With the upcoming completion of this semester of uni, I will soon have the luxury of enjoying some free time for a period longer than 24 hours which will be absolutely brilliant. Of course I know this will get old and despite my acquisition of Age of Conan, which I will be speaking about more when I get my char up a few more levels, I will become bored. Thus I will endeavour to have some projects underway as I always do and some of them will result in changes to this site.

The most notable one that will impact you, the viewer, will be an option to add comments to my articles and blogs as they are produced. I was hesitant, when I first made this site to add such an option as I was sure that the bots that troll the internet would surely stumble upon my place in the world and ruin it for all. But my confidence is growing and I believe that I will be able to create a system that will be, relatively, bot-proof. Nothing is perfect of course but I'm sure I could get something up and working.

Other changes will be done mostly to the back end of the site with a revamped on how I submit my posts, site structure and creating and updating basic pages. It might become busy but I look forward to improving my site.

Dilbert, as everyone should know, is the brilliant creation of Scott Adams and ridicules anything associated with business management. I have the TV series on DVD and over the past few days I have watched them again and they are completely brilliant. The team did an excellent job bringing all the characters to life, especially Dogbert. Never have I seen a narcassistic, bastard do such evil things. Excellent role-model.

Well after some hard work at times when uni and paid work has failed to completely hog every spare minute I have, I have managed to get my character up to 32 on Age of Conan and I feel like I am in a reasonable position to talk about it. Now brace yourself for many a World of Warcraft comparison because its the only other MMORPG i have really played. I gave Hellgate:London and LOTRO a go but it does not seem to compare to AOC and WoW, which even of itself should give an idea on how good this game.

Before we get into the real depths of this review, I will quickly get the point in which you choose a female character in this game you can walk around and see tits. I am not kidding, you choose a female character, strip her down and see the lovely globes in all their glory. Unfortunatly no bonuses are offered going into battle naked so odds are if you attempt such a thing you will get pommeled faster than the AV club nerd. 

I started off as a demonologist which had the description such as mage with a pet attached to it. I only got ten levels however cause my mate from WoW told me to start a different character on his server so we could team up. This has failed however because I have already overtaken him in levels and he does not seem to have the motivation as much as me because he still on the WoW drug. This new character is a Dark Templar which is best described as a combination of a WoW warlock and a warrior as they are a tanking class but are able to steal life from their opponents in order to keep themself nice and fit.

Graphically, AoC is a much prettier game, with WoW having the more cartoony feel but this may not be the best thing for an MMO. One of WoWs beacons of light that has allowed it to dominate the market is that unless you go into an instance dungeon, the entire world is more or less at your disposal to go visit, whilst AoC, by comparison, has many areas of the world instanced which means regular loading screens when you wish to get from one side of the globe to the other. I suspect is due to the high graphic requirement but I could be wrong and the developers thought this was just a better method of doing things.

The UI for AoC is not exactly the best either being somewhat clunky compared to my UI in WoW which was fully customised and very comfortable for me to use. The LFG system is also somewhat awkward along with the auction house, again very annoying to use. But fear not, it is not all doom and gloom as there have been some elements that have kept me playing all this time.

As I have been playing a melee character for much of this, I am unsure if what I am about to say means anything to those who cast spells, but the combo system that AoC has set up is absolutely brilliant. Unlike the WoW counterparts, melee fights do not have an autoattack, instead players must choose a direction for the attack, either the left or right or from above. This is done as the opponent will be focussing their shield a specific direction and going to attack that side will cause less damage, similarly if you attack the opposite side you will do much more damage. Your abilities also have a combo involvment in which you must attack in a sequence of specific direction before the ability is even activated and messing up half way through will end the combo right there. It makes melee combat about a billion times more interesting and you actually have to pay attention rather than just choosing attacks and letting them do their thing. So far the largest sequence I have is 3 but this will eventually reach 5 which I quite enjoy as each of these sequence attacks do damage in their own right. Combat is also not limited to the one character you are targeting either, get another NPC in the right spot and you can attack two or even three characters at once while you are only focussing on one. The whole thing is absolutly fantastic. 

But this is not the only things that AoC has going for it. The repetive grind that are MMOs is still there but is reduced somewhat. If you need to get drop items from a specific mob, odds are it will drop 100 percent of the time rather than WoW which usually has the drop result determined by chance. This could change at later levels but for the first 30, this is what I got. Which makes getting the item that much faster and completing quests that much quicker. Quests are also quite good with a lot of experience being given for completing them much higher than that of WoW which is the clear trade off with the grind and I find it quite pleasant. The AoC developers have also included the location of quest objectives on the map which some might say makes it to easy, but considering you could have a journal of up to 30 quests, knowing where to go in unbelievably useful. Means you do not have to go look up WoW wiki like all WoW players know they do when they get a quest.

The game is still in its rough stages with complaints with lack of quests around the mid to late 30s range and servers going down twice a week for updates, but I am going to keep playing as its fun and once the kinks are worked out, I could have a rival for the WoW addiction that plagued me for years.  

I went out and picked up my copy on Ninja Gaiden 2 and the Incredible Hulk last thursday for the 360 so what I say now is really only an initial opinion but both are so very nice to play.

Ninja Gaiden has clearly wanted to keep its trophy for the hardest games ever made with the difficulty absolutely brutal in this latest installment. I am playing it on acolyte mode aka get hit in the head with a hammer mode and even that is nearly having me break the controller in frustration so I can not even being to imagine what warrior mode, aka get hit by a sledgehammer mode would be like. But the combat is so very nice, blood flies everywhere as does the opponents limbs more often than not. Nice array of weapons and abilities. Beautiful graphics but what isnt now. The camera can be a bitch at times and combined with the difficulty, it can make for some very annoying trips to death land.  But anything bad I can say about it is instantly disregarded when I remember I am a ninja and blood goes everywhere.

If you played Hulk: Ultimate Destruction for the Xbox, the Incredible Hulk will be a deja vu experience for you as it works in much the same way as before. You control the Hulk, wondering around in New York City and destroying things, following something resembling a storyline ...... that is about it really. There are some mini games and collectables for you to do as well if you are bored but all you really care about is that the military is soft and buildings can be demolished surprisingly easy.

The biggest thing I can say about both these games is that they are fun. Sitting for hours playing one is easy and they both continue the proof that sexy violence = fun.

After another semester of lectures, tutorials, exams assignments and one, despite still being ongoing project, uni is OVER for this semester. This monumental occasion has been celebrated in the only true way, with much alcohol. Mild hangover this morning, but still, damn good night out and damn good feeling to have finished. 

I previewed this review of The Incredible Hulk a week or so ago or something like that. In that time much of what I said then still holds true. Buildings collapse easily, not much story, and the mini games and collectables are all still waiting to be done.

I decided to stop playing the game once I finished the main storyline for two reasons. Firstly I had not finished Ninja Gaiden 2 yet as I was frustrated by a giant worm killing me numerous times (review in coming days) and secondly because everything else I could do in the city was not enough to keep me wanting to play. Do not get me wrong, the game was fun up until a point however by the end of it all I was happy to have it finished and have the game sit in my completed pile.

Graphically the game is good, the Hulk looks great and so does New York city despite some graphics and clipping issues. The feeling of having destroyed a building does not feel as good as it is supposed to when there is still a part of the roof floating above you. The cut scenes are truly awful. Despite the voice actors being those from the film, the cut scene graphics just make it all laughable, not in the good way.

Some gameplay decisions really should have been thought through with the warping system being the Hulk taking the subway system although I do not know how he could even fit and whilst mini games and missions do show up on the map, they only do so when you are in a certain range with only the main story line showing up when you are on the other side of the city. I also had some real issues with fighting abomination as it was annoyingly difficult the first half and piss easy the second. I would have loved something inspired by the movie in which he will kick your ass but at the same time you can kick his but this was not to be.

Anyway a review for this was going to be short because the only truly good thing about the game is the mass destruction you can cause but even that gets old after a while. If you want pure carnage you might be better off with Crackdown or if you are after a superhero tour of New York, Spiderman 2 comes to mind as a far better alternative, but if you do just want mindless destruction for ten hours, might as well pick it up.

As my previous post for the Hulk mentioned, I have already done a partial review on this game so let us recap. Graphics stunning, difficulty insane, camera somewhat annoying, think that covers most of it, so now deeper we go. 

The difficulty, as previously mentioned, is insane. The only other Ninja Gaiden game I have played was on the original XBOX so I cannot compare it to anything prior, but the XBOX version was one of the hardest games I have ever played and Ninja Gaiden 2 follows that to a T. Mobs throughout the levels are somewhat easier, but can still kick your ass really quickly if you are not careful, and the boss fights are insanely difficult, taking numerous attempts to get them down and usually whilst wasting most of your health restores and possibly your resurrection scroll. It really is a game in which button bashing may get you through the first few levels however after that learning blocking and timing become crucial to living. I will say that it tended to get somewhat easier towards the end but that might have been because my skill level was rising and I was fighting and blocking like a ninja rather than charging and slicing as much as I could in a vain effort to hit the boss. The end boss however was disappointingly simple by comparison to the rest of the bosses in both Ninja Gaiden 1 and 2. The final boss at the end of 1 kicked my ass so many times and this one I finished on the second attempt which was a rather pointless ending. But that is really a minor negative in the whole scheme of things. 

The graphics are truly stunning in this game and everything runs beautifully smooth apart from one section which caused my 360, and from what I have read, everyone elses 360 to slow down a lot. This was in a section towards the end when you had to fight your way up a set of stairs facing never ending wave of mobs, where there would have been easily 50 on the screen. Some might take this as a criticism which would be fair enough, however I found the whole slowing down thing somewhat appropriate, even if it was unintentional. You were able to see every beautifully rended slash through flesh, blood spurting when you cut off heads and limbs; it really made the whole carnage somewhat beautiful in a weird way. Other than that minor issue, the graphics are superb. 

There is a good variety of weapons in this game with the Dragon Sword obviously being the default weapon along with the Vigoorian Flail taken from Ninja Gaiden one, other weapons included a two sword combo, a staff, a scythe, and a set of hand and feet claws allowing you to bring your Wolverine fantasy to life. I was deeply disappointed that it took so long to get the Vigoorian Flail as it was my favourite weapon in game one and once I got my hands on it, it was all I used for pretty much the rest of the game. I did eventually use the Dragon Sword towards the end on bosses as it just has so much power but given the choice, I would have used the flail for the entire game. 

The makers in this game have made a slight change in how the game is played out. Ninja Gaiden allowed you to wonder around everywhere and you went to some areas multiple times throughout the story. However 2 plays the story through in a strictly linear fashion which I thought was great but it leaves no room for any real puzzle solving which 1 had at least a little bit of. It is just go from one chapter to the next. That is fine, it is consistant fun and you do not have to think too much. Not much of a story in this game I found, some evil people steal a statue in order to resurrect a powerful demon while you trundle along killing their underlings. Fortunatly that did not bother me because you do not really need a story in a game such as this when there is just so much blood and gore to enjoy. 

Overall the game is excellent and a strong contender to be included in my own top 5. Even if you found the original annoying and hard as all buggery pick this one up. Even with your multiple deaths, you will still be craving more.  

Whilst I knew something like this was always going to come up at some point. Six teenagers have been charged over incidents inspired by the GTA series. Police have claimed that the group were emulating the character in that Grand Theft Auto game, going on a crime spree Not an assumption I agree with but meh. However the most amusing part of the whole article was in fact when analysts suggested that the cause did not lie with the group being inspired by GTA, rather they were, and I quote, just huge frickin dumbasses. Something I find very easy to agree with :D

See the whole article here

I have always loved the Diablo series and the announcement of a third is a great thrill to me. I have seen some shady images of the game from the Blizzcon announcement and its looks pretty sweet so far. I may need to get a new mouse specially for it though. I broke my old one through Diablo 2.