Gears of War 3 Beta

I had three nights and roughly 50 games on the new Gears Beta now. The first two nights I played it was absolutely brilliant.It is slightly faster than Gears 2 and more polished. Few new weapons and moves made it sufficiently different to look fresh and not just extension of Gears 2. However last night I tried for hours to get a good connection but every game was horrible. I think because of the way the game plays, if players are out of sync at all it makes it unbearably annoying. If you compare it with Halo Reach, Black Ops or Battlefield Bad Company 2, you can still play the game even though players are not in total sync because the game is close combat, or as fast, or using the cover system as heavily as Gears does.

Exclusive Beta Unlockables:

• Flaming Hammerburst GOT IT!
  Complete one match by Sunday, April 24 to permanently unlock.
• Flaming Lancer GOT IT!
  Complete one match during the week of April 25 to permanently unlock.
• Flaming Sawed-Off Shotgun
  Complete one match during the week of May 2 to permanently unlock.
• Flaming Gnasher Shotgun
  Complete one match during the week of May 9 to permanently unlock.
• Beta Tester Medal -- Wear it proudly, Gear. GOT IT!
  Complete one match in the Beta to permanently unlock.
• Thrashball Cole -- Unlock Thrashball Cole to play as Augustus Cole as he was before Emergence Day -- a legendary Thrashball athlete known for his ferocious, flamboyant style.
  Complete 50 matches in any game type to unlock for the Beta period.
  To permanently unlock, complete 10 matches as Thrashball Cole during the Beta period. GOT IT!
• Gold-Plated Retro Lancer -- Before the chainsaw bayonet was deployed at the beginning of the Locust-Human War, the original Lancer assault rifle had a large fixed blade.
  Complete 90 matches in any game type to unlock for the Beta period.
  To permanently unlock, score 100 kills with the Gold-Plated Retro Lancer during the Beta period.

The sense of achievement

"You've got mail" film is one of my favourite. It's not brilliant but it has got enough great parts in it to make it very likeable. There are some great lines in it like:

The whole purpose of places like Starbucks is for people with no decision-making ability whatsoever to make six decisions just to buy one cup of coffee. Short, tall, light, dark, caf, decaf, low-fat, non-fat, etc. So people who don't know what the hell they're doing or who on earth they are can, for only $2.95, get not just a cup of coffee but an absolutely defining sense of self: Tall. Decaf. Cappuccino.

Innovations on  Microsoft's part are aplenty. To me, when it comes to Xbox 360 , nothing compares to introduction of game achievements. I think it is the genius idea that Microsoft should be very thankful for because in large part it got Microsoft where it is today in the gaming console market. I'm sure Sony would have been way ahead if they thought of introducing achievements for PS3 games instead of game trophies.

So why I'm wondering gamers like myself are so hooked in getting these achievements. Why is it that we get a smile in our face when we see that pop-up message appear: Achievement unlocked? Is it because deep down inside we're still like kids that like to be praised or just get a recognition for anything? Or is it because we went though some failings like almost everyone does and we somehow find solace in playing, escaping to another world, and get the sense that we "did it!" or "I can do this"?

Crysis 2

Not impressed with the SP so far. AI can be as dumb as it can be but at times deadly. There's just no consistency. I think they should have worked much harder on AI.

Script is not brilliant either. Missions will started with lame ideas such as a top scientist saying "Oh shit, I screwed up! I forgot my address in the office computer. You have to go and destroy it or they will find me."

I might just stop reading official game reviews as they are like this game's AI, you never know if you're getting genuine review or not. It appears most of them are totally corrupted. Just checked Metacritic now and the game has got 47 reviews of which 46 positive (http://www.metacritic.com/game/xbox-360/crysis-2) with total average score of 86/100. Compare this with COD Black Ops which has got total average score of 87/100 you'd think that the two games are the same in quality but I thin Black Ops is much, much better made game.

Video games wish list for the next couple of months

So we had Homefront and Dragon Age 2, what's next?

Crysis 2 is out this Friday which is promising to be a solid game.

Next month we have Portal 2 YAY!

Month after, in May, LA Noire YAY! (FEAR 3???)

Homefront

Rented it from Blockbuster today. Bloody bastards used the code so can't play it online unless I pay for the online pass and judging from the first two chapters on single player I don't think I want to spend another penny on it.

So far single play is very average. It is trying to copy COD and Battlefield but it is lot less sharper than any of those games and not just visually but the gameplay as well. Hopefully things will change for the better as I play along. I've got another 5 chapters to play so we'll see...

I don't like Harmonix

My game shelf is getting overloaded so when a friend reminded me that I can download songs from Lego Rock Band to play them on Rock Band 3 I thought here's a game I can get rid off. Checked RB site and bang on the homepage it tells you how. So went on Xbox and eventually got a prompt to pay 800MSP to be able to do this! Not happy as I already payed for these songs when I bought the game. So now I'm going to trade it in just to get those 800MSP back. Annoyed!

Unreal Engine 3 looks awesome

I don't care what the game is if it looks like this. Watch it on HD.