Forza Motorsport 2

So, um, yeah, I bought Forza Motorsport 2. But don't go calling me a hypocrite just yet. I shall return later and tell you why.

Games Suck!

I am not a happy gamer. This is going to be a rant, probably a pretty short one with no justification other than I'm right.

90% of gamers are prats. The ones that frequent game sites anyway. Everyone is die-hard fanboy of something. Defending their chosen console and game to the bitter end. Dare to saying ANYTHING against a console/game and your flamed and abused by a bunch of crazy gamers frothing at the mouth as they break yet another keyboard bashing in their hateful reply. You would think you called their mum/sister/grandma a fat whore. Except you probably wouldn't get such a vicious reaction if you did.

It's ALL about the money, and it's never been more obvious. Micro-transactions are legal robbery. Want Ace of Spades for Guitar Hero 2? Sure, but you have to buy these two shitty songs with it and we are going to charge £5 for them! Or whatever it works out at. It's cheaper to buy the bloody game off the shelf anyway. More than ever before companies are out to milk you for every god damn penny you are worth. Every time I switch on my 360 I feel like I am bending over for Bill Gates to fill me up.

Example: MS - "have a free game on live. But wait! You need to have the Live camera if you want to play. Thought we would give you something for nothing? We pity the foo'"
I guess they have to give you something to use the camera for though.

Crap hardware. PS2 last gen, 360 this gen. Seriously, have MS released any hardware that wasn't riddled with faults? The consoles itself, the wireless wheel, the guitar. Do MS know what quality assurance is? Obviously not.

Games. Where are the decent games? Forza Motorsport 2? I played that three years ago on my Xbox. Halo 3? Wait I played that three years ago too. I feel like I'm playing the same games again with more eye candy. Lost Planet? Mediocre 3rd person action adventure FTW!!! Has there been any genuine AAA titles this generation? In my opinion no.

Hype! Every game seems to get crazy hype these days. Launch party for Lost Planet?? What the hell? It was average action game. Killzone 2!!!! Wasn't the first game total shite? Yup, clearly the second games deserves all the hype it gets. Halo 3? Average gameplay, crappy story and stereotype sci-fi characters. I cant wait! Add to that, Limited/Collectors eddition of games. When I saw Need For Speed Carbon: Collectors Edition I knew that it had lost all value to have a Limited Edition version of a game. This was confirmed when I saw a sealed "Limited Edition" of Perfect Dark Zero in Tesco. Must have been really limited to still be on sale over a year after release...

The games industry, especially the console side of things has become a pretty dirty business that I'm not really proud to be part of these days. The points above are my main gripes, but I've got plenty more where that came from. Non-game related ads on Live for example? When did they slip that one through? I'm already paying for something I can get for free on the PS3 and PC. Live is (was?) a great service I didn't have a problem paying for. But ads was not part of the deal...

I built a new gaming PC not long ago. The cost of entry maybe be high, but when playing games on the PC I do not feel I'm getting shafted at every possible opportunity.

There is one company I haven't mentioned yet. Nintendo. The console is cheap, the games are cheap it's bringing innovation to the table and the Wii and DS are selling by the shitload and they rarely bash the competition and get into playground fights like MS and Sony love doing (another thing that annoys me).

Some of my moans above can be directed at one company/platform, some at them all. Either way being a gamer is not as enjoyable as it used to be for me...

And I'm not done yet, I have a whole rant coming about how it's not longer about the games. They are just ammunition for the masses.

That's a bit more coherent than I thought it would be.

Half-life Completorized

Well I finished Half-life today. Awesome game. If you haven't played this, go download Steam right now and buy it! Do it!! Even if you have played HL before, it's worth doing so again, especially if you haven't played it since '98. I forgot quite how good it was. Even now Half-life puts every other first person shooter to shame.

Next up, Opposing Force. Although I need to get some C&C 3 in at some point...

Still Haven't Saved the World

Turn's out the world will have to wait another day before I save it. Yesterday was Sunday, and Sunday = Motorsport.

So I got in this morning at 07.00 after night-shift and went straight to bed as I was getting up again to watch the first World Superbike race from Silverstone at mid-day. I don't like Silverstone much, it's a pretty dull circuit compared to the likes of Brands Hatch, Cadwell Park and Oultan Park. To make matters worse it was pissing it down. By bike standards the race was fairly dull. Toseland high sided early on, but made an impressive come back from last to eighth (i think). Bayliss took the win followed by Haga and Corsar.

It was then straight over to ITV to watch the F1 Grand Prix from Monaco. It's quite exciting to watch the F1 cars go around the tight street track, for a while, but ultimately it's a mickey mouse circuit which allows for no overtaking and makes for a more boring race than normal. Lewis Hamilton continued his stunning debut season with another second place behind his McLaren team-mate Alonso. I've never seen anyone chuck a modern F1 car around like Hamilton does. He seems to love a very loose back end which makes him interesting to watch as you can actually see him drive the car and use some skill to control it, which is great. One problem with F1 these days is that the cars are so good that they stick to the track like glue and it all looks too easy. Massa completed the podium.

So it was then back over to Eurosport for the second superbike race, only to find it was canceled due to tanding water on the track, as it was still chucking it down and drainage at Silverstone is crap. Apparently they might not be returning to Silverstone next year, hope not...

Fairly quiet day then, usually I need to record at least one race as there are two on at the same time.

I watched the Indy 500 at work over the Internet. Not a huge fan of oval racing but it was won by Scotsman Dario Franchitti. Awesome result!

Anyway I had a spare couple of hours before work but I was knackered and not in the mood for taking on the Aliens on Xen. Hopefully I will return to Xen later today and complete Half-life.

Can't Stop Playing

Following on from yesterdays post. I can't stop playing. I am now at Xen, which is approaching the end of the game, after only a few days. That's very very fast by my standards, but I just can't put my trusty crowbar down.

Unfortunately I am now stuck at work and the world will need to wait another day before I can save it.

Master who? Halo what?

I was reading some news about Half-Life 2: Episode 2 the other day. Once I had read it I decided that in preparation for playing Episode 2 I was going to play through all the Half-Life games that have been released so far. For those who are not aware (shame on you) which games and expansions this includes, I will list them, in the order they should be played

Half-Life
Half-Life: Opposing Force
Half-Life: Blue Shift
Half-Life 2
Half-Life 2: Lost Coast (I'm not sure this plays any part in the story line, haven't played it yet)
Half-Life 2: Episode 1

So, I started playing Half-Life a couple of days ago, I think I am around half-way through now and I have been amazed by it all over again. I bought Half-life when it was released in 1998 and it blew me away, but in the 9 or so years since I completed it I forgot how good it really is. It was, and still is, a genre defining game.

While playing, I couldn't help but wonder what all the fuss is about with Halo 3. Yes, Halo was a huge leap for console first person shooters. Bungie really showed how to design a good FPS that works on a console. But, Half-life, a game that is nearly a decade old, surpasses both Halo and Halo 2 put together, and I'm only half way through. The game play, the story and level design is still better than nearly every other fps that has been released since. I know I haven't played Halo 3 single player yet, but does anyone really believe it wont be more of the same? Judging by the multiplayer it's safe to say that it plays exactly like Halo 2. The story line in the first two games has been an average sci-fi affair, and yeah there could be some major twists in the story, but, unfortunately, story writing isn't really Bungie's strong point. And since the second game I got the impression they were more concerned with getting the mulitplayer right than anything else, so I'm not expecting anything exciting.

But anyway, I kind of got off topic slightly. These days Half-Life doesn't look that hot, all objects are angular (I can't think of the right term) and the low resolution (by today's standards) textures look very blurry and bland. But in every other area Half-life has no equal (apart from maybe Half-life 2, but more on that later). Hell even the A.I. of the soldiers is more impressive than the majority of games released today. Finally, let's not forget Gordon Freeman, who is more of hero than Master Cheif could ever hope to be. Just a scientist who is in the wrong place at the wrong time, but rises to the challenge and battles on against aliens and soldiers hell-bent on killing him.

Half-life is truly one of the greatest games ever.

Lost Planet: Extreme Disappointment

After my post a few days ago about how crap the Lost Planet demo is, I came across this article at Extreme Tech which demonstrates the problems in detail.

Here is their final thoughts at the end of the article;

"Simply put, this demo was not ready for release. The menus are awkward for a PC game and still include console button identifications, and the performance is simply not there yet. Capcom should have worked more with both Nvidia and ATI to improve performance in both DX9 and DX10 modes, and the whole interface needs an overhaul.

Clearly, a lot of work needs to be done by all parties involved. Capcom needs to optimize their code further. Nvidia needs to improve its performance in DirectX 10—if the whole point of the DX10 version is for it to look the same but run 10% to 20% faster than the DX9 version, it had darn well better run 10% to 20% faster. Even if that were achieved, and so far it isn't, that would be a pretty unimpressive debut for DX10. If you upgraded to Vista and bought a DX10 card just to have your game look the same while running 10% to 20% faster, you'd be right to be upset."

As I said in my post about the demo, it seems to be very poorly optimized. I hope so anyway, if this the best we can expect from DX10 I will be pretty disapointed.

Can You Fix It? - Resolved

Well sort of anyway. It's probably not the correct way to do it but I chucked in around ten line breaks after the play list code which moved the blue line to below the list rather than being stuck under it.

If you know of a better way let me know!