Recently (last wednesday to be precise) a friend a I recorded our very first podcast epsiode. It's called That Gaming Podcast. We've also set up a blog site for the podcast and various other general musings of ours.

It's in the very early stages at the moment, but if you guys wanna check it out then please feel free to do so.

You can visit our site at: http://www.thatgamingpodcast.com/ where you will also find our debut podcast episode. We're planning on doing a new episode every wednesday and have submitted it to iTunes too.

If you wanna give it a try and leave comments that would be very much appreciated.

I picked up a PS3 bundle on ebay this past weekend. I managed to get a 60gb UK console with Motorstorm, Resistance and a second SIXAXIS pad for £458, saving me quite a bit of money on the retail pricing for a package like that. So far I'm still on the fence regarding how pleased I am with the ps3 as a machine.

There's no doubt that the blu-ray player in it is of a very high quality. Casino Royale looks awesome in 1080i on my HDTV. Similarly the sound quality is also very good. The machine itself is very large and very heavy, but runs almost completely silently and looks like it is of a high build quality.

Now onto my opinion of the games I've played on it.

Motorstorm

This game is the best I've played on the console. Its fast, fun and hectic and when played in first-person view looks pretty close to the E3 2005 trailer that was shown. The only downside to it is that there is no 2 player offline mode, though I've heard that a patch will be released for the game to include this shortly.

The level of detail on the graphics is stunning in places with cars breaking apart when they crash and nice mud and environmental effects. The physics are also really good, meaning every little bump and dip in the terrain will affect how your vehicle handles.

I think that the inevitable sequel will provide a lot more tracks and options and will probably go on to be a AAA title.

Resistance: Fall of Man

Okay, this game does not live up to my expectations, so far. I'm on the 3rd level of the game and up to now am just finding it to be a run-of-the-mill shooter. There's not much variety in the enemy types and indeed there doesn't seem to be the need to employ any tactics, its basically just run and gun.

I'm told that it gets better as the game goes on. I hope so, otherwise this is going to be traded in pretty quickly.

I recently got given a copy of Wario Ware on the wii. What a superb example of the wii's controller use this game is. There are loads of different ways to hold the controller when playing the collection of mini games that make up this title.



As in previous Wario Ware games the characters are great, ranging from a cheerleader to a karate expert. Each cut scene makes no sense, but at the same time are genius-like in their bizarreness.

With lots of additional games to unlock it makes for the perfect party game. Add beer to the mix and this game's fun factor goes through the stratoshphere.

Ok so it was my birthday this past Sunday and I was fortunate enough to get Excite Truck from my sister.

Sure, Excite Truck isn't the biggest game ever, but it delivers high speed thrills and excellently designed tracks, plus it has that Nintendo magic. Getting an S rank on every track is gonna take some time. Multiplayer is also great fun on it, there is a drop in frame rate in this mode though, but its still cool.



There are loads of new trucks to unlock and they do handle differently. The sense of speed in the single player mode is really good too, with some nice motion blur effects. The game even allows for custom soundtracks.

I've had Gears since it launched and love it. I'm currently playing it through for the 3rd time, this time on the insane difficulty with a friend.

However, I played online for the first time since having the game. I gotta say that its just as awesome online as offline. I'm not the greatest online player in the world, but it didn't take too long for me to get some kills in.



It sucks that you can't have your friends play with you in a ranked match. Hopefully that issue will be addressed in a future update. If not I'll just play ranked to get some achievements, then once I have them (the ones I think I'll be able to actually get) I'll play with my friends in player matches.

If the 360 is able to produce games of this quality now so early in its life I shudder to think what we'll be playing in a couple of years.

Woooooooo! I finally managed to complete Lego Star Wars 2 and get all 29 achievements this past Sunday afternoon. Its a good game, but my time was running out on it as my girlfriend had come to loathe it, having seen it on almost everyday over the holidays.



Anyway, that game is done and dusted now and is my 4th game where I've managed to unlock all the achievements (the others being NFSMW, COD2 and King Kong).

So I finally got a copy of this game (picked it up for the sweet price of £29.99 from play.com, it was a limited time offer). So far I've only played multiplayer split screen with my girlfriend, needless to say we both pretty much sucked, I got my ass handed to me but thankfully my girlfriend solidered on and got us both an achievement for completing a co-op level - I feel ashamed...

Anyway, hopefully we'll both get better at it with more practice.



Update 7/1/2007: Having now played single player I can tell you that I love it. I'm on the 3rd level. Just completed the Calypso Casino stage, man that's nice looking. Some tough parts in it though. Great game, another top shooter on the 360.

Update 15/1/07 - ok now I'm stuck. I'm about three quarters of the way through dungeon 3 and I think I need to go back to previous sections of it and recheck things as I'm pretty sure I've missed something. Still having tremendous fun though - what an awesome game Twilight Princess is.

Update 4/1/07 - I haven't had much chance to play Zelda over the holidays, I've been too busy playing Lego Star Wars 2 on 360, trying to get all the achievements - I'm almost there now. My friend had Zelda though and has already made more progress with it than me, he's awesome at Zelda games so I'll probably be tapping him up for tips soon.

Update 13/12/06 - well I'm now officially stuck on Zelda. I need to transform back into my human form it says, but I can't figure out how to. I'm in a village where there's an item I need to get from a shop and I can't do that until I'm back to my normal self. Ah well I'll figure it out....

Total playing time is now around 15 hours.

Update 12/12/06 I've now completed the second dungeon and have come to the conclusion that this is the greatest game I have ever played. I only stopped playing it at 1am because I had to go to bed in order to be up for work otherwise I would've probably caried on all night.

Over the weekend (9/12/06 - 10/12/06) I managed to finish the first dungeon on Zelda. I've now just entered the second. I had trouble with a puzzle in the first dungeon that had me stumped for about 40 minutes until my girlfriend solved it (she took one look at the screen and suggested I do things a different way and it worked first time - d'oh!).

I'm really loving this game and the wii controls are spot on.

So I called the store that I pre-ordered my wii from on the day before launch and they told me I definitely had one and that they were doing a midnight launch.

I got to the store at about 11.50pm and there were about 35-40 people waiting (the store is only small). I picked up my wii with a component cable, zelda and rayman and I've been having a great time with it all weekend. My girlfriend thinks its fun too.

One thing I'm a little concerned about though is that the console will get flooded with mini-game style titles. While these are fun they are nothing compared to an actual full game like Zelda.



I'm loving Zelda and haven't switched my 360 on all weekend since I got it. Everyone should own this game.