Much like in my days of college, where I would spend far too much time playing games only to rush all my homework into the last few hours before the deadline, I now present to you my Frankenstein of a computer for my entry into Not My Turning Point Rig Competition the day before the deadline.



2.4Ghz Athlon 64
GeForce 7600 GT AGP
2 GB Crucial RAM
500W PSU
60GB HDD - Still surviving from my original E-Machine PC over 5 years ago. I'm a cheap bastard.

Theres also 2 years of untouched dust, I'm sure it makes it run faster.
I mainly use my PC now for Graphic and Web Design and of course trolling DTOID. My plan was to upgrade this summer but with two holidays consuming all my monies and my dwindling interest in PC gaming I've decided to let the fucker rot until Fallout 3 comes out.

My 360 is the only thing I touch for games anymore. That and small boys.

Which conveniently leads me into announcing the winners (or best losers) of my Vegas 2 Competition! Thanks to everyone who entered and made me lul at your fail.

Winner: Justice

1st Loser: Kryptinite

2nd Loser: Wardrox

Well done. I'll make sure to put some anthrax in with all your swag.

Gaming; it’s the greatest past time in the world, for some of us, the lucky ones, it even pays the bills. We all love gaming, I know you do because if you didn’t then you wouldn’t be here reading this but for all that there is to love there is also much to hate. We hate these things all the more because we love gaming so.

It’s because I love gaming I feel the need to let off some steam, in the ever abused form of a Top Ten, here are some of the things I hate most about gaming.

If you’re lazy you can read breakdown at the end of this post.

10 - Region Locking
I understand the need for region locking; to maintain a fair market place, quality control and all that bull shit, but from a gamers perspective it’s incredibly frustrating to see so many games in Japan and even America that never make it to many of gaming’s 3rd world countries; UK and Europe, Central Asia and Australia all have to sit and watch while many games are announced and then released only in one or two regions.
There may be Freeloader but it doesn’t making it any less annoying.

Sinners: Xbox 360
Saints: Nintendo DS


9 – Patches
Finishing making the game after release has become standard practise for a lot of developers, it may seem like a good idea financially; get the testers to continue during the release of the game and then a month of two after launch the game can be patched and fixed and that way it will still make it in time for the Christmas release window.
However, not only is it frustrating and annoying for us gamers, it doesn’t always work as intended in the developers favour, if people hear a game is ridden with bugs and glitches they won’t buy it and its very hard to convince people that the game runs fine now even if they have released a major patch.

Sinners: Vanguard, Assassins Creed (PS3), Team Fortress 2 (Xbox 360)
Saints: Pretty much everything else.


8 - Multiple Endings
It seems that multiple endings have become the ‘in’ thing for developers to create. Sure it sounds great, adds to the hype and makes for great blurb on the back of the box but why would we bother with 200 varieties of a mediocre ending when we should be rewarded with one highly polished grand finale.
I can accept that some games, such as Bioshock, have to have multiple endings but even 2K managed to screw that up somehow.

Sinners: Fallout 3
Saints: Fallout 1


7 - Bad Voice Acting
Do it good or don’t do it at all. Developers, you may squander thousands on hiring actors to fill your fantasy worlds with authentic vocal characterisation but at the end of the project, if it still sounds shit take it out. Removing it and ‘wasting’ that money spent on actors will be worth it when your game doesn’t sound like Two Worlds and therefore will sell all the more copies.
Sometimes you simply have to trust in the gamer’s imagination.

Sinners: Two Worlds, Undertow
Saints: Half Life 2, Oblivion


6 - Choppy Console Gameplay
How developers can fuck this one up is a mystery even the Scooby Doo gang can’t solve; Developers know the exact specifications of what everyone is using to run the game, how powerful it is, what its limits are, etc. So how the fuck can some games still be released with anything less than a perfectly smooth frame rate? Did they not bother to even play the game before they shipped it?
There are no excuses only swift redemption.

Sinners: Skate (PS3), Universe at War
Saints: Crackdown


5 - Quick Time Events (QTEs)
Quick Time Events are for game designers who are too lazy to figure out how to incorporate an action scene using the basic control system. QTEs take true control away from the gamer and stoop the game down to a level at which even a _ monkey could complete it.
QTEs stopped being a good idea around the time of Shenmue, why they still linger on, like a bad fart after curry night, is mind boggling.

Sinners: God of War, Resi 4, Fahrenheit
Saints: Almost everything?


4 - Cinematic Sequences
Everyone loves a great film, epic wide shots, emotional close ups and hectic camera angles in fight scenes. But as hard as they try games are not films. Films are meant to be watched, games are meant to be interacted with; when games try to combine the two all that is achieved is a sense of disconnection between the character and the player.
Many games in the current generation show that graphics have now reached a point at which story driven sequences don’t require the cut scene to be separated from the game play. FMVs, cut scenes, cinematic sequences, whatever you wish to call them, don’t belong in the majority of games anymore.

Sinners: Army of Two
Saints: Half Life 2


3 - The Cult of the Online Cunts
If you’ve played any online game with open speech or text communication than you will know of those pricks who have taken it upon themselves to make sure everyone else’s online experience is a urine filled bucket of frustration; whether they’re team killing, HAXing or just being a loud mouthed donkey fucker it only takes one person to ruin a whole nights gaming.
I thank the gaming gods that I was born a man (somewhat) and not female, for not only do girl gamers have to put up with all the usual bullshit, they also have to put up with all the testosterone filled, sexually deprived, pathetic excuse for a man, bastards who try and flirt with women while playing CoD4 online.
The worst part? In most instances there is very little anyone can do about it.

Sinners: XBL, Counterstrike, MMORPGs
Saints: Mario Kart…


2- The Downfall of Local Multiplayer/Co-Op
I know the wonders of the innernetz has allowed us to connect with anyone anywhere in the world but what the fuck has happened to good old fashioned local multiplayer, you know; getting your friends round and having a laugh like the good old time. I have a friend who refuses to play anything that hasn’t got local multiplayer or co-op, he’s a social gamer that owns every console but rarely plays them now because games such as CoD4, Crackdown, Team Fortress 2 all lack what makes Halo 3 the most played game at any party.

Sinners: CoD4, CoD4, CoD4
Saints: Halo 3, Halo 3, Halo 3


1 - HYPE!
This Top Ten is going to be amazing; it’s going to have a billion times more Top Ten than all other Top Tens. It’s got 50km of Top tens. This Top Ten is going to be a Halo killer. This Top Ten is going to have 200 endings.

We’ve heard it all before, so why do we all still fall for it every time, hook, line and sinker?

Hype can achieve three things pre-release:
It either fails, for example Mr. Molyneux’s ‘Billion’ AI claim.
It pisses people off, (50km)for (50km)example (50km)Farcry 2’s (50km)50km (50km)of (50km)game (50km)world.
It works and people turn into drooling fan boys, for example Halo 3’s I Love Bees.

However what makes hype the worst thing for gamers since some EA suit thought “You know, we should purchase and integrate Bullfrog and Westwood Studios into ours” is that it destroys games, it may not literally reach in and mess about with the mechanics of a game but it still achieves the same effect. It gets gamers to expect too much from a game before the first trailer is even released. In the end there is nothing but disappointment.

The worst thing of all is that Hype will never change, it will never go away, it sells games, it grabs people’s attention and with the constant and rapid improvement in technology it will only get worse and worse.


The breakdown:
10 - Region Locking
9 – Patches
8 - Multiple Endings
7 - Bad Voice Acting
6 - Choppy Console Gameplay
5 - Quick Time Events (QTEs)
4 - Cinematic Sequences
3 - The Cult of the Online Cunts
2- The Downfall of Local Multiplayer/Co-Op
1 - HYPE!


Thank you for reading. You rock.
Also shameless contest plug.

Want to play Vegas 2 while wearing a Vegas 2 T-Shirt and decorating your 360 with a Vegas 2 faceplate?

You do? Well then you had better enter into my awesome, yet pathetically easy, Vegas 2 competition!

Read what you have to do to win here.

Due to the UK NARP that I will be attending in Wolverhampton this weekend you lucky guys and gals now have until Friday 4th to enter and considering the current entries anyone could have a chance of winning!

I’ve been at work all day and want to go to sleep so I’ll keep this short and sweet.

Want some free Vegas swag? Want to win a copy of the game?

The swag:


It’s quite simple; to win the stuffs all you have to do is make me laugh with an amusing gambling/Vegas related image. It doesn’t even require artistic skill as long as you can make me lul!

Lulz = Prizes!

The best image will win:
1 x Rainbow Six: Las Vegas 2 (Xbox 360)
1 x Vegas 2 Faceplates
2 x Vegas 2 T-Shirts

Second place will win:
1 x Vegas 2 Faceplates
2 x Vegas 2 T-Shirts

Third place will win:
2 x Vegas 2 T-Shirt

Everyone’s welcome to enter, no matter what part of the world you’re stuck in, however the game is PAL so only Eurofags can win first place.
You can enter as many times as you like and the contest ends Friday 4th April, so get your entry in quick!

Post your entries in the comments. No fail please. <3

The great British weather reared its ugly head for Play.com’s first ever gaming convention, ingeniously called Play.com Live. Based in Wembley Stadium over the last two days and with the promise of a great line up of games available to play, the hopes of a gaming nation rested on its shoulders; not since Game Stars Live have we had a good public convention.

Unfortunately what Play.com failed to mention about their exhibitor list was that it was all pure unrestrained bullshit lying and what was available to see was utter mediocrity compounded into a liquid form and injected directly into my eyeballs.

Thanks to our unfortunate Wardrox, who had to suffer two days of staring at posters of games he will never be allowed to play before release, we learnt last night what a disappointment Play.com Live was going to be but even then, with my expectations set to Zero, I was still shocked at how poor it really was.

The majority of games listed on their exhibitor site didn’t even bring anything new, just empty stands with old trailers or in the most severe case of Force Unleashed just a poster. I did not travel all round fucking London in shitty weather on my day off for a fucking poster.

The VIP section was a joke, most of the time they weren’t even checking people as they went in and when they did they could be Solid Snake’d by walking 5 meters to your left and using the lift instead of the escalator. Of course I seemed to be the only person in the world who hadn’t received a VIP pass so I shouldn’t really complain too much that their security wasn’t top notch. Thanks for being shit Play.com.

When we did finally get round to seeing something I was vaguely interested in; Farcry 2, which we had queued up just to watch someone else play, it crashed to desktop less than half way through the demonstration and we were promptly told to GTFO because other people were waiting.

Even at only £6 entry I feel ripped off, in truth the highlight of the games I played was Co-op Halo 3 with Phoenix Blood, which clearly I couldn’t have done at home, at anytime, on a comfortable sofa.

At least some of us had fun getting hands on with Rock Band.

All in all the whole day was a big let down, had it not been for a good turn out of DTOIDers it would have been a complete waste of time, so thanks to everyone who came; Wardrox, Sterling, Anus McPhanus, Dan Gale, Demios, Pheonix-blood, Justice & Silverhertz.
It was awesome to meet you all, and I would like to thank Jim for not beating me to a pulp the moment I met him, even if I had called him a big fat ball of pus…

Also to remind you Brits that BunnyRabbit is apparently still holding a NARP on the 28-30th of this march, you should come. It will be rad.

Also cocks.

The current price of the 360 Arcade SKU stands at €280 and the Premium SKU at €349 in Europe. However the German Financial Times uncovered plans two days ago, that Microsoft may be dropping prices for both systems from as early as next week in mainland Europe.

The new prices would knock the Arcade down to 199 (~£150) and the Premium to €299 (~£230). That would potentially make the Arcade cheaper than a Wii!

Possible price drops were also mentioned by MCVuk last week.

Microsoft is yet to make an official statement but this would not be the first time they drastically dropped their prices on multiple SKUs at once.

However, the most interesting thing is that nothing has been mentioned for the Elite.
Previously they had dropped prices for all three systems at once, it would not be wise to drop two SKUs and leave the Elite still sitting there at the same price as a PS3. Not unless they were giving the Elite something extra.

It does seem that, sooner or later, Microsoft will come round to Blu-Ray, I just don’t believe that it should be in this generation of consoles. The 360 has almost peaked, lord knows it has enough different systems already, the last thing we need is another SKU and if you want my opinion (Which you probably don’t but I’m gonna give it anyway) all the rumours of Microsoft eyeing up Blu-Ray will lead to only one thing: The next generation of Xbox will come sooner than expected, and it will bring Blu-Ray along with it.


Also on other news, I’ll be attending Play.com Live @ Wembley next Sunday; a close friend of mine has a cousin in one of the bands performing on stage and has managed to get us a few tickets. I don’t expect it to be a mind blowing day of awesomeness but it should be a good laugh at the very least.

If anyone else is attending send me a PM and maybe we can go raid the Lego Indiana Jones exhibit.