How to keep busy

Posted on May 10th, 2008 by Haly.
Categories: Gaming.

Thanks all for the warm comments, really nice to know people care :)
I’ve decided that I don’t really want to use this blog at the moment for talking about trying to deal with everything to do with my Dad’s death as it’s all very crap and it’d only bore you all anyhow ;) But yes, it has turned my life upside down and made things incredibly hard.

My main escape route from life is as always games. I am trying to make various plans for my future which will make me a fair bit poorer for a bit but ultimately more happy. But let’s get back to the games.

Once things settle, I should have more time for games albeit less money to buy them with. I am extremely fortunate however that a) I stockpiled quite a few games beforehand because I couldn’t resist them and b) my amazing friends over at a forum clubbed together and bought me Grand Theft Auto IV on launch day which rocked :) I also really want to get boosting my gamerscore again and get some games completed. Sure, it’s ultimately pointless but I figure the point to life is to enjoy it.

Anyhow. I’m now trying to figure out what I should get going with. I have far too many games at varying levels of completion. For an idea, here’s the list:

Games I need to wrap up

Bioshock (I’ve completed it once but I’ve got a few achievements to go, mainly complete it on hard and find all the audio diaries)
Bully (I’ve played through a bit of this and really enjoy it, it’s just finding the time)
Call of Duty 2, 3 and 4 (complete on Veteran)
Eternal Sonata (I need to play through it a second time)
Football Manager 2006, 2007 and 2008 (various bits and pieces)
Gears of War (far too many online achievements and one bloody cog tag I missed)
Guitar Hero 2 and 3 (probably never to be completed because I’m not very good)
Lost Odyssey (I’m half way through so far)
Mass Effect (needs a couple more playthroughs, bit tedious though)
Viva Pinata: Party Animals

Untouched games

Assassin’s Creed (really can’t get into this at all)
Blue Dragon (I think I need to rely on a guide for this 1k)
Condemned (I love it but it scares me :p)
The Darkness (it hasn’t grabbed me really, sorry Nokkon!)
Dead Rising
Devil May Cry 4
Dynasty Warriors 5 and 6 (really don’t get these games at all, one was £5, one I won)
Ghost Recon
Jericho (partially touched and I do quite like it)
Kameo
Perfect Dark Zero
Prey
Ratatouille (I hated the first play of it which doesn’t bode well)
Tetris Evolution
WWE Smackdown 07

You think maybe I have a problem with buying games? :p And I still really want Skate!

Any suggestions for what I should get on with first? GTA4 is a given as it’s fun :) But I’m not rushing it.

3 comments.

Reason for the lack of updates

Posted on May 2nd, 2008 by Haly.
Categories: Gaming.

Sorry for the lack of updates. I’d love to say that’s all over now, but I can’t guarantee it for a while…..or guarantee pretty much anything in my life at the moment.

My Dad died suddenly on April 12th. He was only 63 and at the time we thought he was pretty healthy. My Mum and I were there to watch him die at our home when there was nothing we could do to save him. We then had a house full of police for most of the day and a 2 week wait for the funeral because a post mortem needed to be conducted as he died suddenly.

So life’s pretty shit at the moment and the repurcussions just keep coming and coming.

I’ll update when I can think of something less emo to type.

4 comments.

Musings on Spiderman: Friend or Foe and Lost Odyssey

Posted on March 11th, 2008 by Haly.
Categories: Gaming.

I got lucky and the laptop arrived today :) When I ordered it on Friday night, it had an ETA of on or before March 28th but it all went through much quicker and it arrived this afternoon. Excellent! Especially considering the 3 games I have to review all showed up Monday so that should make life easier :)
Even better, Dell didn’t quite send me what I ordered.
I ordered a core2duo 1.6ghz slightly slower than my desktop at 2ghz but I couldn’t afford to go up to the 2ghz one.
What CPU does this have, do you ask?
The 2ghz one! Despite all the invoices and packing slips saying it’s 1.6ghz and the fact I’ve been charged the correct amount for the 1.6ghz one.
So that’s a nice surprise. :D

Anyways I spent my weekend as a semi crippled person (taking the tape off my back was murder, left my skin very sore, tender and red; and BOTH shoulder blades hurting lots!) gaining lots of achievement points like the sad sod I am on the quiet ;)
I’d received Spiderman: Friend or Foe from Lovefilm and I actually quite enjoyed it.
Sure it was stupidly easy and obviously aimed at children (you couldn’t even really die in the game), but it had a certain charm and it reminded me a little of Streets of Rage for some reason. It was a nice mindless distraction for a while really. I’d never buy it and I’d have been gutted if I’d paid money for it but as a free rental it was fine.
The only really crappy thing was the stupid last 75 point achievement. It involved upgrading your 14 (yes 14) sidekicks fully. This took over 2hrs and numerous replays of the final level just to gain the coins needed to upgrade. And it was bloody annoying! And pointless. Yet I was so near to 1king the game that I felt compelled through my bloody stubbornness to do it. So I did……I’m a fool :P

The other game I played as much as possible at the weekend was Lost Odyssey. A game that should be everything I could ever dream of….yet it’s missing something. Made by all the geniuses of Final Fantasy, it has an incredibly good story that keeps me playing. The dream segments are truly touching and emotional; yet I still can’t help but feel it’s just not quite there.
There’s no innovation, it’s the same kind of RPG as you’d see 10 years ago. No bad thing…but I kind of want something new and exciting now. You still wander around people’s houses nicking their stuff without any questions asked, the battle system is near identical to Final Fantasy VIII yet lacks a comprehensive magic system like materia or junctioning brought; and it has some daft minigames in it that break up the story too much.
I just want more, I’m not quite sure what right this second but I know this is missing something. I’ll still enjoy working my way through it, I just wish it could truly amaze me. The first 10 minutes amazed me, but that was that :(

For now I bid adieu as I have updates to restart for and I want to see how WoW plays on this lappy :)

2 comments.

New Laptop Incoming!

Posted on March 7th, 2008 by Haly.
Categories: Gaming.

Yet another brief update but got to try to keep the few readers posted ;)
Since the last update, my shoulder’s still been bad. At the moment I have my shoulder blade strapped up (courtesy of a physio and some tape) and the hope is that it helps force my shoulder blade to go back where it should be. Of course this hurts…quite a bit. I get to take the tape off tomorrow but I think it’ll hurt quite a lot then too as my shoulder will have to get used to no tape supporting it then.

On a lighter note, I have a few new reviews up on play.tm:
First up I had Advance Wars: Days of Ruin (well worth any DS owner’s attention), then there was Jack Keane, a game I’d never heard of beforehand but was a triumph for Point and Click Adventure fans in my opinion. It reminded me of Broken Sword which is never a bad thing. :)
Most recently, as in yesterday, there was Warhammer: Mark of Chaos: Battle March, a very uninteresting RTS game that could have been so much better.

I’ve now got another 3 (eeek yes 3) games on the way to review. So things are picking up fast.

What with the shoulder problems, I decided to get myself a laptop. Just ordered it in fact. It’s not meant to be a desktop replacement, just to give me some respite when I need to get stuff done. I’ll make sure to stick some photos up ;)

Spec is: Core 2 Duo 1.6ghz, 2gb RAM, 128mb Geforce 8400M GS and 120gb HD, roughly the same as my desktop funnily enough, but slightly slower. £400ish off Dell which wasn’t bad at all :)
Scary to spend that much in one go but it’ll be worth it!

I’ve now got a weekend planned of 360 playing, bit of scorewhoring (I’ve got Spiderman Friend or Foe and Cabela’s Alaskan Adventures for that courtesy of a free rental trial with Love Film) but mainly Lost Odyssey.

Anyways, next update will hopefully be on the laptop and be less painful for me.

2 comments.

Not a lot of gaming news but…

Posted on February 24th, 2008 by Haly.
Categories: Gaming.

I felt obliged to at least do a brief update for Inoshishi if no one else :p
I haven’t been about a lot especially these past 2 weeks, mainly for 2 reasons.
1) I had a car accident on the way to my first day of my new job. It was a stupid accident, luckily the only ones that got hurt were me and my car. My car got written off (RIP my lovely car :( It rocked), I didn’t quite get written off but stuff hurts. I acquired a swollen knuckle (that would be my hand meeting the dashboard), a swollen knee (sucks to be short, you end up nearer the dashboard), swollen ribs (hit the steering wheel and the airbag didn’t go off) and worst of all a bad shoulder.
Unfortunately for me, just over a year ago I had a shoulder injury. It was diagnosed that basically my shoulder blade had become detached from my ribcage. After many months of physio and being careful, it was mostly ok as long as I didn’t push it too much.
One car accident later and I’m right back at the start which makes it impossible to lift anything vaguely heavy, twist round to do anything, sit straight for any length of time or type at a PC on a desk for any length of time without lots of pain.
I’m also entirely carless as the insurance payout didn’t really cover enough to make it worthwhile, so I’m waiting till I’ve got the funds to adequately replace the old car.

2) Well that’s the new job. Ironically it involves sitting at a desk typing all day heh. I struggle through then in the evenings do my best to minimise damage and sit still a lot. Luckily the job’s going well so far, which is handy because it can fund the new car! For now I’m restricted to buses. Fun.

Other than that, gaming has been a little sparse. I must have gamed a fair bit in my week off that I shouldn’t have had (work told me to come in a week after I was meant to as I wasn’t really up to it) but admittedly that week’s been a little bit of a blur.
I know in the past week I’ve been playing LMA Manager though as I’ve signed up for a 3 month free trial of Lovefilm so I got that, Kingdom of Fire and Cabela’s Alaskan Adventures (which is terrible so far).

So, I’m sorry for the severe lack of updates. I can’t guarantee when the next one is as right now it seems to take a lot to juggle work, reviewing and a bit of spare time!

5 comments.

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