Prince Of Persia & Football

For handing in my assignment on time I decided to reward myself with a cheap preowned game while waiting for the bus home. Unfortunately the Blockbuster I visited does that annoying thing where they have their preowned stuff outside the shop so you feel like you're rummaging through a stranger's bin more than browsing titles thanks to the looks of disgust from passing pedestrians. Although their disgust may have been that I was listening to Flying Lotus so loud the bass was giving them confusing erotic feelings for the short period in which they passed me. Anyway, I chose Prince Of Persia as it was £4.99 (cheap) and near the front of the pile. I've never played a Prince Of Persia game before because I usually buy games about shooting or football (or Viva Pinata or Pokémon but less about that eh?) but it strikes me as being very similar to Assassin's Creed. Turns out they're both made by Ubisoft Montreal. Go figure. The game starts off frustratingly in that I can't get used to the controls because they're not the same as Assassin's Creed. Things like holding B instead of A confuse the hell out of me it seems. Then there's the fact you die if you try to jump to a slightly lower platform. Not all the time though. Just some of the time. Enough to make you consider trying it when you shouldn't. Then there's the glowing ball things. I know now I'm never going to collect them all unless I get extremely bored. But with my next Swapgame being Aliens Vs Predator that could well happen. Still going to try and finish it because I don't want to add it to Rainbow Six Vegas, Red Alert 3, Viva Pinata: TIP or any of the other games I've never bothered to finish lately.

So last night in the Champion's League Man Utd went to see good ol' Bayern Munich. I don't remember when they stopped being good, when I was a kid they were terrifying team. As was Juventus. I remember that night in Barcelona when Teddy and Olé sneaked a win as well, I was just happy to be allowed to stay up and watch it. Turns out though, they are still pretty good. I know I should want Man Utd to win, but I honestly don't. I'm so fed up of idiot fans talking about how great they are with little or no recognition for the teams they're playing. Football ignorance is a sin in my eyes. I listened to the game on the radio as the idea of socialising or scouring the internet to watch it seemed unappealing. Glad to see Bayern get the result they deserved, kind of happy to see Rooney out as well. Be interesting to see how that affects Saturday's game against Chelsea. Then there was the game tonight. Barcelona destroyed Arsenal in a 2-2 draw. A sentence that makes no sense yet is completely accurate. Next week should be a cracker, might even risk socialising for that game.

Bioshock 2, Red Alert 3, Frightened Rabbit & A Bit Of Footie

One of the great minds of acting that appear in Red Alert 3 on the left there. The thing I find most amazing was that when I read on the back of the box "over 60 minutes of high def video sequences" I was disappointed. Only an hour? Genuinely want more. The game fits surprisingly well to a console with all your actions mapped to a wheel and there's shortcuts there to help build your power plants when you're scouting out with your team of attack bears. Yeah bears. There's dolphins as well. God knows what else, pretty sure there was a giant robot in one of the FMV's as well. Yet to persevere that far though. I can safely say though that this game was worth the £4 for Tim Curry's Russian accent alone. The bears are a mere bonus.

Polished off Bioshock 2 this week. Feel a bit let down by it, I played through on normal and never really struggled. The only time I died was when I forgot to use first aid. Still thoroughly enjoyed the playthrough. Highlights being the mad ambushes of splicers when collecting ADAM and wandering round the majority of the last stage with my sentry bot chums "Patches" and "Melissa". A solid sequel really. Gave the multiplayer a fair amount of time as well which was a let down. Ignoring the game crashes in the lobby which plagued me throughout it just was pointless. The servers will be empty in a few weeks I'm sure, they were hardly bustling when I was there anyway.

Two final things, got hold of the new Frightened Rabbit album which is fantastic. They sound bigger and brighter which hopefully will see them getting some decent mainstream attention. Current single Nothing Like You has hit written all over it. Also caught the League Cup final today which was both exhilarating and predictable. Vidic should have gone for the last man foul on Agbonlahor right at the start. Apart from that Man United deserved their win, Valencia and Rooney were exemplary and even Berbatov put a bit of effort in. Still wanted Villa to win mind. Oh well, maybe Arsenal have got a chance at the Premiership now. That's my last hope of Man United or Chelsea being embarrassed.

Gaming Tuesday (On Sunday)

Sequels are always a risky business for me. Not enough change and you warrant the point of it, too much and you fell like you're playing a different game. I got about halfway through Mass Effect 2 before I had to return back home and I'm still not entirely sure if I like it. I genuinely miss the Mako when the alternative is the dull as hell planet scanning. It's so painfully boring I didn't bother to investigate different galaxies for fear of passing out from lack of excitement. But the game has improved with the levels; variety, effective design, good dialogue and just generally well paced. So I guess I do like it then.

The one benefit of getting back to Cornwall was having Bioshock 2 waiting on my pile of post. Apart from it wasn't. I had to spend a good ten minutes rooting around to find it. I can't express the disappointment of finding your pile of post to only contain a letter from BT and the TV license. Anyway, I did manage to get it in eventually and give it a whirl and it certainly is nice to be back in Rapture. In many ways, very little is different from the original. You're still guided through ethereal voices, learning the story through audio tapes and hacking cameras and turrets to conserve those precious bullets. Although the change of character means you feel a bit beefier than the previous game. Fights with a Big Daddy are no longer so worrying. Although fights with a Big Sister most certainly are. Given a good few hours to it already and I must say I'm thoroughly impressed. That's still without even thinking about the new "tacked on" multiplayer as well.

My bargain of the week is Viva Pinata: Trouble In Paradise which can be found in store at Sainsburys for £5. I gave a good hour to it in my "I can't find Bioshock 2" panic and it is everything you'd expect from a Viva Pinata game. Laid back but with more depth than your average well. Easily one of the most under-rated series of this generation. Bar the Party Animals one. That game is shocking. Also bought Red Alert 3 for 360 from Shop To for £3.95 but that hasn't arrived yet. Looking forward to the cheesy cut-scenes already.

I've also been continuing on with System Shock 2 which is more addictive than I first realised. In fact I was sat next to someone on the train today with my laptop out and was debating whether to boot it up for the entire journey. I decided in the end though that the lady in question probably wouldn't have appreciated me hitting monkeys in the face with a wrench next to her. Would have got awkward very quickly. I feel the need to rescind my comment about the poor voice acting. It gets better. There's just a few people on the audio logs early on that are very bad. One thing that must be said though, is that the game is fiendishly hard at times and will punish you when you're down. That's just playing on medium difficulty as well.