def post(content,autor):

Apologies to our regular readers, i’m as guilty of neglecting the blog as Mark recently. I’ve been lapping up my new functioning and reasonably high speed internet connection, amongst other things.

I guess I should talk about The Burning Crusade, but I don’t want to review it so this is actually quite a tough thing to get going. I’ve got a level 22 Blood Elf Paladin and my Shaman main is up to 62 and it has renewed my interest in WoW. Honestly, i’ve seriously considered ditching it many a time, I even cancelled my subscription once … I resubscribed two hours later though.

The Blood Elves in general are spectacular, I was cautious initially – they simply don’t look Horde’y – but their lore was both intresting and sound (bar the Forsaken Blood Elf reasoning). Their zone is absolutely incredible though, its so vibrant and alive. For too long have I plodded through dark and dreary zones, one after the other, killing the same creature – albeit a different size. Silvermoon City is a prime example, the structure their current leader resides in has foundations of air, thats right – it levitates, this massive ellaborate structure is just floating … it sums up the nature of the Blood Elves perfectly.

Outland however is a different matter … Blizzard certainly made sure of a few things;

• There is never a shortage of things to kill
• Even if you kill everything, it’ll respawn nearly instantaneously
• Everything is Much Bigger than you.
• You don’t spend too long looking at the scenery.

Its that last one i’m a bit peeved about, Outland is a giant cross between Silithis and the Barrens, speaking landscape wise. Its largely uninpsiring and totally … expected really. The devil is in the detail though. Its the sort of place you should read the quest text for once, because you’re probably doing something important.

For Example, Mark and I were questing together, we did a quest that made us friendly with a tribe of local orcs. I did it, and moved on. Mark highlights how ‘cool’ these particular orcs are, and I WoW-Wiki them. Oh, they aren’t just ANY orcs, these orcs were left behind and have survived on their own after all these years of isolation. An amazing feat if you compare them to the rest of the deformed monsters of Outland.

Thats quite enough about WoW for now, needless to say, I’m pleased with TBC. I think Blizzard might break 10,000,000 Subscribers by 2010 … Hell, at this rate maybe even 2008/9.

Another purchase of mine recently was the first season of “Over There” a Fox Show about the War in Iraq from the perspective of US Soldiers. Sounds gay right? Its incredible, easily a 9/10, it only looses a point because sometimes it drags a bit, but every new plot turn is as brilliant as the last. Seriously, go buy it, £15 on Play.com I believe.

An even bigger bargain than that was my purchase of the Prince of Persia Trilogy for the whoppng amount £12. Again, Play.com saves the day! I never really enjoyed it to be honest, but I figured – 3 Highly Rated PS2 Games for £12? No going wrong really, and I have very much enjoyed the 35% of Prince of Persia I i’ve completed. Although the Camera can REALLY be a bitch sometimes.

As part of my uncontrollable spending spree I bought more WoW Trading Cards … but thats all I intend to buy in the near future. I don’t know why I enjoy it so much, but I do.

[Trading Card Set]
Unqiue(10)
Anyone in possesion of a set will suffer a penalty of -10 Popularity and -45 Sex Appeal for every set you own.

Oh and, I suppose it’d only be polite to plug Elemental Temple since they’ve been suffering from a lapse in activity. Should someone accidentally read this blog, do swing by their Site & Forums.

Anyway,
Have a nice one chaps.

Dead Rising – Why yes, Zombie Cows make perfect sense

His name is Frank West, he’s a Ninja with a Camera and this is his story.

I will be honest with you, I toot the Microsoft horn, I am the advocate of the 360, but yet I never play it. Since the Hindenberg’esque fall from grace of Oblivion [1, 2]I just lost faith I lost faith in the institution and returned to my roots in PC gaming.

But I decided enough was enough and I took the recommendation of Mark and bought Dead Rising, one of several recent Capcom releases on the 360. Capcom of course have a long standing history within the annals of video gaming and this is not their first Zombie game, with the hugely popular Resident Evil under their belt. With all this, how did Dead Rising live up to its heritage?

Well let me first say comparing Dead Rising to Resident Evil is like comparing a 360 to a Wii[1], the principle is the same; “A Game with the purpose of entertaining, featuring Zombies”, but they are fundamentally different when you get down to it.

Whereas Resident Evil very much a Survival Horror, Dead Rising places particular emphasis on the survival and less on the horror. These Zombies just don’t scare me really, even with their glowing eyes, but to be honest – Resident Evil never really scared nor intimidated me. (I played a multitude of other games for that)

How about I compare Dead Rising to Dawn of the Dead? The cover begs me not to for copyright reasons, but really, who are they fooling? I can understand why though, Zombies in a Shopping Mall … But if Romero did not want to be associated, he needn’t have said anything. The jump from Dawn of the Dead to Dead Rising is tremendous, the styles simply don’t match. I don’t want to call Dead Rising a parody; really to me it seems to be a product of adoration.

*Spoilers*

Lets talk about plot for a moment, if you have yet to play it through and intend to, don’t read this section. Whilst the background ideas make sense and are perfectly plausible, the leap from Cattle Breeding to Zombification (the game likes to use that word) via a parasite spread by wasps.

I’ll ask the question; Sorry, did my brain leak out my ear when you tried to tell me the real plot and my brain pasted together one from fragments of a nightmarish past life?

I understand how eating + breeding would benefit the cattle trade … and I also understand how it could affect humans. But if that were the only effect of the new drug, would we not have 28 Days Later style Zombies? The Game seems to depict otherwise perfectly healthy humans turning into Zombies, does this mean the Zombies are alive or dead? If they are dead – which the decomposed nature of the zombies insinuates – why would anyone buy Zombie Cattle meat? … Since it is essentially diseased/decomposed flesh.

This game is Art Deco. It’s clever and stylish in a way that many people might just ignore it, but the harder you look – the more you see. Take the Chrysler building, a fantastic structure, I should imagine quite a sight, but amongst the sky-scrapers of today it blends in to the gray. But yet, when highlighted, it is absolutely marvelous. It is this kind of charm Dead Rising carries. I’ve ran the mall’s circuit maybe 100 times already and I have glazed over it like many do, but it’s so elaborately complex and detailed that you could genuinely believe this was a mall, somewhere, dealing exclusively in death.

I’d say elaborate was a good word for Dead Rising, it implies detailed, but almost too much so. For example, there are as many items you can place on – or over – a zombie as there are altogether in Half Life 2. (Read buckets, cones, paintings, etc) The sheer amount of time they must have spent creating silly features, they might have tried a little harder on the plot, or one of several pitfalls that Dead Rising suffers from.

That said, I did rather enjoy the missions, it’s just that the “Background” was really shabby. I think that in the average play through of the regular 72-Hour mode; someone will manage 50% of the tasks available, assuming they at least try to prioritize the key missions. It’s not an overly challenging game once you figure out the ‘tricks’ but the real challenge comes oddly enough in your time management skills. Completing all the tasks and saving all (or nearly so) the survivors is a tremendous feat.

Once you’ve churned through the main mode, got your 54,000 kills and reached level 50, what else does this game have to offer? Well the incorrectly named infinite mode is yet another challenge to conquer. I say incorrectly named, because really it’s not infinite. A more apt name would be Survival Mode, after all that is the real challenge.

I must detail one of the flaws though, I am not going to complain about the copious number of escort missions as I understand the purpose, but the AI controlling the survivors that follow – or don’t as it may be – is atrocious. And since it’s integral to the completion of the game and the biggest aspects of it, I feel somewhat let down.

There is a lot to say about Dead Rising and I’m not nearly concise enough a jour … writ … bloke to manage it without rambling on too long, so I will cut it short (it doesn’t seem short) here.

Dead Rising is an achievement, it invigorated me Passion for my 360, Passion I haven’t felt since it was released. This game is a gem and one that everyone could and should own. Yeah sure, it’s a bit gimmicky and it does have its flaws, but there is enough substance to make it worth owning. I’m well on my way to the Genocide achievement as I write (17,000 kills down with only 10 hours’ish spent) and once I reach level 50 and get my Mega-buster I intend to hit “Survival” Mode. I’ll tell you how it goes.

I say: “2 Parts Violence, 1 Part Cheese.”
It’s: Excessive > Pure Capcom
It’s Not: Dawn of the Dead > Endless > Perfect
One Word: Reanimated.

Score 89%

Part Two

a Couple of things, sorry for the half-done last post, thats what this is for.

So I completed the story of Bully, and I must say – its actually one of my favourite Rockstar Games.

Have you ever played a game and thought “I bet they had a lot of fun making this”, well Bully really is like that, and after making the Grand Theft Auto series, I imagine it was a refreshing change.

Well I don’t really know what to say, it has all the charm of a Rockstar Production but with a bit more home truth in there, really every school is like Bullworth Academy. Its great fun and has stacks to do, if you own it – find the secret pirate.

Score 92%

Also, it’ll be the last time I mention it but my map has a download link on a proper website now.

Cheers

Cans Canines Edicts

So yet another week passes with no realiable internet, since XMas i’ve ordered myself a few treats being the newest Splinter Cell and Bully, as well as Dead Rising which has yet to arrive.

So I figure i’d share my opinions briefly.

Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell Double Agent

Its a reliable iteration of this popular series, which has been slightly morphed to be appealing to the massses, by which I mean its more violent. The stealth-only areas are few and far between, and not altogether that bad.

The gadgets are all there, and put to fairly good use, but things like “Finger Print Scanner” seem utterly pointless … Whereas the electrical vision is great fun, its useless but for two things, identifying cameras, Turrets and bombs, and defusing bombs.

*Switches to Electrical Vision*
*Identifies live wire*
*Switches to Night Vision*
*Cuts live wire*

It seems obvious, but its charming and clever as usually its just *Selects defuse option*.

The Choose-Your-Own-Path thing is predictably limited, but I shall play it through again to see if it makes any difference.

Score: 87%

Urg, I suddenly ran out of steam … Wait for another post about Bully.

James.