Monday, August 31, 2009

A revival

So it seems that I fail at this constant, academic-quality updating, so I will attempt to revive Critical Damage with some more casual, less analytical entries. Pretty much, it is now just going to be the journal of my gaming adventures.

Though, it is a silly time to try this revival as we seem to be in a gaming lull at the moment. There are quite a few games coming out next month that I am interested in: ODST, Wet, and most of all, Scribblenauts . But last month and this month, there has been very little. I made the mistake of buying Tales of Vesperia, thinking it was time to give the ol' JRPG a go again, but I should have known better. I will probably trade it in when Final Fantasy XIII is released.

To keep myself occupied in the meantime, I picked up Burnout Paradise cheap. I loved Burnout 2, but never played the later ones that everyone praised, so it is pretty cool to get back into it, even if every single race feels like it is following the one road. Road Rage mode is amazing fun, and the seamless trasition between online and offline play is great. On a negative note, though, whoever thought "DJ Atomica on Crash FM" was clever should not be let anywhere near another game script.

Anyhow, hopefully that gets me through to the end of this month. If not, I still need to finish Point Lookout.

My housemate is currently taking part in a Left 4 Dead ladder run by cybergamer.com.au. His team, TeamOGL, are undefeated on 7 wins and currently in fourth position. Their most recent game was last night against Scrubs and was broadcast live on gamestah. I tried to watch the video but it streamed horribly, so I just listened to the audio commentators while playing Burnout. It was an incredible experience. I've never listened to so-called "e-sports" before and to hear people treat their game as seriously as people treat sport was incredible. It reminded me of dad listening to the cricket on ABC radio. At several times I had to pause Burnout and just listen as the commentators went crazy as Bill on 1hp shot two Hunters out of the air mid-pounce. It was pretty incredible to listen to. Only suggestions to the commentators would be a) write the score down on a piece of paper as the game is going so you remember it and can tell listeners who is winning, and b) stop with the immature sexist jokes tacked on the end of every sentence about Zoey; no, i do not think she enjoyed being "pounded" by the tank. No wonder no one takes gaming seriously. That aside it was exciting to listen to.

In geekier news, my 360 gamerscore hit 10,000 yesterday. I'm trying not to be proud of this.