Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Well As It Goes

Posted by X

Games Games Games.... Why why why, They have the whole big big build up and then they just let us down... ROCK BAND 2 for example Rock Band was released in NZ 1 year after it was released in US... Rock Band 2 hasn't been released yet. It is soo annoying.
At the moment the moment My gaming is pretty much just Music games.. I am so into them. But I have got my pre-order on Assassins Creed 2 Black Edition for PS3 can't wait for that one...
TV is not to far away…
I was playing Mass Effect today, played it for about an hour. When I chose to nuke some bugs and left the shield down and died… Oops I had forgotten to save. There goes a wasted hour. I’m not looking forward to work tomorrow, we have a big finance going at the moment, So it will most likely be really busy.

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Its Been Awhile

Posted by X

Well it has been a little while since I blogged... but I thought that I should get back into it, as my mother is doing it now.
At the moment I have been Guitar Heroing and Rock Banding. Both games are pretty awesome but Rock Band is far superoir. I was looking around for Rock Band 2 but it is yet to be released in NZ it was released in the US last year. But O-well it will come out at some point.. My TV saving is going pretty well but, certian things have come up which have taken a bit of money… Guitar Hero and My bike breaking down… :( But 2 more pays should do the trick… Hopefully.
After the TV I will get some more games lol. Guitar Hero Greatest Hits and Band Hero. Me and my Future flatmate David love the games. We do it all, Drums, Guitar and Singing (hes really good at singing lol). I will upload a pic of us playing it at some point lol once we set up the house or after I tidy my room. Speaking of that I am  looking at my room now, maybe I should tidy it now… Nah I will do it tomorrow, Wait I think I’ve been saying that for ages.
Well I just had my weekend and I didn’t get up to much, got my haircut and ummm yea.. at the moment I lead a very exciting life.

Well I better run.. Ciao

Sunday, January 11, 2009

Prince of Persia Review For The Xbox 360

Posted by X

945943_101783_front This game has been disputed against since the first trailer came to air. How can they change the prince after the Award winning Sands of Time?
Trilogy. Have the Cartooned him, Have they destroyed the fabric of time and space. NO. This game is about a completely different guy. Supposedly.

Prince of Persia is an action-adventure and plat-forming video game developed by Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft. It was released on
December 2, 2008 for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, and was released on December 9, 2008 for Microsoft Windows.
The game is set in ancient Persia, although the exact century is not revealed. In the game, the player assumes the role of the Prince,
whose name is not revealed in the game. The Prince is accompanied by a girl named Elika,  800px-PoP_Prince_and_Elika_runningwhom he met after a large sandstorm diverted
him from his course and he ended up in a mysterious land. Players traverse many different environments using the Prince's acrobatic abilities to scale walls and even crawl on the ceilings. Throughout the journey, players combat various enemies as they attempt to cleanse the land of corruption.
I Played this game on the Xbox 360.

My first impression of the game is that it looked allot like the game Okami. Because the entire game has a watercolour effect on the graphics Now this game has tried to take a less linear approach to the storyline.
800px-PoP2008_Prince-and-Elika Having to traverse a very long way to your mission point. Only for it to be a boss battle, and for it to get you a little closer to the end of the game.
and you do this not once, not twice, but about 10 + times. It gets very repetitive very fast. And you fight the same four bosses at least 5 times. Another thing that was very annoying is that this game is based in Persia. A distant land... yet all the characters speak like Americans partner.
That ripped a big hole in my bag of immersion.

As you have gathered a game that gets good grades from me is a game with good immersion. If it lacks that spark it better make up for it in another way. The Sands of Time trilogy made up for their lack of immersion but creating a kick ass combat system. You can us walls, pillars and ledges to fight your enemy. Using walls to flip behind them. Using pillars to spin around on and attack your enemies and Ledges to pull tricky moves where you push them off. Plus in their later game they had the Quick-time combat. This added a small action where you could Instantly kill an opponent by performing a stealthy move and slitting their throat. Any way back on task, in Prince of Persia, they thought that that system needed a revamp... (hello anyone home) NO it didn't. So what do they replace it with, A tekken style slow combat system. Where you have four main attacks Sword, Acrobatic (just jumping and hitting with sword) Claw and magic plus block. That was a big no-no but good old Ubisoft makes another grand decision this falls back on them. They should have just used the gameplay elements from the Sands of Time Trilogy.

In this game they recreated the Following NPC. Usually in games where you have some person follow you they talk the whole way, Making you just want to kill them. But Elika is quiet and comes in handy when you need to make extra long jumps. The Prince cannot "die" in this game, as800px-PoP_Acrobatic_Gameplay Elika will save him from any danger and bring him back to the last safe point of the game. For example, if the Prince slips and misses a jump, instead of falling to his death, Elika will grab him, and set him back on the last stable platform that the Prince stood on. So basically just like a checkpoint. If the Prince dies in combat Elika will save you but also allow the enemies to heal.

So here is the story for the game:
The adventure begins as the Prince is caught in a fierce sandstorm while seeking his donkey. The Prince, unable to see because of the sand, stumbles into Elika, who requests that he follow her into a temple at the centre of the kingdom. When they arrive inside the temple, Elika's father destroys the tree of life, which begins to free the god Ahriman, who was imprisoned by the god Ormazd, whom the Ahura worship. With the tree of life destroyed, Ahriman begins plaguing the land with Corruption. Don't want to say too much.... Or I will spoil you.

All and all I say that this is a good game. (I have decided to not use numbers to rate games anymore... I will not give in to conformity)
So this is a game I would say that Prince of Persia fans should play. It will prepare you for the future.
It has a good look graphically and has an all round comforting sense. As if it was giving you cookies and warm milk next to a fire, But it
didn't do it for me.

Happy Gaming

Thursday, January 8, 2009

I done some cooking

Posted by X

As the title says today I done a little work in the kitchen and made Peaches and Cream Ice Cream and Chocolate coated Rum Balls.

PEACHES AND CREAM ICE CREAM

4 eggs, seperated
1/4 cup castor Sugar
1/4 cup castor Sugar
1 teaspoon Vanilla Essence
300ml Cream

1 can of Peaches
80ml of cream

Beat egg whites until stiff peaks form. Gradually Add first measure of sugar, 1 tablespoon at a time. Beating until sugar dissolvew before adding
next tablespoon. In a sperate bowl beat egg yolks and second measure of sugar until thick and pale. Add vanilla. Gently fold yolk mixture
into egg white mixture. In another bowl beat cream until thick then fold into egg mixture.
In another bowl puree peaches and add cream. Mix well. Add Peach mixture to egg mixture. Pour Mixture into a shallow container suitable for
freezing. Freeze for several hours.

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CHOCOLATE RUM BALLS  

1 (6 oz.) pkg. semi-sweet chocolate pieces
1 (7 oz.) jar marshmallow creme
1 tbsp. rum flavoring
3 c. crisp rice cereal
1/2 c. flaked coconut (opt.)
1/2 c. chopped pecans

Melt chocolate in double boiler over hot water. Combine marshmallow creme and rum flavoring. Stir in chocolate and mix well.
Add cereal, coconut and nuts. Form into 1" balls. Roll into additional nuts and chill until firm.

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So now I am gonna settle down with a nice cold chocolate and much these up.. Yummy Yummy. I will be doing another proper Entry soon. A review or a rant...

Happy Cooking

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Monday, January 5, 2009

Uncharted: Drake's Fortune Review

Posted by X

Uncharted Ever wanted to live like a Treasure Hunter. Travelling to exotic locations in search of treasure, Traversing deadly cliffs and narrowly escaping enemies. Well in Uncharted: Drake's Fortune you can.

Uncharted: Drake's Fortune is an action-adventure video game developed by Naughty Dog, and published by Sony Computer Entertainment exclusively for the PlayStation 3. Combining platforming and third-person shooter elements, the game charts the journey of protagonist Nathan Drake, supposed descendant of the explorer Sir Francis Drake, as he seeks the lost treasure of El Dorado, with the help of Uncharted-charactersfriend Victor "Sully" Sullivan and journalist Elena Fisher.

 

When you first start Uncharted you are immersed into a cinematic experience that delivers and has immersion. Naughty Dog the company behind the legendary Crash Bandicoot series has gone all out in this game. It's quirky humour and intense battles form together to make quite a unique game.

Now the gameplay side of things.
Uncharted is a third-person shooter mixed with the 2D-3D platform element. That is probably its primary downfall. While in platform Uncharted_drake_fortressmode, the game has the annoying 3D camera (not all the time but quite allot) which means that some areas that you need to get to are not visible and sometimes completely off screen. 

Now the combat system of the game is quite unique it is the usual third person shooter with a melee system fused into it. The game also features a cover system. Where Nate will use walls and pillars as cover and also any object that is about waist height.Uncharted-cover-system

One thing that annoyed me about the the weapon systems is Nate can only carry one pistol at a time, and may also carry one rifle, whilst there is a limited amount of ammo per gun; picking up a different handgun or rifle switches out that weapon for the new one.

This game has several similarities or may even be inspired by the Indiana Jones series and even the National Treasure series. Yet it has its own twist on the treasure hunting genre. The hero Nathan Drake is a Mans-man, he just seems to be really realistic as just an everyday guy.

All and all I give this game a rating of 8 out of 10. For its immersion in gameplay and quality characters. But on the downside it has the Bad camera choices and annoying choices with gunplay.

 

Happy Gaming

Sunday, January 4, 2009

Rant of Game Physics

Posted by X

Yes making games to be realistic is cool, I do not disagree with that. But sacrificing the story and key gameplay elements, just so you can have
buildings supports break. That I do disagree with. I have noticed this more and more recently that games are focusing less on the story and more on
the graphics and realism.

I remember the days of good games like Monkey Island. Mi1cover

 

Now this was -wait is- one of the best games I have played. It
doesn't have the best graphics -Heck it runs in dos- but it has a unique and intriguing storyline which carries on into 3 sequels. Yes 3.  And all
of those sequels like the original are great. and tSequalshe physics engine there is none, this is originally a point and click story.

 

 

 

Now we have games like Fracture

Fracture_front  which is based on a new Physics system. Yes the whole games is based on the new Terra-deformation.fracture-20070503033939825-000
When I first saw this game I thought No Way. You can tell a game will lack a good storyline when they either: Include the Physics engine in
Advertising the game or Include it on the Box or as in Fracture keep it as a core gameplay element which the story is based around.

Including a new Physics system in the game but still keeping a good storyline is very rare, Take a look at The Force Unleashed.The_Force_Unleashed Yes it had 2
excellent new Physics systems, And look at the storyline. I would say it nearly had it. If they had spent just that little more attention to detail
they would have had a great game.

The two Physics systems that were introduced are

Pixelux Entertainment's "Digital Molecular Matter" (DMM) for dynamically destructible objects, and NaturalMotion's Euphoria for realistic non-player character artificial intelligence.

swforceart10

 

Happy Gaming

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

A Year in Review

Posted by X

Well in less than 12 hours another year will have passed us by. Quite shocking. So I thought I would take the time to look back at this year.

This year started out quite sad with the death and funeral of Sir Ed. May he Rest in Peace.

It then took a turn with the olympics (the only cool thing I can think of) but this years olympics didn't do it for me.

Then we New Zealanders had our elections yipeeedadooo

Oh and just recently I started a Deviant Art thing cause of my small passion for photography

http://indescent-x.deviantart.com/

Go on check it out I know you want to.

 

Well have a fantastic new year and all that

"The sun will always shine on you, if you de-cloud your mind, body and soul"

Xavier Smith