Thursday, November 29, 2007

Assassin vs. Drake, MP3 and Playstation Eye

I was recently in a quandary as to which game to ask as a Chrimbo present from my parents. This was between either Assassin’s Creed or Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune (Roz should hopefully be getting me Super Mario Galaxy, which without needing to be said, holds priority over just about everything else in the universe at present). Both games look like they have heaps of potential, but after reading various reviews and preview for both games (as well as read personal opinions on forums), the decision was made for me… It’s Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune.

The most striking impression that I get after reading reviews and personal opinions of Unchartered, is that the game is just pure unadulterated fun. Assassin’s Creed seems to be somewhat of a flawed gem of game, whilst Uncharted is just pure entertainment. I must confess that it is reading the personal opinions on forums that has most sold the game to me. Anyway, Uncharted it is. I’ll look forward to playing this come Christmas.

Metroid Prime 3 is hard – damn hard. Then again, I shouldn’t have expected anything less after both Metroid Prime 1 and 2. The final 3 bosses of the original Metroid Prime had me ripping my hair out. Also the final 2 bosses of Metroid Prime 2 were also swear inducing hard. Unfortunately, by my estimate, I’m only approximately a third of the way through Metroid Prime 3 and already the bosses have given me some difficulties. The last boss encounter took me 5 attempts (the last of which took me approximately 30 minutes to eventually kill it and only then by the skin of my teeth). I dread to think how hard it’s going to be near the end. I think the thing that adds to the difficulty is that in order to defeat some bosses you need to purposefully corrupt your PED suit, which in turn drains an energy tank. As such, it s a careful balancing act between burning your health to deal heavy damage, ensuring that the corruption doesn’t overload and staying alive!

I got my Playstation Eye through the post yesterday. I purchased it mainly for the advanced mic attached to it, because I got sick and tired of always having to recharge my Bluetooth headset. Also, I often play games with headphones on (so as not to wake Elliot), and wearing my Bluetooth headset under my headphones was less than comfortable. So now I can listen to conversations through my headphones and use my Playstation Eye as my mic.

I have managed to have a quick go of Trials of Topaq with the Eye and must confess that it was actually quite fun. It’s a bit like marble madness, but the ground on which the ball rolls is the image shown by the eye and any moving elements in that image raises the tiles on the ground. As such, you need to move your arms and body around to push the ball along its path. It’s certainly an inventive use of the Eye and I look forward to showing it to Elliot to see what he thinks :)

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