A completely non-gaming update

A new update so soon after the last one is surely a record for me in recent months. For once though it’s not gaming related at all, so if you’re here for that, you may as well click your Back button now

Back in August 2006, my girlfriend Lynne and I went to Disney World in Florida. It was a wonderful 2 weeks, with the odd problem here and there (more on that later). One particular highlight of the holiday was when we went to Discovery Cove to swim with dolphins, and I asked Lynne to marry me. Being a woman of intelligence and fine taste (can you tell she reads this?), she of course said yes. Ever since then, we always wanted to go back, but buying a house and saving up for a wedding had to take priority (we planned to pay for the wedding ourselves), so we knew it would likely take us 5 years or so before we could get back there.

Things changed recently when I went to see my dad. He told me that he was going to give me some money towards the wedding. Then Lynne’s mum said the same thing. Then her dad said the same thing as well! So we quickly went from saving for the wedding ourselves, to having enough money for it from parents. This meant that, if we continued to save hard, we could put the wedding money to use for a great honeymoon instead. After about 30 seconds of discussion, we decided we should go back to Disney. It seemed fitting really. We got engaged there, so we can enjoy our honeymoon there.

Of course, it now means we have to wait 13 months till we go. 13 months and 1 day to be exact. It’s sad that I know that in 13 months and 1 day, we’ll be somewhere over the Atlantic, about 4 hours into the flight. It’s an indication of how excited I am already. Strangely, I think I’m more excited now than I was before we left last time. This will be my 2nd trip to Disney with Lynne, and my 3rd overall. I was hugely excited the 1st time, as it was my first time abroad, first time on a plane, first time to America, and so on.  I remember having real trouble sleeping the night before as I was so excited. I also remember enjoying the holiday immensely, though it wasn’t perfect, and that’s something that stuck with me. I’m sure that having a “perfect” holiday is impossible, but I think when you go to a place like Disney/Florida, with all the expense that it entails, you should be able to come home with no regrets. Both times I’ve been, I’ve not been able to really say that, for different reasons. The first time I went (with an ex and her parents), I regretted not doing as many rides as I would have liked. I have never really been a huge coaster fan, but I think you can’t go to a place like Florida and it’s theme parks and not go on them. Unfortunately, the girl I first went with wasn’t a coaster fan either, so we missed out on a lot of things I really would have liked, if only I’d pushed myself to go on them on my own.

The 2nd time was different though. I was less excited about the trip, simply because I was more used to going abroad then. I knew things would be familiar to me, but sharing it with someone who’d never been before would make everything seem newer to me. Lynne is more adventurous than my ex as well, so I knew we’d go on more rides this time (which we did). What spoiled it for us (albeit only a little bit) was when we went swimming with dolphins. You’re told not to put suncream on as most can be harmful to the animals there. When we got there and were given the safe cream to use, I forgot to put mine on, and Lynne only did the front of her arms. As we were in the water for hours there (though the dolphin side of it was only 30 mins long), we ended up with completely major sunburn, with me having the worst of it. My shoulders and back of my arms were burnt to the point of blistering, and it made sleeping properly impossible for me (Lynne wasn’t so bad and could sleep). We ended up staying in and around the hotel the next day to minimise our time in the sun, as even through t-shirts we could feel our shoulders melting. When we went to Sea World the day after that, it was agony sitting down to watch the shows as there was very little shade. It didn’t really ruin the holiday for us, but it put a damper on the last 4 days and meant we couldn’t do quite as much as we wanted.

This time will be different though. Even though we’ve both been and know what’s there, we’re already hugely excited about it. I think knowing what’s there will mean we can plan our holiday even better than before. We know what rides and shows can be missed, and we know what we absolutely have to see again (like Cirque Du Soliel in Downtown Disney). We’ll have more time to do other things as well now as we’ll be able to do the Disney parks quicker. We’ll definitely be going back to Universal Studios and Sea World. We’ll be going to Busch Gardens this time as well, a park that looks great fun with all the coasters it’s got. And we should still have plenty of time to go shopping, to relax around the hotel (the Dolphin Hotel, I forgot to mention that), to play on the 4 miniature golf courses, and to just enjoy being in my favourite place to be. Now all we need is for the next 13 months to hurry up and go so we can get on holiday!

I hope you’re sitting down, it’s a new update!

Damn I suck at updating this. If it wasn’t for people like Nokkon shouting at me for not updating it, I’d probably forget about this completely. Anyway, I’ve got a bit of quiet time here in work at the moment so I thought I’d put something together to stop Nokkon fro shouting at me more :p

So, what have I been up to since February? To be honest, I found it hard to remember, so I had to pull up my Xbox Live achievement list so I could see. This year is just racing by! Anyway, I think the biggest thing that happened, in terms of my happiness about it, was that I finally managed to finish Guitar Hero 3’s Hard career. As I said in my previous update, Lou was kicking my ass. No matter what I tried, he would always beat me. I’d resigned myself to the fact that I simply wasn’t good enough, and I’d just play the game for fun. However, I picked it up one day after a month or so’s absence, and for some reason found myself playing better than ever. I decided to give Lou another try, and though I didn’t initially beat him, I managed to get him closer to death than ever before, twice in a row. It finally gave me the confidence that I could do it. A few days later I popped home for my lunch, and on my 2nd attempt, managed to beat the sonofabitch! I was so happy I shouted obscenities at my TV. I don’t think an achievement has ever made me so happy!

The main game to come out between now and my last update is of course GTA 4, and of course, I got it. I tried not to get too caught up in the hype, but unfortunately in the last week or so it got me. I was soooooo looking forward to it. Like most people, after playing it for a while I was left to answer the question of whether it met the hype or not. I have to say that it didn’t, not completely anyway. I don’t think any game could be as good as people were hoping, but GTA does so many things right. The combat system is hugely improved over previous games, despite the quirks of the cover system. Hand to hand fighting is not my favourite, but again I can see improvements there. Driving is more realistic now and I’m still undecided on where I stand on that. I do like the way the cars handle, but GTA games have always been slightly over the top and the unrealistic handling was a part of that. Still, now GTA has gone more “real-world” I think the driving fits in nicely. I’m not a huge fan of the activities in the game. They’ve replaced the micromanagement of your body in San Andreas with the micromanagement of your friendships in GTA 4, and to be honest I’d rather be looking after my body as at least then I saw some tangible benefits from it with more stamina and speed. Again, it fits with the real-world feel, but we all know the real-world isn’t always fun. Despite those criticisms though, I thought it was a great game. The storyline was the best in any GTA game so far, and the characters and character relationships were far more detailed. Niko is easily the best protagonist of the series. He has a charm and personality you can’t help but like, and you know that even though he is capable of these evil deeds, he’s only doing it because he has to, not becaue he wants to. I definitely felt a connection to him throughout the game, and that’s a new experience in a GTA game for me. Hopefully that’ll all continue with the now-delayed downloadable content when it arrives later this year/early next.

Another big release has been Rock Band, which I treated myself to along with the instrument pack. I’ve not a huge fan of the Fender guitar, it just doesn’t feel right for me so I’ve gone back to using the X-Plorer for the guitar careers. I completed the Hard career with no problems whatsoever, and got right through to the end song on Expert only failing once the entire time. Unfortunately, the final song, Green Grass and High Tide, has kicked my ass repeatedly. There are Green-Red-Yellow-Red-Green zig-zags repeatedly around 8 mins in and my fingers are just not fast enough to keep up with them. I desperately want to finish the song so I can finally say I’ve finished an Expert career on one music game, so I’ll be heading to the practise mode at some point to spend an hour or two in there, and hopefully get my fingers working quickly enough. Either that or I just need to get used to the Fender more as I can see it being so much easier with the solo buttons. The drums in Rock Band are excellent as well, though I’ve not spent much time on them yet. The first time I played them I grinned like a little boy at Christmas the entire time. They’re so much fun to play, but it’s not easy getting used to doing things with your foot as wel as your hands. I can just about manage some Medium level songs but I think I’ll be best going through it first on Easy to make sure I’ve got enough skills to get through Medium. Defintely enjoying it though, it’s great fun as a single player game, and even better with 2 or more players.

Now for what has been my most anticipated game this year - Ninja Gaiden 2. Most people who know my gaming habits know how much I loved the first game, to the point where I considered it to be the best game of all time. I’ve been eagerly awaiting the sequel since the day it was annouced, and last friday it finally arrived. I have to say, after beating the game, it’s equal parts better and worse than the original. The level design is slightly better here, so that the camera problems which are still there aren’t quite so apparant as you’re generally in more open spaces. The boss design isn’t quite so good, with some bosses having attacks which are either impossible to block or just damn near impossible to anticipate to get out of the way. I do love a challenge, but if the attacks are going to be definite damage if they hit, at least give me a split second warning so I can try to get out of the way. The range of enemies in this game is good, but I do miss some of the ones from the first game. Some in NG2 can be annoying but it was the same in the first one. The new weapons seem good, though I’ve not really played with them properly yet as I’m going for the weapon achievements on each run through (so only using one melee weapon in each game). Speaking of the achievements, they all look gettable, though finishing the game on Mentor (Very Hard) or Master Ninja (Expert) will take some doing I think. I reckon I can manage it with enough practise, but I wouldn’t expect it any time soon.

That’s about it on the played games front. I’m looking forward to Top Spin 3 and GH:Aerosmith, both due this month, but both will probably be rentals as I’m skint now. In none gaming news, I now have 2 adorable little kittens, Jake and Sam, who are 11 weeks old. They’re very cute and very affectionate, but both little troublemakers as well, chewing wires and what not. They also love jumping on my lap at the most inoppertune moments in a Ninja Gaiden session. Still, it’s hard to be mad at them when they jump on my chest, lick my nose and fall asleep purring.

Anyway, that’s all for now I think. See you again in a few months probably!

A new update, hurrah!

Well, that weekly achievement update lasted a long time didn’t it?! It’s been far too long since my last update, and as time dragged on I felt less inclined to do it. However, thanks to some bugging from Nokkon, I’ve finally decided to do one again.

So, what’s been going on since last time? Well, my repaired Xbox that I got back from MS decided to break again, 2 weeks before my birthday (24th November), which also marked a huge gaming release weekend (Guitar Hero 3 and Mass Effect among others).  While I sat and pondered the sad thought of being without my beautiful gaming box for that weekend, my wonderful girlfriend saw how sad I was, and said we could buy an Xbox 360 Elite! We’d always planned on having 2 consoles in the end (so she could kick me upstairs to play games when she wanted friends around), so it just kickstarted that a little early. I was a happy bunny! The Elite is a gorgeous looking console, much quieter and cooler than previous versions of the 360, and the 120GB HDD is the icing on the cake. I’ve still not got even close to filling it yet, but with the advent of the downloadable Xbox Originals there’s now more chance that I’ll do that soon enough.

Gaming wise, I think I’ve now played all the major releases from the end of last year, on the 360 at least. Mass Effect was brilliant, with a well thought out storyline and a good ending that closes the door on the current story nicely, while opening another one for the already announced sequels (it’s part of a trilogy).

Call of Duty 4 is the hit of the year for me, multiplayer wise at least. I’ve barely spent any time on the single player mode (so much so that I’m only about 3 levels in), but I’ve put at least 40 hours into the multiplayer side of things. It’s quite easily the best multiplayer game I’ve played, beating Gears of War into a bloody pulp. New multiplayer maps are due soon and I’m really looking forward to them.

Assassin’s Creed is one of the most beautiful looking games I’ve ever seen. The level of detail is incredible, and when I first rode on my horse and arrived at Acre, the camera panned backwards to show the whole city, and my jaw hit the floor. Simply stunning. It’s just a shame the gameplay is as repetitive as it is. The missions themselves are fine, but there should be more variation in the intel gathering missions  you are forced to do beforehand. I’m currently playing though it in small doses as I know I’ll get really bored of it if I try and power through it.

Guitar Hero 3 is simultaneously better and worse than the previous game. The song choice is good and there are some very good songs on there (Eric Johnson’s Cliffs of Dover being my personal favourite). The main problem though is the ramp in difficulty right at the end of the career mode. Now I think I’m a pretty decent GH player. I’ve finished GH2 on Hard, and got about 2 tiers from the end on Expert, but I simply can’t finish GH3 on Hard. I flew through the first 7 tiers with no problems at all, but the difficulty then jumps up to Expert level stuff. The songs themselves were hard enough, but with practise I managed to beat them. The main problem is the boss battle against Lou. No matter how many times I try it, I simply can’t beat him. It’s crap I know, I should be good enough to beat him, and it’s pissing me off. The worst thing is that I can’t even practise the song. I ended up just going ahead and starting the Expert career, hoping that by the time I hit a stumbling block (which I haven’t yet and I’m on tier 5 or 6), I’ll have improved enough to go back and beat Lou. I live in hope anyway.

Smackdown 2008 is a nice improvement to the series I feel. The new controls took a bit to get used to but once I did I found myself really enjoying it. The career mode has a number of improvements, as well as a few bad points as well, but overall I feel the series is moving in the right direction.

SceneIt LCA is a big hit for me. I’ve played it a good number of times now, with varying number of people amd it’s always been a great laugh. Good party games are few and far between on the 360 so one that everyone can enjoy is always welcomed.

Outside of gaming, I’ve moved into my new house with my girlfriend since the last update. Our 32″ LCD TV seemed much smaller in the living room in our new place, so we replaced it with a shiny 42″ LG LCD instead \o/ Games look much nicer on the screen now, and streaming HD media to the 360 from the PC is now great as everything looks crystal clear. Definitely worth the money we paid for it.

And that’s the update out of the way. Hopefully it won’t take another 6 months to update this again, and I’ll get the urge to ramble on about things soon

Weekly Achievement Update #1

Taking the idea from Haly and Nokkon, I’m going to try and do a weekly update of all the achievements I’ve got over the past week. I was going to do it yesterday but decided to enjoy the Bank Holiday instead. So, the following are the achievements for 20th-26th August.

NHL 2K7
Gamerscore: 435 of 1000
Points this week: 250
Achievements unlocked: 5
Total unlocked: 11 of 17

Bioshock
Gamerscore: 890 of 1000
Points this week: 890
Achievements unlocked: 47
Total unlocked: 47 of 50

Pretty much the only two games I’ve played this past week. NHL is fun but getting some of the achievements is time consuming, like playing through a franchise season. Even at 1 minute periods you’re looking at 5 minutes a match what with loading etc, and there’s 57 games to play in a franchise season. I’ll hopefully have all the achievements I want by the weekend (all the offline ones) so I can send it back to Swapgame and get something else. Bioshock has already been explained in previous posts. The final 3 achievements will definitely be mine over the next few weeks, I’m in no rush for them

Bioshock is my bitch….

…which can be translated as “I completed it this weekend”, and all I have to say is that I stand by my comments made in my last post. Bioshock is definitely a contender for Game of the Year. It has everything you could want - fantastic graphics, incredible sound, well designed maps, a thoughful and deep story (with a twist I didn’t see coming), all molded together in such a way as to make one of the most immersive games I’ve ever played. As much as I wanted to finish the game, I was almost sad to see it end. I just wanted it to carry on for another 25 hours or so. That was roughly how long it took me to complete it, and as thorough as I was going through each level, I still missed off two achievements I hoped to get - Historian (collect all the audio diaries) and Weapon Master (upgrade all the weapons). I’ll be waiting a couple of days for a full guide to the location of the audio diaries before going through it again on Hard, I can knock off the final 3 achievements then (the other is finishing the game on Hard).

In the mean time, I’ll be spending my time playing God of War 2 on the PS2. I’ve had hold of it for ages from Swapgame, but despite loving the original, I never really fancied playing it, even though my girlfriend loves watching me play it (which means I can play it in the evenings without her complaining). Last week I decided to finally give it a go, and was very thankful that I did. It’s everything the first game was, but even better with it. The action is top notch, with some very brutal and inventive kills against the various enemies and bosses. I’m about partway through it now, so by the time I’ve finished it, there should be a full guide up for Bioshock, which will be nice timing. Till then, I’m more than happy with God of War 2

And the current game of the year goes to….

Yes I’m sure you all know what game I’m going to mention, but I’ll come onto that in a bit while I do a bit of a brain dump.

From the start of the year I’ve had two games in my head for Game of the Year - one which I thought would win it, and one which I hoped would win it. The one which I think will win is quite obvious - Halo 3. Despite the fact I’ve never completed the first Halo, never played the 2nd one, and not followed the 3rd at all, I just can’t see any way this will be anything other than brilliant. It has to be. The Halo series is almost the Xbox’s defining game, and MS simply can’t allow it to come out and get poor scores. It’s one of those games that even if it does come out with the odd flaw (which it no doubt will have), the reviews will gloss over it and give it a good score. I don’t see it getting anything less than 9.x/10 on any of the major review sites, and I hope the scores are all deserved.

The one I hope will be ranked GotY is different though. I want this year’s best game to be Mass Effect. If I knew nothing else about the game, the fact it’s being made by Bioware would be enough for me to get excited about it. Baldur’s Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Knights of the Old Republic, Jade Empire - the list is exceptional. They’re one of the few developers out there who are instantly associated with classic games, and you just know whatever game they’re working on will be brilliant.

I loved Kotor in a big way, it was the first Star Wars based game I played which truly deserved to be part of that universe (the Jedi Knight games were very good, but not quite brilliant). The action, the characters, the storyline (with the single best twist in video game history), everything just fit perfectly into the Star Wars universe like it belonged to be there. The sequel (developed by Obsidian while Bioware were making Jade Empire) was also excellent, but didn’t quite match up to the original, despite the extra features and powers in it.

Jade Empire on the other hand, did something I didn’t think was possible - it was better than Kotor. The storyline, always the key feature in an RPG, was on a par with Kotor, though the twist wasn’t as good. The action however was much more involved, as instead of queuing up a series of commands, you were able to control your character, to move him around and choose which martial art styles to fight with. The whole game world was just immense, and immersive, and dragged you in. It was simply brilliant.

I will admit to loving console RPG’s though, more so than their PC equivalents. I can only think of one PC RPG off the top of my head that I’ve completed - Fallout (I would have completed the sequel had my save game not corrupted itself). I can however think of 6 instantly that I’ve completed on consoles over the years - Phantasy Star 4 on the Mega Drive; Shining: The Holy Ark on the Sega Saturn; Kotor 1 + 2 and Jade Empire on the Xbox; and Oblivion on the 360. You could also add in Baldur’s Gate 1 + 2, and Champions of Norrath, though I consider them more action games than RPGs. I’m sure there’s more I’m forgetting, but it’s too early in the day to strain myself trying to remember. I’m not sure what it is though that makes me prefer the console variants. Maybe it’s the comfort of chilling on the couch rather than being hunched over a PC desk. Maybe it’s using a controller which is generally easier than a PC and keyboard and multiple key combinations. I don’t know. All I do know is that Mass Effect is going to be exceptional. Bioware have got better every time, and from what I know of the game (which is actually fairly little, so I can find everything out myself when I play it), it’s looking like it could be a Game of the Year contender.

That does bring me back to my original point though, and the title of this post. As I’m sure you guessed, I am of course referring to none other than Bioshock. I hadn’t followed the game completely, but I knew a fair bit about it, and knew it was supposed to be excellent. It was only in recent weeks that I read more about it, and watched some gameplay videos, and the more I watched, the more I wanted. The demo was enough to seal the deal and make me pre-order it (the limited edition Steel Tin version), and thanks to those good folks at Gameplay (who I seem to mention a lot, they should pay me for pimping them), I received it a day early in the post.

I settled down to play it when I got home from work yesterday at around 3:30pm, and with breaks here and there for food, drinks and the occassional surf of the net, I stopped playing at 2:30am. Despite putting in probably 8 hours of solid gaming into it, I’m probably only 4 hours into the story. This is because the game is huge, and I’m a sucker for making sure I explore everywhere, see everything and listen to everything. People will no doubt go through the game a lot faster than me, but I simply can’t help checking everywhere to make sure I don’t miss a great item hidden in a corner somewhere. It’s a compulsion, I must have gaming OCD or something.

The world of Rapture in Bioshock is simple stunning. While it’s not quite as gorgeous as Gears of War, to call it anything other than a visual masterpiece is an insult (GoW simply set new standards in graphics others won’t reach for a while). The water effects are second to none, and I love the way that when you walk through water, a film of water covers your eyes and takes a second for the screen to clear up properly. It’s realistic and believable and just another way of drawing you in to this living, breathing world.

I love the Plasmids and Tonics in the game. While the effects of the Plasmids aren’t strictly unique, the way they’re handled are excellent. You’re limited to how many you can use at once (started at 2, working up to 6 as you go through the game), so there’s always a tactical consideration to be made about Plasmids (and to a lesser extent, Tonics) you install and use at once. Out of the 10 available I’ve used 6-7 of them so far, and while some of them are more useful than others (Lightning, Incinerate and Telekinesis being the best so far), all of them have their place and all are worth trying out. The Tonics are great too, giving you boosts to certain activities (such as hacking), or improving your physical attributes in one way or another. Like Plasmids you’re limited to how many you can use at once, but in doing so you can shape the way you play the game, which in turn makes it feel less linear than it is. On a side note, Telekinesis is just awesome. Catching grenades in midair and throwing them back into your attackers face is just plain cool. If you want to improve an action game, throw some telekinesis in there, I guarantee you the game will be better for it.

The Big Daddies are great as well. Lumbering and slow, they protect the Little Sisters who roam Rapture, and they’ll ignore you unless you provoke them. When you do provoke them (as you have to), they stop being lumbering and slow, and become very fast, very violent, very deadly opponents. Powerful enough to kill you with two quick hits, you’d better have a strategy worked out when you face them. Using Plasmids can give you an advantage here, though I won’t mention which ones, you can figure that out for yourself. There is a definite sense of achievement though when you finally put one down. I’ve killed 5 so far, but they’re all been hard, 2 of which have killed me. Thankfully though, in the wonderous world of Rapture, when you die you are simply regenerated in a nearby Vita-Chamber, with slightly less health and Eve (used to power Plasmids) than before. The good thing though, is that whatever damage done to your enemies will remain there, so you can die several times while trying to take down a Big Daddy and just keep on going back for more.

I’ve rambled on quite a bit now, but suffice it to say that Bioshock is the game of the year so far for me (edging out Crackdown which was great fun). I only hope the rest of the game is as enjoyable as what I’ve played so far. If it is, it might not be one of the games of the year, it could be one of the games of the decade so far.

The gaming update

Well I’ve done the long-winded update, now for the more fun update about games, or more specifically, what I’ve been playing lately. Since getting the 360 back, the game I’ve played the most has been The Godfather. I only put around 4 hours into the game when I got it around Christmas time, then I didn’t touch it again for some reason. When the 360 was away for repair I had the urge to play it, so it was one of the first games I played when I got the console back. It’s a great game too. It’s similar to GTA in a lot of ways, and better in some respects. It has a decent little hand-to-hand fighting system, similar in some respects to Fight Night (you use the right analogue stick to throw punches). It has a lock-on system for firing, but you can adjust your aim for headshots and kneecapping people. It’s got a great way to threaten people to extort their businesses (beat them up, destroy their business, threaten to burn their heads off - the list goes on). It has a hit-list which offers bonuses for killing the targets in certain ways (baseball bat, throw them off a bridge, throw them into a cooker, etc). In short, it does a whole lot right. The only real downside is that it doesn’t follow all the story of the film, due to the fact Al Pacino couldn’t reach an agreement with EA and therefore his likeness (the character of Michael Corleone) couldn’t be in the game. It’s a great shame as Michael is one of the main characters of the film, but he’s reduced to a bit part player in the game. Still, it’s great to be a part of the Corleone family, to help in the missions that are hinted at in the film (planting a gun for Michael to kill two people, helping Sonny knock off a rival mob boss’ son, etc). It’s not as big or varied as GTA. It’s not as fun in a lot of respects, but I can’t really use them as downsides for The Godfather, simply because GTA is an incredible game, and using it as a way to knock other games down is wrong. I’d rather just judge a game on it’s own merits.

I’ve also been playing a few rentals this past week, namely Ninety Nine Nights, and NHL 2K7. N3 is good fun, but very repetitive. It’s one of those games that’s difficult to blow through quickly as you can get bored of doing the same stuff over and over again. If I can pick it up cheap I will do as it’s an easy 1000 points, it’ll just take some time so I don’t get too bored of it.

NHL is pretty good as well, though I’ll admit to renting it for fairly easy points. I won’t be getting the full 1000 as it would involve too much online stuff, but I should be able to get 800 or so points in the next few days.

I say that though with the belief that I’ll be able to pull myself away from Bioshock long enough. It’s released on Friday though I’m hoping to get it tomorrow from Gameplay. The demo for the game was exceptional, and the reviews so far have been incredible. It has the potential to be the best game ever, and the reviews so far are hinting that it might just be that good. I love the fact it’s purely single-player as well. I do enjoy multiplayer gaming, but I’m really a single-player gamer at heart, I always have been, so I love games that are designed purely for one person. There’s a great mix of achievements as well, all of which look gettable, though perhaps with multiple playthroughs (one of which will definitely be required to finish Hard mode, as I’ll start on Medium). If it’s as good as I hope I’m sure the multiple playthroughs won’t be a problem.

Besides that, the PS2 has also seen a little action this week, with God of War 2 finally getting some time put into it. I’ve had it as a rental from Swapgame for months, but never got around to playing it. I put some effort into it last night, and it’s started to hook me. I’ll be looking to blow through it fairly quickly, as I remember completing the first one in a matter of days as I loved it so much.

Right, that’ll do for now. From Sunday I’ll be trying to do a weekly achievement update, similar to Haly and Nokkon. Hopefully I can get into the habit of updating this regularly then

It’s been far too long (and so’s this post)!

God I’m crap at updating this. I really need to get into a routine of updating this more regularly, though I only know of two people who actually read it (hi Jen and Nokkon ). Hopefully I can start updating it once a week from now on, I have a plan for that

So, what’s been going on since the last update? Well, as detailed in my last post, I’d gotten Gameplay to agree to pay for my Xbox repair. Unfortunately, things didn’t go very smoothly there at all. Just after I made my last post, I went off work with a back problem, which ended up keeping me off work for nearly 3 weeks. As my back was really bad, I didn’t get chance to send the 360 off to the repair company until my 2nd week off. They kept it for a week before eventually getting back to me, and telling me it was too damaged for them to fix! They were charging me a fee for examining the console, and shipping costs (both of which Gameplay paid for me), and getting the console back to me. I finally got the console back the day before I went back to work, and still had the wonderful task of phoning MS Support and asking them to repair it.

I could do that now, as I originally couldn’t, for two reasons. The first reason is that my console, which had initially died with a video display problem, was now showing the dreaded 3 Red Rings of Death. The second reason is that MS had finally admitted there was a problem with the 360’s, and had upped the warranty period to 3 years for all consoles that died with the 3 RRoD. So armed with that knowledge, and my dead 360, I got on with phoning MS Support. I was expecting the worst, but was very pleasantly surprised. The chap I spoke to was courteous (as I expected, US Customer Service is amazing) and efficient (that was the surprise). We went through a few bits and pieces, he took all my details (which I had to spell twice, damned Scouse accent) and explained the procedure to me. First, they’d email me a shipping label (I already had a box to send it back in), and I then had to contact UPS who would arrange for the collection of my Xbox. It would take between 4-6 weeks from when they get it to fix it (though I’d been told by friends to expect 6-8 weeks given the huge number of consoles going back for repair), so I readied myself for an extended period without my beloved box. It had already been nearly a month at this point, I was not looking forward to another 6 weeks without it.

A week after they had picked the Xbox up, I woke up to an email from MS, saying they’d received the Xbox and and were now going to look at it. A week after they got it?! I was less than happy, I’d expected them to have had it the week previous. I calmed down when I spotted a second email which Gmail had attached to the first, which stated that my console had been fixed and had been shipped back to me! \o/ If I wasn’t in work at the time I’d have done a little dance. A few days later, a nice box arrived at the house, containing an Xbox 360 for me. It wasn’t my original console (mine was a November 2005, this an October 2006), but I didn’t care. I connected the hard drive back up, plugged everything back in, and went into gaming bliss for the next several hours.

I have to say how surprised I was to get it back to quickly though. I can only guess that because my motherboard was completely dead (as pointed out by the original repair shop), MS saw this and simply gave me a refurbed console instead (hopefully one with the initial design problems fixed). I know others haven’t been so lucky, so I do consider myself fortunate here. It’s just a shame the damn thing didn’t died after my back had gotten better. 3 weeks at home with the Xbox would have been great for getting through some of the older games I’ve got.

I do have a tale of poor customer service at the same time though. With my Xbox dead and thinking I’d be without it for months, I was really in the mood to play on it, so came up with a plan to get a new one. My brother had a dead 360 with the 3 RRoD that he’d bought from Curry’s in December 2005 (so outside the initial warranty), and when he tried to take it originally he was told they wouldn’t do anything for him, so he ended up buying a Core and leaving this one spare should it ever get fixed. So armed with the Sale of Goods Act, and the information from MS regarding the new warranty, and their admission of a design flaw, I was confident I would be able to get a replacement console from Curry’s. After all, the console is inherently faulty, MS have pretty much admitted that, so surely I would be able to reject the console under the SoGA and get a replacement? Curry’s had other ideas.

I initially went into the store where it had been bought (in cash, so I just said it was my console), and tried swapping it there. No dice they said, all problems outside the initial 1 year warranty were handled by their customer service department. The chap was nice, and did warn me I was unlikely to get it swapped. I thought he was just doubting my legal knowledge, but I think he just knew what was coming for me.

So home I went, and got on the phone to Curry’s customer service line. When I explained the problem, the guy (whose name was Rakesh, for those who care) instantly replied with “you’ll have to contact Microsoft, it’s not our problem”. I told him differently, I bought the console from them, so I expected them to deal with it. “Sorry not our problem” was his considered response. We went around like this for a while, all the time me explaining the law to him and how it’s Curry’s responsibility to deal with it, and all the time he was just getting more rude, to the point where he actually said the words “we could carry on like this but you’ll just be wasting my time” (cheeky bastard). I eventually took his name and put the phone down. Time to take this further.

Still fuming, I went off and typed up a very angry, and pretty long letter. I detailed the poor customer service I got, and explained precisely why I was going to Curry’s for this problem, even going so far as to cut and paste parts of the Sale of Goods Act into my letter, explaining why they were relevant and why Curry’s had a legal responsibility to deal with my problem. I sent it off to the Curry’s MD, confident that this time it would work. Surely by highlighting everything in plain black and white there was no way they could ignore me? Unfortunately, I was wrong again. It took a while, but I got a reply that said how sorry they were I was having trouble, but I needed to contact MS for a repair. Off went a second letter, again very detailed, and being very clear that I was after a replacement console under the Sale of Goods Act, not a repair. This time I had a phone call as a response, from a chap who was apologetic enough, but whose only real response was “MS offer a free repair service so we have to let them do it”.

By this point I’d received my Xbox back from MS, so decided not to argue any more (I was really only after a console to play on while mine was meant to be out of action for 2 months), but I was really disappointed with Curry’s. They ignored their legal responsibilities and continually tried to push me to MS so they wouldn’t have to deal with me. They do this in the knowledge that hardly anyone will take them to the Small Claims Court for a replacement when MS already offer a free repair. Thinking on afterwards, I’d probably have had more success if MS’s repair would have cost me money, Curry’s wouldn’t have been able to use the “free repair” as an excuse to push me aside. It was fun arguing with them, but I was hugely disappointed with them in the end.

Hmmmm, this post has gotten very long and I’ve not really mentioned anything gaming-wise yet. I’ll do that now in a second post, so I’ll wrap this one up now by saying Curry’s suck ass, but MS rule.

Oh, and I love my Xbox 360

Broken Xbox, and Consumer Law

Yup, it finally happened to me. I was always expecting it to happen at some point, but after my release day console had proven to be almost invunerable to the other problems in the past, I was hoping it would continue to be so. But alas, it’s finally done it. My Xbox is dead

Unusually though, I’m not getting the usual Red Rings of Death like most people. I’m just getting no display on the screen. I tried two different cables and two different TV’s, and the problem didn’t go away. I was left with the unenviable task of now trying to get it sorted.

Now, we all know that the Xbox 360’s have been very problematic since their release. So many people have had faulty 360’s that it’s pretty obvious that there is some kind of design flaw or inherent problem with the 360. With this in mind, I knew that the Sale of Goods Act in the UK protected me for this. When a good is sold, it has to meet 3 basic criteria…..

• They must be as described
• Fit for it’s purpose
• A satisfactory quality

The 360 I got obviously met the first 2 criteria, but since it died so early in it’s lifespan (to me, a console should last several years, not just over 18 months), it obviously wasn’t of satisfactory quality. I contacted the shop I bought the console from (Gameplay - www.gameplay.com) to see what they had to say. The initial 2 people I spoke to had a very firm stance on the matter. They said that as the console was outside it’s 1 year warranty, they wouldn’t be able to do anything for me, and I should see Microsoft about it. Thankfully I know my consumer law very well, and continued arguing, and also sent them an email outlining the Sale of Goods Act and the parts which were relevant.

The persistence paid off. I got an email back from a nice lady at Gameplay, who sent me a link for a repair shop, and said that if I sent my 360 to them for repair, I could send the receipt on to her, and she’d refund me the costs of the repair. Score one for the guy who knows his rights, and refuses to go away.

To anyone reading this from the UK, take this is an example of how knowing your consumer law can save you time and money if you buy a product which turns out to be faulty. If I didn’t know the law or hadn’t been so persistant, I would certainly have rang MS over it, who would undoubtedly charged me £85 for them to fix it for me. Read the following links and try to ingest the information, it could prove really useful at some point

http://www.dti.gov.uk/consumers/fact-sheets/page38311.html

http://www.dti.gov.uk/consumers/fact-sheets/page38102.html

Hopefully the next time I make a post, I’ll have a working 360 to play with

Game reviewing, Marvel, and more

Yet again it’s been a fair while between updates, so if there’s anyone out there who happens to check this site more than once a month, apologies for the lack of updates.

So, what’s been going on since last time. I managed to score myself a reviewer position on one of my favourite gaming websites. I can’t say who it is yet as the news hasn’t been made public over there, but suffice it to say it’s the biggest site I’ve been involved with. I really enjoy doing game reviews and I think I’m pretty good at them, so hopefully this is something I’ll be able to do with this site for quite some time. More news on that as it comes.

In my own gaming time, I’ve recently been putting a lot of time into Marvel: Ultimate Alliance. I’d already completed it once which had netted me a good number of achievements, but I fancied downloading the new characters and thought it was an ideal time to go achievement hunting through the game. Armed with some time off work, a house to myself, and 4 pads, I was able to get virtually all the achievements. I went through it on Easy as some of the achievements involve spending a good deal of time in the Simulator area going through various missions (almost all of which have to be found during the game as Simulator Disks), and I didn’t want to have to spend any more time in there than I had to (it gets repetitive). Now, after several days of playing, I’m 4 achievements away from completing the game. I just need to finish it on Hard (which should be fairly easy given the levels my characters are now at), and knock off 3 multiplayer achievements (which are best done on my own, though it’ll be time consuming).

Hopefully I can get all that done by the weekend, as I hope to have Forza 2 with me on Thursday (let’s hear it for Gameplay generally getting games to me a day early). When I finally get my grubby little hands on it, I reckon it’ll dominate my gaming time on the 360. I’ve seen people on my friend list playing it already, and none of them have said anything bad about it (though I’ve called them a few choice names for having it before me). One comment was that the demo didn’t do it justice, and considering I really liked the demo, I can only hope he’s right.

In other platform gaming news, I finally, for the first time ever, managed to finish a game of Civilization! I’ve been playing it since Civ 3 (and I’m now on 4), but despite starting several games, I never actually got around to finishing one. I’d always get so far into the game, start playing something else, then when I went back to it 6 months later, forget where I was up to and decide t start again. I finally managed it though, securing a Space Race victory as Japan, with about 45 turns left. I was originally planning on a domination victory (achieved by holding the majority of the map), but after finally destroying 3 other civilizations to take control of the continent I was on, there were still 6 others left on another huge continent, and there wasn’t enough time left in the game to take all of them out (and I probably didn’t have enough troops either, not without leaving myself undefended). Next time I may go for a smaller map against few opponents and increase the difficulty, as I ran away with it from fairly early on in this game.

I am thinking of re-installing F.E.A.R on the PC though, so I may spend some time on that. Despite my general enjoyment of FPS games, and my love of horror games, I never played too much of this. I did the first level or so, and did enjoy it, but for some reason never went further with it. I do it far too often. I guess with having so many games on so many systems, some great games get lost in the mix that I never get around to playing. Hopefully I can spend a fair bit of time on this as most people thought it was great.

Anyway, I’m rambling now. Time to get back to work I think.