If you’re like me and you can’t understand why the headsets aren’t used for anything purposeful other than hurling abuse, shouting of “I ****** your mum” statements, trash talk and general crap then you might want to read on to solve your problem. (more…)
Does anyone remember the game called Spore that was announced what seems like a decade ago? You probably don’t because it hasn’t been mentioned for a while but you can soon get up to speed if the feeling so strikes you.
I’ll explain if you’re too lazy to click. An expert game designer (one of the best the industry has seen, in fact), Will Wright, announced a couple of years ago a culmination of all his previous efforts into some kind of “you play God and control evolution of a unicellular organism right through to the space age” game. It’s even a massively online single player game, which is a bit different. Will Wright was obviously the man behind Sim City and The Sims, but you knew that already. Hence why Spore is a bit of a morph of both with new concepts as well.
Let’s move on and get to the point. Finally, the game is set for release to a few platforms at the beginning of September this year. But just to trigger some drool amongst avid followers of the development process, EA decide to release a small taster to the community in the form of creature development. If you watched the video, you’ll see what I mean by creature development.
This new software is known as the Spore Creature Creator and is available for PC and Mac users alike, and is a stripped down version of the full game’s creature creation module, for free. The idea is that lots of people with different levels of creativity (and sometimes sanity) start sculpting weird, wonderful and slightly concerning creatures that are sometimes more fit to be shown to a courtroom during a sanity hearing. Then, they hit a little share button and send them to the “Sporepedia” which is a database of lots of creatures that will apparently be used to document in the full game lots of combinations that can be made by the game. At the time of writing, there are 860,902 creatures. And that’s only ones that people have bothered to upload… it’s like a new breed of social networking. It’s like some kind of distributed imagination!
How many games do you see where the blurb on the back says “your imagination is the only limit”? Well I’ve seen lots, and I can tell you that it certainly applies here. Naturally, I decided to put the theory to the test and made some very strange discoveries.
My Spore Profile
Click, if you dare, and check out my creations. I’ll be adding new ones all the time.
Well as per expected, GTA turned up this morning and what a day it’s been since.
A quick trip to the reception this morning revealed that although the post had arrived (the grey sack was on the floor), the lady working wanted me to leave her alone to sort it out. Thirty minutes later, I’m sprinting back from the reception with my Special Delivery package, frantically sending picture messages to friends of the game from my phone.
First Impressions
It starts off and immediately had me disappointed. “I think there’s something wrong with my game, the shadows are all fuzzy!” - I told my mates. After about half an hour of game play the game shines, and the fuzzy edge shadows actually begin to contribute to the draw distance and sheer scale of the environment.
Second impressions?
I did a few of the storyline missions and was hooked. The amazing thing about this game is that although it has the same ‘GTAness’ under the bonnet, with the same concept and principles, the characters are fantastic, the story line is a rival to that of Mass Effect and the comical value is something that will have you on your third pair of pants within a couple of hours.
The amount of times I just stopped and cried “WWOOOAAAHHHHH” to myself is staggering. I lost count. I think the first one was where I crashed a car into a wall at high speed and flew through the windscreen, whilst pinning an old man against a wall and covering the car bonnet this unfortunate gentleman’s blood.
Any bad points?
In two words: not really. There are a few very minor annoyances that really, really do not contribute to having a negative impact on the game. This is obviously why reviewers have given the game 10/10 pretty much everywhere you look.
Stats after one day? Most people could claim that it would take over their life - and after one day, that's exactly what it's done so far.
As it stands, I'm at 24% completion, I have $19656 and I’ve played for a total of just under 12 hours. Oh dear, in one day…
God forbid what GTA will do to me tomorrow.
False alarm, no Grand Theft Auto yet. Fingers crossed, it’ll be here on Tuesday!
Well amidst sweating blood to get my finance report on HMV Group (funnily enough) for Uni out of the way, I’ve had a couple of interesting emails about my Grand Theft Auto IV pre-order!
The first one, to tell me my pre-order will be shipped via Special Delivery:
The second, to tell me today that they’ve shipped my order:
Ok, so does this mean I get it tomorrow? Dazed and confused, I logged in to check:
Bit weird, I suppose only time will tell! I’ll be at the reception in the morning though to see if the rumour is true!
Sorry, this warrants an “emergency” blog entry. I finally defeated Mile High Club and “skydived to safety on Veteran difficulty”, about 3 minutes ago (yes, just after 5am). Don’t ask. Enjoy the picture. 
We’re going in deep and we’re going in hard.
Surely you must be kidding?
No. And Don’t call me Shirley.
It’s absolutely impossible and at this rate my Xbox will be going out of the window very soon!
I finally did it after a few sleepless nights and annoying points - I completed Call of Duty 4 on Veteran. It’s hard, and very tedious in places. It is also annoying - there are a few very obvious bugs that should be addressed in the game which obviously haven’t. The most obvious of these being the “unlimited respawn” issue. But oh well, it doesn’t stop it from being probably the most influential game of 2007.
But onto the campaign. If you’ve tried it on veteran you’ll know the problems and the bits you find tough. For me, I got stuck in several places: on Shock And Awe, One Shot One Kill, Hunted and No Fighting In The War Room. If you haven’t played the game, you’ll have no idea what I’m talking about. But here’s some tips for you if you’re struggling - because I can pretty much guarantee you will be stuck at the same places.
Shock And Awe
I got stuck on the bit where you need to jump out of the side of the building by the cargo containers, and you have a standoff with a few nasties on the roof of the building to your right and in the windows. There are also more dead ahead by the gap in the fence, past the pile of wood. Here’s my tips: jump straight out (there’s no point shooting from inside the building because once you are out of the building, you cross the invisible “respawn trigger” and the enemies start coming) and seek cover behind the fence underneath you. Start on the left hand side. Show only a very small part of you (because you’ll get murked if you stand there like a numpty), and pick off the guys that appear on the roof of the building. Eventually they’ll stop, so stand further back and pick off the guys in the windows. A lot will come this way. Keep at it, then eventually sprint to the right hand side of cover, and pick off the RPG guy that keeps respawning on the roof in the far left. Eventually, the numbers that spawn will go down. Now here’s the tricky part - the only way you will do this is by clearing the house on the right. So get some cover behind that cargo container, flash the bottom floor of the house, storm up to the door and before going in, slot the guy stood to the left of the door that always seems to get you. Clear the downstairs of the house, sneak upstairs and immediately scope before you get to the door (or flash the room), and clear the two or three guys in here. You might need to pre-shoot. Once you’ve done this, you’ll have a checkpoint, and you can move on. Oh - don’t forget the piece of intel/laptop hidden in the closet.
One Shot One Kill
Ah now you’re with the notorious Captain MacMillan, you’ve blew the guys arm off, you’ve ran for your life to the playground with the ferris wheel, and now you’re waiting for extraction. This part is absolutely insanely difficult, and no doubt it will piss you off beyond recognition. A couple of things to note here. As far as I know, if you stay at the back next to the Captain, you’ll just get annihilated time and time again. The enemies come from too many directions and it’s near impossible. The best way to do it is by seeking cover. Remember to lay all your claymores before you put the captain down by the ferris wheel, because he’ll give you a load more C4 and Claymores to use (so you get more…a bug in the game). The best place to seek cover is by the bumper cars. Run round there and hide behind the fence, so you are looking towards the ferris wheel. Have the Dragunov and the AK, and snipe the guys as they come down the chopper. Eventually you’ll be outnumbered and they’ll come up to your little hideout, and try crossing the dodgems - then just fire in bursts with the AK. Keep at it, you’ll get it, and the chopper will eventually arrive.
Hunted
Now you’re back as Soap with the 22nd SAS, and you have to escape a farm and get to the chopper in something like 3 minutes. This was tough and took me 2 days to get round - and I nearly through the Xbox out of the window. Best thing to do - use three airstrikes and kill the waves as they approach across the field whilst hiding in the barn at the back. Collect the Dragunov and the 249 or RPD and snipe any enemy as appropriate. After a while it goes quiet, so sprint down the middle of the field and approach a gap in the hedgerow on your right. Go through there, run through the fence and to the right of the house. You’ll see a road here, and as soon as you cross it, enemies will spawn from the house on your left - so naturally call an airstrike on the house, then SPRINT across the road and prone by the low concrete wall, facing down the hill towards the chopper. Don’t go round the corner because you’ll get mullered. By now, Gaz and the rest of your squad will be approaching the house where they spawn, so once you can hear them, crawl round the corner and towards the house. Don’t poke your head up too much as you’ll get a bullet in it. The aim here is to get into the house, alive. Once you’re in there (a lot of luck and sprinting is involved), run downstairs and be on guard as some guys like to wait out of the front of the house for you. Now might be a good time to call an airstrike on the far right of the hill from where you are, as that seems to be a spawn point. Now the next point is a lot of luck involved and for me became an adrenalin filled rush. Basically, run like hell from the house and down the dirt track you see in front of you, and down the hill. Don’t stop sprinting, you’ll eventually get it (you won’t need to shoot anyone) and you’ll reach a small fence to climb over near the chopper. Jump over it, and you’ll hit a check point. Then get in the chopper and grin with satisfaction!
No Fighting In The War Room
Welcome to the Russian missile site. Here you should start off being told by command that you have “9 minutes before the missiles reach the Eastern seaboard”. The key here is being very very very quick and very agressive. Immediately sprint to the right out of the door and you’ll see a corridor, with two initial guys coming out of a door. Kill them, run to the right, and kill these two. Ideally, you need to clear the kitchen area and reach the “red light tunnel” by about 7:45 on the clock if I remember correctly, and then you’ll get a checkpoint. The thing here is that the game doesn’t want you get stuck in an endless checkpoint loop by reaching a checkpoint without enough time to enter the abort codes - so the checkpoints are timed. Basically, be as quick as you can and you’ll get a checkpoint. There are a few checkpoints to get - one is in the kitchen at the entrance to the red tunnel. Second is on the stairway with the big wall carving, and the third is where Gaz asks what the bloody hell is happening and Price replies “they’ve started a bloody countdown!”. Straight after the third checkpoint I got pissed off with the tunnel, and the guys with the shotguns. Tip, go prone at the bit where you get picked off by the guys at the small tunnels directly opposite each other. If you edge round slowly until you see a body part, put a few rounds in them and they’ll drop. Rinse and repeat with any part you find tough and you’ll get it - as there isn’t any other way you’ll defeat this bit on Veteran because the enemy just knows where you’ll be and are robotic with their reactions, aim and timing.
Good luck - and remember the checkpoint problem on the final part - be quick! Oh, and you’ll get on much better if you follow a few videos that I used for help. Pop over to http://nextgenwalkthroughs.com for some expert help.
Now it’s on to Mile High Club…urgh, this will take ages!
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Quite busy.
As of July, I am quite busy working on projects, but still have room for more! If you would like to work with me, drop me a line.
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