tacked 0n. I update this blog when I feel like it - don't get me wrong - I love my readers but if I feel it's not going to be worth posting then I don't bother. The last thing I want to do is bore readers with the same posts' they've seen a thousand times around the wondeful, yet very similiar, blogosphere.

Now that's out of the way here's my attempt to, um, bore you?


Return to Castle Warcraft.

I realise that half of you have probably closed your browser tab - or, if you're using one of the inferior browsers, browser window - at the mere mention of the dreaded Warcraft infection, and I don't blame you to be honest. So why am I talking about it? Well, I'm stupid that's why.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I have returned to the game that breaks up marriages and kills people, World of Warcraft. Well, that's a lie, I've reactivated my account but have yet to actually jump back into the game after updating it with all the patches that have come out since I gave up on it. I honestly don't know why I've gone back. I hate the community of 14 year olds and despise the same boring quests and click, damage, click, damage, heal, click, damage, run that send me half to sleep. I just figured that it's only £8.99 and I may as well give it a try since I'm terribly bored at the moment.

Who knows, maybe I might start to enjoy it again. Besides, my level 30 Night Elf Rogue needs some loving....

...or maybe I've just wasted another £8.99.

Gordon Freeman is a social retard.

I've finally got around to completing Half-Life 2. I was ready to throw my sock at Valve for the ending but I soon calmed down and ordered Episode 1 through Amazon (I so hope it has Obi-Wan in it...ok...bad joke. Just as long as I can kill Jar Jar Binks).

Other than the abrupt ending I really enjoyed it, especially the assault on City 17. There's just so much glee in watching the rag doll physics throw a combine soldier down the shaft of the citadel, bouncing off the scenery as he falls, and then doing it all again?

Story? Oh yeah, um, I suppose that's ok...

Stabbing cute animals.

Animal Crossing: Wild World has been in my DS Lite constantly. The strange thing about this game is that it's addictive and it really shouldn't be. It get's to the point where I'm checking my watch to see if Tom Nook's has closed yet while writing actual letters to the animals that they never understand anyway.

Stiches finally pissed me off so I hit him around the head with my trusty spade (about the only thing it's good for) and buried his body next to Pudge (everyone thought he moved out of town). The 'cuteness' and the way they talk to you is just, so, sickening - it really makes me cringe. So, why do I play it? No idea, maybe I just like collecting shells on a fake beach when I'm supposed to be doing work.

Now my brothers joined in I can have fun leaving abusive messages to him on the message board though. Which is always good to put extra time in taking the mick out of him, which brothers love doing.

PS3 delayed in Europe.


I wasn't that shocked about this news to be honest and, lo and behold, I didn't give much of a shit either. People should know by now that Sony never keep their promises and to expect a worldwide release date was like expecting a peadophile to be allowed to host a children's party.

In the end I think it translates into a good thing for us Euro's. Xbox360, and many previous console's, were plauged by problems with the console when it first launched, especially when a console was rushed out like the 360 was. There's been a notion that the US and Japan are actually 'beta testhing' the console's for Europeans. By March 2007, the month it's been delayed to, most of these problems should have been sorted out (except the price tag damn them!) so we'll have a much smoother ride. Not only that but they'll be more games and hardware available for the console, so we win in the end. Yet I can't help feeling by then the 360 may have had a price cut and the Wii will also be out. I know what I'm going for and it defintally aint Sony, sorry guys.

That's pretty much all I have time for at the moment. I was going to do all this thing about how people who own both a PSP and DS (like me) can enjoy them equally but I'm going to leave that to a seperate post. I have plenty more to say but I fear this will turn into somewhat of an essay so I'll leave them all for other posts.

Thanks for sticking with me, and stop by sometime in the future - I'll give you a free hug!

Thoughts On Firefly.

I've finally got around to watching the last episode in my Firefly box set ('Objects In Space' which is a little weird at first but all is revealed at the end). In short it's 14 episodes of the best sci-fi series ever to get cancelled. I don't think of it as sci-fi though (it's described as a 'sci-fi western') because we can connect to it in a way that relates to our lives. It's almost reality with space ships tagged on, intertwined with a sense of humour no one can resist (straight out of Buffy: The Vampire Slayer).

It isn't like other sci-fi programs in that it doesn't take itself to seriously like some boring shit such as Star Trek would ('It's like something out of Science Fiction' 'Dear, we live on a space ship' 'So?'). It doesn't explain how the technology works at all, hell; you don't even know how the ship get's from planet to planet so quick. It prefers to concentrate on building up its characters and throwing in a lot of humour and action. In the end that's probably why it was cancelled. The big networks are always sceptical when it comes to showing a new approach to something and they're probably kicking themselves now they look at the massive fan community Firefly and the following film, Serenity, has built up. However, Joss Whedon has stated that he would consider making more stories set in the Firefly universe, but would never work with Fox again and would prefer to continue the stories through film. So, I still have hope, and since other programs such as Futurama have been pressured into returning due to overwhelming fan support I'm pretty certain it will make it's return one day, even only in film. If the films are anything like Serenity I'd be more than pleased which, although it had lack lustre box office support, was voted film of the year on British BBC production Film 2005.

People who've never dreamt of watching sci-fi programs in their life have watched Firefly and instantly become captivated, the same goes for the film. Granted, it has its critics like anything but, as I once read, Firefly has one hard-hitting factor up its sleeve. It is the first sci-fi program created to appeal to women, just like his earlier creation, Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, was. With it's heavy emphasis on fleshing out the characters, cheeky humour, and sly digs towards romance, you can be almost certain that, not just women, most people will appreciate the show, although they may be sceptical at first.

With someone as cute as Jewel Staite in it, who wouldn't?

Bully To Be Renamed.

In a move full of irony Rockstar has effectively been bullied into changing the name of it's upcoming controversial game Bully to Canis Canem Edit (Latin for 'Dog Eat Dog'), in Europe.

There's been no confirmed reason for this, although it's pretty obvious it's due to pressure from politicians and various anti-bullying groups - let's not forget Jack Thompson there.

Rockstar has said that the re-printing of cover art will not interfere with the games October release date.

Wikipedia points out that as of yesterday the 'Official sites Rockstar Games and Take Two Interactive carry no reference to the name change and still refer to the game as simply "Bully".' Although it has to be said that since the same change does not affect the US of yet these sites are primarily aimed at the US market.


Bully in name change shock - Games Radar

(Via British Gaming Blog)