It’s been a quiet couple of weeks on this blog, for which I apologise for. I’ve been quite busy as well as lacking in motivation which isn’t a great combination for this blog, nor for a budding writer such as myself! Writing wise, I’ve just finshed up a review of Codename Panzers Cold War, the white sliced bread of the PC RTS world. It’s my first paid review and my first review to soon be featured on playboy.co.uk so I’m rather happy with that. Pity it was such a mediocre game and so terrible to review. Terrible, not because it was a bad game, but because it felt like there was so little to say. It was a real challenge as it was just so middle of the road, nothing positive or negative stood out! I’ve just finished writing up the review for Lord of the Rings:Conquest which I was rather disappointed with. I generally love a good hack n slasher. Despite their repetive nature, they are my guilty pleasure. However LoTR:Conquest just doesn’t cut it for me, it’s just too slow compared to the likes of Dynasty Warriors amongst many other things. Review will be up here in the next few days as well as a link for Codename Panzers.

Back to gaming for fun, I’ve been busy with a few games.

I finished off Prince of Persia at last. I never did figure out if I enjoyed it or not. I assume I must have as I played it to the end but it had a lot wrong with it. A lot of the time it felt like an on the rails platformer, if such a thing could exist, where I just had to press a, b or y from time to time to progress further. I didn’t particularly like the two main characters, and certainly didn’t like having to stop every few minutes to listen to a conversation that I couldn’t skip. As well as that, the combat was very tedious. Yet I still played it, and I’m still not 100% sure why. I guess it was because it was easy so it was a nice stressfree simple game. So yeah I guess I enjoyed it. Wouldn’t recommend it to anyone though.

Next up in the pile was Sega Mega Drive Collection, otherwise known as a nice walk down memory lane. I know Nintendo never will, but I would kill for a similar collection of Super Nintendo games rather than be restricted to the Wii’s Virtual Console. Anyway, back to the Mega Drive. I’ve enjoyed replaying the various Streets of Rages, especially 3 as I never played that originally. Also enjoyed playing the Sonics again. When I have some time I’m going to play through the Phantasy Stars and Shining Forces as I also missed those when they first came along. I guess that’s the problem with being a kid in those days, I couldn’t afford many games so I missed out on so many classics! I used to love playing The Story of Thor but I never actually owned it. Instead I rented it as often as I could in my local Blockbuster. Of course the problem there was it had a battery back up save system on its cartridge. There were two copies of The Story of Thor in the store so it all depended on if I got the right copy as to whether I could progress much further in my game. Plus on a few occassions some git had deleted or overwritten the save anyhow. As you can guess, I played through the opening stages of the game a lot, and never actually completed it! One day I started it the other day and was surprised how much harder it was than I remember. Maybe I’ve actually got worse at games with age?! That’d suck. It certainly reminded me of how much easier games are now, and so did a few other Mega Drive games. I don’t know what I’d do without a save function now.

I’m finally starting to get into Fallout 3 after erm about 3 months of just not getting into it. I’m about 15hrs in and I’m finally starting to enjoy it. I still don’t think it’ll be in my Top 10 games of all time or anything like that but it’s certainly gone up the list of all games I’ve ever played. I love it sometimes, then sometimes I hate it. It is immensely satisfying to headshot a raider with the very nice VATS system, and then it goes and pisses me off. Usually by my getting lost in a tunnel because it all looks too samey, or when an NPC gets stuck walking to somewhere that I have to follow them to. I have no doubt that I’m probably being excessively critical (there are more irritants, I’ve just managed to have a blank moment and forgotten them all!) and yes it is the definitive first person RPG, but you have to remember: I don’t tend to like Western RPGs, I much prefer JRPGs. I really enjoyed Knights of the Old Republic, but I found Mass Effect disappointing and lacking soul, and Oblivion was alright but not the be all and end all that others found it to be at the time. On the other hand, I loved Enchanted Arms and Eternal Sonata both of which suffered a few mixed reviews. So ultimately, I guess, like everything else, it all comes down to personal opinion! Mind you if everyone accepted that, I’d be out of an aspiring career so don’t listen to me

Finally, I picked up Tomb Raider:Underworld for £10 (after using a voucher from Christmas). Only played the prologue and the start of the first level. First impressions were not as I hoped. I found the first proper level a bit vague and open for my liking. I like being in a Tomb, I don’t want to be in the middle of an ocean. But ah well, I’ll crack on with it when I have the time.

As my final comment tonight, my iPhone is unfortunately a bit unwell and off for repair at the moment. I had no idea how useful I found it to be until now that I’m without it. When I bought it last year I was worried I’d be lured into the ‘ooh shiny gimmicky gadget’ bug, which I had been. However it’s very useful too. The mp3 facilities, the video playback facilities, being able to twitter on the move, facebook on the move, email, wi-fi, train times etc. I miss it. I hope it comes back soon It’s been about 10 days now.

On that note, feel free to add me on Twitter if you like my random musings: JenjeaHaly is the name on there

So what’s happened in this time? Not a huge deal sort of. I’ve written reviews for play.tm, namely Darkness Within, Moto GP 07, Tabula Rasa and F.E.A.R Perseus Mandate, with a review of Unreal Tournament 3 up soon; and a copy of Bladestorm for the 360 on the way to review.
Besides this, all I’ve really done is play Mass Effect which is awesome. Flawed but awesome.
There are many things that Mass Effect could have done better, some of the planets look near identical and I hate that bloody Mako vehicle, but the story was captivating which is all that matters in an RPG if you ask me.

And well that’s about it. I’ve played a touch of Guitar Hero 3 which was great, and I’m hoping Santa brings me it for Christmas.

Also of note, hopefully I’ll be soon contributing to The X-Box Domain so wish me luck for when that takes off!

There will be more content soon, just not right now because I have about an hour and 15mins left to play Mass Effect!

As well as this, I’ve started writing for a forum set up by some old 360 friends of mine at http://www.360-hero.com/forums/ and I’ve just received a promo copy of WWE Smackdown Vs Raw 2008 which will be reviewed by the end of the week too.

So not bad going at all

For other gaming news, I completed Eternal Sonata and absolutely loved it, I recommend it to anyone who likes RPGs just a teensy bit. I very briefly had The Orange Box then traded it in for Call of Duty 4 which is much better if you ask me. I should also have Mass Effect at the end of the week but I’m away for the weekend so I probably won’t get a chance to play it till Sunday night at the earliest.

I’ve also played a few rental games and arcade games. Got Carcassonne and Hexic 2 free courtesy of XBL being 5 years old which was nice. So all in all 1530 points since last month, not amazing but not bad considering I’ve been pretty busy.

Onwards and upwards! Still aiming to get to 40k by the New Year but I do want to get on with reviews so I’d never leave that slide. Assume the next entry will be a while

Been a productive few weeks though and the number of games I own have certainly increased!

In that time I’ve played 12 new games and I’m currently waiting for Eternal Sonata to arrive too.

In case you hadn’t guessed, it was my birthday over this period (last Tuesday to be exact) and many relatives sent me money which meant by the end of it all, I had £115 to spend! So I went games shopping on Sunday and returned with 3 new games to include alongside the 2 games my parents had bought me and a few arcade games I’ve picked up along the way. Also picked up Ghostbusters 1 and 2 on DVD which is awesome.

So games, games, games.
In no particular order:

Stranglehold – I played the demo of this Saturday night and instantly loved the simplicity behind it. So Sunday i picked up the collector’s edition (mainly because I like the tinned versions as I already own the Bioshock tin and Dead Rising tin). Funnily enough, now I’ve not quite settled into it. It’s fun, just maybe not as amazing as I thought it would be. Probably something I’ll play through once then trade in.
Either way, I’m up 25 points thanks to it, so far.

The Darkness – I didn’t know too much about this game but NokkonWud recommended this to me (when I say recommended, I mean he said ‘you must buy this or else’ ) and he’s usually right so I picked it up for £20. So far, it’s good. It’s keeping me interested but I can’t quite put my finger on why. I definitely like how it’s giving me achievement points gradually, it’s keeping my achievement whoreness keen. The story’s interesting and the graphics are sublime.
Currently I’m up to 150 points on it, just got to Chapter 2.

Flatout: Ultimate Carnage – I fancied another somewhat mindless game so got this alongside The Darkness in a 2 for £40 deal. I haven’t touched it much but figure it’ll be nice when I just want a quick 10 minute bash at something. I mainly went for it after playing it with DaveyPitch a couple of months ago. It was good fun, and I need some 2 player games in my collection I think.
Only got 10 points on this so far, like I said, I’m keeping it really for later on.

Condemned – Birthday present for me I played this while visiting friends in Liverpool. We all sat round the TV as I played through it, scaring the crap out of me as well as them. I wouldn’t have the nerve to play it on my own But it looked great, had tremendous atmosphere to it and was really impressive for a launch title.
Again I’ve not played it hugely but in this case I’m saving it for when I can devote a few days to it (probably a weekend) and simply play my way through it with no break. I’ve played the start of it and it’s instantly hooked me.
10 points here.

Blue Dragon – My other birthday present, Blue Dragon. I love RPGs, I’m a total nut for them so this was an obvious one for me. It’s a bit slow starting so far but I’m hoping it picks up soon. Again, one that requires a fair amount of time devoting to it, hence the paltry 10 points so far.

Besides these, I’ve also finally played Gun and it’s excellent! Really been enjoying it and surprised it hasn’t had better reviews. That was a nice 650 points so far, with more to do yet.

I also rented CSI – Hard Evidence which was exactly what I expected, a fairly average point and click game with incredibly simple achievements, so that was an easy 1k! It was good fun though, even if it did only last me a day.

Finally, I’ve acquired 5 new arcade games. 3 were free and the other two were just tempting me too much.
For free, I gained Robotron, Joust and Yaris. As soon as I played them all, I knew why they were free. Oh dear.

I then purchased Tetris Splash which was fun but probably not worth 800pts in hindsight but oh well. And finally the best arcade game I’ve ever played (with Puzzle Fighter and Zuma coming up strong behind it): Puzzle Quest. Such an amazingly addictive game and so much fun! It might have cost 1200 pts but it was worth every penny. Go download the trial NOW!

So 2020 points, not bad going.
I feel like right now is a great time to own a 360, I’ve got so many games to play and I’ve still got November to follow with Mass Effect, Call of Duty 4 and Guitar Hero 3 amongst others. Plus there’s still plenty from the October line up I wouldn’t mind owning.
If I feel that happy about the 360 line up, imagine how happy the Halo fans must feel!