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• 26Dec 09

  Tinsel, Baubles and Plenty of Gaming

  Happy 26th December everyone, I hope you all had a great Christmas. I'm having a good time back down in the south of England spending my two weeks break from university with my family and I've received some great presents. From my best friend I got a really nice CD and from my family (well, mainly my mum) I've got a black 16GB iPod Nano, a bunch of chocolate, Dragon Age: Origins for the Xbox 360, as well as Counter-Strike: Source, Garry's Mod, Braid and Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War 2 from Steam. It means a lot to me that they got me the iPod particularly because my family don't have much money and while the gifting of that present was somewhat to balance out the fact that my younger brother had demanded a HD TV for Christmas, I still don't expect presents like this from them. I must say the Steam holiday sale has been pretty amazing though, the four games they got me only came to about £23 with Braid currently going for less than £2, Steam never cease to amaze me with their sales.

  My experiments in Garry's Mod have been pretty enjoyable so far and I've been surprised how easy it is to just sit around in the game for a while playing with simple objects and tools and still have fun. I feel like I'm still picking up on how manipulate objects in certain ways though and I currently have no idea how to program in Lua, but knowing a couple of other languages I hope I can pick it up reasonably quickly.

  Braid has been an enchanting game to play through. I do have some experience with the game having played through the lengthy demo before, but the puzzling concepts of the game still seem innovative and very clever. I've also actually been properly following the story on this play-through and I've found it surprisingly deep and compelling. It's a shame I'm nearing the end of the game because it's been so good.

  I have yet to try out Counter-Strike: Source, Dragon Age: Origins and Dawn of War 2. Counter-Strike: Source just happens to be something I haven't got around to trying out yet, Dragon Age: Origins is a game I feel I should really put aside until I can focus solely on committing my time to that single game and Dawn of War 2 I've been having technical issues with. The game went through all its necessary setup but when I've tried to launch it it's just displayed a crash report with no real detail on what's gone wrong. I've deleted the local content and am currently downloading it again from Steam. Looks like I may have a bit of a problem on my hands.

  I've also been playing a bit of Team Fortress 2 and all the content in the Soldier/Demoman update is great. The war between the Soldier and the Demoman also got really tense towards the end, who would have known it would be so close? The last thing I was expecting though was for Valve to announce after the Soldier/Demoman update that they were working on a new update to add bots to the game. With them pulling out all the stops for this stuff it makes me wonder what they could possibly have up their sleeve for the final class update but knowing Valve they'll find some way to impress us.

  Lastly I've played some of my brother's copy of Borderlands since I've been back down here for Christmas. Everything about the game seems like it really has the potential to be awesome but I'm finding it a little hard to get into. I think this might be another case where I'll need to put the game to one side until I know I can focus on it properly. Still, there's nothing like slaughtering a huge Skag nest with an incendiary pistol and a turret.

  That's it for this blog. I hope you all enjoy the New Year and I'll leave you with this rather impressive piece of work, the Halo Periodic Table.

  -Gamer_152

  • Posted Dec 26, 2009 10:33 am PT
  • Category: Games
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• 11Dec 09

  Headin' for the Holidays

  Greetings one and all, long time no blog. In fact I haven't blogged in over a month now, it just seems that there have been oh so many distractions. For one thing it seems like I have stumbled back into the addictive realms of World of Warcraft again. I originally just returned to the game to enjoy the thanksgiving event, but after experiencing the instant gratification of my few days on there I couldn't help but be sucked back in. I now seem to be leveling more effectively than before and I'm even trying to get into raiding now which is something I shyed away from quite a bit before, partly because of how much time it consumed and partly because of how seriously some players seemed to take it, while I lagged behind constantly wondering whether I was "doin' it rite" or not. However, I have had to limit myself in my intake of WoW as I still have university work on my hands and coming up to the end of the firstsemester the pressure is on more than ever.
  
  My first semester of university officially ends next week but what's it like to be a student who is just finishing their first three months of a computer games programming degree? Well, it's definitely been an interesting experience. The highlight of it all has definitely been learning about video games themselves and although a lot of the things that came up in the lectures on video games, I was already aware of it was great to have it all presented back to me along with new information. The coursework for that area of the studies also gave me something that was very fun to do and I'm even confident about the module exam. The low point for me has been the maths module which they introduced to the course this year. We have literally had to try and learn the equivalent of an A level in maths in the last 3 months and it feels as though the whole process has been very rushed and I've felt consistently confused as I struggled with everything being taught. As for the rest of the course I still don't think my essay writing is up to scratch with university standards yet but that's something that will probably come with practice. Learning about computer architecture has been cool and learning new programming code has been a good experience as well. Right now however it's crunch time and my sleep pattern will have to suffer some more so I can get an essay and four programming exercises handed in for next week as well as revising for a test.
  
  The 18th December will see me speeding back to my family's home for the Christmas holidays and for a whole variety of reasons it will be good to be back. Naturally as a student I haven't had the cash to purchase a lot of the games I've wanted over the past few months, so I thought this would be an opportune time to share with you my Christmas wishlist of video games; Assassin's Creed 2, Batman: Arkham Asylum, Borderlands andDragon Age: Origins are my big four but given the chance I wouldn't mind getting my hands on League of Legends,Modern Warfare 2 or New Super Mario Bros. Wii. I'll just be happy to be in a nice big house with my mum's cooking for Christmas though.However, althoughthe Christmas holidays would usually last until 25th Januaryall computer games programming students have to be back in university for the week starting the 4th January which is a bit of a bummer.
  
  This weekend there is an awesome event just around the corner though. While I'm sure it holds no major significance for many I'm personally pretty stoked about Bungie's world premiere of Halo: Reach at the Spike TV VGA awards. With so little known about the game it will be great to finally get a look at what will be the last of the Halo games (at least for now) and Bungie sure know how to dazzle a crowd. This week there's also a pretty awesome and rather unique event happening on Team Fortress 2. The soldier and demoman updates will soon be hitting everyones' PCs bringing with them new weapons and achievements but not only will each cl*ss receive 3 unlockable weapons but they are also both in the running for a secret seventh weapon. Valve have challenged the demoman cl*ss to get as many kills on the soldier cl*ss as possible over the next 7 days, while the soldiers are doing the opposite and trying to kill the demomen. Whichever cl*ss can kill more of the opposing cl*ss by the time our time is up gets that extra seventh weapon. It's exciting stuff and should I get any free time to participate in the conflict I'll be playing on the side of soldier as frankly I suck with the demoman.
  
  Well, I guess that's what a months worth a backed up blog looks like. Hopefully I'll drop my next little bundle of blogging fun after returning home next Saturday. Until then I hope you all enjoy yourselves and I'll leave you with one of my favourite pictures of November 2009.
  
  -Gamer_152

  • Posted Dec 11, 2009 10:21 pm PT
  • Category: General
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• 9Nov 09

  Boats and Scopes

  It is currently Monday 9th November and I'd hoped to have this blog up over the weekend but things were a bit... Busy. Tomorrow is the big release of Modern Warfare 2 and I must say with all the hype surrounding the game I occasionally feel a little bit like a stranger in the world of gaming. Not only is the internet abuzz with talk of Infinity Ward's next great game but even people around my university are constantly questioning who is and isn't getting the game on launch day and most of the time I don't seem to be met with much understanding when I tell people I never really got into the Call of Duty franchise. Still, gaming goes on and I'm happy for all those who are super-expectant of the game's release.

  This week I've managed to get myself hooked back on World of Warcraft and Team Fortress 2. Considering the addictive nature of WoW I thankfully haven't got too obsessed with it this time round but it's been nice to do a few quests and participate in the odd battleground match, although it might be nicer if the Alliance won more often. I also did experience a very odd glitch the other day where I was standing at the end of the pier on Booty Bay when the ship arrived and my character seemed to get stuck on a bit of the ship's outer geometry and it started pushing me along. This was kind of cool so I just let it run its course but when the ship sailed off for faraway lands my client refused to load the next area, forcing me to log out and in again. When I logged back in my character appeared to be underneath the game world, falling downwards and after a minute or so he just dropped out of view, lost all his health and the game asked me if I wanted to resurrect. When I did I ended up in the Hillsbrad Foothills, a ridiculous distance north from where I started. It really was the weirdest glitch I'd ever experienced in the game.

  On Team Fortress 2 I've been trying my luck with the Sniper this week which has been a bit of a daring move as I have a bit of a history with just plain sucking at sniping in shooters. However, even if I may still not be that good I'm surprised by how much I've improved in such a short space of time, practice really does do wonders. Now if only I could do a half-decent job with the Spy and the Scout.

  As promised last week I did upload my review of indie game Osmos to Giant Bomb this Tuesday and I've also filled out the Geometry Wars 2 review on Giant Bomb which was lost in a posting glitch a while back. I may have more reviews on the way in the near future and I look forward to any writing I get the time for. That wraps up this (relatively) short blog for this week. I will leave you all with a video that brought me great amusement. May I proudly present Laddergoat.

  -Gamer_152

  • Posted Nov 9, 2009 7:44 am PT
  • Category: Games
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