Lately I’ve been feeling tempted to get myself a widecreen monitor. But havign shopped around a bit, I might shelve it for now. Thing is, I have a decent screen already, a 19″ dell. The logical upgrade size would be 22″… but apparently most of them use poorer-quality TN panels. Which the experts seems a bit sniffy about. And I’m not quite ready to splash out on a 24″ monster.

Oh well, be more sensible to save my pennies for now anyway.

Hi all. After being conspicuously absent for three updates in a row, I’ve had a look at Giants: Citizen Kabuto.

I obtained it from Good Old Games, a new digital-distrubution services dedicated to older PC games. A lot of their selection is of the roughly decade-old-vintage and, there are some quality items there like Operation Flashpoint and Fallout, it’s DRM free and should all work on modern Windows systems.

As I may have mentioned here and there, I’m not particularly good at racing games. Or at least, I lack the motivation to play them enough to become more skilled, usually just dicking around for a bit, completing an easy couple of races and then crashing into something. That’s why my only contributions to our racing reviews are Big Red Racing (which Rik hated) and Car and Driver, (which i jumped on solely for the sake of covering as much as we can of the works of Looking Glass studios, better known for amazing first-person action titles like Thief and System Shock).

That said, I do still get tempted by games on the 2-for-£15 range. And I think to myself “ah-ha! I’ll actually make some progress this time and won’t just shove it in a draw”. So I spotted Test Drive Unlimited, which had one key appeal: a huge continuous piece of countryside (an island of Hawaii) that you can explore freely. You can do races, or just goof about. Open spaces and freedom are big plus points in my book, so I had a go.

And, er, wasn’t very good at it. And now it’s shoved in a draw for the time being. I did attempt some races but sooner or later realised i was having more fun doing this:

[shot of Stoo driving through trees]

I think the town i was looking for was at the bottom of that hill. Maybe.

Oh also the game lets you design your own in-game driver – and there’s only really two worthwile options point. You either create a hot scantily clad chick, or attempt to replicate Jeremy Clarkson.

Oh well, I’ll have another go over christmas.

Recently i’ve been wasting a lot of time on TV Tropes, a website primarily dedicated to cateloguing recurring themes and ideas that turn up in fiction in all kinds of media, including gaming. t into related topics in various forms of media though – there’s a lot there and it’s it’s almost like a more light-hearted Wikipedia without the directive to be rigidly neutral.

I thought this quick overview on The Console Wars was quite fun. It briefly covers each generation and gives a pretty fair guess at who “won” in terms of sales and popularity. (short form: Nintendo in the early days, then they lost it in the late nineties, now they’re leading again due to the embracing of casual gaming)

I’ve never actually owned a console, and only recently picked up a handheld (the DS). Still I have followed developments on and off from the sidelines. I’m too young to remember the first two generations, but have been a Nintendo fan since the third (ie the NES). Even tho, now I’m actually in a position to buy their games, I find it a depressing exercise in flicking past boxes entitled Are you smarter than a 10 year old, All Star Cheerleader and Imagine Dream Wedding. PS and Xbox meanwhile have never attracted me – not to say there’s anything wrong with them, just little of interest to me that the PC doesn’t do better.

sidenote: I’m quite determined to try and get into the habit of more regular updates to this blog. Twice-weekly perhaps? The flow of new reviews is going pretty slowly right now, but i really should at least be able to think of something brief to say here every few days.

Hello.

Some of you might be aware that there’s a Max Payne movie out. So in a topical(ish) update, I’ve taken a look at Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne.

I also went to see the film itself, so just in case you were waiting to see what we thought before you rushed out to see it, you can now make an informed decision.

Another update, another game getting a lukewarm review and score. Some games you know are going to be a bit turdy but when you expect something more and are disappointed, well – it’s rubbish, frankly.

Much as I enjoy squelching through games of all standards and writing about them, it’s nice to be able to eulogise enthusiastically about something once in a while.

The recent release of Fallout 3 has prompted a few retrospectives with gamers and journalists doing just that about the first two games in the series. By all accounts they’re the type of deep, rich and affecting games that prompt people to set up fansites and write retro reviews in the first place.

Unfortunately, my own progress through the first game has stalled. I might go back to it, but my experiences thus far make me fear I just don’t “get it”.

Now, where did I put my copy of Max Payne 2?

Hello.

Another review, and another sequel – the ridiculously-named No One Lives Forever 2: A Spy in H.A.R.M.’s Way.

There will be more, not sure when.

Just to let you know that Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines is going for $10 on Steam this weekend. It’s basically Deus Ex with vampires, which should be enough reason for anyone to snap it up. There are multiple ways to build your vampiric “hero”, some really well-developed characters to interact with and it still looks alright, being powered by the Source engine.

The only low note to the game is the buggy and unfinished state it was left in. Fortunately I’m told that the Fan Patches work with the Steam version. Some of these just fix bugs, others alter gameplay features so it’s up to you which way to go.

So they’ve made a Max Payne movie with Mark ‘Marky-Mark’ Wahlberg in it. Hmm.

Sometims laziness can work for you; in this case, having been dimly aware for some time that the film was going to be released, I was going to post something about how it looked like it might actually be alright (based on the trailer).

Inevitably, though, it’s been panned, and even allowing for some slight prejudice against movies based on games from the critics, something tells me they can’t all be wrong.

I think I’ll still go and see it though. At least it’s made some money so we might actually get it in cinemas over here, unlike the dreaded Wing Commander.

The game, in case you didn’t know, is pretty damned good. Come to think of it, the sequel may now be ancient enough to get a review of its own. Watch this space…

Good evening.

It’s been a while, but unfortunately all we can offer for now is one new review. I’ve taken a look at the third (and hopefully final) Carmageddon game, TDR 2000.

More later, perhaps soon (ish). Stay tuned.