SimCity!

Although it has already been released in the US (anybody in the US or with a UK preorder already let me know what it's like), SimCity will be here tomorrow and I must admit I'm rather excited. It's a game that has been due a sequel for quite some time and hopefully it will live up to expectation.

I know there have been aspects which have caused uproar, such as the DRM , the constant need for an online connection and the matter of having several different smaller city areas; rather than a large expanse. I'm prepared to look beyond these as long as the game is as addicting and involved as the previous ones.

We shall see.

Typing Errors In Games..

Whether it be within dialogue, random text or through any other means. Finding a spelling mistake in a game when just starting out can have a considerable affect on your first impressions, especially if its joined by errors two and three shortly thereafter. It doesn't in anyway reflect the final product necessarily, however it doesn't bode well.

I have been recently playing Anno 2070 and have come across many instances in the few short hours I have played. When you consider the mainstream MMOs have page after page of text to check but don't often make errors, you find yourself thinking there wasn't much attention to detail during development and testing.

Can you think of any other games where you have found the elusive, or sometimes, obvious error?

On another note, if there does happen to be any spelling errors in this post.. please ignore.

Rant: Pointless, Attention Seeking Statuses!

To the people who update their social networking profiles with statuses with the likes of:

'OMG I don't believe it'

'Did that really happen?'

'Thats never going to happen again'

Or amongst many other incarnations.. Why! Why even spend your time writing the status when it clearly has no new information. Not a lot, if any, of the people on your friends list will know what your talking about and the only persona you therefore create is one of an attention seeker.

To the people who comment on the said status and actually ask further.. ... ...

Rant over.

Review / My Thoughts: Far Cry 3

Is this game worth paying out for at the moment or is it something to find in a bargain bin in the near future? Ultimately, this purely depends on the type of gamer you are. If you are looking for a engrossing single player adventure then Far Cry 3 should be your choice without doubt. If you are looking for a multiplayer gunfight, then your best option is probably with Call Of Duty: Black Ops 2.



Graphics/Gameplay: Graphics aren't the be all and end all of a game but they help tremendously to a games appeal and sticking power and especially when it comes to this game. The main reason it is so important here is because the environment is an active part of the game itself. It feels alive. You could be hunting anything from a tiger, to a pig, or a Komodo dragon, or be on the verge of storming an encampment when suddenly something random happens that changes your plans. The game surprises you.

There are certain aspects that you may find repetitive and tedious, however there are many different options and ways in which you can play so it is very easy to move onto something else should you wish. There is the main storyline, but then you can also storm encampments, hunt animals, do time trials or go around collecting things. Your attention can be grabbed by something new quite easily.

Co-op: Good for a mess around and a nice little adventure but this can get highly repetitive. Kill pirates, move along a bit, kill pirates. Kill more pirates. The thing is, because you don't have the different things to do than what you do in single player, this gets old rather quickly. It's nice to have the option for split-screen however as most games do not include any kind of local splitscreen support these days, which is a real shame.

Multiplayer: Standard stuff really. No real difference from its predecessor and so it results in being a rather dated feeling affair. With the mechanics that we find in Battlefield and in Call Of Duty, it feels subpar, but it still stands as an adequate experience none the less.

Overall: Buy it if you liked the previous one as it has only improved, and if you like games such as Just Cause for their single player experience. If its multiplayer that you seek, seek elsewhere.

Defying Gravity.. Is It Possible?

As crazy and unlikely as all of science fiction may seem to us, there is a fundamental force at play that if able to be controlled, could make those stories and shows a thing of the here and now and within the grasp of our lifetimes..

Gravity. If we ever found a way of manufacturing ways to control it and bend it to our will, then we may have control over many more things that would vastly change the prospect of humanity's future. For example:

- Space travel. This could be done without the concern of long term damage to our bone structure.
- Space travel again. Being able to bend gravity itself may make lightyears condense down to much smaller units of time, as we may be able to understand more about how to bend space around us, rather than us fitting into space.
- Time Travel. You never know, these could be linked and from various sources it would appear they could be.
- Weight will have no value. If gravity were turned off in a sense, a once heavy item could suddenly be manageable. This would work also for vastly large structures.

On a more negative note however, if possible and if discovered, due to the implications of such an ability, this could spell dire times ahead for all of us if handled wrongly.

Entropia Universe..

This is one of those games I have recently come across which both intrigues but also completely puts me off.

The prospect is good and the mechanics of the game are much the same as many other games. A similar game I find is Eve Online whereby this also has an active, user fuelled economy. This game however, takes the user created economy to the next level. The currency can be exchanged into USD, this therefore means that every item, every piece of land, vehicle or accessory has a real world value to it. This has resulted in a lucky few people being able to make a living from this single game and good for them (although this would not be easy as first thought, and would also involve taking significant risks/investment, unless they happen to get lucky).

The main reason this puts me off is, although I may pay a monthly subscription for a game, this is done automatically and is not something I give a second thought over. If I were to want to invest and buy items in a game to help me progress, where each item i buy would be considered as a real purchase, this for some reason gives the whole transaction a different feel. I can see this mechanic causing people to also get too involved and plunder much more money than they would of ever done in a standard MMO.

The only other thing to mention is that the game has some of the best visuals in an MMO to date, just be sure to get yourself a powerful enough rig to make the most out of it. Personally, I'll stick to playing the standard stuff, but for anybody than ventures into this game, good luck.

Britain's Railway

After watching a documentary concerning the daily work and complications that Network Rail deal with. It is no wonder that the trains cannot always run smoothly and it certainly makes the complaining customers look very shallow and frustrated at a company which is ultimately trying to do the best it can.

The truth is, the british railway has to maintain a system which is many many years old and subsequently has its hic-ups more often than not. We live in a very privileged time where we can travel from one end of the country to the other in a mere 3 hours or so, due to the hard labour of hard working people who once laid the track down and also all the other people who then maintained it and installed all manner of other things which increase its safety. Yet given this, customers complain at an hour delay, even a 10 minute delay.. I hope this only represents the minority of the population.

We need to appreciate the services that are supplied to us and how privileged we are to be able to use them, rather than being encompassed within our own little bubbles with a disregard for anybody else. Thinking of people representing these companies as less than equal (this can apply to many different sectors). Ultimately 99% of the time, the company is trying to help, not hinder.