Gamespotting 040 - Stephen Fry ARG and Link meets Gene Hunt

Well; it is nearly here and I am looking forward to it; the next semester of my university course and as it is the last; I am going to ensure that everything goes OK and I have a blast, but in the meantime. I have been playing some games and also listening to some free audiobooks that I got from Audiable.com (Free Book upon registration).

One of these was The Dongle of Donald Trefusis by Stephen Fry which is a continuing Radio series by the great Mr Fry which revolves around acquiring a mysterious USB Drive from his late Cambridge Professor which when mounting the device on his Macbook finds a large amount of files which starts a mysterious Treasure Hunt; but upon listening to the second episode starts the listener to launch up their respected Web Browser and start following both weblinks and twitter feeds alike to find clues to the next part of the story. Upon listening to this; I hopped onto my laptop and found myself embroiled into this Alternative Reality Game which at the moment has got me researching pieces of fine art in order to find a clue to the next part of the story.

Now not being an expert of Alternative Reality Games; but being aware of them and such examples as Perplex City and I Love Bees; it rearly surprised me when sitting in my gaming chair that I was following in the same steps as Mr Fry as he looks into the mystery of this Dongle and going into the third part of the series, I am looking forward to where it will take me next.

Link Meets Gene Hunt at Khoolint Island

Apart from listening to these Audiobooks and Podcasts; I have found a long lost friend of mine which has been with me for a long time; my Game Boy. Still in its tatty goodness and with its dislodged B Button still needing that small poke in order to work; it brought so many memories back to me with the likes of Kirby's Dream Land, Metroid 2: Return of Samus, Super Mario Land 1 and 2 and most important; Pokemon Blue edition which I have completed several times over and probably know like the back of my hand.

But already in the drive of My Game Boy was the classic title and one of my favourite game boy games which was Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening now being the first Zelda Game I ever played and I still think is better than most Zelda Games so it does hold a dear place in my heart. But the save file was still working so I decided to give this gem another blast. Link was in the middle of animal village just after the 3rd Dungeon and going into the 4th and 5th; I still had to aquire my Hookshot but I decided to blast through the game and now I am on the second to last part of the game and it has still not lost its charm; but one thing did spring to mind.

When the game is booted up; the player is shown a video clip which shows Link coming back from overseas and in the middle of a lighting storm; his ship gets struck by Lightning and then the player is took to a shore side of an island where an unconscious Link is being awaken by a mysterious women. Upon playing the game even further; you find that the entire island is a Dream created by Link's concious mind when he is knocked out unconscious by a bolt of lighting and when he awakes; the island and all its inhabitants will dissapear forever. But this instantly brought to mind of one of my favourite TV series; Life on Mars which follows a similar storyline to that of Link's awakening which bring me to the conclusion; was this game the true inspiration of Life On Mars and Ashes to Ashes. Only Link or Gene Hunt could tell us the answer.

I have to once again apologise for the absence of entrys on my Blog; but as you can see it has been hectic within my life at the moment and I have not rearly had a moment; but as it is the 1 Year Anniversary of my Blog I will ensure that I will get something special to write about for that entry.

Gamespotting 039 - Down Time

Well; Me as well as many other people have now finished for the xmas holidays and I think everybody deserves a bit of rest and relaxation over the next few weeks. With the rush of the next week aside for the moment; this weekend will prove to be a godsend for many people.

Well; I am sitting here at my desk which has been covered in paperwork and books for the last few weeks and I have shifted all the crap for a few hours of downtime catching up with a few things. The main thing on my list was to look for a few more Xmas presents for a few members of my family and Amazon was my first stop. I had a fourth look at the kindle while I was there (admiring it secretly) and picked up a few bargains along the way.

Second stop was on my blogs; which I updated after a month absence with some more rantings and then downloaded some podcasts (Answer Me This; One Life Left and Phill and Phil's Perfect 10 to name a few) to keep me occupied.

One thing that has scared me over the last few hours was that this was officially my last christmas at Salford; even though I have not noticed it over the last few months but it is scary that this time next year; I will be a year older and doing my day to day tasks within another place apart from Salford which I am going to miss so much when I have left there.

To tell people the truth; I am unsure what I want to do next yet; I have had a few things and ideas floating around in my mind (Teaching being the main thing) but the decision is still unsure and I will have to think about it very quickly.

Well I am looking forward to this christmas very much and have a lot to keep myself occupied with (mainly my Dissertation and Essay to name a few) but I also have some time with my PS3 with my name on it and also re-playing no more heroes ready for next years sequel which is top of my games list (as well as Bioshock 2 and Mass Effect 2); so now I am going to play some good games instead of playing nothing.

Well; I am going to be now but I wish everybody a merry Xmas and hope people have a new year (when the hangovers have finished)

Gamespotting 038 - Objection in the Courtroom and Spreading the Rage

Now if you have been a member of my course for the last few weeks; very little Game playing has been happening with all the work he have had to do over the last few weeks; but I have held some form of Gameplaying with my Nintendo DS and playing my favourite DS Games; the Phoenix Wright series.

Now its not everybody's cup of Tea as its more of a graphic novel than a game; but it is one of the best gaming experiences that I have ever had with a series of games (More than Resident Evil games and CODE: Veronica and I love that game) as it provides a level of humour and great storytelling which I have not seen in games for a long time. I think I am sick of good looking games which provide no storyline at all as can be seen with most games from this generation; but these games provide the flipside to this generation while constantly keeping my attention with the never ending twists and turns of the storyline.

There is another title within the series released next year and I am looking forward to this title a lot more than anything else next year (with the exception of Bioshock 2 and Mass Effect 2 which go without exception)

Also Within this blog post I wanted to spread the word further of one of my favourite podcasts; One Life Left whos' resident gaming Poet Craig "The Rage" Macellend has released his own book on Blurb which I have ordered and I am looking forward to a lot (calling it an early christmas present to myself); so I hope people go onto the One Life Left website and look at the book to see some great poetry.

Gamespotting 037 - Wearing the Fedora while people are installing Windows 7

Hey People

It has been a long time coming but here it is; a new post on the blog. I have been so busy with all my third year work at the moment that the blog has been the last thing on my mind so I thought I would take a few minutes out from the workload and get some new material on the blog.

Now one thing that I have been occupying myself with at the moment (apart from games of course) is learning about Linux. Now I have heard of Linux before and what it is; but never put it into practice and used it as an Operating System. But while reading LifeHacker (my Second Favourite Website)I have been reading about the new versions of Linux and especially Fedora Linux.

Now one of the best things about Linux is that if you want to try out the new OS before installing it; you can create a Live CD which allows you to stream a lite version of the Fedora OS straight of the disk without installing it first and give it a try; and after trying it I thought it was excellent.

The amount of time and work that has gone into this project is amazing and even though that this is the longest running version of Linux; the other Linux Distributions are not a patch on this. I have also found a secondary use for this disk as I fixed my Sister's computer and used it to repair her Hard Drive, so it came in handy for two different reasons.

Ultimately; I do think that Linux is the future of computing and the release of a free OS which will become the universal standard will be on the cards on future Tech and by looking at stuff like Linux I think that the future is nearly here and its defiantly wearing a Fedora.

Gamespotting 036 - Retro All The Way This Chrimbo

Over the summer and the few weeks into this semester; I have discovered a few things about my gaming taste and it might not come as much of a surprise but I am a fully Retro gamer and nothing else.

I have been finding myself playing nothing but Retro titles over the last few months and have got another pile to play after them. Many people would say there is nothing wrong with this; but as a video games student. Shouldn't I be playing more modern titles that have just been released instead of playing around in the past?

It has crossed my mind a few times over the last month while playing Sonic and Pokemon for my dissertation; but I think it is because there is nothing that I want to play at the moment but more importantly; I feel there is nothing going to be released within the next few months that I would be in desperation to play.

I am not bothered much about the likes of COD: Modern Warfare 2 or many other big titles over the christmas period but instead have opted for more retro titles; including Panzer Dragoon Saga which I am at a Bidding War in at this moment in time but should be mine in a few days; but also playing Shenmue 2 on the way it should be played; The Dreamcast.

So hopefully there will be something that will come along that will bring be back into the next generation; but for this moment in time I am sticking in the last.

Gamespotting 035 - Such a great website that I have to share

I am one person who likes a good little website which would help them with their work on a daily basis and I think I have found the best one today which everybody should know about.

The website is called Aviary.com and is basically a series of free web applications that you can use anywhere and are of a good quality to be compared to free open source programs and in my opinion even some licence software.

There are six programs altogether, which can deal with most common design tasks with the exception of office tasks and are most importantly free to use. They are only in Beta at the moment; but I think you will look past that with the quality of the programs.

The Link is:-

http://aviary.com/home

I hope the readers of the blog will like this and use it as much as I have.

Gamespotting 034 - Living the Dream 10 Years Straight

I have waited to post on the blog until today for one important reason; its the 09.09.09. Now I am not excited about all the Beatles stuff that has came out today (Got the last one I need today; such a good Album)or all the films that are coming out today for some reason; but for one gaming milestone, the 10 year anniversary of the Dream cast.

Now I know that everybody is covering this at the moment; but I want to talk about this amazing console that I still have set up today to play on anytime I want to. I have been playing games for 17 years; seen some great titles and some extreamly bad ones but when I look back; there was only one console that I have always played on constantly and that is the Dreamcast. I just love the console; everything about it ranging from the Games (Shenmue, Jet Grind Radio, Crazy Taxi, Sonic Adventure), The Peripherals (Fishing Rod) and the ability to go online and play gamers all over the world; which did shape the way we would play games in the future.

In my opinion; it is the console that can't be faulted. I know that it got out-manoeuvred by the Playstation 2 when it was released; but I still don't know why the Dreamcast was taken out so quickly. Around the time, I thought the Dreamcast was so much better than the Black Box that Sony was releasing and the games could not be matched; but the popularity of Sega's Swansong slowly declined and third party support dwindled which spelt the death of the console.

But I will always have a place in my heart for this console as I still think its the best console ever made and has not been matched since; I know that consoles since then have offered so much more for the player and makes the Dreamcast look like a ZX Spectrum; but none of them have the charm that the Dreamcast does; but what it mainly is about the Dreamcast is that SEGA made a console for the fans of their games and the company itself; which is rare and personally I cannot see Microsoft or Nintendo doing the same sort of thing in the current market.

So I want to thank Sega for making such a great console; for the fans and I will always have mine set up ready to play any undiscovered gems that I have not heard of before (Skies of Arcadia on the way from Ebay), so to celebrate I am going to have a game of Lucky Hit and have a fight with Boris "The Bear".