Admittedly I’ve been in a bit of a gaming rut for a while now, I usually find an expandable game I love and dedicate my life to it for a year or so. First came Ragnarok Online, then World of Warcraft, The SIMS, StarCraft II then back to World of Warcraft etc. Makes for a cheap gaming budget, but is unfortunately extremely limiting when it comes to gaming experience. So L.A Noire is my first real attempt to break the mold and become exposed to other games (which in turns means I’ll actually have something to write about on this blog, cause who really cares that my new gnome priest just dinged 70?…. I do…)

L.A Noire is an open world single player detective game, where you play the role of Cole Phelps. As Phelps your main task is to solve crimes presented to you, these can range from hit and runs, murders, robberies etc, meaning you are exposed to car chases, shoot outs and plenty of investigation.

Probably my favourite aspect of the game thus far is the interrogation of other NPCs, based on what information they provide, how they present it and their body language you are to determine whether a suspect or telling the truth or a lie. Depending on the case the decisions you make influence what happens next. Though I’ve found for the most part, you’ll either progress through no matter what, or fail it completely and be forced to start again.

I’ve heard that further along the game the decisions and choices you make play a much bigger role on the final outcome, but I’ll believe it when I get to it.

All in all, first impressions are good. The setting, the graphics, and the fantastic noir music really set the scene for a great game. I’m hoping all of this continue throughout the game and manage to hold my interest long enough to finish it.

The beginning of the end is here, finally!

The latest patch is pretty much the big ramp up to World of Warcraft’s new expansion Catacylsm, hitting Aussie shores next week~ Aside from Goblins and Worgens, the new class combinations have been released, which means you don’t need to purchase the expansion to gain access to them.

However such things like achievements and the new secondary profession have been semi-released. As in, the NPC / new achievements are in the game, but you can’t access them till you install Catacylsm. So really, it’s all a bit of a tease at the moment (and a major tease if you aren’t planning on getting the expansion)

If you do currently have an active WOW account, I’d take the time to look around the world. A large number of maps have changed, gnomes have their own starting area now and it’s almost like a new game. Almost.

Totally got this idea off my good mate Saint. There are a bunch of games coming out around this time of year and when there is a game I want, I always pre-order.

Things is not every store will offer the pre-order at the same time, which means you can either wait, periodtically checking them till all the retailers are offering you that game for pre-order, or you could just pre-order the game at a place that will price match for you later! No fuss~

The benefit to this is you can put in your pre-order, go away and no need to worry about remembering to pick up the game. Eventually when the date nears, the company will give you a call telling you to come collect the game. At which time ALL the stores will finally have their prices out. Pick the cheapest price, and get your retailer to price match for you That way you don’t need to worry about missing out on the best price, yet you’ll be secure knowing you will get a copy of the game!

And the difference can be huge, I remember price matching StarCraft 2 down to almost $70AU, when the place I originally ordered from was charging close to $100AU. Crazy, I know!

Image cause Rock Band 3 and Cata are my two key games this summer ;D

I had a little trouble maneuvering Guybrush through his unfamiliar 3D surroundings at first, but I liked the simple mouse controls once I got used to them. I am the sort of person who enjoys being able to lazily play a game with one hand like in the good old days of 2D point-and-click adventures. The dialogues have not lost their charm or wit compared to the original games, the puzzles are (usually) original and neither too challenging nor too dull and the voice acting for all characters was fabulous. I have not yet played all 5 episodes so I will be picking up this offer as well to see this story through to its end.
And if you have nothing planned for this weekend and enjoy adventure games I suggest you do the same

I have always been a big fan of intelligent casual puzzle games and ‘Cut the Rope’ by Chillingo has gotten me addicted to the point of staying up until late at night trying to finish ‘just one more level’. This elegantly designed iPhone game is a fun physics puzzler where your task is to cut ropes to deliver the candy into the mouth of the hungrily waiting Om Nom creature while collecting as many stars as possible. This becomes increasingly difficult as more and more obstacles are introduced throughout the 100 levels, including candy stealing spiders, movable rope joints, air bubbles, electricity barriers and many more.


You will need a little bit of patience to fully enjoy this game, but it is easy to be won over by the beautiful animations (Om Nom gets pretty upset when you lose his candy), the great physics simulation, near perfect touch recognition and sleek presentation. And for $1.19 on iTunes it is one of those games that is really worth every cent.

Props to David Choi, an awesome YoutTube musician that you guys need to check out!

If you only want to watch one game in the tournament, watch this one, the first in a best of 3 between TheLittleOne and oGsHyperdub. (I haven’t found this game on YouTube yet, but it might get uploaded at some point.) Just don’t watch the 3rd match in the series, if you are a big fan of TLO.

Ah… to think of the day when Sunday arvo sports on the telly will include some Starcraft 2.

The video is basically about how to use waypoints in Starcraft 2, so is better suited towards beginners to the game. Thanks for reading / watching and let me know what you guys think!

I’ve only linked Part 1, check out HDStarCraft’s channel for the remaining 3 parts, enjoy

Okay, exaggeration, but still. Ugh.

The main problem was out of the 60+ people who were there, only about half could log in, which meant only the pro tournament went through. Why? Because everyone was logging in at the same time with the same IP address (Cydus), Battle.net saw it as an attack and proceeded to block us.

4 hours later (yeah I can’t believe we stuck around for 4 hrs that we could have spent at home, actually playing the game) we decided to bail. I could see the Cydus people were desperately working with Blizzard to get them unblocked, and who knows whose fault it was.

But the bottom line was the tournament was epic fail. Which sucks, given it was our first SC2 tournament ever. Oh well, I think Hairy and RuKu have plans to still attend if there ever was a second one.

So there’s my report for the day No photos cause lighting was horrid and really… there was nothing to take photos off since none of the guys ended up playing :/

You can read Xin-Gaming’s response about the day here, the amateur event ended up occurring online in the end. Read here for further words from Xin-Gaming, cheers to them for understanding the true meaning of gaming, and “smart” move by the Cydus owner At least we got our money back.