Monday 20 October 2008

Thirty but done dirty

Took my GamerScore past the thirty thousand threshold recently. Not a huge number compared to a lot of players out there but adding a further 10k is a particularly pleasing amount nevertheless. Just a pity it was the Sega shambles IronMan that helped me do it. Further proof that a successful franchise from one medium becomes a inept crock when adapted to another. Very easy achievements though. Not Avatar easy as some skill was required. No matter how desperate I might become for a boost you'll not see Avatar on my played games list!
October 24th
Decisions, decisions. Too many good games coming out. What do I buy first? What game is going to deliver the goods? Can't trust reviews. Even well established sources for trustworthy opinions are looking a little conspiratorial. Right now it looks like Dead Space is going to grab my readies this Friday. It's exactly what I want to play after months of PiƱatas, ATVs and gender confused RPG dandies. A bit of dismemberment in a zero-g environment is just what the doctor ordered! Then I'll always take a gun over a sword which puts Far Cry 2 next on the list and Fallout the following week. Imagine how much carnage and murder will ensue during the course of those three games? I'll be a fully trained psychopathic killer after that lot if the Daily Mail is to be believed.

Sunday 5 October 2008

Pure Class

You hear the word Disney and you'd be forgiven for thinking mice, ballerina's or high school dorks. So who would have thought that they could put out a top quality racer called Pure to rave reviews and kudos from the hardcore gamers out there? With many a nod to the Burnout school of presentation you can spot the crowd that Blackrock were aiming for. The races take plenty of concentration as you need to bust out tricks as well as find the optimum route if you want to place first. You'll be punished hard for just one error. I've already had a few 'moments' with the controller when I've tried for one trick too many and faceplanted into the dirt, dropping 10 places in the process. All good stuff really. Except the boxart. Bloody awful orange mess.
To Err is only Human
I always check the visitors ip's on really busy days to see who and why people visit my blog. About 40% come from a Google image search. Some of the search strings are classic. And yes, they are all porn related you filthy bunch of pigs. The others are either regulars or people searching for something Harrod related. I share the same name as some dude in Florida who donates large sums to the Republican party. Since I don't live there or donate money to the yeehaw war machine then it's not me they are looking for. I got one visit last week from someone at Silicon Knights. They probably employ someone just to trawl the web looking for commentary on their products. I don't envy that guy. In the event that they return after picking up this post I thought I'd mention three little things that got on my goat when playing TH. Not the most urgent of problems I'll warrant but they sure got annoying when you go for the last few achievements. Here goes:
1 - Faces. Awful! They all looked like accountants. Baldur is the spitting image of a school teacher that lives two doors down from me, not exactly the face I had in mind for a Norse god. The human soldiers all shared the same mug with a big conk and dumb expression slapped across it. Looking at them made the cutscenes unbearable.
2 - Charms. These are not fun. Diablo made item checking quick and painless. Too Human makes it a chore. You're in the menu literally every minute checking loot and charm progress. Gameplay becomes a stop-start affair as you race to the inventory after each battle to scroll through endless stats in the hope that you can improve your kit. One particular lvl 3 charm wanted me to slaughter 16,000 enemies. That's fun, thanks for that one Dennis.
3 - Sprint button. You're a god so is it too much to ask that on occasion you can run a little faster? When you're trekking through the endless corridors for the twentieth time you are literally begging for him to up the pace and move his fat, norse arse a little quicker.