Server At Capacity

GAMEfest

2011-09-18T19:37:00.000+01:00

Considering how important the UK puportedly is to videogame publishers, we've always felt short-changed when it comes to getting hands-on with our favourite titles before release day. So it's no suprise that when GAME announced their intention to host a show of their own and allow the public to get an early taste of games like Battlefield 3 and Modern Warfare 3 the UK gaming community went nuts. I myself had the fortune of early preview access into the event, so what did I make of it all? You've have to watch out for my articles on GameGrin.com to find out!

Getting ready for Q4....

2011-09-05T20:57:00.001+01:00

After a severe gaming drought this summer, Q4 is almost upon us. Like most gamers across the globe I've been clearing out my game collection, going back to and finishing old titles in preparation for the onslaught that is shortly to come. Deus Ex dropped last week, but I've held off on purchasing that as I still needed to finish Dragon Age 2 and some of my Kinect games, as well as attempting to get the new Rezurrection achievements on COD: Black Ops.

Quick Article Catch-up

2011-08-23T10:13:00.001+01:00

From now on I'm going to blog and link to any of my articles that are published, just to keep content flowing. As many of you know I write for http://www.gamegrin.com/ and http://www.alive2play.com/, as well as keeping this blog and running my Twitter account (@canarywundaboy).
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Deja Vu

2011-08-17T13:00:00.000+01:00

You may remember I wrote a blog post a while back on how much I hate GTA4 and it's collectables (Blasted Pigeons!). Well I'm sitting here right now with a laptop in my lap, Youtube in the browser and LA Noire on my Xbox and I have the strangest sense of Deja Vu. Still at least there are only 50 golden reels, although my relief was tempered by the realisation that my game seems to have glitched slightly and is only recognising me as having driven 94/95 cars, when I've actually driven them all. If the game decides not to cough up my 80G for 100% completion I might rage, although Rockstar have even seen fit to take away my ingame ability to go on a rampaging killing spree ala GTA. Urgh, Phelps why are you such a wuss?!

"So it begins."

2011-08-15T13:12:00.001+01:00

I could have picked any old movie quote for this blog, as the time is almost upon us for the traditional gaming industry's orgy of all things Q4. After once again struggling through a barren and desolate summer the floodgates are about to open, flooding our lives with quality titles and raping our wallets of all hard-earned cash. At a time where the industry is in a total slump many publishers and developers are pinning their fiscal hopes and dreams on this period to balance their books and hit their pre-defined targets. But why does the industry continue to slave to this ridiculous and mentally-questionable Q4 rush?!

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Own up, what time last night?

2011-07-25T10:16:00.000+01:00

After getting home at 1am last night after being at the cinema (went to see Transformers: Dark of the Moon, great action but crappy plot) I told myself that I'd head to bed after "just a couple" of Battlefield: Bad Company 2 games. I've been fairly addicted to it over the past 2 weeks, as I'm trying to get gold stars on every starting weapon for the achievements available.

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Money at the expense of experience

2011-07-15T21:50:00.000+01:00

Well, that's my only conclusion after seeing the news that Ubisoft have followed EA down the dark path of online passes and the 'ten dollar project'. For those of you not in the know, for the last year EA have packaged all console games with a one-time use code that allows you to access the online features, including gameplay. Those gamers who choose to buy the games used, probably in an effort to save money, now also have to shell out 800 MS points (on the Xbox 360 platform) just to play the game against their mates, look at leaderboards or even check their stats.

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Gears of Corr Blimey!!!

2011-05-10T23:05:00.001+01:00

After several weeks playing the Gears 3 beta (including the early Bulletstorm access) I think I'm finally ready to form a reasoned, thought-out opinion taking into account all positives and negatives and reaching a well-argued conclusion....
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Blasted pigeons!

2011-03-23T20:22:00.001Z

Is it just me, or have collectable achievements become somewhat pointless these days? So many games just have an obscene number (here's looking at you GTA IV) over such a vast area that actually finding them all through honest discovery is all but impossible. And then developers attach achievements to them, so instead people spend hours and hours trawling Youtube videos and suddenly the whole things has just become a giant timesink, a grind.....

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Back into the industry rat race...

2011-03-12T20:49:00.000Z

Due to personal circumstances I'm relocating to London, it's a big move for me because in comparison to London, Norwich is a small wooden hut in the middle of a muddly, plowed field. While I've applied for a transfer at work, I've also decided to have another go at breaking into the videogame industry....

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Bulletstorm Review

2011-02-27T12:22:00.007Z

What's not to like about a game that rewards you the more enemies you splash bloodily across the screen using a gun that shoots explosive flails?!Read more »

The passing of Guitar Hero

2011-02-18T18:00:00.004Z

Some people on the internet have decided to rejoice in the news that Activision have decided to axe the Guitar Hero and Tony Hawk franchises, while it's true that these games have been rapidly declining in terms of quality and revenue in recent times these celebrations may be far too short-sighted.

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Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No! It's....a blog post?!

2009-08-13T16:34:00.005+01:00

Blimey, been a while. Apologies to my loyal readers (anyone?!) for my prolonged absence. Unfortunately, everything fun has taken a backseat over the last few months, primarily due to my University finals, moving flats, and then being unemployed and chasing every vacancy sign in a 20 mile radius. Blasted recession.

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Challenge Me: Maths Workout - Nintendo DS

2009-04-28T17:28:00.006+01:00

I freely confess that I'm not a DS-owner. I used to have an original one with Super Mario 64, but it was an impulse purchase and as a gaming platform it never stood a chance of surpassing my Xbox360 (or maybe I'm just a terrible achievement whore!). It was later sold in exchange for a few 360 games I was after, and tbh I didn't really miss it, my iPod, laptop or a good book were all found to be enough distraction on those train rides home, and I'm rarely to be found in a car these days.

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Going out on a limb

2009-04-14T14:28:00.004+01:00

The superb integration of Xbox Live is both a blessing and a curse. A blessing due to how easy it is to find and converse with your friends no matter what you and they are playing, but a curse for how easy it is to do the same to you.
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OMG LIEK EPIC NEWZ!!!

2009-04-10T00:26:00.003+01:00

Sorry for the title. >.>

Had some movement on the job front last few days. Got a couple of rejections for various assistant jobs both of which were after more experienced candidates, but got a very promising callback yesteray regarding a Community Management position that I ran for. Phone interview lasted 30 minutes and is undoubtedly one of the most nerve-racking things I've ever been through. But the job is awesome and would involve moving abroad, which is just sweet.

Anyways, games. Hawx FINALLY started working online for me this week, played one hell of an amount of matches and broke into the top 100 in ranks, playing Ace Combat 6 for as long as I did obviously made me better at flying games than I thought. The challenges and XP system also work really well, like an aerial Call of Duty 4. Only problem is that the moment I broke Lv33 it became pretty much impossible to level up any further. That resulted in a 4 hour boosting session yesterday night to help mass XP and bring the 4 of us within the lobby up to Lv40. Cheap? Maybe. Rewarding? Urm...... Did it result in an achievement? HELL YEAH! 985/1000, only got to play a few more matches to gain the last 15 points and gain the full 1000 gamerscore. Hooray!

In general I am am a terrible achievement whore. My Xbox Live Gamercard shows an addiction to gamerscore that I really should be ashamed of, but I'm not. As a student I don't have a vast amount of money to spend on games, and have to sell the ones I'm finished with on eBay (thanks to those who buy them btw!). I find that achievements are a fantastic measure of how much I've managed to squeeze out of a game, and an extremely good indicator of my progress and (most of the time) skill. I try not to part with a game until I've managed to get the full amount of gamerscore, unless the remaining achievements are so utterly mind-numbing or time-consuming that it would physically drive me insane. Sometimes I even ignore that barrier in a stubborn inability to admit to my own mortality....1000/1000 on Skate being a good example.

Elsewhere, I totally completed GRID, have been playing around a bit more on the new Gears of War 2 update and havent changed my mind at all, OH and I still can't manage more than 5 minutes on Prince of Persia. One major title sitting and taking space in my collection at the moment is Fallout 3, which I simply cannot get into at all. I was sold on the game on the promise of a post-apocalyptic FPS Oblivion, which sounded to me like a winning formula. Unfortunately it became terribly apparent to me that Bethesda had lied. The FPS element of the game is totally busted, your guns do practically no damage and have an accuracy rating so low you'd think that your character was practicing for the position as striker for Norwich City Football Club. And if you resort to using the VATS system it breaks up the flow so badly it's criminal. For anyone who hasn't tried it, basically you run up to an enemy, pause the game, scroll through the different parts of the enemy you can target, choose the most exposed and vulnerable body part, and then watch a slow motion video of your bullet/shotgun shell/mini-nuke (ok that part is cool) hitting the enemy and blowing them apart/blowing them up/mildly irritating them (delete as appropriate). Who on Earth playtested this and found it FUN?!

Or maybe it's just a PC gamers thing....they seem to swallow endless amounts of that crap willingly.

(Oh yes he went there!)

A general update, a title update, and a needed update....

2009-03-31T03:06:00.003+01:00

I'll start, as I often do, with a rant. Ubisoft, get off your asses and fix the Xbox Live side of Hawx. This is 2009, I and thousands of others do not expect to pay £40 for a game where the online multiplayer disconnects every 30 seconds. How many of these customers, having also suffered similar issues (so I'm told) in games like Rainbox Six Vegas, will simply start to boycott your products? With the general economy going as it is, and money in people's pockets dwindling by the day, you may find gamers take their hard-earned elsewhere. And that would sting. Hard.

In somewhat brighter news, I finished Halo Wars on single player. Brilliant game, and Ensemble (God rest their soul) should be congratulated on making this game so brilliantly playable. A couple of things I feel need special attention are the inclusion of Spartans within the storyline, which is pure fanboy icing on the multi-tiered Halo cake, and the absolutely gorgeous FMV sequences, which look very much as if they could form part of a Halo movie....here's hoping. The controls are also fantastic, so I wish the people moaning about a lack of mouse and keyboard support would kindly stfu, this isn't meant to be for you hardcore RTS geeks, so go back to your PCs and drool over Starcraft 2 vids please! In fact the only, minute problem I have with the game at all....is the community. Don;t get me wrong, I have come across many polite and skilled players during standard 2v2 and 3v3 matches, unfortunately their numbers are only matched by the sheer amount of rushers, who seem to thrive on being complete and total fun-killing assholes. Guys, a STRATEGY game is supposed to last more than 8 minutes. Come on.

What else....started playing the latest Prince of Persia for all of 2 hours....fun but unengaging. BOTH of my World Tour guitars are now squeaking constantly....Red Octane are obviously the most cost-cutting manufacturers ever, we pay £70 for the guitar and game bundle, a guitar that will not even last a full year of vigorous use. Ripped off again.

OH how could I forget, I've also been playing Gears of War 2 again. The 3rd title update this week managed to improve overall connections, however the team that has host advantage is still clear within about 30 seconds of the beginning of a match, while the other team are forced into discarding their shotguns altogether in favour of a weapon that actually WORKS. However Epic have managed to massively screw the melee system up in an effort to remove the '2-piece' (smacking your foe round the head with the butt of your shotgun and then blowing his weakened state to kingdom come). While I have been known to use this technique occasionally I am not upset at it's removal, what I am irritated about is how Epic managed to break the entire B button. Seriously, melees in general are now totally unreliable, and the chainsaw sometimes just refuses to work. Nice job Cliffy, way to make the game even worse than it already was!

Slightly off-topic, my phone is broke. Have never been impressed with the reliability of Samsung electronics....thank god it comes with a 2 year guarantee. Will be going back to Nokia for the next one. Since I'm off topic already I'll stay there for a moment, my motorcycle failed it's MOT test today, that sucked. I'm currently job hunting and flat hunting, and there are now only 6 weeks till my university finals, and I'm shitting myself.

Back to games, wasn't impressed with the Resi 5 demo, not being able to move and shoot? How....urm.....oh come on, even the fans secretly admit it's just crap game design. Pre-ordered the new Riddick game though, was a big fan of the first one and this one looks even better, don't let me down Vin! Ok...now I'm rambling....3:33am. Time for bed.

Oh, the new Star Trek movie. Looks. Fucking. Epic.

The Gears 2 title update, Halo Wars, and more....

2009-03-26T20:01:00.000Z

If only I could play games and get paid...

2009-03-18T23:40:00.004Z

...instead of having to spend the last week tackling Commercial and Competition coursework for my 3rd Year at uni. Ah well. Sorry for not writing a blog recently, had a lot of more important stuff to deal with.

So since my last post Ive finished Hawx and untill Ubisoft fix their online servers that boot me from the game every 30 seconds, I wont be attempting the multiplayer. Honestly, it really annoys me that I pay £40 a year for Xbox Live subscription and about half the games I own at the moment are either incredibly laggy or dont work at all. Gears 2 is a good example, half the games are incredibly laggy to the point of being unplayable, while the other half generally involve either an American lag-switcher, a glitcher or the host disconnecting when his team's about to lose. If devs had any sense they'd take a leaf out of Bungie's book and simply ban anyone caught cheating instantly. Would you look at that, more praise for Bungie in my blog...now if only they'd given me the 6 maps I paid for instead of holding me to ransom for the last 225 gamerscore I need for Halo 3. How about it Bungie eh?

While I'm on a general rant, I wasted 3 hours driving every single car in GRID, only to find the promised achievement was not forthcoming. A quick Google showed me that others were having similar problems, after the game shipped with a glitch, Codies patched it, and then when they patched a different issue they broke the first one. Now, I don't pretend to be a developer, or even to have the slightest knowledge of code in general, but wtf guys? Come on. And even worse was the email someone got back from Codies support, first denying there was an issue at all, and finally admitting that there was a problem but basically fobbing him off with the "it's only an achievement" line. Thanks Codies, maybe if you didn't ship an unfinished game in the first place no-one would have to complain!

I did, despite my work, finally get round to playing some Halo Wars. I personally feel Ensemble has done an awesome job, the online multiplayer is fantastic fun (even after being utterly devasted a few times) and the campaign is varied enough to be replayable, with some of the most beautiful cutscenes Ive ever seen. Sure RTS fans will moan about the controls, but hey, to hell with them. It's not made for them, it's made for people like me, and all the people like me who own it absolutely adore it.

Gonna try and get some more Halo Wars in this evening before bed, so I'll sign off here. Thanks for reading as always!

Hawx: Review

2009-03-11T15:17:00.004Z

As the title suggests, there's only one thing I really want to talk about today, and that's Hawx. For those of you who don't know, Hawx is a flying/dogfight game very similar in gameplay to the Ace Combat series, and it's out on Xbox360, PS3 and PC right now.

To put it very simply, you either love flying games or you hate them. As a genre they are extremely underserved on consoles, and no, I don't count Microsoft's "hey pretend to fly a plane, whoops you forgot to flick that one tiny switch and killed everyone on board" flight simulator series as flying games. These aren't games, they are to gaming what paint-by-numbers is to art.

But anyways, back to Hawx. Gameplay wise it's about what you'd expect, up down, left right, roll, auto-targeting for missiles with a 'line up' sight for your cannon. Long dreary turns as you travel at 2000km/h towards someone only to miss and have to turn 180 degrees to go and catch them up. The occasional land targets also creep in, leaving you to either drop bombs, target them with other types of missiles, or simply plow towards the ground with your cannon blazing and hope you pull up in time.

Then suddenly the 5 level comes around and with a double-click of the triggers you aren't playing Ace Combat anymore. Instead you're thrown back to Lylatwars on the N64, the camera is sent flying off to a fixed point in the sky to encompass you and whoever you're targetting, and with a roll of the thumstick you could be upside down or pulling a drift turn to escape a missile lock. While it isnt perfect, and flying too low often results in a very messy death against the ground, this 'assistance-Off' mode is undeniably entertaining and breathes fresh life back into game. Dogfighting actually feels frantic, and the control you have over your plane as you fling it around the sky is just loose enough as to remain challenging.

As far as the game itself goes, the missions get repetitive quickly but have some neat touches, one such example is when your computer systems are jammed and so you're forced to stick to their guns. There are also a vast amount of planes and weapon configurations to unlock and choose from, which are given to you as you progress through a levelling system much like Call of Duty 4. Challenges such as killing airborne enemies with a certain type of missile are rewarded with experience points, all of which are totalled up and help contribute as you plow onwards to level 50. This system also extends across the multiplayer as well, which supports up to 8 players in a match and is an absolute blast with missiles and fighters all over the place.

While it may not be everyone's cup of tea, Hawx is great fun and a superior game to AC6 in almost every department. Definately worth a rent if you're a fan of the genre.

Now I just need to free up enough time to play Halo Wars....

"£10?! Ive only had it a week!"

2009-03-05T22:56:00.003Z

With the news that Amazon, Toys R us and Best Buy are getting into the Pre-owned market over in the US, it set me wondering about the state of the used market over here in the UK. While I worked as a Christmas temp in a well-known highstreet games retailer this holiday, it was made clear to me to push Pre-owned games as much as possible, the obvious reasons being that the companies make far more profit from selling used titles than they do new ones. Of course, these sales are reliant on a number of basic principles, namely that people trade their games in the first place, that enough stock can be gathered to support a meaningful ad campaign, and of course that people actually WANT to buy games already covered in fingermarks and scratches on the basis that it's worth the saving.

I used to trade my games in at the usual places, GAME & Gamestation namely, since the independents in Norwich have long-since closed down. However about a year ago I made the decision to switch to selling on eBay, based on the idea that I could make more money and thus, afford more games! But many more people simply don't consider the added money worth the extra effort, and so the large companies flourish on the used game market. I wonder if the increased pressue from the likes of HMV entering the used market over here will have the effect of pushing trade-in prices up, resulting in a better deal for us gamers? Don't bet on it though.

Gotta say, I like buying my games new. Nothing quite like that 'new game smell', or the satisfaction of tearing off the plastic and finding the Xbox Live Gold trial within. Hawx comes out tomorrow, will have to pop down and pick up a copy, although I can guarantee that will set back the start of me playing Halo Wars for at least a week.

In addition to completing Racedriver: GRID over the past 2 days (while I moaned about the lack of splitscreen in my last blog, the single player is superb and well worth a look) I've also been reading 'Videogame Marketing and PR: Vol 1' by Scott Steinberg. It provides a great look into the marketing side of the industry, as well as a lot of background knoweldge on other issues surrounding the PR side of things. Has certainly helped give me a better perspective on where I'm aiming, would definately recommend it to others in a similar situation.

Need some time to write an article on online gaming for Concrete, so am cutting this a bit short. After getting my butt handed to me on Halo 3 over the past couple of hours I'm sure to find it a struggle to recommend such a soul-crushing activity to anyone!

The death of split-screen.

2009-03-04T01:02:00.004Z

I've just discovered Racedriver:Grid (which Ive been playing recently) doesnt have a split-screen mode. It supports up to 12 players via system link, and up to 12 players online, but no split screen. At all. Nadda.

What the Hell Codemasters? I have fond memories of the Toca Touring Cars franchise on the Playstation, some of the best moments in that game were played via split-screen. How on Earth has this feature been overlooked? Which the supposed power of these next-gen consoles, how is it that such a basic feature has been overlooked?

It's not just Grid either. The latest Call of Duty game was downgraded to a mere 2 player split screen on the Xbox360 console from 4 player contained within COD4. It follows a string of titles where split-screen has either been stripped down or stripped out entirely, notable exceptions including the Halo series (and Bungie deserve a serious amount of praise for putting so much effort into the multiplayer side of their games).

I suppose the real reason behind all this is the near-fanatic obsession with online gaming these days. Microsoft, by forcing all Xbox360 developers to use Xbox Live in some way shape or form, has helped the videogame market evolve beyond the need for split-screen, why travel all the way to your mate's house to play on half a screen, squinting to see the ammo counter, when you can simply hook up to the internet and enjoy games together in all their full screen glory?

Still...I can't help feeling gaming has lost something since those blissful days whiling away the hours on 4-player Goldeneye attempting to slap each other to death in a 5 frames-per-second chugfest.

Or maybe not.

First'd! Oh wait....

2009-03-03T16:49:00.003Z

Hi there, and welcome to 'Server at Capacity'. Since I'm a complete newbie to blog writing, I'll make advanced apologies for...well...pretty much everything that ends up on here! To cut a rather long and boring story short, I decided to create this blog so that I can post my thoughts and feelings on the stuff that matters to me as a gamer, whether it be reviews of the latest titles to drop into my lap, or just random news and events that could be of interest. I can also guarantee that some of my random general thoughts will end up on here as well!

As for myself as a gamer, well I'm a long time commentator on popular websites such as on kotaku and Gamepolitics and I also write reviews for Concrete, the UEA student newspaper. I also have an Xbox Live account and can be found on most days either playing with my mates or just collecting gamerscore. I play a lot of First Person Shooters, but am open to all genres of games (except Beat 'em Ups, where is the fun in taking weeks to master a game only to be beaten by a 7 year old mashing the buttons?!).

So once again, welcome to the blog. I hope the updates of this humble gamer are of interest to you, and I hope you'll take the time to comment and make your opinions known!