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.

Champion's League & System Shock 2

It's a funny old game football sometimes, the last two evenings have a gone a long way to prove this. Firstly the fact that UEFA have deemed it necessary to stretch the Champions League out for the next 6 years playing half a match every fortnight or something. Even as a big football fan, it's nice to have a week where I know the football isn't on for a change. The action kicked off on Tuesday afternoon when Everton were forced to play their first-leg Europa League tie at half five in the afternoon. Apparently, Europa League matches aren't allowed to clash with Champions League games for television reasons or something. Madness, through and through. Would have been a great game for them if Distin didn't ruin it all with a red card and penalty in the dying moments to leave Everton heading over to Portugal with a slender one goal advantage. AC Milan showed their age later that evening by forgetting to score the millions of chances Ronaldinho kindly laid on for them. Scholes' impossible to re-create miss hit wonder and the gleaming forehead of Wayne Rooney put Man United in a 3-2 aggregate lead going back to Old Trafford. You'd think that many away goals would be enough. Finally, Fabianski learnt another footballing lesson tonight in that you should not face away from an incoming cross and always kick when passed back to. Arsenal were lifeless and lacklustre and more than deserved their beating. The slender one goal lead for Porto though doesn't rule out a Gunner's return at the Emirates. Also, very briefly, Newcastle 4-1 Coventry. Three points clear. Good to see us scoring again.

As opposed to watching a scary movie or reading Glen Beck's wikipedia I decided to find my unadulterated terror in classic Bioshock fore bearer System Shock 2. For an 11 year old game it doesn't look too bad, it's just beyond that head-ache inducing pixel nightmare you get when you try and play an N64 game. Meddled around for a little while, mainly trying to fix a bug in which your inventory becomes redundant as your character would rather blindly swing his wrench around instead of healing. It's creepy at times, although the voice acting is poor, the random rave music wasn't fun and the character models are terrifying in a mostly non deliberate way. It still shits all over any other game from '99 though (Half-Life before, Deus Ex after; that's all I can think of off the top of my head).