Message from the Dark Side…

Hello all,

Ok, so it’s been a VERY long time since my last post and quite a bit has happened in that time. Passed my first year at Uni with relative ease, returned to my previous job for the summer and now have the chance to visit Dubai for 4 weeks, been all over the country again, seen some interesting things, etc etc. And of course, this summer has been a fantastic one for film releases! We’ve had Inception, Toy Story 3, Karate Kid (not so keen on but still good in it’s own rights) and the A-Team (again, not so keen on but still a good laugh). Unfortunately I haven’t had the chance, despite working in a cinema, to see many of these films but I have every intention of before jetting off to Dubai.

Bit disappointing on the gaming front this year with the only major releases at E3 being Kinnect and the new Xbox Slim (already own one). Wasn’t overly impressed with the new releases; that said I am looking forward to Gears of War 3 and, whilst the initial price is stupidly high, I am slightly intrigued by Kinnect.

Apologies for making such a brief entry but unfortunately this is all I have time for at the moment. Am working my poor hands to the bone! I will return in the next few days and actually fill in the gaps.

Chris

Hello world,

I have never really explored the Xbox Live Marketplace or Arcade as I always believed that paying £8.25 for 1000 points was a little expensive – why couldn’t they take a page out of Sony’s book as just price them individually? That said, there are obvious advantages to the point system… for Microsoft at the very least and this finally spurred me on to take a look at the Arcade. Upon doing so I came across ‘Trials HD‘; having downloaded the demo game I really enjoyed it but was still reluctant to buy 1,500 points for £12 odd with the view of having 300 left over. However, the other night they offered it for 33% off! That’s right, 800 points :O lol. Needless to say, I instantly bought 1000 points and purchased the game. Has to be said, glad I did.

Trials HD - Xbox Live Arcade

So a little about the game – in short, Trials HD is a motor cross game in which you navigate a motorbike over various courses and obstacles. Doesn’t sound particularly thrilling, but I can assure you it is. As you progress through the various stages, they progressively get more difficult and, in some stages, the use of various environments and props is your only method for success. For instance some stages demand you use a iron girder as a see-saw or bridge whilst also dodging various falling objects. The controls are fairly basic; left trigger to brake, right trigger to accelerate and right or left on the thumb stick to adjust the riders weight in order to navigate the courses.

The courses themselves consist mostly of industrial warehouses, with the majority of the course built using steel girders, wooden crates, glass and barrels. The obstacles include various jumps, flips and spins in order to reach the end of the level. Whilst the majority of these are fairly easy, as the game progresses the amount of shift in the riders weight changes drastically and you find yourself barely touching the thumb stick in order to successfully land jumps and continue the stage.

Trials HD - In game footage

As you can see from the image above, the graphics in-game are pretty impressive, even more so for a 250mb Live Arcade game. The above image also clearly demonstrates the obstacles you will mostly always face from level to level. The sounds are fairly realistic and I enjoyed the sound track that accompanied it. Overall, this is a fantastic Arcade game and, with hindsight, I would happily buy and pay 1,200 points for it. If you have the chance, snap it up for 800 points almost instantly however, should that offer end before then I would still highly recommend paying the cash for it The 200Gs for the achievements are not particularly difficult to get either with most of them gained in one play through. There is even an online score board where friends can compare their times and scores for each course.

As a final conclusion, I give 8/10 for gameplay purely because it can get a little repetitive having played 50 levels that differ only ever so slightly; 9/10 for graphics as for an arcade game they truly are wonderful and 8/10 for sound as they are fairly realistic and I enjoyed the accompanying sound track. Overall I’d give it a strong 8/10 and would say 1,200 points is a fair price to pay.

Peace,

Chris

I’m going to start this article as I intend to end it; do not UNDER any circumstances buy this game. The only reason I sat there for 10 or so hours playing it was for the 1000G it had on offer of which all 15 achievements are easy to get (just play the career mode till the end). This game, however, is not worth the disk it is burned to. The graphics are sub standard for the 360; the sounds are fairly rubbish and not in the least bit realistic; the game’s engine is pathetic; how the game plays is even worse; the ‘characters’ if you can call them that are just… well, almost as good as the storyline itself (which takes all of 15 seconds to work out). Basically, I hated this game from the very first cutscene. Needless to say, I will now attempt to be remotely analytical in my approach and to hopefully form a reasonable argument… ok here goes.

Need For Speed : Most Wanted

So as you can probably guess from the front cover (that and the fact it is yet another game in the endless Need For Speed series) Most Wanted is a ‘racing’ game. Pictured on the front is a fully customised BMW that, strangely, you drive in the opening 2-3 minutes of the game before losing it to some jerk off only known to you at the time as ‘Razor’. Your ‘character’ remains completely nameless and, despite entering a custom name at the beginning of career mode, is never mentioned once. Anyway, on to the opening. As I said, the opening couple of races, you drive a stupidly over-powered and fast BMW that, unless you hit every single ‘obstacle’, you cannot lose in; infact, I’m not sure why they made this apart of the game – why they couldn’t save you 10 minutes of holding the right trigger and occasionally turning the thumb stick and create a bloody video is beyond me. Shortly after your glorified victories where you truly believe you are on top of the world, the shit hits the fan, as Razor sabotages your car in a pink slip race. Now I’m not being funny, I’m fooked if I’d give my car up to a pink slip if the cheating bastard had quite evidently sabotaged my car. But naturally, because you are a faceless, gutless pile of crap you give up the car and get caught by the cops – unlucky for you.

Your now left at this point wondering what the hell the rest of the game will be based on; you have no car and your on your way to jail right…? Wrong! EA have pulled out all the stops and miraculously there is no evidence on you and your free to go and it just so happens that as you leave the place some ‘babe’ pulls up to pick you up, takes you to a ‘hide out’ and gives you 10k to spend on a new car – how jolly nice of her right? Wish all women were equally as keen. Now if you have any sense by this point you’ve pretty much worked out that she’s an undercover cop who’s going to help to you the very top of the list, taking down all the other racers along way, making the streets clean and safe… and if you hadn’t worked that out, sorry for the ’spoiler’ but really, you shoulda known. I should also probably take a moment to state that the primary focus of this game is to piss off enough cops (score ‘bounty’), drive stupidly fast, ram things, destroy things, drive like a complete twat, avoid spikes, ram some more things and then pretend none of it was you by hiding under a subway bridge and changing the colour of your car which somehow is enough to put police off your trails these days – it’s got nothing to do with number plates or the make of car, just the colour! The more bounty you collect, the more racers you can challenge and further up the ‘blacklist’ you will progress; the ‘blacklist’ being a collection of duche bags who drive around destroying everything and making complete c***s of themselves – the aim being to become the biggest c**t of them all

Gameplay wise the cars handle like a complete sack of shit; no matter what stats you have or indeed which car your driving you will end up randomly sliding off the road into oncoming vehicles or various signs, dumpsters or trees. Whilst most of these you drive straight through, it can be frustrating being slowed from 120mph to 30 in a matter of 2 feet and going from 1st with a 3,000ft lead to 4 with a 10,000ft gap (yes this does happen and no it is not an over-exageration on my part – it leaves you wondering how fast your rivals were truly traveling and whether you had a chance in the first place). The in-game ‘modding’ consists of several pre-determined levels of tuning for engine, transmission, suspension, nos, tires and brakes all of which will slowly be unlocked as a result of beating ‘Blacklist’ racers. This however is pretty worthless and the mods seem to make absolutely no difference what so ever; your car may go a little more blurry when you hold the B button and use ‘nos’ but the handling will only get worse, the sound of the car will not differ in the slightest and some how no matter how fast your car can go, the NPCs will ALWAYS go faster.

The story; I could have written a better ’story’ by noting down the tonal range of my fart as I take a crap in a tin can. To put it bluntly, Need For Speed Most Wanted makes East Enders look truly interesting and intelligent. East Enders at the very least demonstrates a sliver of civilisation and a brief character outline; christ NFS is the furthest you could get from either of these. Has no one learnt that you shouldn’t bother trying to mix a racing game and a story?! Lets face it, if I buy a racing game, I just wanna drive pretty cars round a track with no interruptions; not listen to some has-be looking witch and her psycho fucktard boyfriend talking shit constantly; “Do you know who I am..?” Of course I fucking don’t, you have no character, no personality, look like a monkey on steroids and talk like some twat who still believes in the ghetto.

Now I know I said I would be reasonable and attempt to form an argument but really and truthfully I have nothing good to say about this game. I guess what I’m trying to say is this game is terrible in every single sense. Whilst it may be worth an ‘easy’ 1000G, you may end up forking out £60-70 on replacement handsets after you’ve thrown them through a wall multiple times in sheer frustration. Thankfully I will never have to play this fag-ended pile of crap again for I have already cashed in on the 1000G but if you are a true gamer score addict, I wish you all the very best because despite everything said here, it’s another completed game on your record. Personally, I would NEVER buy this title and am thankful I can now return it to the misguided fool I borrowed it from.

Peace,

Chris

Hello World,

Whilst I am aware it has been an eon since my last post, I am still alive, again have just been stupidally busy with University and trying to keep my head above water. This post, however, will be far more constructed and established than previous post, with the focal point being that of Gamerpoints on X-box Live for the 360.

I’m sure many of you have the same ’sad’ fascination as myself to constantly want to maintain and increase our gamerscores on live, to show how truely ‘great’ we are. Most of us I am also sure, will go as far to say as they have bought a couple of games purely based on the achievements and the ease at which they can be achieved (most owners of King Kong or Avatar : Burning Earth fall into this category). This has spurred me on to begin (and hopefully maintain) a list of games whoms achievements are fairly easy to get and could be classed as ‘Achievement Boosters’. The intention is to keep this list growing  and I will maintain this post and edit it regularly, adding new games to the lists. I will also links these games to their respective  xbox360achievements.org pages so you can see what the achievements are and how to gain them.

So, without further adue, I begin:

Need For Speed : Most Wanted – Fairly simple; can gain all 1000G just by playing the single player career.

King Kong – Very easy 1000G; obtain all achievements on first play through.

Avatar : The Bruning Earth – Fairly straight forward and all 1000G can be achieved in a matter of minutes; search game title on YouTube for explanation video.

Bioshock – Can obtain about 700-750G on first play thr0ugh but could take up to 20 or so hours; very good game however.

Bioshock 2 – Can obtain about 750-800G on first play through and with a couple of online matches; rest of achievements may take some time.

Mass Effect – Fairly easy to achieve all 1000G, but be prepared to put about 70+ hours in and for several play throughs.

Gears of War II – Requires a bit of dedication and would highly advise co-op, but play the campaign through on Insane, a few matches online and bang, you have another 700-750G. Probably a good 10-15 hours.

Test Drive Unlimited – Requires about 10-15 hours, but an easy 500G. Simply complete most of the races, own most of the cars/homes in the game and there’s your easy achievements.

Wet – fairly easy achievements; able to obtain between 400-500G on first play through on normal mode, shouldn’t take more than 5-6 hours.

Assassin’s Creed II – fairly easy achievements, all offline. However, set aside 30-40 hours for all 1000G.

Trials HD – very easy 250G and a fantastic title to own. Takes about 5-6 hours to get all the achievements. (Please note, this is an Xbox Live Arcade game)

Lego Batman – very easy 1000G and an enjoyable game. A good 20 hours gameplay but worth every second.

As I said, I intend on updating this list as I find more games so please check back regularly.

Until then… peace,

Chris

Hi world,

Ok, stupidally, I haven’t posted anything in a long long while. This is mostly because I’ve been lazy but partially to do with my new and improved, fully-loaded university time table in which I have little to no time to myself. Ok, so that’s a little extreme… but you get the point. So where am I at? Well have dug straight into my 2nd semester at UWE and has to be said, am enjoying it far more than the last. We seem to be doing more things and actually getting somewhere now; currently have 3 projects on the go – a short 60-90 seconds film, a photograph installation in and around the campus and a script writing module. As I said, am in most days a week at the moment and certainly loving it.

Today, for instance, we were shown how to develop, process and then print black and white film (see image below). I didn’t know quite so much was involved or indeed how much fun it could be. In some respects, it has even got me questioning whether I wouldn’t mind doing a photography course when I’ve finished this one, just to polish off the skills. Would like to see how colour film is processed too but have been told that this is far more complex and requires a fairly solid understanding of the processes, something that I unfortunately will not have a chance to explore on the the Media course. None the less, I am now able to use the processing and printing rooms at Bower and will definately be buying a shed load of black and white films and photo paper over the coming weeks! Have even had the luck to steal my fathers Nikon FM2 which, I have been informed, is a very good camera. Couldn’t agree more with this; granted I need some new batteries for the light meter that and a smaller 50mm lense, but other than that, a very nice camera and I was able to get some good shots even if some were just luck :p

Shot with a Nikon FM2 ISO: 400 Shutter Speed: 125

Will most likely post some more pictures in coming weeks depending if I can get them developed successfully on my own and then printed too. It’s completely different when you have a tutor watching over you correcting your small mistakes as opposed to when your completely alone! In other news; wow, there have been some damned good game releases these pasts few weeks, Alien Versus Predator and Bioshock 2 just to the name a select few. Naturally I already own Bioshock 2 and what a bloody good game it be! Have very nearly completed it and have loved every second of it. Found it perhaps a little short, but I’m not sure if that’s just because I’m used to the style of game now and have, in some instances, ‘rushed’ it? Regardless, it is a very very good sequel and I would urge everybody to at least play it. Have yet to try the multiplayer function but some friends have assured me it works pretty damned well and is good fun.

AVP; what can I say? Unfortunately not had chance to buy it myself yet, but played the multiplayer demo that was available on Live Marketplace vigorously and have since played a friends copy. From what I’ve played the single player is awesome fun, with 3 stories being player at the same time in which you can dive in and out of, changing your character at any point (well, at the end of your current characters level at any rate). The multiplayer function is sick sick SICK! Despite what you would think to be a truely unbalanced game, with the predators being supremely more powerful, the game is surprisingly well balanced, in fact, I’d go so far as to say THE most balanced multiplayer game I’ve ever played. Again, would recommend this to anyone, though the lack of a split screen feature is some what annoying and disappointing – I half expected another Halo 3 in those respects! Oh well – can’t change it now, just something to consider for AVP 2

And I just could not finish this post with at least mentioning the release of FF13! I don’t think I need to say a great deal here, other than, watch this space. The in-game graphics and battle system look insane and I cannot wait to get my hands on it. As another Square Enix production we can only hope for another epic tale that leads us on a wonderful, magical and enormous adventure. From what I have seen of the trailers and releases I can place my hand on my heart now and see Square Enix have done it again ^^ As I said, got my breathe held for the 9th March.

The In-Game Battle System

Anyways, I think I will leave it there for the time being as I seem to have written more than enough again! Will try and post more regularly again but we shall see what happens – with my weeks so packed at the moment may find it a little difficult to do so :p .

Chris

Hello World,

Dear God I am getting owned by my media project..! I think it’s a wonderful concept and a good project in the losest terms… but seriously this is taking me FAR to long to put together and I only have until 2pm on monday to finish the flash files AND write an evaluation… OUCH! lol. Worried much? MASSIVELY! Bricking it in more ways then I can even begin to explain. That said, if it does get finished – which I really do hope it does – it’ll be one of the most fantastic projects I have EVER completed Far better than anything  I have done before; in the process of this project alone I have learnt a great great deal

Anyways, was just a very short post to vent some steam… will write a proper post again after monday.

Peace,

Chris

Hello World,

So I know it’s been quite some time since my previous post but, if I’m one hundred percent honest, I just got lazy as soon as snow was forecast and then it actually fell and I was snowed in in Surrey… Yep, 3 to 4 inches fall in the UK and the whole place grinds to a stand still – awesome country *thumbs up*. Anyways, decided to go and see Avatar again, only this time in 3D. Still an epic film by any lengths but seriously… what is this whole ‘3D’ thing all about? So the text stood out a little from the screen; so it seemed to rain ash on top of you; so the Ikran’s head popped out of the screen a few times… seriously, little to no difference and for a premium price of nearly £8.00 a ticket, I far preferred it in 2D. I found it was difficult to watch in places with the 3D glasses and sometimes it even appeared blurry (I know my eyes aren’t the best in the world, but I was wearing my glasses and all the 2D trailers at the beginning were perfectly fine). In short, I would still advise that Avatar is a MUST see, but seriously, if your considering 3D over 2D, don’t bother! Pay less for the 2D version and enjoy it more lol.

That’s not to say there aren’t advantages or indeed enhancements through the use of 3D, I’m just not convinced it’s quite there yet or indeed, that they are using it correctly and to it’s full potential. I’m a little bemused as to why Sky for instance, is releasing an array of 3D channels for home viewing. I just don’t see the benefit of it yet… I mean who wants to watch Neighbours or Coronation Street in 3D? Or even the Evening News? Not me! I just want simple, plain viewing that I can sit there and be absorbed in! That and some of the characters in Eastenders are butt ugly enough without them coming out of the screen at you!!!!

Moving on swiftly now; as I said, I am still in Surrey and will be now until Saturday so still have yet to put my computer together and try out the power that is the 5770HD But I’m sure it will be epic and definately looking forward to it As I have stated in the title of this post, it is a New Year and therefore a ‘Fresh Start’ and with the New Year resolutions set, I’m going to do my upmost to achieve them this year – whilst I appreciate I’ve told myself this for the past 10-11 years and never truely succeeded, I have decided I’m going to use my Iron strong will this time round and get myself kicked in to touch. That means, no more unhealthy eating or snaking, plenty of exercise and maybe even a subscription to the gym in Bristol, a little more care where spending and saving is concerned and I WILL sit down and begin completing all the games 100% in my large collection (as it occurred to me despite owning a large array of games and platforms, I have barely completed any of them 0_o ). I think I’ma start with some more recent ones such as Assassin’s Creed 2, Mass Effect and Dead Space. That… or I should probably give up gaming for my own healths sake..! We shall see But the most important is definately to get nice and fit and strong – better get some veg in then hadn’t I?! Spinach right?!

Anyways, I shall leave it at that for this evening / morning.

Peace,

Chris

Hello world,

Firstly, happy Christmas to you all and best wishes for the New Year. I had a fairly uneventful Christmas, but an enjoyable one non the less with the family. Was bombarded with moneys which I have just spent on a lush ATI HD 5770, new case and PSU, some more ram and finally, finally I have upgraded to Windows Vista :O Shock shock, horror horror! Cannot wait to get my hands on all the peices and see how the new Direct X11 looks I’ve never even had 10, so I’m really looking forward to it lol.

HD 5770

Got a nice collection of DVDs for Christmas including classics such as ‘The Crow’  and ‘Sin City’, both awesome movies and will be watching them shortly. Also got my hands on 2 South Park series – good times! I would also have Assassins Creed  II on the PS3 but some knob head in HMV put the disks and instructions for the first one in rather than the second – not impressed and will be returning it tomorrow as a disgruntled customer… be warned HMV .

Avatar… Oh my dear God..! What a completely epic film that is just off the scale. I cannot even begin to desribe how good a movie it truely is. It will be my first Blu-Ray DVD purchase and I will watch it the day I get it, over and over again! I can recommend this to everyone and anyone and believe you will be hard pushed to find a better movie. The thing is, not only is the CGI out of this world and shows just how much times, care and money has been spent on this movie, the story line is touching and moving too. I do not wish to give any of it away right now as the movie is still fairly fresh and I’d hate to spoil it in even the slightest for anyone so will leave it at that – watch it… NOW!

So have finally cracked on with my Uni project and have completely animated and coded the first scene (I say ‘animated’ ; I use this term losely as it isn’t really animated, rather uses a series of still images moving and fading in and out – the animation does not tell the story, the story tells the story!).  Am very pleased with how it is coming together and should have the entire introduction done by the end of this coming week and have started the main bulk of the project. Cannot wait to have it finished – going to be great… I hope .

Anyways, it’s kind of early as I did start writing this at 6pm yesterday and have now finished it at 2am today… my bad

Peace,

Chris

Hello World,

One thing that working nights at the Post Office has given me is the ability (or rather the time) to consider what I’m doing, why I’m doing and other bits and pieces. Sounds pretty deep but really, it just got me questioning what I want to be and do with my life. Ultimately I want to be a film / tv director (would prefer film!!) but I’d settle at the least for an editorial position. Obviously I appreciate that everybody starts at the bottom and works their way up, but I really do have the drive and determination to do this and I know I can do it too “Directed by C S Z Waywell” kinda has a nice ring to it, don’t you think? lol.

As well as this, I’ve had time to consider who I am as an individual and I think I kinda worked it out Naturally there are elements of me I’d rather rip out and burn on a massive log fire but hell, we’ve all got sections like that and no one is perfect… right? But a few things that did crop up were “Do I actually like who I am?”, “Have I done myself justice these past few years with the choices I have made?” and “Am I being the best I can be?” Naturally, I couldn’t answer any of these because I just don’t know! I don’t think we’re ever supposed to truely know ourselves; we just have to play each day as it comes. We have our off days and I think they just add to your character . Me no know, but what I do know is I HAVE to do this. I have to work my hardest – I have to reach my goal. Sure, I’m already pleased with myself that I even made it this far as not 8 months ago I was adamant I would never come, but now I’m here, I HAVE to get a 1st honours . Impossible…? Me thinks not!

Anyways, I think I’ve written enough gibberish for the time being – this is mostly for me to look back on and see how I’ve grown / matured and I appreciate most people won’t even read it but heck, I think of this as my form of diary. Oh and for the record… cannot WAIT to see Avatar and I no doubt a review will follow once I’ve seen it lol.

Avatar the Movie

Peace,

Chris

Hello World,

Apologies for the delay in another post but I had my 20th birthday to contend with on the 11th and then disappeared to London for 3 days over this weekend. Again, was a nice break away from University and got to see a few sights here and there along the way, including a shopping trip to Guildford and a trip to the local park, ‘Bushy Park’ where endless deer were seen and captured on film by yours truely. Had the most AMAZING birthday meal at Wagamamas; would highly recommend the Chicken Ramen! lol . Never been to an a restaurant serving ‘authentic’ Japanease noodle meals but I can tell you now, loved it! Thankfully, or so I have been informed, there is one back here in Bristol as well and I intend on visiting it shortly again!

Am seriously getting frustrated with my PC now; I built it just over a year ago – a beautiful Q6600 quad core and nVidia 8800GT combo and now it’s just pissing about and I cannot for the life of me work out why. Have just cleaned out the majority of the dust and crap this evening in the hope that may, or most likey may not, make a difference. Otherwise it’s back to the drawing board and most likely building another rig (will include the ATI 5770HD this time me thinks and 8GB Ram.. yummy! ). Thankfully I have my trusty MacBook Pro to soldier on with for the time being, just a shame that I cannot game on it as well as the good ol’ PC lol. But we shall see.

Unfortunately, whilst visiting Surrey, I seemed to have accumulated some new games… these being Halo Wars and Necrovision. Have played about 5minutes of Necrovision on the PC before it decided to piss about so not 100% into that one yet but from what I’ve played certainly looks interesting! Haven’t even stuck Halo Wars in the 360 yet… have mixed feelings about it but we shall see some time soon when I get round to it! From what I’ve read it’s not too bad but I shall most likely write a review (ish…) of it in a few days time for you lovely people .

Anyways, I think I’ve said enough for this evening so am going to leave it at that. Apologies for the lack of pictures in the post – I’m sure you’ll get over it considering most other photos are of games?! lol!

Peace,

Chris