Pagoda of Gaming

Got back last night, super late, and I discover that the Blog is down… Again. I don’t want to bother writing up the details of my trip just yet, I want the blog to be back up first. And it’ll give me some time to hit up all the stuff that I missed the past week, and watch a week’s worth of TV, including the return of battlestar. So the timetable’s looking like postive post tomorrow, fueling up the hatredcopter on tuesday and then I make my way back to Fundee on wednesday. Hopefully.

Just some bits of news I picked up since I got back. Eye of Judgement’s set 2 seems to be properly out now, despite a lackluster appearance of actual cards in actual shops. From what I found out, the update costs £6.99 and adds some new features, and lets you use the set 2 product. I’m taking a huge guess here, but I’m guessing it’s going to be rather hard to find boosters at your local gaming establishment, so maybe once I’ve converted all this european funny-money lying about into good old GBP, I may satisfy my nerdly needs with a booster box. What’s really weird is that this update seems to be delayed until the end of the month for the US, who woulda thunk it?

CoD4 Map Pack is live, I think I’ll have to pick that up too once I get back.

My EVE online subscription has finally expired. I don’t mind really, I think I’ll wait to hit it up again once the next big big patch hits. I find the idea of owning a bar on a spacestation incredibly alluring. Yeh, THAT patch.

And it seems we may have finally got a release date for Rock Band in Europe. It’s looking like the end of next month for the 360 version only. Details HERE. Retail price is also looking roundabout £130, which sucks my fucking cock. I dunno, something feels a bit fishy about this. More as the story develops.

Is anyone else getting the vibe that GTA4’s almost here? You know, that feeling. Regardless, my game-boner is currently stoked for some EoJ action.

On the scrotum of a wizard in his testicle blood

Just a little CYOTFS post before I hit the train to epic-failserboring.

I did some Pre-Holiday spending yesterday, and picked up some new PSP games for next week’s bore-fest. Patapon, Valkyrie Profile Lenneth and MGS Portable Ops. Porta-ops was a bitch to find, had to dumpster-dive it out of the pre-pwned along with Valkyrie Profile. Not that that’s a bad thing. Both in excellent condition for less than a £10 each. Impressions when I get back, though I’ve played the first level of MGS, and I’m VERY impressed so far.

Have you heard the bad news? Look’s like Warhammer Online’s been super-delayed until the Autumn. I was quite saddened at the thought of having one less fun thing to occupy myself during the soul-crushing summer. But then I remembered that I’m in the closed beta, and suddely I was less sad. And then I saw the contents of the Collectors Edition, then I got excited. So much cooler than an in-game pet. If you know what I mean.

I finally got to playing the Bad Company beta. I don’t want to say much, other than it’s good fun, incase the NDA my ass.

The EoJ Set 2 update is sortof out, atleast the patch version is. It doesn’t matter much anyways, there’s been reported delays accross all of europe for arrival of new cards. I’m not surprised.

Today’s video is something I stumbled on, at the PurePwnage site. Not bad.

So there’s going to be a new 50 Cent Game, a sequal. I’m entirely uninterested, until I saw the game’s plot. Check it HERE for the Lulz.

If this is my last post before the holidays, I’ll try and post some stuff when I’m there, I’m sure I’ll have found something about France to complain about in detail. I’m off to play some CSS before I have to leave. Cho.

Deutsche Deutsche!
Vaya con dios amigos!

(^ new online avatar I’m trying out)

Company Of Heroes finally downloaded, and is what I’ve been solidly playing the past couple of days. So much that it put my steam rating from a zero-point-something up to 4.8, I think that’s a good thing.

I’ve only played a total of two online games, and I sucked hard in both, which is expected. I think the matchmaking is a little broken, since it matched me against two seasoned vets. each time. I think I’d have more fun playing someone who was as new to it as I am, or someone I actually know.

I’ve been playing a mix of Americans and Brits, and none of the nazi armies, simply on principle. The brits in particular seem to be very interesting. I had a moment of revelation when I first realised how ‘defensive’ the army is with it’s super-powered emplacements. Then I devoted several AI skirmishes to a simple strategy of rushing the centre of the map then setting up a shitload of sapper-built turrets and howitzers. Which are, btw, the shit. I haven’t tried the artilary or engineer tech tree much, I find them innefective, and simply because the Commando’s tree has given me all that I have needed so far; glided in strike teams (which btw, is the coolest way I’ve ever seen to drop troops into battle), a nice artilery barrage and some neat surveilance options. So yeh, CoH is pimp, I just wish I had some noobs I could pwn online.

I might dive back into Bully for a bit tomorrow, play the as-intented version since it looks like the jim’ll-fix-it patch is out. And I’ve got a double dose of modern-made Western’s from LoveFilm still to watch before the weekend’s out; 3:10 to Yuma and Seraphim Falls. Then there’s always EoJ.

Today’s Video is the ‘trailer’ for the next EoJ expansion, which is looking very very interesting, it’s just a shame that I’m hitting france when it goes live, I expect I’ll be playing catch up when I come back. Anyway, take a look at the trailer. And as a final word, cloth mats are for noobs, pros leik me use masking tape.

I got a listen of the new Panic at the disco album, and I think after about 3 days, I’ve finally got an opinion. I don’t not like it. And I miss the emoness, quite a bit. In the way that there’s still nothing to better Camisado or any of the tracks on the first album. It’s like they all got stoned and decided it was the sixties. And I can’t stand how freaking slow the tracks sound.

In other weekend news, here’s a PAL PSN update list you can facepalm.jpg at. There’s finally a Sins of a Solar Empire Demo out, which I urge you all to try, details HERE. And it looks like we’re getting some free Halo 3 maps this tuesday.

into a place where thoughts can bloom

I promised myself that I wouldn’t get emotional… so I’m not gunna lol. I’m surprised that I’ve managed to keep the Blog running as long as I have, considering no-one reads the fucking thing. Well, maybe not, I’ve had according to the site’s webstats, just about 14,000 visits, and I know that that’s not just me. That’s ’bout 38 visits a day, and I’m pretty happy with that.

So, it seems that you whine fags, you know who you are, who keep on putting off and putting off you’re embrace of this new, shiny, beautiful, gaming generation, now officially have less reason to do so. The Xbox 360 got a major europe-wide price cut, so you can essentially get the “complete” package for as little as £200. And now, the amazing part, for as little as £20 more than a Wii, you can get a REAL NEXT GEN EXPERIENCE…. OH NO I DI-NT! Check out the details over on Majornelson’s blog.

Whilst we’re still on the Nintendo hate train, looks like they’re a bit touchy on working RL History into their games. Check out the details HERE. A game that features historical information on the Holocaust, and using it as a premise for an Anne Frank meets McGee’s Alice DS adventure, and Nintendo are literally scared of it. Come on you fucks, they teach the Holocaust in primary schools, and you’re scared of releasing something that would probably make the learning process more engaging, let alone alot more fun than the actual learning process.

Again, keeping it contraversial, look’s like someone’s finally gotten round to making the game that would make most christians, I assume, want to revert to the days of witches and witch trials, exchanging the accused maidens for optical media. Salvation, from what I’ve seen of the premise and some screenshots, it looks atleast to be a compelling story. Check it out HERE.

In other news, we have Mark Whalberg in some pics, dressed to impress in his Max Payne role, here and here. And we have pics of what looks like the ugliest peice of ‘ware to ever grace the preverbial shovel. Infinity Ward’s totally sick of doing WW2 based games, And finally the super awesome confirmation of what we pretty much already knew, and the soon to be GOTY 2009, Bioshock 2, confirmed.

I think I’ve finally given up on WoW. I haven’t even thought about playing it in the past couple of weeks. Maybe’s it’s because I’ve been tied up in my various console ventures.

Today’s video is the super live action advert for Condemned 2.

I’m really looking forward to Friday, for the release of Condemned 2. Unfortunatly, my ass will be firmly sat in Failserboring. Dogsitting of all things. And I won’t get back until Monday. So I’d better go take care of all the shit I need to do before hitting the trains tomorrow.

happy birthday, you’re gonna die

Look’s like I’m back online, with thanks to the MindontheNet Tech-Ninjas.

So my opinion of the lost game, the one you’ve all been waiting for, I’m sure. It’s pretty simple so here goes. You’re only going to love the game, and at the most enjoy it, if you’re a goddam professional gay-for-it Lost fan. Like me. It took me only 5-6 hours to play through the entire thing, and then go back again and pick up a bunch of the achievements I missed. I got 1000/1000 of the available gamerscore for the game in that same time too. But that was a loveable, totally in the vein of fanservise, couple of hours, that I would gladly do again.

Not to say that there aren’t negative points, even for the professional lost fan. The island seems very deserted, in the way that the developers didn’t add any extras to the island. All you’ll see at the 815 survivor camp is the main characters, and a couple of familiar tents. The other locations, however, are recreated fairly accurately. Inside the swan station is a fucking blast, and so are the other dharma stations. I also feel like the game must’ve been rushed to shelves to meet the the start of the new TV season since there are hidden locations in the game that are completely underused. If you want more, check out the 1up review, it pretty much says what I would.

I guess there’s hope for a second try with the franchise, but I would hope that that second try went a bit more ‘open worldy’, GTA: The Fucked Up Island, if you will. But right now, I’m happy with what we got, and the surprise at the end of Via Domus was worth my 30 bucks.

And then I took that 30 bucks and traded it in on friday for a brand new shiny copy of Bully.

I won’t say too much about it, this is the “lost post” anyways. I’m not even half way through the main story yet, but at about the point that I stopped playing the PS2 version. So it’s all original content from here on, for me atleast. If anything, bully reminds me alot of all the bullshit we all put up with in high-school. Yup, sooooo glad I experienced it /sarcasm. But srsly tho, Bully’s fucking awesome, It’s one of the best examples of open world gameplay ever, and truly shows Rockstar North’s potential outside the GTA universe.

And when I’ve not been playing lost or bully within the last week, I’ve been decating alot of time towards the Eye of Judgement. I think I really get it now. I’ve reached the point of transendence with the game that I stop losing most of the time, and start winning, and stop making the noob mistakes. And at this point, I enjoy the battles even if I’m losing. I feel as though I’ve fought a worthy opponent, and that makes me happy.

Then there are the faggots, you know who you are, who play you for 40 minutes then woops, “connection to opponent lost”, how fucking convenient. You people are fucking cowards and you know it. And if you took a moment to pay attention, you’d see that you get some Honor (as in points) if you kept going to the bitter end, which you should have done. Play with some motherfucking honor, noobs.

I’ve been Nostalgia tripping alot lately, anywhere from watching all of Gundam Wing (one of my ‘first’ anime’s) to looking up shit like THIS on the web, *shudder*.

A branch of this trip was a dive back into White-Wolf’s World of Darkness. I fucking loved the old WoD, I think I must’ve been like 5 or 6 years now since I last played. It was just so utterly comprehensive with it’s lore, and yet allowed alot of flexibility, and still managed to cover the major myths and add on reasons for the disparities. The New WoD stuff, seems to be a refinement of that system. It’s just a shame that it’ll be next to impossible for me to play again. Atleast I can play it in my head, which I guess I’ve been doing all these years to begin with, nevermind.

Some small bits of news, the latest epidsode of Pure Pwnage hut the web last night. Episode 2.04, lots of luls and happies. It was really good, go check it. There’s also a God of War: Chains of Olympus Demo, you know, the PSP game, that just hut the net, check out the Kotaku post for details. I’ll see ya’ll later. *Smoke-bomb*.

streets a mess with people would stop to hold their heads