What's In The Box?

Probably some of the nicest Half-Life film stuff I've ever seen before in my life.

Whether or not the Half-Life references are there on purpose however... well...

Gmod Idiot Box

These are amazing. Old news I know, but I can still appreciate them surely?

Enjoy.

Prepare to be Informed

Regular visitors (Hai Friz!) may remember that I bought the Orange Box for the PS3 so I could finish Half Life 2 on a console. Well I can tell you now, that I never finished it on the PS3, but I'm pretty close to finishing it on the Xbox! OK, so it isn't my copy it's a friends, but I'm still enjoying it a lot more. Especially with..... *sighs*.... with the achievements....

In other Valve related news, I've been playing a lot of Team Fortress 2 on the PC as of late what with the announcement of the Sniper / Spy update last week. I'm actually not sucking as much as I normally do as the spy, but come next week everyone will be a spy so.... Yea. PYRO :D

Finally, me and a Friend finally finished Gears of War on co-op on Hardcore. Fantastic game, but I thoroughly enjoyed the final battle with General Raam, mainly because of my mate having about a five minute long planing session before hand, about how we use the Torque bow, long bow then repeat. I just ran on the Troika and mowed him down within seconds. I lol'd. 

What WAS the last great game?

A friend of mine struck a conversation topic I seem to have been avoiding as of late, last night. He said to me "What WAS the last great game?". Instantly, being me, I said Bioshock. 

But then I thought myself, hang on. I got Bioshock in September... Surely I've played better games since then. Well the Orange Box is probably my most played game of all time, Team Fortress 2 especially. But why didn't I say that straight away? Surely that must be the obvious choice? Well, thinking of it in hindsight, it didn't move me as much as Bioshocks story did. There wasn't as much thrill as exploring rapture for the first time. (It pains me to say that, it honestly does. But Bioshock beats Orange box by a mere millimetre) 

So then I pondered some more. I got loads of games for Christmas, one of them must have beat Bioshock and the Orange box? Surely it hasn't been almost 11 months since the last truly enjoyable game was released? I got Crysis, Unreal Tournament 3, Super Mario Galaxy, Mysims, Metroid Prime 3 and Sim City DS for Christmas. Not one lived up to expectations, and to be honest not one gripped me enough. Crysis got boring very quickly, as did Unreal Tournament 3. As for Mario Galaxy, well it was fun but it was just another Mario Game. 

It seems to me that the games market is becoming stale. Super Mario Galaxy was the first indication. It was meant to be a completely new Mario experience. It was just Mario. In space. Unreal Tournament 3 was just UT2004 with a healthy dose of LIQUID MUSCLE. And It was also, rather boring compared to the others. 

"But what about the others!?!" I hear you cry. "What about Grand Theft Auto 4? Metal Gear Solid 4? Surely these are sure choices!". Well, no. GTA4 is GTA3 in essence, but I can't argue that it's not a good game. Personally I love it, and I'm currently playing through it for the first time and enjoying myself immensely. But it's nothing groundbreaking, nothing immense. It's a good game. But not a great game. Oh, and Metal gear Solid 4? I haven't finished it yet, but It's still the same formula as the others. 

So now I've established there hasn't been a great game in around 11 months. That makes me rather cynical to be honest. Especially with games such as Resident Evil 5, Left 4 Dead, Little big planet, Tomb Raider Underworld and Mirrors Edge coming out. Will these games live up to expectations? Will they manage to make me feel an emotional connection to the game like Bioshock did? We'll have to see, because right now I don't even want to think about it.

Oh, and I didn't mention about Spore. I'll talk about that tomorrow.