Disc Drivin - Coming from behind to WIN !!

Disc Drivin is such a fun simple game that I demand you go out and buy it now before reading the rest of this entry.


There is a free version with adverts or just go for the paid version, you can play against the computer & local play but on-line multi player is where you will get the most enjoyment.
http://www.pixelocitysoftware.com/discdrivin/index.html

A recent update had some new tracks and one of them Zoom Zoom had Jochta, Luffers, Abbas & Moi in close competition but neither of them managed to get round the final corner to the chequered line.

A carefully placed flick from me, bounced off the corner missing them all & boosting across the finish line to win.

I wish you could save the video replays on this game. Anyhow like I said at the start of my post go get the game, try the free version if you must. Get some practice in now ready for the Disc Drivin Tournament - COMING SOON

Borderlands - Secret Armory of General Knoxx

Since the beginning of the year I have been playing through the DLC content with fellow UGVMers (Cooltag, Sessile & Gus)

We first completed The Zombie island of Dr. Ned which was very short, next we went onto the Secret Armory of General Knoxx. You have a lot of driving to do in this DLC because there are no tele-portation stations which is very annoying so you have to remember where locations are. There are a few fun sections to the DLC inc a loop the loop & some nice jumps for you to do in your car. There is also a cheevo for which you need 8 Million credits so get saving.

Getting to General Knoxx was not difficult with our crew of 4 because we had Cooltag with his Siren "I'm on fire, I will cook you" ability & Gus was our "come here let me shoot you, I'm the doctor" skill. Sessile & I would just go in guns blazing & then scream that we needed reviving.

When you reach Knoxx you have a boss fight with him in his giant mech, this was not too difficult but you need to keep any eye out for the other enemies spawning around Knoxx especially the doctor enemies who can heal Knoxx. Once Knoxx was destroyed we took out the remaining enemies & advanced onto his secret armory. Athena then asks you to set explosives to destroy the armory but she gives you a few minutes to go and ransack the place.

A few minutes !! What !! I done all this work to get here & all you give me is a few minutes !! I want to take my time to look around all the chests and loot only the rare weapons I can use.

But no you give me a few minutes !!

So what followed was a mad dash to loot as much as possible & get out of the building before it goes "KABOOM!"

Back at T-Bone Junction, time to breathe & look through my loot. All rubbish apart from a (1325) slow health recharging shield. My credits were also maxed out at 9999999 so I could not even sell the crap. I then passed my loot onto the guys to sell.

We have a few things to finish off in Knoxx before we goto the next DLC which is either Mad Moxxi or Claptrap Robot Revolution.

Space Channel 5 - Level 1 Failure

In memory of Owen, I plugged up the Sega Dreamcast & purchased Space Channel 5 from ebay. It is not a game I had in my collection, dancing & music games are non existent. You play Ulala a news reporter who has to pull off dance moves to save humans whilst blasting aliens. It is a repetition game in that the aliens will do the moves first & then it's your turn to do the moves. Obviously timing & remembering the moves is all there is to the game. Owen had great difficulty playing this game and wrote on his blog 22/04/2006 that he would try again in 5 years time. Sadly Owen is no longer with us, so it was down to his friends (UGVM, RLLMUK, BETEO & others) to attempt this on his behalf.

The first level has a viewing figure of 15% to pass it, on my first attempt I really messed up the timing & got a dreadfully low score. My boys then had a turn and managed to do better than me with Abbas getting 10%, another attempt by me had me only managing 12%

Owen it is not just you I hated playing the game I was sure I was pressing the buttons on time but it would not register, I found it very frustrating.

I'll try again next year

PSN - The door is wide open come on in !!

Oh and also help yourself to any information you want.

Security? what's that?
Encryption? don't know have not got a clue

We have discovered that between April 17 and April 19, 2011, certain PlayStation Network and Qriocity service user account information was compromised in connection with an illegal and unauthorized intrusion into our network

I have not really used my Playstation 3 much but I have made 2 purchases via credit card (Joe Danger & Front Mission 3). The credit card was easy to cancel a quick call & done, it was going to expire soon so a few months earlier will do.

But the biggest shock from Sony "The personal data table, which is a separate data set, was not encrypted, but was, of course, behind a very sophisticated security system that was breached in a malicious attack,"

What a Joke !!


The PSN service is due to be back online next week but sorry Sony you will not be getting any more purchases from me.

What do people get out of playing games?

What do people get out of playing games? Help PhD student with her research

Over the last few years, video games have become increasingly popular with a variety of audiences. We still have first-person shooters and adventure games for our PCs and the latest games consoles. But there is more than that. Plenty of families can now be found in their living rooms, waggling their Wiimotes as they play together. Add that to Farmville on Facebook and Angry Birds on our mobile phones and it seems that games have exploded into the mainstream.

There has been a lot of interest in academia about how we can harness this popularity for educational purposes, but my particular interest concerns the games we play during our leisure time. More specifically, I want to further our understanding of how and what we learn from our involvement with games and to consider exactly what it is we seem get out of our game-playing experiences.

If you’d like to help me out with my study, please click here to fill in my questionnaire. It’s about different kinds of game-play experiences – so whether you only play something like Angry Birds on your phone every now and again, or you regularly pull all-nighters playing Call of Duty, do please fill it in.

I’m interested in getting as wide a range of responses as possible, so feel free to pass this on to anyone you know, over the age of 18 and in the UK, who might play games. It should take about 20 minutes to complete. Your participation would be much appreciated.

Jo Iacovides
PhD student
Institute of Educational Technology
The Open University

Carcassone Tournament

Round 1 - There are 12 players who will be split into 4 groups of 3 players each, you will play 3 games in round 1. 1 each against the other players & a group match with all three players. You will get 1 point for each vs match win. 3 points for winning the group match & 1 point for finishing 2nd in the group match. The top two players from each group will go through, if needed a knock-out match for the 2nd & 3rd player in the group will happen if they are equal on points.

Round 2 - With 8 players left, it's knock-out time. 1 vs 1 matches with the loser going out.

Round 3 - 4 Players left, you will play 1 group match & 3 vs match. Top two players go through to the final. 1 Point for winning each match

Final Round - 1 vs 1 Final to decide the winner.

The finalist's will play a maximum of 9 games (excluding any knock-out deciding matches if needed)

New Logo - Assassin's Creed Brothehood

Time for a new logo, the completed game post will be coming soon. Enjoy the view of the Colosseum.

Tuesday A to Z - I

Ikari Warriors (Aracde)
I blame Rambo, everyone wanted to be John Rambo. Wearing my bandanna with friends, we would visit the local pizza parlour (they had a nice selection of arcade games) & play Ikari Warriors. Tanks - again Tanks, maybe this is where my love for Tanks started?


International Track & Field (PS1)
Button bashing to the extreme, this game probably sold more PS1 controllers than any other. But get yourself a Multi-tap & a roomful of friends & it gave you an evening of fun-filled laughter.


International Superstar Soccer (SNES)
I can't quite remember how but I somehow agreed with my younger brother that in the summer of 95 I would buy him this game. £69.99 !! Who complains game are expensive now? !! Take them back to 1995
However we did get our money's worth spending the rest of the summer taking turns playing as England.

Tuesday A to Z - H

Hermie Hopperhead (PS1)
Another one of my Jap PS1 Purchases, Tronix had it on sale so I imported it
with some other games. It turned out to be a very fun & enjoyable Platformer. Shame it did not get release outside of Japan. You are a like red haired kid and fall into a dustbin & get sucked into egg world. The game borrows a lot of ideas from the Mario games with its level & map world design.

Hoshigami (PS1)
Oh how many PS1 RPG's can one play? A lot because that was all I played & nothing else. Another US import from Tronix, this time a turn-based strategy affair. Think FF Tactics mixed in with Tactics Ogre & throw in a Action Points system & you have a nice long RPG to enjoy.

Halo Series (Xbox, Xbox 360)
Like Marmite you love it or hate it.
I hate Marmite but I love the Halo series.

Maybe it's the sci-fi setting or the main character Master Chief I cannot really put my finger on it but I thoroughly enjoy the Halo Series of games. I completed Halo on the PC but it was not until I picked up a second-hand Xbox & with my son we played Halo again on co-op - our first co-op gaming experience.

We then went straight onto to Halo 2 & I loved the larger areas to explore but above all Tanks, easily my favourite vehicle in the Halo games.
One of my co-op gaming experiences with Abbas was whilst playing Halo. Abbas said I'm just going down the corridor to see if I can find any ammo & then I hear a scream & Abbas is running back towards me shouting " F L O O D !! "

When I purchased the 360, I did not have a HDTV just my old trusty CRT but Halo 3 was the first game we loaded up to play. The graphics, atmosphere, plot, setting, everything was an amazing experience which we went back and relived again when I purchased a HDTV. The games that followed Halo 3 (ODST, Halo Wars & Reach) although enjoyable we are still waiting for the next chapter for Master Chief.

Assassins Creed Brotherhood - Easter Gaming

This game has a lot of "follow-me" quests where you have to tail an enemy without getting detected. I hate these quests, even more so when you are put under pressure because of a countdown clock.

I recently completed the Micheletto Corella quest which has you following him to various Borgia strongholds to recruit soldiers into assassinating an actor during a play at the Colosseum.

It helps to use your trained assassins to take out the soldiers, whilst avoiding being detected by any other Borgia guards. The Colosseum part of this quest is very difficult, you have to scale the building without being detected by any guards. Once you have made it to the checkpoint, you have a countdown timer to assassinate 4 Borgia snipers. After this you just need to play your part in the play & then attack Corella with your hidden blade.

Completing all the Leonardo Weapon side-missions rewardw you with a Parachute you can deploy by pressing X when jumping off a high building, useful for doing air assassination kills.The game has quite a few side missions & challenges which you should really complete to unlock special items & weapons. I managed to unlock the Sword of Altair by completing all the assassin guild challenges, this is easily the best sword in the game.

Having just completed Sequence 7 & I could very easily rush through the game and complete the remaining few sequences but there is so much still left to do in the game from the Shop Quests, Guild Challenges, Romulus Lairs & I have not even started the gylph puzzles.

My plan was to finish this game over the Easter break but I think I may be playing it for a while yet.

Words with Friends - New High Score 512

It's only a few points more than my previous high score but it is against Abbas. So should be documented :)

New high score 512

Carcassonne Tournament - Sign Up

(Carcassonne - iPhone/IPod touch game)

My son's have been asking for a while that "Dad, you always do a Words with Friends" Tournament but what about Carcassonne. So why not?

Because you have to register players via email address on the game, please contact me to sign up.

The tournament will be a simple 1 vs 1 knockout affair leading up to the final.

Registered Players
gospvg
actionabbas
monstermo
lufferov
carl
thermalsatsuma
haggishunter
Bushtopher
Dr Lave
jochta
Kerumba
poppa_f

UGVM vs BETEO - Round 3 FIGHT !!

3^rd round with 6 players left on each team will be the same again 1 vs 1 with 1 point being awarded to the winning team. Same again 2 players on each team will go out, losers will go out first & any winners with the lowest score if needed




The first player in the match will start the game against the other player - in the chat window can you also announce that this is a tournament game so the opposing player is aware.

flis_iom vs jochta
thermalsatsuma vs Curiosity
Gilly Mc vs SozzlyJoe
HarpingOn vs DBSnappa
AlarmBee vs Xexyz
Coope1999 vs alanjoans

Good luck all & can you let me know the result via the blog, twitter, ugvm or beteo.