"Reaver!"

Yours truly had a week off from work recently and spent that week tucked up in bed reading nothing but E-Books (electronic or digital books), which PR has recently got me addicted to.

The folks at Ereader.com have a superb bit of software available for all mobile platforms that could read/manage your purchased books as well as browse their website, containing thousands of books ready for download. I was immediately hooked! I downloaded the free software for my iPhone as well as my Windows Netbook and began purchasing books.

My first purchase was Karen Traviss’s Gears of War – Aspho Fields. Fans of the colossal selling Gears of War video game series will get a close up personal look at Delta Squad’s rag tag soldiers Marcus Fenix, Dominic and Carlos Santiago, as well as C-Company’s Cole Train, and Baird. Hoffman and Anya are also present.

After introducing us to Marcus, Carlos and Dom during their childhood and both families two very separate upbringings, the book then bounces back and forth between two pivotal events.

Firstly the battle at Aspho Fields before Emergence Day, in which Marcus and Dom’s older brother Carlos fight insurmountable odds at an enemy base. What transpired on this day would change Marcus’s life forever.

Secondly we look beyond the events of Emergence Day and the effects of the Lightmass Bomb on the Locust Hollow. As a human run farming site prepares for an onslaught from the Locust Horde, the soldiers carry out a well planned evacuation attempt. However a ghost from the past has returned to haunt Marcus and Dom. For Marcus, this ghost carries the burden of his past and a secret that he has sworn to keep against all odds.

I have to say that this was a brilliant read on all accounts. It is a go-between for those that have played the first Gears of War and then it’s sequel. We learn a huge amount about all the key characters, even Anya. We also learn about Marcus’s father Adam Fenix. Dom’s wife Maria is also featured.

If you have finished both Gears of War titles and then want to learn about the characters, there is no better place to start then Aspho Fields. The very last section of the book is a set up for Gears of War 2 -I do want to say more, but then that would be wrong wouldn’t it

Tuesday April 29th March 2008

It is quite rare for me to claim that a certain title is the best I have ever played. That award goes to a single game from 2002 – Mafia. Through the years I’ve seen titles come and go, in which I have claimed to be superb and whilst they have been just that, the replayability wasn’t there – Condemned and Bioshock for instance.

The Grand Theft Auto series since GTA: Vice City has always had a place in my heart. It’s sucessor San Andreas was equally as good featuring a huge land mass, in which you could do virtually anything you wanted to. It quickly became my favourite game of the series. Well move over San Andreas, GTA IV just became my favourite GTA but also  my second favourite game of all time. Since it’s release Grand Theft Auto IV has ranked up some of the highest review marks I have seen since Gears of War on the 360. Although I do think the marking for IV was a little over the top in quite a few areas it is without doubt an outstanding accomplishment from Rockstar.

Liberty City, is based on New York City of course, in which we see Niko Bellic (a war veteran from Bosnia) arriving in search of the American Dream. Does he find it though? Buggered if I could find out since I encountered a nasty broken mission bug, which saw me not receiving a key phone call from some lawyers so I ended up restarting the game. Suffice to say it’s been a rather long Bank Holiday weekend making up for all that lost time but I have had a blast, which didn’t please my girlfriend…

Is the title any good? Well short of actually reviewing it I will state that "Yes it is outstanding, in many, many ways but that doesn’t mean it has no faults". It’s graphics are very controversial right now and I say this because the game is using a blur filter that makes commenting on the graphics rather hard. In some places the game looks incredible, whilst in other areas it looks completely poor as distant objects are blurred and dithered to an extent. The game features a lighting system that I rate as the best I have ever seen. I kid you not  – driving through Liberty City is an experience to behold mainly because the lighting is so perfect that everything looks just right and I won’t mention the dynamic shadows moving in relation to the sun…

Rockstar have created a living, breathing city in ways that cannot really be described. Even my mother who was watching me play earlier today stated that the city looked so real as I casually drove past all the neon-lit buildings amongst hundreds of yellow cabs.

I am still going through the game and I’m just 30% through it but I can see heaps of things to do afterwards and with the extra downloadable content arriving later in the year I just hope that extends the gameplay a bit more. Who knows? All I know is that I am hooked!

See what the NY Times had to say about GTA IV
Rockstar’s Dan Houser speaks about GTA IV
Think I’m excited? Check Oz gal Kitteh out!

For Christmas, Deena gave me a Xbox 360 title that turned out to be the one game I’ve been avoiding – Call of Duty 4!

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

So on Friday 7th December I celebrated the birthday of my launch day Xbox 360. While his fellow brothers have fallen all around him, this launch day machine soldiers on bravely. November 2005 was his true birth date truth be told, however he arrived on the 7th December 2005 via a rather annoyed looking delivery man. For those who can recall that crazy month, Xbox 360′s were impossible to find anywhere. Stores were sold out, and Ebay was where most were being sold for ludicrous prices.

I myself pre-ordered a 360 from approx 13 different online stores with the hopes that I may get one. A day after launch day on the 360 I got that elusive email from Comet stating that was one on the way. I kept it a secret from my mates for a good week before I revealed that I had one. I wanted to play with her on my own! Anyway, the celebrations didn’t go too well with me accidentally setting fire to a remote control, which then set off the fire alarms, which then stank up my room somewhat rotten. However it worked out quite well! As you can see, the 360 was rather pleased!

I have a partially finished Assassin’s Creed review, and was hugely looking forward to writing about Mass Effect, which in my opinion is now the best game on the 360. For weeks now, I’ve been trying to find the time to write but have always been side tracked, so bugger it.. I will however, continue writing various hardware reviews after the new year when I go crazy on spending!

Assassins Creed and Mass Effect

Whilst I’ve been fighting off the Flu I’ve been barely physically well enough to play two of the console’s most recent and hugely hyped titles. Assassins Creed from Ubisoft, and Mass Effect from RPG giants Bioware. Assassin’s Creed is the result of years of hard work from the development team lead by the gorgeous Jade Raymond, and Mass Effect is a colossal Sci-Fi RPG set in the future. Both titles have been hugely hyped, and yours truly couldn’t wait for them.

Assassin’s Creed arrived with quite a mixed reception. A lot of early reviews gave it average ratings, much to everyones surprise citing it was too repetitive. When it arrived I was blown away. Gorgeous visuals and gameplay, with some slightly repetitive moments I do agree. Well they would be repetitive if gamers went about performing every mission in the same manner, I had no problem with this and took on every mission in a random manner. As a result I completely love the game. Killing people with such randomness has never been more fun!

Gears of War remains my No.1 360 title despite the fact that I’ve only played it’s single player campaign a handful of times. The superb storyline and history make the game a winner, and then come the terrific musical score and visuals. Well move over Gears, Mass Effect just blew you aside! Mass Effect has to be the most enjoyable RPG I have ever come across. In every department the title just excels and there is only small drawback to it, and that isn’t even the game’s fault.

I’ve spent most of this weekend playing Mass Effect and I’ve had an utter blast. I’m not even in to Sci-Fi RPG’s, I prefer Fantasy ones but those are just overdone. Sadly I feel that I am close to the it’s end now having put in 27 hours, although a lot of side missions remain. The storyline, whilst not original is extremely well realised and to back the game up the in-game Codex fills you in on the history of almost everything down to your weapons. As for the characters, well I’ve become really fond of one of them – as sad as it may seem.

Lastly, a lot of readers are probably wondering why I don’t do game reviews anymore. To tell the truth I just no longer have that spare time to do them. I have 3 partially unfinished reviews dating back to approx 9 months ago! Test Drive Unlimited, Ghost Recon 1 and Oblivion all lie unfinished. Life has just become too busy with my career and other things. However with the Xmas holidays coming up I’ll try and finish off a rather huge backlog of reviews.

I shall be reviewing Mass Effect and Assassins Creed asap this week though, well as soon as I discover what Tali has hidden under that suit…!

*£(*)%^!!!! er Medic!

Quick heads up! I’ve put up a rather rushed review of the new 360 Messenger Kit that I received this morning. A lot of people seem to be waiting for theirs right now so here’s the low down on what I think of it. Now where’s me band aid….

Would you kindly bend over…

It’s been a hectic weekend! I wasted money, and then some. Oh, there’s a Bioshock review that has been added to the reviews section. Not the best I might add, but I had to let loose my opinions on such a heavily rated game, especially after seeing it’s rating on Metacritic.com.

After finishing work on Friday, I was in a spending mood. I had about £350 saved up to blow on either clothes, pc/console bits, a low end DSLR Camera or a new MP3 player. The past week saw the release of the next generation of MP3/Video devices from the likes of Creative, Apple, Cowon, Microsoft, Archos and a few other manufacturers. I was already looking for a replacement for my Vision:M despite it being regarded as the best MP3 player on the market. I’ve had the thing for ages now and would like something a bit thinner – an excuse I recently used for buying a new mobile phone, the Sony Ericsson w880i.

I hate iPods. They’re crap, overrated and pale in comparison to the competition out there. The Nano is in a market of its own and I rather like it but the normal iPod is pooh in my opinion. So I’m sad to say that on Friday night I pre-ordered the iPod Touch for around £245 inc the £20 coupon thanks to PR (Order cancelled – the Ipod Touch is a waste of money with the current early screen issues that it has – Darren) It’s storage capacity isn’t that good and as I’ve stated the new Creative Zen even has more features but for once I’d like to see what an Apple product is like. I’ll probably end up hating the thing so look out for a review once it arrives. PR too has ordered one and will no doubt be reviewing when it arrives at the end of September!

As a result of ordering an expensive player that does less than my old one, I ended up installing iTunes – a piece of software I REALLY hate. Inside 3 minutes of running the thing, I found out that I couldn’t access the iTunes store to buy some music because my account wasn’t recognised. Apple Support ended up sorting that out and in an hour I was up and running only to find it had stolen all my file associations. I’m rather surprised on the whole as it’s a lot more stable than before and has more audio content but sod all movies to download. I’m also sorry to say that I’ve ended up buying about 8 tracks from it too!

Oh, on Friday night myself and Deena, who are fast becoming Pizza the Hut addicts ordered a Cheesy Bites Vegetarian Hot One from PIzza Hut. We had been advised by many friends that it was horrible but we went ahead anyway. A kind word of advice for those who are in this situation – IT SUCKS. We couldn’t even finish the thing because it was that gross and it seemed to go cold extremely fast, which doesn’t help. Stick to Deep Pan or the Italian!