USA 2010 Holiday - Getting there [Part 1]

We (and by we, I mean mostly me) had been planning our trip Stateside for a very long time. I'd say we first discussed it two years before we finally went,  back in May 2010. We had been to the States once before for our honeymoon in 2007. It was a fantastic trip from Los Angeles to San Francisco via Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo on the Coast Starlight. We then flew to Las Vegas to finish the trip. Ever since then I had been wanting to go back to the US, this time to the East Coast. It was tough to narrow down exactly what cities we wanted to see, in what order and how long to take doing it. We decided on New York, Boston and Chicago in that order in just over two weeks. We would have spent longer and probably travelled by train from Boston to Chicago had our budget been healthier. Alas, the worldwide financial meltdown trickled its way down to us, via Government cutbacks in public spending, so a slightly compromised holiday was planned.

Our departure was scheduled for the 17th May 2010 but a few weeks prior Mount Eyjafjallajokull erupted to cause chaos over European airspace. Initially we were not that concerned as we still had a month to go before getting our flight. However, as the weeks went on it became clear that the ashcloud was a serious threat to our plans. The Friday and Saturday before our flight the skies were clear but on Sunday the ashcloud moved in. Later that night our flight was cancelled and I immediately booked us on the next flight out, Tuesday 18th May. We didn't mind missing one day but anymore and we would have had to seriously consider re-arranging everything. It turned out that the ashcloud cleared up on the 17th and the airport opened just after our flight had been due to depart. Our flight would be the last one cancelled out of Dublin Airport due to the ashcloud.

In the run up to the plane journey I had become increasingly worried about the long trip. On our last trip to the US I had felt unwell on the plane and back in December 2009 on a trip to London I didn't feel well either. There were other factors at work in both those cases that probably affected me but I was still worried nonetheless. In the end I needn't have been because I felt fine the whole journey. As an added bonus we actually got to board the plane first and get settled after my wife was picked out for a random search by Homeland Security. I had planned on watching a few movies on the onboard entertainment system, which was I must say very impressive. I soon realised that watching a movie for the first time on a plane, with the ambient noise and small screen is very difficult. I started to watch Fantastic Mr. Fox, Couples Retreat and Monsters vs. Aliens but couldn't finish any of them. It wasn't the quality of the film (well it was with Couples Retreat) but I just wasn't enjoying the movie experience. I found watching things I seen before to be much easier.

We arrived in New York's JFK Airport and after gathering our luggage we went in search of a taxi into the city. We were disappointed by the heavy rain waiting for us but got a taxi quickly enough. The journey to Manhattan felt very long, about 40 minutes I'd say. I'd say if felt longer for my wife who was car sick about 5 minutes into the journey. So my first memory of New York City was dumping a bag of vomit into a waste bin and running back to the taxi. Hopefully, not a sign of things to come I thought to myself.


Part 2

Is Lost Planet 2 worth €1?

GameStop here in Ireland have been running a sale for the last couple of days. Yesterday they had Lost Planet 2 for the Xbox 360 for €1 and today it was on sale for the PS3. The game has had pretty mixed reviews from what I've seen. Praised for it's graphics but slated for the way it is set up almost exclusively has a multiplayer game. I played the demo a few months ago and wasn't that impressed. 

Still €1 is a crazy price for a PS3 title so I ordered myself a copy. Good or bad I'm pretty sure I'll make my money back if I trade it in.

3 States, 4 Games

Link and Yoshi weren't the only gaming related purchases that made their way back from my trip to the US in May. I picked up four games in total; Assassins Creed 2 (AC2); Split Second (SS); Mod Nation Racers (MNR); Red Dead Redemption (RDR). I would have gotten Blur as well but that had yet to be released. It was a pretty good selection of games because AC2 turned out to be exceptional, RDR was very good, SS was good and only MNR was disappointing.

I had been avoiding AC2 after my experience with the first but as detailed elsewhere in this blog I actually managed to get the Platinum trophy in AC2. The setting, the graphics and the gameplay mechanics had me hooked right from the beginning. It was the story though that I enjoyed the most, it certainly has me anticipating the next installment. RDR was pretty good too. In my playthrough I just concentrated on the main story line and didn't do any other the other activities. My plan was to go back and do everything I'd missed but I'd spent so long getting the main game done that I had lost interest. Still, there is a huge world left for me to explore so I may get back to it one day.

SS was surprisingly good. I'm not a huge racing game fan but a combination of good reviews and a decent price convinced me to take the plunge. It was pretty good but with so many other games to play its time was limited. The big surprise was MNR which I found to be very disappointing. I was hoping for a combination of Little Big Planet fused with Mario Kart. The LBP feel is there, with the excellent track creation tools but the actual racing is quite poor. The handling of the cars feels off and the over-aggressive AI make the game much less fun than it should be. I know that they released a patch to fix the AI but I didn't notice the difference when I went back to it. I do get the feeling that I didn't give the game enough time and maybe some day I will give it another spin.

The US boxart for these games is slightly different to the European boxart so it brings something new to my collection. I picked three of them up in Best Buys over there and I got MNR in a GameStop in Boston. I expected the prices to be far better than here in Ireland and although they were cheaper on the whole, it wasn't by much. Otherwise I'd have gotten more than the four.

Star Wars: Battlefront 2

I guess I went through a little phase of picking up games that I had heard were good but have never played. Star Wars: Battlefront 2 is another such game. It looks like a lot of fun from videos and being set in the Star Wars universe also helps. I haven't played it yet but if Sony ever patches the PS3 to make them backward compatible with the PS2 I certainly will. In the mean time it looks good in the collection as it is in mint condition.

Fade To Black

If I remember correctly Fade To Black is one of two games that I acquired in a swap with a friend at school. The other game being Worms. I owned the original game, Flashback on the Mega Drive and was a fan even though I never made it that far into it. I'm pretty certain the same can be said about Fade To Black. Again it was graphically impressive (for the time) and I enjoyed the gun play but I found it very tough. I also think that I had a problem with the 3D perspective, in that it gave me motion-sickness. Like a lot of the games discussed here in recent months I struggle to remember any more details about it. Still, it is nice to have back in the collection and is in pretty good condition.

Worms

The second of those games acquired in a swap with a friend. I've no idea what games I swapped with him but I think one of them might have been Command and Conquer. Now unlike many of the games I've posted about recently I can remember lots about Worms. It is one of those games that just keeps on appearing generation, after generation. As well as the PSOne version I have owned it on the Xbox 360 and now I own it on the iPhone. But this version, for me, is the definitive one. 

Many, many Saturday evenings were lost to this game in fantastic three player battles between myself, my sister and a good friend. We all had specific teams and every single worm in the game had their own name. I remember the Villains team, the Heroes team, the Goddess team etc... Over time we all grew attached to those worms and after months of playing we had all built up some very impressive statistics for these worms. Playing Worms since on other systems has never quite recaptured what was so special about those days.

This version is in excellent condition and comes in that silly dual-DVD case. I never understood the purpose of those cases.

Platinum in The Force Unleashed

Just a few moments ago I unlocked the latest Platinum Trophy on my PSN account in The Force Unleashed. It was the best of games but it did have some high points. Not the most satisfying Platinum though. The Trophy list only shows 64% complete because they include DLC Trophies in the list. Very annoying not to see the magic 100%.