tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-62253252464449795692024-03-13T00:20:11.217+00:00Mainly About GamesMy thoughts about a bunch of stuff (but mainly video games)FreakyZoidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13968264557604484432noreply@blogger.comBlogger167125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6225325246444979569.post-56199170476008769822010-01-02T15:43:00.002+00:002010-01-02T15:46:55.930+00:00Not The EndHello happy readers.As I mentioned the other day, I am going to renew my focus on this blog. One part of this is that it's moving to a new domain so that I can host my XNA games and any other files I want.So, this will be the last post to Mainly About Games in its current location.Please go and have a look at what's going on at www.mainlyaboutgames.co.uk and remember to update your rss FreakyZoidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13968264557604484432noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6225325246444979569.post-72252340822113374742009-12-30T16:00:00.000+00:002009-12-30T16:00:00.827+00:00You want to play now? Too badWhy do game updates on PS3 take so long?We're having some friends over on New year's day, so I popped in Buzz and Singstar to make sure they were updated and could just be played straight away if the mood takes us.There have been two updates for Buzz, weighing in at 345MB and 51MB. What the hell, almost 400MB of updates to a quiz game? On my 2Mb broadband connection (not the broadest for sure, FreakyZoidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13968264557604484432noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6225325246444979569.post-90464346060935720342009-12-29T17:51:00.000+00:002009-12-29T17:51:49.532+00:00Bored-er Lands?Ok, that may be an over exaggeration, but after an hour or so of play it's really not grabbed me like I expected.I liked:The HUD elements being introduced by name and moving in to place as they are "installed" was a very neat way of telling you what was what in a fairly seamless manner.The graphic style is very nice in motion.The intro and character introductions are nicely done.I don't like:The FreakyZoidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13968264557604484432noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6225325246444979569.post-66242604407102493082009-12-28T16:22:00.000+00:002009-12-28T16:22:22.410+00:00A Tasty TreatAt this festive and celebratory time, my thoughts always naturally turn towards rich, delicious food, and a little more good drink than is good for me.Which reminded me of a special treat I was sent this year - Mountain Dew World of Warcraft Gamefuel. Except for the "delicious" part, but then we're getting a little ahead of ourselves.Apparently Pepsi often make special editions of their sugary FreakyZoidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13968264557604484432noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6225325246444979569.post-44172875421082686552009-12-24T12:05:00.003+00:002009-12-24T12:24:36.575+00:00It's been a quiet yearWell, a quiet year on this blog. Three months since the last post I think is something of a record for me.For the most part this has been because of the time I've spent stateside this year for work. Although being so far from friends and family was very hard, I had a very interesting and productive time out there, and even managed to enjoy myself every now and then.I also met some great, talentedFreakyZoidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13968264557604484432noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6225325246444979569.post-2449955621189079442009-10-03T14:33:00.004+01:002009-10-03T15:04:00.026+01:00Am I missing something here?Ok, at the time of writing I can buy a white PSP 3000 base unit from Play.com for £129.99, and a 16Gb Memory Stick Pro Duo for £54.99.Add them together, and you get the functionality of a PSPGo, but for £184.98. And how much does the PSPGo cost? £199.99Er...Actually, I wasn't being quite honest. You don't get the functionality of a PSPGo, but in a cheaper package. You get slightly more, as you FreakyZoidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13968264557604484432noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6225325246444979569.post-57624468070254904872009-09-28T08:00:00.000+01:002009-09-28T08:00:04.662+01:00When "The Future" bites you in the assToday I found out that I can't purchase things on Steam while I'm not in my home country.As I've mentioned a few times in the past, I'm currently working in the US for an extended period, and it suddenly struck me that there were things on Steam that would actually run and play quite well on this rickety old laptop I have with me.I put in my billing address. It gets confused - I don't seem to be FreakyZoidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13968264557604484432noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6225325246444979569.post-56063364301054835052009-09-22T08:00:00.000+01:002009-09-22T08:00:01.495+01:00Wikki wikki wi wildFuck you, Tom Nook.So, having recently finished Professor Layton's Diabolical Box, I had an urge to buy another DS game, and start getting some serious time out of that DSi I bought and then never used.Browsing the isles of the (curiously Atlantis themed) Fry's near where I'm staying, I came across Animal Crossing, which had two things going for it. First, I'd been meaning to pick up a copy for FreakyZoidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13968264557604484432noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6225325246444979569.post-48407634986891801772009-09-14T02:33:00.000+01:002009-09-14T02:33:58.129+01:00Professor Layton and the Diabolical BoxOne benefit I've found to living in the US (as I currently do) is that when companies decide to be all weird about release dates, and encourage people to pirate their games by releasing them months later in the UK, I can get them at the earlier date.And so it came to be that I have already played through and finished Professor Layton's Diabolical Box, before it's hit the shelves of the UK (oh, FreakyZoidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13968264557604484432noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6225325246444979569.post-30353362203468989242009-09-08T06:43:00.005+01:002009-09-08T07:02:21.113+01:00Another month bites the dustI've just realised I've got over a donzen draft articles that I haven't yet had the time to polish up and publish.Honestly, I've been playing more games and writing about them than the month long inactivity of this blog would suggest. I will get around to posting thoughts on Ghostbusters, Shadow Complex, Monkey Island, and more very soon.Look, here's a picture of Jade Raymond to keep the masses FreakyZoidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13968264557604484432noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6225325246444979569.post-65145223231472006112009-08-09T23:44:00.004+01:002009-08-10T00:11:35.484+01:00What's wrong with the games industry today?This is what's wrong with the games industry today.Why bother talking about the actual content of a game or demo, when you can nit-pick minutiae of frame rate, resolution, and pixels that no player will ever notice in practice?That way, you can encourage both pointless system fanboyism that never gets anybody anywhere, and a worthless race for slight graphical superiority that also never gets FreakyZoidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13968264557604484432noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6225325246444979569.post-87412490108435027842009-06-25T15:28:00.000+01:002009-06-25T15:28:43.143+01:00Bitch stole ma skullLook, it's not dead! I've just been very busy, as usual. It turns out working in America for months really gets in the way of writing stupid things about videogames.Anyway, I have found some time to play a few things, so here are some short reviews.X-Men Origins: Wolverine is a fairly decent hack n slash that could really have done with more variation in environments and enemies. And fewer FreakyZoidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13968264557604484432noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6225325246444979569.post-80055611712590710622009-03-09T08:30:00.001+00:002009-03-09T08:30:00.503+00:00You're not the boss of meI've recently been playing through Creative Assembly's Viking: Battle for Asgard. It's an open-world brawler, and I've generally thought it was quite a decent game - a solid 70%er. It had a few too many flaws to be a classic, but generally was a fun way to pass the time.After this afternoon though, I'll have nothing but bad memories of it. I've just spent an hour trying to beat the final boss, FreakyZoidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13968264557604484432noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6225325246444979569.post-4739426829997697052009-03-02T08:30:00.000+00:002009-03-02T08:30:00.544+00:00Games Reviewed in Ten Words - F.E.A.R. 2Not quite as good. Still fun though. Shut up Cortana.(Thanks Shallow for the suggestion.)FreakyZoidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13968264557604484432noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6225325246444979569.post-13062715164415215972009-02-26T10:21:00.005+00:002009-02-26T10:52:18.315+00:00Not Some Experimental Indie-DarlingJames Parker is a games writer and former colleague who I've briefly mentioned before. His blog is always good reading, and I thought this recent article was particularly interesting. Here's a chunk...You can't go anywhere on the internet where they are talking about game stories without some enthusiastic comment poster presenting their incredible and unique vision of the future where games FreakyZoidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13968264557604484432noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6225325246444979569.post-27397730622413815142009-02-16T08:30:00.003+00:002009-02-16T08:30:01.022+00:00Games and games and games and gamesI've got nothing specific to write about this week, so I've gone for the tried and tested route of rambling half-coherently about a bunch of games that I have been playing.First up is Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise. Two years and three days ago I wrote about the interface to Viva Pinata. I played the first game a lot (980 points, gamerscore fans!) and though I'd got used to the annoyances (the FreakyZoidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13968264557604484432noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6225325246444979569.post-71230977442387625392009-02-09T08:30:00.000+00:002009-02-09T08:30:01.531+00:00The Tomb Raiding Prince of PersiaOver the past couple of months I've been playing both the new Prince of Persia game by Ubisoft, and also Tomb Raider underworld by Crystal Dynamics. The two games are very similar, both recent takes on the 3d platforming genre. But which one is better? There's only one way to find out, as Harry Hill would say ... fight!GraphicsTomb Raider doesn't look bad (you can almost feel the spray from some FreakyZoidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13968264557604484432noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6225325246444979569.post-24493385230867864362009-02-06T18:56:00.002+00:002009-02-06T19:10:06.320+00:00Social WhirlwindFor anyone that's interested, I've joined Twitter, and the minutiae of my day can be read (or how about experienced?) at www.twitter.com/freakyzoidAt the moment I'm struggling to see the point in a version of what seems to be a Facebook that only has status updates on it, but I'm expecting that eventually a breakthrough will occur and it'll all become clear as day.On the plus side, there are a FreakyZoidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13968264557604484432noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6225325246444979569.post-21746094309064439222009-02-02T08:30:00.003+00:002009-02-02T08:30:00.087+00:00It's my game and I'll cheat if I want toAbout a week ago, EA announced that there would be some downloadable content for Skate 2 that, if bought, would unlock everything in the game.This seemed to kick up quite a fuss online, with the usual cries that EA were ruining everything.Personally, I don't really see what the problem is with this DLC.Now, just to make clear - this isn't unlocking stuff that without the DLC is unobtainable. ThisFreakyZoidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13968264557604484432noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6225325246444979569.post-1977970813891779962009-01-27T08:37:00.003+00:002009-01-27T08:47:50.748+00:00They said "Captain", I said "What?"Just a quick update to recommend an interesting article. Eurogamer has posted a postmortem by Jon Hare (ex-Sensible Software boss) on Sex 'n' Drugs 'n' Rock 'n' Roll.It's a good read, mainly because you don't often get this kind of article on totally dead titles, and the postmortems I have read tend to be a little too much on the "there were a few minor issues, but it was generally all rosey and FreakyZoidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13968264557604484432noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6225325246444979569.post-21752393510845303582009-01-26T08:30:00.005+00:002009-01-26T08:30:01.190+00:00Avast!I forgot to put an update in my last post about how I got on with wading through the mass of things I wanted to consume while on holiday. I know it's not terribly interesting for most people, but what is a blog good for if not me writing about things that I like? And if you're not that bothered you probably wouldn't be reading my half-arsed ramblings anyway.I got through most of the books in was FreakyZoidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13968264557604484432noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6225325246444979569.post-51876081474103910872009-01-19T08:30:00.003+00:002009-01-19T08:31:14.385+00:00Fallout over BattlefrontBah, why is it so cold and grey and miserable in the UK, when it is so warm and sunny and happy in other bits of the world?Just before I went on holiday I completed Fallout 3, I just didn't have time to scrawl down some of my thoughts about it. Be aware that the next three paragraphs have some fairly major spoilers, if you've not got that far yourself...I felt that the story had and ending that FreakyZoidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13968264557604484432noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6225325246444979569.post-65194739047571966062009-01-16T08:30:00.000+00:002009-01-16T08:30:01.132+00:00Little Big PlanetSorry, I mean LittleBigPlanet of course. A game that Sony wants to be cool, so it isn't allowed to have a normal name.I haven't spent a huge amount of time with LBP. Unfortunately for it, or me, it came out when I was still very much obsessed with Fable 2. And like that game, I think "charming" is the key djective - I really can't imagine describing LBP without using that word. Everything about FreakyZoidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13968264557604484432noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6225325246444979569.post-75165049225766057082009-01-12T08:30:00.003+00:002009-01-12T08:30:01.112+00:00On holidayI'll make no attempt to hide that this post has been written in advance and then scheduled to publish today. The reason for this pre-record (as I'm told they call it in radio and TV circles, and I figured that if I start comparing the games industry to radio - instead of movies - I might be at the forefront of some exciting new stupid internet arguments this year) is because I'm on holiday.Which FreakyZoidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13968264557604484432noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6225325246444979569.post-21104354392359615032009-01-08T08:30:00.003+00:002009-01-08T08:30:00.541+00:00Falling out(To give a bit of background, this is a post I made to a message board when I was asked how I was finding Fallout 3. For something that's been pretty much roundly given the game of the year award, I thought it was interesting to look back on my early game experience - I think at this point I was around level 8, had just found Rivet City in the main quest, and had done a couple of side quests withFreakyZoidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13968264557604484432noreply@blogger.com0