I’ve had a great week or so off from writing. It looks like I’m taking a fair bit of the next week off too which will be particularly nice considering much of my previous week consisted of visiting relatives so I haven’t had much time to just relax.

Father Christmas was very kind to me this year bringing me Metal Gear Solid 4, Broken Sword: The Director’s Cut for the Wii, Tropico 3 for the 360, Lego Rock Band and Uncharted. Not forgetting The Complete Popcap Collection through Steam from NokkonWud!

Yup I’ve got plenty to play now.

I’ve completed Broken Sword already and it’s great. The original is a classic anyhow but the additions, mostly revolving around Nicole, are brilliant touches that are sure to delight fans. Some of the new puzzles are a little infuriating but this is more down to the awkward Wii controls. Still very much worth a look for point and click fans.

I’ve played Metal Gear Solid 4 for a couple of hours now and it’s certainly got the grey matter stirring, but possibly not in the way that it wanted. It’s provoked  a question I’ve been pondering on and off for a while. If a game takes a number of hours to become enjoyable and compelling, can it still be a classic? It’s happened a few times lately with various games, most recently Metal Gear Solid 4. I’m estimating there’s about 10hrs of gameplay there (I use that term loosely considering the wealth of cutscenes!) yet I’m 2hrs into it and I’m still not entirely sure why I’m playing it. It hasn’t grabbed me yet. It’s easy to say ‘Well you’re only 2hrs in’ but that’s roughly 20% of the game. Possibly more considering I’m only estimating. Surely those people with less time due to a busy life might not have carried on as far as I have? I remember having a conversation about Fallout 3 with a work colleague a while ago. I was explaining to him about how it’s great once you get into it but it does take a little while to get into. As he pointed out, he’s got a wife and three young children. As much as he’d like to persevere for a number of hours, he just doesn’t have the time. Instead he put it aside and went back to Grand Theft Auto IV as its rewards were more immediately obvious.
I don’t have 3 children but I do have a lot of things vying for my attention, whether it be work, family commitments, or simply other games. So what to do when a game just doesn’t grab me? For the most part I crack on, hoping that things will improve soon. But I do wonder just why this is accepted in so many games. If a film was incredibly slow and dull for an hour or more, then was stunningly good for the last 30 minutes, would it still deserve to be called a classic? And how many people would have switched off long before the end anyway?

On another note: I’ve also returned to work in the past week or so. Only short shifts, unfortunately it still hasn’t gone very well. After the first three hour shift, I could hardly walk for the following three days with me even struggling to traverse stairs again. My workmates have been brilliant though so that’s some consolation. I’m not rotaed in until the 11th now thanks to my understanding assistant manager seeing how badly I was struggling to keep going.

I’m going for another X-ray of my foot on Tuesday to see if the bone has healed, and most importantly whether it’s healed correctly, which is the most worrying concern. I’ve also finally received a letter regarding physiotherapy so that should happen soon. Only been on the waiting list since October!!

I’d love to say I’ve been dealing with foot related things well lately, but it’s been getting me very down. It’s one thing to break your foot back in July and to be told it’ll take 6-8 weeks, but now that it’s nearly 6 months, it’s really brought me down. Never mind, it’ll have to heal eventually I guess.

Why not check out my Top 10 of the Decade piece over at Resolution?
Do note, these aren’t necessarily the best. They are my favourite games of the decade. Check it out and let me know if you have a similar love.

But as time went on, I got lazy. And poor. While at University, I couldn’t afford much so I stuck with my PS2 and Gamecube, and the PC didn’t get upgraded. It could run Serious Sam, Counterstrike and Call of Duty so that was fine for me. The PC gaming lust just gradually faded away. The ease of just putting a disc in and instantly playing was overwhelming.

I never quite gave up on PC gaming. Although I had an Xbox to go alongside the PS2 and Gamecube, I still played on the PC a bit. Mostly World of Warcraft with my boyfriend at the time. But gradually the PC was becoming more of a tool than a gaming system.

Then the Xbox 360 came along for me in 2006. By this time I was living in Stafford for a year undertaking a Msc. I was the poorest I’d ever been so the PC had no chance of being upgraded. I was already having to sacrifice food in favour of 360 games. I got hooked on achievements and regularly rented via Swapgame.

It got worse for the PC and me. After finishing in Stafford I bought myself a new PC. A Dell. Something that didn’t need any fiddling or tweaking, it just worked. It didn’t have a great graphics card but it was enough to keep me going. As the writing was taking off a little, it was handy to keep my hand in and undertake various PC reviews. But the true love wasn’t quite there.

Then as the final blow to my poor desktop PC. I had a car accident at the start of 2008. Besides writing off my beloved car, I’d also damaged my shoulder. This meant that I couldn’t sit at a desk for extended periods of time without pain. I still had PC games to review and write about so I decided to get a laptop so that I could sit on a sofa and rest my back/shoulder.
Really this laptop was the final nail in the coffin where upgrades were concerned. I’d taken the easy route, the route with the minimum of effort. But it worked out well.

Having said that, excluding MMOs, I felt no great urge to play many games on the PC. I was still hooked on achievements and my 360. Not a great position to be in when you consider the career I wish to pursue. Little bit too narrow.

I bought a Wii after my Dad’s death to keep my brain occupied. It didn’t really work. Wii Sports was great but the fad only lasted so long. But the seeds were there, I started noticing more Wii games that I wanted to play. I just never got round to it though.

Then this summer I broke my foot, which wrecked any plans I had for the rest of the year. While sitting in A&E waiting to be seen, I was formulating a plan. As soon as I got home with my ridiculously huge and painful foot, I logged onto Amazon and ordered myself a PS3. I just about had enough money thanks to some wise saving previously, so although I knew a price cut was bound to happen soon, I figured ‘Sod it, it’ll keep me sane’. Over the course of the summer I threw myself into as many PS3 exclusives as I could. I played Ghostbusters to death first of all, then completed Uncharted (great but flawed), played some of Killzone 2 (didn’t really like it but I will finish it at some point), one level of Resistance (again, didn’t grab me), Little Big Planet (LOVED it), Valkyria Chronicles (great but tough), oh and Katamari Forever. Finally I had a terrific time with Batman: Arkham Asylum on the PS3 and then Uncharted 2.

Perhaps that was the start of it, seeing further than my beige box of Microsoft goodness. I wasn’t an Xbox fanboy in any way previously, but I never seemed to find the time to expand my horizons as much as I should have.

The Wii started being used more. I explored the shop channel more. I rented Super Mario Galaxy and loved it. There was Cate West: The Vanishing Files, a really surprisingly enjoyable title that really deserved a mention. Hell, I even enjoyed SimAnimals: Africa which I really didn’t expect! The Wii still suffered from my reluctance to buy much for it (especially with a low income!) but in terms of rentals and desires to review the titles, it had a huge boost.

As the weeks went on and the boredom increased as I continued to be laid up with my foot, I needed more variety. Opportunity came my way in the form of Champions Online, Aion, Tropico 3 and Cities XL on the PC.

And, well, there comes the ‘dark’ side. I quickly realised that my laptop was no longer really cutting it, especially when it came to previewing DiRT2 on it.

So thanks to some wise saving (again), I bought myself a new laptop. One that’s just a bit more capable than the last one. It’s meant that the past two weeks, I’ve hardly gamed on my 360 or my PS3 or Wii. Instead I’ve been a solid PC gamer. I finally bought Football Manager 2010 which is dangerously addictive, I’ve got Aion, Fallen Earth and Star Trek Online to keep me busy now. Oh and Steam keeps trying to lure me into spending more money. I’ve already bought Plants vs. Zombies but now I want more. Really I just want to say sod it and buy the entire Popcap Collection but I’ve resisted. DiRT2 finally runs well and I love it once more. I also have a great urge to resubscribe to World of Warcraft for a bit, and even Everquest 1.

My urge to 360 game? Dragon Age: Origins. That’s honestly it at the moment. Even with my gamerscore less than 2k away from 100k.

As a sign of just where my interests currently lay. For Christmas I’ve asked for Broken Sword: The Director’s Cut on the Wii and Metal Gear Solid 4 on the PS3. I already had everything I wanted for the 360 so there didn’t seem any point asking for another 360 game.

It’s no doubt just a phase but I really enjoy the variety at the moment. It feels so much more exciting than when I was tying myself into the one system.

Anyway, needs must. I need to go win the league then follow it up with a rally victory or two. Ooh and perhaps a spot of Peggle too.

So, since I last updated there have been reviews of Elven Legacy Siege, Elven Legacy Magic and James Cameron’s Avatar for Resolution, as well as an article on my GOTY. For play.tm there have been reviews of DiRT2 and Wii Yoga as well as articles on the best games for your iPhone, DS and PSP this season. There was Rumor Killers for TGR and the forthcoming Rumor Killers: Review of the Year. Oh and last but not least there were reviews of Age of Empires III: The Complete Collection and Spore Hero for VideoGameUK, and reviews of Dragon Age: Origins and Lego Indiana Jones 2: The Adventure Continues for RewiredMind. Phew!

In other news…

My Aion account got hacked, which was extremely annoying. I was lucky that thanks to a very helpful PR person who got me set up with the account in the first place, passed me onto someone associated with NCSoft. They got my account frozen quickly and then restored to me. Nothing had been stolen on the account so I was very lucky! Still no idea how they managed to reset my password as I’m very careful, secure password, no viruses etc. But at least no real harm was done.

The other big piece of news is I’ve got a new laptop! It was on the cards for sometime in the New Year but thanks to doing financially better than I expected, and the realisation it’d cost me 2.5% more in the New Year thanks to the VAT changes, I bought it this side of Christmas. After previous good experiences with Dell I bought another one. A Dell Studio this time round: Core2Duo T6600 2.2ghz, 4gb RAM, 500gb HD (desperately needed as I was constantly below 5gb with the last laptop!) and ATi 4570HD. Big upgrade from my old one and I’m very happy with it.

Only really played DiRT2 on it so far due to having too much work to do, but I’m downloading Aion as I type so I’ll enjoy trying that out. Also got Football Manager 2010 on the way which will be great.

I’ve got some interesting plans for the New Year so stay tuned. For now I’ll try to actually update a bit sooner than the gap between the last one!

Anyway, time to toot my own horn to start with.

This past week has produced reviews of Tropico 3 and LittleBigPlanet PSP for Resolution, a review of Family Game Night Vol 2 and a DiRT2 PC preview for play.tm, Rumor Killers for TGR, Secrets of the Mysterious Island review for ThePortableGamer, Puzzle Bobble Live for VideogameUK and Borderlands for RewiredMind. Oh plus two features on Modern Warfare 2 which haven’t gone live yet. That’s all in the past 5-6 days. Not bad I’d say!

I wouldn’t be surprised if I’ve forgotten something, so as always the Portfolio is up to date for these things. It’s getting rather large now, not bad considering the majority of it has been done in 2009.

Currently I’m rather pleased that I have nothing to do for an entire weekend (it’s been a few weeks since that last happened) and I also don’t have a huge deal planned for next week either. What are the odds that by about Monday lunchtime I get twitchy? The curses of being lazy yet also hating having nothing to do.

Anyway, that’s about it for this very short update. Think of it as more of a page holder till some inspiration kicks in. Seems a shame to bump the Escapism post down with this drivel but guess it has to happen at some point!

Not really sure what the purpose of this entry is, but I guess if nothing else it’s to highlight some stunningly good writing from the likes of Daniel Lipscombe, Sinan Kubba, Christos Reid and Sam Giddings which seems like an excellent reason to me!

I do fully intend on contributing something myself to the issue although I do feel a teensy bit like it’s bandwagon jumping after seeing such great writing but at least it’ll be cathartic!

You see for the past 14 and a half weeks I’ve been laid up with a broken foot, meaning it’s most convenient for me to simply stay downstairs for the majority of the day and just shuffle (in the most undignified way possible!) up the stairs at night to go to bed. The broken foot matter isn’t actually why I’m annoyed at the moment (well it is, but that’s a different blog post for another time), instead it’s the restrictions that my Xbox 360 places on my gaming sessions.

My 360 which resides in my room is online and hooked up to Xbox Live. However thanks to the lack of a wireless network adaptor the 360 that is downstairs (my Mum’s) isn’t online and there’s no way of changing this unless hooked up to the nearest ethernet cable which is upstairs. Throw in my broken foot, my Mum’s disability and the fact I can’t afford a wireless network adaptor, this 360 is stuck offline no matter how inconvenient it is.

It’s inconvenient because it cuts down my options hugely for what I can play. For example, I can’t play any of the Fallout 3 expansion packs, any Rock Band DLC, nor any Arcade games, all because I want to play these things on the same account name as I purchased them on, but on a different Xbox 360 and one that is offline.

License migration is no use to solve this due to the problems of getting the 360 online at all. Similar problems stop me bringing the original 360 downstairs temporarily so that the license comes with the console. So I’m stuck. Sure, I can play my Scene It: Box Office Smash and Trivial Pursuit DLC, Rock Band DLC and Arcade games upstairs but when it’s seriously impractical to do so, it’s a rare occurrence.

I guess in the grand scheme of things this is all just a small irritation but it does get more and more annoying. It certainly makes me extremely grateful that my Wii and PS3 can go online out of the box so at least I can go online there. I renewed my Xbox Live Gold Membership in July, about a week before I broke my foot. With some hindsight, I wouldn’t have rushed down the stairs that day….but also I wouldn’t have bothered renewing it as it’s completely pointless right now except for sessions late at night (which are very infrequent) or in the morning for an hour or so (again pretty rare).

So yes, it’s very, very annoying.

While I’m in a ranting mood I have some slightly more irrational complaints to make.

Since when did playing a game on a console become so difficult to do? It feels like every time I load a game up while online, there’s a patch to download. Of course the PS3 is the worst offender with the first time I wanted to play Little Big Planet requiring an hour’s worth of patching, but the 360 seems to be catching up fast with seemingly every big new release needing a patch of some kind within a few days of release. Why? Why can’t the developers just get the damn game right the first time? I entirely understand why patches need to be made a few weeks after release, such as when it’s suddenly realised there’s a huge bug in the multiplayer code, but within the first weekend of release? Really?

I’ve no doubt it’s because publishers are getting pushier and demanding results faster, meaning something has to give but it’s a really irritating niggle!

On another current generation note, why are all the consoles trying so hard to be something they’re not? The Xbox 360 doesn’t just want to be a games console now, it desperately wants you to rent films through it, to Twitter on it, to check Facebook, to use MSN. It’s surely not long till you can even order pizza through it.

The PS3 wants to sit proudly in your living room as an all singing, all dancing media unit. It implores you to load up Vidzone whenever you’ve got a party going on, to transfer all your converted films to its hard drive for convenience, watch BBC TV shows on the iPlayer and to explore the internet through its browser.

The Wii….well actually it has limited capabilities excluding its internet browser and photo browser. But strangely enough this makes it the purest gaming device of the three. It’s just a pity it has such a poor reputation due to its plethora of shovelware which disguises its many great games.

And yeah I know you can just ignore all the non-gaming capabilities of the three systems and this is a sound counter argument but then again I can come up with a counter argument for mostly everything I’ve just said. I’m annoying like that.

After all this, I guess I’d best go load up my Commodore 64 and stay in the dark ages.

As you can see I’ve spruced things up a little and changed the theme again. I’ve also added the Portfolio section which covers everything I’ve done to date.

There are quite a few updates as you can see! Most notably I’m now no longer Reviews Editor with GrE and TPG. I decided that it was for the best so that I can focus on my writing.
Since then, besides being much more relaxed, I’ve written a piece for one of my favourite sites Resolution and been writing a few reviews for a good friend’s site Hi-Score. Most importantly, I feel more in control of my work which is always good! Hoping to write a piece for this blog soon on escapism through gaming, something that has been ably written about by some of my peers here, here and here. The ironic thing is due to the content, I’m escaping from writing about it and waiting till I feel mentally up to it! I can think of two things I’d like to write about, and I’m sure it would be cathartic to do so, but sometimes denial is useful.

Anyway no guarantees, but I’ll try to write here a little more often now that I have more free time although I do seem to be writing at least one full article every day at the moment! Good old busy season. Certainly not complaining, I wouldn’t have been able to play the likes of Uncharted 2 if it hadn’t been for such review opportunities. Uncharted 2 is a bit good by the way, more in the next few days.

Oh and before I forget, I was hoping to attend the Eurogamer Expo next week in London but as my foot is still causing me plenty of problems, this almost certainly won’t be happening now. It’s looking pretty unlikely I’ll be returning to my day job soon too. What fun! Not.

Life
There’s not much to life at the moment other than my foot. Went to the hospital for a check up last Friday. It could have gone better but it also could have gone a lot worse. My foot is healing but slowly so I’m still not allowed to put any weight on it for at least another week. Once I’m allowed to put weight on it, I still can’t exactly walk on it, just occasionally put my foot down. I have got a new cast now though, a lighter, red one. You’d think that would be a good thing but it has its pros and cons. The main downside is it’s making my foot hurt more as there’s less support than with the bulky cast so I’m not overly keen on it. I’ve actually suffered more pain since this cast than in the second week of the bulky cast which is no fun at all! Here’s the x-ray shot from last week, bearing in mind this was 2 weeks after the accident. The break looked a lot more jagged when I first did it so it is getting there, just very slowly.

I return to the Fracture Clinic on 4th September to see how it’s going. Hopefully I’ll have the cast removed then but I’m not holding my breath as things are going slowly and I’ll have to wait and see. I’m also certainly going to need physio on it once I am able to walk again which sucks.

Work
Work is going very well now. I’ve learnt to adapt around when my brain’s rubbish and get on with work when I can think straight, always a handy skill. Three new notable pieces are up as well as a few more iPhone reviews.

First up is Motion Control and Disability for TheGameReviews. It didn’t fare too well on N4G and I suspect it’s a bit of a niche subject but I’m quite pleased with it. It’s a rather personal piece focusing on my Mum’s neck/arm disability and how it’s affected her ability to play on the Wii.

Then there was the latest Rumor Killers which is already old news as the developer GRIN is now officially no more.

Finally there’s the review of Steal Princess on the DS which is self explanatory really.

Things have been going very well at ThePortableGamer/GamesAreEvil. So well in fact that I have been promoted to UK Reviews Editor over there! So I now deal with European PR people and arrange review copies and that sort of thing for the site. Currently there are only two of us based in the UK or Europe for the site so I’m also working on recruitment too to make the UK side of things as successful as the US side. I’ve got at least one person in mind which should help hugely. For now, it’s a matter of getting the games in and the support! Done quite well already as a copy of Ashes Cricket 2009 for the 360 arrived on my doorstep the other morning so hopefully that’s the beginning of many.
This is something I’ve never done before but already I’m hugely enjoying it, I always like a change of pace and I’m very grateful for the opportunity.

Gaming
As you can imagine, I’ve played a lot of games lately when I’ve not been writing. It’s pretty much all I can do besides watch films and I’m sure my attention span is getting worse with every film.

The Playstation 3 has had a bit less usage recently with me only really playing Little Big Planet and Valkyria Chronicles. Little Big Planet is interesting and quirky but ultimately just makes me want to play Super Mario World. A nice concept but I don’t think I’d pay for it.
Valkyria Chronicles is great but I’m stuck on it so it’s a bit frustrating!

I can only have one system plugged in at a time downstairs and while I can’t plug stuff in myself easily so the 360’s ruling the roost at the moment. Particularly as it’s resting on a cabinet which means i can actually swap discs for myself!
I’ve been enjoying Tales of Vesperia, although again got stuck on a boss. According to things I’ve read, it’s the most challenging boss of the entire game despite being early on, which is very annoying. I’ll get there eventually but still….grrr!

I’ve successfully 1ked Night at the Museum 2 which is no accomplishment really as it was a very simple game, but I did quite enjoy it. I’m now working on G-Force which is quite fun and a bit meatier than most kids games. Funnily enough in both cases, I’m not playing them merely for the sake of gamerscore points. I wanted to see what the NatM2 game was like after seeing the film, and I adore guinea pigs so had to play G-Force! Pity I probably won’t be able to see the film at the cinema though.

As well as that I’ve been playing plenty of Fallout 3 on the PC after mostly completing it on the 360. Even bought the DLC again as I’ve been enjoying it so much. Bit scary how quickly I’m going through it really!
Finally, I’m about to check out Mithra a 360 community/indie game which a friend on Twitter recommended to me and then provided me with a DLC code for it. Looks excellent from what I’ve heard, and always happy to support Indie gaming.

Do bear in mind this is coming from someone used to a 360 so I’m looking at it from a slightly different perspective than people who have it as their first console of this generation.

As soon as I opened it, I have to admit to being most impressed by the PS3 in terms of looks. I know it’s a very personal thing, but it looked like I’d spent money on it. I love my 360, but the off white plastic style just looks cheap if you ask me. Perhaps hypocritically I liked the Wii’s looks upon opening the box but I think a lot of that was down to its size. The PS3 is huge! Which is not good for me at the moment as I was having to rely on my Mum with her bad back and permanent neck injury to lift it for me, in the end the box got dragged into the living room and dumped by the TV. It’s now residing on the floor at least until I can switch casts and be able to move it.

I did have to laugh that as soon as I opened it, I thought ‘ooh shiny’ and within a nanosecond a fingerprint and a bit of dust landed on it, ruining it forever Reminded me of first getting my iPhone I love the buttons though, I’ve not had a proper look (as it’s now near impossible for me to get to!) but I like touch sensitive buttons. My TV has the same so I guess I’m biased. Slot loading disc drive is nice too, purely a looks thing again but I like it.

Having wireless built in is brilliant at the moment. No ethernet cables go to that room so I wouldn’t have been able to go online on it until I got it upstairs in weeks to come, so it was very handy.

I’m still a little unsure about the controller. It is the perfect size for me and I like the weight of it and not needing a play n charge kit because it comes with its own way of doing it, but I’m mostly unsure about the L2 and R2 buttons. The triggers feel wrong and a little flimsy, after a few days use I seem to have adjusted though. I was worried the controller was a bit flimsy overall, but after resting it on the armrest then accidentally elbowing it halfway across the room (meaning I had to go call my Mum from upstairs to retrieve it for me, oops), I’ll forgive its flimsiness as it can’t be that bad

Installing games and updates is a bit irritating. The first game I installed was Ghostbusters and it took forever! System updates take a while too and I know it has the iTunes way of ‘patching’ things so it’ll just get bigger.

I’ve watched a few blu-rays, X-Men: The Last Stand, Vantage Point and Die Hard 4.0, and the picture seems very crisp, even my Mum noticed it. Really quite impressed with the picture, even the menus on the PS3 look crisper than I expected! It’s not even on the better TV as my TV is better than the living room one, so be interesting to see what it looks like on there.

I’ve only played Ghostbusters, Uncharted and Killzone 2 so far. I have the lovely problem of not being able to get down to the PS3 to switch discs, so once one disc goes in, I commit to it. I got Ghostbusters with the console so that went first. Really enjoyed it, it is flawed in places, but it kept me hooked to the end (it is a bit short, only took 6-7hrs if that), and has a great charm to it. Ghostbusters fans will love it.

Uncharted was good but not quite what I expected. I expected it to be more like Tomb Raider, which it is in places; but there is also a lot more combat than I anticipated. The combat lets it down a lot as it’s pretty basic and it feels like filler in between the more interesting stuff, at times it feels like it interrupts my progression more than anything else just to make the game a bit longer. Still good though, and the graphics are sublime. I look forward to Uncharted 2, and hope it will learn from the original’s mistakes.

Killzone 2…..ugh where do I start. I’ve only played the first two chapters so it is early days (although from what I’ve heard, it is a very short game anyway), but I’m far from impressed. The graphics are amazing, but the action is so mediocre. I will certainly complete it but I really couldn’t recommend it to others. The story and its characters are cardboard thin and the only reason why I can see it get so much hype is because of its exclusivity to the Playstation 3. What a waste.

I’ve got a few more games to get through. I have Prototype (although not an exclusive of course), as well as that I’ve borrowed Ratchet and Clank, Little Big Planet and Heavenly Sword from Nokkon and got Valkyria Chronicles coming soon from another friend (seriously can’t wait for that to arrive!).

So overall, I’m very impressed so far. Be interesting to see what happens when the 360 and PS3 are side by side but that’s going to be a fair while yet till it happens, and admittedly once I can walk again, I think I might not go near a game for a while!