Friday, June 1, 2012

Humble Bundle V

It may be the fifth in the Humble Bundle series but it was the first one that I have bought. I've never really paid attention to the whole Humble Bundle craze because I'm not a PC gamer. I use a MacBook, and a one from 2007 at that. So that means this computer is no where near powerful enough for any of todays games. Soon though I will be replacing this machine for the new MacBook Pro. I plan on having Windows installed using Bootcamp so I have started to consider some PC gaming.


I will just keep it simple, play some indie games that I find interesting and aren't too taxing on hardware. So with that in mind I dropped €6.69 on the Humble Bundle V. So I've increased my Steam library six fold in one swoop. The games included were:


Amnesia: The Dark Descent
Bastion
Limbo
Pyschonauts
Superbrothers: Swords & Sworcery EP

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Good games, good prices

Yesterday was a good day for my collection. Four titles added across three different platforms and all for bargain prices.

PES 6 (Xbox 360)
Rage (Xbox 360)
Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning (PS3)
Zelda: Skyward Sword (Wii)

I bought Rage on Amazon for £10, which is a decent price for such a recent title. I wasn't that interested in it at launch but for that price I felt it deserved a place in the backlog. In order to secure free shipping on the order from Amazon I needed to spend another £3. I found PES 6 under the bargains tab and put it in the basket.

I had this version of PES a few years ago when I originally had a 360 and even earned the full 1000 Achievement points in it. I felt owning it again was important. The next two purchases are strange in that I bought them in good old fashioned bricks and mortar stores

I bought Reckoning in GameStop, as it was reduced to €19.98 brand new. I guess the knock down price is due to the recent closure of it's developer 38 Studios. I am excited to try this game as I have grown more fond of RPGs in recent years. Plus the combat mechanics look like fun. Some of the reviews mentioned that the side content is poor but I guess if I stick to the main story I should have a good time with it.

Last up is The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword for the Wii. This was knocked down to €18.99 in Argos. Phenomenal saving for a first party Nintendo game. I have no plans to play this anytime soon having only recently disconnected my Wii. But I wanted it for my collection and at that price it couldn't be turned down.


Saturday, May 26, 2012

360, my FPS machine

Since I bought the Xbox 360 back in late summer last year it has not gotten as much use as I expected. Some of that is down to life getting in the way but a lot of it has been the fact that I continue to buy the majority of my games on the PS3. Even multi-platform games. The exception though are first-person shooters. 


The 360 has become my console of choice for any new shooters, or old ones that I've missed. To me there is a better feel from the 360 controller when playing a shooter. Plus if it is multiplayer then having Xbox Live is a bonus. My backlog of shooters thus far reads:



  • Battlefield 3
  • Borderlands
  • Crysis 2
  • Rage
  • Skyrim



I realise Skyrim is not a first-person shooter by definition but it is a game played from the first-perspective and the word on the PS3 version was that it was very buggy. I have plenty of shooting to get around to whenever I get the chance.

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

God of War III

Gamepedia entry.

God of War III is the first in the series that I played. I missed out on the PS2 games because I wasn't really following the video game scene with much interest during that period. By the time GoWIII shipped for the PS3 though the hype was huge. I was impressed with the footage I'd seen and decided I'd give it a try.

On the while I enjoyed my time with it but did not find it to be anything special. Graphically it is very impressive, particularly the opening battle against the Titan. Not being a real beat'em up aficionado I didn't get too bogged down with the combo system. I would say I only scratched the surface of what is possible but that was fine for me.

It didn't offer much replay value as I haven't thought about it since it was done.

FIFA 09

Just another random Gamepedia entry.


A quick glance through this blog would lead you to believe I am a Pro Evolution Soccer fanboy. That assessment would be correct. But that doesn't mean I can't see the faults in the PES franchise and back in 2008 there were many which lead me to buying FIFA 09 that year, along with PES. As expected the presentation in this FIFA is amazing. We expect nothing less from EA Sports. It was also fun to play but a bit simplistic compared to PES. I always felt that the CPU was doing more of the work than I was at times. I remember putting a good few hours into this but never truly enjoying it.

Fallout 3

I am genuinely shocked that I have never posted anything about Fallout 3 before this. Like a lot of my games I picked this one up way after it's release. I think I bought it about a year into it's life because I was never convinced that I would really enjoy a first-person RPG. I was very, very wrong.


I can't check right now what my official play time with this game was but I would put it at about 80 hours. There is just so much content in this game that it is crazy. I very much doubt that I have seen all there is to see. Those 80 hours were spread across about 18 months I'd say. I would play it a lot for short periods of time, get bored but would always come back to it. 


There was a bonus to playing it late in it's life. There had been several patches for the PS3 version so I never encountered any significant bugs and all the DLC had been released. As as PS+ subscriber I got all the DLC for free. Some of it was poor like Mothership Zeta but some was very good like The Pitt and Point Lookout. 


By the end I was throughly burnt out on the universe and I still have Fallout: New Vegas in shrink wrap. But it was one of the best games of this generation.

Enslaved: Odyssey to the West

Of the many games in my backlog this is one that I most often want to play. I played the demo on PSN and enjoyed it. I thought the world looked interesting, the graphics were colorful (a nice change for an Unreal Engine game) and I am very interested in it because of the involvement of Andy Serkis and Alex Garland.

I think the main thing stopping me is fatigue with third person action games. Also the camera made me feel queasy the last time. It is though a game I most definitely will play.