Why I liked the Mass Effect3 Ending (And why I can understand that some people didn't.)

See, the problem is all about individuality. That's the issue right there. The Mass Effect series built itself up as a series that thrived on the players individual choices, and then gave us three seemingly unconnected choices to the rest of the series when it came to the very end.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Sorry, I do that sometimes. SPOILERS FOLLOW.

The Vitriol that spawned in the depths of the interwebs after Mass Effect 3 came out was staggering in its intensity. People were complaining to EA and Bioware, ranting on Youtube and coming up with theories as to how it couldn't possibly be the real ending and they were all hiding it from us to make money of DLC. Since Bioware are now releasing a free DLC pack that expands on the endings, that holds a certain amount of water, but I don't think the "indoctrination theory" does. It's just a little too convoluted for my tastes, and a little over-reaching. I could be wrong, but hey.

I honestly think a lot of the reaction has been very overblown - some people are taking this game far too seriously; at the end of the day its still a game. I got called a "game hater" on twitter a while back fro daring to defend EA over some peoples reaction - a nifty trick for someone who started gaming on a tape drive Amstrad. People threatening to hit EA with lawsuits for false advertising and voting them the "Most evil company in the world" went somewhere beyond fanboyism into the downright asinine, but I can still understand where a lot of people were coming from. Yes, the Ending featured a pure and simple Deus Ex Machina (Something I'm not really opposed to) and yes, it didn't really feature a 'happy' ending (Which I suspect will be expanded upon in the free DLC) but I don't think that was really the issue.

I think, as much as anything else, the problem descends from the fact the choices aren't clear cut. If you click on that link to the indoctrination theory, it goes on about how Anderson is shown as the Renegade choice and the Illusive man is shown as the Paragon choice. What that says to me, rather than a convoluted theory, is that the game is illustrating that not everything is as cut and dry as we may like. Lets not forget, destroying the reapers would also destroy the Geth - who can be allies by that point - and of course, EDI. It's Genocide of a species. The second option is controlling the Reapers, but sacrificing Shepard's life to do so, again, not a clear cut choice. I'm enough of a completist that I also got the third option, to create the new form a life that was a synthetic-organic hybrid, therefore rendering the reapers obsolete.

Some people have pointed out that this is giving into the Reapers but I disagree: the Reapers seek to exterminate or dominate organic life. What the third option represents is peace between the two, but again, its not a clear cut choice.

It's a difficult decision, I sat there for a good few minutes before I made my choice. I won't tell you which one, but I was lucky in the fact that it actually fit into my style of playing. I can understand that for a lot of people that wouldn't have happened. My ending was bittersweet, certainly: I would have liked the happy ending with Liara and the "little blue children", but hey thems the kicks, and we can hope we get that closure in the expansion.

And that brings me back to my opening gambit: it's all about individuality. Those three endings weren't as bad as everyone thought, but they in no way matched up to the three games that came before them. Those game were based around long-standing choices that shook the universe; the final endings weren't. I still think the reaction was disproportional to the supposed offence, but I can understand where people are coming from. 

Kids these Days.

Okay, I'm a gamer, and I've been known, on occasion to talk about motorsport on this blog. So naturally, being both a gamer and a Motorsport fan, I was pretty happy to see news of F1 2011 appearing in the gaming media, more specifically, this Developer Diary:

I want the steering wheel Ant Davidson uses in that video SO much.

Now, I first came across that video on a gaming site. As you tend to with Video Game news. What I then did was make the mistake of looking at the comments. Most of it, to be fair, was the usual mix of vitriolic hatred and enthusiastic responses. The one that caught my eye, though was a comment related to the footage from about the 1:45 minute mark of the video, at the VIP developer event.

As you may notice if you look at that video, a lot of the people trying the game out are rather young, which prompted some enlightened soul in the comments to ask:

"That's stupid, what the F**k do kids know about car handling?"

I have, of course, corrected the spelling and grammar.

Now, at first glance, the commenter has a point. What does a young person know about the intricacies of car handling and physics? What could a young teenager know about Racing a car? What could a child know about competitive motorsport and how a car handles under pressure?

What could this 15 year old girl:

(Picture Courtesy: BBC)

know about car handling and physics? And what does this nine year old child:

(Picture courtesy: Youtube)

...Know about how a racing car handles? Look at the pair of them? What could they possibly know about racing car Handling that some gamer commenting on a website doesn't? Everyone knows kids don't know anything!

Tell me, gentle reader, how good are you at spotting incredibly loaded questions?

That first picture? The fifteen year old? Her name is Sarah Moore. In 2009, on Live British Television, she won the Ginetta Juniors championship, one of the best Junior GT racing categories in the country. She was the first female champion in it's then five-year history. She won five races and had ten podium finishes in the 20 race season. Now aged 17 and racing in the Intersteps series, Her ambition is to compete in the Le Mans 24 Hours. She also has her sights set on being the first British Female F1 driver.

Just to illustrate that this series isn't just kids playing around, here's some footage from the 2008 season, as Ginetta Junior footage is disappointingly difficult to find:

Oh, and I bet you're wondering about the young nine year old boy in that photo. Well, that picture was taken in 1989. I cropped it from this footage:

Twenty years later, that nine year old boy did this:

Yeah. Thats Jenson Button. The 2009 F1 world Champion.

So whats the point of this blog entry? The point is that Racing drivers don't just drop into the seat at the age of 25 and start winning races. The point is that Motorsport, like everything else in life, is a craft that needs to be learned.

The point is that some Gamer posting a comment on a website doesn't know more than that 15 year old girl and eight year old boy. They have probably forgotten more about car handling and physics than you will ever know. Sarah Moore is a veteran champion racing driver at the age of 17. Jenson Button has been racing for over 20 years, and is only 31 years old.

So, "What the f**k do kids know about car handling and physics?"

The answer? In the case of some of them, A hell of a lot more than you.

I like to Plan my Procrastination.

I'm determined to get writing done this weekend. I Need to get writing done this weekend. I need to finish of chapter three of Time and Tide and I pretty much should do a chapter of Critical Situation before the three people who are reading it decide to kick me square in the nuts for yet again not sticking to my promises in relation to chapter updates.

Of course, that isn't gonna be easy. I'm planning on having something resembling a lie-in tomorrow - although given that all last week when I was off I only managed to sleep past 7:30am once and that was when I'd drunk myself into something resembling a catatonic state the night previously. The problem is, I've got far too much going on this weekend.

Now, I'm most definitely not a social animal, so you can assume from the tone of my previous entries that this is gonna involve me watching cars going round a track at high speeds.

and goddamn but theres a lot of good action on this weekend. The Turkish Grand Prix is looking like a scorcher - although if it turns out to be a wet race it's definitely gonna be intriguing since Seb Vettel decided to park his RB7 in the wall at the exit of Turn Eight. Last I checked they were still rebuilding it, so the world champion is losing a lot of very necessary practice and setup time.

On top of that, theirs the 1000km's of Spa in the Intercontinental Le Mans Cup. I'm starting to really get into Endurance racing because I just love the design of the cars, and with the Audi R18 and Peugeot 908 getting their first racing runs in the race thats essentially a dress rehearsal for the 24 hours of Le Mans next month. I was actually slightly tempted by the idea of watching the whole 24 hours this year, then I realised that during the night bugger all happens .

But I digress: In the vague hope I wake up at 8am-9am tomorrow, I'm gonna try and start writing straight away.

Wait a damn minute. Free practice 3 starts at 9am, and runs till 10:55.

qualifying coverage for Turkey starts 11am. It runs till 1pm. At approximately 1pm the coverage at Spa begins on Eurosport. Of course, I can write after that race ends.

At about 6pm.

Oh Shit. Doctor Who starts at 6pm. It has pirates. I can't miss Doctor Who with Pirates!

Okay, so 7pm. I can write from 7pm.

But it's the weekend. I put off playing videogames through the week to write. And Saturday night is the best time for Multiplayer shenanigans. So that makes Saturaday night a write off, realisitically.

Okay, so, Sunday. I'll try on Sunday.

Dammit, GP2 is on Eurosport as well. After my blog entry about single seater feeder series earlier in the year theres no way I can justify not watching the start of the GP2 series this year. Otherwise I'll just look even more like a bell-end who doesn't know what he's talking about. More so than usual.

Okay, I'll write after the GP2 raaaaaaaagoddammit the Grand Prix starts after the GP2 race. And after the Race, I'll have to watch the F1 Forum. Because it's awesome.

right. okay. We're encroaching on, like, 3pm at this time. Half of my Sunday writing time is gone. Better get down to ooooh videogame time. Gotta get in my Videogame time. Not gonna get it during the week. I've gotta devote that time to writing. I APPRECIATE THE IRONY.

Well, Sunday night, right, Sunday night, I can get my writing done.

Aw, hell, Richard Hammond's engineering connections starts at 7:10pm. Then it's Britain's Secret Seas, which looks awesome. Then Lord Sugar is investigating football at 9pm. That looks awesome too. Okay, so I generally go to bed around 11pm on a night before work unless it's my extra long shift on mon... and goddammit it's my extra long shift on Monday. 10:30 to eleven Bed time.

So. I've got half an hour to write in between ten and ten-thirty. But my Awesome wife will want me to pay attention to her at some point this weekend. Better pencil her in for here.

I give up. This weekend is far to awesome to be conductive to a good writing atmosphere.

My secret life as a renaissance courtesan, or how I came to love Assassins Creed Multiplayer.

I've been playing an awful lot of Assassins creed Multiplayer lately. One could almost say it's my latest obsession. I've developed this nasty habit of walking up to people in the middel of a crowd and suddenly puncturing various parts of their anatomy.

It's an incredibly fun experience.

When It's done right. What I have here is a brief guide to the groups of people on Assassins creed multiplayer who will Absolutely ruin your goddamn day.

The Sprinter.

On the scale of annoyance, the sprinter ranks pretty low. To be fair, what they do is more a sign of abject incompetence than anything else. What's scary is that you see these people running around with level 20-plus status. How, is beyond me, since the sprinter is characterised by running around in bloody circles, on the same route, apparently hoping that no-one will figure out what they're doing. Right up until the point someone stabs them in the Abdomen.

Defining characteristics: Running around like a headless chicken, in the vague hope that no-one else has ever played on the same map, ever.

How to deal with them: Stand in one place, then stab them in the face, while singing the 'chariots of fire' theme tune down the microphone.

The Mountaineer

The Mountaineer was apparently born on the snowy peaks of the Himalayas, hanging from a ledge. The Mountaineer scaled the face of Everest at the age of two, and dived off the top with a hang glider. Now, The Mountaineer has turned to his greatest challenge: Assassins Creed Multiplayer. But his strange upbringing has bred into him one horrifying fear - a complete and abject horror of ever being on street level. As a consequence of this debilitating phobia, he'll spend the entirety of every round up on the rooftops, surveying his supposed kingdom, daring you to climb into His Territory.

Defining characteristics: Constant use of the free running function, despite this leaving him completely exposed at all times. Occasionally in extreme cases, spending the entire round perched on top of a jump point pretending to be Batman.

How to deal with them: Stand at street level, select the hidden gun, target them, and shoot. Then listen to the rants over the Xbox voice channel.

The CODder.

Anyone whose ever been on XBox Live Know's the CODder. They barely need mentioning. They're the guys who think all games should work exactly like the Call Of Duty Franchise. If you beat them, you're cheating. IF they beat you, they're the greatest gamer who ever lived. One of these guys swore at me for a solid minute for "Stealing his Kill." Despite the fact that he was half a map away. And it wasn't his target.

Defining characteristics: The Incessant ability to NEVER SHUT THE FUCK UP. Constant uses of variants of the word's "Fag", "Homo", "Queer," and anything else they can use to try and make themselves look tough in the overwhelming evidence of their own repressed homosexuality.

How to deal with them: Shit, if I knew how to get rid of these bell-ends, I'd have told the world by now. For the moment, I'll settle for using the mute button. On a note one of these guys declared that people who use the female characters are "Kinda Homo."

----

So, there's a small sample of the wonderful people awaiting you in Assassins creed. Of course, like any multiplayer game, there are a ton of awesome people as well. You'll meet plenty of folks who play the game properly, and actually score a metric ton of points doing so. Honestly, I've never had so much fun being Poisoned, stabbed, shot, slammed, and thrown from rooftops onto my head. I'll see you in Wanted. But you won't see me until I stab you in the neck.

Mass Effective...

I got Mass Effect 2 off my wife for christmas, and after having completed it on saturday night, I started thinking which one of the two games is actually better. Mass Effect is a truly great franchise - a sci-fi opera that is firmly building towards being one of Bioware's great acheivements.

I absolutely loved the first game. the combination of third person action and RPG spanning an entire universe was something that made me love the entire universe and it's characters. The whole series is also wonderfully ambiguous, with a firm way to play the way you want.

But which of the two games is actually better?

Well, the second game ups the action stakes. The tactical system is half arsed in the extreme, with the characters you direct to stay in a position rarely bothering to actually fucking stay there but they certainly fight well. Half the time I found myself hanging back in a support position, allowing the other two members of the party to move forward and assault the enemy. Ironically, when they were out of my control, they often tended to move better tactically and fight back enemies I hadn't even spotted yet.

In the first game, the characters tended to duck straight into cover, and just pop-up shoot at enemies. I suspect this was because of the ammo method in the first game -the weapons had infinite ammo, but tended to 'overheat', which robbed you of being able to fire for a few seconds. The tactics tended to be "pop up, short burst, short bust, overheat, duck back to cover" until you'd killed the enemies. You could use grenades to liven up the proceedings, but it was much slower paced.

In the second game, you can put a LOT more ammo down - but the ammo is limited. Rather than overheating, the guns have "Thermal Clip", that can only take so many shots before it has to be ejected. This makes the gunplay a lot more intense, and forces you to at least occasionally switch weapons. The further firepower supplied by the heavy weapons also gives you a lot more bang for your buck.

The first game used a traditional XP and Levelling RPG system, whereas the second game doles out the level points at regular intervals, forcing you think carefully about the powers and persk you choose. It works, but I did find myself missing the levelling up you get from occasional skirmishes.

On the other hand you didn't really get much incidental fighting outside of missions. Mass Effect was a lot more sprawling than it's sequel with the ability to take a wheeled vehicle - the Mako - down to a lot of the planets and roll around blowing the living shit out of stuff. Of course, one of my freinds pointed out that while Mass effect feels bigger and more open, most of the worlds are pretty much carbon copies of each other with texture changes. The illusion of freedom tended to fall apart whenever you actually went into a building, since they all had exactly the same layout with a few crates moved around. On top of that, the side missions did tend to go be essentially "Go here, shoot this."

Mass Effect 2 is a much tighter game. all of the missions have firm places within the universe and all have a plot that revolves around more than gunning down everything in a ten mile radius.

It's hard to compare the stories, since ME2's story is an extension of ME1's. But I have to say in Saren, the renegade Spectre, Mass Effect has a more compelling antagonist. Mass Effect 2 focus's far more on the wider story of Commander Shephard against the Collectors. You have the Harbringer, the voice of the Reapers - the series' overall megavillains - but other than that theres no-one to directly focus on as a villain.

So, which one is better?

Simple. The one where the refining of the formula finally pays off.

Mass effect 3.

The Elephant in the Room...

One of the things that has always truly, truly irritated me is the immediate response of the the media to blame violence on video games.

Let me paint a picture for you: I am 24. I have been playing violent games since the age of ten. I have shot Nazis, zombies, girls boys, and occasionally, the odd shark. Sometimes I run them over in a car.

I have never once thought it would be okay for me to go and shoot someone in real life, and violence on the news has always made me feel bad.

Yet tonight, my wife is watching an episode of “Jo Frost's Extreme Parental Guidance” that says that playing a violent video game for 20 goddamn minutes desensitises kids to violent footage from the news.

Their evidence for this? That the kids heart-rates stayed the same, rather than rising in response to it. I call bullshit.

What they have proven there is that kids don't react in a physical manner. Because they have been Prepared for the worst.

However, research has shown that kids who play video games have improved reactions and observational skills. Bet that wont be mentioned, hmm?

Of course, the amount and content of games played by kids is... of course... DOWN TO THE FUCKING PARENTS.

Jesus Christ. Take some fucking responsibility.

This rant brought to you by Videogamers for parents paying attention to their goddamn kids.

Of course, there would be an advantage to stopping playing videogames. It would stop them ruining my left 4 dead 2 sessions.

The Tank KO'd my update...

Yeah, its been a last time since my last blog entry. Left 4 Dead 2 has been eating my time.

...And will continue to do so. See ya!

-Bendana

My Ultimate Racing Game.

Well, the new F1 game is out for the Wii. Seeing as I don't HAVE a Wii, I'm still playing F1 2005 (and getting absolutely trounced) on the PS2. And since I havent done a blog entry in a while - Primarily because it wasn't until earlier in the week that the Left 4 Dead 2 demo expired - I started thinking about the features I would want in my ideal racing game.

I was very Bored.

I will also note that most of these are probably impossible with todays technology. But its my fantasy, so fuck you.

---
BEN'S IDEAL RACING GAME!

1) A Race Director mode that doesnt suck.

For those of you who've played Gran Turismo 4, you'll get this one. the Race director mode is completely devoid of atmosphere, consisting of a screen with statistics. Give us an interactive pitwall. It'd be awesome! Plus, imagine the ramifications for multiplayer - You could have teams of three or four, depending on the amount of drivers, with one guy Controlling all the strategy from the pitwall, and the others driving. It would also be awesome to be able to turn around and see the pit stop go ahead in real time from the team principal's perspective. With voice comms, this would be a truly epic way to play.

2) Full race grids for online games.

Come on, this can't be that difficult, can it? I don't want to race 6 people online, I want to race 23 other cars.

3) Qualifying and practice online.

Again, while its possible to have a full enght race online - I can do it on Toca Race driver 3 - generally, there arent any qualifying or practice sessions. Why the fuck not? I guarantee you, F1 Fans dont want to be dropped on some random point on the grid, they want to try and earn pole position. Similarly, if they have to set the car up, they need to know that those settings work.

4) Fuel incidents, and realisitic damage.

Did you watch the Brazillian Grand Prix? Did you see what happened to Kimi Raikonnen? If not, allow me to refresh your memory:



A similar incident occurred to Tony Kanaan at the Indycar race in Edmonton:



Now, given the level of today's technology, surely it cant be too difficult to create fuel incidents like that? it could even be a mini game - F1-05 already features interactive pitstops. Just imagine, trying to get the fuelhose off without burning off the drivers face. And imagine if a car had a fuel leak on track. Your chasing another car. he suddenly starts to slow down, then WOOMPH. Fireball. And then you have to avoid your face getting burnt off. Fun for the whole family.

And whilst were at it, can developers please find a balance between INVINCIBLE CAR OF ADAMANTIUM and EXPLODES IF YOU BREATHE AT IT. F1 cars may be delicate, but they can take more of a beating than Toca 3 allows. Similarly, They are not so tought that you can drive them straight into a wall witbh no damage, as F1-05 allows. Now, I've looked at the fottage of recent games, and they tend to lean towards Explodey. According to most games, bigger damage is better.

No. Just stop. Realisim, please.

5) A balance between hardcore sim and arcade racer.

Admittedly, games are getting better at this, but we do need to find that balance. It needs to have some semblance of a challenge. also, AI drivers that don't stick like glue to the racing line would be great. kthnxbai.

6) AI cars that actually retire, and Safety Cars.

Please. No more yellow flags forever and no more AI cars that react like a brick wall. Have them experience some severe damage, and occasionally bow out of the race. if theres a severe pile up on lap one, have a safety car some out while the debris is cleared in real time. In fact, animate the marshalls clearing the track - it gives the more sociopathic gamers among us something to aim for.

7) Updateable cars.

Make a game with the base model cars for that current year. Then allow people to upgrade them throughout the season. let them put different things on and see what effect it would have. it would be FUCKING AWESOME.

So yeah, thats my ideal game. Its probably not physically possible.

But I'd buy it, and I'm willing to bet, with some of these features, a good portion of you would too.

Left 4 Dead 2: The Demo.

I never played Left 4 Dead. I wanted too. I even downloaded the demo. But I never got round to playing it, and unfortunately, it had a time expiration on it. I'm not that big of an online gamer, but seeing how this game is something of a phenomenon, when I saw that the demo for L4D2 had been released, I jumped at it.

And Jumped.

And carried on jumping.

Lets just say that Left 4 Dead 2 is very atmospheric. The demo runs through the first two chapters of "The Parish" Campaign - The waterfront and the park, respectively. Set in New Orleans, the Demo starts on the jetty at the docks. Apologies for the quality of screenshot, The game autmoatically selected the best settings for performance, and I don't have a high-end machine.

Anyways. After the ship's captain has dropped you off, its up to you to make your way up that ramp into New Orleans proper. And almost immediately, you encounter infected. Now, the basic level infect is pretty much cannon fodder at the start. There's a weapon spawn right at the start, and The Director - Thats the name of the AI that controls the action - saw fit to leave a shotgun and a machete right there from the off. So, on this playthrough, I had the immediate oppurtunity to start shooting some zombies in the head.
The shotgun, as was immediatley apparent, is a very satisfying weapon. A couple of shots, even glancing ones, can put Horde infected down. Heads Be a-poppin. Of course, the big weapon update for L4D2 is the inclusion of Melee weapons. Such as the machete.

I Like my Machete.
I Liked it a lot.

In fact, I like it so much, I named it Celeste. I sleep with it lying next to me. Just in case.

I've only really enountered one or two games before where Melee combat was this satisfying, and both of those games revlved around Melee combat - Dark Messiah of Might and Magic and Oblivion. But the Melee weapons in L4D2 are really satisfying to use. Theres a genuinely chunky feel to hitting the zombies with the melee weapons. Hell, on the first online playthrough I did, I fought my way out of a corner with just the machete - the Horde was upon me, and I did not have time to reload.

The waterfront section was mainly confined streets, funneling the infected towards you. Of course, theres always the odd super-infected, like the spitter. This lovely lady spits Acid. yes, Acid. She is a pain in the arse. And on the playthrough I did to get these screenshots, she was also the one I encountered the most.

Things really started heating up when I got onto the second, chapter, however, and started making my way through the park. Because who should I encounter, but a new variant of an old favourite from the first game: The Wandering Witch.

yes, she's back, ladies and gentlemen, the Bane of survivors everywhere. But now, she doesn't just sit down crying like an emo bitch waiting for her next Linkin park gig, oh no. Now, she wanders around, just asking to stumble into the crossfire of the survivors.

Like this: I took down a normal zombie with my shotgun.

Just as a witch wandered past the statue in the background.
Which resulting in this:

OH SHI-

Thankfully, I survived the attack, and got back to it, working my way through to the demo's Crescendo event: A desperate rush to a tower to shut off an alarm that was attracting every zombie within 2 square miles. My ammo was starting to runa bit low at this point.

Thankfully, Celeste came to my rescue:

...A Lot:
...Okay, I just really like hitting things with machetes, okay? Jeez. anyways, after that alarm was silenced, I made may way out to the bus shelter near the last stretch of the demo. seeing that the courtyard was full of zombies, I fired a burst from my recently acquired AK47.

Of course, I'd failed to take into account that, from a distance, the Wandering Witch looks like a regular zombie stumbling around.

MOTHER FUC-

In terms of whether or not I'll be getting this game: Yes. Even though my computer can't really do it justice, I loved every minute of this game. The Director really gave the game an edge over the competition: Every time I played through the demo, it went differently. At one point I even just camped in position for a while - and the AI started sending super-infected after super-infected after me. The charger is especially a pain - as the name suggests, it charges you into the wall and then pounds you on the floor. The Jockey is more irritating than dangerous, although in big-horde situations it can cause problems. The most tactical one - thinking ahead to the Versus mode in the full release - is probably going to be the spitter. The acid caused genuine problems for me throughout the demo, and the spread area is an utter git in choke points and narrow confines.

My steam ID is Bmyatt_uk. Feel free to join me.

-Bendanarama

A bit of a ramble.

I hate to be a buzzkill...

But surely, there is some other news in the goddamn world than Michael Jackson dying? I respect the guy for the media Icon that he is, but I honestly beleive that if Iran dropped a nuke right now it would only appear in the tick bar at the bottom of the screen.

anyways, I'm not going to do a rant about Michael Jackson, because frankly, its uncalled for.

----

I've been working on my novel for about a year now, and to be honest, its been a real struggle at times. Writing a novel is a long, difficult process for me, especially a fantasy novel. to be honest, I bounce between bouts of loving writing so much I cant wait to get home and do the next page and weeks of staring at the screen, unable to think of anything to write.

My target is 300 pages - slightly longer than the first novel of my Idol, David Eddings. I'm just about up to thirty.

but as I said, its a slow process for me.

---

If, like me, you're a bit of a classic game fan, the site goodoldgames.com is absolutely fantastic. I picked up Freespace 2 for about £3. today, as a birthday presnt, I picked up Comanche Vs Havok and The Guild Gold Edition for less than a tenner.

seriously, check this shit out.

http://www.goodoldgames.com

---

New online Game Addiction!

http://batracer.com/

Online Race Team management for the win!

also, if you play the Half Life 2 Mod Insurgency:



come give me a bullet or two to the head on the 24/7 ins_sinjar server. its all good.

-Bendanarama