Pagoda of Gaming

So let’s start with a funny video. It’s been a while since I’ve heard of any awesome anti-scientology raids via our anonymous friends. This video, uploaded in January of this year, is a masterpiece of disruption and lulz. The concept is simple - take a willing operative, dubbed ‘Brave Agent Pubit’, strip him of his shirt, lather the motherfucker in vaseline and then spread upon him hairs from the netherest of regions. Then set him loose upon the reception area of a nearby Scientology base. Accompany that with recordings of prank calls and a heartfelt ballad and we’ve got some luls, I urge you to check it out:

Next up is a look at Halo ODST, which showcases the cast of the game. Indeed, there is about half the cast of Firefly in there, including Nathan Fillion’s facial likeness. The game looks like it’s going to bring a much needed boost of emotion and personality to the franchise Not that the Cheif isn’tThe ‘Cheif is more of a pure Icon.
Fat Princess came out last week for the low price of £12. I got my mitts on it and played through the story mode (which I highly recommend to new players) but I haven’t really sunk my teeth in due to being very good-TV-less this past while. When I’m moved back into my room - when it has curtains again and the TV doesn’t face the burning rage of the sun - I’ll give it a better shot.

A new trailer for EVE Online has hut, and it’s probably the best 2-minute explanation of the game CCP has ever given. Watching it made me almost re-sub, but then I remembered that Ambulation, their future patch that will let me open and run my own “Barcadium” has been put on hold. Here’s the trailer.

Speaking of MMO’s, my Beta Key for Champions Online has arrived and I’m currently downloading. I’m oddly excited for a round of super-heroism, after reading Superman Red Son the other night, I’ve found more substance in that side of the Comic genre than I thought I would. I’ve always been a batman guy, but beyond him I’ve always thought it was a little too much. Consider me surprised, though I’m not going to run out and grab me some Green Lantern, that dude’s just silly. Ryan Scott, of GFW fame, has a good preview up of Champions over HERE, if you’re interested. And I’ll be posting my non-bannable impressions as I play along.

The Matrix Online is officially dead. I was very interested in playing it at launch all those years ago, but after seeing the grind the game presented and the cryptic gameplay mechanics, I shelved it. It’s a shame because it did have some pretty good ideas. You can see the last hour of the game’s life HERE over on Giant Bomb. The final message broadcast from those running the game was a simple and respectful “Wake Up”. I think alot about how a Matrix Online game, one bigger and better than before, could be brought into existance - and maybe sometime in the future someone will pick up the property again and give it a propper stab.

There isn’t much to say about this next video, chances are you’ve probably seen it. It’s a tiny snippet of gameplay for Modern Warfare 2, showcasing the custom kill streak loadouts. Ahem. Custom Kill Streak Loadouts. This is going to be amazing.

And the final peice of news I found is THIS. DJ Jazzy Jeff is going to be in DJ Hero. Now that might mean very little to the uninitiated, but allow me to define. “Jazz” as he is otherwise known shared the screen with a young william all those years ago in what may be the best television series of all time. Now if you’d like to take a minute, just sit right there, watch this video in Awe.

But as awesome as that is, I’m fucking not paying £120 for a DJ game. No Fucking Way.

I should admit that I have seen the Twilight film. It was horrible, but in a delightful lulzy way. Marty McWhyte linked THIS to me the other day and it’s a hilarious read, or a professional troll depending on your point of view. Personally, when it comes to the film, I have never seen a worse source of vampire lore - at points it eludes to the characters being more Generic Werewolf in origin, and yes… Vampire Baseball.

I think I said somewhere that I was going to talk about the mighty MTG in this post, but honestly I can’t be arsed. I’ve been building decks the past couple of days and I think I’ve got what I set out to build initially, save a couple of extra cards that I’ll pick up next week.

I’m oficially on holiday, though it hasn’t quite sank in yet. Tomorrow I’m hitting Fundee for a couple of days, to see the homies, maybe draft and whatnot. My usual Fundee hyjinks. Then I’ll be treated to my Driving Theory Exam next monday, which to this point I have done absolutely nothing to prepare - outside of a car. Then the rest of that week I’ll be tripping down to Edinburgh to savour the delights of the city and the Edinburgh Interactive Festival. There’s also the matter of the iPhone I purchased, that is currently on it’s way from O2, an experience I’m excited to share with the rest of you.

So here’s to the holidays. May my decks shuffle well, may the podcasts never end, and may I be moved into my room again by the end of the fortnight.

Je ne vous pense pas vous trust

I’m heading out to Edinburgh for a couple of days, starting tomorrow. The Nintop will be with me, so I might get some posting done. I’ll definitely be tweeting me way throughout the break. I might get the feature I promised I would write out nearer the end of next week.

I don’t actually know what I’ll be up to down there. The whole thing was kinda sprung on me. I’ll just do my best to enjoy the city as best as I can. Oh city food, how I miss thee. However, priority #1 is the acquisition of a DSi, and some new DS games. I’m going to need them for an experiment I’m planning for the coming month. If anyone has any ideas for great DS games that are must-haves, give me a shout.

I’m enjoying the whole comic thing alot more than I thought I would. I think I’m going to be in this for the long haul. I’ve packed some to take with me, and I plan to pick up some more - especially from Dead Head Comics, where I haven’t been in since I was a kid looking for pokemon comics. This week I read through the first volumes of both The Walking Dead and Ex-Machina. And I have to say that I really love Ex Machina, it’s some wonderful mush of superman meets the matrix meets the west wing. So yes, money will be spent where there are volumes to buy.

As for what I’ve been playing this week, I did some mining in EVE (whilst reading), got through chapter 3 in Bully. And solved some more puzzles for the townspeople of st. Mystere - those lazy fucks. No online gaming - as my connection crapped out again - which is leading me to think I really should get a better provider. And finally I bought Dishwasher: Dead Samurai today aswel, AND IT’S REALLY FREAKING HARD. AAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!! The rest of the time……. I watched Gilmore Girls.

The me that you know doesnt come around much

This is seriously the best news I’ve heard in a LOOONNG time. I need Screenshots, I need Trailers, I need a freaking expensive collectors edition for me to buy. Winter 2009. PS3, PC and 360. I will be buying for Multiple Platforms. GDC is this week, so we might get to see something.

Full story over on Kotaku

This should be a great week for gaming news.

Open a window and a breese blows in and I

I can’t believe how slammed I am from the continued lack of internet speed. 60GB is something I can easily use up several times over within a 30 day period, but especially during these months - with all the great TV shows being pumped through the pipelines. What bothers me is that, originally, by face value my ISP advertised a no download limit policy - but 60GB in and it feels as if there is no connection at all. I have to wait until past 11pm before I can do any proper gaming, any proper streaming, and bit-torrenting. Last week, on several occasions, I hut the hay as soon as I returned home, and set my alarm for 1030 hours. Maybe a new ISP is in order, but there are extreme hurdles to that situation. Mainly payment, downtime, and ultimately parents.

The reason this has all come up is because all I’ve been playing the past couple of weeks has been online stuff. Sadly, I’ve had to narrow it down to two titles, that aren’t so heavy on the bandwith.

Killzone 2, 8-player does not lag out half the time, but 32 player always does, all in exception to when the little hand goes past the 11. I’m currently just past unlocking the Assault loadout and finished with the medic - after unlocking all it’s rewards. I’m looking forward to the top of the tree. I’ve started to see a couple of Scouts going about in the matches I’ve played, and the effect of the invisibility, both it’s affect on the game and it’s graphical appearance, is astoundingly awesome. For now, I’ll be playing Tactician until I’ve unlocked his two medals - the air support ability and for other classes to use said ability.

There was a patch last week that had a placebo effect on alot of people, making them think the controls just magically got tighter - there’s nothing wrong with the controls. But I’m starting to see problems with the out of match interfacing. There is currently no way to ‘apply’ to a clan - the way one would a job. It requires something external - but for a certain percentage of the playerbase, something external might not be available. Half the website continues to remain in a broken - for me, it refuses to aknowledge that I drudged my way through the single player campaign. This is a bit of a pain, where the designers thought it would be a good idea to lock away the overall story of the game within hidden in-game secrets, but you can only see the information within by visiting the broken website.

Music is another issue. when you’re in a menu, pre-game loading screen, it’s the fucking soulless orchestral music on a loop, the same song can be heard throughout the campaign. This is funnily reminicent of Jericho, that had about 3 themes that would play throughout, noticibly. So whenever something remotely dramatic happened - be it a nuklear detonation or some pregnant woman might die - the same theme would play. There is the option for custom soundtracking, but what I’m trying to get at is that somehow your music selection doesn’t apply when your in a main menu - which one does alot when your setting up a multi-match.

I think they were trying to go for the halo theme there, something that without Marty, cannot be attained.

Remember, when I say Killzone 2, I mean the multiplayer. I will always mean the multiplayer. Let me put it this way: from day 1 there has been a poll up on the official site that asks which of your AI controlled team-mates you consider the best. you’re favourite. I cannot decide, not because I can’t figure out which one I like the most, but I can’t figure out which one I hate the least.

I’ve decided to make sure that I don’t play EVE every day. I played all weekend, and there’s a point where you need some freaking downtime to get all your skills together. Once every two days should suffice - the Training Queue making this an easier prospect.

Over the weekend I took a buffet on the new content from the Apocrypha patch. First, I lost a vessel and a pod to a wormhole expedition. I think I just had super-bad luck and ended up in one of their nightmare scenarios where you roll on a 0.9 sec space wormhole and end up in something with 0.2 strength. My little frigate was no match. And at the same time, I lost my positioning between myself and the arse-end of the wormole, so I had to self-destruct my pod. Atleast I learned how to scan with probes - something I never knew would be so useful.

After that, I moved onto creating a new character. I ran through the tutorials again, and I must say that there is significant improvement. Character creation seems to have been allmost removed apart from Race and Appearance. Instead, the tutorial doles out a shit-ton of freebie skillbooks and you’re given a 100% boost to your training time until you reach something like 1.6million skillpoints - I clock that in at being about a fortnight into the game, before it runs out. Attributes are tucked away too, you’re basically given an even split between the five choises without any word, but the choice on will to “respec” a certain amount of points.

After the initial tutorials - I thought to myself - why bother with this guy when I already have a cruiser-able character available with all the learning skills upto level 4. So I took Samuel Z to the tutorial agent and ran through them again, and went my way upon the new epic arc. This is what EVE’s been missing - a campaign of missions that’s story driven and takes you through the major points of the galaxy. I’ll say more on this when I feel I’m a sizeable chunk of the way through it.

One thing though - It would be nice to get an Eve-Mail from the Agent you start the epic arc from. Because if you don’t bookmark the well hidden link at the end of the tutorial chain, you’re in deep water. But overall, a very good expansion. There’s still alot of deep water in there, especially for the new player - but it wouldn’t be EVE without it.

In general news, there’s been a bit more on Bioshock 2. There’s some demi-spoilers about your character which I inadvertantly read, and there’s some more news that there’s going to be some multiplayer… of some kind. This makes me a bit afraid for the release of the final product. I guess with GDC round the corner, we might find out more then.

As for a video, I literally don’t have the bandwidth to watch and embed something, unless I wait 15 minutes per video. Instead I offer you THIS. Area 5 has properly launched now, and you can watch their first episode at the link.

fear in fifty forms

I do… did, at the weekend.

It’s easily one of the best films I’ve ever seen. And I know I said that about Dark knight - but it’s better than that. It’s just so up there that it’s punching Star Wars in the shins. The ultimate mixture of being faithful to the original comic and the genre, to the pacing, to the slight storyline tweaks, the amazing soundtrack and audio, and the special effects that make Manhattan’s cock glow on more than one occasion. It’s a beautiful thing, and I haven’t felt such a way about a Movie since, The Dark Knight, but this is even way beyond that. I can’t wait for the BluRay.

In the spirit of seeing such an amazing movie, I picked up some new comics to add to the collection. Specifically: Books 3,4 and 5 of Y:The Last Man, Book 1 of Sandman, and Book 1 (Hardcover) of Gotham Central. I nearly got a complete set of Batman Cacophany - the Kevin Smith written batman books, but I couldn’t find issue 1 for the life of me. I’m continuing on with Y for the moment, but by the rate I’m going, I may have exhausted my new additions by the end of the week. I may also have a second chance to pop in and see watchmen again, this coming weekend. And at the same time I’ll probably stock up on even more comics. As a side note, I love seeing a bookself of mine that isn’t riddled with off-presents and things I bought but will never read.

I’m finding all the time for this, funnily enough, during EVE play sessions. Specifically Mining. With the patch incoming within the next 24 hours, I thought that I’d step up on production and get some ISK for my impending Alt. I’ve also been looking into Mining Corps to join up with - to get a bigger peice of the pie. It’s not as boring as it sounds - It’s truly an amazing sight to float my way into a 0.5 sec asteroid field and see an Orca surrounded by several Hulks and Retreivers, mining lazers blazing and drones orbiting.

The big patch hits tomorrow, and as you can see in the Patch Notes, there are a ton of awesome changes. I’m planning to Alt-up and properly go through the new tutorials and then through the epic story arc and then with some time into some of these new-fangled wormholes. All the while doing some mining.

Ofcourse my ultimate goal - which one must have in EVE, involves something that will be out in a later, legs included, expansion. More on that at a later date. For now, enjoy the new trailer…

I’ve had some amazing, post 11pm games in Killzone warzone. Why past 11pm? because my connection is still TOS’d. Regardless, I’m working my way slowly up the unlock ladder - and got my first taste of the engineer at the weekend. It’s a clever role - essentially similar though simpler than TF2’s counterpart. What’s better is that the matchmaking seems to be extremely effective, since I havent’ seen any other player with anything higher than Engineer unlocked.

I feel bad for the glut of other games I’ve yet to sufficiantly complete - but again I’ll blame my slow connection. Maybe I’ll get back to some of them next weekend.

I hut up the Bioshock 2 teaser site today - It stirs up emotions of two release calendars past. Check it out HERE and see if you can decipher anything out of the ordinary. The jist - weird lights in the ocean and big-daddy-like creatures are kidnapping little girls in the fashion of a bear from coastal towns. To bolster the ranks of the new little sisters perhaps? Great URL they grabbed there.

you belong to me I believe