Tales from an Obsessive/Impulsive

[Bleeders]

I?m holding my hands up here, I?ve never kept a blog before and to be perfectly honest, never showed a keen enough interest in doing so either, however, seeing such a thing in practice on the forum has spurred me on a little, so with that in mind I decided to register an interest.

So, purely in the interests of brevity, if you?re here and curious about my varied gaming habits/ramblings/excuses, then you will find out a couple things about me (unless you?ve experienced my constant besmirching of the English language on Xbox Live already!)

• I have a low-threshold for gaming frustration.
• I can talk twaddle lots/some/all (delete as appropriate) of the time, so please bear with me when the blog is seemingly headed for randomville.

Okay, so with that extremely brief introduction out of the way, I?ll move onto the first of my ramblings?


The First - ?I can?t help it! I?m obsessive compulsive! Yee hawww! 1,2,3,4!?

Rich Texan from The Simpsons

If your anything like me, there are gaming moments where you find yourself transfixed on getting the better of the game, nothing else matters until you?ve beaten a particular section/boss etc. This weekend (well technically, just before), I must?ve spent the best part of Thursday and Friday evening attempting to beat the bonus Mile High mission on Call of Duty 4 on Veteran difficulty.

It simply wasn?t something I could walk away from, I had to do it, I didn?t want to be the nearly bloke. It?s without a doubt the hardest mission in the game, if only because of the strict time-limit imposed.

After much hypothetical blood, sweat and tears, I?d finally managed to crack it a second time. I say second because the first time I got to the VIP and I completely screwed up the shot. After another hour?s worth of attempts, I waited for a clear shot and finished off the mission with much satisfaction ? and relief.

Nailing this does depend on a bit of luck for some of this mission (owing mainly to whether the enemy AI will respond to your flash bang, since they have been known to shield themselves miraculously, whilst pumping bullets into you!) and remembering where the enemies are spawning.

The key to beating the first half of this mission is letting your team move on up ahead and doing a lot of the leg-work for you, particularly on the room with the stairs, which you can actually get through without firing a bullet!

Okay, so this isn?t a deliberate attempt at padding the first post with a rough guide, and you could stick Mile High COD4 in YouTube and get a video run-through, but for those not interested in how it was done after the seemingly, millionth time, please look away now.


Starting Point

Run towards the toilet; slash the throat of the unsuspecting terrorist (you can avoid him and go straight down, but it?s a 50/50 chance whether your team are alert enough to take him down). Go down the right-hand side and take down the terrorist here, then lob a flash bang towards the back of the room and crouch down by the set of seats directly in front of you. There may be one or two stumbling around, but they?re easily dealt with. Reload and grab another gun. By this point, your team should?ve cleared the whole room out, although the terrorist on the left side behind the panel might be crouched down, so shoot him and nick his shotgun.

Second Room

If you?ve got about 35-40 seconds on the clock, your doing alright. With the shotgun in your possession crouch behind the seats in-front of you on the left side and toss a flash-bang down the parting between the seats towards the throng of terrorists, soon as it goes off run to the wooden palette on the left-side and lie flat next to it, your team should move up and clear the room quickly.

Stairs/Third Room

Run towards the stairs, run up the first flight and toss a flash bang on the left side (your left as you go up the first set of stairs). Then move on up via the other side, your team should be ahead of you at this point, so switch to your shotgun and shoot the middle wooden parting to ensure that there isn?t an enemy lurking behind there and run into the next room.

Fourth Room/Corridor

If you?ve got this far and things have gone well, there shouldn?t be any enemies in the immediate area where the flash bangs are located, so get ready for a stun, run n? gun on our final push to the VIP. Grab the flash bangs and toss one into the room, there are normally about five or six enemies here and one particular culprit standing in the left corner, but once the flash bang has been tossed and gone off, arm your shotgun for anyone stupid enough to get in your way and run like the wind, immediately toss another towards the back of the corridor, which hopefully should stun the two terrorists lurking round the corner (and possibly yourself, partially). Run towards the double-doors and they?ll pop open with the terrorist holding the VIP hostage.

Final Shot

If you made it to this point, the adrenalin is (probably) pumping and you?ve nearly done it! You?ve got three seconds to do this part, but it?s all moving in slow motion, so you?ve actually got a little more time to compose yourself than you think have. Keep your gun poised just to the left head-side, because at around the two-second mark, the terrorist will leave a headshot opening for you. Drop him, then all you need to do then is wait for your teammate to wander up, plant the C4 on the door, move away and let him blow it up and then jump out the plane.

This was how I done it after a ridiculous amount of attempts. Stun n? Run FTW!!!

So, would I have bothered to put myself through this if there wasn?t an achievement attached to it? Honest answer; probably not. I?m not an achievement whore as such, since I don?t get enjoyment from playing any old **** for points. I do, however, enjoy the bite-size, fun, challenging achievements, such as Mile High for example. If it?s a game I?m really enjoying then often, I?ll play through it and try to rinse as much as I can out of it.

Unless of course, it?s the Streets of Rage 2 800,000 point achievement, which I did give up on, since I couldn?t be arsed to play it through from the beginning again.

Oh well.

[Bleeders]

I am weak. I bemoaned the track-list didn?t really appeal to me. I said it?s a lot of money to spend out on a single game, so why the hell did I find myself last-night blowing shy of two-hundred quid on Rock Band Special Edition for the PS3?

I neglected to mention in The First that not only am I an obsessive compulsive, but also an impulsive, weak-minded gamer as well I wouldn?t mind if there wasn?t anything out to play, but that couldn?t be further from the truth; Orange Box, Guitar Hero 3, Assassin?s Creed, Uncharted, Mass Effect etc.

So what spurred me into getting Rock Band? The missus? Well, she left it up to me (bad move!) (she did add later it would make up ?part of your Christmas present?). Although, being a keen Guitar Hero 3 player herself, I don?t believe she would have turned her nose up at wailing out Hole?s ?Celebrity Skin? over the inevitable pissed-up Christmas break. In the end, it came down to my one other vice in life ? the drums.

I play the drums in a Pub Rock covers band for a bit of a laugh, but I?ve been bashing the skins for over a decade now in various guises, mostly originals up until a few years ago. Like any aspiration of becoming an icon, reality set in that our hair simply wasn?t floppy enough and we wasn?t going to make it as a viable band in the real world, so we turned our hand to performing Pub Rock covers and found it infinitely easier getting paid to play someone else?s material.

If you can?t ?stick it to the man?, join him.

Now, unless you?re lucky enough to have a soundproof home/garage or forgiving neighbours/street residents, the drums are a particularly difficult instrument to practice on a daily basis ? air drumming not withstanding. Firstly, I don?t have the room to set my acoustic kit up (both kits are kept at my Grandparents house), so using drum-pads over the skins is out of the question and I don?t really like those practice kits either, which to be honest, is probably more of an excuse for the latter.

However, the prospect of being able to play ? and pretend at being a Rock icon ? and having fun at the same time, considering this is an amalgamation of two of my favourite things was too much. It probably didn?t help seeing 1 Available on the EBay screen either, but after I was nearly a couple hundred quid lighter, I immediately felt the pangs of guilt after a biggish purchase.

Damn this weak-minded fool! What it is to be a gamer, eh?

[Bleeders]

Call & Response

Nothing particularly exciting to write about today, so it'll be a short one. I'm gonna punk out and go down the route of rejoicing what a great time it isn't to be a gamer... because it's so ****ing expensive! I did tell you this wasn't going to be exciting.

After the lack of internet access last-night (Thanks Virgin! tossbags ) I now find myself 40 points off the 1,000 on Call of Duty 4 - my second ever 100% Retail title. Okay, so not particularly newsworthy amongst you GP sluts out there, but y'know... still.

We're nearly a month off Christmas now, which hopefully for the majority of us, means a well-needed break; a break where one and all can gorge themselves on gaming delights, alcohol, late-night gaming sessions, alcohol, late-night gaming sessions, food, alcohol and er... oh, did I mention gaming sessions?

So, what am I most looking forward to?

Halo 3 and Call of Duty 4 with the usual suspects? Yep. Undoubtedly.
Rock Band? Yep.
FIFA 08? Yeah, sounds the ticket.
Ace Combat 6? Yep.

The problem lies with actually finding the time to play all of this, either way though, Christmas will be spent getting pissed and playing games, although I very much doubt I'll be in the minority here doing that.

Okay, so not wanting to wish my life away, but heading into the New Year and the release schedule still doesn't let up. I thought it was a time honoured tradition for absolutely nothing of note to be released within the first month after the New Year?

January already is sporting Burnout Paradise and Devil May Cry 4 towards the end of the month, I mean, where does it end?

Is it getting to the point now where we hope a couple quiet months are forthcoming so we can catch our breath?

I can't be alone in my thinking, can I?

[Yoshimax]

I want to play the Halo theme online as well make room for that

[Bleeders]

Gah, you had to go and mention another game, eh?

[Bleeders]

Principle

On Friday evening, I was saved... from myself.

After the lack of broadband access the previous evening, I fired up the home computer to grab my email and amongst the usual penis enlargement spam and other general ****, one particularly email immediately stood out - one headed Your Paypal payment has been refunded!. "Hmm..." I thought, so I've opened up the email and found the greedy, ****e-bag Ebay seller had refunded the money for my PS3 Special Edition Rock Band.

"Why?" I thought. According to this email, my Paypal information is unverified, which to my knowledge, isn't the case unless there's something I'm missing. I'm not one for being a cynic, but I imagine the timing of receiving my refund THREE days after I paid initially has absolutely nothing to do with a similar listing for the same product, only this one is marked up at ?300!!

"Pft... they can ****ing well keep it!" I snorted, although in truth, it wasn't immediately apparent, but the seller had actually done me a favour. Stupidly enough, I hadn't realised that buying downloadable content is a non-starter on the US PSN, owing to measures they've put in place now to stop new Wirecard users and the old Mastercard trick from working, so beyond buying the same game - again - on PAL, I'd have forked out close to ?255 for ONE game, on a machine I barely use.

Suffice to say, it was a bitter-sweet moment, but the bastards are still getting negative feedback.

[briareos_kerensky]

This reminded me when I bought Steel Battalion without owning an X Box...and never actually playing it even when I've got one a year or two after.

[Bleeders]

Madness!!1!!

[Bleeders]

"I don't play any old ****..." I said that, yes... me.

During a Christmas shopping excersion on Thursday with the missus', we meandered into Game to pick up Scene It, something we could entertain pissed guests with over the festive period. But, as per usual, impulse took over and I ended picking up Kane & Lynch: Dead Men despite universal reviews from resepected publications citing it above average at best to downright ****... and you know things are bad when your advertisements are taking the opinions of Nuts and Maxim as gospel and see fit to plaster the Kane & Lynch advertisements with their hearty recommendations.

Anyway, at this moment in time, I've fallen back into old ways and have far too much to play and not enough time. I didn't really want to soldier on with either [i]Mass Effect or Mario Galaxy, preferring to hold off with these when I've got the week off over Christmas. No, I wanted something a bit less heavy going and relatively short, since I'm in this mood of preferring multi-player experiences to single-player at the moment.

I didn't find it half as bad as everyone else did - in the early going, its only when the final third of the game crops up, things take a turn for the worse and the glitchy nature of the game is left completely exposed; invisibullets, x-ray enemy AI, stupid enemy AI/team AI etc. It's a lottery at this point whether things go in your favour or more often, not. In the end, even on the easiest difficulty, I ended up running towards the next invisible checkpoint simply to push on.

The problem with the final third is that for me, I found it quite removed from the game world that is initially presented to you. It jars from one extreme to the next, so you go from a Bank Robbery, Tokyo Nightclub and Building Site straight to a Call of Duty 4 inspiried Havana, complete with wide-open areas and accurate enemy AI. It's at this point the frustration really begins to really set in right up until the conclusion of the game.

It's not all bad though, the online portion, whilst bare and simple in terms of features, is good fun. You start out as Merc and the idea is to work as part of a team to complete the objective whilst acquiring funds along the way, the trick to the game is when or if you decide to double-cross your fellow mercs, steal their cut of the cash and do a runner. Bear in mind though, your double-crossed allies, will be reincarnated (only once!) as an opposing figure and can seek revenge on you.

The fad will wear off with this though, it doesn't have the legs in the long-run to sustain interest, so I couldn't recommend it as a full-price title.

Okay, okay, okay... so I do play "any old ****" some of the time.

[Bleeders]

Well, 2007 is officially consigned to the annals of time, with it, one of the finest years for quality software. Hopefully, 08' brings more of the same and we've got Burnout Paradise, Devil May Cry 4 and Turok to welcome us into the New Year.

Not a bad way to start off, eh? I remember it was Lost Planet that arrived around the same time, so obviously Capcom see merit in releasing potentially quality games early on.

Resident Evil 5 in February 09 then?

I very much doubt we’ll see it this year, and if it’s anything of the quality of number four, then so be it!

So what did Christmas bring then, despite hangovers? Well, despite my best intentions to progress with a bunch of titles (Mario Galaxy, Eternal Sonata, Mass Effect, Assassin’s Creed etc.) I found myself drawn to the multi-player delights of Call of Duty 4. In fact, barring some Rock Band shenanigans with friends, I didn’t play much beyond COD4 and the odd session of FIFA 08, which I think I’ve finally found my feet with (current record since “getting” it, 4 wins from 5 games).

I’m not one for resolutions, but I’ve made a sub-conscious effort to wade through my backlog of titles. In fact, I’ve yet to complete one game on either the Wii or PS3. So, fuelled largely by Xbox Live turning into a pumpkin once the clock hit 8pm over the last week, I found myself progressing on Uncharted: Drakes Fortune. Now, I wasn’t sold on many of the facets of this at first, but having spent some time with it, it isn’t half bad… certainly something I could see myself playing through to the end anyway!

The sooner XBL is back up and running the better though, I’m getting withdrawal from ranking up on COD4.

[charlesr]

I'm having the same issues. Even though I know it's not going to work properly I still put myself through the trauma "just in case". It seems to be ok during the day time, but as soon as more people get online in the evening it all goes to pot.