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V's Virtual MindgasmBrain dribble that smells awesome... February 03 My face in yours...Here's the skinny - the latest (and greatest?) OXM Vodcast is now live! I bet you have been counting the days since the last one eh? Well, STOP COUNTING.
I wish I was a little bit taller... To view 18 minutes of unadulterated geekery, make sure you head over the OXM.co.uk right now (or click here if you are in a hurry). If some of you are asking 'what a Vodcast?' I can tell you; it's just like a Podcast, only with a V at the front. Literally? It's a video. Specifically? It's a video featuring chat, gameplay footage, questions answered from the forums at OXM and the odd interview too. Check it out and let me know what you think. Cheers peeps. December 29 Gearing up for 2007...A lot of people have had there two cents when it comes to Gears of War. Myself included. Of course a game of this magnitude was always going to attain huge press attention and gamers worldwide (or at least in the US & Europe) were just as eager, finally getting their grubby mits on a title that promised so much. Emergence day has come and gone, but the opinions keep on rolling in. I doubt Epic ever thought they were making a game that would be untouchable or devoid of criticism, but at the same time I can't help but feel that some of the more controversial views are born out of jealousy. At least two representatives of major game studios have publicly panned the title in EA and Ubisoft, and it just so happens that both have games you would consider to be in this new shooter sub-genre of 'cover and fire,' set for release in 2007. Coincidence? Maybe. But whilst I can't comment on Army of Two's innovation or the longevity in the second next-gen Ghost Recon, what I can say with hours of play behind me is that GoW genuinely offers something both innovative and long lasting. Although only by playing a few other winter releases have I truly come to realise it... Having recently acquired both Rainbow Six Vegas and Call of Duty 3, I'm now taking great (dis)pleasure in battling through both games on their respective hardest level settings. Each are equally tough, arguably in their own right much tougher than Gears is when set to 'Insane' (where upon the game seemingly gets easier due to your AI buddies no longer taking the 'Leeroy Jenkins' route of attack). But I digress; having now given both of the aforementioned titles a slice of my time, I'm making very slow progress. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I can't help feel my task would be made a whole lot easier if elements of the cover system employed in GoW was also present in both of these releases. Rainbow Six Vegas does feature a very good cover system, but there are one or two things that it could also benefit from. Firstly a sliding into cover feature, as seen in Gears, would really suit its style of play. Especially as there are many occasions in-game when enemies flock into a room giving you a bare minimum of time to find some solid solace. CoD3 has no active cover system at all, sticking firmly to its FPS roots. Which is fine if it wasn't for the increasing number of heavily armed locales you have to over-run with nothing more than a smoke grenade and luck to aid you in your mission! How much more enjoyable would this game be with the quick swap cover feature as seen in GoW? At the very least you would be able to attack entrenched positions with more gusto, knowing that you can flip between rock, wall or landing at the push of a button. But the point of me mentioning these traits is not to highlight what these game haven't got, but to shine a light on another thing that Gears of War does have. On top of being simply stunning to look at, establishing what will no doubt go on to be a massive franchise for Microsoft (can you see Killzone or Resistance doing the same?), Epic have produced a game that does innovate, despite the jibes of their peers, to the point where I want there mechanics in other titles of this ilk. Surely that is worth some credit? =V= November 28 Sod South Eastern
You gotta love the National Rail service. The same way you 'love' that unsightly facial wart you have no chance of removing without a substantial chunk of your face going with it... 1. "The previous occupant has smeared egg salad on the controls" - So perturbed by the state of his cab, a train driver actually felt the need to tell his captive audience (including me) that there would be a slight delay to the service whilst he cleaned up the mess. Do you know what would have caused even less delay? You not moaning and just getting the fuck on with it, you arsehat. 2. "There is a malfunction in the unit" - About as much use as telling the common commuter that there are leeches in the magical propulsion pipe. 3. "The train has been cancelled due to a driver shortage" - Who cares? Surely the driver of the 6.58 to Eastbourne, carrying a collection of old biffers who have absolutely no concept of time anyway, could wait an extra half hour and we get THAT driver? No? Oh fuck off then. 4. "Someone has been taken ill on the service" - Ok. Well I'm not a doctor, but I'm guessing that the best place for them isn't on a train. Stranded in the middle of nowhere. If anything, I'd expect to look out of the window and see platforms whizzing past at hyper-speed just as the driver announces that we had better hold on to something bolted down - he is planning to career the train into the nearest hospital like some sort of blazing locomotive angel of mercy. But no. A slightly overweight man in his 40's is going to die on a stationary train, surrounded by unfamiliar faces smeared with ink from the Metro newspaper. 5. "We are incompetent shits" - Alright, I made this up. But all the above is tantamount to saying this. I reckon. November 26 LL cool G...with G standing for Ginger in this instance.
Back into the realms of abnormality I feel as if I need to share with you all a dream of mine.
Yesterday evening my nightly mind void was rudely interrupted by a miss Lindsay Lohan - a well known 'actress' whose on screen talents have thus far been vastly outweighed by her off screen mimsy flashing and general shitfaced antics. A girl plainly put on this earth to stir my loins.
8pm? No way, jackass...
Anyway, the general gist of the dream was this; somehow I had landed a date with the hottest Ghin-ger in town and I was preparing for the big night with military precision. I don't think I even got to the actual 'meeting her' part, which says more about my psyche than I should probably reveal, but it was quite exciting nonetheless. How depressing eh?
I think this came about due to catching 30 seconds of a Herbie movie mid Saturday afternoon (probably hilariously entitled something like "Herbie goes fucking nuts!") which featured Lohan in the lead role. Well, the non-automotive lead role.
But the real reason I mentioned all this is because it reminded me of a real life celebrity clinch from my uth. That's right, I once snogged Charlie from Byker Grove. HOLD ON, Charlie was a chick... played by Donna Air. Remember her? This is how I do:
Hello pet. Anyway, it was hardly a long relationship. About 3 minutes. Although looking back I probably should have spent those 3 minutes a little more wisely... ahem.
But as Sunday morning remembrance goes, that was a good'un. Have you got your starfucking wings? Tell me the sordid details (and no star is too small!) in the comments box below.
=V= NovembahIt has been a while eh?
As November shuffles out of the door like a elderly drunken relative, I find myself with a the first bit of free time in a long time. So what better than sharing my monthly musings with you, the faithful 10 readers of this textual tripe...
Firstly I should probably address why this month, more than any other, was such a stressful doozy. Work wise things have certainly kicked up a gear in the wondrous world of the Xbox 360. Or should that be Gears? November has seen more new games released than at any other period in the consoles history, marking the one year anniversary of Microsoft's next-gen wonder with the first truly next-gen title: Gears of War.
And having now spent an extensive amount of time playing the game, my final Hansen esque analysis is this; Does GoW reinvent the wheel? No. Does it offer you free roaming gameplay the likes of which we have never seen before? No. So what is it that takes Epic's title that extra furlong in the eyes of appeased gamers worldwide? I think it's the fact that, what it does have to offer in-game is of the highest quality. From enemy A.I. to a graphical polish that has high-end PC owners drooling. Online the game has toppled the previously untouchable Halo 2 from the lofty perch atop of the Xbox Live charts with good reason - it's frikkin' marvellous! I read Eurogamer's review of GoW (both of them... ha) and wondered exactly what their point was (awarding it a 8 through gritted teeth). Especially the separate online only review, that seemed to have been based on a couple of hours of LAN play.
Anyone who has played GoW online, and there are nearly a million of you who have, will know that it offers a genuinely new deathmatch experience, lag free, whilst maintaining a graphical standard the PS3 launch titles can only dream of.
That's not to say the game is perfect. Cause it isn't. On both Casual and Hardcore your team-members are far too eager to get themselves in the way of enemy bullets, the game itself is too short... a problem that could have been marginally alleviated by allowing you to play on the Insane difficulty setting from the get go. And having completed GoW in just under 4 hours on Hardcore it did leave me feeling somewhat cold, but still eager to go through it all again. Which very few games ever do.
Gears is an awesome starting point for what is no doubt going to be another huge franchise for Microsoft. Check out the OXM RSS newsfeed to the left for rumours of just where it could be heading...
But what else? Oh yeah, the 17/11 marked my own Emergence Day, as this is my birthday. So slap bang in the middle of a month where I had little time to take a breath, let alone dedicate my primary facial orifice to drinking booze, I had to do both. Hardly 'woe is me' but at the time it was taxing!
November in a nutshell
Hopefully December will bring back some sort of structure and normality, otherwise I can see myself slowly withering down into an exhausted husk. Albeit one with loads of new games to play...
=V= |
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