Spectre welcomes you to the profile of alx222000.

I have a plan,
a grand scheme.
But it would take such luck,
it's little more than a dream.
My mind has convinced me,
that it's the way things will be.
Now I'm caught in the dream of my head.
A terrible trap. The sweetest web.

--------------------------------------

Logic. Literacy. Law.
For these I Live.
Creation. Comedy. Company.
For these I Care.
Weakness. War. Wrongs.
For these I Worry.

In life we create, In creating we live - The Creators' Guild Union


Want an up to date list of anime I've watched? Go here.

• 25Apr 10

  Absolutely positively definitely seriously not a blog about games

  'Cos I've gotta say I'm back to studying, and not too long before back to work.

  Meanwhile, I've been playing some games.....

  Indigo Prophecy (or Fahrenheit) is like watching the Matrix with quick-time-events.....Lots of quick-time-events.

  Overlord is like Pikmin for the evil-inclined. You're a big guy with a swarm of little minions ready to drown themselves at your command. Fun, good sense of humour (Random villager after being nice to the village "I'm gonna name a pumpkin after you"), possibly a bit repetitive since there's not a whole lot of strategy.

  Bioshock. Awesome story and setting. You can set people on fire.

  Painkiller is a decent old-fasioned FPS. Horde of monsters + big guns = You do the math. The weapons were nicely designed too, not just stock stuff. To quote Yahtzee, "It shoots shurikens and lightning." Though, personally, it did get a bit tired for me, though I'm an ammo-conservative-worrier always using the gun with full ammo.

  Trine is what you'd call a 2D physics-platformer. Unfortunately, it does use the same shtick regularly, and there's not a lot of variety in enemies. Also, drawing the wizard's objects was a bit hit-and-miss. Still, somewhat nice, and the graphics are pretty.

  Red Faction: Guerilla is about destroying stuff. Unlike previous entries, it's outdoors, and you can destroy buildings rather than the environment. Destroying stuff using hammer, explosives, rockets or vehicles is fun, Unfortunatly there are the enemy soldiers who can go from nice hammer-fodder to great inconveniences to your health, and sometimes it just doesn't seem possible to find cover to hide behind and recover.

  Jade Empire is like Mass Effect's older, lesser-known brother. Set in an ancient magical asian kingdom where ghosts aren't passing on. The story was interesting, as were the sidequests. Combat system is different. Basically a beat-em-up, with the character switching between using strikes, status effects, transformations and long-range magic. And battles can be quite tough if you don't have a companion healing you from the sidelines. Also, not much micro-management.

  • Posted Apr 25, 2010 10:52 pm GMT
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• 10Feb 10

  Strange how I keep blogging about games.

  Many games acquired over the holiday sale on steam, and only one thing cost more than $10. So I've been playing games quite a bit.

  Finished Mirror's Edge. Had a nice feel to it, running and jumping around obstacles. You could really get into it and enjoy yourself, except the instant you do, the game is guaranteed to whack you over the head. The best moments had you chasing someone else, however this only happened twice.

  Abe's Oddysee (also got Exoddus), was a lovely classic 2D adventure platformer (flashback, Prince of Persia). Though I did feel at times that the game did not appreciate the nicety of margin for error.

  Broken Sword 3 the Sleeping Dragon is another example of a series going 3D and immediately losing out. Aside from the 3D models having nowhere near as much charm as the wonderful 2D sprites of previous entries, which, in turn, marred what was probably decent voice acting, they went with a keyboard-only control scheme, so they could put a ton of box-pushing puzzles and little mazes where you climb up and down ledges. Oh, and a few, sneak-past-a-bunch-of-guards bits. And all these useless doors to try opening.

  Full Spectrum Warrior is a nice little army squad tactics simulator, though I found the squad to occasionally not show much intelligence. And things did start getting repetetive about half way through the game, given there wasn't really a whole lot of tactical options. It doesn't help that the game is quite slow-paced.

  Shadowgrounds: Survivor. Pretty much the equivilant of an expansion pack, with new levels, but not much in the way of new methods to eradicate the horde of aliens, and less atmosphere. Stick to the original. Oh, it's an arcadey overhead shooter, and the original was a bit spooky.

  And a whole bunch of other games that aren't worth talking about or that I haven't got far with yet.

  • Posted Feb 10, 2010 11:59 pm GMT
  • Category: Games
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• 12Dec 09

  Mass gaming

  Well, since the last time I blogged, I have acquired a few more games. It would be fair to say that I've got a bit of an oversaturation of games right now (there was a big package deal I couldn't refuse), so here's the usual wall of text with just the highlights.

  First, I finished Mass Effect. In 36 hours, doing 40 side-missions (including the free DLC) and completing 23 achievements. Game was well-made and interesting, but wasn't really all that enjoyable, especially at such length. Also, I got really annoyed with the enemies who can one-hit-kill you.

  I went vanguard (shotguns, pistols, force-pow......I mean biotics). Once I got a decent level, equipment and the explosive rounds upgrade, I did have a bit of fun with the sniper rifle, but the lack of scoping really ticks me off, though that might have worked with another class....
  Only got the neutral ending. Was going to go for renegade, but I kept helping other people when it seemed important

  Also quickly got through Monkey Island Special Edition. I do own the original, but it was going cheap so I got it for voice-acting. Didn't really do all that much for the humour for this 3rd or 4th playthrough though. And the new art...ugh..too artsy. Especially Guybrush's hair. Curse had simple, cartoony art, and it was great. There was also this weird detail that moving sprites (guybrush, mostly) looked like they weren't part of the picture. Like.....those little cardboard cutout puppets....or something. The art problems may have been related to the new art being slapped directly in place of the old.

  And of course, there were other niggles. No line skip, and I actually had to memorise what key brought up which verb (using scroll wheel was annoying). All in all, not worth it if you've played the original, IMO. At least it was cheap.

  What else.....I'm almost finished Phoenix Wright. If you don't know, it's part adventure, part logic puzzle, with you in the role of a defense attorney. Quite good, nice and funny writing, interesting characters, interesting cases. Possibly a little short, but not as bad as I expected.

  Also got a few other games, but haven't gotten far with them yet.
  Evil genius
  Mirror's Edge (just a little painful trying to figure out where to go sometimes, even with the ability to look in the direction of the next waypoint)
  Red Faction: guerilla (Destroying stuff = Fun. Trying to drive through small towers while under constant fire = Grrrr)
  Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War 1&2 (just need to figure out which to start with)
  Saint's Row 2 (Just walking along, minding my own business, and a car careens off the road into a pair of pedestrians a metre or so in front of me Glad to see a world where I'm not the only guy who'll be ignoring traffic laws)
  Titan's Quest (really not sure if I can be bothered with this)
  Company of heroes
  Full Spectrum Warrior
  S.T.A.L.K.E.R. (...........)

  • Posted Dec 12, 2009 8:30 pm GMT
  • Category: Games
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