Hawken New Year Update

 

 

The guys over at Adhesive Games Ltd have given us a few concept pictures to keep us keen, waiting for that all but impossible dream of a good modern mech game.

 

As you can see from the above pictures, it looks like dark brooding BladerRunneresque Cities and Post apocalyptic ruins are all the rage in Hawken but they sure look nice and I look forward to seeing some more game renders and videos.

Now these Mech concepts look interesting, I like the blend of Mechwarrior like running gear with more real world ablative/ reactive armour. I’m guessing this is some kind of  light or scout Mech as itl looks sleek and fast (I would call it a SC-1B Scarab but hey that’s just me)

So for all you Battletech Players waiting for a new game or you players of Heavy Gear, keep your eyes open and check out Hawkens Facebook page for loads more info including some early gameplay vids.

 

Hip Hip Hooray! A new Mech game is on its way!

Not the most thought out of comments!

 

I just read the review of Space Marine for PC over at PC gamer and noticed the following in the comments section:

“I feel the same way, the whole of the demo seems to have that "rinse and repeat" element about it. Deffo not on my purchace list. I had really high hopes for this game having played 40K since Rogue Trader days but it's just meele spam at the end of the day :(“

 

Melee spam? If you ask me that would fit in with later versions of 40k perfectly!

lol

Birthday stuff

 

Well it was my Birthday this weekend and it brought with it a whole host of Wargaming goodies:

1) A Stormraven Gunship from my Bro, well looking forward to building painting then weeping as it gets destroyed in the first round of every game it plays.

2) R.U.S.E. This I bought with some extra money I had. It’s a great idea for an RTS and I like the overall command table aesthetic the main game has.

3) Warhammer 40,000 Kill Team. Oh yeah! For when you absolutely need to kill every Ork on the Kroozer.

4) Battlefield 1943, Nice to get a classic.

5) Cities of Death Book.

6) Some Imperial Guard and some grey paints. I’m going to try me some urban camouflage on them maybe this could be the start of an Imperial Guard army who knows.

7)… and I will be placing orders this week for some Warhammer 40k Terrain a Librarian and a pre-order for Space Marine.

 

was a good year.

2011 so far

Well so far this year I have been without internet at home for six weeks, the reasons are multiple but mainly due to the incomptent company known as Talk Talk. Needless to say when normal service is resumed, my ISP will no longer be Talk Talk it will be BT (best to deal with the organ grinder as they say, or the owners of the infrastructure in this case).

My Blood Angels are growing at a steady pace with 1500points of the little blighters ready for battle, financial issues are preventing from picking up the new Storm Raven :(

The Traveller game I am running is into it's third week and the players seem to be having fun. I think people like the feel of the system compared to the more structured system of D&D (or maybe its the haphazzard half arsed way I run RPG's, who knows!) either way its going well.

Due to the afore mentioned financial problems I have, I havn't bought any new games in a couple of months, rather I have revisited some older titles I nver really gave the attention they deserved. The three games I have mainly been playing are Madden 10 on the 360 (inspired no doubt by the Super Bowl the other week), Command and Conquer 3 on the 360 (mainy skirmishing) and Wipeout Pulse on the PSP.

As a further note my older brother has recently moved in with us for a while bringing with him a love of old PS1 games. He spends the nights playing C&C Retalliation, GT2 and Panzer Generals. Our family has taste (except my mother when it comes to hats!)

Anyway I hope to be fully back on line in a fortnight with more info on the Blood Angels (and news of a new job I hope)

- Ben

Blood Bowl (Xbox360)

Welcome to the world of fantasy football!

For those who don't know, Blood Bowl is videogame based on a board game made by those wonderful people over at Games Workshop. Developed by (in my opinion) one of the greatest board/war game designers ever, Jervis Johnson. It is a game which crosses American Football and Games Workshops own Warhammer universe into a massively violent and enormously fun sports based board game. Two teams made up of warriors from various races face each other over the astro granite and have one simple objective, score more touchdowns than the opposing teams by any means possible. As you can imagine teams made up of Orcs and Elves and Goblins etc. are going to find some pretty violent ways of doing just that. The original game used a unique semi turn based system which allowed the boardgame to be exciting and dynamic and above all fun. I challenge any group of gamers familiar with Blood Bowl not to find an afternoon playing it with mates one of the most fun things you can (legally!) do with little lead miniatures.

Now the videogame was originally developed for the PC and then ported to the 360 and upon playing the game you immediately run into proof that the port was done either in a rush or by a half arsed team. Long load times, tiny illegible menus, slowdown etc. This game is not complex but it seems to make the 360 labour away during what should be simple tasks. I do not expect any title to visibly drop frame rate on a console game, let alone one with graphics as simplistic as Blood Bowl!

Other problems are also apparent. The amount of character customisation appears minimal. You can not even pick your team colours! Also the range of animations and the (admittedly very funny) commentary gets repetitive very quickly. There is a definite lack of polish to this product.

On the plus side there are lots of different ways to play the game with lots of different one of competitions, games and a career type mode where you can lead your team from low division no hopers to the glory of the Blood Bowl.

On a whole what we have here is a good but highly flawed product. It is a perfectly realised adaptation of the Blood Bowl boardgame but the developers have missed a great opportunity to take this videogame version a step beyond the boardgame it digitally recreates. For fans of the original game it is almost an essential purchase and to anyone who even has the slightest interest in the boardgame but doesn't want to spend £60 on it and then have to paint all the figures I would also recommend it but it just wont hold much appeal to anyone who buys it on a whim.

I believe that certain features that are in the PC version have not made it to the 360 version. This makes the port even sloppier however according to the official blood bowl game forums an update is heading to the 360 at the end of February as well as the Dark Elf DLC (although this wont be free like the PC version but this is more a Microsoft thing than anything to do with the game developer)

All in all this is a great game of you are already a fan of the board game, If you can find it cheap (like I did) go for it but if you have a decent PC you would probably be better off getting that version.

The Last Few Weeks

Things have been a little busy for me the last few weeks. The amount of work I now have to do at University (third year :S) plus a distinct lack of cash has left me rather run down and although I have been gaming I just haven't been in the mood to write about games (outside of uni work).

However I thought I would now let you know what games I have been playing over the last few weeks just to show that I am not dead.

Xbox 360

My Xbox Live connection has been a little iffy the last few weeks to so my online gaming has been limited but I have managed to put in some hours on the new Call of Duty and I love it! The campaign is everything a FPS campaign needs to be and the online is phenomenal. Add to that the special ops missions and I'm surprised I'm not playing it now!

Geometry Wars 2 has been played quite a bit by me and the GF. I hate to admit it but I think in many game modes she is better than me, she just needs to relax more whilst playing.

Bomberman Live is another of my GF's favourites and she is definitely a better player than me at Bomberman. I do however have my moments and do beat her occasionally.

PS2

I have been playing a little Street Fighter II and some Gradius III on the ol' PS2 still getting my ass handed to me by Gradius on the bubble level.

PC

Eve online is still getting played most nights taking up most of my PC gaming time but i have also managed to play some Space Empires V too. a nice slow alternative to all the shooty mayhem in my other games.

Arcade

I got my first 1CC two weeks ago on DeathSmiles Black Label. I was well chuffed :P

I have also been playing DoDonPachi Daifukkatsu and the recently installed Dogyun.

Other Stuff

At Uni we have set up a gaming society so hopefully we can get a good social scene going. There are some good people doing the Games Studies course and as you can imagine it can be pretty competitive.

Well that is about it for now. I really hope normal service will resume soon. I do enjoy blogging and hope some of my posts bing a little brightness into folks lives :P

Modern Warfare 2

Just a quick post (I have been neglecting this blog a little but normal service will resume shortly)

I received a copy of Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 last night and soon as I got home I started playing it. I don't have Xbox Live at the moment so i was straight into the single player campaign and from the very first mission it didn't fail to impress.....

However there has been allot of publicity about the third level of the campaign. where you take part in the brutal slaughter of civilians. I just thought I would share my thoughts on this.

Personally I must admit that this level did leave me disturbed and was decidedly unpleasant to play, however I think it is an important part of the game and I am glad I played it, it is part of the whole story and I think that it is done in such a way as to not be gratuitous in any way. I think it is a good thing for a video game to disturb you a little especially one which contains so much violence and is set in a world not a million miles away from the one we live in now. A game about war should make you stop and think about your actions in the same way a modern war film should make you question war.

That's my thoughts on the subject

This week I have been mostly playing... (5)

It's been a funny old week. I've been gtting back into Uni and had to put up with had internet problems at our new home. All in all gaming has been on a bit of a back burner lately but i have still had time to break out the joypad a few times.


Halo 3: ODST
Xbox 360

Got this cheap the other day. I was both impressed and disappointed by this title in equal measure. The campaign was fun with some great battles but it had a few inconsistencies compared to other Halo titles and the campaign was a little short. I haven't had a chance to play the online portion of the game yet but i am looking forward to it.


Geometry Wars 2
Xbox Live

Downloaded this one on a bit of a whim. both me and my girlfriend love it and have got quite competitive over it. I would recommend this game to anyone who is looking for a nice simple arena shooter with snazzy visuals.




Lego Indiana Jones
Xbox 360

I bought this for my girlfriend earlier in the year as she really enjoyed the lego star wars game she had. She never got around to playing it until now and we have been having great fun working out way through the game. It's good wholesome family entertainment after all.

Xbox Live Retro Bonanza!

Waiting for me this morning on XBLive were two tasty little demos. Space Invaders Extreme and Arkanoid Live.

For a Retrohead like myself this is a wonderful thing to wake up to on a Wednesday morning when I should be doing coursework. I suppose I could write a review of one of them and use it for my games journalism portfolio.

Everyone knows Space Invaders so I wont really bore anyone to death with an explination, However I would recommend everyone with an Xbox live acount to try out Space Invaders Extreme. The way the designers have tinkered with the basic formula of Space Invaders to produce something similar but also bang up to date is fantastic. It is similar in concept to Pacman CE and that was fantastic! Add to that the extra visuals by none other than epileptic fit inducing game designer Jeff Minter and you have a wonderful Xbox Live game.

Now Arkanoid is another of those earlyclassic arcade games, based on Breakout, it added power ups and a fantasic variety of levels to this simple concept of a game. It may not be as famous as Space invaders or Pacman but it's still a game worthy of a tinker under the hood for a 2009 remix.
However the execution of the update doesnt seem to have been done as well as that of Space Invaders Extreme. Instead of the fantastic psycadelic visuals one expects from such an update (helped in no small part by the success of Geometry Wars), we seem instead to have been given a mid 90's PC version of Arkanoid. I doubt this game will be heading onto my "Things to buy when I get some MS points" list despite my love for the original.

Both games add the almost standard Xbox Live play.

GTAIV Rant

To the annoying little twat who really spoiled my first online game of GTA4 by shouting echo echo echo echo constantly for the whole game...

I HOPE YOU DIE SOON!!!

UBI Oh Where Art Thou? UPDATE

Well its Monday morning and UBI have sorted out the mess on the EndWar servers.


From the Official UBI boards:

Posted Sun January 18 2009 23:07 Hi Everyone, When the 3-minute rule update was executed last week we encountered some unexpected difficulties which resulted in units not receiving XP or remaining KIA after matches. This issue has now been resolved on both the PS3 and Xbox 360. We apologize for the inconvenience this has caused and are looking into an in-game compensation package. I'll announce more details once we get them worked out. Thank you for your patience and understanding. -QPK *UPDATE* We have finalized a reparations package. All players will be given 2 million credits and have their top 3 units promoted one level. This should happen after today's ceasefire. This message has been edited. Last edited by: QuidProKuo, Mon January 19 2009 01:10

So it could have been quicker but at least there is some compensation for us downtrodden commanders.

Well done UBI

A big thumbs up to Fallout 3!

Well its just gone 3 in the morning, I have just finished the main storyline after a six hour session and oh my god was it worth it!
Now I have played many games over the years, I would count many games as being amazing but Fallout 3 is on a different level. I think I have just found the first game I believe everyone should play at least once in their lives. This truly is a masterpiece and shows just how good a narrative the videogame industry is capable of. I would truly compare this game to great works of literature like The Lord of the Rings or Frank Herberts Dune.
I sure hope we see more of Pip Boy in the not to distant future.
Remember.....
War Never Changes.

UBI Oh Where Art Thou?

One of the things I like about Endwar is the online campaign system and the experience your units can gain over time.
However at the moment there is a server glitch somewhere, no ones units are gaining experience, on top of that units can not die (some would see this as a good thing but I do not!). This has been going on as far as I know since Thursday

UBI's response? You guessed it nothing, not so much as a peep out of them. Now I'm sure they will sort it out (along with other bugs in the game) but is it too much to ask for a quick "were looking into it" on the official boards?

I dont care if its the weekend, a company the size of UBI doesnt shut up shop at the weekend!

UBI Sort Your Funking Lives Out!