Gamer_152's End-of-August Blog Extravaganza

 Beautiful Bright Fal- I mean Wales.

 I’m going to start my blog this week with a bit of an amendment to last week’s blog. When I wrote my last blog I was in somewhat of a rush and didn’t credit the friendly people who commented on my August 15 blog, especially c1337us, Axxol and Claude who wished me an early happy birthday so thank you to all of them. I also have to admit that I haven’t done as much gaming in the past week as I may otherwise have done, as from Saturday to Thursday I was holidaying in scenic Wales and while I had all sorts of plans for what I could play and what I could write while I was out there I actually had surprisingly little time in which to do so. There was one game that I managed to really get into over my holiday though and that was Civilization IV.

I got Civilization IV at the last minute before I went away and every time I’ve booted the game up I’ve found it impossible to tear myself away from it. Part of the genius of Civilization seems to lie in the fact that even though you can be handling many units and cities at a time, turns go by so quickly and you’re constantly being rewarded or feel close to being rewarded; creating the “one more turn” mentality that Civilization is so famous for evoking. Part of the enjoyment for me also comes from the fact that the technologies you research, the cities you conquer and the world wonders you build are so well known as some of the greatest achievements in human history, so when in a few turns I can conquer Rome, create mass media and build the Taj Mahal I really feel as though I’ve had an impact on the in-game world. I’m sure I’ll have a lot more fun with that game to come.

 Essentially John Marston and Jim Raynor are the same person.

Among other things I also started Alan Wake again on hard difficulty this week and while I’m not sure I can make another run all the way through the game on that difficulty (both because it’s rather challenging and because there’s a lot of other games I want to play) it’s great to see a whole new perspective on the events of the game after knowing all of the later plot twists and I already find myself noticing little details in the game the second time round that I didn’t spot the first time. I’ve also started Red Dead Redemption and while I’m only a little way into the game and in general I’m not so into western-themed games and movies I must say I’m already enjoying it. The cinematics have been of an exceptional quality, the dialogue and voice acting have been great and the gameplay has been both varied and enjoyable; in fact even just riding my horse around the overworld has been fun. Much like Civilization it’s a game I’m looking forward to playing much more of.

One game that I currently have access to but I’m not looking forward to playing is Peter Jackson’s King Kong. I briefly watched my brother play some of the game and based on what I saw it’s going to be anywhere from bad to horrendous. On a more positive note though something that has certainly not been horrendous over the past week or two has been some of the brilliant video game videos and promotions out there and I’d like to end this blog by furnishing you with some of my favourite recent content from the interwebz:

• This remake of a classic Monty Python scene in Team Fortress 2 is some of the best machinima I've seen in a long time.
• Microsoft have once again produced a great live-action Halo trailer which is well-worth watching.
• Another great recent live-action trailer has been Nintendo's trailer for Metroid: Other M which is also rather impressive.
• Here are Halo: Reach cupcakes... Look at them.
• This unexpected bit of Halo: Reach advertising is slightly mesmerising.
• Lastly Portal 2 is of course still looking awesome and I think Stephen Merchant is a good fit for Wheatley.

That concludes this week's blog, thank you for reading.

-Gamer_152