Music Titbits & Burnout Paradise

Just managed to recover from a 3 day bender this weekend, not had one of those in a while. One of the main things that got me through a painful Sunday (apart from an enormous amount of Smash and sausages) was Laura Marling's new album. New single Devil's Spoke is a good example of how talented she is. Tender, touching and just wonderful stuff really. Scary to think she's younger than me as well. Not the most reassuring thought when you've got a mouthful of mash potato, a head full of hangover and you're glumly staring at a laptop in your pants. Today I also found a couple more leaked Flying Lotus tracks which again are fantastic. They're not on Youtube yet but the obscenely outstanding Computer Face is. I'm almost counting the days for this one. 3rd May, 3rd May, etc. Also listening to MGMT's new album currently. Remember them claiming to be influenced by all sort of obscure musicians and whatnot. Which makes them sound unbelievably cool obviously. The album leaked so they're streaming it for free on their site, which is nice. "We wanted to offer it as a free download but that didn't make sense to anyone but us" they claim. It's alright really, nowhere near as spectacular as I'm sure many will claim. Brian Eno will undoubtedly appreciate the track dedicated to him as well. You can really feel the ambient influence. Also, fuck me, the new song by The National is incredible. Another cracker for May then.

Had my first foray onto Big Surf Island in Burnout Paradise as well today. 1000 points seems like a lot of money but now I've played it I think it was well spent. The island is much open for want of a better word, with jumps and secret routes all very well integrated in the map. In fact it's better than the main game really for that, I certainly enjoy it a lot more. Apart from the events are quite tricky, or I'm just not used to using the insane beach buggy. Fun as hell though so glad I bought the game at all. Time for a sequel Criterion?

Perfect Dark

After months of shivering, weeping, wailing, flailing and generally debasing myself in anticipation of playing Perfect Dark, today saw it silently creep onto the marketplace. So after a frustrating wander round town trying to find somewhere I could pick up some Microsoft Points I finally got to settle down with it after so many years away. The first thing you notice is that everything feels the same, the music, the graphics, the sound effects. It's pretty much unchanged, which is for the better really in terms of fan service. Those expecting Modern Warfare graphics though are probably best off sticking to the upcoming Stimulus Package (5 maps, 3 new, 2 old for 1200MSP! What value!). It does feel dated in some places, it's worth pointing out. The controls feel imprecise, especially whilst aiming. When you hold down the L trigger it feels like you're dragging a corpse along the screen when scrolling sideways. Voice acting is not the best, but hey, no-one really cared about that then. One amusing point was when a scientist sarcastically claimed he would "help me out" but "accidents may happen" but then didn't press the alarm as I'd done the objective in the wrong order. Oh hilarity. One new addition would be the Xbox Live multiplayer. This again was a miss for me. Almost quite literally. A ten minute match on Felicity turned into a slapping match in the bunker area. Frustrating at best, plain ridiculously shit more accurately. However, it just works. The game is massive and (quite rarely for this gen) has a hell load of multiplayer options for split-screen and online. For 800 points you could do a whole lot worse but if you loved the original anywhere near as much as I did you need to pick this up right now.

As I only could buy 2100 points I had a few pennies left over. I say had to, I chose to. So after an hour of debating whether I buy Peggle again I went for Fifa Ultimate Team and the Big Surf Island add-on for Burnout Paradise. I've only played the former so far as I decided to come downstairs and watch Barcelona destroy Stuttgart. I mean destroy as well, Man Utd and Arsenal are probably worried. Rightly so. Anyway, Ultimate Team is like Manager Mode meets the Pokémon Trading Card Game (which was a guilty pleasure of mine on the Game Boy Colour). Seems to be quite fun so far and a nice little diversion from the main game, so probably quite fairly priced at 400 points then.

Gaming Tuesday (On Sunday)

After going a bit ebay mad last week I got the chance to settle down with the (thankfully) only two games I won. Firstly Rainbow Six Vegas transfers all the tense hostage rescuing from gloomy warehouses to glitzy casinos. Or at least the box promises that then gives you a bewilderingly grey and brown opening level in Mexico or somewhere. It's like a tour de force of grey, going from a town to a train yard, some warehouses, some tunnels, some more warehouses. Although I think grey and brown was still awesome when it came out. I can't remember. Anyway, the checkpoints are also horrible. Hence why the opening level stuck with me (and I was stuck with it) for so long. I'm not a Rainbow Six veteran in my defence, if anything I found the squad combat confusing as my team-mates seemed keen to stand behind a car and shoot into it as opposed to around at the enemy. This meant that I found myself leading the line and dying which then left me half an hour back with so much rage that I felt like kicking puppies or children. But for a game of it's age it still looks pretty and bar said team-mate hiccups everything works pretty well. I shall, as ever, persevere.

Burnout Paradise is another game from a while ago although I actually rented this when I first got my 360 and fell in love with it. I've been waiting for The Ultimate Box to drop low enough in price to pick up and I felt that the £7 I paid for it was pretty reasonable. Although probably not as reasonable as the £3 I paid for Rainbow Six. Anyway, the game is as joyous as I remember even if the other events aren't as enjoyable as the carnage fuelled Road Rage. It's literally a hands in the air moment when one of those comes up at the cross-roads. Played on from where my old save was which was a little jarring going in halfway through the game but I quickly found my feet again. Luckily there's a whole ocean of added on content to wade through as well afterwards although 1000MSP for the new island seems quite pricey when Perfect Dark is out next week for 800MSP. Might have to put it off till the next student loan installment. Ah government funded gaming. Love it.

Beta Late Than Never

So in a veritable smorgasbord of exciting things that have happened to me in the last few days a couple happened within 5 minutes of each other. A tale of two betas really. Unfortunately by the time I'd downloaded and installed the beta for Fifa Online the server had closed for the night so I got involved on the Blur beta on the 360. The best description is Burnout Kart really, it robs violently from both games. Although the developer has pedigree in the genre (Metropolis Street Racer, Project Gotham Racing) a lot of the things from those games seem to have gone out the window. Everything is at breakneck speed in a 70's neo glow in this one. It's good fun with depth in a variety of cars and maps that you can tweak with although I've not ploughed the time in yet to see them. Split/Second still looks more exciting though to be honest and I have Burnout Paradise winging it's way to me so I'll see if I have the inclination to go back.

Fifa Online for me is a mixed bag. My laptop lurches forward loading it with teary pixels streaming down it's graphically gurning face. It works quite well setting your team up and choosing myself as a grey fox of the managerial world but as soon as I tried a friendly against Spurs it jittered around like a man having a fit on a Segway. After toning down the graphics to the lowest possible setting it was slightly less jittery although still was very jumpy in mid-field. I found it hard to adjust to as the gameplay had more in common with the Wii PES iterations (which I have also not played). Looks to be fun though but unless I somehow acquire a new computer I doubt I'll be getting the full joy of it.

Finally I got my first few listens of the new Gorillaz album Plastic Beach on Spotify. Really enjoyed it, hard to name a group that sounds so eclectic throughout a record. Sweepstakes is one of the best songs I've heard all year and is a pretty good example of the collision of genres you get with a Gorillaz album. Hoping my Russian site of choice will have it up soon as I really will kill someone if I have to hear that pissing Burger King advert again. Sorry "king" Burger King advert. Cunts.