twmac

If you only have 5 days, I think you will find it hard to get to Montreal and back in that time, especially if you already have two of your days planned.

Wow, even I prefer Shadow the hedgehog to that one. Okay I did like it sort of but it was just completely broken. You must have been absent during the brief period I was trying to drum up enthusiasm for Unleashed then as all I was met with was the posting equivalent of blank stares.

Well as the only one in the world who liked Sonic: Unleashed I'm always eager to see more Sonic games. What I would love to see from this Sonic game is some kind of Sonic & Knuckles backwards compatibility. It would great to finish Episode 1 and rescue Tails or Knuckles then when Episode 2 comes out it would patch episode 1 so that you could use that character in episode 1 and explore areas previously out of Sonic's reach (ala Sonic 3).

I woke up feeling like shit and almost emailed in sick. Then I checked idle thumbs and there was a podcast. What better way to walk to work than to listen to this while doing so? Great return, look forward to the next one, whenever that may be.

Please make it so. I have been yearning for more thumbs' casts. Can we have a resurgence in Dream casts? More Wizards? Puffins? Anything?

Well I've played it for a week. My main team has been the Lizardmen as I like their balance between big and tough and small and agile. Also Lizardmen are visually rocking. I'm addicted to it. I got five hours sleep over two days purely on the basis that I wanted to see more of the single player career. The game cleverly balances a Rocky movie-style development. Each player improves but at the same time they accrue injuries or just outright die. Sometimes it will be a player you needed to keep your line of scrmmage together, other times it will be the guy you have lovingly given all the right skills to throw a decent pass and now your offence is essentially fucked. Been playing it for about 30 hours and the drama present in the game rivals any sports film. The interface on the X360 is really clean and there are none of the niggling, counter intuitive problems described by Rock Paper Shotgun. My main qualm is that there are no permanent side effects to your team when you take them online and the bext feature from the PC (leagues) have been removed from the MP. Not that it matters seeing as there is no one but me playing this game. This game is also the prime example of a game that would work perfectly as a Games for Windows LIVE as there are no disadvantages to using a controller.

I was only vaguely aware of the hipster scene.... This site was weirdly compelling but at the same time utterly disturbing.

Goblins are indeed in there. I just saw a couple of fan sites documenting the leagues available as well as the World tournament they are setting up here: http://www.bloodbowl-game.com/ I'm impressed that there is that much of a community behind it. I don't think it will be the same on X360 but fuck it. I've pre-ordered my copy and I should have it by Wednesday. Even if the interface is broken I can't wait.

It has been announced for X360 on the 26th of January. Hopefully it will come out in Quebec. Even though there seems to be a lot of bugs in the PC version, from what Rock Paper Shotgun said (great read by the way) but I'm still hoping some of that has been fixed for the console version. 6 more days...

Hey, don't worry about it it happens to me in everything and I've gotten used to not being able to play games to their fullest sometimes. At least i have both my hands and can actually see. Most games don't take that into account at all. If you were going to include a colour blind friendly mode I would suggest 1 of 2 things. Make each unit in a puzzle game a different shape, or offer an icon edit mode that way people like me could mark each type of symbol distinctly. For other games though this becomes a lot harder to do (the modern warfare complaints about the red and the green being indistinguishable which I don't think I've had a problem with so far). I tried out Pocoro, Amazing Wizard (I have an awesome screenshot for that one that I will upload it at some point), a Wizard's tale, At light's End, Amniotic, Angry Barry, Mech battles (or something like that), Machiavelli's Ascent and 2win ghosts. Of those, only 4 were any good. I'll double post later in the week. Hopefully with some screenshots.

Futureshop in canada have Brutal legend and dragon age on special for 49.99.

I actually really enjoyed the XLA title the little I've played of it so far. It is a classic combo of Contra and Metal Slug and if you crank it up to the hardest setting (where one shot kills) the bullet patterns are pretty damn good. Ignore the coating around it and the game is actually pretty damn good.

My question has sort of been answered, the reason I was asking was because I was wondering if I could just introduce one of my own short stories or whether there would be constraints (constraints are good). The other end is, well what do you plan to do with it once you are done? Like Erkki said if you can't understand the languages then you won't know what the hell is going on. Anyways, if you come up with a clearer idea of what you want let me know because I would definitely be up for it. Maybe if you write the first chapter and/or come up with a very loose idea each of the chapters (like improvised writing give us a setting and some characters and then go from there). Or you could make the whole thing a combination of a pub game and a David Lynch film.

Anything I want? I could probably write it in Portuguese. What is the point at the end?

I was expecting the same before I played Bayonetta, but now the titillation just seems non-existent to me. Bayonetta the character seems playful and strangely aloof in the game. Sure she struts around wiggling her bottom but you never really feel like she is an object of lust and that really her displays are her way of toying with the other characters' sexualised image of her in the game. The game itself I found anything but sexualised (unless you count the action combo pron that is the movelist) from the music to the fighting moves it all just feels like a playful wink to me than any kind of Hentai related join-grumping. All references to sex or being sexy feel very tongue-in-cheek. In fact I am much relieved that they seem to have taken that approach or else I might have found myself very uncomfortable while playing it.

Eat Lead: The return of Matt Hazard is okay. The basic cover mechanics and the shooting is like a more finicky Gears of War. The actual visuals in the game are a mixed bag. Mr Hazard himself is pretty well animated and looks good but most of the characters (until you get to the Socom piss take) are pretty poor. I was conflicted all the way through because some of the jokes were good and rang a bell with my distaste for a lot of games' cliches and shortcomings. It felt acceptable, expected even that the levels were mashed together (Russian soldiers randomly spawning in a night club) in a copy paste manner because that was what the story required. My problem was sometimes I couldn't tell when the game was laughing with me or at me. The game fell victim to its own cliches (three waves in a boss fight, some terrible collision and graphical issues) and sometimes it just wasn't fun. As it stands the voice acting and the script are pretty decent but it was at the same level as say 'Last action Hero' not 'Living in Oblivion' when it came to parodying the industry it was set in. I bought it full price when it came out as I buy everything that D3 publish here and after the initial stages(I got to the JRPG character) I put it down for about 8 months and then revisited about 2 months ago and finished it off. I definitely don't regret it but i couldn't recommend anyone pay more than 30 dollars for this.

I played the Half life demo about 7 years ago, it involved moving some kind of suit through a tutorial doing mega jumps or something. I sort thought that this was going to be a game that no one would ever talk about again as the whole thing looked like complete gash. Then I found out it was supposed to be one of the best games ever and I figured I must have just played a particularly dull section. I didn't have a PC that could run it so I shrugged and left it at that. The Xbox version of Half Life 2 came out a couple of years ago and I was a little appalled that it was published by EA so I borrowed a copy rather than buy. I got drunk and started to play, then turned it off 30 mins in. I looked back at that moment last week after looking at orange box for the 360 in the local gamestop, I figured I'd give it another go and ended up stopping at roughly about the same spot (I'm shooting stuff that is green and falling off the ceilings). Now I've tried to blame several factors but they don't fit. The first is that I'm a twitch gamer if I'm not shooting things or hacking them to pieces I get easily bored; then I looked at my 15 hours on Viva Pinata, that I was utterly enthralled by Bioshock and Doom 3 (which doesn't give you a gun for ages) and that doesn't wash. The second was that I was drunk both times and didn't appreciate it, but that doesn't wash either because I usually enjoy things more when I'm drunk (Inane conversations, urinating, the first Republica album). I'm left scratching my head, I mean does this game get better, do I need to persevere? Or have I just found myself a victim of hype after years of listening to people compare everything to Half Life I was maybe expecting too much? Do I need to play the first one to appreciate something that I missed?

Another visitor to Montreal? We are becoming quite a bunch. Whereabouts in Montreal are you? The safest bets for a pre-release copy are either Game Buzz or this video rental place in Verdun. Ingratiate yourself with the guys who run it and they might be able to help you out.

Eurogamer review is out and it is good: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/darksiders-review Metacritic has also had 13 reviews up (not that it means anything if the sources aren't good) and it is averaging in the high 80's: http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/xbox360/darksiderswrathofwar Can't wait until tomorrow. I tried to cajole the Future Shop guy to sell me a copy today but he was having none of it.

I wish I could but I do all my gaming through a monitor so that restricts me to X360 only right now. In fact, I cite it as the main reason I don't own a PS3 or Wii. This just shook a few memories in my head 'TMCB' was a former incarnation before I forgot my password. Turns out I was wrong, this game vanished without a trace having been ignored by the install base and common gamer alike.

Right so I made it to Ravenholme. After the cheesiest bit of exposition I've seen since the last Indiana Jones film: 'That goes to Ravenholme, we don't go there.' Really? I wonder where I'm go- Oh how convenient. After the utter drag that was Water hazard (I have no guns, 18 health and the guys are firing homing missiles at my straw bucket on water with my last autosave seconds behind me and my last manual save being sometime last week) I can see why PC guys love their quick save feature. Well, after I've dallied with Bayonetta some more I'll get back to this.

Well some people broke the street date here in Montreal and I obliged by picking up a copy (is that wrong of me? I'm not sure). So far the game is pretty special, I agree about the button mapping I still can't get my head around the Y and B being the main attacks but otherwise this game is a joy to play and extremely forgiving. It does something which I'm increasingly starting to believe is a Japanese thing whereby you can progress through the game comfortably by just mashing your way through, with little consideration for health and tactics but to unlock more of the really cool stuff you have to be pretty damn good (cool stuff being extra content not story related at all). As for the story... It is a big pile of I don't know what, but the voice acting in both Japanese and English is suitably kitsch. Much to my delight they have a guy who sounds just like Joe Pesci-come-Lethal-Weapon-performance and it instantly reminded me of the idle thumbs Resident Evil special. The only thing I haven't enjoyed are the forced platforming sections and the quick time events that seem to crop up at the most inconvenient times. Also, the camera control needs a lot of tweaking, the defaults are all messed up and way too slow. I'm at chapter V on normal so far and it really is rather special. I'm glad that I'm getting some quality time with it now before the other January releases so as to not get swamped.

My resolution is the same as last year: Finish 50 games (I made it to 32 last year) I finished 1 last night so I'm off to a good start.

Right I've made it to the Water Hazard section. The furthest in the game that I have ever gotten... Apparently this is the weakest part of the game and it is about to get really awesome. One thing I must say that I appreciate more this time round is the feel of the game. I feel like I'm desperately trying to get out of an awful situation in the City and that everything really is falling down around me. What I don't like are the constant loading screens. Really knocks me out of my flow every time one appears and reminds me that I'm just playing a game. The level design is nice but again it suffers from being very blocky, the same problem I noticed with Left 4 Dead. Anyways, I'm struggling so I played some Brutal Legend and Tomb Raider for a bit afterwards. I promised The Kenty that I would, at least, get to some place called Raven's loft or Home or something.

Okay went on a bender over the Christmas period and played a bunch of the games. Groov - I tried this out and liked it, it is basically Geometry Wars but every time you hit an enemy it emits a different sound and these can be combined to make a song of sorts (I hate the one that makes the human sound it is utterly irritating). The thing is I have played so many games like this now that it sort of fails to shine. Duotrix - Is a solid mix of tetris and columns except that you have to focus on two separate puzzles at the same time. SiN, are you releasing your other games on XNA? I would definitely buy them if they are to the same quality. I also liked that you offered different modes, the main mode gets too much for me as I'm mildly colour blind and I start to get the orange/yellow and blue/turquoise mixed up; the puzzle mode has a perfect learning curve and makes it much easier for me to take my time and figure it out. Zoomaroom - I totally in agreement with Groucho on this one. If you like puzzle games then it is excellent. I would recommend turning off the sound effects though. I also tried out the super dodge ball game and I have no fucking clue what I'm doing. Much like the original. I have failed to win a single game. I've also become addicted to Miner Dig Deep I'm almost at 200 meters and found all the blueprints as well as bought the high powered lantern. I'm wondering if it ever ends. On Christmas Eve after playing Solar for about 2 hours I managed to turn one of the planets orbiting me into a smaller star. No idea how.