Now, I'm playing GTA IV since April 29 th and I have to to say, I have some mixed feelings about it. Sure, it deserves a perfect 10, for the incredibily huge amout of work RockStar put into this Game, the brilliant voices they give every, very well designed character, and the typical RockStar humor and a complete newly invented Multiplayer. The City and its Folks looks lifelike and there is so much detail in every little thing. The Sound and the Soundtrack are on top of everything.......wow, just wow !

But there are, IMHO, some minor flaws. It ain't the minor Popups you'll see in the distance and not the clumsy controls when it comes to close range shooting. No, to the too dark night ( Contrast will do magic ) or the, sometimes, weird acting A.I. I'm talking about the still less enterable Buildings, that you can't ride the Rollercoaster, or spend your money on the Fairground( with minigames ). And there are many big windows where you see some chairs and tables, but it's only a texture, no reflections and nothing behind it. In Apartments, you see some lighten up windows, but its always the same texture. The lights should go on and off randomly.

But after 10% in the game I can say, it's great, it's big and it's huge. This is how a Videogame has be. I would rate it a 9.9 ! To me it's close, very close to perfection.

Since February 1st I have a new Job. We are a big Team of more than 50 Peeps and each one is a very creative Person and full of ideas to make a good thing better. One of us made this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5arOXRlUxA and it shows our work. We do some concept work, make the technical drawings, co-ordinate and co-operate to build these Stands on Baselworld 2008 and around the world. My work is to make the technical drawings of these buildings. You'll see the result at 1:58 to 2:16. Hope you like it, enjoy.

15.12.2007 13:40

My friend "M" drops by this week, for the last time, cause he's moving to another part of the Country. After some smalltalk, I've started up "Assassin's".He was amazed by the Intro. "Wow, that was cool," he goes, "I wanna see some more !" "Sure", I said, "but first, a little touch of the Story !" while I exited the Animus, and walked around as Desmond. His mind was like "????" as he heard about ancestors and synchronisation of remembrance.
Some explanations later I was Altaïr, 2 miles away from the gates of Damascus."Look at this !" M says, pointing at the trees and buildings and the stuff, flying through the air, " it looks so real!" I walked around a bit, then I climbed a horse and start my ride to Damascus. "Give me the Controller," Martin says, " I wanna ride, too!" 30 sec. later he was in a big fight with some guards,("Press R1 and Square when they start to hit you !" I said as they hit him bad ) and finished them all !
Finally we reached Damascus, after lots of "Wows" and "Ooohhhs", and I showed him how to climb stuff. " This is soooo amazing!" M was telling me, " I mean, we saw and did so much stuff until now, and then there is something like this. This is a very mature game !" He said that, while I was climbing a viewpoint, and as I was on top of it and let the camera move around.
"Now, it would be cool, if you had a rope, and slide down to the ground!" M added. I smiled and said " I don't need a rope. I am an Assassin. I JUMP!"
Well, I never saw a jaw dropping, but his eyes were wide open and his mouth was even wider open, as i did "The Leap of Faith".
"How ?....Why ?....Wonder ?" he don't know, what to say ! "Me too wanna jump down !" he finally brought up a complete sentence. "Nah, you first have to know, how move properly on earth !" I answered and showed him the meaning of every button.
( Well, he still don't know what "R1" is!!! ).

He walks around in the streets Damascus, did the "gentle push", LOL/most of the time too early or too late => big pottery party /LOL, hits innocent people instead of going into blend mode or vice versa and having a hard time to climb stuff, ( Press R1, move towards the Object and press X ) but finally, he did his "The Leap of Faith"! " Jäh, daas isch sooo geil!"
"But the main part is tokill 9 bad guys, 60 Templars and as many guards as you can get!" I said, and start to talk about weapons, combat, counters and how to run away and hide. I' ve had a fight with guards, escaped, climbed a roof, jumped from roof to roof. Some french soldiers were joining the others while I was fighting 2 of them on the roof.
"It's like watching a movie !" M says "It's fantastic !" One guard pushed me down the roof, and I landed in a small yard, enclosed by walls, and seconds later the yard was filled by at least 10 soldiers. That was a nice fight, with the throwing knifes.
" wow, you're gonna kill one after another !" M impressed. " My girlfriend wants a Wii but now, I definitely need a PS3 !"
" It's OK to start with a Wii !" I comment, "cause you don't need a HDTV for it, and it's a good way to start with video games.

29.11.2007 14:30

So, I'm playing this game for over a week now, around 10 hours and close to my 5th assassination, and I am still impressed with this game !! Still, because sooooooo many peoples on GameSpot Forums moaning about how repetitive this game is and how quick it becomes boring. Oh My God !! Why do todays (so called) gamers rush through this or other games ?? They just wanted to see the end, or have the need to post " finished it "?
Of course it gets boring when you play through this, and many other games, in 1 sitting !
UBIsoft put so much work on it ! Years of work ! It does not deserve to be rushed through in 1 day. It's a cool game, the sword and knife fighting is great, the animations for Altaïr, other humans, horses, birds and chickens are countless and the atmosphere in every city and Outside is unbelievable.
I love to climb viewpoints, sitting on top of it and watch, like yesterday, the beautiful scenery of Damascus ! And it's still thrilling when pickpocket a target or save a civilian.
I LOL'ed as missed the Haystack underneath the Dome of Acre. I smashed hard on the floor in front of a door-guard. He was like: Umm.... how can I help you ?"

And yes, my PS3 keeps freezing, too. About 7 times until now, but after a restart, with the PS-Button, it works perfectly. Yesterday, just 5 minutes after the first start, it frozes but I could turn the camera around, and as I did so , I saw all the folks behind me were glitched halfinto the ground. And one time I glitched myself into a wall on a roof while I was fighting, but I could get out. And there are some "screen tearing and framerate issues", but for the love of Oh My God, there is so much stuff going on on the screen ( on on ?), just deal with it, they are just going to understand the PS3.

Remember how much time it took to program the PS2 perfectly, and as soon as they understand, the others released the PS3.... But I can deal with this probs of A.C. , cause it saves a lot, and (I hope) they care for their fans and make a patch. I wonder what causes these problems !

17.11.2007 12:07

First time I've seen this game in motion was the trailer with Unkle's "Lonely Soul." Like every trailer, the music fits perfectly to the pace of the movement, and it looks incredibly cool ~~~~~~godknowsyourlonelysooooul~~~~~~.

On 14.11 I held this game (PS 3) in my hands, and I feel like a little boy on Christmas Eve, no time for nothing but playing. HAPPY!!

I was like " Huh ? what's going on ?" as my virtual character stands there in the middle of blue foggy somewhere, peoples passing by and vanish, all of the button pressing tips popping in, too fast to read them, then a female voice saying: " I'm losing him...!"
I love it, when games leave you completely clueless, no idea what happens next.....and then the story takes another direction, you never expected.
Brilliant!

I lol´ed in the tutorial, as I should "gently push" the pot-on-their-head-women, and made THEM ALL drop their pots, a real potty party. But Impressive to see 100 (maybe 50,I didn't count) women tripping and 100 pots smashing on the floor without a slowdown in the graphics ! This could be well used in a Futuremark-Benchmark.

"THIS IS AWESOME !" I shout against the TV, as walked up to the castle of Maysaf. So many houses, so many peoples, so much sound everywhere, and everything looks and behaves different. This kind of variety is amazing, it lets you forget, that you are playing a video game. With a lack of better words I can only say : "Wow !"

The game didn't even start, and I was blown away.

"Why not testing out my climbing abilities ?" I thought and ran against the nearest building and entered its roof. "what is he doing?" a woman asked " somebody help him, before he gets hurt!" "Hahaha, me? hurt? I am an Assassin! I hurt others !" I responed against every character I saw from up here.

The way to Damascus with a black horse was full of "Wows!" Big,big Landscape beautifully designed, as much variety as in the city before. So much attention to detail, it is breathtaking.As I ride, with X-button pressed, through the soldier camp, I though:" should i kill the all ? Hell, yes" .................the first time I died. But I sure coming back and wipe them away !

Then, after this cool blue-foggy loading screen, a few horse steps away,there was Damascus. It is sooooooo biiiiiiiiig, it won't fit on my 32" telly.In the lack of better words, to describe what I'm thinking at this moment, I say, I started to cry !

The game didn't even start, and I was more than blown away.

10.11.2007 13:00

...didn't like video-games as much as I do. They saying, it's a waste of time and it's too expensive. One of them, let's call him "M", drops by every once in a while, and I show him the latest Games I've picked up. It started years ago with GTA3, ICO and Kingdom Hearts on PS2, then Jet Set Radio Future, Conker: Bad Fur Day and Ninja Gaiden on XboX and finally P.N. 03 Resident Evil4 and Killer 7 on the Game Cube, and many many more on these systems. Every time he leaves, he said: " Wow, they make a huge improvement over the last time I've watched and played!" or " Looks like they take another step forward!"

And the there was HD; first Game M sees was "Saints Row". To see the real difference between SD and HD, I've fired up GTA:San Andreas, in my PS2 off course. "Wow!" he says, as we played Saints Row, " this Picture is so sharp, that I can see so far into the City, it's amazing !" The same he says about Lost Planet, Viva Piñata, Gears of War and Rumble Roses ( sooooo sharp !).

Last week, we watched "300" on BluRay, first time he saw a HD-movie, he was like:" Wow (He likes this three letters) I'm pressed ! I need a PS3 !!!" Finally, I've put in "Heavenly Sword", to show him one of my latest purchases, played a bit of Kai's mission "Cable Railway" or ("High-wire?"), told him all he needs to know about Sixaxis(TM), aiming and shooting, well it's basically like most of the games he plays for years, but he will never learn ( What is R1 again ? :) ) and gave him the Controller.
He had so much fun !
Sure, steering Kai's arrows towards an enemy is quite difficult for the first time you play, so he missed nearly every shot, he was like "ooooooohhh shhhhhhh!" as he gave a soldier a close shave and like "baaaaammmmmm!" as he landed his first head shot.
Then I've showed him the same Sixaxis(remember the TM) use in Nariko's mission. I've took out 2 Catapults and 3 Dots of the third, passed to Controller to let him take out the forth Dot ( 1:27 left) and the 700 Soldiers part.
" And this is the same game ?" he asks. "Sure M," I said, " but the main part of this game is starting now " as he moves on with Nariko."Push square and triangle sometimes " was my advice, and he starts to push all of buttons "Am I doing this ?" he asks as he was hacking and slaying through the bad guys "This game looks beautiful !" he says, as he stopped and looked around.
Out of breath, he gave the Pad back to me, and I've played the part where Nariko start to use the Heavenly Sword. "Wow, this looks different....ey cool.....ohhh how you do that? ....hahahahhaa..........uuuhuuuuh...........ewwwwwwww........nice..... what's the name of the game again ?"

20.10.2007 1500

Today was my day. My day, of watching my first Blu-Ray Disk movie, "300". I'm not talking about the comic background by Frank Miller, or the history, which take a big part in this game... ups , movie. I caught myself saying "WOW!" or as I say in my language: "geil!;)" 300 times, because of the pictures I saw on my TV. It was like I've never seen a movie before.

I heard peoples say that you can see the pores, and I couldn't believe it as I actually see the pores. So clear and sharp and fullllllll of details. Yes i'ts OLD, cOLD and bOLD but I just wanna second the thing, that is loud and clear: Blu-Ray is a giant step forward, I never gonna buy a DVD again !!! ( I guess, HD-DVD has the same pore-quality, but i can't find out by now. )

29.09.2007 12:00

For three Days now, Halo 3 is in my 360, and it's awesome.

As I found out, that you play the SP like ever, but then, save and exit, go to Cinema and watch the WHOLE stuff you did in SP as a replay ! A free camera and a screen shot button.... these two features makes you see, how much is going on and how incredibly much details Bungie put into this Game. I'm at this spider thing (Scarab?) watched it in replay....... ******* Impressive !

Yes, III feels somewhat like II, III looks somewhere like II, but thats somehow not a bad thing. So, both thumbs up for Halo III, cause they take the good from Halo II and making it better.

It was August 25th as I called Xbox Customer Service Switzerland, and told them my problems with the Red Ring of Death. Maybe three week before I saw these Lights the first time while turned off my Console via the Controller, and then they coming back constantly in shorter periods until they stay forever. So they, the service folks, send me the cardboard box. I prepare it, called UPS, and Mr. Hill picked it up in a Doug Heffernan-Style on the 28th. I tracked my package from Zurich to Frankfurt over ups.ch, and two weeks later I got my Box back, with a new motherboard, a 1 Month free Xbox Live Card and the best regards from the Microsoft-Team.

So, thanks again to very nice Service Lady onthe Phone, UPS for the Take-good-cake-of-my-Baby and Right-on-Time delivery and the Box-Healer(s), making it work again. And all of this for free. ( Well, of course it's a 3 Year warranty, but I just want to mention it !)

:D THANK YOU ! :D

22.09.2007 12:40

Got this game from wog.ch on Tuesday and play it a bit every Day. Now I'm at the second fight with Flying Fox, I died two times and decided to quit and write this.

Until today I'm completey amazed by this piece of Art. It makes you feel, like you are playing a Movie, you are always inside this game, you are feeling with the charakters. As Kai talked to this Phone-like thing, she was like "Heelllllllloooooohoooooooo!!!
and her facial impression was so cute, so lifelike, so neverseenbefore, just excellent.

The deeper you dig into this game, the more you learn to use you stances, make them work on enemies and make it look good. Its really satisfying, hacking and slicing your evil opponents, and guiding a throwed shield, spear, dagger, sword or body to its target. not to mention the cute Kai's Missions, where steering arrows over some long distances becomes pure fun. At "Nightattack" I bearly make it, and at the "Cable Railway" I own them. And since running away is Kai's one of her "Weapons", it gives the game- play a funny and cute touch. Like playing a Movie.

I can't complain about the games lenght (?) now, because first of all, I haven't finished it, and most of all, what I saw and played until now, was pure essence of graphics and game play. If I should rate this game, I would say it's a close to perfect 10 .........