What the image fails to show is I’m pending downloads of trials for Burnout Crash and Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike Online Edition. BT are going to love me tonight!

It’s the 29th October and I am making my first entry for the month. Why have things been so dead around here? Weeeeell, that’s because I’ve been ‘Gagaing’ around in Dead Rising 2 since the 28th September and it’s been a hugely addictive experience. Not because of all of the different novel ways to mutilate zombies, no, it’s because of all the different ways I can ruin serious cut scenes in coop games!

The term Gagaing was born when during coop games my coop buddy and I would split up upon entering areas and would then regroup after about 5-10 minutes, usually with my Chuck wearing something completely different to when we parted. The great part about the game is if you change your outfit in-game it is reflected in the cut scene, usually resulting in some awkward results. For example, I had to give Katey (Chuck’s young daughter) her Zombrex while wearing a mankini. Not a pretty sight.

I think the most amusing part of the game is Chuck has 72 hours to prove his innocence and yet this is pushed into the background as creating the latest fashion takes priority. Here are a few more of my styles:

I have just completed Dead Rising 2: Case Zero for the third time since I downloaded it on Saturday. The precursor to the full game that hits the shops later on this month is an excellent reminder of how great the original is and also gives you a sweet enough taste of what the main game will be like.

Here be spoilers; if you continue beyond this point and whine about having Case Zero spoiled for you then TS!

This mini-adventure follows Chuck Greene and his Daughter Katey three years prior to the events of Dead Rising 2. They have just managed to escape a Zombie-infested Las Vegas and have arrived in a small town called Still Creek. It all seems to be going so well for the pair of them until some twat nicks Chuck’s truck along with Katey’s medicine – Zombrex, in which she will die if she doesn’t get a dose every 12 hours. Just to make matters worse the town is inevitably overrun with zombies and the military will be arriving at nightfall to clear the town of zombies and any unfortunate survivors – they’re particularly interested in the infected ones. Aside from looking for Zombrex, Chuck also needs to locate five pieces of a motorbike so he and Katey can escape the military incursion in time.

The game is much the same as the original, it is reliant on you achieving particular goals in a set time such as retrieving the bike parts or rescuing survivors. If the clock runs out then the survivors are lost forever the same goes for the main objectives, if the bike is not constructed by 9pm then Chuck and Katey are separated by the military and dragged off. And if Katey doesn’t get her Zombrex it is game over.

This game is not without new elements to keep it fresh. The most interesting aspect of this game is the ability to combine weapons, anything with a wrench icon can be combined with ‘something’, but not everything. You can create such delights as the boomstick – a shotgun taped to a pitchfork, jam it into the chest of an unsuspecting zombie and blast away. There is also the novel beer hat, which increases Chuck’s PP each time takes a sip. Be careful though, give Chuck too much beer and he will be spewing his guts all over the place.

Something else I thought was worth mentioning is the Survivor AI has been improved. The original was notorious for the poor Survivor AI, which saw people walking into objects and generally not being able to handle themselves. Survivors in Dead Rising 2 are very competent, they follow Chuck with no issues and can even free themselves from zombie attacks. Babysitting survivors is now a thing of the past!

Overall I enjoyed the game tremendously, it was pretty cheap at 400MP and lasted me about an hour and a half. Despite being a bit on the short side there is plenty of replay value as you ensure you do everything. It’s also worth seeing if you can top the global leader boards for total PP. At the time of writing this I’m 44,000th (or something like that! ) I will definitely be keeping my pre-order open.

For the last few months I have been undecided on which version of F1 2010 I should get – the PC version or the Xbox 360 version? If I got the 360 version I would be able to play with friends over Live, however if I got the PC version I would be able to use my steering wheel that has been in retirement for the last 4-5 years!

Anyway I finally made my decision today, I’m going to get the PC version. Here are my reasons:

1. I like using the steering wheel for F1 games.
2. £12 cheaper than the 360 version
3. Performance is likely to be better on the PC (if DIRT2 is anything to go by)

Oh, and the game supports Windows Live. So I can still get my cheevos in!

I was enjoying a nice online game of Red Dead Redemption in free roam mode earlier today. My Posse consisted of myself and two kids, one American and the other English. Another Posse populated with American’s in their late teens decided to start attacking us constantly and because they’re in close proximity it opens up Voice Comms. The English person in my team decided to start arguing with them.

Thankfully due to my many years of online gaming experience – I know exactly what not to mention. And this person managed to tick all of the boxes for a mega facepalm from me.

Do NOT do the following:

- Mention wars
- Mention how many more wars England have won in comparison to the US
- Mention how the SAS is THE best army in the world (they’re good, but they’re one of the best armies in the world, not THE best army.
- And to top it off, tell the Americans the Navy Seals are shit.

Yeah, are you facepalming yet? I was…

I’m currently sitting here waiting for my Windows Media Center 7 setup to complete and thought I’d do a quick little update about what’s been going on recently.

In all honesty, not a lot. I’ve had the last three days off of work because it was my Birthday on Wednesday. I’ve been mainly chilling here and playing a load of Battlefield: Bad Company 2. I’ve also got a PC Wireless Receive for my XBox 360 controllers (courtesy of Errkal), so I can now finally play the copy of DIRT2 that came with my graphics card late last year.

I’m enjoying this game so far, I prefer the Rally and Rallycross sections over the big truck thingos (I can’t think for the life of me what they’re called!) Of course, the game is not without its flaws. The two main issues I have so far is the navigator in the Rallies is a bit slow to let you know about crucial details. A nice example of this is *SMASH!* hairpin to the left, take it slow… YOU THINK?! Also, the rewind function is pretty useless in comparison to Forza 3′s. In Forza you can rewind to a comfortable distance before your crash, but in DIRT2 I find myself only being able to rewind to half way through my crash. Pretty lame.

Ooh! I’ve also got Red Dead Redemption, I haven’t played it yet but expect to hear more about my Wild West shenanigans here shortly.

Y’know, one day I’ll get this written on the Sunday – when it’s meant to be put up!

Aliens Vs Predator
Like with most game releases I had the day off to give this a proper test run. My retail edition arrived on the Friday morning and after the lengthly install process of 1 hour (my Bluray drive isn’t quite upto the job) I eventually got up and running and put 5 hours into the first day.

So far I’ve been a bit more focused on the multiplayer and my favourite mode so far is Infestation. The idea of this mode is every starts as a Marine and the game then randomly selects an Alien, everyone that Alien kills then becomes an Alien until there’s one last man standing! The remaining person then needs to surivive for 30 seconds. It sounds impossible but I’ve managed it once, it was cool, I managed to put down two Alien players in the process.

Survival Mode is also friggin’ awesome even though there’s only two maps for it so far.

Here’s one of my failed attempts

While I love the game so far it is not without its flaws. My main beef with the game is how the online aspect works, like the demo it is reliant on matchmaking as dedicated servers aren’t available (a beta version of this is coming soon), which means you find yourself staring at a screen that lovingly informs you that the connection failed. Rebellion really should’ve taken a leaf out of Infinity Ward’s book regarding host migration. The option is available but it very rarely works. Also, there’s a large number of people who like to host games that are waaaaay beyond their bandwidth capabilities, for example I was in an 18 player match and everyone’s ping ranged between 300-600. Very unplayable.

Resident Evil 5 – Lost In Nightmares DLC
This was my surprise of the week as I wasn’t actually aware that it had been released. Fortunately for me I had stocked up on my Mickey Mouse money (Xbox Live Points) on the Friday and so could purchase this the moment I found out.

From what I’ve played so far Lost In Nightmares is very good. Capcom have opted to go back to their Survival Horror roots for this one and it has clearly paid off. The puzzles are back as well as running back and forth through a mansion. Nothing really happens because there are no enemies to fight, but it’s the possibility that there may be enemies to fight that makes it so intense. I’ve also heard that the harder difficulties do indeed provide you with enemies at random places throughout the mansion. Freaky!

I think my most memorable moment so far has been the piano playing. Like in the first game Jill has to play a tune on the piano (I can’t think of what it’s called for the life of me!) to open a secret door. Once you’re done with this you have to proceed to the otherside of the mansion and then go back. During this time I noticed the piano was playing. I made a dash back to this room only for the piano to stop playing and to find no one in the room once I got in there. D’oh!

I’ll probably finish it this week, and I’m looking forward to the next load of DLC which comes out next month. Even though it’s going to be more like Resident Evil 5 and less like the original.

This is for the Xbox 360, I haven’t seen it happening on the PC version myself but apparently they’ve fixed it for the PC first with the 360 and PS3 patches in the works now.

The pre-load on Steam has begun and I’ve got mine downloaded:

left4dead2_01

The demo is out on the 27th October 2009 on Steam for those of you who have pre-ordered with the mere mortals getting it a week later.