Scariest Moments In Gaming.

Since today is Halloween (BOO! Scare ya? Thought not) Gamespy has the scariest moments in gaming up for your reading pleasure.

There's a lot of games on that list that likewise scared the crap out of me, such as the original Silent Hill and Resident Evil (although Resident Evil 2 was probably worse in the end due to the point where you walk past the boarded up windows in the police station and nothing happens, but once you've gone by and trigged an event if you come back random zombie arms shoot through the boards and grab you. It's safe to say that I almost jumped out of the window screaming then but it's not the scariest moment in gaming at all), and there's others I haven't really played. Fatal Frame (Project Zero) and F.E.A.R, are two games I've spent time with but have stopped playing about about 15 minutes due to the sheer terror. It amazes me that I actually made it through the original Silent Hill and I vow to play through the rest of the series, and the two games mentioned, fully sometime in the future.

In other words, I'm such a wuss!

Halloween Special: Scariest Moments in Gaming - Gamespy

Gaming Next Week.

There's a problem with being a university student.

When you finally get around to doing some work you have so much of it that you have little time for anything else. Well, that's when there happens to be an assignment anyway. The rest of the time you're expected to do the work yourself, in other words you're expected to be independent. You ain't going to get a detention for not reading that book they suggested you should read, it's for your own benefit in the end. How can you read something that is so incredibly boring though? Forget it, let's go play some video games instead.

So, what better way to substitute missing a few hours worth of reading with exercising my brain? Enter Brain Training, the lovely little DS game that makes Chris Tarrant sleep on the sofa for the night. I've been meaning to pick it up for a while now, simply because it's one of those things you can pick up for a few minutes a day - something that really appeals to me as a somewhat casual gamer. So tomorrow, hopefully, I'll be giving my brain some good old probing while I sit on a packed train to Leeds.

Sometimes games travel through the vastness of space and time and end up shooting through your letter box, knocking out the cat at the same time. Tomorrow, or Tuesday, Canis Canem Edit (Bully) will arrive through my door and provide some good needed relaxation time for my aging PS2. My PS2 is like a guy who's just reached his sixties, not quite on his last legs but getting there. It's got pretty decent reviews so I'm looking forward to spending some quality time with it. I'll have a review up soon enough.

Coming to the shelves next week is GTA: Vice City Stories for the PSP. I don't use my PSP a lot, mainly because of the lack of games I have for it, but then I do it's to play GTA: Liberty City Stories. When I read about how many features are coming in VCS, even more than the PS2, I couldn't help but be stunned at how powerful the PSP can really get. I can't wait to play this on the train while listening to some quality 80's tracks! I'll also have a review up of this pretty soon.

Not content with those games I'll also be spending more time with Battlefield 2142, my pet love at the moment. There's always some moment that makes me smile, which is worth all the time I get horribly frustrated at it.

That's me sorted.

Battlefield 2142 Review.

There’s a cliché to start video game reviews describing a scene that grabbed the reviewers attention and then proclaiming that they are, indeed, playing a game. For example, the reviewer is ‘under heavy fire by enemy troops with only his trusty sidearm for company, while air transports scream overhead and the distant approach of a tank can be heard’. When it comes to a game like Battlefield 2142 it’s hard not to describe the feeling you get in situations quite similar to this. The thought that you are on an enormous battlefield with real-life players slugging it out in a variety of guises is quite exhilarating. Except, on this battlefield, all sense of tactical awareness and the common sense mantra that shooting your teammates in the back isn’t the best idea of the century, seems to be thrown out of the window and crushed by a passing steamroller.

Battlefield 2142 was always inevitable, not only because EA tend to churn out a long line of games part of the same series, but also because a future Battlefield was the only logical step forward. The World War II aspect has been done to death, Vietnam was a failure (both in real life and in video game world), and the modern aspect screamed ‘war on terror’. Also, having a Battlefield set in the future allowed Dice to throw a bunch of creative ideas into the pot as they were unconstrained by the limitations of Battlefield games based on real-world events. However, it’s good to see that Dice didn’t go overboard when they were presented with a completely blank slate in which to scratch out a new Battlefield – lasers and teleportation are out of the picture here. Dice took the Battlefield 2 engine, modified it a bit, and came out with a Battlefield that, although set in the future, allowed us to relate it to reality in a way that Star Trek cannot. Combined with a new blank slate and the realisation that players would probably like something more than Conquest mode for once, the Titan mode emerged.



The plot is unimportant but it needs mention to introduce the Titan mode. The Northern Hemisphere has frozen over and billions are forced to flee to the warmer lands far south. As a result wars break out over what little land remains, as is typical of Human nature. Two factions, the EU and Asian PAC, are fighting over the African lands with no indication to where the North Africans or USA have got to (possibly a future expansion pack?). Due to this you get rugged ice covered maps while occasionally jumping over to desert style maps. The two factions –having been used to transport refugees to the south – have adopted the Titans as command centres and, as such, the aim of the Titan mode is to attack and destroy these floating behemoths.

The Titan mode is a combination of conquest (which also returns) and the new aim to destroy the Titan’s. Players much capture missile silos, which, in turn, launch regular missile’s that will eventually destroy the enemy Titan’s shields. After the shields are down the players can either land on the Titan in an airships or launch from pods in an APC. They must then take down four-control console’s, which gains access to the Titan’s core. Destroying this means your team wins the round. It also means a great deal of teamwork is needed, especially when both Titan’s shields are down. If most of your team are attacking the enemy Titan this leaves your Titan undefended, leading to a quick defeat, but this also means that their Titan may be lax on defence, unless the opposing team is pretty clever that is. It can lead to pretty close stalemates if your team is working together by defending and attacking at the same time. You also have people running around on the ground holding the silos continue to pound the enemy Titan and take more damage off the faltering hull. The Titan mode can fill you with sheer utter joy, topping up your flask of gaming goodness, especially when you all run laughing and screaming off the exploding Titan, the opposing team’s impending doom finally realised as they frantically scramble for the escape pods or airships.



Of course, teamwork always comes down to the players on the server. If you’re playing with a group of friends then the match can be pretty fun. It’s not to say that the match can’t go fun without friends. The squad system encourages players to work together, that is, if they actually join a squad. Squad leaders can place spawn beacons and also act as mobile spawn points, providing they are still alive. This means the squad leader can instantly get backup when left alone, as squad members re-spawn on his/her position. You now gain experience points by completing squad objectives set by your squad leader, something missing from Battlefield 2. In fact, experience points are gained from pretty much everything, which is most likely why teamwork is far more preferable this time around. As a medic, which has been combined with the assault class, you gain experience by healing people and reviving them. Cue players running around healing their comrades for experience, not because of companionship. All this experience adds up to the returning rank system and a variety of unlocks you can gain to improve your soldier. It gives you a sense of something to fight for; something to while away the hours helping your team gain the upper hand. This doesn’t mean your team will always work together, quite the contrary, many players have little sense of tactical awareness and will continue to throw themselves at the same objective without thinking of alternative ways to accomplish the same objective without constantly dying. The response to losing the round is to start a mutiny on the commander, whom returns with his usual artillery and aerial scans, even though it’s often not his fault. Like any war the commander is only as good as the troops, and if his troops refuse to follow orders without any passion or refuse to follow them all-together, then they are the ones who are to blame.

When it comes to vehicles Battlefield 2142 has an interesting bunch. Big mech type walkers will scare the hell out of you when you first witness one stalking towards you, while hover tanks can move sideways quickly across your field of view, before making a nice little carpet of you across the snow. Most of the other vehicles are revamped versions of the ones you’ll have employed in Battlefield 2 but some, like the APC, are more integral to the round then before – if you’re playing the Titan mode. There’s an issue with air support however. The gunship is far slower than the jets in Battlefield 2 and they seem far easier to take out when launching an EMP from the ground. Still, it all depends on the pilot, as one stalking you can be pretty annoying when you don’t have anything to take it out.

You can’t review an EA game without mentioning a few bugs, and Battlefield 2142 has its fair share. Amazingly some of the bugs from the beta make their return in the final game, and when any game has to be patched on release day you have to wonder just what the testers have been doing. Bugs will always be rife in Battlefield games since there are so many things the players can do that they’ll always find a bug somewhere the developers never even dreamed of. The game sometimes crashes at the start of maps, and the screen can go all funny when you try to choose an unlock during a game. Corpses still slide around on board Titan’s, which can make it awkward to revive them - eventually falling through it towards the ground. Lag can also be pretty horrendous during the Titan mode, but it’s more due to the server than anything.

The bugs are minor niggles in the end and hopefully you won’t experience anything horribly annoying that would take your enjoyment away from the game. Annoyance will come more from running into an enemy walker that promptly blasts your body into a billion atoms, or being hit in the face by a team-mate in the closer quarters of the Titan’s corridors. With the unlock system and two fun-filled modes there’s always plenty to do in Battlefield 2142 and, being a Battlefield game, making your own fun has always been the aim of the game. Whether you choose to be a pilot ferrying your team-mates into battle, or a sniper nestled in your own little high spot, or whether you decide to flank an objective instead of meeting it head on. Battlefield has always been a series where every round will be something different, a splurge of amazing moments you’ll remember for the rest of your gaming life. Although the engine is showing it’s age Battlefield 2142 can still impress with the sheer amount of flexibility you can employ, which, is of course, all depends on whether your team wants to work with you or pursue their own vain interests.

Eight-out-of-ten.

No Gamerscore Or Achievements On PS3

Speaking with Game|Life, SCEA's executive vp Jack Tretton confirmed that PlayStation 3 user accounts will not feature an aggregate score based on gaming accomplishments, squashing rumors that Sony would counter Microsoft's gamerscore/achievement system with "entitlements." - Joystiq

I think that's pretty much sealed the deal here, 360 here I come (and possibly the Wii). I'm going to leave Sony to wallow in it's deep grave. Sony will be like a spider trying to get out of the bath tub...

...or maybe not, who knows? They'll certainly sell the PS2 but the top spot? If they go the way of the PSP I will stand corrected. You would have thought Sony would have rolled with this idea since they seemed to have stolen every other idea out there. Motion censor Dualshock anyone?

No gamerscore, no achievements on PS3 - Joystiq

Bully Star Likes To Kiss Boys!

With all the talk about Bully (Canis Canem Edit in Europe) giving kids ideas to give their classmates wedgies, nothing controversial has come out of the game so far. After viewing this video your thoughts on the game will remain much the same as ever - in that there's clearly nothing bad about the game at all.

It's no Hot Coffee, it's two boys kissing. Since the game is rated T and clearly states the game contains 'sexual themes' any uproar about homosexuality in Bully will pretty much show how pathetic most arguments against the game are. If I was younger two boys kissing wouldn't prompt me to turn gay and it wouldn't offend me either.

Yup, what do ya know? Some teenagers are gay! It'll be fun to see if anyone will create a scene over this but, for now, I give another point to Rockstar for being so damn good at their jobs.

(Via Joystiq)

Game Boy Around The World.

This is just one of a series of images of this kid playing on his GBA at famous tourist attractions around the world. Locations include Stonehenge, the Cliffs of Dover and the Pool of Bethesda. Pity he's way too engrossed in whatever game he's playing to take in the full wonder of the sights. Someone should buy this kid a DS Lite!

Hit this link for the full Flickr set!

Game Boy around the world - Flickr.

Base Jumping In World Of Warcraft.

I'm feeling kind today so here's another WoW video (although I don't play the game anymore). I'm also loving the new Blogger beta - which is the reason I've returned to my wonderful blog (feel free to dispute that point) after sorting out all the labels. Anyway, enjoy!

Billy Jean WoW machinima.

Play World of Warcraft in style - but don't touch the kiddies!



(Via Wonderland)

Teleporation Becoming A Reality?

Please god no!

The day I have to live in Star Trek is the day I kill myself.

Catergories: Science, Technology, Teleportation, Star Trek,

Girls Play More Online Games.

A suprising new survey has shown that 56% of all gamers in the US play online, 64% of them being female.

I never would have guessed.

(Via Rebecca's Pocket).


Catergories: Girl Gaming, Survey's, Video Games

World Of Warcraft Is An Addiction.

Putting aside the overeaction of mass media, as in this video, I really do think this is a problem we should be thinking about. Most people laugh when you say MMO's are an addiction; they ask how can it be compared to addictions like smoking or alcoholism? Take one look at the guy in the video and there's your answer. He looks scruffy, unwashed and unshaved. It can't be good for his health sitting there for hours on end, or for his social/work life. He says he can walk away from it at anytime but I don't believe he can, because if he really understood the impact it was having on him he'd shut his computer off without a second thought. His mum could do a little more, by taking the computer away for example, but would this harm the guy? Like taking someone's cigeratte's away from them, they cut down slowly, not full-stop. Taking something away immediately may be a major shock to the system.

Further evidence of this guys addiction is the fact that he get's violent when he's losing in the game. Druggies get violent when they can't get a fix, if this guy isn't getting a fix from winning in the game, getting frustrated in the losing part, then I think this helps to show he may be addicted. I know it sounds stupid but I think it makes a lot of sense.

The short fact of the matter is that it IS tearing apart families, it is harming people's health, it is making them socially retarded as they lock themselves away from society. You have to find a balance when you play video games, if you let that game rule your life then that's where you have to realise that something is terribly wrong. People need to stop smirking about gaming being an addiction and start taking it seriously. Granted, the ones that usually smirk at these things are the ones that are addicted. How can something not be wrong if you're playing a game for over 12 hours a day? How is that even remotely good for you?

I do think governments need to address this matter more, as they are doing in China. Gamers need to be taught that gaming is a hobby and should be treated like one, as something on the side, something that shouldn't be taking first place over your working and social life. Many of us know how to strike this balance but for those who don't then they're more like Kenny and Cartman than they believe.

Retro Review Will Return!

Neglect, it's what sprouts weeds in your garden and makes dust build up on your furniture. It makes your engine cut out when driving on the motorway, or your computer crash when you've been downloading too much porn without a spyware scan in sight. It's what drops your blog from 5th in the rankings to 45th, it's what cuts your visitors in half, it's what makes you lose touch with the community you chose to adopt as your own. Neglect, however, can be a good thing. It can make you frustrated due to not being able to write, to exercise your talents. It can make you come back to your blog and think 'Fuck it, let's get back on track'. So what better way to revive a rotten corpse then look back into the past and get high on the glorious memories of your gaming past? Retro Review is neither the future nor the past, it is now.

Retro Review got off to a shaky start and, due to that rather troublesome neglect I think I mentioned, never continued. I rushed it out in the first place and realised the writing on display was nor more than an unplanned mass of words begging to be read, going so far as to jump you in a dark alley and force you to give an opinion. What it was missing was the memories, the memories that got me utterly obessed with gaming in the first place.

In recent years I'm not as up-to-date with the latest games as much as I'd want to be, and I don't play half the time I'd like to. There is the fact that many games these days don't spark my interest because developers have largelly lost the innovative ideas of the past. Because of this it's good to look back on your gaming past, mope around for a while knowing how much you've missed it, then try your best to get back into gaming as much as you once loved it. By writing these memories down it sparks my interest in the current generation. Confusing right? Well, I know they are good games out there and I know that there were just as many bad games as they were for good games in the past (believe me, I wasted the money on them).

What I am remembering from the past is the memories from the good games, the games I spent hours everyday playing. If I actively go out and buy the good games of the present I can treasure the memories of the moment and know that I'm not missing out on anything. The good games aren't always the ones that sell the most, they are the ones that get neglected yet fucked up the ass by the hardcore gaming community. Those are the games I neglect but mark them on my mental list 'I'll buy them later, I swear' and I never do. I want to remember them today, just like I remebered the good games of yesterday. I don't want to remember I never played that game like I remember about some games I would have loved to have played properly in the past (e.g Zelda series, Sam & Max etc. I want to write about both in order to remember them more thus; the re-birth of a blog.

If I don't make any sense then questions on a postcard to 'I don't care'.

'Want Fries With That?'

Burger King are to enter the videogame market with three games featuring the Burger King mascot; The King.

The three games will be playable on either the Xbox or Xbox 360. They will be available from November 19 through December 24 at participating Burger King locations for $3.99 with the purchase of a value meal. All of the games are rated E for Everybody. - Gamespot

Eye-raising out of the way I actually think this is a pretty good idea on Burger King's part. Take the videogames based on Disney films (like the recent Cars, for example), which tend to climb up the charts regardless of whether or not they are any good. Parents buy them for their kids because the kids see their favourite characters and want the game. Although The King is a relatively new fast food character kids are attracted to it through commercials and kids meals; much in the same way the classic Ronald McDonald character became so popular (personally I find The King really freaky).

Coupled with the games being extremely cheap Burger King just might be on to a winner. Buy a kids meal and the kids then see the games on display - cue 'I want that mommy!'

Also, Burger King has introduced something new to the video game community. The games will be available for the Xbox and Xbox 360, but on the same disc!

"These are not backward-compatible original Xbox games, but truly designed and developed for each platform separately," the Burger King representative said. "There are two versions on each disc, specifically made for each platform. This has never been done before for a title." - Gamespot

The games will most likely be pretty bad since I doubt Burger King will have spent bucket loads on development. However, since when have kids ever been concerned with quality?

Burger King orders up Xbox games - Gamespot