GTA IV Wrapup

8:50 am, January 15th, 2009 | 1 Comment »
Posted in boythings, gaming, geekery, internets by Jarod

As previously stated, I’m a big fan of the GTA series.  I’ve played every PC version they’ve released since the original top down shooter.  Yet GTA IV’s single player just didn’t excite me.

I put this down to the genre getting a little tired.  There are only so many mission variants.  Rob a bank, get chased by cops, find pay and spray, win.  Chase a bad guy, shoot his car, blow him up, win.  Steal a car, deliver it with minimal damage despite baddies shooting you, win.  I mean, how do you mix all those up so that they seem fun and innovative every time?

What did blow me away was the graphics.  Stunning visual effects made for a constantly changing environment.  It was strange that you’d realise it was raining cause the pedestrian you just hit’s umbrella went flying.  Only then would you adjust your driving style to suit a little more oversteer.

It was also either the first time that a GTA game had rag doll player models, or the first time they’d been implemented properly.  Suffice to say that shooting people in various limbs has never been more fun.

What I’ve now moved onto is GTA IV Multiplayer.  That’s right, no more stupid AI being stupid in the middle of a shootout, but real live players who have strategies and change them based on what’s going on.  The multi player is all too similar to the single player though… it can be either a hit or a miss depending on how you look at it.

First the negatives.  Either people are cheating their asses off, or something is really wrong with the code.  There’s only so many times I can stand unloading a machine gun clip or two into an enemy player’s chest/head while they’re standing still and them not die.  Whether it’s cheats or the net code, it’s just not cricket.

While I’m whinging about code and servers and such (the segue is a stretch, but stay with me), there must be only three servers in the southern hemisphere.  And sadly they’re held together with cans of baked beans, bubble gum and dirt.  In the in game browser (which is shockingly bad) I’d occasionally get one or two servers with a green connection (which I have no idea what ping it relates to), maybe two or three with a yellow connection and all the rest are red.  Give me a few more ‘green’ servers any day.

Ok, good stuff about multi player.  When you’ve got a good team death match game going, it’s nothing short of brilliant.  Sadly this doesn’t happen often as you require the afore-mentioned green server, the average IQ of the players populating the server to be over 40 and for the server settings not to be retarded.  If I had a nickel for every time I saw a server with death match game play mode, the whole map opened up and no cars…. well I still wouldn’t be rich… but I’d still want to punch the server admins in the face.

So GTA IV is good, but it’s not that good.  It’s the same old thing, but a whole bunch prettier.  The multi player is better than it was in previous versions, but only cause there was none in previous versions.

I’ll continue to play online until the green servers totally disappear or I reach the milestone of shooting through more than 6 machine gun clips into one person and them remain standing.  Whichever comes first.

GTA IV

7:18 pm, December 8th, 2008 | No Comments »
Posted in boythings, gaming by Jarod

Please forgive the lack of posts on this side of the page. I’ve been busy stealing peoples cars are shooting drug dealers.

God bless you Rockstar. I shall always be grateful that you keep developing the GTA series on the PC where it rightfully should be.

A GTA IV mini review shall be written and posted eventually. According to the extensive in game stats I’m only at 20% completion (and that’s after playing it a fair bit over the weekend), so it might not be for a while.

What?! You expect me to write a review when there are still more missions to be done? Don’t be silly!!

World of Goo Review

7:53 am, November 30th, 2008 | No Comments »
Posted in boythings, gaming, geekery by Jarod

As Liz mentioned yesterday, I was (am?) thoroughly addicted to a game by the name of World of Goo. To know what it’s all about, hit play on the youtube’ish video below.

Yes! I know!! And it’s only twenty bucks. Twenty bucks is nothing when compared to how much fun you’ll have channelling the old days playing lemmings, the incredible machine and bridge builder.

Ok I’ll confess. I was going to try and sit down and write a proper review instead of my normal three paragraphs ones. But just looking at different levels in screenshots on the net, I’m seeing new and better ways to arrange Goo blobs for better structural integrity. Suffice to say I’ll be loading World of Goo in a few minutes.

But first. If you’re still interested check out any of these reviews. I still haven’t seen a bad one yet. Rock Paper Shotgun. The Dead Pixel Post. Evo Gamer. Eurogamer.

Just thought I should mention…

7:21 pm, November 29th, 2008 | 1 Comment »
Posted in boythings, geekery, girlthings, internets, whinging by Liz

Jarod has become a little obsessed with this game. About a World of Goo. The engineering side of his brain is delighted. So you might not hear from him for a bit.

I did try to play it, but Jarod would lean over and tell me how my structural balance wasn’t right, or something like that. I just wanted to play with goo.