The Worlds Most Important Question

Does Peggle require skill, or is it just all about luck?

It’s a question that we may never be able to answer.

Three Things I Hate About Pre-Owned Games

1. Games owned by Smokers.

Once in a blue moon, I’ll buy a game from somewhere like Entertainment Exchange, usually a PC RTS like the Settlers, for around £2, and it will stink of smoke. I hate smoking, I think it’s disgusting, and when I’m holding something that smells like it’s been used as an ashtray since it' came out four years ago… it’s never good. This also covers games that are sticky. Yes, sticky. I bought a copy of Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga and it’s cover felt like it had been smeared in Jam. Of course, I didn’t realise this until I’d placed my brand new copy of inFamous on top if it. Which was just… marvellous.

2. Games in awful conditions.

The image above, is my copy of Crackdown. Have you seen the state of that back cover? My copy of Mass Effect is the same. It has no plastic on the top of it as well, which means it can’t close and…. well it has a hole in the top of it. The worst thing about Crackdown though, is that I was going to buy a copy for a fiver from Gamestation at first, but I was told I needed I.D. Crackdown is a 15. I was 16 at the time. I was denied it. So I walked over to Grainger, where I had to buy THAT copy, for £12! I had to pay a clear seven pound more for a copy in worse condition. Bloody retailers.

3. Games with all the important stuff missing.

When I first bought my Xbox, I picked up a few key games to go with it. Halo 3, Resident Evil 5 and Gears of War 2. Now, I bought Gears of War 2 mainly for the online play as I had already completed it. However, I soon found out that most of my friends who played it online were rather fond of the original maps that were packaged free within pretty much all copies of Gears of War 2. Well I should rephrase that. All new copies. I had a pre-owned one. What really annoyed me, was that someone out there had an Xbox with the extra maps just sitting on his hard drive, while I had the bloody game.

So Long, Farewell....

So my Xbox Live ran out today, which means that tomorrow I'll be trading in Modern Warfare 2.

Oh Modern Warfare 2, How you've given me laughs, endless fun and callsigns.

Anyway, out of grievance I'll be getting this for the PS3...



*sniggers*

Sod the iPad. Game Boy Camera Is Where It’s At.

So who else is sick of hearing about the iPad? I know I am.

Therefore lets talk about the greatest invention of the past one hundred years.

The Game Boy camera.

I remember being absolutely blown away by this. It was a camera, on your Game Boy! A real Camera! You could like, take pictures and stuff it was amazing! I remember my mate getting one for his birthday as well as Pokémon Yellow and I was so jealous I cried. True story.

Look at the quality of that picture! It’s right to say, that that’s a car. Yup. Incredible stuff.

Of course, all of this was pointless until this came along…

So you can sit there and drool over your iPad’s and your iMacs and your iPhones, whereas I’ll be hunting on eBay for a one of these babies.

Do you want a terrible black and white camera for an outdated handheld system? Well there isn’t an app for that. So suck it.

iWant

So Apple once again releases something new. It’s pointless, it’s completely unpractical… and it’s shiny.

DO WANT!

League of Legends

So I’ve been playing League of Legends (or LoL, as it’s often called, which I just find fantastic) quite obsessively these past few days. A friend recommended it to me on the basis that it was “very similar” to the cult Warcraft 3 mod Defence of the Ancients. To be honest, the only reason I gave it a download was because it sounded a bit like Warcraft 3 and… well it’s free to play.

I’ve been graciously rewarded for my choice. League is a very simple, yet addictive game that works like this. The player picks a character to play as, or a “Summoner” as they’re referred to in game, which is basically a hero character that you play as. All of these characters have four magic abilities and a basic attack that varies from punch or cast. Then you’re placed into a game with 9 others (5 Vs. 5 games) and the game begins. The basic premise is each base is defended by towers and waves of units which guard the main paths leading to your base. In the centre of each base is a building that must be destroyed to win the game.

So the premise is deviously simple, yet in practice it becomes this surreal game of fantasy tug of war. See, these towers are pretty powerful so you end up relying on the waves of units to act as human shields in order to push forward. Your summoner can level up to a maximum of level 18 in a single game, gaining more powerful levels of their abilities as you progress (as well as gold to purchase ability boosts) which means that what starts off as a quite relaxing game of click- to – kill – minions ends up as a furious war between ten completely different magical beings, all of them mercilessly slaughtering each other in an effort to just… destroy… that… one last… tower…

It becomes a death match, near the end. Once you hit level 5 it’s no longer about killing the minions. It’s about getting a positive kill streak by chasing down enemy summoners for a huge XP boost, as well as attempting to aid your minions is progressing… you get the idea. It’s a simple concept, but strikingly complex in practice.

Of course, the beautiful thing about this game isn’t the fresh and addictive nature of it’s game play or the quite frankly gorgeous visual style. No, it’s all in the fact that you don’t have to pay a penny to play it. Sure, there are additional buffs and enhancements you can buy with real money, but if you play enough games online you’ll earn enough “Riot points” to acquire them without ever having to touch your debit card. Even better, is the fact that the developers bring in a new set of summoners every wednesday in order to keep the game fresh and exciting. If you become attached to a summoner, you have the option of purchasing him or her (with money or riot points), meaning he won’t disappear from your list of available characters come next wednesday.

In conclusion? I’m in love, and addicted. There’s so much more I’ve missed out, like a powerful ranking system, fresh maps, character skins, runes. The list goes on and on. This is as good as it’s going to get for free to play games people, so I’d highly recommend you download right now.

Once Again, I Return

You know, funny story about where I’ve been for the past week. Mainly, working on this very website for my media project. Yea bad excuse but I just haven’t really had time to update.

Anyway I’ll fill you in on what I’ve been up too. First of all, I bought WET on the PS3 expecting a fantastic Tarantino inspired running – gunning, hacking – slashing epic of a game. Instead, I got a mediocre game that I would be ashamed to pass off as a PS2 title. I’ll do a full (and pretty damn harsh) review tomorrow or Wednesday. In short, it’s been traded in come Saturday. What a load of tosh.

Secondly, I’ve been experimenting with a few more free-to-play games on the PC. I’ve been trying out League of Legends (Warcraft 3 inspired defence strategy game, which is surprisingly addictive, accessible and very good fun online) and have just downloaded Face of Mankind tonight which… well I know nothing about it but a few people have recommended it so I thought I’d get it. A friend said he’d walk me through it at some point this week so I’ll give an opinion on that soon.

Apart from that… Erm. Mass Effect 2 is making people giddy at college, Assassins Creed 2 is a hugely enjoyable game and Borderlands just never ends! Which is a good thing.