Fezing it up on other platforms and Telltale Poker Night 2!

Fez on other platforms.

Yup, one of my favourite Xbox Live arcade games, Fez, is going to get released on Steam, PS3, PSVita, Ouya, and iOS! It's so nice to see this awesome game get out of Microsoft's exclusivity.

Oh yes, I freaking love this 2.5D puzzle platformer! I love the fact that it's getting some love for the Ouya too! I guess this is going to be another one of those games I have to purchase multiple times like I do with Super Mario Bros!

 Click here to check out Fez on 360 in the meanwhile before it releases on other consoles.

TellTale Poker Night 2.

What's the best Poker game you can get? Poker Night from Telltale was awesome with it's wit and humour. But yesterday they announce that there's going to be a sequel! A Poker game sequel!? How does that work? Different personalities that's what!

Sam from Sam and Max, Brock from Venture Bros, Ash from The Evil Dead, Claptrap from Borderlines, and to put the cherry on the top of the cake, GLADos from Portal is the game's dealer! Heck yeah! It was announced yesterday, mind you it was the First of April, but TellTale did announce that this is real and no joke!

 Click here to play the First Poker Night game :D

Why I hate the Batman Arkham games!

In 2009, RockSteady Studios released a very hyped up Batman game called Batman Arkham Asylum, that then had a sequel in 2011 called Batman Arkham City. These games got a lot of hype and news, and they were pretty good games for the most part...

So why do you hate them Ian? Well, both of these games are the digital equivalent of watching a great theatrical play, you've been watching it for a good two hours and it's getting near the end, and for whatever reason the lead actor forgets his line and whilst stumbling on his words he trips over something, knocking over a prop that lands on someone, but there's a thin metallic object on top of said prop that falls over and beheads the actor that was standing next to the actor who's crushed under the prop; the actor who's beheaded body stumbles toward the audience and a massive haemorrhage squirts at the audience who freak out and try to flee the theatre in sheer fear as they run over each other, and of course at least one person dies from that. That's what happens in this game, they have a great beginning, a great middle, and then it turns into a terrible end where you wonder why it had to suck so badly...  Let me explain this...

WARNING: SPOILERS WILL BE USED HERE, SO IF YOU'RE AN ANTI SPOILER SORT OF PERSON, CLOSE THE DAMN WINDOW NOW!

Batman Arkham Asylum

The biggest issue with the ending of Arkham Asylum is that you "fight" Joker. However you don't need to be a huge comic boffin to know that Joker is a weed compared to the likes of Batman. So how do end the game? Do you use Bruce Wayne's excellent detective skills to find where the Joker is hiding? Nope. Do you chase a flocking Joker around the Asylum? Nope. Instead you do actually have a fist fight with the Joker. "But how is that even fair if he hasn't got a gun Ian?", well here's RockSteady's approach towards balancing a fight between the Joker and Batman. Batman visits Bane in the game who's turned into a psychopath  because Ivy has injected Bane with a special venom that contains a virus called "Titan" that manipulates the human body to turn anyone into a "hulking" beast. See what I did there, "Hulk", you know, DC... Marvel... Yes I'm a huge nerd get over it. But what happens with this Titan virus? Oh yeah! Joker uses it on himself!

I'm not kidding here, you fight a muscular oversized Joker so that a fist fight between him and the dark knight somewhat balanced...  Well, clearly more in his favour, But that hook shot of yours and his ludicrously long nails put you in a better spot, as you pull him down with the hook shot, causing Titan Joker to fall on his hands, with his long nails stuck in the wooden floor as you pummel his face in. And that's it. Again, you don't need to be a comic book buff to understand that this wouldn't ever happen in the comics or the films, rather Joker would hide as he sends his goons to shoot you, or he would pull a gun on Batman. But no, traditionally in games, the lead protagonist has to beat up the antagonist, so RockSteady had to make a Bane sized Joker for Batman to fight... Thanks for the disappointment guys...

Batman Arkham City

I was dumb enough to buy the first game at full price with an incredibly lack-luster ending, so I was dumb enough to buy the sequel thinking and believing that RockSteady would improve the ending. But I was very wrong, so wrong it might possibly be worse than the first game. How so? Like this...

The plot of Arkham City is that after Joker was taken away from the fight in the first game, the Titan virus is slowly killing him, and now he's managed to turn all of Gotham City into a villian's playground as he holds it hostage unless Batman finds him a cure, which a certain Doctor Freeze has been making. However Joker being the total bastard he is infects Batman with the titan virus with a syringe, and there's only one cure. Batman being smart about this gets hold of Doctor Freezes cure and uses it on himself to prevent dying, but now with a dying Joker in the midst, who will Batman fight as the final boss in this game? Twoface? The Riddler? Ivy? Penguin? Cat Woman? Oh no no, let's use a better character that everyone knows...!

...Clayface

Yeah...  Everyone knows Clayface right? He's been used in EVERY FILM AND EVERY TV SHOW. Notice how I'm being sarcastic here...? The biggest problem with Arkham City is that not only do you fight this guy twice, but after defeating him the second time you think you have another hour or two left before you reach the game's climax. Oh no, you beat the game, and it's mega anti-climatic! this is the video game equivalent of watching a pretty good film before the film abruptly stops and you're told to leave as the film equipment isn't working. What's sad about that statement was that actually happened to me once and had to go back to the cinema the next day to watch said film that stopped on me. So yeah, you beat Clayface, who I ended up reading up that in the comics that he's the 73rd greatest Batman villain ever voted by fans...  [sarcasm] Great... that's an achievement right? [/sarcasm]. What's makes things worse is that as Batman cured himself with the only titan cure in existence, the Joker dies, and it's pretty damn bad, it's like Super Man without Lex Luthor, or Mario without Bowser; Batman and Joker are a match made in heaven despite their sheer hatred for each other. When you think Batman, you can only think of Joker as being his ultimate rival. Think of it like Wily Coyote if he actually caught Roadrunner? Oh wait, Seth MacFarlane made a joke about this...

OK, sure Batman could deal with any one of his bazillion rivals in the next game. Maybe Joker will return from the dead as a zombie or something! I mean come on, almost anything game, TV and or film related now has zombies in it right? Why not the Joker, they have done it to the Marvel heroes at least. It's bound to happen...

God damnit!

Review for Bioshock Infinite

Bioshock now has it's third game, Bioshock Infinite, a game set before the events that took place in Rapture in the first Bioshock game in the 1910s. Set in a city in the sky, named Columbia, is spreading their message about America's brilliance to the rest of the world and how the rest of the world is terrible and how they're better than everyone else.

One of the many covers in the game, the Beach Boy's "God only knows" in barbershop quartet style.

You play the role of a character called Booker Dewitt, a man in his late thirties/early fourties who is on a mission to rescue a teenage girl from Columbia, and bring her back to New York. But in the plot of games, movies or even books, it's never that easy and Booker is caught up in a mess where he is treated as an Anti-Christ around a bunch of white loving, right winging religious types who are after his head.

The beginning of the game shows plenty of racism like this, and you have the choice to go against it or support it.

You begin your quest on a little rowing boat with a couple taking you to what looks like a light house. But it turns out that it's a way to get up to the city Columbia in the sky by launching a pod into the sky and crashing it into a baptist church. Similar to how you went down into Rapture in the first Bioshock game in a bathysphere.

The ultimate question to ask about this game is how does it compare to the likes of the previous Bioshock titles. Well, if I compare this with Bioshock 1, or even System Shock 2, there are some big differences, and some of which aren't for the better either. One of these is the games bigger emphasis on combat rather than puzzle and role playing mechanics seen in previous titles. One of the major things you'll notice is how there are no hacking or unlocking in this game, instead you just collect lock picks and your partner in crime, Elizabeth, the girl who you're trying to rescue, does the work for you. Which to a degree removes the puzzle solving and level upping hacking skills like you did in System Shock 2. However Elizabeth isn't all about making the game a bit too easy, she can be handy. In a gun fight, she can scope the scene and try to find med kits and ammo, and when you need it, she can throw them to you. Though this does sometimes happen outside a fight where she'll throw you a coin what feels like once every five minutes, and that dear sirs can get annoying; though it was hilarious to see her lob a coin from so far away with such extreme throwing precision. Someone should make this girl a baseball or cricket pitcher! 

The new Psy/Plasmid powers in this game, called "Vigors", aren't terribly impressive. To be honest you can actually beat the game using just two of the eight vigors made available to you. Plus the final vigor that you collect is a real disappointment as it just pushing enemies away. At least the Bucking Bronco vigor launches your enemies in the air, why do I need to "Push them away". After beating the game, I found out through websites that you can mix and combine these vigors, which is never actually explained in the game, and if it was I missed it! But I honestly felt like the vigors were there for "flashy effects" rather than deep gameplay and puzzle solving mechanics. 

As the puzzle solving is practically gone, the game really does concentrate on combat. In each skirmish, there are a lot of enemies coming after you. Which you can take as either a good or a bad thing. Good in the sense that this is the first time that a "Shock" game has thrown a lot of enemies towards you as you're now in a more open environment. Though on the bad side the combat does feel a little crazy as I felt that some enemies would take a thousand bullets before dying, turning this Bioshock into a Killing Floor game rather than an actual "Shock" game. Sure there's a lot more bad guys, but why am I wasting so much ammo on these guys anyway?

Something that I had noticed was missing the feel of suspense entering a new room. Maybe if you forgot playing Bioshock 1, or never played it before. Bioshock had it's classic enemy, the Big Daddy, a big hulking man in an aqueduct suit wielding a massive drill. Taking them out was a pain, but a necessary pain, as you needed to kill them so that you can take it's little sister in order to progress in the game. But they would appear randomly in the game meaning that they were never in the same place in each play through, meaning that you could walk into a room and "BOOM!" a Big Daddy in the room sees you and charges at you with drill in hand to turn you into cannibal curry! It's just that in Bioshock Infinite that's not there, now there is the over powered enemy, in fact there's two, the Handy Man, and the Patriot, but if you re-play the game, they're always in the same place, therefore removing any fear you have with these enemies, which I have to say is a bit of a shame.

"So is there anything gameplay wise that you like about the game Ian!?", oh yes there is dear sir! Going back to Elizabeth, she has the ability to open these inter-dimensional "Tears" where an object from a parallel universe can be brought into the game. Some places might have a few of these "Tears" that Elizabeth can open up and give you an advantage in battle, depending on what's available, you can bring in extra cover in the battle field, turrets, rocket launchers, turrets that are mounted on balloons called Mosquitoes, extra med kits, boxes of ammo, or even random people from a parallel world that can be used as distractions to the enemy. Sometimes these extra objects can be the difference between winning and losing a gunfight, which makes opening these tears with Elizabeth worth it.

As for graphics, this is something I am pleased with. Not that I ever disliked the graphics of previous "Shock" games, but it's great to see that Irrational Games are pushing the way in graphics. Be it textures, lighting, water modelling, it's all gorgeous. Bare in mind that I was playing this on the PC, which I can easily say without looking at the console versions is the best version for graphics, I mean come on, the XBox 360 is seven years old, and the PS3 is six years old, and they can't be upgraded, so that assumption has to be reasonable. Though I will suggest that if you're like me, and many others, with an nVidia graphics card, be sure to download the latest driver update to reduce the crazy amount of screen tear. But once fixed it looks absolutely stunning on my PC monitor. What's more impressive are the facial expressions on Elizabeth's face, they look really good without going into the "uncanny valley" of terrible looking facel models. Though to be honest some of the NPCs could've had better work on them.

There has been a major amount of motion-capture work used on Elizabeth's face to make her as realistic as possible.

Here's a great example of the dynamic lighting used in the game. You can see the beam cast from behind the bronze statue, not only does it cause the light to change around the body of the statue, but the bronze reacts in different ways to the reflected light, and there's great use of lens flare to add in effect that's never over done.

Going back to this picture again, the NPCs could have had more work, way do the couple's eyes look like they're about to pop out?

Now, for the Coup-de-grass of the game. It's plot, story and ending. I'll try to write this without spoiling it, because it's so worth playing this game for it's ending! As you progress in the game, you slowly start understanding the story behind Elizabeth, her Farther, Comstock, her mother and the little conspiracies and battles in the city of Columbia. Not only that, but you learn about a group of people called the Vox Populi who wish to defeat Comstock and turn Columbia into a borderline Socialist community. But you discover something very big at the end of the game with an awesome plot twist that's so worth beating this game for. For some it might be a little unoriginal, but for me I didn't see it coming. Plus you learn a bit more about these reoccurring twins that appear and disappear in thin air and about their dark devious experiments. In a similar plot to the other "shock" games, you discover that you're not quite the good guy, but the reason for why you're not the good guy is very different, but still mind blowing as you watch the final cutscene play and have your mind set in every direction and around corners!

So, do I recommend Bioshock Infinite? Yes! BioShock Infinite, even with it's slightly disappointing gameplay mechanics, rather boring vigors and bigger emphasis on combat; it's still worth playing the game for it's beautiful graphics and awesome story. The game is simply a great experience that any gamer should witness and not spoil. It's not a perfect game by any stretch of the imagination, but it's still a game that people should have in their collection and keep. It's a keeper! So grab yourself a copy!

Review for DLC Quest on PC

It's not like you find a game that pokes fun of the games industry everyday of the week. And over the last 10 years or so, the gaming scene has changed a fair bit; micro-transactions, faux money, freemium gaming, etc... But if there's something that gamers get a little annoyed with is DLC, downloadable content. So what's better than making a game that pokes the idea of DLC! Well that's DLC Quest for you! Now before you put your knickers in a twist, and/or grunt in disgust, you only have to pay for this game once, the level of satire in this game is quite high, and a lot of it is very faux indeed...

The game's story, if you even call it a story, I mean come on how many times do we hear this? At least it happens in every Mario game right? lol! But the Princess, to whom you're going to wed get's kidnapped by "Bad Guy", no I'm not making this up. And it's you're role to save the Princess from Badguy. But there's a catch, you start off only being able to move left, you don't animate, can't jump and you can't pause. You you can do is move right, and that's it! Whilst moving to the right you collect a few coins until you come across a man that sells things to you. The game's DLC.

This is where you find that the DLC you buy in the game isn't actually real money, but the coins you collect in the game. In essence, the game is pretty much a Wonder Boy/Monster Land clone, where by the shops are made to look as if you're playing a game on the iPad or Android where to progress quicker you have to pay with real money. The game itself is simply a spoof about modern gaming whilst looking like a Wonder Boy game with an 8/16 bit graphical look.

Oh yes, there's horse armour in the game! But I'm not going to tell you what it does! heh!

This game was originally released on the XBox 360 Indie games section of the Live Arcade, and now it's released on Steam through their Green Light scheme. Which is always a good thing, I do appreciate Steam's love for independent games development. But how does a game that was made on the 360 work on a PC? Well, the game does have full controller support, but using the keyboard isn't bad either. After all there's only four keys that you use once you unlock everything. Left and Right is controlled with the cursor keys, whilst Jump uses the Z key, and attacking and talking uses the X key. In menu you might have to use the Up, Down and space key, but you hardly use those in gameplay; so the game is very keyboard friendly for such a console-centric game.

The only real downside to this game is it's difficulty and ease to beat. I was able to beat the game the first time in about 20 minutes, and I got the best ending in about 25 minutes. But then I have to remember that this game did cost me less than £2 and it's more of a games industry gag than a full blown game. But regardless of it's lack of difficulty, it's still a pretty good game with laughs on the way, especially if you're like me who keeps an eye on gaming news a lot. What good about the Steam Edition of the game is that it comes with it's sequel, DLC Quest: Freemium or Die, which I have yet to play yet, but it looks promising as it looks like it has a lot more to it than it's first game. What would have been nice is to add enemies in the game that can actually harm you, yup, there's no really enemies in the game apart from a huge troll that blocks your way and Badguy. You can unlock a zombie monster pack, but they don't really harm you, but you can mow them down with the gun you earn later in the game. It would've been nice if these zombies that you pay with in-game money would attack you; or maybe it's the developer trying to say that modern games are too easy.

So, should you get DLC Quest? If you're a gamer who's been playing games for a long time, yes. It jabs jokes into the rib cage of the modern gaming industry. It would've been nice if there was some actual challenge to the game, but then again it might be better to treat this game as if it's a piece of art to display how pathetic the modern day gaming scene is with it's downloadable content and micro-transactions. It's simply worth having just to remind us that gaming back in the day was a little better than what it is now.

Unique Games: Every Extend Extend

OK, OK, I've been very lazy recently with my blog writing, and I've hardly wrote anything for the week. So allow me to tell you about a unique game on the PlayStation Portable called Every Extend Extra...

Published by Q Games, the guys behind Lunines on the PlayStation Portable. Every Extend Extra is a very unique game that plays somewhat like a bullet hell sh'mup, but not quite...

Let me explain to you what's happening in this video, it's very hard to explain what's happening unless you actual play the game. but the idea behind Every Extend Extra (I'll just call it EEE from now on, too many words beginning with "E") is that you move a bomb around the screen as enemies appear in groups, as you close in on an enemy, you press the X button to detonated the bomb, and you kill the enemy on the screen,  however you'll lose a life too. But that enemy will explode too, and it's explosion range can kill off other enemies, causing a chain reaction. The bigger the chain reaction, the more points you earn, the more lives, called extends, hence the name "Every Extend Extra". The game is simply about timing explosions right to rack up huge chain reactions to earn lots of points and lives, however there is a little more to it than that. There are power up that need to be picked up, you'll notice in the video above that there are white, green and pink enemies. These are your basic enemies, the white enemies are the most common, when you blow them up they don't drop anything. Blowing up the green enemies will drop green crystals, these give you bonus points. Blowing up the pink enemies will drop pink crystals, these earn you a "Quicken", which allows you to move the bomb quicker across the screen, but in turn will make the enemies move faster too. However in each stage, there's a unique "Larger enemy", simply called a mini boss. Mini Bosses can shoot lasers at your bomb, causing you to loose a life without detonating. but if you blow up a mini boss, they drop a yellow crystal, which give you more time on the clock when collected.

At the end of each stage, there's a boss themed around the style of the level. The boss shown above is very much like a carousel, a carousel with KILLER LASERS! It attempts to lure you inside and zap you with lasers, but the idea behind the bosses in this game is to get them caught up in chain reactions from exploding grunts; and the more explosions it get caught in, the more damage it does. In this case, the killer carousel is made of two halves, and you'll have to take each one out at a time. Though once one is gone, it'll go into a shooting frenzy, and you'll have to dodge bullets and wait for a good chance to get the second half caught in a huge chain reaction of explosions.

Let's say you don't want to play this game on the PlayStation Portable. You either don't own one, and/or you'd rather play it on a big screen. Well you're in luck sunshine! There's a sequel made on the Xbox 360's Live arcade called "Every Extend Extra Extreme", or "E4" for short...

The Xbox Live arcade game is a little different to the PlayStation Portable game as there's bosses or level progression, it's all about building huge scores in an near endless game. The gameplay is identical to it's PlayStation Portable counterpart, except there's now a new rhythm game play element added to it. There's a bar on the bottom of the screen that pulses, this acts like a metronome, the idea behind this is that when you detonate your bomb at the apex of the metronome bar, you earn a multiplier on top of the points you earn from your chain reaction. Adding to the rhythm elements of the game, you can add your own music to the game, where it will find out how many beats per second the song is, and builds the metronome bar around the musics beat.

But there's one very good and insane reason to own E4, it's crazy leaderboards! You might think hitting a million points in a game is good, heck hitting a billion points is god-like. Think again... Trillions of points! Adequately called "The Trillionaire's Club", this is one hell of a leaderboard! This makes Twin Galaxies look like a Cub Scout group! Sorry if that might offend people, I love the idea of Twin Galaxies, but when you have scores in the trillions, it's a totally different story! Last time I looked, the person at first place scored something on the lines on thirty three trillion points! That's insane! It's a pure gaming marathon score that, and I would love to have three days to myself with no interruptions just to see if I could beat that score!

If you're interested in getting these games, you can get the PlayStation Portable game new as low as £2.95 from the Game Collection website!

You can download Every Extend Extra Extreme from Xbox Live Market Place for 800 Microsoft Points.

Alternatively, if you're one of those types who want all their games to be on physical discs. No fear! There's a collection of Q Entertainment games on one Xbox 360 disc called "Qubed". Though to be honest, it was released in limited numbers, and very hard to find, therefore people like to hike the price up a bit for it!

News Report: Intellivision Gen2 For PSVita and PSHome

So...  Sony today  made an announcement of something called PlayStation Home Arcade. This is where you can play Arcade games such as Frogger and Asteroids on you PSVita. But here's the cool bit, Intellivision are going to release "Intellivision Gen2" on this service. These are going to be remakes of Intellivision games, there's going to be a remake of Shark Shark, and my favourite Intellivision Game, AstroSmash. What's cool is that when you purchase these games, in similar ways to Playstation Minis, you have two licenses, one for Vita, and the another for...  PlayStation Home!?

...Yeah...  So much for getting me excited about a possible Astro Smash remake. As I don't own a PlayStation Vita, I would have to play it on PlayStation Home of all things... For those who might not remember, PlayStation Home was Sony's chance to plagiarise Second Life and put it on to the PS3, and failed doing so... But clearly someone is supporting this, as they're releasing these games on PSHome.

Kotaku reminding us how weird Second.... Ahem, PlayStation Home is... 

My experience with PlayStation Home is a boring one, I simply fiddled with it, tried to see what I could do with it's limited pieces of generic looking furniture, and going into the town to see what I get for free, which is hardly anything...

Then again, this whole PlayStation Home Arcade reminds me a lot of another arcade game service that another certain games manufacturer released a while back...

Another blinding success...  Oh wait...  no it wasn't...  Despite me still thinking that I own the most achievements for Game Room in all of Xbox Live, Seriously, I played Game Room a little too much than it deserved. But Game Room is, wait, was a way not to present a way to play classic arcade games on your new-fangled HD console.

The idea of Game Room was to build your own arcade, decorate it, put machines in it, etc, etc... Then your friends would come to play in your Arcade, and you would earn tokens that allow you to try out new arcade machines without having to purchase them. Sounds like a good idea right? Not really...

Rather than enter your "Amazing Arcade", yeah right, most of the time I ended up just selecting games from the main menu. It's quicker, and just looks better than entering a faux arcade. Making the whole "Build your own arcade" thing a little pointless. It would've been better if these arcade games themselves were just actual Xbox Live Arcade games, rather than having them inside another interface to load up before playing them.

Thinking about this, it makes me think, why is Sony doing this? What's the point if their competitor has failed doing a similar thing. And why are the Intellivision Gen2 games playable straight on the Vita, but you have to run Home to play them on the PS3? Personally I think this is a little odd, and Sony should just release these as PSN games.

Why do I still own an Xbox360?

OK, it got me thinking, after my last post about my little rant about screwed over you get if you're a non-live user. So...  Why do I still own a 360 then?

Pinball Simulation...

Arabian Nights without the financial limitations and finding physical space? Count me in!

One thing I do like about the current generation is how Pinball Simulation has improved little by little. Now granted, you can play these games on the PS3, Wii, and even tablet computers. But it so happens that I got these pinball games on the Xbox 360 before I even owned a PS3 and a tablet computer. But even then, that's not entirely true as there's a very good set of pinball games made for PSP that are very good too, infact I would even say that the PSP games got me into getting Pinball games for the 360.

Pinball FX1/2

Pinball FX was the first Pinball game I got the Xbox 360. And for a pinball game that's not based on actual real tables, it's a very good effort. It certainly feels like pinball, and Pinball FX 2 even goes far as including franchises such as Marvel, 'Splosion Man and Plants Vs. Zombies. Plus it includes a great tables called Epic Quest where by it mixes pinball with role playing games very well whilst mixing a good dose of humour!

A pinball quest of finding loot!

The Arabic themed table, Pasha, is a very entertaining table in Pinball FX 2

The Street Fighter 2 table from Pinball FX 1 might not be based on the real Gottlieb SF2 table, but it's still great fun!

Williams Pinball Classics

This game is actually hard to come by on disc over here in PAL territories, but fortunately, Microsoft made this available as a download for about £15. Feels a little steep, but when people are selling copies on eBay for a whopping £25 second-hand, a £15 download sounds damn cheap to me!

Medievil Madness, one of my favourite pinball machines, now to own in digital form!

Who wouldn't play FunHouse!?

The masochistic yet awesome Black Knight!

Pinball Arcade

Unlike the Williams Pinball Classics on the 360, and the Gottlieb Collection on the PSP and Wii. The Pinball Arcade is a collection of great pinball machines from Bally, Williams, Gottlieb and Stern to give you the best Pinball simulation experience possible. To do this, FarSight Studios, the developers of the game, took each pinball machine, took it to pieces, examined each piece and made a 3D model of it. Then they put the 3D model pieces together in the game to build the most realistic pinball tables in digital form.

Bride of Pinbot in all of her metal cladded glory on your Xbox 360.

The very luminescent Black Hole.

The Famous KickStarter funded Twilight Zone Table.

So with all these awesome pinball tables, with descent pinball physics, and great gameplay, plus not being anywhere close to a descent pinball arcade, my Xbox 360 is my number one place to play some good pinball!

Why I dislike Xbox Live...

Why do I dislike Xbox Live?

Simple, it's a massive rip-off...

Not only that, but there are issues that I have to address about the service, the total lock down and removal of services made to you when you stop your Xbox Live subscription. If you're like most people with a games  console, chances are you're treating it like a media centre and a way to view online services such as Netflix, Crackle, and maybe some TV on demand like BBC iPlayer, and 4OD. But let's say you hardly play games online any more and you can't afford to keep your Xbox Live subscription. You can end your subscription, but when it expires, you can't use ANY of the Apps Xbox Live provides, despite the fact you can go over to your PC and use the same services without the need of an Xbox Live Gold account!

So many apps to download on the 360, but if you don't have a paying subscription with Live, it's a no go!

This annoys me, you invest money in services like Netflix, about £5 a month, and you discover that you then have to pay an extra £40 or so a year to use it on the Xbox360. Personally I find this slightly offensive. but then I notices that Destructiod mentions that Netflix will be avalible to any Xbox user over the weekend...

#Netflix on #XBox360 for non-gold subscribers for just the weekend? Unlock it for good Microsoft! destructoid.com/microsoft-grac… #notcool #noexcuse
— Great Bit Blog (@GreatBitBlog) January 31, 2013

Seriously...  for Netflix that's free to use (after a paying subscription) on the PC, why pay ANOTHER subscription to use it on a another piece of hardware. Now granted, there are A LOT of people who use Xbox Live, but it isn't evevyone, and that's what bothers me. Microsoft is denying access to something you can use on the Xbox when you can just walk over to your PC and use Netflix without the need of another subscription. It's a huge "F-You" to the customers.

And then there's the people on Live...  Guru Larry knows this far too well!

And this is how I feel about Live, mentioned on Live... lol, Ashen got it in one shot!

So yeah, it's not worth it people...  As I've said before, the Xbox 360 is pretty much a machine for people who don't know how to put a computer together, and even then it's not hard! So Yeah, head to Aria or NewEgg and build a PC you fools!

Personal Opinion: Console gaming now...

OK, I'll admit, I've been pretty bad at keeping up with this blog, so I'm going to write this up, my opinion on the current state of console gaming...

Recently, well I say "Recently", over the year, I've hardly touched any of my consoles; sure people use the classic "Hur hur! my Wii collects dust" quote to sound like everyone else. But for me, all three of my current generation consoles are sitting around not doing a lot. I might go and check what the latest downloadable game is, but with this thing called "The Internet" and "Other people doing it for you", you can use open up a web browser on your PC and look it up. Plus with downloadable games on Steam out beating the likes of retail prices on current console games, the price of PC components dropping in price (OK, OK, I know about the stupid Hard drive Indonesian flooding thing that happened last year and the prices haven't dropped since after the shortage, blah blah blah) and the shire amount of promoted indie games; PC gaming is just that much more attractive to me than console gaming. Let me elaborate!

Nintendo Wii:

Great game...  But it was the only great game this year for the Wii

Apart from the new Rhythm Heaven game, nothing has really come out, I mean sure La Mulana FINALLY came out on WiiWare, but that got busted when 3 weeks later it got released on GOG, and since then I haven't touched the Wii since I went stupid and bought the same damn game on the PC through GOG. Now it's understandable that Nintendo hasn't done much with the Wii this year due to the release of the WiiU in November. But what a well to knock out a format that made you print money! Sure, half the internet bashed the Wii with the typical "It's underpowered wah wah wah"", "The online sucks wah wah wah"", "I hate motion controls wah, wah, wah!"; but in my honest opinion, I liked what the Wii offered, even if every other company tried to make their own pathetic version of Wii Sports, there was a good amount of games on the system. But now with the Wii U out with hardly any worth while games on launch and with a silly price tag, Nintendo has kinda stubbed it's little toe on the door frame this year, not to mention releasing four "New" Super Mario Bros games, all which have similar game play mechanics, in six years. They're re-using Mario like how Activision is pumping out a new Call of Duty each year!

Sure there might be new online content, challenges and levels, it's still pretty much the same game it was on the DS.

Microsoft XBox 360:

My PC brings all the games to the yard, damn right it's better than yours...

Like to spend money on a service that already exists on other systems where it's free!?!?!?!  Sure you do! You're an Xbox Live Gold account owner, and you are totally oblivious to the fact that people playing games online on the PC don't have to pay a thing...     ...well unless it's an MMO. Still! As silly morons pull out $50 a year to play Call of Duty and Halo 4 (Seriously now, Halo 4! talk about sticking to a "TRILOGY!"), I can play Left 4 Dead, Dark Souls, Portal 2, Serious Sam 3, XCOM: Enemy Unknown, Dead Island, Earth Defence Force, and good ol' Killing Floor! (...oh dang, that's not on 360 is it now?) for no additional fee, and the online experience is pretty descent. Non of this "Super Lag" that Live bozos think PC gaming is like. But apart from things such as online gaming, the hilarity of the 360 is simply the fact that about 75% of it's games will get it's way on the PC, and the likelihood is that it'll be cheaper on the PC too.

OK, OK, the prices are barely any different here, but the PC version is still cheaper!

Plus, my PC's specification kicks the 360 in the balls big time. We all need to remember that the 360 was released back in 2005, seven years a go! The system only has 512 Mega Bytes of RAM for crying out loud! My PC has 8 Giga Bytes of RAM. Now sure I spent about £600+ on my PC, which is 3 times the price of an XBox 360, but after paying £40 a year over the course of seven years, if you had XBox live since it's launch, you would've invested the same amount of dough that could've been spent on a descent PC that could a lot more than what a 360 do, I mean come on, it took seven years to actually get Internet Explorer on the 360, and you need to use Kinect, sorry I'm going to laugh full heartedly to myself...

Then again, this year for my 360 wasn't totally dead, at least I played a game on it that hasn't got a PC release, Red Dead Redemption. My friend gave this game to me a couple of Christmases a go and I wasn't interested in it, however just like with Hotline Miami and Fallout 3, I would discover that Red Dead Redemption is a pretty good game. But still, if it did have a PC release like L.A. Noire did, I might have picked up the PC edition of the game.

Sony PlayStation 3:

OK, I'll admit, this has some recent love from me as there's a small community of people on the GameGavel forums setting up online games of Worms Revolution on the PS3. This year, I have purchased games for the PS3, but most of these felt like expensive short thrills rather than engaging entertainment. For example I got Catherine, a great puzzle game that I was waiting for ages as it got released this year in Europe, but it was released last year in the US. I purchased Street X Tekken too, and had the same experience, a game I really wanted to get, to find that I would barely play it. Hopefully with Worm Revolution, and playing it with the folks at GameGavel might spark an interest in playing more PS3 games, but looking at what's coming for the PS3 and nothing interests me, apart from the undated "The Last Guardian"...

You have no idea how much I want this game!

As a big fan of ICO and Shadow of the Colossus, the Last Guardian is the next game in the series, featuring a huge monster that appears to be friendly to you, together you avoid guards who are trying to find you and put you back into the temples prison. As exciting as it might be, the game has been in hiatus for a stupidly long time, and a lot of the team behind the development of the game have either retired or quit, which isn't a good sign! Seriously though, to have such a big title like this slip would be bad for Sony and Team ICO. I don't know the details, politics and reasons for such a long delay, as this game was first shown back in 2009. But with it's release in question, it's pretty damn sour and makes me wonder if Sony understands what they're doing.

OH WELL! LET'S DUPLICATE SUPER SMASH BROS!

Trolololololololololololo!  ...urgh...

So there you have it. I ranted enough for this evening...

I'll make sure the next blog is a review, heh!