BD's Gaming Diary (Upd:15th Jan)

[Welrain]

On the Game: Call of Duty 4



First game completition of the New Year is the rather wonderful Call of Duty 4. While I’ve already finished on Normal, Hardened ramps up the difficulty and the horror. Being a veteran (pun!) of Call of Duty 2, I marched through this quite quickly with only two majors issues - the ferris wheel level (I hid) and the crossed corridors leading to the control room door near the end (luck!). Looking forward to playing Veteran but will take a little break.

***UPDATE*****

So much for the break:

Started on Veteran but on Mile High Club, simply for the challenge. Played it for about 1hr lastnight, managed to get to the hostage twice and friendly fired him both times...oops. Tried twice this morning and did it easily on the second go. Spent the first few seconds of the hostage countdown reloading!! So it was a bit of a panic shot in the end. Now starting the whole saga again via Veteran.

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Excellent little video here:

http://www.stage6.com/user/johnb1989/video/1939171/Heat

It tell’s the story of the “Heat” level with a backing soundtrack. Very nicely done.

[Welrain]

Purchases





Christmas sale purchases, all below ?10 each brand new. All ordered in December so they don't count against this 2008's New Years resolutions.

[Welrain]

On the Game: Call of Duty 4



Well thats Veteran complete. Very enjoyable with only a few frustrating moments - namely the aforementioned Ferris Wheel Section and the last set of tunnels in No Fighting in the War Room. I would recommend playing through Hardened first as the tactics I learned during that play through aided me massively through Veteran. I?m 20 points of the full 1000 gamerpoints so will return (at regular) for them in the near future.

[Welrain]

On the Game: Scene It?



For Christmas this year I received the rather wonderful scene it? - the movie trivia game. I?d played the demo but was non-plussed but the full game is fanastic and when played in a group it really comes into it own. Annoying voice-overs aside, it?s presented well, has a fine selection of round types and a huge database of questions.

My favourite round is ?name the film via the poster? The poster is reconstructed as you watch and you need to buzz in before your opponents. My least favourite is the almost impossible anagram round, nasty. One major annoyace is the ?final round?, where you can earn massive points which do seem to render the first 3 rounds quite pointless in the end.

I?m hoping for some expansion packs in the near future. Perhaps like ones seen for the board game - Star Wars, Harry Potter, James Bond perhaps. That would be excellent if they were kept at a decent price. oh and one strange thing we have experienced so far (although I have only played about 6 games) is that if Jerry Maguire is ever an option in the question, it is the correct answer.

[Welrain]

On the Game: The Godfather



This had pretty average reviews on it?s release and got about 4 first play posts here at that time also, however I?ve been wanting to test this out for a while so I picked it up in the sales. The Godfather is essentially Saints Row / GTA set in an environment based on the first Godfather movie.

There are very close ties between the game and the movie, your character essentially takes part in sequences of the movie after the camera stops rolling. For example: you are there peering through a window as Luca Brasi is murdered and have to avenge his death or after the hit on Don Vito it is you who must rush him to hospital. These sections are really well done and I?ve already met a number of faces from the movie.

The sand-box element of the game is quite disappointing at the moment, all I?m doing is attacking stores / rackets held by other gang families and taking them over, via gun fire or extortion. Quite fun at first but wearing a bit thin already which doesn?t bode well. However I?m very early in the game, having just been accepted into the ?family? so this might improve.

****Update****

Now that I?m an official member of the ?family? the game has opened up a bit, with new hitman and favour missions available. Hitman does exactly as it says - you have to do away with a particular target, there?s extra bonus available for using a particular method. Have done a couple of missions which involved beating someone to death with a baseball bat and later sneaking up and garroting a gangster as he talked to a hooker. Godfather really celebrates the violence of this genre. Favour missions involve carrying out a?ummm..favour for someone. These are really just more story missions outwith the family structure.

I?ve also completed a few more missions, had to protect Don Vito in the hospital with Michael (who?s likeness isn?t licensed for use in the game sadly) and send a no good Police Chief to his doom from a building rooftop. Also did more of the usual racket/business takeovers plus some bank robbing as a little diversion.

[Welrain]

*sigh* Today my Xbox died. Not unusual, but since it was a brand new console received in November to replace my <1 year old console which RRoDed, I can't help feeling a little upset. Just after I got a wagon load of games aswell.

*cries*