A Gaming Diary
360
Elder Scrolls: Oblivion
Mar 22nd
It is a glorious day.
I got out of bed at 5:15am. By 6:00am Oblivion had been installed on my PC.
(I’d downloaded overnight. I have two copies arriving some time this week, one PC, one 360, so I don’t feel guilty about downloading it a day or two early. I had to install some software called Daemon Tools to run it. I hope it’s not going to do anything nasty to my PC. I don’t know much about downloading games and that. I was so worried I actually deleted all the personal information – e.g. Firefox passwords – off my PC before running anything.)
I played it for just over an hour, through the helpful tutorial section (that will no doubt get annoying when starting new characters) and out the other side. On my PC it looks great. Once out in the world I died, a lot. I only had about ten minutes out there and about five deaths. It’s no less harsh than Morrowind in that respect. Do stupid stuff, you die. And I did a lot of stupid stuff, just to test things out. In fact, everything about it is very Morrowind. The combat system’s been changed a bit, the interface has been mucked about with, but it feels just like Morrowind to me. I didn’t, however, see any enemy health bars. Hopefully I just didn’t notice them because I was gawping at the graphics. If they’re not there then I may cry.
Anyway, I had to leave for work, but it’s a lovely sunny day and I read great interviews with Peter Ackroyd and the Pet Shop Boys on the bus and after all the anticipation and build up to Oblivion I now feel sated. Itching to leave work, go home and plunge back in, but at a manageable level. The wait to play it at all was sending me slightly crazy, I must admit.
Now I’m okay. I’m fine. It reminds me of when I used to be a hardcore smoker and lit up a fag after an enforced period without.
And I’m rubbish at sneaking.
Feeding Frenzy
Mar 20th
Unlocked full game.
Started a New Game.
One sitting later, had completed the game.
Oh.
Time Attack’s where it’s at, they say, and I suppose the main game can be replayed for high scores but… oh.
The Outfit
Mar 20th
Couple more single player levels down. It’s good fun, though the seige at the end of the last level went on a bit too long. Or there was too long between waves, anyway. I wasn’t in any danger, given that I’d set up $hlmun gun emplacements around the place I was meant to be defending.
Burnout Revenge Demo
Mar 20th
Downloaded it from Live Marketplace. Has saved me some cash. I just can’t play it. It’s too fast for me. I crash into things I haven’t even seen.
Burnout was decent. Burnout 2 was great. Burnout 3 started well, but got silly and had a horrible interface. Burnout Revenge just doesn’t seem very good.
Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter
Mar 18th
Excellent.
Finally completed the first co-op campaign mission. Two of us finally managed to do it without dying and unlocked the achievement. It didn’t seem that hard when we finally did it, which was odd as it took us ages. The trick in the end was to split up, so we could come at the enemy from different angles. Very tense stuff. And very, very good stuff, even if some of the advanced features of the singleplayer game aren’t present.
The Outfit
Mar 18th
No, I’m really rubbish at this.
I can’t seem to win at all. Or even come close.
But my rank is currently 1337, which is excellent. And also means that not many people are playing this online.
The Outfit
Mar 18th
Well, I’ve got the full version now.
Single player seems okay. Nothing inspiring in the first couple of missions, but it’s quite good fun.
Really got it for the multiplayer, though. So I’ve tried it online. First four matches I tried to play all ended in immediate disconnections after loading. They were all against the same player. As soon as I got matched with somebody else everything was fine.
Except I seem to be rubbish. I was good the demo, but I guess I was playing against people who didn’t know what they were doing. Everybody online with the full game does know what they’re doing. And they’re better than me. Mainly, it seems, because they know how to do two things I don’t.
1) Do a melee attack.
2) Destroy any gun emplacements I build within seconds of them being built.
Number one can probably be sorted out by me opening the manual. Number two might take some doing. First I need to work out how they’re destroying my guns so quickly and then I’ve got to do it myself.
Xbox 360
Mar 16th
There’s a new game on Live Arcade called Feeding Frenzy. You steer a fish around eating small fish and avoiding big ones. Seems okay, actually. I played through a couple of times. Would have bought for 400 points, but 800 seems a little much.
Then I flicked between Morrowind (see previous post) and Crystal Quest all evening. I beat my previous best score. And James’s best score. I am once again king.
Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter
Mar 15th
Single player completed!
Overall, that was a most excellent game. Really, really excellent. A few difficulty spikes and the odd mission objective bug, but nothing too bad. Just one of those games that feels right.
Overall it took me 13 hours and 18 minutes, which seems to be a fair amount of time longer than most people.
Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter
Mar 14th
Encountered my first proper bug today. After dying my objective didn’t appear when I respawned, so I had to restart the mission I was on. Ah well, I was only one checkpoint in. And it was an excellent mission, so no real harm done.
