Gaming marathons

Going through my box of old games recently, as well as coming across Suikoden like I mentioned in my previous post, I also came across my Playstation Final Fantasy games, numbers VII, VIII and IX. The one that really caught my eye, of course, was Final Fantasy VII.


Ahh, FFVII. This much loved, much derided game will always hold a special place in my heart. I had played RPGs previously, of course, on the Megadrive ( Genesis ); games such as Landstalker, Beyond Oasis, and the Shining Force games. FFVII, however, really opened my eyes to the possibilities of what an RPG could achieve. Since its release, I've recently noticed a bit of shift in critical opinion of the game. I accept that the nostalgia factor of this game is pretty high, but that doesn't stop me from loving it as much as I do.

And so, with this same misty eyed nostalgia making me smile like a loon, I put Disc One in my PS3 and have started up another game of FFVII. I have already played through the game twice back in the day. The first time I missed out a lot of the side quests, so I played through a second time and focused on uncovering all the secrets, such as defeating the Weapon bosses etc. Actually, come to think of it I don't know if I ever actually defeated Ruby Weapon. Bastard.

If memory serves me correctly, I think my play time for the second play-through was probably up around 80 hours or so. On top of the 40 hours I would have spent on the first play-through, this is a hell of a lot of time to spend on a game. I remember sitting in front of the TV for hours and hours, playing this game non-stop.

This got me thinking about how much I play video games now has changed. When I was in my teens, and even up to my early 20's, I could quite happily have these marathon gaming sessions. I remember the longest that I ever played a game non-stop was on Civilization II on the Playstation.


I once spent pretty much an entire day, 14 hours straight, playing this game. I remember that a lot of this time was actually spent doing nothing, just waiting between turns as the little Playstation processor took longer and longer to calculate between turns the longer that the game went. Still, I sat there like a zombie quite happily waiting for my next turn.

In my early 20's I got into EverQuest.


This was a time in my life when I didn't really have that much free time. I was studying at a Theatre school full time, had a girlfriend, had a bunch of really good friends and a good social life, but I still managed to find the time to pump hours upon hours into this game. I spent so many all nighters playing this game, and rather sadly I recall actually forgoing social occasions sometimes in order to stay home and play EQ. I remember that there was a command prompt you could type into the chat box, /char , which would bring up some info about how long you had been playing your character. My main character - because, like most players, I had two or three toons that I would play as - was Smoove Grooves the bard. I typed in /char one day, and to my horror realised that I had been playing for over a month. That's more than a month real time, around 700 hours. And this was just for one of my characters. It wasn't long after this that I quit the game. I did go back on two occasions for short bursts over the next couple of years, but the addiction was never as strong thankfully.

As I've gotten older, I've found that I simply don't have the time, or the inclination, to put in these marathon gaming efforts. It's rare that I'll play a game for longer than two or three hours in a row. A lot of this is due to how I live now. I'm engaged, live with my fiance, and have a full time job. She's very understanding about my love of games, and she's actually a bit of a games player herself, but there is no way she would be quite so understanding if I just shut myself away in the computer room for 12 hours to play a game. As well as this, I wouldn't feel right about it either. There comes a point in your life, of course, when you realise that in the hierarchy of importance games don't really rank as high as they used to.

When I was younger, I actually felt a bit cheated if a game didn't give me at least 20+ hours of gameplay. Now, at the age of 30, I actually prefer games that I can finish in 10 hours or less. Because I can't spend as much time on games as I used to, I really want to play games that I can comfortably complete without dedicating my entire life to them. Obviously I will always make exceptions for certain games, and it's not as if I'm going to not play a game simply because I know that it will take a long time to complete. However, the chances are that I might not actually complete it because I can't spend enough time on it. A couple of perfect examples of this are the two most recent Bethesda Softworks games, Oblivion and Fallout 3. I spent so much time playing Oblivion, but I never completed it. I'm still in the middle of Fallout 3. I go back to it now and then, but I'm not sure if I'll get around to completing it.

The last game that I really had a marathon gaming session on was Mass Effect on the PC.


This was last year. We were living in Melbourne, Australia, at the time and my work hours and her's didn't really match up which meant that quite often I would have the whole day to myself at home. She went off to work one morning, I jumped on the computer and booted up Mass Effect. Eight hours later she got home and I was still playing. I think this is understandable, however, because Mass Effect is a totally fantastic game. It was the game of 2008 for me.

As I'm writing this, I'm also downloading another Bioware game through Steam, thanks to their awesome holiday special they're currently running. That game is Dragon Age: Origins. Will this be the next game to coax me into a long, drawn out gaming session? From what I've read, quite possibly. Of course, this all depends on whether or not I can find the time!

Hidden gems

I was just going through a box of my old games, and came across Suikoden on the Playstation. Out of curiosity, I looked it up on TradeMe ( the New Zealand version of Ebay ), and discovered it's worth around $250 - $300 NZ. Needless to say, I have now cleaned it up and put it away safely in a drawer where it won't get scratched or damaged.

I wonder how many other people out there have old games in their collections which are worth a small fortune, and don't even realise it?

Modern Warfare 2 - Objective Complete

I just finished Modern Warfare 2. I wrote in my previous post about not being overly impressed by the game, but still hoping that it might blow me away as I continued playing. This never happened, unfortunately. Sure, it had its exciting moments, but for the first time in any Call Of Duty game I actually found myself growing slightly bored as the game went on. I found the final couple of levels in Afghanistan particularly uninspiring, and by this point I was just eager to get the game over and done with.

Going on all of the rave reviews from the press and gamers alike I get the feeling I'm in the minority with my opinion, but overall the game just never really "clicked" for me. My problems with the game that I mentioned in my previous post still stand. The story was confusing, and very poorly conveyed. I honestly didn't have a clue what was happening most of the time, or what my objectives were or why the hell I was supposed to care. I did find myself dying less as the game went on, however. I think it was mainly just the tight, death-trap streets of the Rio de Janeiro that were the main cause of my frustration regarding this aspect of the game's difficulty.

I still feel very uneasy about the worth of the "Airport" level, also. I'm still not convinced that it was necessary to have it as a playable level in the game. The fact that you can choose not to play the level, and not have it affect the story completion, attests to the fact that it could easily have been left out.

I'll still play the multiplayer side of the game to death, however, which I guess is really the main attraction of the Modern Warfare games anyway.

Modern Warfare 2 - First Impressions

Ok, so after umming and ahhing about whether or not to buy MW2 on the PS3 or PC, I decided to go with PC. As I mentioned in my previous post, I simply prefer the keyboard and mouse control that it offers. Also, finding it for $20 cheaper than on the PS3 definitely played a part in the decision.

I've played through the first five chapters of single player, and have spent a couple of hours on multiplayer. My initial impressions? To be honest, I'm a bit underwhelmed by it so far. My main problems with the game are the confusing and poorly told story, having to frequently restart due to numerous deaths caused by not having a clue what's going on around me because there are 40 million explosions all happening at once, and also that the game simply doesn't feel as fresh or as fun as the first Modern Warfare. Going back to what I said about having to restart all the time after dying, I realise that the Call Of Duty games have always been an assault on the senses, and consistently maintain a high level of intensity. The games represent, as closely as a game can, the sheer confusion of a real battlefield. However, in none of the previous games - and I have played and completed them all, except for Call Of Duty 3 - have I ever felt like I have died unfairly. I've lost count of the number of times I've just walked around a corner in MW2 and died instantly after being hammered from all directions by enemies, sometimes even from behind where I thought I had cleared all of the enemies out. To be fair, I am playing on the Hardened difficulty level, but this is the level I played all of the previous games on and I don't recall ever dying quite this much.

In my previous post, I wrote about the potential controversy of the "Airport" scene in this game. After playing through it, I freely admit that I really was quite upset and shocked by the scene. What was equally as upsetting, however, is that after it finished I realised how unnecessary it was. Infinity Ward have said:

"The scene is designed to evoke the atrocities of terrorism".

If that's all they were going for, then I guess they were successful, but what was the point? I realise that it serves a purpose in the overall story of the game, but this information could just as easily have been conveyed through one of the between level loading screens. In my opinion there was no point in having this scene as a playable level. Yes, they give you the option of skipping the scene entirely, which going on it's graphic nature would really be a good option for some people, but personally I have no problem with graphic or confronting material as long as it actually serves a purpose. Good developers go through an iteration process where they sort the wheat from the chaff in order to come out with the best game they can, so I just find it strange that this level was included as I don't think it improves the game in any way. I'm keeping an open mind about this, however, as I haven't finished the game yet and it may be touched upon later in the game. If anyone reading this has an opinion, feel free to comment. I'm genuinely curious about other people's reactions to this scene.

Now, on to the multiplayer. I was prepared to bitch and moan about the horrible online experience for the PC version, but I've actually been pleasantly surprised. Almost all of the rounds I've played have been smooth and lag free, and I consistently get three or four green ping bars. In regards to the gameplay itself, it's obviously just a slightly evolved version of the original game's multiplayer. So, it's a hell of a lot of fun is what I'm trying to say. I really like the new rewards, and all of the new weapons are a lot of fun. I can imagine myself playing the online side of this game for a long time to come, just like I did with the first game.

I probably sound pretty negative about the game overall, but I really don't think it's a bad game. I just don't think it lives up to the excellence of the first Modern Warfare. Obviously I've still got a way to go before I finish the game, so it could still pull one out of the bag and really blow me away. Like I said, I've definitely got an open mind about it.

Modern Warfare 2 controversy

It just seems like controversy after controversy for Infinity Ward lately. First all of the hooplah about no dedicated server support for the PC version of Modern Warfare 2, and now outrage over the leaked footage from the game in which you play a terrorist and shoot civilians in an airport.

In regards to the first controversy, about the PC online experience being neutered, like most other PC gamers I am pretty pissed off about this. So Infinity Ward want it to be more like a console experience, and also allow themselves to maintain more control over the online side of the PC game? Thanks, but no thanks. I have a PS3, if I wanted to have a console experience for MW2 then I would purchase the game for that console. When it comes to First Person Shooter games, however, I still much prefer the more refined experience offered by the PC. As much as I enjoyed Killzone 2 recently on the PS3, nothing really compares to the precise mouse control that you can get on the PC.

In regards to the second controversy, about the terrorist airport subplot, I'm definitely on Infinity Ward's side over this one. Infinity Ward are one of the most effective developers when it comes to creating games that really immerse you in the experience. Going right back to the first Call Of Duty, I have regularly found their games to be psychologically traumatic experiences. They have never shied away from presenting the utter brutality of war, while also maintaining a perfect balance between fun gameplay and intense scenarios.

Infinity Ward have said that:

"The scene is designed to evoke the atrocities of terrorism".

If they manage to put as much thought into this scenario as they do all of their others, then I'm sure that the scene will achieve its intended purpose.

They have also said:

"At the beginning of the game, players encounter a mandatory "checkpoint" in which they are warned that an upcoming segment may contain disturbing elements and they can choose not to engage in the gameplay that involves this scene."

So, they're giving players the option to skip this scene. Surely this type of socially and morally responsible action by Infinity Ward should allay any fears that media watchdogs might have about the scenario? Umm, no. Jane Roberts, president of the Australian Council on Children and the Media, now wants the game to reassessed by the Classification Board. As the game is already MA15+, the maximum rating allowed under the Draconian Australian game classification system, then if she was successful this would mean the game would be "RC", or refused classification, essentially banning it from sale in Australia.

Now, to anyone who follows the Australian gaming scene this should really come as no surprise. I'm not going to go into too much detail, but if you want to read my thoughts on the classification system in that country then read this:

http://gamertron5000.blogspot.com/2008/10/refused-classification.html

I wrote that when I was living in Australia last year, and unfortunately a year later the situation is no different than it was then.

Hopefully this will all just turn out to be a storm in a teacup, and the game will still be released in Australia unedited. But going on how the Classification board has forced other developers - such as Bethesda, Valve etc - to compromise their artistic vision when it comes to their games, I wouldn't really be suprised if the same thing happens to Infinity Ward.

In the end, will any of this really hurt the success of the game overall? No chance. Modern Warfare 2 is set to be the biggest product launch ever, of any type of media. That's a pretty amazing thing, and if any developer deserves it it is Infinity Ward. But, you know, how about giving us PC gamers dedicated server support and modding tools? No? Really? Oh well, you can't blame me for trying.

Braid: Closure

Yes! I just finished Braid. I had half a dozen puzzle pieces left in World Six, and last time I played I got pretty angry and just couldn't see the solution. But, coming back to the game now after a bit of a break, the final pieces all just fell into place. It's such a satisfying feeling. It's even more satisfying that I didn't use a walkthrough at any point, although there were a couple of times when I was tearing my hair out and felt close to cracking.

What a truly clever game. I'm not going to get into the whole "Can it be considered art?" side of things, although this game certainly does push the boundaries of what would be considered a standard game narrative into something a lot more deep and filled with metaphor. Take away all that story and subtext of the game - which I'm sure a fair few people don't really pay much attention to, anyway - and you've still got a fantastically crafted piece of gaming.

Whether or not Jonathan Blow tries to push the narrative and artistic boundaries with his next game - which, let's be honest, he probably will - as long as he creates another game that simply makes me feel joy to be playing it like Braid did, then I'll be more than satisfied.

Gaming Milestones

In my previous post, I wrote about how Gina bought me a PS3 as a gift when we got engaged. This got me to thinking about how I associate certain events or periods in my life with a particular video game or game system, and vice-versa. Here are some that I have come up with after pondering the subject for a while:

Commodore 64
When I think of my brother Bruce, who is considerably older than me, I can't help but flash back to when I was probably only about 7 years old and he would let me play on his Commodore 64. I have such fond memories of playing games such as Archon, Gremlins, Summer Games, World Games, and many more.

Amiga 500
Eventually my brother reached working age and got a job, and not long after that he upgraded to an Amiga 500. This lead to a fairly lengthy period when I would sneak into his room while he was at work and load up game after game to play. I clearly recall one of my favourites was BMX Simulator, even though it was very difficult to control and I normally couldn't even get past the first track.

Nintendo Entertainment System ( NES )
I got an NES when I was 8 or 9 years old, as a Birthday gift from my mum and dad as I recall. When I think of this system, the main image that pops into my head is of my young self sitting cross-legged in front of our massive old school Philips TV, on our red and gold patterned axminster carpet in the living room. I would sit there entranced, playing through Super Mario Bros. 2, or the forgotten gem Skate or Die. I remember that I wouldn't realise that my legs were going to sleep under me, and would get a nasty surprise when I tried to stand up.

Sega Megadrive ( Genesis )
My very generous parents bought me a Megadrive when I was 11 years old, if I recall correctly. I have so many fond memories of this machine, they are too numerous to count. But sticking with the theme of the post, this machine played a role at a milestone in my life. I recall taking it over to my friend Jason's house for my very last sleep over before I got to the age when you just didn't do sleep overs any more. We had a blast playing Sonic 2 until late at night, hoping like hell that the rapidly failing power adaptor didn't decide to cut out like it used to quite often. I would have to bend the cable tightly where it connected to the adaptor in order for it to actually work.

Half Life
This game was my first real introduction to the FPS genre ( I'm not counting Corporation on the Megadrive due to the rather limited amount of movement that the game allows you ).


This game marked the beginning of my hunger to make my PC as powerful as I possibly could. I had purchased my first PC, a massively overpriced pre-built PC from Smith's City, with the aid of my friend Brent who was a bit of a computer geek. This was at the turning point when PCI was being replaced by AGP as the standard for GPU expansion slots, and I was under the impression that my machine had an AGP expansion slot. Turns out it didn't, so I had to hunt around before eventually finding a PCI graphics card that would suit so that I could play Half Life in all of it's 3D glory. The card was a Geforce 4 TI4600, and it totally rocked. Since then, I have constantly tried to keep at least reasonably up to date with my PC technology so that I can play games at a high enough resolution to satisfy my graphics whore cravings.

EverQuest


When I think of my first girlfriend, the game that defines my period with her is definitely Everquest. This game was my second venture into the world of MMORPGs ( after Ultima Online, which never really captured my attention ). For the majority of the time that we were going out, I was playing EverQuest. When I wasn't with her, or at the Hagley Theatre Company where I was studying at the time, then chances are I was at home hunched in front of the computer playing EverQuest. In fact, my love of EverQuest long outlasted my relationship with her. That damn game was just so hard to leave...

Final Fantasy VII
This game, along with being the first game to really open my eyes to the wonders of RPGs, also gave me a common point of interest with my second girlfriend. She loved the game also, and for a Birthday present for her I went to the trouble of ordering in the Final Fantasy VII orchestral soundtrack from Amazon.

Final Fantasy X

Fast forward a while, and this game also played a part during a time in my life related to the same girl mentioned above. She had just broken up with me, and I can honestly say that it is the only time in my life when I have had my heart broken. It fucking hurt. It may sound ridiculous, but Final Fantasy X got me through the few months that it took to recover from the break-up. It allowed me to take my mind off the whole situation. As well as being a truly fine game, It will always hold a special place in my heart for helping me through this period.

Nintendo Gamecube and the Resident Evil remake
I remember purcasing a Gamecube, along with Resident Evil, before heading over to hang out with my girlfriend at the time. My mind totally wasn't on her, I kept thinking about the little purple cube and was longing to go home and set it up and get playing. She totally picked up on this, and it wasn't long before I made my excuses to head off so that I could rush home. Kind of sad, really, but looking back at that relationship, the Gamecube and I were a hell of a lot more suited to each other than she and I were...

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City
This game makes me think of living in my first flat. I was flatting with my friend Abbie, and her friend Mark - who was a bit of a douche - but like me he had a PS2 which meant that we shared games. I spent many nights playing his copy of Vice City in front of the TV trying to pull off stunt jumps and mowing down Haitian gangsters while listening to the hits of the 90s. Ahh, good times.

Gameboy Advance SP
This console was my saviour while living overseas, in Edinburgh, Scotland. By this point I had been away from home for about six months. This meant that I had been without video games for six long months. Now, I have been playing video games since I was about six or seven years old. Six months is the longest I have ever gone without video games. I had to get something to play, and my living situation at the time meant that I couldn't get a console to plug into a TV due to not having easy access to a TV. The Gameboy Advance was the perfect solution. I spent many hours, shut away in my little box room, playing Harvest Moon: Friends Of Mineral Town. Being away from my friends and family could get pretty depressing, but that little silver palm sized machine kept my spirits up.


Okay, this post is far too long and rambly so let's just say that this brings me up to the PS3, and associating it with my engagement to Gina.

Wow, that kind of got all over the show. That's what happens when you turn 30, you start to ramble.

PS3

So, some news: I got engaged to my beautiful girl, which totally kicks ass! While this, in and of itself, is totally fantastic, I also got a bit of a bonus out of it too. She felt a bit of engagement ring guilt - not that it was insanely expensive or anything, but it still set me back a few bob - so to assuage that guilt she bought me a new PS3 Slim! Best. Fiance. Ever.

Not that it was a totally selfless act, seeing as she also purchased Guitar Hero World Tour which she's been wanting to play for ages. We've both been having a lot of fun playing it, me on the guitar and her on the drums. It took a while for my fingers to listen to what my eyes and brain were trying to tell them, but I'm now at the point where I can play most songs on Hard. Expert still destroys me, however. Favourite song to play? Hotel California.

She also grabbed Killzone 2 as part of a preorder deal. I blitzed through that in a few weeks, I really enjoyed it. It's the first console FPS I've played, and being a long time PC FPS player it took me a while to get the hang of the dual analogue control. As a game, there was nothing particularly innovative or original about it. It pretty much ticked all of the standard FPS boxes, but the sheer amount of polish and fine tuning that the game displayed was incredible. It really goes to show what a studio can do when they have the backing of the console parent company, and money and time is no obstacle.

I also picked up The Ultimate Megadrive Collection second hand from EB. I haven't delved too much into it yet, but it's been fun to have a quick bash on the Sonic games. I also played through Comix Zone, which I had never played before. It was charmingly repetitive and straightforward, as a lot of retro games can be, but it showed a lot of artistry and some new ideas. Thank God that the collection allows you to save at any point, though, as otherwise I would have had no chance completing it. All these new games with their multiple save points and quick saves has made me soft, I tell you!

The high point of my PS3 experience so far, however, has been Uncharted: Drake's Fortune. I picked this up a couple of weeks ago, and I finished it a few days ago. The fact that as soon as the end credits finished rolling, I went straight back to the menu and started up a new game on Hard should tell you how much I enjoyed the game. The game is just so much fun! The whole package just appeals to my sensibilities. Amazing, lush graphics? Check. Classic rollercoaster ride adventure story? Check. Genuinely good dialogue and cutscenes? Check. Very nearly perfect controls? Check. A whole bunch of other awesome things? Check. The only thing I didn't really like about it was the "zombie" sections near the end of the game. After 16 or 17 chapters of playing against reasonably intelligent human AI enemies, to all of a sudden be pitted against typical "run at the player blindly" enemies felt a bit disappointing. I tolerated these sections rather than enjoyed them.

Based on my new found love of Uncharted, needless to say I am totally amped about Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. I've been playing the multiplayer beta, and it's fantastic. I didn't want to commit too much time to the beta though, as any rewards and stats you've built up don't carry over to the full game.

In summary, the PS3 is like a magical black box of wonder and joy filled with electronic lollies and sparkles that I consume with my heart.

FFXII emulator pics

It's been a while. Since I last updated I have moved back to New Zealand, set myself up in a new city ( Wellington, to be precise ), and have been furiously job hunting in the middle of a recession. So, all these things have been taking up most of my time.

This is going to be a quick post, really just a response to my friend Tom's request to see photos of Final Fantasy XII playing in 1920 x 1200 resolution on the PCSX2 emulator. Here they are!:

I've tried to post pics that actually show what the bump in resolution can do to bring the awesome detail of this game out.

Emulation

Recently I've been playing around with PCSX2, a Playstation 2 emulator. It's really a neat little program. The Ps2 was notorious back in the day for being difficult to program for due to its complex architecture, so the amount of work that must have gone in to make this emulator even remotely functional must have been immense. It's not perfect by any means, however. There are often little graphical and sound glitches while playing, and you can't just play any game you like on it ( yet ).

According to the website, there are 830 games out of 1912 that are playable on the emulator. Luckily, one of these games is Final Fantasy XII. I never got very far into FFXII when I owned a PS2, despite that fact that it's a great game. But thanks to PCSX2 I'm already a few hours into a new game of it. Another bonus of the emulator is being able to play games in high resolutions with texture filtering and anti-aliasing. I'm playing FFXII at a resolution of 1920 x 1200, as opposed to the PS2's native resolution of 640 x 400. It looks incredible! Seriously, the graphics are so sharp and detailed, with absolutely no aliasing.

Oh, and I'm playing this legally, by the way. I'm using an ISO of FFXII that I ripped myself from my own copy of the game. Legal emulation FTW!

F.E.A.R 2 Demo

I just played the demo on PC. Impressions? Mmmmmmokay. Lots of cheap scares, a few of which actually got to me, but once I "broke" one of the scares by accidentally standing where Alma ( the scary Japanese horror movie-esque little girl of the game ) was supposed to appear, causing her to clip right through me and spin around wildy beneath me, she kind of lost her power to scare.

The gunplay is as fun as ever, and basically hasn't changed at all from the first game. The enemy A.I seems pretty smart also, but during the short run of the demo they don't really have much of an opportunity to impress. One of the new additions to the game is the ability to push over objects to create cover for you to duck behind, but I must admit I didn't actually use it at all during combat.

The demo ends with a very fun sequence where you hop into some power armour and literally explode enemies with your huge guns and missiles. I get the feeling the demo was created specially and isn't representative of the actual flow of the game, because it would be strange to reward players that early with such a huge weapon. Monolith also did the same thing with the demo for the first F.E.A.R, basically giving you a sampling of various sections of the game all tied together specifically for the demo.

Overall, the demo is not too bad and definitely worth a quick playthrough. I'll be buying the game when it's released, as the orignal game is one of my favourite FPS's ( despite it's repetitive middle section ).

2008 GamerTron Retrospecticus 5000

As promised, here's my recap of 2008 in video gaming. I have decided to do it in bullet point style, because I am lazy. Stream of consciousness, here we go!

- Finally reaching rank 55, Commander, in Call of Duty 4 on the PC. It only took me about 35 hours over the space of a year...
- Sitting down and slogging through the remaining few levels of Gears Of War, and Rainbow Six: Vegas over the space of a couple of days. I hated them both by the end, particularly GOW.
- Settling with getting about 25 frames per second average on Crysis on medium detail. The game itself only took about 12 hours to complete, with the last few hours of them being particularly boring.
- Being incredibly addicted to ChronoTrigger on my SNES emulator for about a week, and then losing interest.
- Finally getting Fahrenheit to work on Vista, and then losing interest.
- Completing Syberia after playing it off an on for over a year.
- Being completely blown away by the sheer awesomeness of Mass Effect. Game of the year for me.
- Being completely underwhelmed by Assassin's Creed. Pretty graphics and amazing technology can only mask shallow gameplay for so long.
- Playing both EverQuest II, and Vanguard: Saga of Heroes briefly. Neither managed to hold my interest. My search for a decent MMORPG goes on.
- Completing Myst V: End of Ages, thereby finally completing the entire Myst saga. It really is one of my favourite gaming series of all time.
- Upgrading my computer a couple of times, thanks to the relative cheapness of components in Australia. Mmmmm, 4GB of Ram and GTX 260 video card.
- Being horrendously addicted to TrackMania for a couple of weeks.
- The slight disappointment of S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Clear Sky. Not enough spooky underground bits like in the first game!
- Playing and falling in love with Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis on my SCUMMVM.
- Experiencing the brilliant online joy of Left 4 Dead.
- Being frustrated at living in a country that doesn't have an R18 rating for video games.
- Finally finding Beyond Good and Evil for sale on PC. I downloaded it through Steam.
- Buying a Wii. The initial excitement wore off long ago, and to be honest I haven't even played it for the last few months, but I still think it's a cool little machine.

Okay, that's about it. I can't think of too much more. I'm already in the process of creating some shiny new 2009 memories. Huzzah!

Yay for 2009! Yay for Games!

Seeing as I haven't updated for a while, I was planning to do a 2008 Gaming Retrospective type of post. I will get around to that eventually, but in the meantime here is what I'm playing at the moment:

Grand Theft Auto IV:

This is one hell of a game! I'm playing it on the PC, and other than a truly buggy and terrible launch, I've been really enjoying it. When it was first released on PC, the were a long list of technical problems surrounding the game, unoptimised performance being the main complaint. I've got a pretty powerful computer ( E6600 Dual Core Processor, 4GB Ram, GTX 260 Video Card ) and I was getting about 20 frames per second on medium settings. Luckily a patch was released pretty quickly which improved the performance, and also Nvidia released a new beta driver which helped. Now on slightly above medium settings I'm getting a steady 30 fps.

Anyway, enough about the technical crap, and more about the game itself! I knew the game was going to be impressive, but it really is quite astounding just how in depth and absorbing the whole thing is. I'm only about 30 percent of the way through, but so far I've found the story to be really interesting. The action is tight, and apart from getting stuck on the wrong side of objects occasionally when trying to duck behind cover, the combat system is a lot of fun. The driving physics are really fantastic, and I've had a great time just driving around and trying to pull of jumps and stunts.

A great bonus on the PC version is the inclusion of a video editor. At any time during the game you can just hit F2, and it records roughly the last 30-60 seconds of action that happened in the game. GTA has been crying out for a feature like this. The open world, sandbox nature of the games give rise to some truly unique and incredible moments, and now having the ability to record these moments for posterity is awesome. The editor itself is very user friendly, and I've already put together a handful of videos documenting my exploits, here.

The multiplayer is also a hell of a lot of fun. The only problem I've really encountered is that it's hard to find a decent game with enough people playing. Hopefully that will pick up as more people get over their fear of the initial technical hiccups and purchase the game.

Overall, GTAIV is one of the finest games I've played in recent memory. And I've still got so much of the game to get through!

Dead Space:

I just picked this one up a few days ago from EB for half price. I've already clocked up about 5 hours on the game, and they've been a pretty tense, harrowing 5 hours. The game really is incredibly unoriginal, and is derivative of a handful of other games
( Bioshock, System Shock 2, Resident Evil 4 etc ), but it takes the best elements of those games and polishes them up to a shiny, shiny sheen.

Technically, the game is very impressive. The overall graphical presentation is spot on, and really keeps your eyes glued to the screen. The lighting in particular is very effective, with the crisp, accurate shadows really giving you the creeps sometimes. The sound is brilliant, and I really wish I had my 5.1 setup here in Australia ( I left my 5.1 speakers back in NZ ), as the sound is such a huge part of the game. The music is subtle and fits the mood of the game well, but it's the sound effects that really take the cake. They...are...amazing! The creaks and groans of the ship, the screeches of the Necromorphs, the almost imperceptible whispering coming from the walls of the ship itself. They all add up to a truly terrifying sound scape.

I've completed four of the games chapters so far. I think there's about a dozen, so I've got quite a lot more scary space action until I'm done. That's okay by me, because so far I'm really enjoying it.

Okay, that's about it for now. I'll get around to doing a retrospective soon...hopefully.