Hi again stranger!

So yeah.. haven't updated this blog in quite some time, no excuses really other than I've had little to talk about lately XD! but that's all changed as of recently I am now the owner of an XBOX 360. I distinctly recall telling myself I'd never get one of these things... but here I am, and allot of it has to do with (A) my main computer I used for gaming died and I can't afford to repair/upgrade it and (B) can't afford to buy a whole new PC.
So it was coming up to Christmas and I just decided I'd go out and get one (the arcade model) for $315 was a pretty good deal and as far as I'm aware the cheapest next gen console on the market atm. If I could afford to buy a PC gaming rig would I? hell yeah, I still would prefer a PC over console for gaming but hey beggars can't be choosers.
So, back to the 360. We got a few games for it, Halo 3, Halo ODST and Mass effect which I picked up for $24! and let me say this, I would highly recommend to anyone who hasn't already played this game to go out and either buy it (its dirt cheap!) or rent it and I'm not going to bore you spieling on about the game, go read a review on one of the major gaming sites, its just a fantastic game and I'm so looking forward to mass Effect 2.
Back to the 360, there are still a few things I need to get some time for it, one being an HDD, because of course you can't use a non-official external HD >.> thanks MS that would have been to easy.. so I have 3 external HD's laying around that I can't use to download marketplace stuff to, sigh... the other thing I need to get would be another controller so we can do some split screen and co-op Halo and finally (and probably least likely) but I'd like to pick up an HD 22 or 24" LCD as I'm currently running the console on a small CRT TV on standard 420p 4:3 ratio which is far from adequate visually as most of the games are forced to run in squished down letter box mode which makes it near impossible to read text and just doesn't do the games visuals any justice.
Aside from all that stuff I've found myself quite satisfied with it so far and really looking forward to some games coming out soon, it just feels good to be able to play the latest game releases again.
Well that's about enough ranting from me, I'll be sure to update soon if I find good enough reason XD, peace!

Left 4 Dead

Left 4 dead has to be one the best online multiplayer experience's I've had in years. Why? you may ask, well its pretty simple, for me personally the mix of cooperative and competitive gameplay makes the game extremely enjoyable. For example the game type "Versus" places 4 survivor players against 4 special infected players (such as Boomer, Smoker, Hunter & Tank) The game type plays exactly as the co-op campaign does with the exception that the survivors are now facing real players instead of computer controlled a.i zombies, which puts allot more emphasis on strategy and team work for both sides.
For example the infected team must cooperate with one another to maximize the ammount of damage they can incur to the survivor team, this means using each infected zombies ability effectively.
Boomers have the ability to vommit on survivors which then has the efffect of drawing a horde of zombies to whoever may have been unlucky enough to get vommited on, and secondly if the boomer is shot and explodes near any survivors they also will be covered and will attract a horde, aside from that the vommit also has an added effect of partially distorting the survivng players view and also prevents them from seeing the status of their fellow survivors, such as whether or not they have been attacked by another zombie.
The Smoker is also another formidable opponent whith the ability to ahoot out a long tounge wich grabs a survivor around the neck and drags them backward into the smoker where it can rip into its prey, smart players will figure out spots on each level where they can even pull a survivor from a high place causing them to fall off a roof and die instantly, while other areas may allow the smoker to employ tactics to slow the survivng team down giving the rest of the infected team time to attack again.
The Hunter being the fastest and most agile of the special infected has the ability to jump to high places and jump off walls, the main attack of this type of infected is to pounce down onto a survivor and then rip into them, the only downside is that the hunter can easly be pushed off its prey and killed with relative ease, that is ofcourse unless the team make use of a good strategy to use the hunter, such as getting in a nice high spot possibly above a building and wait for a smoker or boomer to gain and distract the attention of the other survivors giving the hunter an open chance to pounce down on an unsuspecting survivor.
And finally there is the Tank, by far the strongest out of all the special infected, only spawning once each level to a randomly selected infected player the tank has the ability to kill all 4 survivors in a flurry of swinging arms and ofcourse the ability to pick up rocks tress and concrete and hurl tem at its opponenets, as with the other class of special infected there is a fair ammount of strategy involved in playing as a tank.
for starters the player must be careful of fire,explosives and molotov cocktails, if the tank does get hit by a molotov then its health will begin to deplete fairly rapidly givving the player less time to dish out damage on the oposing team. From experience I've found the best way to use the tank is not to blindly rush in and try to attack the survivors (usually when that happens you will have a molotov thrown at you and will die fairly quickly) so its best to hold back for a while and see what the survivors are up to and try to formulate a plan with the rest of your team, by far the best way to incapacitate a survivor is to toss a fallen tree stump or use things such as luggage carriers or skip bins at the opponent which will instantly incapacitate the victim, once that happens you can focus your efforts on any remaining standing survivors.
What I've written here is mearly scratching the surface of the game, although I will say that Versus is probably the favourite game mode for most players at the moment, although there is ofcourse the Survival mode where you are on one confined level and you must survive a continuouse onslought of zombies, tanks and all special infected, the primary goal of this mode is to try and get a gold award for each level which requires survivng for 10 minutes or more (much strategy also must be incorperated into this mode such as find the best spot on the map to defend from and the best route in which to get supplys such as health and ammo since you run through it so quickly.
To finish up what i've said, Left 4 Dead still has me hooked even though this been over a month since I've purchased the game I keep comming back to it.
The community of online players from experience is great, theres always a server running with people playing willing to give advice and help out new players and are generaly just keen to get stuck in and have a great game with a few laughs.
Fully recommend this game to anyone who is interested or simply looking for a fun online cooperative experience.

YiFans Videogame Arcade

Located in the heart of Auckland's CBD on Queen St. Mid City, YiFans is possibly New Zealand's largest and probably best maintained Video game Arcade, with well over 100 machines on offer it is also updated regularly with latest games.
New games include Street Fighter IV, BlazBlu, Tatsunoko VS Capcom Tekken 6 and the latest Racing and music games, YiFans is also the home to well over 100 recent and oldschool arcade games as well.
Prices vary usually depending on the machines, newer games running on the HD LCD Lindbergh style cabinets are $2 a game, games running on the standard cabinets are $1 a game and there are also some older games for under a buck a game.
The atmosphere is great and you can always find a friendly face or two to challenge you to a game if you're keen.
If you're ever in Auckland and are into playing arcade games you have no excuse to not stop by and throw down a few coins for a game or two.

YiFans Location:

239 Queen Street
Auckland City Centre, Auckland City
Auckland

PH# (09) 377 8088

Average Gamer re-emerges!

Okay so its been a long while since I have posted anything on here, and to be honest I didn't think I would come back but I have =D So now I guess I'll start by talking about what I've been playing lately as of 2009!

So basically I've been playing allot of shoot'em'up's games lately (shmup) I've always been a big fan of this genre but lately I've picked it up more. There are probably two major shmups I've been playing, Raiden III which is a 3D reincarnation of the old school Raiden games with updated graphics using Taito's TypeX technology and the other is probably a lesser known game called Imperishable Night from the Project Maiden Shrine series and is what they refer to as a "bullet hell" style shmup. At times the whole screen can be filled up with bullets flying every which way and puts more emphasis on player hand eye co ordination and dexterity rather than just shooting and simple dodging.
And lastly for shooters I have got back into one of an old favorite of mine, R-Type. It made me realize how awesome these old games really are and how they really set a benchmark for shooting games to come in future years.
Its amazing how well the game stands up even today in fact I'd go as far to say that its actually allot more challenging than some of the current games of the genre. I was also pleased to see and hear that a company by the name of Tozai Games are making an updated next gen HD remake of the original R-Type I & II named R-Type Dimensions for the XBOX Live Arcade.
I did a bit of reading up on the remake and here's what I learned, Dimensions is basically a straight remake of the original R-Type I & II everything except the graphics engine are the same (levels, bosses, enemy's etc) nothing has changed, so the game will play identically to the original games right down to the waves of enemy ships. What Tozai games have done to the game in terms of visuals is pretty darn incredible, everything has an ultra sharp crisp look to it thanks to HD, colors and lighting are vibrant and beautiful to look at, real eye candy.
All the levels, ships, enemy's and bosses have been faithfully recreated in 3D with great attention to detail, from what I've seen the team have done a great job of recapturing the visual style of the classic shoot em up games with a modernized look. I'll be sure to follow its progress up to release.

On other gaming fronts I also recently finished "the Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time" yes I know its an old game and I was unfortunate enough to not own a N64 at the time (better late then never ehh) but what an amazing game it is, let me say this, if I wasn't such a FFVII fanboy I would say that Ocarina of Time would probably be my favorite game of all time!
That game is such a work of art it really is a master piece. Everything about Ocarina of Time is just so memorable, all the characters you meet, all the enemy's you fight, all the quests you complete and all the places you explore leave such a great impression, its easy to see why many view this game to be the greatest in the series. So I've finished that but not 100% there are still quite a few side quests and items I haven't done.

Whats up with "First Person Shooters"

I'm finding myself more and more jaded now when it comes to FPS games, a feeling like I'm loosing that excitement that they used to provide.. Maybe its because I'm older now, maybe its because I've had a great deal of experience and gained much knowledge of gaming over the years, it just feels like FPS's are becoming less inspiring than they used to be. In my earlier gaming years I can remember reading about Half-Life and feeling excited and eager to read and hear more about it, these days when I hear about a new game or sequel I find myself hardly surprised or excited at all. Maybe its because games are starting to look and play very similar to each other, the "Doom Effect" as I'd put it, sure they have evolved allot since the days of Doom.. at least graphically wise, but what else has changed? Most FPS games still offer a linear gaming experience where you run through a level, point you weapon at the monsters/bad guys and shoot.
When the game Codename Eagle for PC came along it heralded a relatively new experience for FPS games most notably Online multiplayer first person shooters, now you had more freedom to fight in a more expansive environment, with vehicles to pilot and fight with, nothing like this had been experienced before in an FPS, it was like bringing to life those years you spent as a kid playing army men in your sandpit, now you could experience that in a game you played against real opponents.
Fast forward to the present and we have games like Battlefield 2 and Battlefield Bad Company, both of which built on from the ground roots of the sandbox style game play that Codename Eagle provided. BF2 provided larger maps, more detailed player/vehicle/map's new player classes, game play improvements such as iron sighting, also Bad Company brought something new to the game in the form of destructible environments, so now players could no longer camp out in a building if they had been spotted by an enemy tank or helicopter gunship thanks to the Frostbite engine you could now put missiles through the walls of that building exposing the target and being able to engage it. But here are some area's I feel the games still fall short on.
1: Entering & Exiting Vehicles (stationary or otherwise)
Now in a game such as battlefield, you spawn and you see a vehicle (say a jeep) you'd like to get in and drive somewhere, so you walk up along side the vehicle and an icon pop's up saying that you can enter that vehicle simply by pressing (whatever key), you do so and in an instant you are in the drivers seat or passenger/gunner seat wherever, now the thing about that that frustrates me is, in real life you don't simply magically appear in a certain place in a vehicle by pressing a key, no, you have to physically open the door and maneuver inside the vehicle, now why can't they do that in the games?
A jeep for example, you walk along side it say the drivers side, and you still push that same key to enter the vehicle except now you don't magically appear in the drivers seat with the belt on, engine on ready to go, after you hit that key you now see the arm of your player model extend out reach for the door handle, open the door then you maneuver inside buckle up and start the engine, and the reverse for exiting the vehicle, all of which would only take a few seconds.
Like wise when entering a vehicle such as a tank you would hit the key to enter and the you would see the player model grasp a handle on the tank and pull yourself on top of the tank, open the hatch and maneuver into the crew/driver area. Also at any time you could cancel the action under certain circumstances say if you were taking fire you could simply press any direction or action button. Another area would be dismounting/exiting moving vehicles, the player should be able to have the choice of when to exit a moving vehicle, but if that vehicle is traveling at say 30 or above km that person isn't going to land on their feet and walk/run away without a scratch are they, no they are going to collapse to the ground and roll, either hurting themselves (depending on the speed) or potentially dieing.
Another would be exiting airborne vehicles such as a helicopter, you cannot jump or exit a helicopter when it is flying, it just doesn't happen, you have to wait until your on the ground before you can open the cockpit hatch and exit safely, so many times in games I see players in helicopters taking a hammering only to jump out at the last moment and avoid being killed, now in my opinion that makes the game play experience for everyone unbalanced and hence not fun. Also for jets here the player should have an option of "ejecting" instead of pressing that magical button that makes you appear outside the vehicle, the player should have the option of pressing an eject button and take a health penalty for doing so because those things are no smooth ride.
Which also brings me to the point of how vehicle damage is controlled, using BF2 as an example, the way this game handles damage is simply by having a gauge which tells the player and the game how much damage that vehicle has taken, once that gauge is at zero that vehicle simply blows up. This is what I'd like to see, say you are in a jet and you're flying around and suddenly your being shot at from the ground by antiaircraft guns, your jet takes some damage which has compromised the handling of the aircraft, so maybe now you can't turn anymore or not as accurately or maybe you are just out of control, maybe you can't eject either, so instead of simply having a gauge, damage is taken depending where on that vehicle is hit which is then transferred into the handling characteristics of that vehicle.
More depth of control I guess is what I'm getting at more depth and realism, but not to detract from the enjoyment and experience of playing. Another example would be climbing/mantling you might see a wall that looks to high to jump onto but low enough to jump and grab onto the edge then allowing you to pull yourself up, or maybe even a tall fence or wall you want to get over, simply hit that climb button and its possible. Now I know all these little things sound like small and insignificant nitpicking's but I honestly believe if they were implemented correctly into the game it would add a whole new level of play and immersion to the game.
/end rant

Enemy Territory Quake Wars

I had the best game of ETQW the other night, Hadn't played it in a while so jumped on one of the Game Arena servers.
So gutted ETQW didn't make it big... really deserves it!

One of the problems is everyone try's to stereotype the game, saying "ooh the vehicle combat isn't as good as Battlefields" and "The infantry combat is too fast paced and COD4's is better"

You can't approach ETQW with that mentality, because it just does its own thing, it doesn't try to follow any standards set by other games. What it does excellently is its objective structured game play, all the time you are playing there is a sense of something is happening, unlike a game like Battlefield 2 where it can just seesaw between teams who control the most control points over the longest period,Which gets really boring after a while imo.
And then call of Duty where every round you are doing basically the same thing depending on what game type the server is running.
The great thing about ETQW is that it mixes all these different game types into one experience, for example on a single map the attacking team ay start out trying to build a structure in order to advance (such as a bridge) then you may have to deploy something in a certain location (gaining ground), then you may have to take something somewhere (ctf style) etc etc so your always feeling like your doing something different through the duration of the game and contributing to a team effort in some way depending on what class your playing as, there are just so many different ways to play the game that all have a positive effect on helping your team, a good example of this would be in Battlefield 2 a sniper can just camp somewhere and take shots at the enemy while they're overrunning your base or just camp somewhere for a long period of time while your team are trying to take control of a certain point on the map, in ETQW if you are a sniper there are many ways you can help your team, you can hack anti personnel/vehicle turret's, vehicles and artillery rendering them useless or you can also deploy a radar which greatly helps your team see where the enemy are on the map.

So to summarize everything I've said, I think ETQW is still a great game that has gotten off to a slow start, and maybe will never fully take off which would be a shame, what could really help or at least breath some new life into the game would be an official map pack with a new Campaign and new maps.