gaming

Wow, a major milestone has passed in my life.

I have actually completely finished a computer game in Single Player mode!

Call Of Duty 4 is a totally excellent game and the graphics look amazing when running in top-notch VGA mode on my LCD TV. Even though the single player mission only lasted 4.5 hours - it was still a great story, good fun and bloodthirsty.

The image above is me sniping the brains out of Damo on COD4 Multiplayer. Your man-cold can’t save you now Derby-boy!

Microsoft have just stepped one BIG step closer to “droppin’ da bomb” on Sony and the PS3 by announcing support for Xvid and DivX codecs within their Media Center Extender software.

The software runs on your PC and can push content to Media Center devices such as the Xbox360.  Support for Divx and Xvid has been available before using various hacks/transcodes and workarounds, but if the Xbox360 gets this as part of its Fall Dashboard Update (already rumoured to be true) then this will kill the PS3.

Well.. until Sony add support for it anyway.

Ever since the days of beating WhiteBoyBob round the mountain tracks on split screen 2 player Gran Turismo on the PS1, my gaming racing car of choice has always been a Subaru Impreza WRX.

I am currently working up to purchasing one on Forza Motorsport 2 on the Xbox 360. I have got as far as a Mini at the moment, with an old Jag and a Roadster too.

Although I am definitely “not a car sort of person” and would probably still be huffing around on my BMX if my ex-employer had’nt paid for me to learn to drive - I have always sort of hankered for having a Subaru one day.

The problem is this though… I have seen three really nice ones out on the road in the last 2 days - but they have all been driven by girls!

So - does this mean that the shiny, imported, chipped blue Subaru with the gold alloys that I saw yesterday is really a “girls car”? Or was she just borrowing it whilst her baseball cap wearing chav hubby was out doing community service?

And should I be looking for a more manly car than that now? Perhaps a Supra or an Audi TT?

Ahhh… procrastination wins again.
I knew there would be a good reason not to get my Xbox360s DVD drive modded to play copied content.

Looks like Microsoft have now found a way to ban consoles that contain modded firmware and dodgy components.  I knew it would come at some point and am glad I never went down that route now.  £40 well not spent in my opinion!

Shame my 12 Month Xbox Live Gold Membership has expired recently, but to be honest I haven’t been online for a while.  I might get the Xbox Live Vision Camera and 12 month Live subscription pack from Play.com soon - especially as you get a copy of Uno with it too.

It looks like the Xbox360 will be getting a dashboard update this spring to allow for integration with MSN Messenger! Also to be released is this natty little QWERTY keyboard addon for the controller. Other updates to the service will include:

• Windows Live Messenger IM integration.
• More informative achievement notifications.
• A brand new Marketplace blade with updated organization.
• Upgraded XBLA friend interaction functionality.
• Auto-off downloading functionality featuring low power mode.
• Enhanced family settings for chatting.
• Ability to watch videos while downloading off the XBLM.
• Hundreds of other random fixes and tweaks.

Not sure where the Xbox Live Headset will plug into though once the keyboard is plugged in. From this pic you can see a headphone socket on the bottom of the unit in this picture, but it does’nt look sculpted to take the usual headphone/mic unit.

I won’t get one though. Nice gimmick, to be able to chat to your MSN mates online too, but I really don’t want to be bothered by them when playing though! I would rather have the Xbox360 wifi adapter so I did’nt have to use Internet Connection Sharing through my PC to play. But they are too expensive!

I wandered into my local Gamestation today and whilst perusing the cool Nintendo keyrings, sweatbands and pencil cases, I was watching a hidden PS3 run through a demo of Virtua Fighter 5.

It did look pretty impressive and smooth, but I am sure that the Xbox360 would have looked equally impressive up on the massive Sony Bravia TV. The Virtua Fighter series has not yet been released on Xbox360 so I will have to wait until summer to see how it compares to the PS3 verison.

I have not got a fighting game for my 360 yet so I hunted down a £22 second hand version of Dead Or Alive 4 which was one of the original launch titles for the console. I was never that impressed with it until I saw the demo running in HiDef on my LCD TV.

Since seeing Tekken running on a Playstation 1 in the window of a store in Portsmouth many years ago whilst on a weekend pissup, I have been enamoured with fighting games. Virtua Fighter 4 on the PS2 was my favorite as was Soul Calibur on the Xbox. I have a passion for games I can pick up and play for 30 minutes without getting too engrossed and fighting games are perfect for this.

We just need a good 3d fighting game for the Nintendo DS and I will be sorted. Tekken DS? Where are you!

I know what I will be doing at lunchtimes in my car soon…

I popped to Toys-R-us today to buy yet more Pokemon cards to add to my Sons collection of over 500 (most were donated though… I’m not that stupid (or rich!)). We still don’t know how to play the game yet though.

Whilst I was there I got my eyeballs on the Playstation3 demo cablnet! A large Sony (40 inch+) screen was running Hi-Def demos of the PS3’s capabilities such as Blu-Ray, movie trailers, photos and games too. Some of the games looked amazing and smooth, such as Motorstorm - but others like “Metal Gear Solid 9 - Trouser Snake gets zipped” looked a bit PS1 for my liking.

I was immediately thinking..

Wow! This really is better than my Xbox 360! I might get one. Hmm.. £450 for the console.. how could I afford one… Sell the 360, and my Nintendo DS Lite…

Then I leant over to take a look at the console itself only to read, printed on the top in plain white capital letters “EXAMPLE CONSOLE ONLY”. Not only was the shiny black beastie not a real PS3, it meant that everything I was seeing on the video was also fake!

I then realised that all of the employees at Toys-R-Us were looking at me and they had little radio receivers in their ears like the FBI use - and they were all talking about me! Even the CCTV cameras were watching my every move. I tried hiding in the Hot Wheels isle, but some of the customers were also obviously “in on it” too and were casualy watching me whilst pretending to look at boxes of Yahtzee Texas Hold-Em Edition. One of them was even pretending to be texting on his mobile phone - but was obviously taking video surveilance footage to send back to the scientists at Area 51 who have been after me ever since I accidently hacked into their mainframe whilst looking for crackz and serialz for my BBC Micro.

I had to ditch the kids in the Scoobiez section and pull over a display of new TMNT action figures in order to escape the shop and then call my mate Jesus to come and place a protective “Faith Bubble” around me so the police and social services could not track me using that anal alien implant they gave me.

I’m invisible. You can’t see me. By the power of Jesu.. oh.. hello officer..

You just can’t trust anyone! Its all lies!

If you have got an Xbox360 and have not yet purchased Gears Of War then… I must chainsaw you to death!

Its no wonder that this game has sold several million copies and has practically “sold the console” to those non-believers. As 3rd person shooters go, it’s certainly the best I have played. Evar!

I was chatting to some opponents and team mates the other night about a video I had seen a montage video of kills with the “torque bow” weapon. Well here it is:

Nismojoe - Gears of war torque bow montage

This chap (Nismojoe) is pretty amazing and I would hate to meet him online - not that I am that good anyway though!

Check out his other GoW videos here