Hawkeye and Beyond?!

The Beginning Of The Week.

I should have posted this the other day but the weekend was busy and fantastic.

Great news!
Batman Arkham Asylum has a sequel in the works. Not surprising as the success and reception has been phenomenal. It totally deserved all the praise it received from the small company Rocksteady Studios and it was a ‘Solid’ game. I really enjoyed my play through of it. They got the atmosphere exactly right and for me that means a lot. It really felt like they had put you in the Goddamn Batman’s arse kicking shoes.

Trailer below!

Batman Arkham Asylum 2
I’m going to assume this is a working title for now.

In other news a few other games franchises have surfaced with new games!

Medal Of Honour (Honor if you be American) has been quiet since 2007 with the last, actually decent game worth playing being Medal of Honour Airborne.
A very short game it may have been but dropping anywhere out of a plane into the huge maps they created was a joy to play. I’m not sure how well the game did commercially but for me it was on par with Medal of Honour Allied Assault in the enjoyment i got out of it.
Anyhow they’ve gone modern with the new Medal of Honour, big surprise eh? It’s looking very Modern Warfare. It’s a decent trailer and gives the most away in terms of in-engine gameplay I assume. Explosions, Insurgents, Desert, Captives, Marines. All there. Hoo-ah.

Trailer below!

Medal of Honour
Yet again another working title i suspect.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed is back with a sequel. I am a fan of Star Wars but it’s hard to find decent games within the franchise. If only they’d make another Republic Commando ;_; which was the last Star Wars game I played that was worth playing but not forgetting the KoTOR series also.
With this one I have mixed feelings. I never played it past the first level but that was circumstantial as it was on a friends Xbox 360. I wasn’t greatly impressed by it I have to say. If I get to play the PC version maybe I’ll have a better opinion of it.

Trailer below!

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II
I reckon this title will stay the same.

Last but not least.
Finally a new Prince of Persia game and again I never touched the last one as I heard bad things about it. I’ve been tempted to play it many times yet haven’t. The art style looks rather sexy but the gameplay is said to be shallow and on the whole too short a game.
I’m a big fan of the previous Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time which was a brilliant balance of platforming puzzles and slashy combat. The combat aspect was the weaker part of the game for me and I haven’t enjoyed a Prince of Persia since Sands of Time. I really didn’t like Warrior Within or The Two Thrones so I hope this new iteration can bring it up to the standard of The Sands of Time.

Trailer below!

Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands
Let’s hope they don’t forget to make it good.

That is it for the new games and the trailers. Looking interesting i think and they are yet more titles to add to my large list below:

·         Alan Wake

·         Alien Vs Predator 3

·         Aliens: Colonial Marines

·         APB

·         Assassins Creed 2

·         Battlefield: Bad Company 2

·         Bioshock 2

·         Brink

·         Chrome 2

·         Dawn of War 2: Chaos Rising

·         Dead Rising 2

·         Dead Space 2

·         Deus Ex 3

·         Diablo 3

·         Front Mission Evolved

·         Guild Wars 2

·         Half Life 2: Episode 3

·         Huxley

·         Just Cause 2

·         Kingdom Under Fire II

·         Mafia 2

·         Mass Effect 2

·         Max Payne 3

·         MechWarrior

·         Metro 2033 The last refuge

·         Natural Selection 2

·         Rage

·         Red Orchestra: Heroes of Stalingrad

·         Silent Hunter V

·         Singularity

·         Splinter Cell: Conviction

·         STALKER Call of Pripyat

·         Star Wars The Old Republic

·         Storm of War: Battle of Britain

·         Supreme Commander 2

·         The Crossing

·         Thief 4

·         Wings of Prey

·         Witcher 2

A long list indeed.

This will get me through the beginning. Everyone have a great week ok?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVBrBkADgfs

TFR. Hawkeye <3

No blogs for a week or two.

I really hope to finish playing Left 4 Dead 2 soon but…..
I’ve been busy working away this week lifting, sorting and packaging words in letter form. Same goes for next week, I’ll be working heavily and have no time for anything other than Eating, Smoking and Sleeping. This is the time of year I actually do some work for a change because the lovely people at Royal Mail decide they like me doing their jobs for them.
I cannot complain as the money is decent.

Thank goodness I don’t have to actually deliver mail, eh.

Back to the point.
I’m letting you know that basically this blog will be on hiatus till I finish my time at Royal Mail. Two weeks at most. Nothing of value has been lost.

TFR. Hawkeye is off to work.

Uploading gameplay videos is HARD.

I had no idea how long it would take to upload a video of me shooting a rad scorpion to death in Fallout 3. I was going to upload the video to either YouTube (the obvious choice) or my Photobucket account to test the waters. I failed.

I’ve had no experience uploading videos to the Internet before now and had no idea how long it would take. It turns out, it takes quite a while. A few hours apparently. So no videos of me shooting the armored radioactive menace are to be uploaded. It’s a shame really as I was excited to show the world a little slice of my gaming world.
Maybe In the future when I have the patience to upload a video I may well do so.

*sigh* oh well back to drinking tiger beer and doing nothing of value it seems.

I watched a film last night called Scoop which i thoroughly enjoyed. I do like a Woody Allen film at the best of times. It totally surprised me as I had forgotten it was a Woody Allen film altogether. Check it out if you are a fan of Mr Allen.

Nothing more to say, natch.
I’ll be playing Left 4 Dead 2 Hard Rain campaign tomorrow most likely so expect a review/screenshots etc..

TFR.
Hawkeye.

xx

Through the Woods and over the Planks.

The world Is falling Apart. The swamp Is Grimy. The situation Is becoming Dire.

I’ve got Swamp Fever!

(The third of the five campaigns begins now)

Eeek it’s gone all dark out. The ‘Fearsome Foursome’ have come fresh off a rescue helicopter journey gone awry. Guess what? They’ve landed in a dank, dark and dirty swamp and its full of zombies. It’s spectacularly ‘orrible. It may be grim but it isn’t all doom and gloom. I ask you dear reader, doesn’t it brilliantly convey the appearance of a dense and multi layered forest? All you have to do Is stop and look around for just a few seconds to let it all in. The mist between the trees and the colours used really brings out emotion in the landscape. Level design was the strong point of the original Left 4 Dead and more so in this blood soaked sequel.

(A beauty of a swamp)

Valve games are generally caked in atmosphere and this campaign has been no exception. I’ve enjoyed the feel of this swampy forest map the most so far.

(A hunter has me in it’s clutches and Is ripping my face off, oh dear)

Help me!!!
The Artificial Intelligence sometimes take their sweet time to help you out.
These pinning moments (see above) are the only time(s) the AI fails to shine. This doesn’t happen all the time but in crucial moments such as it’s heartbreaking. I’m not having a full on dig because 9/10 times they do a fantastic job shooting zombies in all manner of their appendages. What I’m really saying is it should be played online with the real denizens of the Internet, Co-operatively.

(Mud Man Ahoy!)

See the muddy lookin’ fella I’m about to shoot in the torso? He’s the final of the Uncommon Infected. Un-Inspiringly called “Mud Men” they shimmy quickly around on the ground making him faster than the common horde. They seem to take a little more damage than normal. If he gets too close he’ll spray you with mud obscuring your view. Just another nuisance, in this ‘ere swamp.

(Lots and lots of dead folk, not a good sign)

“Anybody there!? Anybody??!? Swamp people?!? Helloooo?!?!?”

Nobody is there to hear your calls of desperation The road is blocked off and everyone is presumably dead. Once get out of the tree laden swamp you’ll encounter houses/shacks/a shanty town. Why people would take shelter in this place even when there isn’t an apocalypse going on is beyond me. Weirdos.

Look at the creepy mutha in the back of the truck. Staring. Watching. Waiting. Lucky for me he is not Undead. Just. Plain. Dead.

As finale’s go Swamp Fever’s was sit and wait affair. The goal is to sit and wait for a nice man in a boat to come and whisk the survivors off from the deadly lumbering hordes. Certainly not as spectacularly over the top as the musical stage ending of the previous Dark Carnival and a less hectic rush than the Dead Center finale. Still a very gripping ending to be fair. Tanks love endings and are always happy to crash the party. Tanks for showing up, fellas.

(On my knees, Begging you please, Tank you)

OK that is enough Tank jokes, forever.
The picture below is the inside of the final stage, which takes place in a American plantation house. Spacious and a great fortification for escape.

(Mood lighting from the ceiling)

That’s it. Finito.
The next campaign is Hard Rain and I’ll be playing that whenever I darn feel like it. Will post left over screenshots after this. I’ve heard some fine words about this next campaign and I’m expecting great things.
This was a Double plus good set of swampy death ridden maps overall. Time for a victory sandwich.

TFR.

Your faithful blogger, Hawkeye.

A step forward.

It has come to my attention of a brilliant idea. One that when I read it, it blew my mind. I realise that the small populace of readers might be interested in and eventually enjoy the games i play but they also enjoy games of their own. Of course they do. Which leads me to understand that I would happily write about you, the readers, favourite games. Tell me your favourite games and i’ll see if it’s possible to play/write about them. I could even quote you saying what your opinion is of them. I may even have played them already. Let me know and feel free to leave comments.

Much thanks to Mr Jonathan Earnshaw for the idea.

A really quick notice about commenting on my blog.

I’ve been messing around, trying to put comments on my blog. Its all good and well making blog posts but it’s something else to see people comment about it. It isn’t the most obvious way to post but its now implemented if anybody wants to. The main thing here is that i’m learning how to actually manage this blog.
IF you fancy commenting on it all you have to do is simply click on the title of the blog post in question. It will then take you the same page with comments below. I’ll probably post links to the page with enabled comments from now on anyways.

I’ll leave you with this wonderful track by Tomas Dvorak, from the Machinarium soundtrack.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpPnJyfEwkA

Thanks for reading.
TFR.

Osmos.

A satisfying sigh escapes from my chapped lips as I write this. I’ve been playing Osmos.

(Screenshots now in BMP format! better quality but takes bloody ages to upload)

There we have it. Up above our heads is Osmos. What a beautiful experience it is to behold. A Self Propelled Cellular Organism is all I can think of to describe your Player/character/being in this game. Eating other S.P.C.O’s is your main purpose. Destroy/consume all others to succeed. Not that you ‘have’ to consume all other cell’s just as much as necessary. It sticks to an objective such as “Become the biggest” or consuming a certain rival cell. This is the main structure it has. Consuming other cells and progressing to the next level. It gets harder and more challenging in later levels much to my girlfriend’s frustration.

(Look at that scale, a tiny blob in a blog full of blobs)

Starting off as a tiny organism in a gene pool of HUGE organisms you must bide your time and go with the flow. Your cursor is attached and centrifugal to your cell letting you quickly direct it without fuss. Everything moves as if in liquid, the primordial soup of life if you like. This is the beginning of your existence and you must be ruthless to survive. Om Nom Nom.

Which reminds me of “flOw” a rather similar cellular romp (though to be fair in comparison a more fast paced) indie flash game. To be found here http://intihuatani.usc.edu/cloud/flowing/
Now on the PS3 apparently. Good for them.
Wikipedia article for background, here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FlOw

(Beautiful organism)

This is you. A speck of rain on the coat of a sneezing man. It could be anything you want really. As a dramatic “cell eat cell” backdrop goes it’s utterly calming. It has the soundtrack of ambient and soothing instrumental musical tracks to suck you into this other world. The scope of it is fantastic as the stages become greater in size with each level you progress. The mechanic of the travelling gives me as much time as i want to just float and be. It’s relaxing. I don’t feel the need to rush through this experience. Letting the momentum over take me has never been so pleasing.

(Consume for success)

What else can I say about this game apart from it is a masterpiece of soothing art. Really, fantastic. A big thank you to the people that made this simple idea into such an enjoyable game. Certainly up there with World of Goo and Machinarium in my indie games list.

Their website be here http://www.hemispheregames.com/osmos/ which also features a trailer to view the beauty in motion and a demo for hands on action.
I also feel I should mention it is £2 on Steam at the moment for those of you people who use the digital distribution service. Won’t be that price for long as it’s in the five-day-long sale. (Sale is over, you missed out sucka - Ed)

On a final note. I’ve not been playing Left 4 Dead 2 or games in general lately but truth be told i cannot put off the next campaign for long. Expect L4D2 Swamp Fever goodness to be posted soonish.

I wish you all a good day. Your sincerly, Hawkeye.