Sunday 15 November 2009

I'M A WINNER AFTER ALL!


Yes thats right, I entered a quick competion that the kind people at Gamezebo.com where running, and I won!

Hooray! Therefore I wanted to pubicly say thank you to them and point all of you in thier direction for your casual game reviews and news!

So what did I win?

1 free game at GOG.com (good old games) where old PC games are released to work on new Windows systems for low low prices. Hooray again! I decided to pick up Freeapce 1 & the expansion, introduction below....

Also I won £10 on the lottery this weekend... BONUS!

Saturday 7 November 2009

THE RESULTS ARE IN!


Yes the results are in... and I didn't win.

Booo! But the winners are worthy ones to be fair.




You can see the winning entries here!


Make sure you put Rock Paper Shotgun in your favourites, its a site well worth reading if you want to keep up with the strange new world of gaming.

In other news I picked up Dragon Age anyway and on the 2 hours I have played its looks to be excellent. The voice acting really stands out, in a good way, and I am looking forward to playing through the epic story.

Hope you are all well!

Thanks


Monday 2 November 2009

RIKS ENTRY TO THE RPS DRAGON AGE COMPETITION

Hey all sorry I haven't updated the blog in a LONG time, if I am honest I have been saving up tings to write about... and there will be a GLUT of updates soon. I have thoughts on piracy, Borderlands, Batman Arkam Asylum, Dirt 2, FIFA 10, Wolfenstien and the Far Cry2 movie (yes movie).

In the meantime however, my usual Internet haunt the mighty Rock, paper, Shotgun are currently running a rather generous competition about upcoming mega RPG Dragon Age.

You can see the details here


Now for the attention of Jim, Kieron, Alan & John, my entry is below:


NOR AMELL


And so our hero stepped from the tower of magic... and he was... unremarkable.

A mage of moderate magical prowess, of moderate tastes, moderate views and moderate fashion sense.

He loved the magic circle, mostly for the grey shade of robe he could wear. The constant instruction to resist temptation.. to be dull. It was great!

He wears a smirk (which can be seen on his portrait)... one someone could only wear when completely confident in his own adequateness.

It is if the gods themselves, the creators of this indifferent hero simply let their tools of divine creation rest in the middle, the centre... the boring boring middle of the road. Nothing to either extreme.

He is our hero, your hero and he is normal. They named him well.


Wednesday 9 September 2009

REVIEW - AGE OF PUZZLE (iPhone & iPod touch)

Hey All!
OK well I have been away for a few days and sadly I haven't been around to update "Riaktions Reaction", however while I have been out and about I picked up AGE OF PUZZLE for my iPod and thought I would share some brief thoughts on this little match 3 game; Read on!

OK firstly If you don't know what I mean by a "match 3" game, its where the main game mechanic is you matching three colours, symbols, shapes and sometimes animal heads together to WIN! And that's it. The most famous example the Genre would be
Bejeweled, which I am sure you have heard of.

Age of Puzzle's twist on this is to steal.. erm sorry... borrow.. the basics from another game called Puzzle Quest and do a worse job of making the game engaging and fun. In Age of Puzzle you take the role of a male or female (you choose) fantasy warrior and fight your battles via the power of match 3





The way battles work is you match 3 of the symbols with a Star like explosion background and by doing so hurt the bad guy.
  • 3 Red swords do melee damage (WHACK!)
  • 3 Orangey wands do magic damage (ZAP!)
  • 3 Green bows do ranged damage (TWANG?)
Getting 4 of the above does more damage and gives you an extra turn, and getting 5 does even MORE damage. As exciting as this sounds.. I never once whooped or punched the air.

This mechanic is identical for defending.. get 3 swords, wands or bows with a shield as the background, and you will earn "defense points" against that attack type from your opponent. 3 swords with shields means defense against a melee attack (WHACK). You get the idea I'm sure ;o)

As you play you will level up and get to increase the power of one of the 3 attack types as well as spending points on defending against them. You'll also pick up some basic rudimentary loot to equip on your character, and that sits in your investory which can be accessed once per battle.



Regarding the loot finds, you'll never be scratching your head trying to find the right mix of attack and defense with your loot, its just too basic, if I am honest it all becomes pointless if you pile all your level up points into just one of the skills, say the Melee skill; whenever you match three red swords, you do so much damage its pretty much game over.

Its a basic game. No quests, no story, no dialogue, just a chain of battles linked together to give you the chance to match 3 symbols together. The graphics are clear and bold and animations are smooth and its ideal for passing the time on a short journey or while sitting in a waiting room.

Oh.. there is one big thing in its favour... its 59p, and for me that the exact RRP.

Wednesday 2 September 2009

FAIL - DONT TRY THIS AT HOME

OK I'll admit this has nothing to do with gaming.. but I thought I would share this regardless.

Don't try this at home.

Tuesday 1 September 2009

GAMER - THE MOVIE


So this is what happens whan you log into play Call of Duty 4 or Battlefield 1943 online... I never knew.

Yes thats right folks, a film where gamers play a real life battlefield war game... controlling real people. Its the future!

The synopsis reads as follows:

Set in a future-world where humans can control other humans in mass-scale, multi-player online gaming environments, a star player from a game called "Slayers" looks to regain his independence while taking down the game's mastermind

Interested? Heres the trailer....

MICROSOFT SLASH THE PRICE OF THE XBOX 360



So here we go, my first blog post, and just a quick one. :o)
Its official, the Xbox 360 is getting a price drop, probably in response to Sony's price drop on the PS3.
So thought I would wrap up whats going on!

There are 3 tiers of 360 out there so lets look at each one in turn...

The "Arcade"

Your "entry level" 360 if you like. No bells and whistles here sorry. You get no hard drive, wired controllers, a general lack of respect from your friends and peers and it probably smells funny. It still supports component HD though (not HDMI) and Microsoft have kindly dropped the price on this to about £130 ($199)

The "PRO" (for the professional consumer I assume)
This is your mid tier console, and the one you will find most people have. The "Pro" boasts a wireless controller, headset, Component HD support (not HDMI), a free month of Xbox Live gold membership and a 20gb Hard drive. There is a newer "Pro" available which added a HDMI port and a 60gb HDD (Surprising how this came out at the same time as the PS3 arriving on the scene)

I understand that this console is being phased out and you can't pick up a new one in store anymore .... well you won't be able to in the future anyway. If you own one, its going to be a collectors item.

The "Elite"
Now we are talking. This is the big daddy of the 360 family. Quieter, with a monster (in console terms)
120gb HDD, HDMI support, wireless controller, headset and most importantly a new coat of lovely black paint, if you own one people will know that your gaming heart is an obsidian block of merciless destruction, bent on crushing your online enemies with the maximum humiliation!!

OK well it doesn't quiet inspire that kind of reaction however the good news is that this can now be purchased for a very reasonable £200.
And in my opinion the best buy for a newbie to the 360 world.

So there you go. My first blog, more of a news piece than anything, rest assured some true blogging is on its way as I plan to give you my thoughts on Mirrors Edge, Infamous, WipeOut HD Batman: Arkham Asylum... once I get through it and many more!

If you think you might care about my thoughts on things, please follow the blog by "Following" me on the left hand side of the site and of course... add this site to your favourites! Thanks!