Play Delayed : Episode 2 - 3

Welcome readers to the Play Delayed blog episode 2 - 3, I am posting this one on time I think... I have a good few games to cover and 2 O.S.S. reports to get through as well. So, before this blog becomes late like the others - here we go...

Old School Sunday : 4 / 09 / 2011

Myself and Player 2 did it again and had some new retro games to try out as well. I started the night off with some Rollcage - Stage 2. I only recently got the a copy of the first Rollcage only 2 - 3 weeks before... So, like the first game, this one really shows its age on the graphics side of things, looking pretty bad compared to the latest HD graphics of today, but luckily the game play still holds up and is still fun. We were trying to set up a race with computer opponents to make up the numbers but we were unable to get this set up. Instead we raced (or battled) each other. The track we played reminded me of a Mario Kart style track, like a half pipe set up. The weapons that feature in the game are pretty cool, there was (in particular) a teleport weapon that brings you to the front of the race and Player 2 activated this by mistake right at the end to beat me over the finish line. There is as well the usual homing missile, shields and some other power ups as well, but we did not play for too long...

That night we wasted a lot of time setting up music and on top of that my internet was not great that night. Eventually we got it fixed but by then it was time for pizza. The pizza was nice and all but I just felt that they put too much sauce on the base, making it a little messy, but it hit the spot all the same! The designated pizza video was WWF Summerslam 98, we went through a few matches off the vhs, mainly the ladder match between The Rock and HHH for the IC Title and the Undertaker vs Stone Cold for the WWF belt - both of which are fantastic wrestling matches!

After the pizza break I thought it would be cool to try out some of my new xbox classic games and Dead or Alive 3 was on top of the pile... The Dead or Alive series is a fighting game that I am not too familiar with, I have (I think its the... ) 4th game in the series on Xbox 360 and dabbled in it a little bit but never really returned to it. So, even with this limited experience, going in to Dead or Alive 3, everything was brand new to us... Its a beat em up game first and foremost, its in a 3D space and you can jump and side step to dodge or set up attacks, but you are fighting in a confined space and you can use the walls on the outside of the environment to your advantage, for example, one of the stages we played in was like a make shift MMA cage but the fence its self was electrified and when a character hits it, it explodes on impact causing more damage. When I initially started playing I thought it was going to play a bit like Tekken, but it is similar to Tekken only in character movement, the move sets of some of the characters are a little strange (or at least I thought). I want to revisit this game soon but because I am more of a fan of the Tekken series, I think it will take me a while to get used to.

After playing a game that I was expecting to be like Tekken (but was not), I felt the need to play some Tekken instead to get the bad taste out of my mouth (think drinking apple juice but you want it to be orange juice and you taste buds are expecting orange but then you get that nasty shock...). Tekken 6 was a nice return to the familiar, we just did the usual - some 8 on 8 team battles! That night we also played some LittleBigPlanet : Pirates of the Caribbean DLC through LittleBigPlanet 2. I found that to be quite enjoyable navigating through the levels and actually finishing a few of them off for a change. The special thing about this DLC is the inclusion of water to the LBP toolset, materials float on it, it negates any fire and sackboy can swim in it and much like the Sonic the Hedgehog "Labyrinth Zones" of days past - there are air bubbles and a timer for the under water action! I had played these levels before (whilst drunk) with another friend and we were having difficulties navigating the levels with the addition of water - it can be a little difficult to go from the foreground to the background when underwater in the game and this caused use to just give up trying for a few weeks... But with Player 2 we got through the part I was stuck on and one or two levels after this! I have also been quite impressed with how the user created levels have used the water tool in the created levels as well! And that was about all we played that night, we called it a night at about 00:20am as I had to be up for work a few hours later...

What have I been playing:

As I mentioned in the OSS report, we played Littlebigplanet. In the week leading up to that Sunday, I had been chipping away at the story mode of littlebigplanet 2. I had finished it before on my other ps3 but could only get the LBP1 items across when transferring the saved games... Playing it all again was a bit of a pain but I enjoy LBP so it wasn't too bad! So I got passed the Negativitron once again but still have a long way to go before I have all of the prize bubbles and levels aced!

I think the thing that impressed me the most about LBP 2 was the side scrolling and isometric shooter levels, It was a neat little trick the way you are fooled in to thinking that you are playing from an isometric view point! Back to the beat em ups now and I was recently over at a friend's apartment and there were a few of us there playing Super Street Fighter 4 Turbo, which for the most part I was getting my ass handed to me. I only know a few characters and their moves and combos but there is still a lot that I have to learn. I would like to be able to play as characters like Guile and Ibuki and some of the more obscure guys as well, I definitely need my practice in that game and the beat downs I got really that night hammered this home to me. Back home on my own consoles I have been taking a different avenue as regards to my gaming. With LBP2 cleared again I decided to stay on the ps3 for the most part. I downloaded Street Fighter 3 Online:Third Strike off the PSN, I don't know why but I got a little bit excited about this in the build up to this and downloaded it on release day, but I'm still not sure where this excitement came from... I never played Street Fighter 3 before and as a result of this there were a lot of new characters on the line up, a good percentage of this from Brazil too - they even have a capoeirista there (Elena)... I have only jumped in and out of this game but it looks cool and very retro - I will be returning to this one soon.

I have also been playing Red Faction:Armageddon again. I have hit 50% completion on the story at this stage and have been involved in some frantic fire fights. With every game there are a set amount of enemy types and this is usually not a huge number, RF:Armagedon is no different but I felt that it was very good in introducing the newer enemies in thus keeping a nice running pace to the game. I felt a few times that after I had taken down hoards of smaller enemies and then the general foot soldier enemy, after these battles I would kinda feel like hot shit until all of a sudden, some huge creature would come rushing at me or a cut scene would play and I would get a new enemy with some strange mechanic that I would have to figure out... It's good for the most part of what I have played at throwing these curve balls at you! The latest monster to appear to cause me trouble was the "tentacle", this monster can pick up bits of debris and fling it at you, meaning you have to dodge out of the way or get in to cover, some of the bulkier enemies prior to this one appearing did not cause me too much trouble, perhaps if they appeared in a different game they would have made more of an impact and caused me more hassle..?

On the retro front, I am still chipping away at Final Fantasy VIII, having just gone into the garden war between Galbadia and Balamb, all the pressure has been put on Squall to lead everyone onwards. There was also the part where the characters realized that they all grew up together and are thinking that their use of the Guardian Forces in battle could be responsible for their memory loss... Speaking of which, I picked up another one since last writing to this blog - Pandemonia, a wind element GF. Although I have progressed a bit through the story, most of my time spent with the game was on building up my characters, in particular my Selfie character who I let fall behind a bit but now she is almost up there with the rest, also I am trying to collect more magic to junction. I am now at the stage where I am drawing level 3 elemental magic having also recently now had the chance to draw support spells like haste, regen and bio - which I think are cool for mixing things up a bit!

hmm... I was thinking when I was writing up this next part that I buckled under pressure, but I guess it was only a matter of time - I splashed out on a brand new psp (with working UMD drive - I can now get back in to my 40+ psp titles on disc!) and then 3 days later I picked up a 3DS and am now happy to report that I have re-entered the world of portable gaming once again! I was sick with mild food poisoning for a few days and as a result I did not go out socializing at the weekend for almost 2 weekends in a row, leaving me with some money to play with (that I probably should have saved...!). So I picked up the 2 handhelds, both black in colour. With the 3DS I got Ghost Recon:Shadow Wars as part of the deal, set up a profile and completed a few levels. I have to say, from what I have played, I really like it! Its a turn based action game played on a grid, set in the Ghost Recon Universe (if such a universe exists?!). At the start of each mission you have to "gear up" for your team for battle, At this time, I have only played as a sniper, a heavy assault character and a medic. The more you play, the more experience points you unlock with grants you access to new weapons and other "perks" to use on the battle grids. This game reminds me of games like Metal Gear Acid (minus the cards) on PSP and Onimusha Tactics on GBA, games which I look back on with great fondness... I will continue to chip away at this in time and keep you posted on my progress...

As for the 3DS itself, It looks great and has a nice set of screens, 2 cameras on the back :and one on the front) and it's not too bulky. I never owned a DS or any of the follow up offerings, instead I opted to sit that generation of handheld out, but still picking up the odd game to come back to at a later date. It also has something with it called "AR games" (Augmented Reality?) which I have yet to try out land a function for the Nintendo "Mii" characters. My only complaint with it was that I thought that it was going to be bigger, I think I mixed it up with the DSi XL, but I was not disappointed - this was only a small complaint. One thing that really impressed me was that it came with a 2gb SD card inside it straight out of the box - which I thought was very generous - I had to buy a separate memory card when I got my psps... I like this ready to play, straight out of the box style selling, I think back to being a kid and getting something similar for Christmas but something important would be forgotten (my parents were always savvy to this and we always had batteries on Christmas day for my gameboys or even my gamecom) but you would always hear these stories of kids who were not so lucky... So for the out of the box package I am impressed.

On top of Ghost Recon on 3DS I also picked up a copy of Super Street Fighter 4 Turbo 3D and Ridge Racer 3D as well...

I have jumped in and out of Ridge Racer 3D quite a bit, I may be wrong but it looked like it has tracks from Ridge Racer 7 on PS3, which I like as I am still getting to know the tracks. I think I have gotten quite good at these games and when I player 2 and some other friends over I have enjoyed (and often won) many split screen races. On the 3Ds I am still enjoying the game (note: on all my 3DS games I always play with the 3D slider down - 3D off). It is a cool game, but I felt that it makes too much of a big deal out of itself, or in the press, in some magazines they went nuts as some 3DS titles around launch were not so hot. But if I had to pick a Ridge Racer portable I would have to go for my PSP Ridge Racer. It still looks great and I have played it a lot more as well. The 3DS game is still cool but I much prefer the PSP version... Street Fighter 4 Turbo 3DS wraps up my 3DS purchases. What I will say first of all is that the overall look is great, a very good port of a great game (is it a port?), the only thing I have against it is the easy combo system. What the fuck!? I have not played this version online yet but I think that after taking the time to learn some of the characters and their moves (and combos) that someone on the other end just poking the touch screen with ease to get combos and special going while I imput commands with the button combinations like a fool... I will probably never play this version online and perhaps I have taken the combo system up wrong? But the user accessibility from the get go did not sit well with me. I will give a better and more accurate report when I play it some more...

OSS Report - 18 September 2011:

This was going to be a special Old School Sunday, I knew this because I had no work the next day. We had as a result, pre planned to watch WWE : Night Of Champions live later on in the night. I had not seen a live wrestling event on ppv for a long time so naturally I was quite excited about this! (My only worry was that there was a chance that the event could end up being shit... But I will get to this later.)

Before Player 2 got here I had downloaded a few demos off the PSN Store. Bloodrayne Betrayal, Galaga DX and Warhammer 40,000 : Kill Team and thought it would be cool to try them out to kick off the night... We started by each taking turns with Galaga DX, I thought the strobe graphics epilepsy warning at the start was cool - when I see this I know I am in for a good time. And well, it is very colourful... And very strobey as well. There are lots of enemies on screen at once, it gets quite frantic and on top of all that there’s a fast dance music track playing in the back round which doesn't help matters! There’s usually a string of enemies with a larger enemy at the head leading the smaller ones in an almost "worm like" formation, but take out the leader and every one of them blow up. One thing later on in the demo that I liked was that after I took out a lot of Galaga, some of them joined my side and acted like a weapon power up, boosting my attack power. I liked this game, I liked it so much that I upgraded from the trial to the full version a few days later, the music in game is also worth mentioning, very dancey, it suits the game a lot. I will be returning to this one very soon. After we both had shots at that (and were both left impressed) we wet in to some Warhammer 40K : Kill Team. I did not check the preview (not even sure if there was one...?) nor did I watch any videos online but I am a long time Warhammer fan and thought that this would be cool to play. So with that said we fired it up and the first thing that went through my head was that this game is a lot like Dead Nation, a PSN game that myself and Player 2 have a fair bit of experience with, only with a not so cool Warhammer skin thrown on... Now it is not exactly like Dead Nation, like weapon power ups and character perks, there are also character classes and you can beef up that classes arsenal the more you play on it would seem from our quick look with it. After about 10 minutes of playing this, I decided that this one wasn't for me, it played ok but I was getting bored of it quickly, plus, there were a few design things that annoyed me at the start that stuck with me through out the play, it was the vats of acid in the Ork factory, they liquid is green, but it looks very cheap, it just annoyed me and ended up ruining my experience with the game. The game itself is still pretty playable however and if you are a fan of the Warhammer universe then you will probably get a few hours of pleasure from this one. For fans of the miniature war game I would definitely recommend that you at least try the trial out, I think Player 2 liked the game and thought that I should pick it up, but we are not finished Dead Nation yet and I am not a big fan of this game, not enough to buy it... Actually, I would like to finish Dead Nation co op soon, just to wrap it all up.

This brought us up to Pizza time and you know what that means... That’s Right! Wrestling tapes!!!

Actually, we watched a dvd this time around, the main event from WWE: Backlash 2006, which was a triple threat match for the WWE Championship between Triple H, John Cena and Edge - One of the better matches of that year... HHH got very badly busted open during the match, which added to the dramatics of the whole affair and ultimately at the same time affected his performance - best example being when he gave Lita the "Anderson Spine Buster" and nearly impaled her on the leg of the chair - she was very lucky..! A brilliant match and one I have gone back to on many occasions, with fantastic back and forth action a 'blink or you'll miss it' end with Cena getting the quick pin. Then even after all that, HHH goes nuts with the sledge hammer on everyone then doing the 'DX - Suck It' taunt, possibly to signal what was coming (back) later on that year...

When we returned we switched on OSS favorite Super Puzzle Fighter 2 Turbo HD Remix and after a couple of rounds I educated Player 2 in the hazards of playing as Dan... Dan, playing as Dan will get you fucked up! His special move involves many red blocks falling down on your opponents screen. If you opponent has a crystal and only half the screen filled up, you will lose when they get a red destruction orb. I lost a few rounds teaching this lesson, but I actually managed to win a few with Dan as well (much to my surprise... ) After this we were at a bit of a loss over what to play next and it was then that I saw something on my pile of games that we had never played before and I think unlike Player 2 had ever played ever - Sengoku Basara:Samurai Heroes on PS3!

I had played this once or twice by myself, its one of those button bashing, kill hundreds of enemy soldiers in one go, Dynasty Warriors or Chaos Legion-esque games that lack variety but is great for killing time in small doses. And this game, like many others in it's genre is very repetitive, you feel this almost right away, the level layout is nothing special but at least in some give you multiple paths to go to get to the end goal and is not without it's flaws... but I actually like this game, although the character voice work is pretty shite, the character design is pretty cool, something which I always look at when I am playing a video game. We finished the first stage split screen but had problems with the second battle. There is a sub boss through out the level that you have to take out - he is armed with dual chainsaws and comes out of nowhere and the only way to do massive damage is to lead him through gate traps in the levels, there are 3 of them on the way to the final boss of the stage but then you meet him with his last bit of energy and he can only be really damaged with your super moves, but you have the boss firing rockets at you at the same time and the usual amount of cannon fodder enemies coming at you as well! Difficult stuff as I still do not know how the game really works yet but I want to learn and I want to see the other characters in it as well! It was most definitely something different and when you look back over the games we played (and see a lot coming up as well), change is good! After our time with this, we switched the system off and headed over to Player 2's place to watch WWE Night of Champions 2011 live...

As I said earlier, I was really worried that this was going to be a shit Pay Per View, every WWE PPV has the potential to suck but I am happy to report that this one was actually enjoyable, even the Diva tag match was cool. I have to say that I am a fan of Natalya and Beth Phoneix. What was so cool that about this match was that they were in Beth Phoneix's hometown and as a result, Kelly Kelly got massively booed when she made her way to the ring - the crowd firmly behind their hometown hero! I don't think I have ever seen Kelly Kelly get booed before and I'm not sure if she was able for it, the look on her face suggested this... I think she learnt a new lesson in her pro wrestling book. Other highlights worth mentioning were the John Cena vs Alberto Del Rio WWE Championship, this match because at the time it came on, myself and Player 2 were a bit drunk and we started to do Ricardo Rodriguez impersonations all through out the match and announcing everyone's name in that fashion and putting 'Del Rio' after their name (for example - John Cena Del RIO), it was also a really cool match! Mark Henry and Randy Orton had a good match, but I did not like the way they portrayed him out to be as powerful and unstoppable, to the point that Randy Orton could not break his vertical base and land the RKO on him. Does anyone remember the Survivor Series match a few year ago when Randy Orton eliminating Mark Henry first in the match with an RKO... But I have to say that it was refreshing to see Mark Henry win the strap, good for him! And then there was the last match, HHH vs C.M. Punk closing out the event. This was a great match with what I can only call some crazy outside interference towards the end. Kevin Nash playing his part as expected and the Miz and R-Truth also showing their faces. I really enjoyed this match and was expecting Punk to win this one as it seemed like someone was going out of their way to get HHH out of his new role but oddly enough (for me anyway) he managed to pin Punk and hold on to his position... The PPV as a whole was very enjoyable and myself and Player 2 are still doing Ricardo Rodriguez impersonations when we meet up and I forgot to mention, I was singing HHH's entrance song all night and then a couple of days later I had to get the song, jut to have it on my mp3 player! So that about does it for the Old School Sunday reports for September, I'm going to wrap this (out of control) blog with my portable gaming update...

So, I did a little bit more Final Fantasy 8, I have reached the stage where Squall and his crew infiltrate the floating Galbadia garden, I am currently running around the maze that is this "garden" and have just reached the second student who gives me a key card to unlock the doors. Squall is running around looking for Seifer to challenge him once again and the entire crew have all remembered their childhood, but running around looking for those 3 students is annoying me a bit, I remember that it pissed me off 10 years ago and now it is doing it again... I have to say though that it is nice to make progress in this game and I think I will be going to the guide book to look up some of the cool hidden things and weapon upgrades, just to get the most out of the game as I don’t think I will be going back to this game when I clear it, I have way to many other handheld RPG games to get through, I am also half thinking about putting it down for a while and getting back in to Breath of Fire 3 to chip away at that a little bit, I'm not sure...

Just to completely wrap up, I am back watching Mad Men and the last 2 episodes I watched were really cool. Don had to sign a contract and the British accounts guy getting his foot destroyed in a drunken lawnmower accident! And news just in - I just finished Gears of War 3's main campaign mode but I will save the report for the next blog! Thanks for reading - looking for the next one real soon...

Play Delayed : Episode 2 - 2

Old School Sunday 24/07/2011

All day I had been playing Marvel vs Capcom 2 it seemed, I was playing with a friend online when I woke up, the matches were going in my favor towards the end and I had developed a bit of a winning streak! Then, when player 2 came over (it was a little bit earlier than normal) we played some more of it. But this time we played on xbox classic and it did not work out too well for me this time. Fist of all, the XBLA version comes with all the characters unlocked right out of the gate, so when I switched on the original I found that I was without Juggernaut as my back up character - some background : I like to have juggernaut as support, when I tag him in for moves he rushes across the screen and freight train's who ever gets in his way! I'm not sure if this is the best way to play but I like to have a fast, attacking character, like Venom and maybe another fast character or a projectile character, like Jill Valentine from Resident Evil and then have a slower but more powerful character to back me up. I have a few choices with this game, but I don't really like the Hulk's moves too much but when I was playing the xbox classic version I didn't have much choice but to go with him. I usually select the normal mode as well but I think player 2 selected the "simple" game mode (which may make the combos easier?) and ended up getting destroyed, round after round... But it was not until I switched to MVC 3 that things started to pick up for me.

I think that this is only the third time since the game came out that I had played, I had been meaning to but never got the chance. Following on from the second game, MVC 3 introduces and even wackier mismatch of characters and a more comic book look overall, which I personally really like. Player 2 I think had selected "normal" settings this time, but I got my revenge for earlier on. I kept to the same formula for this game, fast attacker, projectile and a big guy at the back for assists but I should start to mix up my play styles and learn some new formations soon or else I will be figured out.

During our pizza break we watched the WWE No Mercy pay per view tape. Just flicking through the matches we finally settled on Stone Cold Steve Austin vs Rikishi in a no holds barred match, not titles on the line, just for revenge as it was during the story where it was discovered that Rikishi had run Stone Cold over with a car and put him out for months as a result. A brilliant match from a pretty good era in wrestling history.

During the course of the night, on top of all the beat em up gaming, we played some of Kane and Lynch 2, co-op'ing the first level just to show player 2 what it was like, I was quite curious to see how it played compared to the first one. I had read in the press that it was a bit better than the first game, which I really liked and was curious to see how the story went on. I had already played this level but my friend had not... So we started, player 2 getting to see the gruesome torture scene at the start, then we began the gameplay with the chase. Player 2, who was not used to the controls or the gameplay style got lost a few times during the scene but I was patient and went back to help him a few times when needed. We finally caught up with the guy (after going through a few gun fights and learning about the exploding gas cans) and got treated to more graphic violence that only a Kane and Lynch games can give you. There is a cool video mechanic going on through the game that looks like you have a camera man following you during the story documenting your adventure with certain scenes of graphic violence blurred out to give you like a news report / underground video feel to it. I'm looking forward to the rest of this game and this time around I might give the multiplayer a go (assuming people are still playing).

To finish out the night we had a few rounds of Tekken 6. I was extremely rusty at this game but still got a few wins in, I will definitely have to practice this one again as I have forgotten some of my favorite character's moves and need to revisit them. That was the conclusion of this Old School Sunday report, hopefully next time we will play more games and hopefully soon. I am thinking of putting together a light schedule sometime for these gaming nights just to get a few games covered a night and to not end up playing the same games all the time...

What Have I been Playing...

I started to write this blog almost straight after I posted the last one (note : I am actually working on my next one, this blog is just horribly delayed!!) and there were a few games that I decided not to include in my last blog, mainly because I did not finish any upon starting them. I have only really tried out games that I had either bought or downloaded. The first game on the list is Sonic Adventure 2 Battle on the Gamecube. I tried this one out almost straight away as it was a second hand copy and the disc was a bit scratched up, a friend who was with me at the time kept telling me that this was not going to work, but I put it in and the disc still ran and was working fine! What do I say about it...? Well, its a 3D sonic game, I have never played any of these properly and this one kinda portrays Sonic as a bit of an adrenaline junkie, with the game starting off with him dropping in off a chopper on a snowboard and have you playing a snowboarding style game through a city that is built on hills. What messes me up the most about this game though is the game controls, is it old school controls? I’m no sure about this, I got the same thing when I recently revisited the first Killzone game. It seems to me that they changed the control system for the latest generation of games but I am a little worried that I will encounter the same thing going back through all my PS2 games that I have stocked up on. To be honest I don't quite know what to make of this game, its like part platformer with race levels that can also be unlocked for multiplayer levels to prolong playability... I'm not sure about this either? I was never really big in to the Gamecube, we always had on in the house but I was more in to PS2, I kinda felt like I let a whole genre of game develope and pass me by but I was never really in to platform games, early on (as far back as playstation one) I felt that these games were to obviously repetitive and this annoyed me and as a result I stopped playing them, I am just try to get a wider variety of knowledge on gaming as a whole by playing them...

I purchased Bastion on XBLA recently. I heard the name on a podcast but I was not really listening much to what they had to say about it (I had just gotten of work and was heading to the bus stop) past the point where they said it was interesting and fun. So I remembered that I had spare points on the store floating around on my account and decided to pick the game up. So its a very cool game from the offset. It has a narrator who sounds like he came out of a dodgy western movie who narrates all your moves (including when you fall to your death) and a level mechanic that sees the terrain fall from the sky and build it's self as you run through it. I got to a point where I was heading off to the Bastion its self (what ever that is, I'm not sure? but will eventually find out). There seems to be quite a lot of weapons in the early stages of the game, it's kinda cool that you get to use them so early on and I was given a chance to find out which ones suit my style of play and get used to them all, with the game letting you hold 2 at a time. I am just a bit worried that they are giving you too much at the start of the game and later on there will be nothing new for you to discover past opening up the story. The whole feel of the game is a bit [Legend of Zelda] or at least the parts that I have seen and played. I am hoping that it will be an enjoyable experience but all I will say at this point is "so far so good"...

I mentioned Kane and Lynch 2 already, I guess I have played the first level twice at this stage now and have died twice at the start of the second level during the first gun fight. I have heard that this is a short game and I have a copy for both PS3 and for my PC steam account, I am hoping to finish it on both formats... One from the PS2 next [God Hand]. I was quite happy with myself when I found, I may have actually shouted to myself when I found it in the shop (I was very hung over that day). So I got home and tried it out and can say from my brief look that this game is very silly, silly in a way that a Japanese game can be. It's set in the wild west and your character that you play as thinks the enemies that you go through are "cute", the hero possesses the power of the "god hand" in his right hand. This means that when you piss him off (represented by a nerve meter), his had starts to glow and he can pummel enemies down with more punches that Mr. Smith gave Neo towards in the train station towards the end of the first Matrix movie, he also dispatches his foes with wrestling moves, which although is very silly in it's context, is still and feature that I like a lot! Again, this was only a quick look to see if the disc worked, I don't know how or why this guy has the power of the "god hand" but I want to play this game so expect a journal of sorts of my play through sometime in the future...

I'm actually finding it hard to remember everything I tried out, [Bujingai : Sword Master] on PS2 was another that I tried out to see if it worked, I picked it up recently for the second time (my first copy did not work and I only found out months after I bought it... This really pissed me off and made me want to play the game even more! (perhaps I will start naming and shaming shops that have screwed me out of my money... ) So I aqquired another copy... You play as a female warrior and it plays like an early version of [Bayonetta] from the looks of it, what I though was really cool was that you are thrown straight in to the gameplay before the intro to the game even comes, giving you a small taste of the game play before your character runs off across the roof tops... I never really went for these arcadey style third person action games, games like the [Devil May Cry] series for example, but because I liked the design of them, I still got them (I have almost all the games in the Devil May Cry series!). I will still try to play this but I don’t think my reaction times are sharp enough for them and eventually I get overwhelmed by all the enemies coming at me, or there is a series of ledge jumps and wall runs to be done that I just can't seem to nail, these things that eventually piss me off and cause me to stop playing...

A Saturday in mid July I was out at the seaside getting drunk and a friend got it in to his head that we go to an arcade before we go drinking. I was looking for a Tekken or Street Fighter coin up to go against my friend but all they seemed to have was sit in racing games or light gun games, as an arcade it was pretty shit, with more focus on the slot machines downstairs as you go in the front door. In this country, there never was a great arcade culture. You finds small amusement places at the seasides or the odd machine here or there in a bowling alley or pool hall, cinema or airport, they are not as popular here as in other countries but I would like to go around arcades here sometime and do like a video diary, anyway, on this Saturday in particular we both tried out the Terminator Salvation movie, this was not my first time playing this but I suck at it anyway, I think my friend got further than me in the short time our coins would allow us play. Based on the movie starring Christian Bale (of whom I am a big fan) you play as a marine on the front line taking on waves of exoskeletons with guns that come at you, there are the iconic exoskeletons from the movie franchise, who will either attack you from standing or crawl at you and try to take you out and there was also from what I briefly got to see and also a track driven style cyborg with missile launchers that will fire twin missiles at you that you have to shot at before they hit you and damage you. The light gun attached to this game is pretty sweet! it looks like an assault rifle with attached grenade launcher, with a trigger button, a red button on the end of the weapon on the left side and a clip that you can click in to reload your weapon quickly. This was definitely the draw factor to the machine! The game is very playable but I did not get far and there was not much else about the machine that compelled me to pour my euro coins in to it. My friend (who is a different friend to Player 2 from the Old School Sunday reports - yes, I have friends...) also had a shot at a House of the Dead machine, I think it was [House of the dead 4], it had Uzi type guns attached to it, but it was not very responsive and my friend got destroyed very quickly and he got quite pissed off and alcohol was needed to calm him down...

I think I'm going to stop typing now, I have another blog on the way, 2 [Old School Sunday] reports from August for you all and more new games as well, I still have not finished off [Quantum Theory] yet, I did try! But the fire fight I am stuck on is still giving my trouble! Look out for the next blog, thank you for reading!

Play Delayed : Episode 2 - 1

Welcome to the second play delayed blog, I am calling it episode 2 part 1 because I have a few games on
the go that I have to finish and want to talk about them soon but not until I have completed them, also, I have
also picked up a few games, a few that I am very excited about! But all will be revealed! I will start with the
last time my friend and I had an Old School Sunday - here is the report...

Old School Sunday - 3/07/2011

My friend and I resumed the old school sunday on sunday last, we did not have a lot of time and we didn't watch
any wrestling tapes during our pizza time. But we got some gaming in. We did Burnout Paradise, taking turns to
try and win races and actually got the 'B' licence in the process which was nice, also, a car came up along
side me while I was driving through a tunnel, it was one of the unlock cars and without thinking I rammed it
in to the wall for a spectacular take down! Going for the 'A' License I have notice that things have got a fair
bit harder. Maybe it was just the car I was using but it was not great for the marked man challenges or even the
road rage missions. I also got a prompt telling me that I had unlocked all of the special car challenges as well. So bit by bit I will chip away at that.

When my friend arrived, I had Just Cause 2 in the ps3 and was messing around with that, I had (at the time) over 25 hours of play time clocked and the Friday previous I had downloaded all of the dlc weapons and cars for it as well. My favourite piece of dlc has to be either the monster truck or the quad rocket launcher, both of them have the power to do some serious damage and destruction, with the monster truck offering some protection as well. It is a big wheeled, orange truck with a minigun and grenade launcher attached, I like driving in to bases with it and taking out all the large fuel depots for extra chaos points and you can take a bit of punishment in it as well, The quad rocket launcher is a bit over the shoulder operated launcher that does indeed fire off 4 rockets a time but it is not the most accurate weapon and a lot of the time you will miss your target... You have been warned!!! This game and Red Faction:Guerilla are the only 3rd person sandbox games I have ever really enjoyed and I have tried a few! Just Cause 2 being the better of the two, I have heard bad things about the first game but I may end up at some stage picking it up and giving it a play through just to see how far the second game has come.

So after we got our pizza and put that away, we went in to some older games. For a change I thought it would be a good idea to power up the xbox classic and seeing as my friend and I were drinking in a group of people that ended up playing 2d beat em up games the Friday previous on the wii, I decided to load up Marvel vs Capcom 2. MVC2 has to be one of my favourite beat em ups of all time and I am saying this in spite of the fact that I am fairly new to it. I like the massive character selection and I have yet to look up who are the secret unlockables... MVC2 is a frantic, fast paced and over the top, colourful beat em up that can at times give your eyes a visual pounding and kick your ass at the same time (my eyes feel a bit nuts after playing it for too long). It has a 3 on 3 team fighting system which I like, you can have a very varied team and try out lots of new characters as well, a few of my favourites being venom (from the Spiderman series), Hayato, and Cable (from Marvel Universe). We played a good few rounds of that and my friend, who would not really be in to that style of game actually really enjoyed it!

After we played as much of this as we could handle, we changed games to Timesplitters:Future Perfect... I have the other timesplitter games (timesplitters 1 and 2), I had only ever play Timesplitters 2 in depth, but at the time I was really shit at it. We played some split screen multiplayer on the 'Siberia' map, 2 rounds of it and changed the weapons and bots around each time. One thing I always liked about the Timesplitters series is the character design, this was actually the main pulling factors when I first got it. As I said before, I was really shit at Timesplitters 2 back in the day. This was back in a time when I had only ever played a handful of FPS style games and these were on my pc, games like Rainbow Six:Rouge Spear and the first Delta Force game (the Unreal Tournament Demo also deserves a mention - turning off gravity on the skyscrapers map, jumping really high in the air and firing the rocket launcher...). I had no real experience with this style of game play, I had been raise on 2d platformers, beat em ups, 3rd person adventure games and all this made timesplitters 2 a steep learning curve for me. I tried a few times to get in to the story mode but The furthest I ever made it to was level 2 (the 1930's style level - you had, as a bonus objective, to empty barrels of alcohol), I wanted this game mainly for the art style, for me, the character design really kicked ass! And when I got round to exploring the multiplayer I found out there was so many! There was also the map making tool, I played around with this a lot, it was very inspiring to be able to make my own maps and play on them - even if they were only damp, dark, shitty corridors... Another thing about the second game was one of the training or bonus levels, you had infinite bricks (bricks were a temporary weapon in this game!) and you had to smash a certain mount of windows possible within a set time! So, Timesplitters:Future Perfect follows on in this tradition set by the previous offering, cool art style, fantastic character and lots of them! So, the 'Siberia' map, a big map with a huge open space, bunkers on the outside rim and a tower in the middle and a walk way along one side. I felt that this map was a bit too big for 8 player death match, there was too much of an open area and depending on the chosen weapons, it could end up with all players running around with weapons as powerful as the rocket launcher killing you as soon as you pop up in their sights, this can kinda ruin a game but we changed the weapons set for the next round. The game, although quite cartoony in it's art style still manages to have a huge amount of depth, I got this from a small slice of game, with its 40+ multi player characters, my favourite at the moment being the cyber punk-ish clubber killer Chastity. But I still have a lot of exploration to do before I decide on my true favourite. So, with a few rounds of TS:FP, this brought our 'Old School Sunday' to a close - I was up for work in the morning and my friend had an early flight to catch... Stay tuned for more of our Old School Sunday reports!

A few weeks before this, because I was going to be busy on the upcoming sunday and because my friend was not sure about hanging out on Sunday night, we got together at mine with another friend for a gaming night on the Saturday night instead, I was the day after I had picked up Burnout Paridise:Ultimate Box and because I was in the mood for crashing cars in spectacular fashion - we started out the night with this! We got a couple of hours of this in and then afterwards we got straight to the point of the night! We were going to try and do a full play through of Resident Evil 2. I have the original disc on psOne for about 11 years now and I think it was about 7 years since I had last played it. I'm not too sure of the exact time but I was worried that after all this time that I was going to really suck at it and to make matters worse, everyone else was claiming to be quite rusty at it as well, after all it had been a few years and an entire console generation had passed us by, but with all that said, we loaded up the disc...

I decided in the beginning not to pick up anything along the way to the police station, I wanted to see if I could still get there (relatively unharmed) and meet bonus character (and absolute bullet sponge) Brad Vickers in the tunnel under the entrance way to the station, we meet him, and after 20 or so handgun bullets he finally dropped, allowing me to obtain the special key from his person, this struck a nostalgic chord with me as I was one of those "cool" game play options that at the time, not a lot of people knew about, one of my friends also felt this as well and the other had never actually seen this before. We explained to him about the locker in the police station with the alternative costume and how it changed the way Leon S. Kennedy held his handgun while he wore it. Upon entering the police station, we were reminded with that short cut scene how detailed this place actually was, I was also reminded about how the station works and what I had to do to progress on through its corridors. After seeing this cut scene, I decided that it was time to pass over the control pad and let someone else take over.

I had played this a lot as a kid, I went over it a good few times, saw the multiple storylines and got my money's worth. Maybe it was just me? or maybe it was the beers we had all drunk, but after a while I was thinking that the other guys had not played it a whole lot all those years ago, but we did not work too well as a unit, passing the pad back and forth. Not that it was too important, I just wanted to revisit the game and experience its greatness all over again. In survival horror games, the ammo is usually found in small quantities, few and far between, making matters worse we were playing with the auto aim turned off and it led to some funny situations and a blatant wasting of precious ammo. A good example of an area that gave us trouble was the upstairs room with the smashed windows that has all the crows flying around it, My friends wasted ammo trying to kill those guys mid flight, I was opting to knife them when they got too close, it was better and would serve us later on in our quest. To my fault, I forgot the order and locations of the police station keys, this slowed us down just a little bit as well, as I would often have to back track across the police station just to progress to the next part of the story. In the end we got in to the basement of the police station and in to the sewers through the kennels, There are still bits in that game that have the power to make me jump, even if I know exactly what is going to happen and when..! The dogs busting out of the cells is on of those moments. We made it on past the giant spiders (not killing them, instead running past them) and on to meet the journalist Ben, who claims that there is something big and bad after him, this also causes you to meet Ada Wong for the first time as well, the mysterious woman who is apparently looking for her boyfriend... A bit of time and ammo was wasted showing my friend the secret photograph on the desk of the STARS room table ( the messy on that you have to search 50 times) and trying to achieve the effect where by when you shot at the camera filming you with a shotgun, you smashed the glass on the lens of the screen... That was about as far as we had got before we called it a night and I kicked everyone out due to tiredness on my part (I think it was past 4am at that stage), but a good night was had by all, all that nostalgia, hearing the save room music, everything! I wont be surprise if we return to this in the not too distant future.

That concludes the gaming nights I held over the last while, I'm going to go back to Just Cause 2 for a bit, I went through a mood were I was playing this on and off for about a week and a half, a few hours a night and a couple of days ago I finished the main story, which I was actually not happy about, I will explain why in a bit, but here is a recap of some of the missions that I enjoyed...

Agency Mission 4 - Mountain Rescue

This level was good fun but check pointed rather harshly, I thought that the introduction of the ninjas were a very nice touch but after them killing me twice I decided that I wasn't having that, earlier on in the mission I acquired a rocket launcher from one of the elites, I think it was an the third vent you had to destroy, so I realised that although they disappear when shot a couple of times, they were not invincible, blasting a rocket at their feet caused them to fly up in the air and another rocket just to finish them off did the trick, is that the way you were intended to kill the ninja? I don't know but if you could see my face right now you would know that I really don't care! after this you get a sound byte from Scorpio "I hate ninjas..." It just adds to the crazy stupidity of the game that you just have to enjoy and to top this off, you meet the nuclear sub that crashes out of the ice and is threatening to take your agency target away... It was a good example of the over the top action that happens through out the game!

One area I discovered towards the end (and I'm not sure why I never really visited it sooner) was Panay City (residential district), it is made up of cool streets and really long over passes for you to cruise on, taking one of the exotic sports cars and driving on said over passes was really nice and a great build up to cause some chaos, I guess it became my favourite part to explore, with its well planned out road network and the few generals there that just hang around with his cronies like a gang of street thugs (getting up on the roof and firing rockets at them dispatches them quite quickly!) it makes a change from the many miles of lush grass land, desert and snowy mountains - a pretty city to explore!

Faction Mission - Can I get a witness

For it's crazy OTT car physics...
This mission consisted of breaking in to one of the many army bases on the island and downloading coordinates of a witness on trial, once you locate him you have to escort him back to the faction leader to extract information out of him, this information will apparently give the faction leverage over the military and government. In you way there is the usually high amount of guards that you would expect from one of Panay's military bases and they all want to kill you, as a result of this I died a few times but eventually found the door which has the server holding the coordinates that you require to proceed on to the next part of the mission, but the room is locked and you have to locate the guard that is holding the key... Once you find him, he runs away, leading you in to gangs of his comrades all heavily armed with shotguns and machine guns... I did kill him eventually and get the key off him (opening the door is one of the many quick time like button combo events) and once the door opened I, for the first time, met the nasty surprise that was a mounted machine gun turret... It killed me as I had low health and the door opens inwards, exposing you openly to the gunfire as you are trying to rush in the door, the second time I had a cooked grenade and the force of the blast knocked the turret over, allowing me to get the necessary information off the server. Once you have this loaded on to your pda device, you are airlifted off the base and to the target's location, vintage Just Cause 2 style, with the guards still firing at you until the animation sequence is triggered! It leads you to a truck convoy and you have to get to the top car with the hostage on board and hijack it, I took out the two tailing cars by jumping on the roof and when the guards open the doors, headshots all round to dispatch them, leaving me free to take out the driver of the main car and driving off myself... As to be expected, the hostage is trying to sell himself as a worthless piece in this mad puzzle but its only background noise as you have to get to a check point over a kilometre away and to make matters worse you are being followed by more trucks with guard trying to shoot you and ram you off the road, I was really worried that I was not going to make it to the check point and instead of following the road right to the end (it was quite winding and did not go directly to the objective) I decided to take a short cut..! This cause my car (when I drove off the hill) to barrel roll a multiple of times and it looked like I was going to end up on my roof and the mission failed due to the car blowing up, but to my surprise the car actually landed on its wheels and I was pretty close to the objective, it was ridiculous, Just Cause 2 ridiculous!!!! but fantastic as I drove through the objective with my support fire waiting for me!

They were a few of the stand out missions that I played through in the last few days, but unfortunately the story is over for me, I know this blog contains some spoilers here and there, but I will not give way the ending for Just Cause 2, you readers must see it for yourself but what I will say is if you blink it will quickly pass by and before you know where you are you will be playing mercenary mode just for chaos... I was a bit unhappy when I found out that there was no story left, I only hope that there are still faction mission as I have only finished about 30 of them with less than 33% of the overall game finished and for those who care - 44% of the trophies as well, I will be jumping in and out of this game occasionally but with the story finished I think it is time to move on to another story...

I think that’s enough for games for this edition as in Play Delayed 2-2 there are a few games that will be completed with a diary of my progress through them and also some games that I picked up recently and tested out to see how they play, also, in the next few blogs I will maybe attempt to get back to my pc gaming for a change and try to play something form my small library there... Next up is what I have been watching...

Since the last blog has come and gone, so has series 1 of 'The Walking Dead' on our national television, for some this is probably old news as it has air I think about 2 years ago already and a lot of people who could not see it probably streamed it anyway. Just before the show aired for the first time, the box set popped in the local media retailers, I normally buy these things when I see them but I thought I would try and exercise restraint and try and watch it on television for the 6 weeks that it would be on. Going in to this I had already read a large chunk of the comic book compendium, I picked this up just after Christmas and have been chipping away at it for a few months, its bed time reading for me... I guess in watching it I just wanted to see how this would translate from comic to screen, I had also been told online that the quality drops as the episodes go on. I did not find this too much myself but I think it way have gone a little off the point (a little?) and went off the away from the source material in the end of the series but despite this I really enjoyed it, I like the whole package, it's got zombies, but the zombies are not the main point of interest, more how the cast deal (of fail to deal with the world ending around them and how they interact as a unit and when outsiders come in to the picture. I'm really glad I saw this as I was interested in it but at the same time was not too bothered to find it online and despite the mixed comments I heard I think it actually played out quite well in the end, some memorable moments! I recommend it for any zombie enthusiast who has not yet seen it!

I also took the time to get back in to 'Mad Men' series 2 and finish it out. Donald Draper's personal life is starting crumble around him but being "Don Draper" he still holds it together in the office. The last episode had a few good laughs but despite this I still felt sorry for Freddy getting his "six month leave of absence", I have also started the third season and it seems that Don is still up to his old tricks..! I should be finished this series soon, I will keep you posted.

A surprise entry this blog are some movies clips a friend introduced me to, 'Children's Hospital', it could be compared to 'Scrubs' a little but the staff at "Children's" are complete misfits! The clips I saw are each a little over 5 minutes long and focus around the lives of the doctors working at this hospital. It's quite funny, but the short duration of each clips leaves me feeling a little unsatisfied but also wanting to look in to it more, I will try to find more of this as it is quite funny, I think though that it is quite old, maybe released in 2009? Maybe someone can clear that up for me...

just to wrap up, I have also been playing final fantasy VIII on psp, getting it in on most of the bus journeys and lunch breaks! I had stopped for a little while because I had gotten myself stuck on a part during the parade for the sorceress and could not figure out how to get the sequence to continue! I was walking back between the arch and the gates of the presidents residence over and over for ages and at one time even reloaded an old say and went back about an hour in game play... Then one day I accidentally hit the action button beside General Carroway (I had not noticed him standing there for this whole time) and he led me in to the next sequence! It was so great to make progress! After this I went through 3 boss battles, got the GF Carbuncle (whom I accidentally named wrong) and got treated to some beautiful cut scenes as well! When all the battling and cut scenes were over I got the prompt to switch discs and have started disc 2, which you play a Laguna sequence, I have played on quite a bit in to disc 2 at this stage (the blog is a little delayed...) and have gotten as far as the missiles about to hit the garden and you cause the whole garden to lift out of the ground, really epic stuff and I had actually forgotten all of that! So I will play on in to disc 2 and beyond, I have started to get level 3 spells, have had the chance to get other spells like meltdown and bio and my Squall character is level 50 (I did a lot of just wandering around the world map when I was on buses!). Also on the retro note, I had tried a bit of Soul Reaver:Legacy of Kain as well. Back in the day I never got to play this game, I played a demo before the game came out and really liked what I saw! And even went so far as to rent it but the disc was so badly scratched that I was not able to play the game in the end - it would not load past the start menu... I really liked what I was playing, going between the material world and the dead world really appeals to me and this stuck with me for many years, I would like to actually develope something with this idea, be it a comic or even a game, but I will talk about that some other time maybe. I played this to get a change from Final Fantasy VIII when I was stuck but have since stopped playing for a while because I am stuck in this game as well! I am not too far in to it yet but I will stick with Final Fantasy for now.

Ok, I think that’s about all for now, hopefully the next blog will be a bit sooner, I have another old school sunday report, I will hopefully have Quantum Theory finished off (I’m stuck on a gun fight and the game is too broken for me to be bothered to play on!) and I will also mention a few games that I have bought, tested and what my initial thoughts on them were. Thanks for reading!