Ahoy thar me harties!

Aye, before you start readin’ this post, I’d recommend headin’ o’er t’ har and read up a bit on the most important day (okay, it isn’t but my mind likes t’ imagine it is) o’ the entire year: International ‘Speak like a pirate’ day, shiver me timbers! (not t’ be confused with the International ‘Speak Like the Goddamn Batman’ day or the far more local ‘Walk like I’’e been kicked in the balls by M$’ day which Enoon has been celebratin’ for the past few weeks). Due t’ the utter awesomeness o’ Pirates, I was goin’ t’ ask for a guest speaker t’ come in today, but it seems the Pirate-ninja feud sort o’ intensifies at this time o’ the year meanin’ their all out busy kickin’ ninja ass. So fer now its all me! YARRR!

*coughs as he’s kicked in the nads by several TAP members*

Okay, okay, fine! Onto more serious matters then. I’ve been rather quiet recently for several reasons. I finally got an Xbox 360 and my recent time has been divided between working, studying, writing and playing GoW, WiC, SoTS, PGR3 and a few other games.

The X360 has been rather a blast since I got it, but somehow I already fear I got one of those “1 in 8” Xboxes that may just have the stupid RROD error. Its been acting really cranky since I got it – GoW crashed once, for no reason, and sometimes the game stutters at graphics heavy scenes (although I really cant tell if that’s an issue with the Xbox or Unreal Engine 3.0). Something tells that despite having these few weeks of bliss, I’ll soon be joining Enoon in celebrating his special festival.

Add to that, the fact that the UAE Etisalat Proxy seems to have somehow decided that the awesome site that is TAP is somehow = Porno/offensive stuff! Hence, they have blocked out the site to all UAE residents. Fortunately, they weren’t able to stop me from coming here and ranting! (Although they did make it rather slow ) Thank you internets, for all the proxy education one could hope for!

Anyways, enough about me – to the games!

As mentioned, I’ve been playing quite a few games; some old, others new. At the same time, I’ve had the chance to look at many previews and videos as well. Chief recommended amongst these are the new “Meet the Soldier” and the “Meet the Engineer” trailers. Much like their predecessor “Meet the Heavy”, these videos are incredibly humorous and awesome to behold – especially so in the case of the psychotic soldier. I’m really, REALLY hoping they do a trailer for the medic or the spy (whom for some reason I’m expecting to have a British accent). As mentioned in the posts below by my good friends, the beta is now open for all orange box purchasers (lucky bastards) and they can get the feel of the game first-hand (the thoughts of which they should put up soon enough [if they want to keep their kneecaps that is!])

Sources in the internets speak of the arrival of the Enemy Territory: Quake Wars Public Demo. While I’d like to give my impressions on this, it doesn’t really run on this crappy PC, so for all that can be given is maybe an impression that could be gotten from seeing the trailers. It can be best described in the single word that is awesome.

However, from the looks of it awesome is actually fairly near the bottom of the barrel in this end-year’s bonanza of games releases. The cream of the crop this year is actually fairly hazardous in the sense that it’s a murder-fest out there. With games like Call of Duty 4, Halo 3, World in Conflict, Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts, Quake Wars, Team Fortress 2 and a fair few others coming out in the final quarter of the year, each of these companies have offered up such good choices to waste time away in front of the console or the PC, that I don’t think it’s possible to really get that much time to finish them all even if I had all the time in the world, an infinite amount of the Pointman’s Slow-mo capabilities and even all of the Sands of time before the next awesome wave of releases comes out the next year.

Worst still, is not knowing which game to pick up on a somewhat limited budget. My heart yearns to pick up Bioshock; yet at the same time it demands to throw tactical nukes in World in Conflict. And yet another sector begging my mind for attention is the end to the Halo Trilogy! It’s driving my mind mad, I tells you, MAD!

And speaking of Halo…well, I don’t want to speak about it. Halo 3 is being released in the UAE come September 29th, and in India a fair bit earlier. Some lucky buggers got to go to a Microsoft Press Conference to see the Halo 3 stuff in Delhi (glares at Keeznah). It seems EVERYONE is getting in on the Halo 3 act as well – one needn’t mention the numerous ads, the products…the sheer hype that surrounds this game right now. While it may not be unwarranted hype, it is still hype nonetheless; not to mention anything about the spoilers going around – something that I’ve been trying to avoid, so that I’m not disappointed when I actually get to play the game soon enough. Till then though, its laying low for me when it comes to this.

(Also, a shameless plug – ever wondered what would happen to the Master Chief if he went against F.E.A.R. Replicants and Alma? Follow this link to find out).

Gears of War was fun; incredibly so – I managed to finish it on Hardcore within a week. What bugged me though, was the fact that it had such a small storyline that seemed so…I dunno, old almost. Although the graphics were sweet (well, as sweet as they could be on a 21 inch TV screen) and the gameplay was fun; the story was exactly that: an appetizer; a sweet almost. While it was undoubtedly a lot better than a lot of other games out there, the whole “emergence day” bit seemed, surprisingly, a tad Shallow. It didn’t grip me quite in the same way that System Shock or STALKER did; nor did it really deliver all that much in terms of something new. Still, it was a good enough play for a week, and it seems rather fun online, but my mind is already gravitating to sweet, sweet cars in PGR3, along with playing Sword of the Stars on the PC.

Sword of the Stars is a fairly neat game, if you’re the 4x Strategy Type and don’t mind a bit of sci-fi (MOO3 and Galactic Civilization 2 Fans may like it most I think). It’s a 4x game set in space, and is a cross between Turn-based and Real-Time strategy. You essentially control an empire ala Civ IV, but when it comes down to battles rather than let the computer decide for you what happens as in Civ IV, you can just jump right in and command your units in the battle right away.

This is especially fun when your commanding an entire fleet of cruisers, battleships and destroyers up against ANOTHER fleet of the same. It can lead to really intense battles sometimes, with many different kind of weapons criss-crossing space to hit the enemy targets. What’s even neater is that like Galactic Civilizations 2, you can design your ships to a certain extent, customizing their performance in battle. Although sadly, this relates more to stats than to appearance, so unlike Gal Civ2 you cant actually have your custom-made Star Destroyer flying through enemy ships like hot knife through butter.

Overall a fair game, fun to spend some time in if you’re an experienced 4x gamer – but the steep learning curve and lack of proper help makes it a tough thing to get into. Even having played Gal Civ II and a fair few other 4x games, it still took me a while to get used to all the ‘features’ available, not to mention get the hang of it all. The greatest asset isn’t really the single player though, but supposedly the multiplayer. Although I haven’t exactly tried multi yet, those that have played it say it’s a good experience. More to come on that when I get the chance to play it online.

Another demo I’ve had the luck to try is Lost Planet. Although it was just the E3 06 demo, it was fun – if a bit frustrating without a save system. The demo’s lack of story also put me off a fair bit; but then considering it was meant for E3 and is well over a year old, I’m not going to judge it much until I can get a better demo or the full game itself.

Also, if you haven’t seen them already, I recommend seeing any of Zero Punctuation’s reviews on The Escapists. Here’s a link to his Bioshock review just to prove how awesome he is.

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