...and get started!
Thanks to Graham Linehan I found this amazing piece of inspiring audio. Its a speech by Merlin Mann where he talks about doing creative work.
I completely agree with what he says about fear being the thing that holds you back from starting something creative. I have started so many things but finished none and a large part of that is the fear of not being good enough. I need to address the fact that I'm going to suck for a good while until I learn the basics and get better. Its strange how I can use this attitude when playing games, I know I'm going to suck at a new game but eventually I'm going to get good. Same with sports, cooking, generally anything in life. But why cant I face this when I'm trying to do something creative, something I really want to do?
Very insightful, very funny and very inspiring. Give it a listen below.
The Sound of Young America
Showing posts with label xbox. Show all posts
Showing posts with label xbox. Show all posts
Saturday, 20 June 2009
Capiche!
Godfather 2 came through the post on Thursday morning, courtesy of Swap Game. I have not played the first game so had no real expectations. I knew it was a sandbox game and you had to take and defend territories but apart from that it was all news to me.
I had no idea how addictive this title was going to be, I played it for about 9 hours on Thursday and shot through the story with some speed. You play as a newly appointed don of your own family known as Dominic.
What I really liked about this, is you recruit your own troops who all have their individual specialities. If you have to destroy some property you can either take a demolition specialist and blow the building up or take an arsonist and start lighting the place up while you smash up the goods with a baseball bat. the game gives you a few choices to do things which helps break up the monotony of taking copious amounts of territories .
The game pretty much centers around you taking the territories off of the rival families. You have to take over every territory a family owns before you can completely destroy them. You can weaken them by assassinating their made men. Doing this stops them trying to take over your territories and makes it easier when you eventually have to destroy their compound. Once you take a territory you have to appoint guards to defend it, they will not always survive on there own so you either have to go yourself or send some of your men to help defend. You can send your men to take over territories as well which can speed up the process.
If you press start you bring up the Dons View which gives you a complete overlay of the city your in showing the different territories and who owns them. This is great for deciding where and when to attack.
You get a bonus for controlling every business in one crime ring. If you control all diamond importers then you and your family get bullet proof vests. The best thing is to try and take down one ring at a time so you can use the benifits.
What surprised me so much about this game was the RPG element. Being able to control your family, upgrade them, choose their weapons, it was much more than I expected. Sure, the game is very repetitive in places but I have had great fun playing through it. I'm on the last part now and I can say for sure that I'll be playing it for a few days yet.
The worst parts of the game are the driving, you never fell like your going fast which for me is a definite drawback. The biggest glaring fault is the lack of animation for falling. If you walk off a building you just float down to the ground and stroll away. Its actually quite funny but I don't think next gen games, especially sandbox games should have such lazy errors.
If your a fan of GTA/sandbox games then you should definitely pick this up.
I had no idea how addictive this title was going to be, I played it for about 9 hours on Thursday and shot through the story with some speed. You play as a newly appointed don of your own family known as Dominic. What I really liked about this, is you recruit your own troops who all have their individual specialities. If you have to destroy some property you can either take a demolition specialist and blow the building up or take an arsonist and start lighting the place up while you smash up the goods with a baseball bat. the game gives you a few choices to do things which helps break up the monotony of taking copious amounts of territories .
The game pretty much centers around you taking the territories off of the rival families. You have to take over every territory a family owns before you can completely destroy them. You can weaken them by assassinating their made men. Doing this stops them trying to take over your territories and makes it easier when you eventually have to destroy their compound. Once you take a territory you have to appoint guards to defend it, they will not always survive on there own so you either have to go yourself or send some of your men to help defend. You can send your men to take over territories as well which can speed up the process.
If you press start you bring up the Dons View which gives you a complete overlay of the city your in showing the different territories and who owns them. This is great for deciding where and when to attack.
You get a bonus for controlling every business in one crime ring. If you control all diamond importers then you and your family get bullet proof vests. The best thing is to try and take down one ring at a time so you can use the benifits.What surprised me so much about this game was the RPG element. Being able to control your family, upgrade them, choose their weapons, it was much more than I expected. Sure, the game is very repetitive in places but I have had great fun playing through it. I'm on the last part now and I can say for sure that I'll be playing it for a few days yet.
The worst parts of the game are the driving, you never fell like your going fast which for me is a definite drawback. The biggest glaring fault is the lack of animation for falling. If you walk off a building you just float down to the ground and stroll away. Its actually quite funny but I don't think next gen games, especially sandbox games should have such lazy errors.
If your a fan of GTA/sandbox games then you should definitely pick this up.
Wednesday, 17 June 2009
AFK
Hello...anyone out there?
Sorry I have been away for so long. Had some very hot weather which was great apart from the fact that it caused my PC to melt. I got it working again but I kind of broke the cycle of updating, I have to do it regularly or I just slowly forget about it. I have been playing far too many games of late which is another reason for the lack of posts. How ironic that a games blog does not get updated due to the writer playing too many games. I think I'm doing this wrong, play one then write about it. It all makes sense now.
Heres hoping I keep updating this, I may even update it later ;)
Sorry I have been away for so long. Had some very hot weather which was great apart from the fact that it caused my PC to melt. I got it working again but I kind of broke the cycle of updating, I have to do it regularly or I just slowly forget about it. I have been playing far too many games of late which is another reason for the lack of posts. How ironic that a games blog does not get updated due to the writer playing too many games. I think I'm doing this wrong, play one then write about it. It all makes sense now.
Heres hoping I keep updating this, I may even update it later ;)
Wednesday, 13 May 2009
Render to Video Beta
Bungie have gave us a nice random present today by releasing their much awaited render to video beta. Render to video allows you to render your clips on your fileshare straight to a downloadable wmv video. The beta is open to Bungie Pro subscribers and ex subscribers like myself, nice of Bungie to reward the people who subscribed back in the day when Pro was new, exciting and expensive. Rather than give you a meaty meandering explanation I'll give you the info straight from the mouth of Bungie.
Q. How do I create a video?
A. When a saved film or clip is in your File Share (or someone else's) and you want to turn it into a computer-playable video file, you can click "Render Film" on Bungie.net and it will tell you the cost in "Bungie(R) Points (tm)", based on the length of the file and the resolution you want to render to. If you have enough points, you can confirm your purchase, and a little while later your video will be available for you to view and download. Simple! (Well, simple for you. We have to deal with storing 500GB/day of new content!) There are currently two resolutions you can choose from. Standard definition is 640x360 WMV at about 1Mbps. High def is 1280x720 WMV at 6Mbps. That's full 720p resolution!
Q. How do I get Bungie Points?
A. We expect to make points available in a couple different ways: for light usage (say, one short clip a month), Bungie Pro members with active subscriptions (or, currently, beta testers as described above) will get one or more points dropped into their Bungie Pro account each month at no additional charge over the current Pro plan. You can think of a point like a rollover minute on a phone plan- you can redeem it for your short clip, or save it for a longer one. For more dedicated render users, we plan to offer a pay-as-you-go model where you can buy "point packs".
Q. How do Points work during the beta?
A. We'll start off beta users with 2 points each. For now, standard-def video will be set to cost 1 point per minute, and HD will cost 5. After we make sure that things have spun up smoothly in the SD world, we'll start topping off users' accounts to 5 points so that you can try out HD. Don't worry about saving up points right now, go ahead and use them as you get them.
Q. How do I watch my rendered videos?
A. After the video render is complete, you'll see a video player appear in the web page for your saved film. You can watch the video right there, or download the WMV to your computer. Currently, all Beta users can see the videos of other Beta users, but other users cannot. We're looking into getting enough bandwidth to enable public embedding of the player in the future.
Q. How long is the Beta?
A. We expect for the beta to run until sometime in July, and we plan that real post-beta points will start to accumulate on Bungie Day (7/7). So if you're planning to buy Bungie Pro for the video feature, mark your calendars, since that's the first date that will give you a full year of video service with your subscription!
There is more information on Bungie's news page.
I for one am very very excited by this, I was a little put off at first by the points but it makes sense now. How could Bungie cope with all the millions of Halo clips being rendered at one time, it makes sense to slow it down and deal with it in bite size chunks. I can see myself buying points packs to capture the odd full game. I don't mind giving Bungie more money as they do give us, the halo player, so much.
As for the quality? Why not have a look at a standard definition clip that I got off my fileshare and uploaded to Youtube this morning. I'm very impressed with the quality...and the skills.
The only problems with the clip is the lack of reticule. All Halo addicts know you fix this with a few clicks of the right stick but as of now there is no way of getting around this on the Render to Video. The other problem is multi angle recordings, if you capture footage with a capture card then you can record it from multi angles. There is no way to fix this with your old clips but if you plan to render a clip in the future then you could save multiple replays of the clip showing different angles and edit it together.
All in all im very excited by this and its just one more lovely gift from the beautiful girls and boys at Bungie. We <3 you...most of the time.
Q. How do I create a video?
A. When a saved film or clip is in your File Share (or someone else's) and you want to turn it into a computer-playable video file, you can click "Render Film" on Bungie.net and it will tell you the cost in "Bungie(R) Points (tm)", based on the length of the file and the resolution you want to render to. If you have enough points, you can confirm your purchase, and a little while later your video will be available for you to view and download. Simple! (Well, simple for you. We have to deal with storing 500GB/day of new content!) There are currently two resolutions you can choose from. Standard definition is 640x360 WMV at about 1Mbps. High def is 1280x720 WMV at 6Mbps. That's full 720p resolution!
Q. How do I get Bungie Points?
A. We expect to make points available in a couple different ways: for light usage (say, one short clip a month), Bungie Pro members with active subscriptions (or, currently, beta testers as described above) will get one or more points dropped into their Bungie Pro account each month at no additional charge over the current Pro plan. You can think of a point like a rollover minute on a phone plan- you can redeem it for your short clip, or save it for a longer one. For more dedicated render users, we plan to offer a pay-as-you-go model where you can buy "point packs".
Q. How do Points work during the beta?
A. We'll start off beta users with 2 points each. For now, standard-def video will be set to cost 1 point per minute, and HD will cost 5. After we make sure that things have spun up smoothly in the SD world, we'll start topping off users' accounts to 5 points so that you can try out HD. Don't worry about saving up points right now, go ahead and use them as you get them.
Q. How do I watch my rendered videos?
A. After the video render is complete, you'll see a video player appear in the web page for your saved film. You can watch the video right there, or download the WMV to your computer. Currently, all Beta users can see the videos of other Beta users, but other users cannot. We're looking into getting enough bandwidth to enable public embedding of the player in the future.
Q. How long is the Beta?
A. We expect for the beta to run until sometime in July, and we plan that real post-beta points will start to accumulate on Bungie Day (7/7). So if you're planning to buy Bungie Pro for the video feature, mark your calendars, since that's the first date that will give you a full year of video service with your subscription!
There is more information on Bungie's news page.
I for one am very very excited by this, I was a little put off at first by the points but it makes sense now. How could Bungie cope with all the millions of Halo clips being rendered at one time, it makes sense to slow it down and deal with it in bite size chunks. I can see myself buying points packs to capture the odd full game. I don't mind giving Bungie more money as they do give us, the halo player, so much.
As for the quality? Why not have a look at a standard definition clip that I got off my fileshare and uploaded to Youtube this morning. I'm very impressed with the quality...and the skills.
The only problems with the clip is the lack of reticule. All Halo addicts know you fix this with a few clicks of the right stick but as of now there is no way of getting around this on the Render to Video. The other problem is multi angle recordings, if you capture footage with a capture card then you can record it from multi angles. There is no way to fix this with your old clips but if you plan to render a clip in the future then you could save multiple replays of the clip showing different angles and edit it together.
All in all im very excited by this and its just one more lovely gift from the beautiful girls and boys at Bungie. We <3 you...most of the time.
Wednesday, 6 May 2009
Do you Swapgame?
I just joined Swapgame on Tuesday and I got a bit carried away adding games to my list. You are supposed to add at least 5 games but I ended up adding over twenty. I'm going to get my god damned moneys worth out of this service. So here's my list...
1. Afro Samurai (in the post)
2. Overlord
3. King Kong (Achievement whore...don't judge)
4. UFC 09 Undisputed (Best.Demo.Ever)
5. Prince of Persia 4
6. Street Fighter IV
7. LOTR Conquest
8. Amped 3
9. Sid Miers Civilisation : Revolution
10. Brothers In Arms : Hells Highway
11. Tomb Raider : Underworld
12. Star Wars : Unleashed
13. Viking : Battle For Arsgard
14. Lego Batman : The Videogame
15. Guitar Hero : Aerosmith
16. Beautiful Katamari
17. Shaun White Snowboarding
18. The Chronicles of Riddick : Dark Athena
19. Bionic Commando
20. Robert Ludlum's the Bourne Conspiracy
21. Quantum of Solace
22. Lego Indiana Jones
23. The Godfather II
These are in no particular order as I have not sorted through them, I honestly have no idea how to sort them out. I thought I'd just play whatever they decide to send me as I don't know what I will be in the mood to play that week.
Anyway, what i want to know is what would you recomend to add to my list? I know you wont know what games I have played before Swapgame but still, let me hear your ideas.
1. Afro Samurai (in the post)
2. Overlord
3. King Kong (Achievement whore...don't judge)
4. UFC 09 Undisputed (Best.Demo.Ever)
5. Prince of Persia 4
6. Street Fighter IV
7. LOTR Conquest
8. Amped 3
9. Sid Miers Civilisation : Revolution
10. Brothers In Arms : Hells Highway
11. Tomb Raider : Underworld
12. Star Wars : Unleashed
13. Viking : Battle For Arsgard
14. Lego Batman : The Videogame
15. Guitar Hero : Aerosmith
16. Beautiful Katamari
17. Shaun White Snowboarding
18. The Chronicles of Riddick : Dark Athena
19. Bionic Commando
20. Robert Ludlum's the Bourne Conspiracy
21. Quantum of Solace
22. Lego Indiana Jones
23. The Godfather II
These are in no particular order as I have not sorted through them, I honestly have no idea how to sort them out. I thought I'd just play whatever they decide to send me as I don't know what I will be in the mood to play that week.
Anyway, what i want to know is what would you recomend to add to my list? I know you wont know what games I have played before Swapgame but still, let me hear your ideas.
Wednesday, 18 March 2009
Where art thou?
Been a little bit AFK as of late. Life got in the way and then I just lost my creativity for a little while. Got a ton of things that I wont to blog about while I have been away. I'm not going to stuff them into one long word heavy wall of text, instead I'll try and post a couple of blogs a day again. I need to try and use this more as a diary and ramble about life as well as just games...although games pretty much take up my entire life.
Recently I have been playing a wealth of different titles from Peggle to Call of Duty 5. So many good games to play but not enough money to buy them all. Grrr.
If you actually want to hear what I have to say the please follow me on Twitter as I use it pretty regularly. You can catch my latest updates in my little Twitter widget ---->
Recently I have been playing a wealth of different titles from Peggle to Call of Duty 5. So many good games to play but not enough money to buy them all. Grrr.
If you actually want to hear what I have to say the please follow me on Twitter as I use it pretty regularly. You can catch my latest updates in my little Twitter widget ---->
Saturday, 21 February 2009
Muchos Gaming.
Not blogged since Thursday, eek, been busy playing lots and lots of xbox. Played the Skate 2 DLC, Beowulf, Halo Wars demo and a large amount oh Halo3 so lots and lots of reviewing to do.
There is some great lines and grinds on the park as well as a rooftop grind paradise, I'm talking ledge upon ledge where you can get amazing combos. If that's not enough there is a whole outside area with a lot of rails and jumps and lots of items to move around and create your own spots. You can also transition of the roof into a massive sewage pipe similar to the one in San Van which is ridiculous fun.
If you get bored of Freeskating there is a bunch of own the spot challenges which I killed with relative ease and a couple of tricky yet fun film challenges. I enjoyed the grind challenge in the park, shows you a couple of grinds that I would not have noticed myself. Once you do all of these there is a street contest in the park which will give you your final 25 point achievement. From the looks of the achievements EA will be releasing three more areas to skate, not sure how i feel about this as the cost will mount up, no doubt ill buy them anyway. I'm a sucker for DLC. Still two hidden achievements that I'm gonna have to look into.
But all in all if your a big fan of Skate 2 then these are definitely worth downloading, bring on more spots for me to murder!
More reviews to follow. ;)
Ignore the crazy font size at the top of blog, cant fix it...
Skate 2 DLC
For 400 MS points you can pick up Rob Dyrdeks Fantasy 'Factory and a 50 possible achievement points. The skate plaza is based on a real area from Rob Dyrdeks reality TV show which I have never heard of, must not be on TV on this side of the pond. Here's a photo of the real thing as I could not get my hands on a shot of the in game version, from what I can see its an exact copy anyway.
If you get bored of Freeskating there is a bunch of own the spot challenges which I killed with relative ease and a couple of tricky yet fun film challenges. I enjoyed the grind challenge in the park, shows you a couple of grinds that I would not have noticed myself. Once you do all of these there is a street contest in the park which will give you your final 25 point achievement. From the looks of the achievements EA will be releasing three more areas to skate, not sure how i feel about this as the cost will mount up, no doubt ill buy them anyway. I'm a sucker for DLC. Still two hidden achievements that I'm gonna have to look into.
But all in all if your a big fan of Skate 2 then these are definitely worth downloading, bring on more spots for me to murder!
More reviews to follow. ;)
Ignore the crazy font size at the top of blog, cant fix it...
Thursday, 19 February 2009
Skate 2 gets DLC
A good friend passed this little link onto me today detailing a new Fantasy Plaza Park. Hopefully EA will keep up the DLC because God knows I'll be buying everything they bring out, nice if they brought some new locations and events from around the world. Anyway, here's the article...
"EA will expand Skate 2 today with Rob Dyrdek's Fantasy Plaza.
This costs 400 Microsoft Points (GBP 3.40 / EUR 4.80) from Xbox Live, and USD 4.99 from the PlayStation Store. We're not sure whether this will be available for European PS3 owners as the store hasn't been updated yet.
There are no elves, dwarves or naked ladies in this fantasy land, but a skateboarding haven created by Dyrdek (and shoe company DC), who happens to be a professional skateboarder. And an entrepreneur. And the star of his own reality TV show.
The Fantasy Plaza forms the centrepiece of Dyrdek's Fantasy Factory show for MTV, and has an appropriate amount of ledges, gaps and rails to do pointy-nosed up-turned roundabouts on.
Skate 2 launched on Xbox 360 and PS3 quite recently, and turned up sporting the acclaimed balletic strategy that made the series an instant hit. Head over to our Skate 2 review to find out more."
Eurogamer
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