Wasting bandwidth since 1996

There’s just too many! This is silly. There are 185 (that’s one hundred and eighty five) games on my shelves, for various platforms, and I’ve only completed a dozen or so. Doesn’t represent very good value for money really.

I stuck em all into Delicious Library (and ace application – you can find it here. Needs a Mac, but that’s no hardship ) and it rapidly became apparent that I spend more time looking for games than I do actually playing them.

I had a go of Brothers in Arms – Road to Hill 30 this morning. Glad I didn’t buy it. The magazines gave it 9/10, but I’m not sure why. I seemed to spend a lot of time watching cutscenes and listening to some miserable bugger droning on endlessly about how rubbish war is. Like we don’t know that already.

So anyway, I’m going to continue on with Psi-Ops and then get onto Sudeki.

Well, last night I had a wee bit of a talc outburst cos I kept on getting gubbed and then, even though I passed through a room with a checkpoint I didn’t actually go to where the checkpoint was to trigger it so when I died I went right back to the start. Not a big deal, but I was a little miffed and was getting metal-corridor fatigue at the time.

So I switched off and had a go of Sudeki instead. Which seems ok – or at least it would if it would run properly. It keeps locking up every now and again – entirely down to the fact that the disk looks like it’s been given a good going over with a Big Scary Angle Grinder(tm). So, when I pop into Game on Saturday to demand they hand over the manual they forgot to put in the box, I’ll be sure to get them to pop a non-broken disc in beside it.

On a cheerier note, Games Frenzy inform me that Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30 (or something) is in the post.

Right – we have to watch the pennies at the moment, so we’ve decided to buy no more games (although there will obviously be the odd exception – the new Zelda, and so on). So, to keep my gaming habit satisfied I’m gonna rent them instead – from here. The company is called Games Frenzy and they charge a tenner a month for one game at a time or 14.99 for two. Seems fair enough to me. There’s no late fees or anything, so it’s perfect for types like me who take ages to play anything.

The good news is that, as it’s not costing thirty or forty quid a go, I can rent stuff I wouldn’t normally buy – who knows, I might find some new genres I like

My one worry is that, because I haven’t paid full whack for a game, I may be overly dismissive. For example, although I really enjoyed God of War, I hated the first hour. Would I persevered if it was rented? We’ll have to wait and see.

Of course, none of this gets around the fact I have three shelves full of games that I’ve barely played. Chances of me being suckered into spending fifty or sixty quid a pop for next generation titles are very slim indeed.

Ok, so after wandering around for AGES looking for a vent I can climb into, I’ve moved on to the next area. Very linear so far, but still a huge amount of fun. I am a little worried that the whole thing is going to take place in the once environment. This would be a great shame as there’s only so many ‘metallic corridor’ textures you can look at – a bit more variety would be nice.

Still – I discovered that using enemies as projectile weapons against other enemies is fun. I also discovered that having them sucked into dirty great spinny fans is also fun.

I can just tell this is a game I’m going to finish and play again on a harder difficulty. It’s slightly reminiscent of RE4 inasmuch as the game mechanic is loads of fun. I have now add mind-drain to my arsenal, alongside telekinesis and far seeing. Mind drain is great – it effectively gives you infinite ammo by absorbing the PK energy from fallen foes (about 25% of your energy is replaced this way – 100% can be replenished by draining unsuspecting victims by stealth).

It’s ACE!

The more absorbent among you will be able to hold much more fluid than the rest of us. The more observant among you will perhaps have noticed that a “Completed Games” (‘completed’ is a deliberate misspelling of ‘complet0r4t0red’) has materialised down the right hand side of the page. I’ve set this up as a secondary category so that anyone remotely interested in seeing which (of the many many games I play) I have actually completed can get an idea. So far, in the six months I’ve been keeping this game diary, it’s pretty pathetic. Five titles in six months. Oh dear.

This is one of those titles which I almost missed. I had a huge amount of fun playing around with the various psychic powers in a demo that was cover mounted on one of the drivel filled Xbox mags but, for some reason, I never seemed to have money on me whenever I remember about this one.

So, there I was in Game (spit) today, when I noticed this game and Sudeki sitting side-by-side on a shelf with a “Two For 20 Notes” sticker on them. I’ll have them, I thought.

And so I nabbed em. Tell you what, though, Psi-Ops really does make some more successful games look silly. It’s a massive amount of fun, combining third person shooting, sneaking, and jedi l33tness in one bundle. The sneaking part was worrying me a little because, as regulars may know, I’m not a big fan of sneakers. Try typing ‘hiding simulator’ into the search box to your right.

In Psi-Ops, the Stealth is pretty forgiving. It works on the basis that it’s a sodding game, therefore if a character isn’t looking at you you really don’t need to creep around the place. As a result, the stealth components add a little bit of tension to the mix without spoiling the game – which is, of course, all about picking people up and throwing them against sharp things using the power of your mind.

Alright, so so far it’s been a bit Wolfenstein 3D. Find the keycard, open the door, kill everything, wash, rinse, repeat. Then again, mario is a case of jump, stomp, collect the star. When the play mechanic is as good as this, it reallly doesn’t matter how deep the experience is. Also, I’m only an hour into the game, so it’s maybe a little early to cast judgement.

Hm. Well, there’s been a bit of talk on UGVX.com recently about starting a Halo 2 league for crap players. Faling squarely into the crap player camp, I reckoned it might be a good idea to at least finish the single player campaign first. So, I fired it up last night and loaded my last save – dated about three months ago. Three months? I thought. Wonder why I haven’t played it for three months. I don’t remember anything particularly annoying happenind…….

Well, that’s because nothing as interesting as a particularly annoying bit happens. I was on a lift playing a bad guy. Flood attacked. I killed some. I died. Back on the lift. Flood. Die. Back on the lift. Flood died. Back on the lift. flood. VICTORY! On a different life. Flood. died. Bugger it.

I think the main problem with Halo 2 is that it’s really not actually very good.

My gaming ennui appears to be lifting! I dusted LoTR off again last night. Long term nelefans will, of course, remember that I got stuck at that part of Helm’s Deep where you get attacked by a neverending stream of trolls with nary a save point or even a chance to change your inventory in sight.

So, I have taken advantage of the very handy “travel” option on the save menu, and am revisiting the Plains of Rohan for a spot of upgrading. So, with many a cry of “WAAAAAAAARG!” I am getting all six of my chars über before attempting those bloody trolls again.

At the moment, the horsey bloke is highest level – 53 I think – with everyone else in the high forties / early fifties. I reckon getting them all to level 55 would probably do the trick.

Guhhh – it turns out the Migration Agency hasn’t actually sent the ACS application off yet! I know, I know, they’ve had it for three weeks Anyway, one of my references needed dating so I had to get that done again and then resent. I’m assured that they’ll get it all collated and sent off today, with an aim to have it arrive at the ACS in Adelaide on Friday or Monday at the latest.

THEN the six week wait will begin. It’s hard to believe we started this whole process at the start of June. It’s very time consuming.