Load time vs retry attempts....

Playing deus ex....
Noticed the loading times are quite long.
This wouldn't be a problem but in a game which needs you to succeed through trial and error... You die quite a lot. Meaning you need to load quite a lot. This is frustrating for the player.

Installing the game to my hdd to see if it improves the time whilst I make some cheese on toast.


Mmmmmmm

EDIT: No... it didn't help the loading times at all. still, at least it saves the disk drive in my 360 from spinning up every load and my cheese on toast was awesome.

Gaming update.. the state of play

Where I been at!?!?

Well...

Looking at the list I thought I better do a recap.

I had two weeks off and played a few games in that time. Some were from the list, others were new and exciting.

In my two weeks I played and completed “From Dust” and Battlefield Bad Company 2.

From Dust

Great fun, nice little idea, very atmospheric and great rounded game.

BAD CAMERA CONTROLS. There are two positions, UP and DOWN but the controls feel analogue.. meaning you are always flitting between the two without realising.

Battlefield Bad Company 2

Aauh maan.... Ok. It was a great game. Lots of fun, feels polished, a few bugs but thats ok it was a great experience.

But WHERE did the humour go? I remember being in fits of laughter at the comedy in bad company... but this game has gone all... Serious and ... I dunno. Feels like its lost some individuality.

There were some great moments of humour but they were in between fights and left me thinking “I wish there was more”.

And one big question... WARNING SPOILERS! –

At the end of Bad Company 1... they stole tonnes of gold... why are they still in the army and not rich and retired?

So looking at my list...I have so far completed the following –

Hitman Blood Money – 360

Assassins Creed – 360

Metal Gear Solid 4 PS3

Bad Company 2 – 360

DR2 Case Zero – 360

From Dust – 360

Currently I am part way through..

Insanely twisted shadow planet

Bastion

Deus Ex human revolution

Alice

Shadows of the damned

I WILL Finish at least 3 of these before moving on to a new game J

Done. Finally. Take that metroid prime!

Completed! Go videogames!
Watching credits roll now. Overall I give the game 7 out of ten. It's polished and fun and I get to explore lots. It gets minus points for frustrating radial select on wii for both visors and weapons and when you have to swap between them to defeat a lot of the later enemies the game really starts to fall over. The a game cube controls were a lot better for this game.

Re entrant gameplay can be great... But prime stretches it a little too far to be fun for me. Others may disagree

17 hours play, 74% of items

In closing, I enjoyed it far more before the last few parts of the game. So overall, it's great, but lost me near the end.

Time for a cup of tea I think.

Thanks to "Claire" for her awesome help and for making me push through the frustration and anger. Without her, I think I would be at least one wii controller down :)

Defeated Ridley....

Now we are fighting metroid prime. Now..........

I really hate manual saves and having to go through half a level just to get to where you were.
The last part of this game I am not finding fun at all. It's just a grind.

More news as it happens

Grrrr

Up at 9:30 an 'troiding!

Bam! Got the ice beam, a couple of energy tanks, numerous missile expansions and are currently on our way to the gravity chamber ...

Feeling like a productive day so far :)

1am and calling it a night... Or a morning...

Cutting through metroid at speed today! Claire and I have got probably about 60% through the game today with only breaks for food shopping, cups of tea and eating. Had a break for a couple of episodes of futurama and dinner and then settled down to an evening of prime.

I am enjoying the game a lot but it does feel really old school in places. I love exploring and finding stuff but hate having to go from one end of the game world to the other in order to find an item I need. It feels like artificial game lengthening. I feel like it is acceptable for a 2d style metroid game but it feels out of place in a 3d game.

My biggest gripe tho... No autosave. I wouldn't mind having to manually save if the rooms were a sensible distance from the boss fights. I did not like having to trudge across a level from a save room having just failed a boss. Most annoying.


Also... Hints... I can be wondering around for about 10 minutes and then the game will say
"aaah!!! You need to go here!". Why can't I ask for a hint or just be shown the hint at the end of a section? I wouldn't even mind scanning for hints. At least that would be interactive.

Still, it feels metroid, plays like metroid and is great fun. I am enjoying it and I am going to try hard to complete it tomorrow :)

Going to sleep now.

Night all

Time... What a stange companion you are

Hello!
Well it has been a while hasn't it. I have been struggling to play video games from the list recently because I have had so much going on with work, personal life and wedding plans. This weekend I have a friend staying with me. For the purposes of this blog we will call her "Claire". Now this "Claire" person is a huge metroid fan and I have been talking with her about it for many years. So today, I have continued my metroid game and we are committed to seeing it through! She is staying with me till tuesday so I fancy our chances of completing it :)

Will keep updating as we go. Currently 1hour and 50 mins into the story. We got missiles, morph ball and are on our way to a place with high wasp activity...

Hot seating ftw!