With soo much spare time on my hands in the holidays, I've been finding a lot of ways to waste most of it in online multiplayer games, and more recently, Battlefield: Bad Company. I've been a fan of Battlefield since 1942 and I was enjoying 2142 when my PC died on me a couple years ago so I was ecstatic when I played the demo on XBLA and found that they could recreate the awesome multiplayer to a good extent on a console. There's less players per server and not as many vehicles available, but it's some good wartime fun, especially if you've some friends on with you. I picked that up on release and started working my way up the leaderboards and thought that this might be a game I can compete in, but alas, exploits abound already and there's people ahead of me on the leaderboards with 45 kills and 300-odd deaths. I just hope EA picks up on some of them and finds a way around them.
While the multiplayer in BF:BC is amazingly fun and addictive, the single player may as well not exist. They've tried to make it more of an ordeal by adding a bit of character to it but while they're good for a bit of a chuckle, the bad gameplay, short game-length and overall very standard quality makes it a non-compulsary experience. I'd argue that it's still worth it for the multiplayer experience if you haven't access to the PC versions. BF2 is still going strong as well as 2142 and I'd probably recommend those as they provide a bigger, better battlefield experience.

Now I can't remember if I mentioned or not but just before the MGS4 release I went out and bought a PS3 pretty much specifically for the purpose of playing the aforementioned game. I'm a fan of the series which means I thought it was a 10/10 game and absolutely bummed it, but the one thing that I was excited for more than MGS4 on it's release was MGO which I'd played on Rath3rDashing's beta account. I've always liked the sly humour that the MGS games carried across and it's manifested hilariously in MGO. Also the amount of freedom the gameplay allows in the execution of events makes it an amazingly dynamic team-based stealth/action shooter. My PSN is Pab_64 and my MGO character is Pab64, send me a message if you play. I'm really interested in getting into a clan as well. I might be putting one together along with Rath3rDashing when he gets his 10meg internets so we'll see how that goes.

Edit: Also, somehow, I completely forgot to mention the DESTRUCTABLE SCENERY in BF:BC. A beautifully bombastic battlefield.

While I'm at it, I got tagged by Cheeg like months ago so I guess I'm supposed to put 5 things about myself :?

1. I'm a fan of robots and mecha in general as well as in anime. Thinking on, that might be a bit more obvious than I'd imagined.

2. Over the last 10 years, I've collected a small fortunes worth of Citadel Miniatures Warhammer and 40k models as well as alternate games. In that time I've yet to fully complete an army for use in playing, which strikes me as a COLOSSAL waste of cash and time. I need to get into it properly some more and stop preaching at other people to start collecting @_@.

3. Mainly due to Rath3rDashing, Cheeg and Lant, I've started collecting various comic books. How I expect to be able to buy a new PC and a PS3, I've no idea. I'll figure somethin out:roll:

uhh

4. I mentioned it in a blog sometime, but me and Lant go airsofting every now and then. It's well good!

5. I had to send my 360 back for repairs recently, but it had nothing to do with the RRoD :O
I believe this to be a rarity and worth noting.

That all seems like pretty boring stuff, but there it is finally.
Also I don't think there's anyone left to tag so I'll not list anyone. Infact I'll tag everyone, you're ALL tagged! Unless you've been tagged previously, in which case you're ok.

Geez, it's been about 4 months since I last posted anything? Now I've got 4 months of not-a-lot-to-do until I'm back at University so i thought I'd get back on here and make at least a bit of a commitment.

I'm not going to list everything that's gone on since my last post because it'd be long, and boring, and everybody's heard it all before. More recently though I've been wasting a ridiculous amount of time on GTAIV. There's just soo much ridiculous stuff that you can do on there, it's great! It's done a lot of clever subtle things that people might not have noticed that I think are important to a game. The way the gameplay and the story are modulated into little bursts of action in a mission make it nice for jumping on for an hour or so and then jumping off, but there's enough alternate content to keep you glued to the TV for hours on end if you like to (which I do). This isn't particularly anything new in a GTA game but it seems more profound in IV's case. Another thing I like is the main character, Neko, as well as the associate characters you meet throughout the story. The characters in the other games just seemed a bit dull and you could never really get involved with them. Niko's cynicism and Roman's crazy dreams just make you chuckle ever now and then, and it keeps you involved.

There's hardly a blog anywhere that hasn't got some kind of GTAIV write-up on it so I'll move on to something different. Penny Arcade's On The Rain-slick Precipice of Darkness: Episode One was released for digital download on PC, Linux and Mac and through XBLA on the 360 yesterday. I've been playing it for most of the night and I can say with much enthusiasm that it does not disappoint. It's a quirky, comical RPG by the creators of the webcomic and has some amazing dialogue and animation. When I was playing I kept reminiscing about the Baldur's Gate games which I'd been playing to pass the time before GTA dragged me out of my chair and threw me to the ground, before stealing my waking hours. This is probably due to Tycho's character in the game as well as Jerry Holkins awesome writing talent which was great because I am a sucker for old skool dungeon crawlers. Saying that, the gameplay in Precipice of Darkness isn't at all like the D&D dungeon crawlers. The combat system, which seemed a bit overwhelming when I first got all 3 party members together, is ATB based and when not in combat you'll be wondering around New Arcadia's various streets and locales talking to such charming characters as James Filth and The Slum Lord. As well, there's a really amazing character creation system when you start a new game that lets your create your likeness in PA's comic stylings with a 1920s zing to it. Anyway, I didn't mean for it to turn into a mini-review, so I'll just say that it's the business and worth checking out if you've got a spare 1600 MS points (I got it on the 360 btw. You'll have to check out greenhouse for the PC/Linux/Mac versions).

Now, back to 4 months of games, miniatures and marvel comics...

I **** you not, airsoft can be one bloody rough sport (bloody AND rough), especially if you play it like me and the gang do. BUT IT'S SO FUN! We're going again on the 17th of feb so hopefully I'll have recovered from this overwhelming exhaustion by then. I applied for an ABA license last visit seeing as I've been playing rather regularly so I should be able to begin purchase of projectiles again soon. I'm thinking shotgun, for novelty reasons. 8)

I've been playing a lot of Call of Duty 4: Modern Combat on the XBox360 over the past couple days and I've finally decided just what my opinion of this game is. I was pretty close to home with my original perception of the gameplay. Like the 3 games before it (all of which I was a fan), the game sees you playing multiple character roles in different locations in some sort of global conflict, previously World War II. CoD4 has you helping suppress a military coup in the middle east and springing spies from Russia in a modern day setting following the actions of SAS and USMC soldiers, and perhaps other factions as you progress further into the game.

The game looks pretty amazing. There'd be quite a high level of immersion to, if it weren't for the PC controls. Despite having a very tactical edge to it, playing the game is rather run and gun and you'll be swinging your weapon of choice all over the place, I couldn't help but feel that it pulled you out of the game a little. I've always liked the fact that you're accompanied by a full unit of soldiers in the CoD games and that you aren't just some kind of one-man army, on the loose and looking for trouble. Having the other soldiers nearby turns a shootout into a full-on engagement and makes any firefight seem immensely epic and out of your control, maybe leaning towards what you'd expect whilst playing a Battlefield game. I'll conclude on that point and say that yes, it is a very good game, but not GotY good! It looks great, plays great, and there are some great characters in there fighting with you also (Price's mustache DEMANDS respect) but there's nothing special about it. It doesn't go so far as to beat Battlefield 2 for epic scale events or Rainbow Six Vegas as a tactical, realistic shooter and is just like the previous games but set in modern world with modern guns. It looks good and has a fun multiplayer, but I can think of a dozen other games that do to.

It's boxing day! Not exactly a celebrated day but I didn't get around to posting yesterday, it being the seasonal holiday of the year and all. Christmas was the usual routine (which isn't necessarily a bad thing) of opening presents in the morning, having dinner at my nan's place later in the day and then playing my presents all afternoon and showing off what I got this morning on msn. ;)

I was down a friend's house not too long before Christmas day and he's got Metroid Prime 3, so he let me have a little go since I had to pass up on buying it. It's certainly moved up on my to-buy list after my hands-on. I've always liked the Prime series and this is a nice addition as the 3rd installment. The game was pretty much more of the same but with a lot of extra content and features stuck in, improving on the formula from the last 2 games, although it seemed a little more linear and a lot more action based. This could just have been because I was playing through the game's prelude level though and I'd imagine there to be more exploration and backtracking later on in the game. Another thing that I noticed was that the game's feel seemed to be going back to basics a little which was odd with it being the most advanced installment of the game. The music, enemies and puzzles reminded me of some of the examples you might see in Super Metroid or some of the GBA Metroid games and the epic fight with Ridley as we fell down underneath the reactor core did nothing to remove from the old skool vibe. Did I mention how epic that boss battle was? It was epic.

Using the Wii remote controls seemed to make the game a lot faster and quite a bit more fun. I played using the advanced control settings, as advised by my friend, which allows for more manual aiming as opposed to the lock-on and mash the shoot button approach in the first 2 games. Opening doors by pulling out handles and pushing buttons on my ships control terminal seemed a little gimmicky but it made me hella giddy and it helps with the game immersion a little.

Another game that I tried this christmas was Call of Duty 4, a game which I've been a little iffy on since hearing about it. I'd heard good, I'd heard bad, I'd heard ugly, but I wanted to save my opinion until I'd sat down and had a good propper play test. The opportunity arose on that day of days when my cousin got it as a present. It wasn't the good and propper play test that I'd wanted but we had a round on the split-screen multiplayer mode. To be honest, I wasn't too impressed. The gameplay seemed very basic, the shooting seemed very basic. From what I saw, I don't think it deserved a 9.0 and I don't think it deserved 40 something game awards or whatever it said on the back of the box. :? Saying that, it was only a small split-screen versus game and these are just my first impressions so I'll try and play the campaign and the online multiplayer, which is where it's at apparently, and get a propper opinion, though I can't see myself buying it. Rainbow 6 Vegas is dominating my tactical shooter genre!

Have a nice holiday! :D

I'd just like to express my profound love for Mass Effect on the 360. Keeping it brief; I like the the story, I like the setting, I like the style and design, I like this game. Unfortunately it seems that I'm coming up to the climax of the story and the game will most likely be ending just after. I expected it to last just a little longer than it has (Just less than 40 hours), although it could just be that I've been playing it faaaar far too much. Saying that, I will be playing through it at least 2 more times over Christmas to get the most out of the story and the many sub-plots as well as attempting to finish a slew of other games on my "to do" list.

VIVA LA JEFF!!

I've not done a post for a good while now, the reason generally being that I've not had anything substantial to post about, but I think piecing together events from my 6 month hiatus should generate enough material to be considered acceptable.

I've moved to a new apartment since last year and I'm on my first year of proper study at Manchester Metropolitan University. it's just me and 3 friend living in a shares flat and it's the biznass. I've got my whole games collection lined up on a shelf over my console setup in my room. I've gotta say, it's pretty damn impressive in both quality and quantity! I think I got most of them onto My Collection on my Gamespot page the other day, so browse them at your leisure.

Since FFXI's new expansion Wings of the Goddess is now out I thought I get back into the game a bit more, despite not being able to pay for and play the expansion. The expansion includes new missions set back in time 20 or so years, during the crystal war. SE has also added 2 new jobs to the game; Scholar and Dancer. Good stuff. I just got my Dragoon to 20 tonight, but I'm still waiting on Jonny and the Bombs

Going back a couple weeks, I got Bioshock when it was released over here, played through it. I liked it but I don't think it was one of those must buy games. Great story, good gameplay, and it's one of the only games I've wanted to play through again after I'd already finished it, but there's a lack of variety in the enemies that you fight for this kind of game and the lack of NPCs being present got on my nerves a bit. It reminded me of why I didn't like the System Shock games. I also picked up Halo 3 on it's release. Fun times! The single player was more of the same with the addition of SCARABZ ZOMG, but the multiplayer is where it's at. Lots of game types, new customizable suits, amazing video and picture feature. Unfortunately I've had to give U R MR GAY Metroid Prime 3 and Guitar Hero III a miss for now since I can't really afford them at the moment, although I'm still waiting on my Mass Effect pre-order to arrive. Assasin's Creed is another one I'm going to pass on for now. I've heard and seen some unsavoury things about it, mostly involving repetition of content, so I'm going to lend it before I buy it and see if it's worth spending £40 that I really don't have on it.

Strangely enough I've begun getting into the Chromehounds online war campaign stuff, which I've been meaning to do since I first got XBL. It's great!... if you like that kind of thing. I built myself one stocky little mech with the 4 biggest cannons I could find. Let me tell you, simple works. But after a few annoying situations with other mechs that either did more damage than mine or could range me, I'm having to rethink my approach. I've found myself a cool squad as well so I can start to build more specialized mechs to complement my team. I'm a good sniper apparently. ;)

On the 19th this month, me, Rath3rDa5hing and lukey9898 teamed up for Gamespots premier UK games tournament beta! Gears of War was the game, losing was our shame. We didn't do horribly, but me and Da5hing aren't particularly great at the game, and lukey only turned up half way through the first match. In the end the opposing team won us 2 matches to 1, but it was all good fun and here's hoping they keep these tournaments coming. It'd be the soul excuse for me to reactivate my Gamespot account. Saying that, I'm going to try and get into the "Gamspot community" a bit more, make some more posts, maybe look around the forums. Me and forums though, we don't get on well...

It looks like my 6 month recap didn't go back much farther than 1, but I'm pretty sure I nailed most of the points of notice. I've still not managed to get either Heatseeker or Resident Evil 4 for the Wii, but I'm really looking forward to getting Mass Effect through the post this weekend. I'm really going to have to pull my finger out if I want to play all of these games and get all of my coursework done! What I could really do with was some kind of time slowing device... Anyway. I'm gonna go spent innumerable hours lost in my laptop conquering Rome or laughing at Heavy/Medics when they stumble around the corner into my corridor of sticky bombs. Oh yeah, and there's the assignment(s) to do.

I've found that I've been left with a lot of extra munnies after all of the necessary deduction, and yet I've failed to buy anything in a while. I think that now I have money, my responsibility to save it has kicked in and is preventing me from spending it all within several days. Despite this, I did manage to buy myself a couple of VC games on my Wii so that I can actually have a use for it instead of letting it gather dust next to my over-shadowing 360. Comix Zone and Wonderboy in Monsterland were the newest to my collection. Oh how I have missed Wonderboy! I used to play it back when I was in the single digits and I'm completely rediscovering it again. Comix Zone is another one I used to play back in the day. My brother picked up our original copy for the Sega Megadrive from a car boot sale in Wales. It's not exactly a critically acclaimed game but we both liked it, and when I saw it on Wii-Shopping I knew I needed to add it to my old skool collection. Mortus eh, what a villain!

Resident Evil 4 Wii is out tomorrow/today, depending on how you look at it, and despite an urge to buy it, my common sense is reminding me that I own it on the 'Cube and really shouldn't. My friend Jonathan (the Heatseeker guy) will be picking it up tomorrow though so I'll check it out, and if it's enough of an improvement over the GameCube version I'll probably go out and buy a copy. Still got my eye on Heatseeker though so that gets top priority.

Also, check out these;

Another blog I've started doing for someone. It's based around the MMO, Final Fantasy XI.

I could listen to this for hours. (Has listened to this for hours.)

Portable Ops, Condemned, Final Fantasy XI, Final Fantasy XII. Been playing these four titles mostly. Picked up Condemned for a decent price after wondering what the hell it was for about a year. I'm happy to say that it was a good choice and I really enjoyed the game. Very gritty, very atmospheric.

I also tried my hand at a couple other games this week down at my friend's house. We had a rather long sitting on Might and Magic IV which lasted a good 18 or so hours. Toooooo addictive! Also gave Heatseeker a whirl on the Wii. All doubtsthat I had about it were shattered within 10 minutes. I've always been a fan of the Ace Combat series and in gameplay and representation it's very similar, but the game's atmosphere as well as the "Missile Cam" just make it such a cool game to play, not to mention the Wii controls of which I'd heard so many bad things about. The controls were amazingly instinctive and allowed for some smooth precision play. It's a fun game and I'm going to pick up a copy for myself as soon as the price drops.

About 10 minutes ago, I canceled my Gamespot Live subscription. I figured I wasn't really using the $40 a year that I was paying for it, so it's going on hold until I have good reason to call upon it's services once again.