Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater (PS2)

Fucking awesome. The first 2 hours were tediously dull, hence me picking up my untouched-for-three-months save at 1:48 in on Sunday. By the end of tonight's (Monday) session I've broken the 14 hour mark. Utterly gripping. I've taken out The Pain, The Fear, The End, The Fury, The Sorrow and Volgin with his tank mole thingy. Just The Boss left to go. Brilliant. And I think I may be in love with EVA.

FIFA 09

Ultimate Team is painfully addictively brilliant. Having poured endless hours into it, and having won all 18 single-player cups, my team is now pretty impressive. Bizzarri in goal; Maxwell, Puyol, Chiellini and Zambrotta across the back; Giggs, Toure, Lampard and Cameronasi in midfield with Luis Fabiano and Klose up front. Yet I'm still being relentlessly battered online. Not fair.

Sod all

You might think I'm a bad person for going a month without posting. I'm suffering with severe ennui. I blame Eragon. I thought I was back in the flow with FIFA UT which is ACE. But then it broke. Completely. Forever. Because it's SHIT. Don't buy it. Until they fix it. Then buy it.

Seven days in gaming

Cars Mater-National - 360
1,000G. A fun little game. Took about 6-7 hours. Surprisingly pleasant.

Sega Mega Drive Ultimate Collection - 360
950G. Now done everything but MBM. Evil, evil game. The collection has its moments, but is mostly a bag of arse.

Halo Wars - 360
Only the first two levels, oddly. It's well done, but it just doesn't feel like Halo.

Mirror's Edge - 360
Did the tutorial and first levels. I'm stuck on level 2. I am terrible at this. Pretty though.

FIFA 09 - 360
There's an update but they still haven't finished the interactive leagues bug. NRGH!

Tiger Woods 09 - 360
I think I'm going to have to give up the possibility of 1king this. GamerNet is just too damn hard and buggy.

Grand Theft Auto IV - 360
A few races done as well as finishing off Stevie's deliveries.

Midnight Club LA - 360
Played a couple of hours but made next to no progress. Annoyingly and unfairly unrealistic at times (like when the stats bear no relation at all to the AI flying past me in a statistically inferior car). I've been told to hold out till I get the Lamborghini. I shall try find the patience, but its making it very hard.

An assortment of stuff

No update in nearly three weeks. I disgust myself. Especially given I've done a reasonable amount of gaming. Which I can't be bothered doing seperate posts for, so I shall list in here...

Soul Calibur - XBLA
Still. Can't. Get. 25. Extra Survival. NRGH!

Midnight Club LA - 360
Started a couple of weeks ago, did 8 hours over a few days but have drifted from it. It varies. The races are too long, the rubber banding is too extreme, and the vehicle stats are irrelevant (I have a bike with a 75% full acceleration stat, yet a Focus with 15% being driven by the AI can beat me off the line?!), but it's fun enough. Just too big. I seem to have been collecting massive racing games lately (BP, MCLA, TDU and PGR4 all acquired in recent weeks).

Monopoly - 360
It's Monopoly. But with more irrirating animations. Still, a couple of short and tolerable sessions netted me the 1,000G, so all is good.

Grand Theft Auto IV: The Lost and Damned - 360
Started and finished. It's GTA IV, with less likeable characters and better weather effects. Well recommended for any fans of GTA, the 12 hours it will take to amass all the achievements makes the 1,600MSP asking price seem perfectly reasonable. It's not GOTY material like IV was, but it's still better than 99% of full-price releases.

Sega Mega Drive Ultimate Collection - 360
Sonic 1 & 2 are awesomely awesome. Comix Zone is cool. Vectorman is cool. The rest are pretty much all diabolical. Thank god for 3D.

Cars Mater-National - 360
A couple of hours in, a nice, relaxing and stress-free little racer, quite inoffensive and a nice game to unwind to.


Lent starts tomorrow. I will give up not writing on my blog.

Burnout Paradise

This is the worst game ever for an achievement whore. Largely because it's glitchy as hell. The burning run achievement I won over a week ago unlocked randomly this evening. I've now found all the drive-throughs and the achievement hasn't popped up, so maybe that will turn up in a few months. It's good enough, but I don't really do open-world games. I like menus and structure and events that progress logically, otherwise my brain hurts.

Rock Band 2

Have you ever loved a game unconditionally and sworn your life away to it only to have it rip out your heart and laugh in your face? Probably not. So you won't know the feeling of starting the Endless Setlist 2 on expert, an 84-song set without breaks or saving, having practiced the last two songs to make sure you can get through them, assuming they'd be the hardest, getting through the first 81 only to find the third-from-last song is an unlistenable hardcore metal thrash that makes Through The Fire And Flames seem positively easy. There's 12 hours I won't get back (that's 8 to get that far, and 4 retrying it furiously). Still, got all the multiplayer achievements out of the way, which is progress.

Rock Band 2

Once again I jumped into a long set without bothering to check the last song on it. The impossible bass challenge must be easy, it's only bass, after all, I'll play it on expert. Oh, there's a 10-minute Dream Theatre song. Fuck.

Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney

Finished. That was fun, dull, exhilarating, frustrating and heartwarming in equal measure. The last half hour is just one relentless plot twist after another, but everything comes together with such beautiful precision that it's hard to hold the often tedious story against it.

Burnout Paradise

Another new game. Played for about an hour last night, doing around six events, finding a load of car parks and generally crashing into things. Seems good on first impressions, but not as good as 3, and I seem to have lost the 1337 skills that let me 100% 3, lots of crashing taking place. But this must take a side seat to MGS3 for a while, so probably won't play much more of this for a while.

Pure

C0mpl370r1z3d! Got first in all events and finished off with 585G. I suspect most of the remaining achievements are beyond my abilities. I may try, I may not. It was fun, although was starting to grate by the end. Recommended, anyway, especially for the tenner Play are charging for it.

Rock Band 2

It took a lot longer than anticipated, but I finally have the Road Dog achievement. If I hear Charlene again I will die. And I've unlocked the endless setlist along the way. Fun.

Guitar Hero On Tour

Finished. Hard was surprisingly easy, even with only 4 buttons. Track list was good in places (the Santana and SRV jams were fun), but ultimately the control setup is bollocks, and it's little more than a novelty.