Well i’ve managed to get a few hours in on quickplay now, and i have to say it’s been a blast. I’m not the biggest beatles fan, but the nature of the music really lends itself to having fun and enjoying yourself. Only bad thing so far is the lack of a mic stand meaning neither of us can guitar / drum and sing at the same time. It definitely seems easier, even the very hard tracks we were getting through on expert first time, whereas on rockband we’re still on the High hard End in most cases, but i don’t think thats a bad thing really. It’s nice to be playing on the hardest setting and getting somewhere.

Favorite tracks so far: Hard days night, Hey Bulldog & Here comes the sun.

Anniedele is a away this weekend, so the intention is to play lots of games she doesn’t like, although i might end up doing a quick stint on Beatles: Rock band…. I really did enjoy it and want to try and get better. Playing the drums, i always imagine it really had to concentrate when all the banging i’m doing is all off beat and crappy, so i want to be good when i’m doing it!

Oh, i also finally got round to catching up with the re-launch of My Take Radio – the host rich is just a really charismatic and entertaining Guy, i really enjoy his no bullshit style. It’s mainly talking about movies, games and MMA / Wrestling, and it’s well worth an hour of anyones time who likes that sort of stuff.

Eurogamer: Sweating like a LAN Party

MrB (In Relation to Watchmen): Big blue nob on blu ray…the only thing about the film I’m not looking forward to. There’s far to much of Dr Manhattan’s sausage.

Well left 4 dead seems to have finally come into its own these last few weeks. Most of my regular gaming friends have it at this point in time, leaving me playing it on a very regular basis in Vs mode. I’m not the best, but its damn good fun, we’ve had some close battles and some absolute walkovers, but generally met some decent enough folks who are talky and competent when playing. You can usually tell if someone is gonna be any use to you on L4D quite quickly – I’ve yet to meet anyone who I’ve enjoyed playing with who hasn’t been on a headset.

Outside of this, I’ve been attending weddings and buying many XBLA Games to play, it’s been a bit thin Retail wise, although that’s soon to change with the impending arrival of rockband Beatles and ODST.

Oh, and I’ve got a serious case of warhammer relapse, and am now In the process of avoiding painting a rather large Bretonnian army. It’s amazing how useful having no money when I was 16 must have been, as buying everything new meant I could only typically get a couple of squads every few months, leaving me with plenty of time to paint. Now, I can splurge 50 quid on eBay and have a pretty decent sized army, problem is now overcoming that plastic mountain in the corner of my room. I’ve also picked up a blood bowl team of Lizardmen, which are mostly painted up and awaiting basing, although I’ve only played a game and a half with them thus far, it’s been excellent fun, although it’s really quite tough getting my head around everything.

I’m hoping to have a big painting push throughout September so I’ll have something to game with come the end of the month, I’d like to get actually playing as early as possible to keep interest going. I’m also on the verge of getting LLcoolJo over to play some more resident evil with me, he’s finally got some Saturdays off now :)

Inspired by this set of articles:
Simon Parkin – Gaming Made Me/

I suppose there’s a few defining moments:

My 8th Birthday, Finding a nes hidden under my parents bed was what birthed me into a life of video games for sure. Mario, Duck hunt, MacDonald land and yoshis cookie were played plenty, but I don’t think I really appreciated games until I was about 10 and my brother was old enough to play. Passing the pad on his megadrive through sonic, the lion king and Rock’n'Roll racing was a joy I can really recall from my early childhood, oblivious to anything happening in the rest of the house. This sort of faded over time as the megadrive became older and we didn’t have the latest kit (The Purchase of a 32x was, in hindsight, a bit of a bad point)

Fast forwards to my brothers 13th Birthday (And a 16 year old me), and an N64 appeared in our house. Far past the launch of this console, it was Wrestlemania 2000 and Perfect dark that became a nightly obsession for us, as multiplayer gaming really came to the fore. A problematic Cart caused us issues when we upgraded to WWF/E No mercy, meaning we would loose saved progress at gradually shorter and shorter intervals, but we persevered, and were richly rewarded, eventually getting a fixed version. This era cumulated in the Day one purchase of Both the GBA and Gamecube, although the gamecube didn’t really usurp the N64 whilst I was still at home.

I’d say from that point on, I was all in, and have been ever since. Notably university and the availability of friends and time really helped to expand on my playing of games, and also the financial independence to not have to rely on birthdays and christmas to get new games. Smash brothers & Mario Kart Double Dash were very much a part of this, spending many many hours playing both until the small hours of the morning. Infact, some of the best memories i have were patiently waiting to play smash brothers on a huge TV after a social meeting of TolkSoc…

So in essence: Wrestling and Perft Dark Gave me the Taste; Smash Brothers and Mario Kart Hooked me in.

Been pretty busy watching the west wing this week – Got the whole lot for £50, thought it was money well spent.

On the games front, I Finally got my copy of the mother 3 Guide that was made by the folks over at Starmen.net, and it’s just incredible – Just like everything else they’ve put out regarding the release of the translation, it’s better quality than pretty much any guide bar the Crystal Chronicles one. Every page just screams love, and i really can’t thank them enough for showing me what real passion and support can mean.

GTA:Chinatown has been keeping me entertained, and it’s high quality keeps on coming at me like a wave of excellence. Eveything is fun. Hell i spent half an hour just doing scratch cards in it, and i never once stopped and realised what a stupid thing it was i was doing!

This weekend I finally decided to stump up the cash for Crystal Defenders on the basis that the extra points left over would cover the purchase of Peggle. I’ve played the demo’s to both of these several times now, and after seeing a bit more of crystal defenders when Lostintransit brought it over i knew i wanted to have a proper go.

I seem to be the only gamer on the planet that hasn’t already played peggle in one form or another, so i apologise for being a bit behind the curve on this one, but it’s just the most fantastic experience in terms of what you put in for what you get out. It feels so good when you get that lucky bounce, or when you manage to aim a shot *just* right so that you get a free ball. And the way the overture plays when you clear the last peg just makes me smile sooooo much. I’ve not quite finished the Adventure yet, although i did watch anniedele Polish it off in two sittings!

As for Crystal defenders, again I’m probably off the pace, because i think it’s the first tower defence game I’ve actually sat down and played. I skipped ninja town on my DS, mainly because i just had too much else to play at the time, and on this basis i probably regret that, as I’m really enjoying myself. I Haven’t ventured into W2 and it’s crystals as of yet, mainly sticking to W1 to get the basics down.

1) Tricky. Getting rid of the cops is really difficult so far. The ability to get rid of your rating by smashing up cop cars sounds like it’ll be fun in the long run, but at the moment it’s been hard to judge when you can smack them and it’s fast enough to actually take them out. More often than not, in a chase I’m left with a burning car that I can get out of, but as soon as I try to get into another the police pull me out and arrest me – mission failed

2) Technically incredible. It really does have a nice vibe, and it’s very impressive for a DS game. The scale is there, the layout seems very similar to the 360 version, to the point that I sort of know where I am at a given moment. The main tricky thing is that you can’t change the scale on the minimap, which would be handy for getting your bearings in a pinch.

3) Fun. I Spent 3 hours playing it last night, all of them with a grin on my face, even when things were getting frustrating with the first drugs bust!

I haven’t played fallout 3 in little over a month, beforehand I think I played it at least every other day for about a month and a half. I think somewhere in that initial play, I must have hit a point where it turned into a bit of a grind and not really realised it because it sort of crept up on me. Going back to it the other day felt a little on the monotonous side. The fact I’ve been level 20 for a while now, and essentially have no problems with supplies due to earlier hoarding has meant that I’m essentially trekking around buildings that all look and feel similar for the few interesting bits about them, whether it be a tiny bit of narrative or a rare / unique item. I Happened to be somewhere that was exclusively filled with super mutants, which are a pretty easy kill for me without even trying, which probably didn’t help. Maybe because the time away has left me doing more fast paced and colourful things, going back was just a bit of a shock, but it really didn’t grab me In the way it had previously. I think the time’s right to really hit the story hard and get through to the other side, I don’t think that there’s much left in the wasteland wandering for me at the moment…

As can be seen by the careful illustration above, there’ a difference between what I expected the Xbox Live Vision Camera to do, and what it actually does. Namely, the one thing I thought it would be handy for, Videochat over MSN, it cannot do. It can only video chat with other Xboxes, of which I know not a single other person who owns one. Luckily, it can also work as a standalone webcam, and for 10 quid I can’t really complain, but it has dashed my hopes of being able to video chat with anniedele from the comfort of my front room whilst she’s in Austin, instead relying on the desktop in the cupboard Study, plus the need to get hold of a microphone rather than just using the Xbox Headset.

The good things about the cam:

I try to make a point of playing demo’s, because they’re free, and it makes sense to try a game i wouldn’t usually by playing it rather than reading reviews. This has led me to trying both of the above, and i have to say that wheelman looks like being nothing but Dumb fun, and I’m quite impressed by it. It’s definitely put itself on my radar, It looks like a perfect mission style game to pick up once I’m done with skate and GTA:TLATD.

Halo wars however, couldn’t sway me. It’s clearly a very polished game, but I just can’t find enjoyment in that sort of game, full stop. Sorry….