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Saturday 31 December 2011

Annual Summary (2011)

Yes! It's that time again! The new year is just a few hours away and just like last year I have decided to summarise my year in this blog post.

MY ACHIEVEMENTS OF THIS YEAR:

This year I bought a PlayStation 3 and have collected a total of 31 games for the system. Here's a list of them and which ones I have finished:

  • [FINISHED] Red Dead Redemption, 
  • [FINISHED] Grand Theft Auto 4,
  • [FINISHED] Fallout 3,
  • [FINISHED] Fallout: New Vegas,
  • [FINISHED] The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion,
  • The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim,

Monday 26 December 2011

Merry Christmas 2011!

Thankyou for your follows and views so far this year it's been great seeing my blog expand in popularity!
I got a load of novelty christmas pressies today as my actual presents are back home in cold England.

Here's a piccy of all of the games I have bought this christmas and the loot I have received...

Call of Duty sleepwear (My parents found this funny...haha)
Judge Dredd: The Complete Case Files 04 
Various art supplies
Dead Space - PS3
Dead Space 2 - PS3
Dead Island - PS3
InFAMOUS - PS3
Bioshock 2 - PS3
Batman: Arkham Asylum  PS3
The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks - DS
Pokemon White - DS
Pacman graphic tee (I am wearing this whilst typing this post! Teehee!)
A ton of candy - nom nom nom!


!HAPPY CHRISTMAS!

Have a good one everybody!

- Oli

Saturday 24 December 2011

Powerup #3 - Targus Lap Chill Mat

The Targus Lap Chill Mat

I bought one of these babies at Walmart today for $38. Basically what it does is blow cool air into the vents under your laptop to prevent it from overheating not nearly as fast as it should do. Seeing as my laptop overheats in literally 10 minutes this is really helpful and I can play for over an hour before my computer's processor starts to feel the burn!


You just plug it into a UBS port and 'poof!' it's on. No software installation, No startup screen, No fuss - it does exactly what it says on the box and is an excellent 'powerup' for my laptop!

Its been a massive help in speeding up and preventing lag on games I like to play online - most recently Tibia which I've just started to play. I highly recommend this accessory if you have trouble with your computers heat!







I rate the Targus Lap Chill Mat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  . . . 9/10

Friday 23 December 2011

Tibia MMORPG - First Impressions

Daisy at DaisyFAIL recently blogged about her adventures in an MMO called Tibia. Having never heard of this game I asked her about it and she told me more about the game. I also checked out its Wikipedia page for more info (if in doubt always run straight to Wikipedia kids!). Tibia has it's own wiki too which has walkthroughs on quests etc.

Anyway, thanks to Daisy I was persuaded to check out the site. Apparently many people used to love this MMO and it was really popular back in the 'early days'. However people abandoned it for 3D MMOs such as Runescape and World of Warcraft which are all basically the same thing. I personally am not to picky when it comes to graphics, hell Oblivion was pug-ugly but is still my favourite RPG I've ever played! Carrying on, Tibia isn't all that bad - it's 2D and the game's camera is at a slight slant. The interface looks a little dated but it's charmful and fun at the same time...

Thursday 22 December 2011

The Legend Of Zelda: Spirit Tracks - First Impressions

This is practically the only DS game I can think of that I bought this year - with this year dominated by PlayStation 3 gaming - I haven't really been playing too much of Nintendo's old dual screen wonder. I bought Spirit Tracks new in Super-Target for $19.99 which I didn't think was too bad.

Having played the first in the DS Legend of Zelda series - Phantom Hourglass - which I loved playing through right to the end, I had high expectations for this sequel...

Wednesday 21 December 2011

Holiday purchases!

So I'm in the states for my annual holiday again this year. I landed on Friday the 16th so I've been here 5 days already. The main reason I came here was to chill, relax, eat loads of food (especially pop-tarts) and get away from the hassle of my GCSEs. I also came here with a TON of cash... I think you can guess what for!

I've hit Gamestop 5 times so far and here's what I've picked up...

Wednesday 14 December 2011

Gamingheap Review - THE ORANGE BOX: Half-Life 2 (PS3)


 Half-Life 2  (PS3)


Over this week Skyrim had gotten a little 'samey' so I decided to play The Orange Box which I kind of ditched back in August. I didn't get very far with Half-Life 2 so I picked it first out of Portal and Team Fortress 2. Here's my verdict, a review, on the game...

Half-Life 2 was released on Microsoft Windows in 2004, ported to the Xbox 360 in '06 and finally released in The Orange Box for the PlayStation 3 in '07. Half-Life 2 is a continuation of the story in Half-Life which was released in 1998 as Valve's debut product. Basically in Half-Life you play as Dr. Gordon Freeman a scientist at the 'Black Mesa' facility. A teleportation experiment goes wrong and open dimensional rifts where parasites come through and attack earth. Eventually Dr. Freeman kills the overlord at the end of the game, unknowingly widening the dimensional rifts. This leads to a trans-dimensional race called 'The Combine' to attack earth. Humanity surrenders and the Combine take over and so on. Basically in Half-Life 2 you play as Gordon Freeman fighting in the resistance against the Combine. 

My first impressions of the game weren't great. I thought the gameplay was repetitive, graphics mediocre and overall a boring game... Oh I was so wrong!

Thursday 8 December 2011

Top Soundtracks [001]: L.A. Noire - Chase 3


 TOP SOUNDTRACKS [001]:  
 L.A. NOIRE - CHASE 3 

Personally I think L.A. Noire which was released earlier on in the year has one of the best soundtracks of this years top releases. Just listening to it is great, but when your playing as Cole Phelps, the music (especially the amazingly designed chase scenes) really gets the blood running!

This piece below is one of my favourites...

Tuesday 6 December 2011

Trailer Evaluation: Judge Dredd Vs. Zombies

I am a massive fan of 2000AD and Judge Dredd is by far my favourite comic book character. I've read over half of the comics as far as I know and I have played the game 'Judge Dredd: Dredd Vs. Death' produced by Rebellion in 2003 on the PlayStation 2 and PC. Now a new game is coming to the iOS (I don't own any Apple technology unfortunately)...

Monday 5 December 2011

4 Bad Things About The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

"WHAT!?" I hear you exclaim with several explanation marks for effect! "Skyrim rocks! There is nothing bad about it!" I hear you shout. Well let's face it Skyrim is a fantastic immersive world full of quests, dungeons, fully fleshed out NPCs and Guards that talk about arrows in their knees - BUT there are some, quite frankly, poor aspects in this game. Bare in mind this is the PS3 version and some glitches may not appear on other formats. Though they may only be the odd bug I thought I might list some things that have grinded my gears over the past few weeks...


Sunday 4 December 2011

Another day, another friend gets a blog!

So over the past 2 days, 3 of my friends have made their own blogs using Blogger! It started when my mate Doug at TheDougLog broadcasted his blog and then my 2 friends Reubzen at The World Of Reubzen and Joe at Biotripcon published their own blogs too. Reubzen, Joe and Doug are all gaming enthusiasts like myself and will post about games and other techy stuff often. Reubzen and Joe are also budding musicians so if you enjoy your music head on over to their blogs and take a look!

This post is just a little shout out to my friends' blogs. If you enjoy reading their posts then take some time to leave a comment or follow/subscribe to them!

http://www.thedouglog.blogspot.com
http://www.theworldofreubzen.blogspot.com
http://www.biotripcon.blogspot.com

The Frustration of Easy Video Games - The World of Reubzen

A friend of mine recently made a very interesting post on his new blog 'The World of Reubzen'. He mentioned that video games back in the 80's on consoles such as the NES were extremely challenging (I know this because I have played games such as Contra and Castlevania on emulators) and how that completing a difficult game back then was a real achievement worthy of boasting in front of your friends. Reubzen goes on to say that big names in this day and age such as Call of Duty and other popular FPSs are dominating the market, not because of the gameplay however, it's literally just because it's another Call of Duty game and people are just being suckered into buying them because of they happen to have some improved graphics.

I agree with Reubzen here, how that games like Call of Duty can be completed in an afternoon without much difficulty at all. Check out Reubzen's blog and follow him at http://www.theworldofreubzen.blogspot.com/!

Saturday 3 December 2011

Gamingheap Special: SKYRIM - Part 3

 Gamingheap Special: SKYRIM 

Part 3

*** THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS! ***

Oops! I got kinda carried away with Skyrim and haven't done a post in 2 weeks! Oh well, now I get to tell you all about my little adventures, teehee!

Basically a lot has happened! I scraped together every last piece of jewellery and all the potions I knew I wasn't going to use from my Whiterun house and managed to bring in just over 25k to buy a house in Solitude. But before I could buy the house I had to do a quest for the Jarl's steward. I had to investigate some place called 'Wolfskull Cave' where people had gone missing and strange lights could be seen at night. Exciting I know!... Anyway I head on in and I am confronted by several skeletons with swords... I proceeded to introduce arrows to their skulls and moved on through the cave. It was pretty small if I remember rightly and I soon found myself discovering what the mystery was! After slaying some draugr (Zombie nords) I saw a massive blue light circling the inner cave which was dotted with strange stone towers. It turned out to be some necromancers summoning 'The Wolf Queen'. Long story shortened I threw them off the top of the tower, grabbed some loot from a boss chest nearby and got my ass out of there.


Tuesday 15 November 2011

Gamingheap Special: SKYRIM - Part 2

 Gamingheap Special: SKYRIM


Part 2

*** THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS! ***


Another dozen hours of gameplay has further revealed how awesome this game really is, and how much time and effort Bethesda have pumped into this masterpiece. I managed to wander my way over to the north-western hold of Skyrim: 'Solitude'. There are actually 9 holds in Skyrim, each a different part of the map - e.g. Whiterun, The Pale etc. Correspondingly named guards patrol these holds. Anyway, Solitude rests upon a massive sea arch looming over the north coast. There is a port just outside of Solitude where I found a door leading up to the top of the arch and into the town itself. 

I chatted with a few citizens which initiated a ton more quests - one about picking up a delivery, another about finding a sword... It seems that everyone has a quest tied to them in some way; this is what i meant by Bethesda's hard-work! One of the quests started by me talking to a self-proclaimed 'Apprentice' searching for his Master who had apparently gone to the 'Pelagius Wing' in the Blue Palace (The royal building of Solitude). He gave me 'The Key' which turned out to be Pelagius' Hip Bone which actually featured in Oblivion as a rare item to be sold to the rare items collector in the Shivering Isles expansion. I entered the palace and slipped into the Pelagius Wing... it was a large area filled with cobwebs and was seemingly abandoned. I began the search for the lunatic's master...

Saturday 12 November 2011

Gamingheap Special: SKYRIM - Part 1

 Gamingheap Special: SKYRIM 


Part 1

*** THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS! ***

And so the adventure begins! Yes, my postman delivered my Amazon package this morning and I proceeded to rip it open, producing  a shiny, sealed copy of Skyrim. With a triumphant barbarian shout I legged it to my room and shoved the disc in. Skyrim also came with a cloth-like map showing the province of Skyrim - a bit like Oblivion came with a map too. I was surprised at the speed of the install. It took no more than 10 minutes!


The main-menu exploded (well, it kinda faded in - but I was too excited) onto the screen and the theme 'Sons of Skyrim' came blasting out of my gaming chair. I listened to it all the way through and then hit 'New Game'...

Friday 11 November 2011

Skyrim... didn't arrive

Long story short, when you order a videogame 3 months before its release and you pay for 1st class posting you feel kinda ripped off when they don't deliver it on the release. Moral = NEVER use amazon.co.uk to preorder your games.

Sunday 16 October 2011

Top 30 Enemies - #28 Octorok (Legend Of Zelda)


                     TOP 30 ENEMIES #28 Octorok (Legend Of Zelda)                      

A Blue Octorok from The Legend of ZeldaAn Octorok from The Minish Cap    OCTOROK







Artwork of an Octorok from Ocarina of Time
Octorok artwork from Ocarina Of Time.
Octorok's are classic recurring enemies in the Legend Of Zelda series. I like them because they look like an octopus... and octopi are just awesome! 


Octorok throw stones from their mouths, which when they come into contact with Link, will damage him. You can use Link's shield to deflect these menacing projectiles back to the Octorok which will in turn kill it. Octoroks can move vertically or horizontially and sometimes they are layed out in a formation which makes it hard to progress without being hit by their rocks.


They appear in The Legend of Zelda, The Adventure of Link, A Link to the Past, Link's Awakening, Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask, Oracle of Ages, Oracle of Seasons, Four Swords, The Wind Waker, Four Swords Adventures, The Minish Cap, Phantom Hourglass and finally, Spirit Tracks

Friday 14 October 2011

Top 30 Enemies - #29 Metroid (Metroid)


                           TOP 30 ENEMIES #29 Metroid (Metroid)                            



METROID

Metroid4 07.jpg
Concept Art of a Metroid
One of my favourite Sci-Fi games is definitely Metroid. And one of the best 
enemies in Metroid is... the Metroid! These things have been floating around

the series since the early days. 

Metroids are artificial organisms discovered on the planet SR388. Years after they were created by the Chozo, they were promptly used as a bioweapon by the Space Pirates. Metroids feed on the "life energy" of their prey in a manner similar to the way a leech drains a host organism's blood... In other words they cling to your face and try to suck out your Braaainnnss! Unlike leeches, Metroids leave all of their prey's blood and internal organs intact yet lacking the energy necessary to sustain life.


Metroids are very difficult to dislodge and will quickly drain their victim's life force completely, often killing it in seconds. Using Morph Ball Bombs is the only known way of dislodging an attached Metroid.


Thursday 13 October 2011

Top 30 Enemies - #30 Goomba (Mario)

                           TOP 30 ENEMIES - #30 Goomba (Mario)                            

To celebrate the upcoming release of Skyrim and the fact that it will
have dragons and other awesome monsters, I've decided to do a
countdown of my favourite 30 Enemies included in Video-Games!
So, here's number 1!...

                                                                                                                   

GOOMBA

Goombas are brilliant little brown... Mushroom... things... with feet!
They are the most common enemy in the Super Mario Bros. series. 
 The classic, original look of the Goomba

They are usually killed by the player jumping on their heads although they can also be killed with fireballs after the player collect a Power Flower. 

They come in a dozens of different varieties as well. Some of these include: The Paragoomba, Jack O' Goomba, Mega Goomba, Zombie Goomba and my personal favourite: The Pirate Goomba.

A Pirate Goomba
 Goombas appear in each of the Mario role-playing games. Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars introduces the first non-hostile Goombas, while the follow-up game Paper Mario introduces a Goomba village, as well as a playable Goomba character called Goombario. A second playable Goomba is introduced in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door called Goombella. Goombas also appear in the three Mario & Luigi titles: Superstar SagaPartners in Time, and Bowser's Inside Story, of which the latter two feature Goombas who are members of an alien race called the "Shroob".



Thursday 22 September 2011

Borderlands and Heavy Rain - PS3

Got these 2 games 3 weeks ago and haven't blogged about them yet! Terrible, I know.

                                                          HEAVY RAIN                                                               


I've already finished Heavy Rain. It was a very unique game, more like an interactive story. You play as 4 main characters in the game, each one connected with a series of killings on young boy. There are no leads on the killer so the cops are stumped. On every body there's an orchid and an origami crane figure, this is why the killer is called "The Origami Killer".


I put it on hardest difficulty and it was still pretty easy. Most of the time you're spent moving your character and  interacting with certain things. For example, on the first scene you play as Ethan Mars, father of one of the victims. In this scene you have to make him have a shower, brush his teeth and shave etc. It is pretty cool and you can even read your characters mind if you're stuck on what to do next. Sometimes you have to engage in conversation or have to make a choice: Yes or No. When this occurs, several bubbles will fly over the characters head saying the options you have and the key you need to press to execute them. By fat the best bits of the game are the action scenes and they happen frequently. My favourite one was a scene when you are forced to drive down a highway with oncoming traffic. You have to press the right buttons or move the right analog stick in the right way to survive and turn in time. At times the game also uses the SIXAXIS motion controls integrated in the PlayStation 3 controller and you have to shake the controller repeatedly.
It's a great game, but at times it can get a bit boring or repetitive. I highly recommend it, although if you really get into the game it won't last you more than a weekend

Gamingheap Rating: 8/10





                                                       BORDERLANDS                                                           


Wow! This game is extremely addictive! BORDERLANDS is a First-Person-Shooter, Action RPG. I think that's a great combination, similar to Oblivion and Fallout 3/NV's gameplay. BORDERLANDS takes place on some Borderlands (funnily enough) on some planet called Pandora. Pandora was originally found by the DAHL company and they began mining on it. Then they stopped for some reason and then rumours arose about a vault somewhere on Pandora containing priceless alien weaponry. Many treasure hunters come to the planet seeking the vault but leave empty handed... or don't leave at all... because they're dead... Anyway, you choose from 1 of 4 characters (each with a different Skill Tree and of course they all look different) at the beginning of the game. Then you collect XP by killing enemies in bounty missions and other missions, all involving shooting things to level up, get better weapons, shields, grenade mods, storage upgrades and more. There are over 17,750,000 million guns in the game - all produced by GearBox's ingeniously designed random gun generator. Basically you blow the shit out of everything you see and you enjoy yourself! and that's why I like this game!


Gamingheap Rating: 9/10

Monday 29 August 2011

38 Days > 3 Assassin's Creeds + LittleBigPlanet & Final Fantasy XIII

Some time last week I managed to race through the last few sequences of Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood on my PlayStation 3 and finish the game. This is great coz now I've completed all of the AC's to date as well as boosted my PSN trophies by a good 50+! I now have somewhere between 360 and 370 trophies. I'm looking forward to the release of Assassin's Creed: Revelations in November (though not as much as Skyrim!) although I'm not certain if I will end up buying it on release.

All 3 games have been great and I've noticed that they've got progressively better as they have gone on. If the cycle continues, Revelations should be epic!

I also dabbled in a little bit of LittleBigPlanet which I bought at the beginning of this month. It can be addictive at times, but frustrating at others. There's a lot of things I like and a lot of things I dislike about the game, I'll blog about them a little later though. Along with my 'Little, Big' purchase I picked up Final Fantasy XIII. It is interesting and at the moment, still being on the first chapter, It's nothing like any other Final Fantasy I've ever played... it's very futuristic. Other than that... it's very boring and I haven't gotten into it.

Monday 8 August 2011

Birthday Loot + Preordered Skyrim

First things first - I've ordered Skyrim for the PlayStation 3 along with the monster 528 page Prima Game Guide for £50.50 (Amazon UK). I am super uber hyped and cannot wait till its release on 11/11/11 after I watched the E3 gameplay footage and some other videos on Youtube. Bethesda have revamped the whole graphics engine and let me tell you, it looks amazing! My only problem with the whole thing is that they've taken away 3 skills. It seems each time they release an Elder Scrolls game they take away skills. But, they do say the axed skills have been incorporated into other skills. I still think it is more awesome if you have more skills to level up though. The major things I'm hyped about are...


    Skill Tree Screenshot (Skyrim)
  • Level-Up Perks
These were epic in Fallout 3 and it's really fun as some perks let you do different things and open up different gameplay experiences. For example, in Fallout 3 there was a perk which would allow you to eat corpses, thus  giving you a small health boost.


    Dual Wield screenshot (Skyrim)
  • Dual Wielding
The more swords the better I say, even though this time around I'm going to be focusing more on the Marksmanship and the Magical skills I still think dual wield is going to be great. Bethesda have said that you can dual wield magic as well as normal weapons and doing so will allow for a more powerful spell.


    Apparently there's a Forge
     in this screenshot (Skyrim)
  • Woodcutting, Mining and more
Apparently these extra gameplay experiences will be included although there's not much info on them yet. You'll be able to forge your own weapons as well if you collect the right ingredients (sort of like Monster Hunter Tri I guess).
I'm not too interested in the whole dragon thing, still looks great though.
Anyway that's my little bit about Skyrim, now onto my Birthday Loot...

-

For my Birthday I got a ton of awesome stuff - all to do with gaming!
I got an epic gaming chair with built in Sub-Woofer, amazing sound quality and it's even wireless! It's really comfy as well which is an important factor for lazy slobs like me.
I also got some excellent headphones so that my parents don't hear the sound of the Hidden Blade ripping through the craniums of people from the Middle Ages and Renaissance periods (Assassins Creed).
Assassins Creed - PS3 - Box Art

That brings me on to the Assassin Creed series which I also got. I got all 3! And... embarrassingly  I've already completed 1 & 2 and have started Brotherhood without blogging about them at all! They're really great and the concentration when you're focusing on making that next assassination just right is key. The 1st AC was interesting due to the amount of historical information included. Being the first in the series it had some flawes (like being fairly repetitive and actually pretty boring at times) but it's still fun to play. The only thing I really disliked was the linear factor of it. There wasn't much to do other than the storyline except run around, bored stiff, trying to find flags.

The second one was much better. There were plenty of things to keep you occupied like finding the 6 seals to open the vault in the bottom of the Monteriggeroni Villa and collect Altair's armour; raising money to buy weapons, armour, paintings and even dyes for Ezio's assassin clothes. You could also renovate buildings to raise the value of Monteriggeroni and earn tons of income every 20 minutes. The storyline was great playing as Ezio from when he was born to when he turned 40 and infiltrated the Vatican to assasinate the pope (long story).




The Third one has the good stuff from the first and second ones put together and is absolutely epic! I haven't played much of it so far, but it follows on immediately after the last part of the second one. My favourite thing to do so far is to throw massive two handed axes at people's heads :)

You probably won't hear much from me till Skyrim is released, and when it is i'm going to make a series of posts like I did with Oblivion... except this will be MUCH bigger as there's AT LEAST 300 hours of gameplay!




Wednesday 13 July 2011

L.A. Noire finished and other stuff

Wow! It's been over a month since I've done a post... again! Guess I'm just getting lazier and lazier!

Anyway, I managed to finish L.A. Noire which I bought a while back. It's a great game and I have to say, the storyline begins to get really good nearer the end. It is a detective game so it feels really good when you begin to link stuff together from earlier points in the game to later parts. There's plenty of dramatic irony near the end too and in the last few missions the storyline splits and you have to play as two characters (I won't spoil it!). The visuals on this game are the best I've ever seen for the PlayStation 3. The technology used to create the faces of characters is shockingly realistic and you can see each muscle flex as the characters speak each word. It's very realistic. Car and on-foot chase scenes are very dramatic with each movement of the joystick threatening to smash you into a tree or another vehicle. The interrogation scenes require quite a lot of focus as you try to work out if the person you're interviewing is lying or not. Some of these interrogation scenes are very vague and I actually ended up guessing on some parts, but the rest of the game keeps you occupied and this can be overlooked. Some parts of the game are actually quite disturbing as well... but this does show the realism of the game and real-life crime.
I really recommend buying this game. It looks amazing, the storyline is decent but gets better nearer the end and overall this game is revolutionary! Especially the facial technology. This is by far the best detective game I've ever played, if not the best on the PlayStation 3! If you like detective games, or just want something interesting and not just another standard FPS or button-masher, get this!

---

In other news... my Birthday is this Friday (15th July)! I hope to be receiving a 'Wireless Ghz Foldable Gaming Chair with built in Sub Woofer, Surround Sound Speakers and Adjustable Headrest'! This will replace the horrible wooden stool I'm sitting on right now. I also asked for all of the Assassin's Creeds as it is one of the few major series I have yet to play, along with The Orange Box which includes: Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2 - Episode: 1, Half-Life 2 - Episode: 2, Portal and Team Fortress 2! Epic!

Finally, last Saturday I bought Bioshock for the PlayStation 3, in the wrapper at my school summer fate for £9. It's pretty damn awesome (and scary!) so far. I'll blog about that later on though.

Friday 3 June 2011

L.A. Noire

Sorry I haven't done a post in a few weeks now. Between getting addicted to L.A. Noire I bought a week back, creating my own Minecraft Server and getting back into Oblivion (Yes! Again!) I haven't really had the time. I'll tell you more about Oblivion later on in the week but for now I want to talk about the revolutionary L.A. Noire!

I bought it 2 days after release for £39.99, a lot, but I've been looking forward to this game for months so it was a worthy expenditure in my ever decreasing stash of money. I also bought it because Rockstar produced it and anything with their logo on rocks! *ahem* Red Dead Redemption *ahem*

You play as Cole Phelps an ex-marine-lieutenant who fought in Okinawa in WWII. He won the Silver Star, one of the navy's highest honours and then retired. When he got back he wanted to continue serving his country on home soil. Consequently, he joined the LAPD.

Long story short, you start off as a normal copper and your first case is to go to a crime scene where someone was shot dead. The detectives there tell you to find the murder weapon and then they drive off (lazy twats!). At every crime scene you visit, the 'Investigation Theme' will play. This is a moody piece of jazz music that continues to play until you discover all of the clues at the crime scene. Walking near clues will cause a light jiggling sound to play, you can then press the X button to investigate the object further. Not all objects are linked to the case. For example, on the first case, situated in an alleyway, you find lots of beer bottles that have nothing to do with the crime. If you find a significant clue, Cole will right info about it in his notebook which you can access with the Select button. You can view POIs' (Persons of Interest), Locations (which you can set as waypoints on your minimap) and Clues.

On every case there's always a POI to interrogate. When the interrogation begins, you can select any of the available questions from your notebook to ask them. They'll tell you an answer... but they may be lying. This is where the stunning facial motionscan technology comes into play. After they've told you an answer the camera zooms in on the POI's face and you have to study their facial expressions to determine if they are lying or not. This is usually seen through the evasion of direct eye contact, fidgeting or scratching or overall discomfort. If you think they're telling the truth you can select 'Truth' and see if you were right. You can also select 'Doubt' if you think they're lying or 'Lie' if you actually have evidence to prove they're lying. When you press 'Lie' you must then select a clue from your notebook to support your accusation. If you get it right, then a tick will be shown next to the question in the notebook and if you get it wrong a cross will be shown. Succeeding in all the question goes towards your end of case report.

You usually have to drive to each part of the case. Say if you learned that a POI lives in a certain apartment building and you need to interrogate them then you'd set a waypoint for the apartment building under 'Locations' in your Notebook then drive there. You can also make your partner drive there to basically skip the driving sequence all together (as you move up in the police force you get different partners).
Injuring civilians by running them over or causing damage to other vehicles and city property has a dramatic effect on your end of case report.
Most of the time when you try to confront a suspect they'll run away, sometimes on foot and sometimes they'll hi-jack a car quickly. The on-foot chases usually require you to run top-speed after the suspect. They sometimes climb up drainpipes to the top of buildings and up stairwells and so-on. When you get close enough you can tackle them to the floor to end the chase early, but if you're too slow the chase sometimes ends in a brawling sequence. You can also stop the suspect by pointing your gun at them or scaring to a halt with a warning shot. When suspects get in cars it's much more fun to be honest. You have to drive full-speed and get close enough for your partner to shoot out the suspect's car's wheels or ram them enough times so that they stop. It is very fun and is actually extremely realistic. Apart from  the 40 different street-crimes which activate when you are driving to the next location. There's not actually much else to do on this game. It's very linear focusing mainly on the story. Most people are under the misconception that it plays rather like Grand Theft Auto. This is untrue. L.A. Noire is a much more dark and serious game and that's what i really like about it. It isn't silly like sometime GTA can be. It's dead serious and the mood across the game (especially when on the Homicide Desk cases) is brilliant.

I definitely say it's worth picking this up. It's new and it's unlike anything i've ever played before... and it looks so great!

Sunday 15 May 2011

Reviews I Never Posted

I have 10 games I never did reviews for! All of my PS3 games and Phantom Hourglass on DS need to be typed up. So, over the next 10 days I'm going to write 1 a day, starting tomorrow!

Not much to say other than that. I felt like Red Dead Redemption, so I basically spent 2 hours playing it today! It never gets old. I also dabbled in Minecraft online Multiplayer, it's very confusing.

Friday 13 May 2011

Fallout: New Vegas completed

Wow! I haven't done a post in a little while now. This is only my second this month!

Anyway, I completed New Vegas over a week ago, and to be honest I stopped straight afterwards and I'm going through yet another obsessive Minecraft phase.

The joy of delving deep into unadventured caverns and hunting for rare ores... and then a creeper comes out of nowhere, scares the crap out of you whilst killing you in the process. Oh, and by the way, I learned my lesson... my house is now creeper-proof.
The final battle at Hoover Dam found me siding with the NCR and Rangers, mowing my way through Legion troops and reaching Legate Lanius' cam p. That part was extremely difficult as (with the combonation of an urgently low supply of Stimpacks/Super Stimpacks, damaged armour and Legate Lanius himself who lopped off a 3rd of my HP every hit) there were snipers everywhere and the Legate himself was a formidable foe. In the end I managed to corner him behind a wagon with a crippled leg. From their I destroyed half his health with a trio of Plasma Grenades and finished him off with my Ballistic Fist... it was awesome! :)

Luckily I saved before the Legion commenced their attack on the dam because the story ends completely and restarts you at your nearest save! I still have plenty of quests to complete and many, many places to visit. Before I finish that off, however, I'm returning to the sweet, sweet world of Fallout 3 to find every location, collect every weapon and do all there is to do!

Monday 2 May 2011

Replaying Fallout: New Vegas

I sort of abandoned this game when I got Oblivion and now, returning to it after finishing Fallout 3 about a week back, I have no idea whatsoever about what I was supposed to be doing, what all my weapons were like, who I was even! So, I did the only sensible thing a gamer would do... started a new game, overwriting my old one!

Yeah, it felt pretty good doing that because if I continued from where I left off, i don't think I'd enjoy it as much, not knowing what I was doing and such. This time round I opted out of Hardcore mode (dropped a Gold Trophy for doing this, but it's a lot more fun to play when you don't have dehydration messsages popping up every 10 minutes!). I found a bunch of new weapons I never knew existed in my old save and have made better use of toolbenches and reloading benches, creating my own ammunition out of scrap materials. Skipping a whole lot, I'm level 19 now and instead of talking to Ceasar, leader of the Legion in his camp, I went in there and mass murdered every single evil scumbag in that camp. I actually killed Ceasar! I felt so amazing watching his head explode, I'm so sick! Errr... yeah, anyway, I won 32,000 caps on a slots machine by getting 3 oranges in a row... that was pretty cool too. Oh, yeah! I found this weapon shop called the 'Gun Runners'. The weapons there are in 100% condition and cost thousands, luckily those 3 oranges got me a lifetime supply of caps, well like a couple of days caps, but hey.

Tuesday 26 April 2011

Platinum PSN Trophy - 1 (Fallout 3)

Yep, 92 hours, 29 minutes and 21 seconds was the time it took me to get all 50 non-DLC trophies and earn myself a Platinum! My first platinum! I'm so happy. That's 80% of Fallout 3's trophies completed as I haven;t got all of the DLC ones. 6 of the trophies needed for the Platinum forced me to start a new game and reach level 8, 14 and 20 with neutral or good karma levels. It took me 3 whole days of gaming to get to level 20!
Anyway, It was great fun and now I guess all I've got to do is get the DLC trophies and I'm done with this game. Shame, because it's such an amazing game. I've been decorating my Megaton house with guns, chems and other miscellaneous rubbish just like I did in Oblivion (except with swords!).

Here are my very own Fallout 3 statistics, straight from my Pip-Boy 3000!

Quests Completed:                                  47
Locations Discovered:                            140
People Killed:                                         593
Creatures Killed:                                   1026
Locks Picked:                                         254
Computers Hacked:                                  50
Stimpacks Taken:                                    754
Rad-X taken:                                             66
RadAway taken:                                      108
Chems Taken:                                          299
Times Addicted:                                         34
Mines Disarmed:                                        28
Speech Successes:                                     51
Pockets Picked:                                         27
Pants Exploded:                                           0
Books Read:                                              56
Bobbleheads Found:                                  20
Weapons Created:                                       5
People Mezzed:                                           4
Captives Rescued:                                       2
Sandman Kills:                                            6
Paralyzing Punches:                                     0
Robots Disabled:                                        0
Contracts Comnpleted:                               0
Corpses Eaten:                                           0
Mysterious Stranger Visits:                         27