Friday, November 27, 2009

Steam

Hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving.

I spent that last part of mine buying about 50 games. Steam has some great deals going on this week. All of THQ's catalog about 20-30 games for $50 which includes all the Red Factions including the latest one. The same deal is for all of the Lucas Arts games. I picked up Grid for $8 so some good deals so go and check them out.

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Borderlands, MW2

Borderlands (360) (30min)

Bought the new DLC for Borderlands and played for about 30 minutes and it is really good. The new section has a "spooky" atmosphere and the new enemies with varying attacks keep things fresh. I think they could really keep doing DLC till the next game
comes out since the game is broken out into areas already just keep expanding.

MW2 (360) (3hr)

Once again stayed up too late but it's too good not to play. They maybe adding some new play modes before the holiday that hopefully will come out.

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

MW2, RB2

RB2 (360) (1Hr)

Trying to keep my routine of an hour a day and I have started to see some improvements. I am trying some new techniques with double kicks in hopes it will
make them easier. I ordered a clamp and stand for my drums so that I can mount the
GH4 controller to my kit it was pretty expensive at around $28 but it should look nicer now.

MW2 (360) (7hr)

I had intentions of playing Assassins Creed 2 last night but Steven was on so I put in MW2 and never took it out. We had a good group with Joe, Steven, and Brad, we did have some trouble connecting but it was fun. I am getting better and finally got the ACR gun which I really like but I had to get to level 48 to get it. Brad quit at around 1 so I was going to play until 1:30 but I got in with a pretty good group of guys that liked to talk and I played with them until 3 which was late but I was doing well and usually in the top 2 players so it was hard to quit.

Monday, November 23, 2009

Raving Rabbids Go Home, Assassins Creed 2, MW2, Borderlands

Raving Rabbids Go Home (Wii) (2hr)

If you've played the previous Rabbid games then you know the insanity of the Rabbits in Ubisoft's world and in this game they are let loose on a new adventure that is not mini-games. The game plays sort of like Katamari Damacy where you have 2 Rabbids and a grocery cart and you are running over items in your quest to build a trash heap to the moon. The story is crazy and while there is no dialog the animations and gibberish they communicate really add to the comedic adventure at hand. The funniest part is that when you encounter humans you yell at them and it knocks there clothes off and they are left running around trying to hide, it is funny everytime it happens and the comments they make are hilarious. Pick this game up if you have a Wii and have a good time laughing.

Assassins Creed 2 (360) (6HR)

This game is really growing on me and it is constantly adding new things to keep you interested. I now have control over a small villa and a town to reconstruct. This generates money that you'll need to outfit and equip Enzio. If you buy art work it will increase your towns income and you get to choose different buildings, the first building I had rebuilt was the brothel, this is the biggest money generator. The combat is good but could learn some things from Batman but they do fine and there are some pretty squeimish death kills.

MW 2 (360) (10hr)

Level 45 and not tired of this yet if you want a game you can play all year then pick this up.

Borderlands (360) (4hr)

Finished the game last night with Donald and George. It's one of the best co-op games that I've played and was engaging all the way through although the final boss battle was weak. There will be DLC this week that I will be picking up so I can get to level 50 and pick up my final 2 achievements so that I'll have my first 1000 point game.

Thursday, November 19, 2009

COD MW2

Modern Warfare 2 (360) (6hr)

So far I've spent about 40 hours playing MW2, saying that makes it feel like work but I'm enjoying my time with it. I finally finished the single player game last night and it was good but it could have been fleshed out better. The story jumps around a lot and since I didn't remember much from the first game I was basically just listening to some info then go and killing some people. I played 38% of the game on the hardened difficulty but lowered to normal because I wanted to finish so I could discuss some of the things in the game. I won't go into spoilers now but there are some scenes that do stick out and do cause some reactions. The normal setting is not that hard but there are sections that you will die and have to reload because of all the enemies and the advantages they have because of their positions.

On the multiplayer side I am level 39 with some cool things to unlock in the coming levels. The perks are well balanced and if you want to compete you do need to come up with different strategies with your custom classes. Some perks hide you from heartbeat sensors while other hide you from UAV's and other monitors. The gun you use also should dictate your play style. I am trying to unlock all of the perk upgrades and am pretty close now. They do take some time and my scores are lower when I am trying to get something but it's worth it to me. I'm not sure about the Prestige mode and what it gets you but I don't know if I'll go back to square one and start over.

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Assassin's Creed 2, COD2

Assassin's Creed 2 (360) (2hr)

I played some of the first AC and really liked it but never finished it so I wasn't sure if I was going to play through the first but since I have so many games to play I just started it. I've always like the Prince of Persia games and the traversal of the levels but the newest Prince of Persia was too guided and easy as there was usually only one way to traverse the levels. In AC2 there is always multiple ways to traverse and it does require some thought.

I like the new setting and the historical facts add a nice layer to the game. I wish the controls were a little tighter as they feel a little floaty. So far I don't have any armor and only have 1 sword so the combat is simple now but you will get many weapons later on, it is fun grabbing enemies and throw them off buildings.

COD2 (360) (3HR)

I tried to finish the single player campaign last night but I wasn't as far along as I had thought. I cranked down the difficulty to normal but it still was tough. The game is too chaotic to me though like they are trying to overwhelm you all the time and it's not grabbing me like the first game did. I will plow through it this weekend but want to try and get all the stars for Spec ops which to me is the best part of the game.

I am close to level 40 in Multi and I have finally unlocked both of the speed perks, but I was a little disappointed with the pro versions. One you don't take damage from falls which is okay and the other you have a faster aim while running so if you want to really run and gun you can have both of these perks and fly through the levels but somehow the snipers will still hit you which is very upsetting. The lag is still there where I am getting shot at and I go behind cover but still get hit and die and when I see the replay I am not behind cover on his end, that is the biggest flaw in the game is that lag.

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

MW2, RB

MW2 (360) (6Hr)

MP time : 26 HR
The only problem I have with the game is that it breaks my internet connection. For some reason while playing this game my dsl connections gets broken and it takes about 15 seconds to get it back. I do reconnect but I lose all my points and have to start over which is really bad when you are having an awesome game.

RB2 (360) (1hr)

Trying to put in an hour a day on the drums so that I can get my right leg to improve on the bass drum. Setting the tension back on the bass drum has helped an now I just need to have more leg strength.

I picked up Assassin's Creed 2 so should have some impressions tomorrow.

Monday, November 16, 2009

Game Overload

Well after 100 postings I needed a little time off. I get 3 weeks vacation and still had almost 2 weeks so I had to use some and what better time then the November game rush. It could have been much worse but so many titles were delayed until next year that we get about a month in a half break from new releases.

So what did I do on my Vacation? For starters, I got the new Modern Warfare 360 bundle. I wanted the 250G hardrive and this was the only way, for now, to get it and I'm glad I did, but I spent a lot of time re-downloading all of my content. I had about 12G of RB songs and some other arcade games and even though you get a list of all that you've downloaded there isn't a button that will do this automatically so it takes time. The do allow you to queue upto 30 items which was a great improvement over the last limit of 6. I then had a problem of getting my save games over so I did have an arcade with built in memory so I had to use that and switch my HD around.

Once all that was done I finally played some COD2 and it is awesome. I am playing the campaign at the Hardened level and it's too chaotic, there is so much happening that it's almost not fun. A few of the missions are awesome but I may tone down the difficulty just to get through the game then go back and replay later.

The Spec op mode is really fun as it takes some of the best moments of the game and allows you to play that with a friend either split screen or online. I really like this mode and there are 23 challenges which should take quite a bit of time.

Then there is the online multi and it just added and greatly improved every area of the previous version. They have added more and more RPG elements from the weapons you unlock to different versions of the perks that there is always something that you will want to unlock. By doing different things within the game you will open up call signs and buttons that get displayed on the person you just killed. Another nice feature is the last kill cam that shows the last kill in slow motion.

I also picked up the Super Mario Bro Wii and it's platforming goodness.

Tomorrow is the release of Assassins Creed 2 which from what I've read should be a great game that I am looking forward too.

Friday, November 6, 2009

Mass Effect $10 on Steam this Weekend.

Borderlands, Vacation

Borderlands (360) (6Hr)

Delving once again into Pandora we embarked on a 4 man journey to find the lost vault. I have spent 40+ hours wandering, shooting, and dying trying to fulfill my destiny and cement my name being the first 1000 Achievement point conquest. It is a land filled with skags, soldiers, crabs, and flying RAAKS that relentlessly try and sabatoge our quest. But we will not fail we will succeed, we are the IT Crew.

Vacation

I am on a week vacation and glad of it. So many games to get played. I'm getting the MW2 360 on Tuesday so will be playing a ton of that. We'll see if the servers are able to keep up with the demand I hope they do but if they don't it will give me a chance to play the single player campaign. What will you play first?

Thursday, November 5, 2009

Consolidation

Do you have too many hard drives? I can answer yes to this question. I am going through trying to consolidate all of my different data onto my 3 1TB WD HD Books.
I currently have my stuff on 13 different hard drives from 80G to 1TB so now I'm getting my data sorted out.

Why do I have all of this? I have Tv Shows that I've watched and will probably never watch again that I am keeping. It's hard for me to throw out real stuff so digital is the same way.

Dragon Age, Logitech G13

Dragon Age (PC) (2HR)

I'm still playing from my CozySac, different maker than SumoSac but same thing only cheaper, in the dining room and still liking it. I am having a problem reading red text though on the tactics screen. The text is already a little small at 1900X1200 but not too bad but for some reason reading the red text where you setup certain tactics are impossible to read and I'm not sure if it's the game or my color blindness and there's no way to change the color but not that big of a deal. I do like the character interactions but I do miss the Mass Effect dialog where you picked the text and he would say something similar but not exactly as the displayed text, there is no voice work for your character so you click an option and then the other characters respond.

The combat is getting harder and I died for the first time in normal difficulty but then I tried again with a different tactic and succeded although I did have to micromanage quite a bit as one character kept wandering off to fight enemies by himself which is bad plan.

Logitech G13 (PC) $55

I ordered this through Amazon and it should be delivered today. It's a keyboard peripheral that has 25 programmable buttons and a joystick and I hope it makes playing on the CozySac a little more comfortable as my keyboard is a little large and it doesn't sit well while I'm laying down. I'll have more impressions maybe tomorrow because I'll be playing Borderlands tonight.

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Dragon Age, Lego Rock Band, Beatles Book

Dragon Age (Steam) (1HR)

I wasn't sure which platform to get this on. The reviews are saying that the PC is the better version with updated graphics, a streamlined control scheme, and a harder difficulty, but I do like to play on my SumoSac on the big screen. After a long debate I got the PC version and moved my PC to my projector so I should have the best of both worlds.

I put Windows 7 on my main machine and I really like it but I did have a problem with Steam. When I tried to run the old Steam from it's library it needed some service started and I let it run for a while and it didn't seem to work. I had to uninstall it but when you do it erases all of your game data so I just moved all of that to another folder and reinstalled then copied the games back and it was done. It wasn't too painful but took some time. I really do like steam and it's one of the best services out there for PC gaming.

I am playing a Human Warrior, there are 2 other character types with each having 2 unique starting stories so I may try others before going on the main quest. I set the game to normal at the start but then decided I wanted to experience the story and not worry about having to retry combat over and over so we'll see how easy it is and I may change it later but I've read that the difficulty is not consistant so we will see. I did have to turn on VSYNC to stop the tearing on the cutscenes. I have the game running max at 1900X1800 and not seeing any problems or slowdowns so it does run well. The voice acting is well done with a little humor added in and I am liking the story but I haven't made many decisions yet which is supposed to be a big part of the game.

Lego Rock Band (360) (30min)

I like the concept of this game but not a big fan of the music. The Lego integration into Rockband is good and the funny cutscenes that are in Lego games are here as well and they are really funny. There is one where a construction crew is trying to destroy a building but are unable too so he calls on your band to play outside of it using the loud music to destroy the building. As you are playing the song you see parts of the building crumble and blow up and it is entertaining to watch.

It has 45 tracks which can be imported into RB which I will do when I get my COD MW2 new 360. The starting songs are really easy as I was able to Gold Star about 8 out of 10 there are some tough songs so it's not to bad. I went to quickplay and took a quick listen of the songs and wasn't too impressed it had some good songs but not sure that is has enough to justify the price. It is $49 but costs $10 to import the songs so I may just do that then trade it in.

Here, There and Everywhere: My Life Recording the Music of the Beatles (Book) (2HR)

I needed a book to read and saw this on Amazon and I picked it up and it's very good.
My favorite books are autobiographies and this is the biography of a sound engineer who recorded the Beatles later in their career. It's a really neat book because he has some good technical stories about recording and some of the tricks they used to get certain sounds out of the instruments and vocals. There are some neat stories about the Beatles and does give some insight into the band. He was there when they brought in a session drummer for Ringo on their second recording session, and another when a mob of girls broke into the building where they were recording at and had to tackle a fan that was about to do who knows what to Ringo.

Monday, November 2, 2009

Uncharted 2, Borderlands, Trine

Uncharted 2
One of the best games I've ever played with one of the best stories in a game. This game will make you play it for marathon sections because it keeps on delivering. So if you have a PS3 go and pick it up.

Borderlands (360) (8HR)

I think I've put in about 40 hours so far and haven't even come close to finishing as I am always helping other people level up. I have 3 characters over 20 and now I'm working on my Hunter to get to level 15 for the achievement. I am getting all 1000 for this game.

Trine (PSN) (1HR)

It's a fun game playing co-op or single player but it gets tough and there are some tricky puzzles.