Halo Reach, Humble Bundle and more Pokémon

So last night saw the meticulously well planned, hushed, almost understated launch of the Halo Reach beta. I of course talk in jest. It was horrible. Well, not horrible. Just painfully dull. Took me about 3-4 hours to successfully download the beta which left me almost too embarrassed to play it having spent so long staring at a 99% completion bar. I did of course play it though and to my great delight (read tearful disappointment) I played about four round of Oddball in a row. Which just turned into manic re-spawn, shoot, pick up ball, die, re-spawn, etc. I was frightfully underwhelmed. I went back today though, more out of blind optimism than anything, and was greatly surprised at how much more fun it was than the night before. A few games of the new four on four slayer mode are the reason. I'm still yet to get to grips truly with the new armour add-ons though. The jet-pack is fun, useful and seamless in it's integration into the Halo fold. The invincibility punch thing is good when you know what you're doing. Sprint is sprint and I haven't fiddled with invisibility yet. Been on the receiving end of all of them though, so there must be a good use for them all. I'll delve back in at some point as it's only on for two weeks or so anyway.

Found a decent deal as well today. 5 indie games on a pay what you like scheme found here. The games in question are World Of Goo (which I already own and love) and four others I'm not familiar with (Aquaria, Gish, Lugaru HD, Penumbra). They seem to be broad in genres and graphical styles but when you're paying what you like I guess complaints aren't something you can have. Finally on the Pokémon front things are looking good. Got 7 badges now and a squad of relative quality. Found some other new features, namely some bizarre arena where you complete athletics challenges with your Pokémon via the stylus and much screen stroking. Hmmmm. Good job it's still a quality Pokémon game then.

2010: What To Look Forward To

The only downside about January is that all you favourite lists from December are gone. Well if you're sitting there, crying alone in your room, desperately trying to put your favourite fingers in a preferential list just to satisfy your need for things to be listed numerically in order of quality then you can stop your worry now! Not that I'm making a list. But there is of course the annual event of "let's predict what will be big this year". So I'm going to have a pop as well. Not that my predictions are any good, or even note-worthy but merely so I can look back in twelve months time and ask "what the hell was I thinking".

So, the obvious one to mention is Ellie Goulding who everyone seems to love at the moment. She doesn't do much for me really but I imagine by her being a solo, female artist and singing inoffensive popesque music she'll do well. The NME are banging on about The Drums who apparently sound like a modern Beach Boys. Personally they look like the biggest bunch of cunts since The Kooks. And they were massive cunts. Remember his hair? Jesus, he looked like a prick. The Drums music is also pretty dull. Like a few hyped bands from last year really. Girls and Phoenix. Went back and listened to their records. Just boring. Also listened to The Big Pink, they were just shit though.

My favourite new artist is Gold Panda who I've been loving for a couple of months. Making a kind of ambient electronica that is both unique and pleasing. Like a cake with personalised icing. From what I've listened to recently as well Surfer Blood, Joy Orbison and Egyptian Hip-Hop (Couldn't find Nifeo on Youtube, but it's worth hunting down) also are alright. To me Surfer Blood sound a bit Wezzerish, Joy Orbison is apparently "dubstep" although I know nothing about the genre really and Egyptian Hip-Hop sound like a mix of XX Teens and Late Of The Pier. Personally I think XX Teens are better than Egyptian Hip Hop. They certainly don't look as stupid. But what do I know!

Film wise there's three kinds of films to look forward to. There's some complete shit that undoubtedly people will go watch: New Twilight, New Narnia, Step Up 3D and even a new Cats and Dogs film (the ever popular franchise). There's some big hollywood releases: Prince Of Persia, Iron Man 2, Robin Hood, The A-Team and Toy Story 3. Then there's two films that will clearly be brilliant: Tron Legacy and a Red Dawn remake. Wolverines, etc. Not sure what's coming out of left-field for this year yet. Sure they'll be some gems though. Still got a few to watch from last year, namely: A Serious Man, Moon, District 9 and a few others.

Finally, game wise there's bundles and bundles of joy coming our way. A lot of it in quarter one for a change too. I hate that I just used the term "quarter one" by the way. Been reading too many articles about games it seems. Anyway, Mass Effect 2, Bioshock 2, Dante's Inferno, Aliens Vs Predator, Alan Wake, Just Cause 2 just to start with. Obviously the most interesting addition will be Natal vs Gem (as it's apparently known). We shall see. I predict Halo:Reach to be the years biggest seller. Possibly pipped by Treyarch's Call Of Duty iteration. Again, we shall see.

I shall leave you to what I look forward most this year; Newcastle United back in the Premiership. Adieu.

Gaming Tuesday

So, it goes without saying really that the majority of my time has been sunk into Blue Dragon. Since my last update I've done a quest in a "Forest Of Exile" and gone through a laser abused landscape that looked not too dissimilar from those cheese levels from the old Worms games. I realise now why people referred to JRPG as grinding slog-fest affairs. I've not even had to go through grinding up my levels to fight a boss yet. But it still feels like I've been grinding through. There's a lot of pointless cut-scenes as well, which I normally would enjoy. But when you're hunting down an elusive save point so you can go to bed or even just stop playing for a while you end up getting bogged down with a pointless array of 30 second cut-scenes with the little yellow thing screeching "LOOK A *story related item*!!! LOOOOOK THERE IT IS!!!". I'm almost paraphrasing the subtitles with that as well. Even after my criticisms though I am going to finish it. Or at least get to disc three. But then I may as well finish it? Oh dear.

Apart from careering through that monstrosity I've continued to dabble on my Newcastle managerial career on Fifa 10. Achieved promotion and in my second season in charge I'm sitting quite happily around 6th in the table. Bizarrely after my conquest of the FA Cup I'm also in Europe. What area is not specified, probably UEFA Cup though. Celtic are in it. Hopefully I can drag myself away from Blue Dragon to continue this although I've heard upon the rumour mill of glitches and bugs in the achievements for the mode. Not that I'm a big stickler for achievements (anymore) but if the patch that's coming out very soon is going to fix the niggles then is it worth waiting? Probably, saying that I've still got around 90% of the season to go anyway so by the time I get there it may well be fixed.

Finally there was even a little bit of time for ODST. Been a few weeks since I played but I had a friend how suggested Firefight and it seemed ridiculous to say no. Its great fun still, I really need to put some more time into it because it is more fun than Horde I'd say and on a similar level to World At War's zombie mode. It is intrinsically different though as well, no sacrifice to that Halo flavour we're all so accustomed to. At least I can rely on the fact that a lot of people will hold on to their copy just for a bit of that Reach beta. Still plenty of games to come.