Warhammer 40k Breaks Out of RTS

And I cannot be happier. Finally I can play as a Space Marine with bolter and chainsword hacking my way through a sea of greenskins with my brothers at my side.

Well, except I have kind of done this dance before with the Gears of War series and I guess this might taint thing a little. Especially with the release schedule fixed like it was this year. You see, once upon a time I grabbed a disk for my X-Box 360 called Gears of War after watching the trailers and being somewhat impressed with what I saw. And it took me all of 5 minutes of playing it to realise this is how it must feel to play as a Space Marine in Warhammer 40,000's universe.

Forever waiting for the Duke!

And the Duke is what we got!

OK so this review is way over due and I guess in keeping with the game itself. The production schedule was somewhat akin to that of the great pyramids and, as such, it kind of shows in the game itself. By now a lot of reviews have been out so you have all seen the slightly diverse pool of opinions on the game. I got it on release day and started playing instantly but it has been put down a few times for other game's sake which I have also to review. Kind of like Gearbox, really, developing the game itself. I doubt anyone has been waiting with baited breath for me, though, so hey.

Home is where the Homefront is.

I viewed Homefront from THQ at a slight distance as a curious observer for some time in the build up and post release, not entirely sure what was putting me off about it. I saw podcasts on G4TV about it, online trailers on Steam when it was released and read a couple of articles about it and all I was presented with was another first person shooter and another fantastical story about America being invaded. Maybe I was getting bored with this story after playing Modern Warfare 2 and World in Conflict, so maybe this put me off somewhat but I figured I should give it a fair shake when I saw it on the specials shelf in the store.

I loaded it up, now finding I was looking forward to getting my teeth into it, despite my apprehensions about the storyline.

Be vewy, vewy quiet....

.... I'm hunting merchant ships.

So, having mulled this game over for a long time, I finally bought it. Yes, yes, I know there are some shiny and sparkly new games out there. And I could have put my money to them if I wanted to, and may still. Silent Hunter III is an older game now, the latest in the series being number 5, so it is not current news and I would say that every review that could be written has been written. However, if you are like me and you have not even read those reviews anyway, then this will be a good journey together to the bottom of the sea.

Why did I buy it? Well, because I felt like stretching my horizons when it comes to games, and there are few out there that play like this one, while much of the rest out currently play like everything that came before it.

Another PC build...

This is not so much about games today as I am in a bit of a lull with new games to play. I know gamers out there will wonder what I am talking about though, given the fresh set of releases this last month. Brink, L.A.Noire, Duke Nukem Forever... ohh wait that was delayed again. But anyway I have that on pre-purchase so will be aiming for a post-release review of that one.

I have been a little busy with other stuff, however, and right now this is one of the things I have been working on. Another rebuild of my old PC.

This one has been an adventure, and a couple of things have happened since my last blog on system building. The brief of the last blog is this.

Magicka, Co-op, control systems and ggggrrrah!

Ok so a while back I picked up Magicka on steam when it was being sold off with a bunch of the DLCs. Watching the trailers and a little reading I figured it was worth the price as it looked like my kind of game. Kind of like the good old Cannon Fodder but with magic as well. Especially with the Vietnam DLC where you give your mage a machine gun and go nuts.

Portal 2, worth the wait?

So, I picked up Portal 2 at the release and quickly fired it up to see what it has to offer. And, to answer the title question, yes it was worth the wait. Though by wait, we should first look at Valve's innovative release system using the potato sack. Essentially, you could pre-buy the game bundled with a bunch of Indie game titles selected by Valve from the steam library, and the more people logged into the games the closer Portal 2 would come to being released early.

So, release mechanism aside, players of the first Portal game will know how it plays, and in short I will say to you guys, stop reading here because, honestly, the game is more of the same procedure. It feels and plays the same as before, though the look of it has gotten a little more polish since, as you might expect with the passage of time and Valve's evolving Source engine.

Well, ok there is a little more on Portal 2's table I guess, so keep reading a little longer and I will tell you where to stop.