Tag Archive for 'Reviews'

GTA IV Arrives

Published
by
Darren/Kain
on May 5, 2008
in Xbox 360
. 8 Comments

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…

Dell XPS M1530 Notebook Review

Published
by
Darren/Kain
on January 13, 2008
in Technology
. 13 Comments

Does it impress?

Oh yes! After almost blowing £1,100 on a better specification XPS laptop, which was sadly from the older XPS range I ended up being talked in to buying the M1530, the bigger brother of one of the best laptops from 2007, the M1330. Despite having a 2-3 week delivery delay on their laptops they managed to get it to be extremely fast. I ordered the thing online on the 3rd January, and it arrived on the 7th of January.

I have spent the past few days jotting down notes and have come up with my first review of 2008! Top dogs!

State of my reviews

Published
by
Darren/Kain
on December 8, 2007
in Babble, Rants and Xbox 360
. 3 Comments

Right. As a lot of readers already know, I have been slack on producing Xbox 360 game reviews. It mainly attributes to the fact that I just haven’t the time any more as I have mentioned a few times before. Researching and then writing about games is a lot more time consuming than most think.

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! :)

iPod Touch Review

Published
by
Darren/Kain
on October 14, 2007
in Technology
. 8 Comments

Yes I know that one isn’t real!

Well up goes a review that I have struggled to even complete. It is a good couple of days late mainly because my life has been taken over by a combination of Team Fortress 2, Work (no change there then), a nagging girlfriend who wants to go shopping, and a France Booze Cruise in two weeks time. All of this isn’t helped by the fact that there are a whopping three birthday parties I have to attend, a wedding (hate these) and two PC’s I have to set-up for two clients all in October! Happy days eh?

Anyway, you can read how I feel about this spiffy new device in the reviews section or just click Here. Want a more detailed review? Well me good mate PR has been blithering on about his one, so you can find his review on his blog.

Xbox 360 Messenger Kit Review

Published
by
Darren/Kain
on September 11, 2007
in Xbox 360
. 10 Comments

*£(*)%^!!!! 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….

Bioshock, Pizza’s, and iTunes

Published
by
Darren/Kain
on September 9, 2007
in Babble, Technology and Xbox 360
. 8 Comments

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.

A look at the Toshiba HD-E1 HD DVD Player

Published
by
Darren/Kain
on August 19, 2007
in Technology
. 10 Comments

Red ring ‘o’ death…as if Xbox 360’s weren’t bad enough

It’s no secret that I truly love the startling detail and features that the next generation optical formats give us. It’s also no secret that I have opted for the HD-DVD format rather then Sony’s Blu-Ray. I have done this mainly because all the classics that I truly love are all on HD-DVD, whilst the action popcorn flicks tend to be on Blu-Ray. I also like the fact that the standalone HD-DVD players are coming down price wise at a startling rate, whilst Blu-Ray players remain at a slightly more expensive price.

Given that I already own the Xbox 360’s HD-DVD player, I always wanted a standalone player the moment prices became affordable. Lately the price of the second generation Toshiba HD-E1 player has crashed, most probably due to Toshiba’s recent announcement that their third generation players are on the way. This morning I took delivery of the player, and will detail my experiences with it for the next two days. You can check out my review here.

The Darkness review

Published
by
Darren/Kain
on August 13, 2007
in Xbox 360
. 2 Comments

Quick update! Just like to add that I’ve put up a much delayed review of The Darkness for the Xbox 360. Oh and thanks to Nokkon for recommending the game to me (he made me put this in!) :P

Forza Motorsport 2 Review

Published
by
Darren/Kain
on June 17, 2007
in Xbox 360
. 6 Comments

I’m hooked!

It’s been quite a while since I reviewed a 360 game and to be honest I’m way behind when it comes to my reviews. Just to show how behind I am, I still have half finished reviews of Test Drive: Unlimited and Ghost Recon (GRAW) dated December 2006!

Forza Motorsports 2 has been occupying most of my time lately since it was released and I’ve had a massive blast playing this game. As a result my review for it was delayed, and then messed up thanks to Notepad ruining the formatting and inserting odd html into my code. The review has been cleaned up as a result but may have odd formatting in places. I’ll look at it tomorrow while I’m at work. Too tired now! :)

You can find my review up in the reviews section now.

Microsoft Wireless Laser Desktop 6000 Review

Published
by
Darren/Kain
on April 24, 2007
in Life and Site Stuff
. 5 Comments

Just a quick mention that I have just added a review of my latest toy in the Reviews section. I replaced my old keyboard with a spiffy new one! Oh, and to those who have emailed asking as to why I am slow with 360 reviews, I am still working on three reviews at the moment. The fact that the weather is gorgeous over here in the UK, combined with my new position at work, and a nagging girlfriend gives me little free time to really write stuff. Take care!