WOW i best act fast!

Hey ya'll! Due to still being rather ill i have been rather tardy on the review front. But i have an "Army Of 2: The 40th Day" review planned next week and a FF13 review the week after,

So for now allow me to grace you with some video games themed fun in the form of a scam email I was sent. It was trying to scam my World of Warcraft logon details out of me but i get the feeling the writers weren't trying very hard.

Enjoy

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World of Warcraft Account Suspension Notice
Saturday, 20 February, 2010 3:45 AM
From:
"wowaccountadmin@blizzard.com"


Dear World of Warcraft fans we regret to inform you that because your account suspected of fraud.
We have to inform you that: We will ban your account.
If you think you are not suspected of fraud, you can visit our website http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/ Verify your account.

Thank you.

Regards,
Blizzard Abuse Team.

-----

As an interesting point the link actually pointed to a scam website not the URL written.

I had an even funnier one "direct from a Blizzard director" but unfortunately i seem to have deleted it.

Until next time folks

Peace, Out

Gregatron

Would you kindly read this preview?

I wasn’t too sure I would get a review done this week due to being a rather poorly chap, but a ring on the doorbell this afternoon herald the Bioshock 2 Collectors edition, pre-release (just)! So I thought I would play an hour and let you guys know what you have to look forward to.

My initial thoughts on the game are mixed. I loved the original and it is one of the few games I have ever got 100% achievements for on the Xbox.

In this game you play as an early big daddy that, without wanting to spoil any of the plot, is on a mission to find something in post-Fontain rapture. The destruction has yet to be noticed as I have not yet revisited any of the areas featured in the first game (praying this will happen though).

I am very wary about giving away too much of the plot but lets just say, the big sister, OUCH! She is gunna be a tough lady dog to take down. Presuming we will have to.





Early impressions are that it follows the style of the first game, the immersive environment, the fun little posters and almost Easter eggs. There’s a few fun little effects that really draw you in to the environment, such as wondering what the clanging noise was before realising I was standing under a drip, and the sound was the water hitting my helmet. This sort of thing could easily have been ignored but it makes a game.

Any early complaints? Errrrrrm not so much…. It’s good, it hasn’t grabbed me as Bioshock 1 did, but then it is a sequel. Keep watching as I’m sure I will be putting up a review when I have played a little more, and I’m certain I will be dragged into this game too. Until then, if you are planning on getting this game, it looks good, it seems to be very clever, and at the very least, the splicers are still fun to kill.

If you decide you want it, *Would you kindly* click the links to buy it below?

Peace yall, hope to be more on my feet soon.

On board with Shepherd, I shall not want

Ok so I’m back to reviewing after a bit of a hiatus. Changing jobs, beginning a degree course, Christmas, all that good stuff got in the way. I now have a bit of a commute into work so I am taking that opportunity to tippy tap up reviews on a lil netbook (until the iPad comes out, this is my excuse to get one)

You may have noticed a couple of changes to the blog, one of which being I now have banner ads. Sure it’s annoying but if you click them I get paid, so then I can buy more games to review. So if ya like what you read, click on... Also there are now going to be links to buy the reviewed game on Amazon, so If you were thinking about getting it I encourage you strongly to buy it through that system as, once again, I get paid.. Kaching! Shameless.

Anyhows, as my first review of my new improved super sparkly blog (with ads, click em!) I decided to check out Mass Effect 2.

I was a big fan of the first game, but I put that down to the fact that I am a total space RPG nerd. The plot seemed to have holes it than a lump of Alterac Swiss, the combat controls were… twitchy, but it was still a fantastic game. I am sad to say that I couldn’t bring myself to complete a second play through of the game, but I put that more down to my miniscule attention span than the games quality.

So here comes mass effect 2. After racking up a few hours in the game now I have come to a conclusion that it is akin to, I imagine, buying a Ferrari. You buy it, get it home, look at it and think “Ooooh, it’s really good looking”. Then you jump in and take it for a spin and you think “this is an amazing ride”. After a few hours play time, a day of work, a commute you’re back in the driving seat. This time you take it out and “oh my god it IS as good as it was yesterday”. It keeps looking prettier and getting better.




Something I notice with this game is similar to what I noticed with Assassins Creed II (possible review some time). They really seem to have taken the “If it ain’t broke” approach. The core play style is much the same, the conversation options are a similar style, the combats less twitchy but the same idea and so on. But they have put in things that make your life a little bit more comfortable. You now have an assistant on the Normandy (Penny arcade did a hilarious strip referencing her this week). She tells you when you have new messages, gives you some extra lore about the crew members, lets you know when they want to talk (i.e. start special missions) and flirts outrageously. The perfect PA.

What I DON’T like (c’mon, you saw it coming) is the new planetary scanning system. In the first game you turned up at a planet, scanned that bad boy, and got a bunch of resources. In the new game you get a scanner reticule and wave it around the planet, looking out for spikes on the meter showing what minerals are around. When you find a spike you launch a probe and get the discovered minerals. While it is very good and you can get a huge haul out of a single planet, it takes a lot of time.

I do like the way the upgrades work now, needing to be discovered and researched. And we can now easily change the color and style of our armor, meaning no more lurid green and pink combo’s (unless that’s your bag).

One last thing that really makes the game for me is the useless crap, I love useless crap in games, I horde it but I am never sure why. I always bought the house in FF7, I spent billions of credits in star wars galaxies pimping my house out with rare xwing toys or rebel flags. And in Mass Effect 2? There’s loads of it, even fish for your cabin fish tank. And to make life even sweeter for the random crap collector in me, I bought a space hamster! Oh yes! It’s like any normal hamster, but in space! (Sadly in doing so I also ended up about 2k short of the armor upgrade I needed but, YEAH, space hamster!)

So more of the same, but with more good and less bad. If you liked the first game you will love this. If you’re thinking of buying it, there’s links below…. (I feel dirty)

Click the ads! (AGH! Farewell Dignity…)

“Coming soon to Wii, Maths Defect! The educational game based on the popular Bioware RPG. Only on the Wii…. Please like us!”

This place is The Pitts!

Fallout 3, the winner of 5 “Greggies”! My own brand of game rewards. (difference between these awards and others being thatthe designers dont really care about Greggies)

1.Game of the year 2008
2.Best for keeping me sane during unemployment
3.Coolest game in which you get to nail a mutants head to the wall at long range
4.Best supporting dog (was a close competition, Fable 2 came in 2nd as theirs was straight up annoying!)
5.OMG IT'S LIAM NEESON!!!!!11oneone


With the release of the first DLC I got very excited, at last something new to do during my 3rd runthrough.... But operation anchorage was a bit of a disappointment. It was short, it was really rather dull, and I got shot up before I could get all the shiny loot on my favourite (evil) character.

When the Pitt was released I set off the download in the morning before I went to work, dearly hoping that it would revitalise my love of the game. And that it did. (After i had re-downloaded it due to Bethesda releasing a graphically effed up version on release day. Round of applause for that one)

One could argue that equipping the player with a circular saw that turns “Meanie mutant” into “Badguy smoothie” is bound to draw players back, or deeper, into obsession, and one would be right. Lopping off limbs with a portable circular saw-cum-angle grinder is just plain, unadulterated, gratuitous awesomeness!

The story-line is generic RPG stuff... You follow a radio signal to a chap who needs your help and you agree to go on with it, because hey, its not like you have anything else to do. you go off and are wonderfully railroaded through the next few hours of gameplay and it's a sublime ride.

Your journey through The Pitt sees you completing a surprisingly enjoyable collection quest, a pit fight, a couple of “go here talk to them” type quests and a good bit of fighting that, thanks to the new melee weapon, is a blast.

This expansion was everything operation anchorage wasn't, and everything fallout 3 should be. I have the new expansion downloaded now and, dependent on time (and my continual addiction to resident track and field 5) I may get a review of that up soon.

I considered rating games at the end, then decided i wouldn't as i could be told I'm wrong or be held responsible for someone buying what they see to be a crappy game.

Peace out

G

If war never changes.... it's clothing expenses must be nominal

Braaaaaiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinsssss

One of the few games to truly titillate my technological taste-buds this year has been Capcom's latest zombie-fest, “Resident Track and field 5”.... **SORRY** Resident Evil 5

“Resident Track and Field?” I hear you questioningly muttering into your corn flakes! (unless you are reading this in the afternoon or evening, in which case you may be eating a sandwich..... or maybe some form of pasta dish) "What's that all about?" Well it's time to get one of my 3 main gripes about the game out of the way...

Button bashing..... a lot of it! I am pretty certain the A button on my controller is not going to survive another play-through, what with sequences involving pressing it a billion times a second to run away from falling pillars to random spasms of bashing to avoid massive claws courtesy of the latest boss type. I don't get it! There is one boss battle where you have to remove a gem from the baddie by spamming the X button as fast as possible while your partner holds them (which requires, oh yes, hammering the A button). Now this is all well and good but in Veteran difficulty they don't make the enemy harder to grab, faster or stronger, they just make you do the mindless mashing more, AND MORE! It's infuriating!

Rant 2: The controls... The main character, Chris, is plugged as some kind of super soldiery elite bloke. Hell! Look at his arms!
I doubt he could even scratch his own chin! Yet he is also incapable of moving whilst aiming or firing his gun..... Did they not cover simple multi-tasking in STARS basic training?

*Final rant* The partner AI: Ridiculous! No other word for it! I have taken to using her as a pack mule and health item administrator.... If I give her a gun she tends to put a few magazines into my back before running off in search of more ammo to irritate me with. That may be enough, but imagine my displeasure when, during my speed run last night, I got to a door that requires both characters to open. It turns out I had to leg it back to the start of the area to find her as the poor thing couldn't quite work out how to get around that monumental hindrance to human foot travel: a tire on the floor.... that was it.... she was stuck behind it, unable to fathom its secrets.

So, 3 rants = poor game right? WRONG! I am hooked on this game, I have completed most levels in veteran when co-op-ing with my friend Dave (which is, by the way, the only way to fly in this game*) Andi have finished the game on easy mode (yeah yeah! n00b etc! I present infinite magnum ammo, suck it). The story is good if a little over acted at times, and the weapons upgrade system is fantastic (even if it did lead to Dave and I spending a fair while pondering the practicalities of a 100 round magazine for a M92.... I mean, how would you holster the thing?)

I am hooked on this game and will not be done with it until I have sucked every drop out of its smooth shiny existence..... Once you get around the RSI from button bashing and frustrating AI, there is good fun to be had, I even got used to the controls (which for me is a big thing, Transformers got returned within the day due to control annoyance!)

I would like to sign off my first review by mentioning a subject that surrounded Resi5 in controversy and that is the subject of racism....

There, I mentioned it! Hey I don't do politics!

Thanks for reading

Peace, out


*Other friends can be used if you don't have a Dave to hand

My new reviews blog

Howdy all!

I have decided that I would like to begin writing a blog where I write independent reviews on different video games.

I will be featuring all kinds of games, new and old, mostly on the XBOX 360 system, but may occasionally venture into the realms of PC, Nintendo DS or, very rarely, the Nintendo Wii.

These reviews will mostly be written very much in my own opinion, which should obviously be taken as such (and my opinion is, in general, rather cynical).

As I feel I should add something of value to this first post I would like to note my complete lack of enthusiasm for the recent and coming releases. The only game released since January that got my blood running is Resident Evil 5, which I am considering for my first review. Generally the release schedule is not exciting me the way I usually expect it to.

But enough for now, keep your eyes peeled for the first review soon.

Peace, out

Gregatron