30/10/2010

Fallout New Vegas - Saved by a girl


The red shield is very important when attacking enemies, if it comes up it means the weapon you are using is too weak. So you either need to change to a stronger weapon or change your bullets to armour piercing. Whilst looking for a location near the Mojave outpost I came across some small radscorpions, easy I thought I crouched down & took them out with my 9mm Pistol with scope. I carried on up the hill to be confronted by a GIANT radscorpion. I then tried taking him out with my Cowboy Repeater (my most powerful weapon) but no, Red Shield came up again. I then had two choices, to lay down and let him eat me for breakfast or RUN !!!

I went for the run option so weapon holstered (it makes you run faster) I made a run for the Mojave outpost, I could hear it snapping at my heels, turning around to have a quick peek & AARGH !! it jumped at me with its claws. Abbas who was watching all this unfold jumped out of his seat. I let out a scream, turned around and ran. Seeing the NCR Trooper at the outpost, I ran to him. He got out his pistol and started shooting at the GIANT radscorpion, I turned around to have a look and the radscorpion was still coming for me. Aargh !! I’m sorry I shot the small radscorpions, please let me go !! I beg but still he shows no remorse. I run towards the barracks by now the NCR Trooper, Travelling Merchant & Mercenary are all trying to kill him for me. I run to Ghost (female sniper) because she is on top of the barracks & surely the GIANT radscorpion can’t come up the ramp? Ghost flashes past me, grabs her gun & BANG !! BANG !! 2 shots & I turn around to find the GIANT radscorpion lying motionless at the bottom of the ramp.

Breathe !! .....

Woah !! that was intense, Abbas & I turn to each other & start laughing !!

Abbas says “Dad you wimp, you were saved by a girl”

Words with Friends UGVM Tournament - Semi Finals

After a tough fought 2nd round we have our 4 semi-finalists. The draw for the semi-final ...

Curiosity vs themalsatsuma
jochta vs DBSnappa

29/10/2010

Owen Allaway (13th July 1973 - 13th October 2010)

It was a difficult decision, do I want to attend a service that I feel I may be intruding on? Having not met Owen in person should I really attend? How would I feel going to an English funeral? All of these questions were answered by another more defining question. Do I miss Owen? Yes, everyday,  I miss his knowledge, humour, kindness & above all his friendship.

It was a nice service & I sat or stood listening to the memories/hymns thinking of Owen.

He studied at Oxford !! What?? Oh man !! I did not know that :(

His love for Star Wars & Doctor Who were mentioned, John Dow's blog post LINK was mentioned and had me choked up

His childhood memories from clutching a dalek toy as a page boy to playing Sorcerer's Cave


But above all he was a loving son, big brother, husband & friend to many.

Going out from the church hall you are given the chance to say your condolences to his family. Thom calling me by my name made me relieved that I was not intruding (thanks) & a big hug for Patience lifted the sadness for a brief moment.

Next to the church hall, refreshments were laid on but more importantly you got a chance to see photos of Owen growing up. A page boy clutching a dalek toy to his ZX-81 birthday cake. His time at Corpus Christi in Oxford to wedding photo's

This was the first time I had met some of the UGVM group members & the fact Owen had studied in Oxford made me sad that we did not get together before.


We then went to the local pub to have some drinks in his honour.. to Owen !!

23/10/2010

Logo Change - World of Keflings

Well Fallout New Vegas is now out so it's time to change the logo. Only games that I will buy on release qualify to be a logo. Previously that was Halo Reach & then Fallout New Vegas. Looking at the games that are going to be released for the rest of the year there is nothing that I will be buying on release. I will wait for games like Assassins Creed Brotherhood, Need for Speed & Gran Turismo 5 (Delayed again !!) to drop in price before buying. Looking at the release schedule for retail releases for next year there are a few games that interest me like Brink & Bulletstorm but I don't know enough about them to even think about purchasing. There is however one game I will be buying on release for XBLA (Xbox Live Arcade) and that is World of Keflings. A sequel to the excellent Kingdom of Keflings by Ninjabee which is currently still on schedule to be released this year, just don't know when?

New Game - Fallout New Vegas

Fallout New Vegas, lots of reports of bugs on this game but luckily a day one patch was issued that seems to have fixed these issues. After my first day of play, 6 hours game play & no bugs or crashes experienced. The game itself plays very much like Fallout 3, think of this like an extended add-on pack. So far I have only experienced few things different from the wasteland, some different enemies & weapons. Hardcore mode brings an extra challenge to the game in that you have to monitor you sleep, food & H20 levels. In truth though these don't provide that much if a "Hardcore" challenge, the biggest challenge is the change to the use of stimpacks. These now will heal you over time instead of instant healing, because of this one fact you can't go in all guns blazing & just spam heal with your stimpacks but instead you need to play more carefully & plan your attacks. You will find yourself taking cover & luring the enemies in to you so you can take them out with your shotgun by a bullet to the head. For completing the game in Hardcore you are rewarded with 100g achievement so it is worth playing with it on. A few other changes include the facility now for you make your ammo using materials & weapon repair is now done building weapon repair kits or merging two of the same weapons like before but you can no longer repair at the shop (well I have not found a place yet). If summary then if you have played Fallout 3, this game is more of the same. Time for me now to get back to the desert, I've got some quests to complete ...

20/10/2010

Carcassonne - Van Morrison - Back on the top

It's taken me nearly a month (LINK) to get back to the top of the Carcassonne leaderboard & my arch nemesis James is dropping like Autumn leaves :)

Time to play Van Morrison - Back on the Top

Currently I have 15 games on the go !!
Off to play my turns now

Shining Force

Shining Force is easily one of my favourite RPG's. It's a turn based RPG originally released on the Sega Megadrive. I remember paying £59.99 for it's sequel that was nearly a month's wages for a Saturday worker. Sega have used the Megadrive back catalogue very lazily in my opinion by just coping and pasting the games to release on any gaming system they can find, instead of updating the release's.

Back to Shining Force on the Ipod Touch, the controls work fine apart from occasionally obscuring your movement. The continue function seemed broken on my 2nd gen but with the 4th gen & multi-tasking it works perfectly. So if you are using a non multi-tasking machine make sure you use the in game save option.


For those of you that have not played this gem on many of the re-releases then you have the usual rpg story in that you the hero must save the world from total destruction (Yawn!). You can then control a team of up to 12 characters to battle the evil forces in a turn based style. The characters vary from your usual Warrior class to healers, magic types & even a werewolf?? Yep and some more strange creatures that join you along the way. Some are hidden & are difficult to find so I would say find a guide to help you get the characters. They can basically only perform a few function like Attack, Magic, Use an Item or Defend. You then get experience points from these actions & eventually level up to increase your stats. It's simple but then again this is a 17 year old RPG & back in 1993 JAP RPG's needed to be simple to appeal to western audiences apparently?

You can visit towns & shops to upgrade weapons/armour. Talk to various residents & a few treasure chests to open. When fighting you have the option to warp your team back to the nearest town if you are getting beat or you just what to grind the maps to get stronger. Normal usual 90's RPG but easily one of the best turn based RPG's I have played.

I just wished Sega would put in a bit of effort on re-released games, spruce up the graphics, throw in a few more characters. Anyhow looking forward to Shining Force 2 next please Sega.

Whilst I am also on my wish list can you not use the Shining name is crap adventure rpg's. Yes I'm looking at you Shining in the Darkness, Shining Force Neo & all you other lame action rpg attempts. Stick to the tried and much liked formula of turn based. Also a re-release of Shining Force 3 (All 3 Parts) on XBLA/PSN or Disc based would be nice please.

Words with Friends UGVM Tournament - Round 2

In memory of Owen the tournament will continue to the 2nd round, knockout stages 1 match to advance into the Semi Finals.

gospvg, HaggisHunter, jochta, themalsatsuma, DBSnappa, Beckysprites, HarpingOn & Curiosity

The 2nd round matches are
Curiosity vs HaggisHunter - Curiosity WON
HarpingOn vs jochta - jochta WON
Becksprites vs themalsatsuma - themalsatsuma WON
gospvg vs DBSnappa (Bugger !!) - DBSnappa WON


When starting the matches please make sure you say in the chat window that this is a tournament game.
Good Luck all & post the results in the comments section

16/10/2010

Time to Reflect

It's been a sad week with the passing of Owen, a week to sit back and reflect on who I am & what I should be?

It is a time to remember the passing of a friend & how much I value my online friends. It seemed only fitting that I should play Mirrors Edge on iOS a game Owen enjoyed.

The UGVM Words with Friends tournament I feel should still be played in his memory, it is what he would have wanted I feel. But I will respect the opinions of the fellow players if they feel we should end the tournament.

Playing video games just seems so pointless to the loss of Owen but by playing the games he enjoyed it reminds me of him. In this way I will remember him.

Now to go and read his blog for his views on Sonic 4

15/10/2010

Owen Allaway 100 Best Games

Owen's blog page http://inverty.com/

This is a copy & paste of his 100 Best Games
Every year on the 13th October I want you to pick one game from the list below & play it in his honour

Owen Allaway RIP

100 Best Games

The DEFINITIVE, ONLY, OFFICIAL list of ALL the ONE HUNDRED greatest games of ALL TIME except the ones I HAVEN’T PLAYED and the ones that I’VE FORGOTTEN.
As set in stone as the TEN COMMANDMENTS, but BETTER, because this is ONE HUNDRED, this DEFINITIVE, COMPLETE list will never, ever be changed. EXCEPT when NEW GAMES come out and I REMEMBER OLD ONES I FORGOT.
Advance Wars
Angry Birds
Animal Crossing: Wild World
Assassin’s Creed 2
Bangai-O Spirits
Batman: Arkham Asylum
Bioshock
Burnout 2
Carcassonne
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
Civilization IV: Beyond The Sword
Civilization Revolution
Crackdown
Crazy Taxi
Deathchase
Demon’s Souls
Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness
DoDonPachi Dai Ou Jou
Doom
Doom 2
Doom 3
Dragon Quest VIII
Dwarf Fortress
EDF 2017
Elder Scrolls: Morrowind
Elder Scrolls: Oblivion
Final Fantasy
Final Fantasy Tactics A2: Grimoire of the Rift
Football Manager Handheld 2010
FUEL
Gals Fighters
Giga Wing
Geometry Wars Retro Evolved 2
Goldeneye 007
Green Beret
GTA Chinatown Wars
GTA IV
GTA San Andreas
Gran Turismo
Guitar Hero 2
Gunbird 2
Halo
Halo 3
Hills and Rivers Remain
Hitman: Blood Money
ICO
Jeanne D’Arc
Jet Set Willy
Katamari Damacy
Killzone 2
Left 4 Dead
Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga
Little Big Planet
Lode Runner
Minecraft
Mr Do
Mr Driller: Drill Spirits
Mushihimesama
Mystery Dungeon: Shiren The Wanderer
Noby Noby Boy
Ouendan
OutRun 2006: Coast 2 Coast
Pac-Man CE
Peggle
Picross DS
Pokemon Platinum
Pokemon Sapphire
Portal
Prinny: Can I Really Be The Hero?
Rallisport Challenge 2
Red Dead Redemption
Resident Evil 4
Rez
Ridge Racer 2
Rollercoaster Tycoon
Saints Row 2
Sega Rally
Shenmue
SimCity 2
Slitherlink
SNK Vs Capcom: Card Fighter’s Clash
Sonic The Hedgehog
Space Rangers 2
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
Street Fighter IV
Suikoden 2
Super Mario 64
Super Mario Bros
Super Mario Galaxy
Super Mario World
Super Monkey Ball
Syndicate
The Club
Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2
Total Annihilation
Turbo Esprit
Valkyria Chronicles
Words With Friends
World of Warcraft
ZAngbandTK

Goodbye to a friend

My writing skills & grammar are not as good as the other blogs you may read but this is my attempt of saying goodbye to a friend.

I have know Owen Allaway (thatrevchap) for the best part of 10 years now, posting via usenet to uk.games.video groups & lately via twitter his passion for gaming, his kindness to others & his love for the Hat. It was because of Owen that I got an iOS device, his knowledge I valued and trusted on what game to download. It was because of the iOS device that I got to experience playing with Owen on Carcassonne & Words with Friends. He loved a good challenge & I remember the fun banter when playing.

His last tweet read "Oh fucking hell. Just needed two minutes to get my breath back after walking up the fucking stairs. This is really bloody annoying" and then a day later he was gone. Owen Allaway's time on this earth had come to an end.

Only a day earlier I was joking with him "@thatrevchap I blame you !! Reading your tweets has made I'll I'm sneezing and sniffing now :( "

On the morning of the 13th I sent this before going to work "@thatrevchap I'm better this morning I was asleep by 9 all dosed up, feel better now. Get well soon" .. later that day he had a heart attack and passed away :(


I do have a regret of not meeting him in person & only meeting/chatting & playing with him virtually but I am proud to say Owen I am glad I have known you & you have left a lasting impression on me.

I have copied and pasted his 100 Best Games from his blog, so pick one you have not played & give it a go for Owen. Then do the same every year on the 13th October in his honour....

Miss you big guy

12/10/2010

Words with Friends - gospvg vs beckysprites - Phew that was close :)

Phew that was a close game, Becky played very good with a early lead due to some long 6 or 7 letter words, I managed to come back by piggybacking off these words to place tiles on TL's or TW to maximise points. I now lead 2 - 1

10/10/2010

Words with Friends - gospvg vs beckysprites - round 2 FIGHT !!

Becky fights back to even the score 1-1, some well placed S tiles to get double words helped her pull away and keep the lead.

09/10/2010

Words with Friends - New High Score

I've finally got my target of a +500 score vs Simon. I can't really remember any big scoring words except Maltier & Telex. But I now have a new high score of 510 :)

Words with Friends UGVM Tournament - League 4

League 4

HaggisHunter (1 point)
gospvg (2 points)
Turbohat


Setup your matches & post the results in the comments below
Good Luck

Results
gospvg (418) vs Turbohat (258) - gosvpg win
Turbohat (202) vs HaggisHunter (436) - HaggisHunter win
gospvg (397) vs HaggisHunter (330) - gospvg win

gospvg & HaggisHunter through to the next round

Words with Friends UGVM Tournament - League 3

League 3

SimonFin
HarpingOn (2 Points)
Curiosity (1 Point)


Setup your matches & post the results in the comments below
Good Luck

Results
Curiosity 335 - 383 HarpingOn (HarpingOn wins)
SimonFin 306 - 372 HarpingOn (HarpingOn wins)
Curiosity 368 - 238 SimonFin (Curiosity win)

HarpingOn & Curiosity through to the next round

Words with Friends UGVM Tournament - League 2

League 2

DBSnappa (2 Points)
Beckysprites
ThatRevChap (1 Point)


Setup your matches & post the results in the comments below
Good Luck

Results
ThatRevChap vs Becksprites - ThatRevChap Wins
ThatRevChap (364) vs DBSnappa (421)- DBSnappa Wins
Beckysprites (271) vs DBSnappa (510)- DBSnappa Wins

Becky will take the place of Owen, RIP Owen :(

DBSnappa & Beckysprites through to the next round.

Words with Friends UGVM Tournament - League 1

League 1

Jochta (2 Point)
thermalsatsuma (1 Point)
ChrisFlynnUK


Setup your matches & post the results in the comments below
Good Luck

Results
thermalsatsuma (368) vs Jochta (376) - Jochta Win
Jochta (454) vs ChrisFlynnUK (302) - Jochta Win
themalsatsuma (327) vs ChrisFlynnUK (293) - themalsatsuma Win

Jochta & themalsatsuma through to the next round

Words with Friends UGVM Tournament - Round 1

Round 1

With 12 players we will have 4 leagues of 3 players each so you will play 2 matches each & the top 2 will go through. You get 1 point for a win & in the event of a tie on points the player with the highest scoring points win will go through to the next round. You will only play 1 game vs the other player, I don't really think it matters who goes first. Thus in total you will only play 2 games.

I will post a separate blog post for each league & after your match is completed can you post in the comments section. The result in the format Player1 386 vs Player 2 322, thanks & good luck all !!

Update - Can you announce to the other player when you start a tournament game so they know.

08/10/2010

Words with Friends - gospvg vs beckysprites

I won 369 to 271 with my best played word being Cahoots.
1-0 then to me, next game your turn to go first Becky.

07/10/2010

Words with Friends UGVM Tournament

It's time for a Words with Friends UGVM Tournament, a straight forward knockout compeition leading to the ultimate winner.

I will also be gifting an iOS app to the eventual winner


Signed up then for the competition are
gospvg
jochta
HarpingOn
ThatRevChap
Beckysprites
HaggisHunter
thermalsatsuma
SimonFin
ChrisFlynnUK
DBSnappa
Turbohat
Curiosity

Apologies also to Coope sorry you just missed the cut :(

Carcassonne - It is all about luck

I recently lost a very close game to Owen (LINK) so I challenged him to a rematch. Bright and early on a dreary Thursday morning tiles were being place left, right and centre with blistering speed. Owen was building up his cloister army again, whilst I was carefully positing my tiles to take advantage of my two early placed farmers. Then Owen decided he wanted to invade the land with his farmers, he got the tiles needed to also join his two farmers. I however had meeples in hand to place another farmer on the land, I just need the connecting corner road tile to control the land. With only 6 tiles left to go, I got the tile I needed and a cry of No !!!! came from Owen, he realised he had now lost the land but worse was still to come, I was eyeing up his big city & taking a chance that I could get the connecting piece for my last tile I placed a meeple next to his city & to deal the final blow I got the tile needed to connect to his city to share the points. "That was painful" came the response from Owen and the scores totalled up in my favour. It's all about luck I got the two tiles I needed to take the land & invade into Owen's city. I'm now off to buy a Euromillions ticket for this Friday, you never know?

Words with Friends - New High Score

I can almost guarantee since I have installed this app, I have been playing a game constantly with Becky it's a shame we have not kept a tally of wins. Our latest game ended with me beating my previous high score of 463. Unfortunately I was only 3 points away from getting the magic 500 but alas 497 will have to do for now as my new highest score

06/10/2010

Hardware Update - PS3 - Getting ready for GT5

In anticipation of Gran Turismo 5, I picked up a PS3 yesterday with a handful of games. I had a PS3 earlier in the year which I repaired back to life but decided to get rid because I did not really play it & took the cash. With GT5 coming out soon (5th November) it was time to buy another PS3. I turned on the PS3, configured the wireless & oh joy system update. After the progress bar was stuck on 1% I remembered that the wireless was crap on the PS3 so I ditched it to download on the PC & install via USB. I'll need to buy a 5m CAT 5 cable today. I tested a few games I got with the console before letting it rest for the night.

Wii - Dust is back on

The dust is now starting to settle back on the Wii, I think I need a new game for it, I only have Mario Party 8, Wii Sports & Wii Play. I also have a few downloaded games from the Wii store but I forget what? I have not completed Zack & Wiki & I did enjoy playing it, maybe I should get that again? or go for a Super Mario Galaxy game? Don't know I'll have a look to see what I can buy on-line later

01/10/2010

Left 4 Dead 2 - Hard Rain

Because of Halo Reach I have not played this for a few weeks, I joined Phinlee, Tony & Buckskin to play the Hard Rain campaign. You are in a town called Ducatel, you have to travel through the town, sugar mill & fields to reach a gas station to get some diesel. Once you get the diesel then boy it's fun, the rain comes & with it a flood of zombies. You then need to get back to the boat to finish the level. There are lots of witches in this level, I startled a few with my wayward shooting, also a few chargers who always seemed to go for me. Playing on easy difficulty meant we had access to quite a few med packs which was good because we needed them. The last stage was very difficult to hold out waiting for the boat to arrive whilst trying to run away from the Tanks and flood of zombies. Once the boat arrive Buckskin & I just ran, turning around we saw Tony was down & Phinlee was trying to get him back up. Buckskin then went back to help but seeing how many zombies were around I carried on going for the boat. On the boat I could hear the distant screams of pain my colleagues were under but remembered a previous experience on Left 4 Dead 1 where I had made the evacuation point only to go back to help Buckskin & both of us died. So I stayed on the boat waiting for them all to die & the credits to roll :)

Next we tried Versus mode in which you have teams of 4 v 4 playing as the infected trying to stop the other team who are survivors getting to the safe house, then you switch to play the opposite side. Playing as the infected is difficult at first because you have to learn the attacks they can perform. Hunter I hated because I could never perform the jump but Spitter & Boomer were simple to play. In short we got creamed by the opposing team, they were very good at running for the safe houses whilst killing us off with our feeble attempts to stop them. In our defence for most of us it was our first attempt at playing Versus and hopefully next time we'll be better.

It was good to get a break from Halo Reach to play something else, tomorrow is Friday so ugvm Halo Reach night.