Borderlands 2 Launch Date Announced + Trailer!

I loved the first game and now here comes a sequel! And, let me tell you, it looks amazing! There was something like a million guns in Borderlands but in Borderlands 2 apparently there will be even more! Viewing the trailer you'll see some ultra-cool looking guns as well. The launch date is said to be 18th September of this year so a I believe 2012's first pre-order is about to arise!

Better grab my controller and get in some practice on the original game...

The song is 'Doomsday' by Nero.
 - Direct Link - 

Check out SuperPhillip Central!

Just thought I'd recommend a blog I recently became affiliates with over the weekend! SuperPhillip Central is owned by Phillip who, like the majority of us, is an avid gamer. He posts loads of reviews and news over at his site so go check it out and leave a comment!

Link to SuperPhillip Central!

Gamingheap Review - Uncharted 3 (PS3)

Written by Oliver

   A Gamingheap Review...

Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception

I first tried out the Uncharted series last year when one of my mates recommended it to me. I have never played the first one, but completed Uncharted 2: Among Thieves and loved it! Uncharted 3: Drakes Deception is an almost perfect third-person-shooter & action and adventure crossover. It would seem each installment in the series is just getting better and better! I actually completed my first play-through on Hard difficulty earlier on today and also had a crack at 'Crushing' difficulty, though I'll get onto that later. I bought this game for £20 if I remember correctly and it was definitely worth it...

Uncharted 3, the best Uncharted yet!

Another game I bought last December (I bought so many!), Uncharted 3 is turning out to be a truly epic game! I unfortunately never played the first one, but I loved Uncharted 2 with its amazing cinematic, movie-like gameplay. That's one thing I love about the series - the whole blockbuster movie feel to it - there are some outstanding level designs, for example the level in Uncharted 2 where you are hanging from a train that is overhanging a massive snowy cliff or a level I completed in Uncharted 3 today where you are in a cruise ship which sinks with you in it!

Uncharted 3's story is great, focusing more on Nathan Drake's past and his endeavour to find the 'Atlantis of the Sands". it's a rather big game too with over 20 chapters and 100 treasures to go back and find throughout the game! Combat is better than ever before with a few new weapons and much better melee combat. It all looks very realistic as well as the graphics are top-class. Expect a Gamingheap Review tomorrow or Saturday at the lastest!

Top Soundtracks [002]: Grand Theft Auto IV - Vagabond, Greenskeepers

 TOP SOUNDTRACKS [002]: 

 Grand Theft Auto IV: Vagabond, Greenskeepers 

Now I do not know about you guys, but before Grand Theft Auto IV came out, I didn't know who Greenskeepers were, as well as a lot of the other bands whose songs are featured in the game's excellent and quite frankly, hilarious radio stations. Greenskeepers were contacted by Rockstar to make a unique song solely for GTA IV and this is what they produced. The riff is just too good!

Platinum PSN Trophy - 3 (The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim)

This is probably my greatest gaming achievement so far! Skyrim is one of my favourite games of 2011 and indeed of all time as is the entire Elder Scrolls series. I managed this Platinum in a gargantuan 149 hours, 31 minutes and 42 seconds of gameplay. This makes 2 platinums in 9 days! I'm so happy I finally platinum-ed it as it took so much time and it is such a big game. To be fair, none of the trophies were too difficult to get surprisingly. Instead they were just really time consuming! Here are some gameplay stats if you are interested...

Days as a Werewolf: 287
Locations Discovered: 250
Dungeons Cleared: 104
Days Passed: 295
Hours Slept: 41
Hours Waiting: 916
Standing Stones Found: 13
Gold Found: 332345
Most Gold Carried: 105989
Chests Looted: 1780
Skill Increases: 784
Skill Books Read: 72
Food Eaten: 443
Training Sessions: 40
Books Read: 317
Horses Owned: 2
Houses Owned: 2
Stores Invested In: 0
Barters: 1751
Persuasions: 30
Bribes: 8
Intimidations: 10
Diseases Contracted: 1

Quests Completed: 112
Misc Objectives Completed: 157
Main Quests Completed: 18
Side-Quests Completed: 17
The Companions Quests Completed: 7
College of Winterhold Quests Completed: 8
Thieves Guild Quests Completed: 13
The Dark Brotherhood Quests Completed: 27
Civil War Quests Completed: 8
Daedric Quests Completed: 15
Questlines Completed: 5

People Killed: 1285
Animals: 667
Creatures Killed: 259
Undead Killed: 542
Daedra Killed: 29
Automatons Killed: 71
Favourite Weapon: Daedric Sword
Critical Strikes: 1272
Sneak Attacks: 630
Backstabs: 24
Weapons Disarmed: 8
Brawls Won: 7
Bunnies Slaughtered: 9

Spells Learned: 33
Favourite Spell: Telekinesis
Favourite School: Alteration
Dragon Souls Collected: 50
Words of Power Learned: 44
Words of power Unlocked: 46
Shouts Learned: 20
Shouts Unlocked: 20
Shouts Mastered: 8
Times Shouted: 1495
Favourite Shout: Whirlwind Sprint

Soul Gems Used: 59
Souls Trapped: 144
Magic Items Made: 19
Weapons Improved: 41
Weapons Made: 368
Armour Improved: 39
Armour Made: 182
Potions Mixed: 325
Potions Used: 471
Poisons Mixed: 181
Poisons Used: 5
Ingredients Harvested: 1228
Ingredients Eaten: 190
Nirnroots Found: 43
Wings Plucked: 76

Total Lifetime Bounty: 23752
Largest Bounty: 3001
Locks Picked: 290
Pockets Picked: 75
Items Pickpocketed: 693
Times Jailed: 1
Days Jailed: 1
Fines Paid: 12636
Jail Escapes: 1
Items Stolen: 1127
Assaults: 378
Murders: 66
Horses Stolen: 1
Trespasses: 22

If you enjoyed reading these stats, why not copy and paste them, re-write your stats and share them with everyone!

Thanks for reading!

I started this humble hobby nearly 2 years ago in March 2010. Since then I have acquired 31 followers, close on 15,000 page views from people in countries all over the world including the US, UK, Canada, Germany, Australia, France and Russia. I would just like to dedicate this post to you guys for reading my blog and some of you for also sharing your thoughts as comments on my posts. I hope to continue this blog for the foreseeable future, so, all you gamers out there...

Game on! :)

A Skyrim Guide: How to make easy gold!

Here's just a little something I thought I might compile in a fit of creativity this evening: a small guide containing some of my very own, tried and tested tips for making some coin in the world of Skyrim! There may be more of these to come, so watch this space!

A Skyrim Guide:

How to make easy gold!

Gold is probably the most useful thing in Skyrim and is definitely something you'll need a lot of, whether it be for buying armour, weapons, ingredients or even real-estate, gold is something you need a good supply of in the harsh land of Skyrim. Here are a few simple tips to help you become a budding, wealthy nobleman...

• Adventure! There's nothing better than delving deep into nord burial crypts or deep dark caves! Along the way, you're sure to find many chests with gold or valuable items in them. Just watch out for the Draugr! You can sell these items for a decent price to any of Skyrim's fine traders. For the truly foolhardy I recommend exploring dwarven ruins for rare metals and priceless artifacts. But! Beware of the dangerous contraptions and other monsters that dwell within!

• Alchemy! Many people believe alchemy is a boring practice that only the old have fun doing. However if you see a mountain flower, torchbug, lunar moth or happen to cross paths with any other ingredients along Skyrim's snowy paths then why not pick them up and brew up a nice potion at the nearest alchemy table? It's very easy to do and selling these potions or poisons will award you with a lot of gold! Skilled alchemists would do well to combine a 'Lunar Moth Wings' with 'Chaurus Eggs' to create a valuable 'Potion of Invisibility'. Some potions can fetch as high as 500 gold if you're lucky!

• Questing! See a stranger on the road or in town? Talk to them, see if they offer you a quest. Some people will ask you to deliver different items to different people. Doing so takes little more than a few minutes and before you know it you could have another couple of hundred gold jiggling in your pouch for all the footwork. Bigger, better quests will reward you with more gold so get out there and start questing!

• Crime! If all else fails and you really are broke then just head over to the nearest town, lockpick a house and steal the items inside! You can sell these items to any fence from the Thieves Guild in Riften. Just make sure any guards don't spot you or you'll be losing more money than you're earning! And... if you're really stuck, break into a house in the dead of night and murder somebody! Do it right, and nobody will notice a thing.

Well, I hope you're now raring to get out there and make some gold with these magnificent tips tried and tested by yours truly!

Gamingheap Review - Dead Island (PS3)

Written by Oliver

   A Gamingheap Review...

Dead Island

When I first saw the trailer for this game back in early 2011 I was highly intrigued. The trailer was the best I had seen that year and I thought it was extremely creative, depicting a family on holiday fighting for their lives against the undead - but playing in slow-motion and in reverse behind very sad music. When I saw some gameplay clips a while later it looked even better! A proper zombie game in an open-world map where you could equip literally dozens of weapons to smash undead skulls in - great! What I thought looked really cool was the survival skill aspect of trying to gather food and medical supplies to keep yourself going whilst trying to avoid large undead hordes and instead picking of the smaller groups. I bought this for a hefty price of $49.99 in Gamestop - it was a lot of cash for what it is...

Gamingheap Special: SKYRIM - Part 7

 Gamingheap Special: SKYRIM 

Part 7

*** THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS! ***

I have decided to continue my ongoing quest to platinum Skyrim. I have currently obtained 75% of the trophies so far, the most recent trophy being the 'One with the Shadows' trophy which requires you to return the Thieves Guild to its former glory. If you have read this series up to now, you should know that I had completed the Thieves Guild missions a long way back, but this was a sort of side mission. After doing 5 little thieving jobs in Whiterun, Markarth, Solitude and Windhelm (you can get them from some of the members of the guild) you are awarded the status of Guild-Master and are given the Guild-Master's armour! It's basically a better version of the Thieves Guild Armour with higher stat increases and the fact that it looks ever so slightly darker.

I really enjoyed the Thieves Guild missions as pick-pocketing and sneak are 2 major skills for me in the Elder Scrolls games. Going on from this I also obtained the 'Thief' trophy by pick-pocketing 50 people and successfully picking 50 locks. My lockpicking skill is 95 so it should be level 100 very soon.

I have also been doing the Daedric Lord missions and collecting the artifacts as rewards. I only have 3 or 4 of these to go until I get the 'Oblivion Walker' trophy. Some of the artifacts are awesome! They were all in TES IV: Oblivion as far as I know, but with the improved graphics in Skyrim they all look much better. My personal favourite is a sword: Dawnbreaker you get from doing the Meridia shrine quest. The quest saw me go through a large dungeon filled to the brim with 'Corrupted Shades' (basically ghosts) and kill a powerful mage at the end. Another is Volendrung, a massive warhammer obtained from the daedric lord, Malacath who is worshipped primarily by the many orcish settlements around Skyrim. The quest saw me helping a cursed orcish tribe kill giants in a cavern.

The next trophy I will probably get is the 'Golden Touch' trophy where 100,000 gold is required!

Platinum PSN Trophy - 2 (Saints Row: The Third)

This platinum trophy took me a total of 48 hours, 37 minutes, 39 seconds to obtain.
It was one heck of a ride and whilst most of it was very fun, it was also very tedious.
The hardest trophy was definitely the "Your My Hero!" trophy which saw me completing all 42 in-game challenges.

Here are my 100% completion stats for any one who is interested :)...

Total Respect Earned: 235522
Total Cash Earned: $5,454,360.96
Total Cash Spent: $3,348,857.92
Hospital Bills: $13,000.00
Spent on Customisation Items: $8,714.00
Spent on Car Customisation: £218,415.00
Vehicles Destroyed: 1769
Total Damage Taken: 674076.25
Deaths: 50
Shots Hit: 47.87%
Best Weapon: Shotgun
Total Distance Traveled: 1380401.00m
Favourite Mode of Transportation: Car
Distance by Vehicle: 1127706.13m
Distance by Car: 794259.19m
Longest Jump: 80.10m
Parachute Distance: 7456.97m
Vehicles Hi-jacked: 348
Vehicles Destroyed: 1769
Gang Kills: 3668
Civilians Killed: 1579
Total Law Enforcement Killed: 1652
Unarmed Kills: 270
Human Shield Kills: 34
Grenade Kills: 330
Mascots Killed: 292
Brutes Killed: 126
People Run Over: 1549
Longest Wheelie Distance: 352.62m
Stores Robbed: 15

75% of Saints Row: The Third trophies!

I've been plowing through the trophies this week managing to top my total to 614 trophies! I have so far obtained 105 trophies this year alone, a great start if you ask me! :)

Anyhow, I've been focusing on SR3 this week getting some of the harder trophies like completing all of the city takeover gameplay, all of the activities, gang operations etc. All I have left are a handful of trophies. A hard one is to complete ALL 47 of the in-game challenges, a very time consuming trophy.

Along with Skyrim I'm hoping to platinum this game soonish.

Gamingheap Review - The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (PS3)

Written by Oliver

A Gamingheap Review...

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

I have been avoiding this review for a while, mainly because I knew it would take me a heck of a long time to plan, think about and ultimately type up... but, here it is! Read, and enjoy...

                                                                                    -

I had been eagerly anticipating the fifth installment of Bethesda Softworks' epic RPG series since I first heard it was in development about a year ago. I thoroughly enjoyed Oblivion and the charm of Cyrodiil and was excited about finally getting out and exploring Skyrim's snowy mountains and deep caves. So, when I finally got my hands on this game and started to play it I was already thinking what I would put in this review...

Gamingheap Special: SKYRIM - Part 6

 Gamingheap Special: SKYRIM 

Part 6

*** THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS! ***

Just a short update.

I managed to finish the main questline, defeating Alduin in Soverngarde. He was actually pathetically easy, but that's probably because I just shot him up with ebony arrows from far away haha. In the end he exploded (no i'm not joking, when Alduin dies he actually explodes!) and there was no reward whatsoever... not even a dragon soul... so yeah that was a bummer of a way to end the main storyline. Although, I do now have a shout where I can call my very own dragon to fight for me. Randomly spawning dragons also still appear once Alduin is killed which is good because the game wouldn't be nearly as much fun without them. From what I've seen in the trophy list Skyrim looks pretty simple to platinum. All I have got to do is do all of the faction quests such as the thieves guild, companions etc. and then just a handful of extra miscellaneous trophies and I'm done! So that's going to be my next goal in the gaming world: to platinum Skyrim! I don't think it will take me anymore than a couple of weeks gameplay from now. 

The Lore and Literature of The Elder Scrolls

The books and the lore behind The Elder Scrolls games are great! I've been playing since Oblivion and it's something I've loved and enjoyed so much! I don't know about other gamers, but I've talked to my friends and they say that they always drop books and never read them. There missing out on so much in my opinion. The books tell tales of great adventurers, give useful information on the world and there's even a create your own adventure story book! 

Most RPGs I play, though they have great gameplay and are really fun, don't focus nearly as much as on Lore as Bethesda do in The Elder Scrolls series. I think it makes the game's environment so much more realistic like the world your playing in has existed long before you started playing. This post is basically me just voicing my mind over this fairly small, but outstanding part of Skyrim and Oblivion that I've learned to really enjoy.

Currently my Skyrim household contains over 120 books some really common and some unique and very valuable. I have read a lot of them, however I really would like to sit down one weekend, boot up Skyrim and just read them all for the fun of it!