I was playing COD again tonight with some mates, and it was going OK and we were having fun, until we ended up playing Ground War with a bunch of Americans. This one kid in my party (who is often rather annoying, but he's a friend of my mates so I normally put up with him) started to swear his head off for no reason about them being American (I mean honestly, he was like Speedy Gonzales with turrets) and then this guy from our team told him to "Shut up you American C**t". Turns out the guy was Porterican but did this stop this kid? Nope, in fact he laid on the hate even more.
I ended up quitting and coming off altogether. It's just sad really, how worked up people get over something as silly as a game...
As you've probably all realised, I'm a pretty huge fan of Free Radical's games. Timesplitters is by far my all time favourite mutiplayer experience.... but Second Sight is probably one of my all time favourite games.
I physically can't comprehend how much this game has been overlooked. It might have something to do with the fact that it was published by Codemasters instead of EA (and at that time... well if you weren't published by EA, Ubisoft or Activision you were screwed) but I think one of the main reasons was that it was released at exactly the same time as a game called Psi-ops which is often considered as... well better.
But unlike Psi-ops, which was a grizzly, gory, telekinesis man fest, Second Sight was a charming and inspired piece of work that could have only been developed by Free Radical. It was dark, it was terrifying. It could be considered one of the first "Troubled Hero" stories regarding super powers which has been culminating in the past few years (inFamous, Watchmen etc.), as it's story centered around a one John Vattic, drafted into a special operations unit and sent to hunt down a man experimenting on mild control potential in young children. The game is mainly played through flashbacks, as the game starts in a secret underground hospital where Vattic discovers his powers.
If you've never played it, you're seriously missing out and I would urge you with all my being to go out and find a copy. It's probably going cheap, and it's worth every penny.
It's fifteen years today since the PlayStation one was released to the public. Not only does that make me feel ridiculously old, mainly because I was two at the time, but it also makes me feel proud to have been alive when it was released. I was first given my PlayStation a the tender age of five back in good old 1997. I had a game called Speed Freaks and I needed nothing more. To be fair, although the SNES was my first ever console the PlayStation was my most favoured.
Since then I've owned all of Sony's home consoles, bar the PsOne (the slim one) and the PS2 Slimline and have never been let down by a Sony product, to this day in fact, with my glorious monstrosity that is the PlayStation 3.
So Bravo Sony, because you've given me a lot of memories in your 15 years of gaming dominance. Keep going strong my Japanese brethren. From Crash Bandicoot and Metal Gear Solid, to Resident Evil and Uncharted, you've always given me quality gaming at it's best.
Who would have known that a lump of grey plastic could have left such an impression on our culture, and out hearts.
So I've been playing Civilisation 4 for the past three days. I set it onto a sort-of-long time length, an average difficulty, huge map, loads of other people on said map and chose myself Winston Churchill has my leader. I was having great fun if I'm honest with you. Up until about eight tonight, I'd spent about four hours advancing my civ and making it really peaceful and cultured. I was doing great, really enjoying playing it, and tonight decided I was just going to sit down and finish it while I had the chance. This is where it all went wrong for me.
So there I was, doing great. I had the highest points out of the 15 or so other civilisations and only 48 turns left, so I was under the impression that I was about to win by points. Then Ragnar, the viking country, took over me in points. In fury, I dedicated all of my cities to constructing parts of a spaceship in order to win the space race.... but the cockpit was going to take 50 turns or something ridiculous. Then I realised if I had aluminum, then It would only take half the time! So I found an aluminum mine and went at it. 25 turns! Brilliant! Wait..... the engine... no wait the engines are going to take 39 turns... and I have 14 turns left.... ffffff---
This was the point where I decided that the only way I was ever going to win, was by destroying every living thing that wasn't situated within my borders by launching about 30 nuclear missiles that I had been building out of boredom for the past 100 or so turns. Then I remembered that all of the other civs had treaties with other civs... basically every single country on the PLANET decided to attack me...
So yea. That's why Civilisation makes me rage like a turtle.
Ahh I love this game. I know I probably shouldn't, because of my loyal devotion to the original Unreal Tournaments (and I mean devotion! I have a club card, a T-Shirt and.. oh yea! Epic owns my soul ._.) but Quake 3: Arena just seemed to stand out fin it's own little way.
Yea it was only deathmatches but the game just always seemed to flow better than Unreal. It seemed to be a more complete experience. The Mods of course, were also a huge factor. Also, this was the first game I ever played online... and my God did I love it. Try to imagine you're first time playing an online game, and condemn me for having fond memories of this.
