Silent Hill 2 - Completed!

Good gracious me! It's hard to believe but on this cold and grey Saturday afternoon I managed to break the habit of a lifetime and complete a game!

The game in question was PS2 spookfest Silent Hill 2, a game I purchased in 2003 but only got around to starting last November thanks to the cajoling of Michelle.

Here's the evidence:


It actually took me about 15 hours to complete as at one point near the start I couldn't find a save point and had to leave the PS2 on for a couple of hours whilst I did something else.

It's certainly an interesting game, much more psychologically-disturbing than Resident Evil. The gameplay was slow and concentrated more on puzzle-solving than combat, no bad thing. The atmosphere was superb, a deserted town shrouded in fog, abandonded locations, lots of rusty things.

The story was a bit confusing, not sure if it lost something in translation from the Japanese, though it was coherent enough to actually get something from it - either that or I'm thick.

It's certainly a game well worth playing if you haven't already. I'm not sure I'll be going for all the endings just yet, maybe in the future.

Right now I'm just enjoying the fact I completed a game, what a feeling.

Scout's Honour

As I type I'm looking forward to a long weekend as I have Thursday and Friday off, and I don't doubt games will be involved at some point.

Since the weekend I've mainly been playing Rock Band 2, both Tour mode on my own and Band Quick Play with Michelle and Dan. Not much has changed, it's still good fun and I'm yet to tire of it.

Today saw the release of the Scout update for Team Fortress 2 on the PC, the latest in the on-going class updates. They tend to breathe a bit of life back into the game, although it's far from dead. So I thought I'd jump on and have a go, release some tension.

Servers were mainly full, but I managed to squeeze onto one and hold on. As you'd expect there were plenty of Scouts about trying to get the new weapons - a bit rubbish but it'll calm back down again soon enough, said he sounding like he is some TF2 vetteran.

This is the thing with me: I sort of know about games, what's going on, how they're played, etc, but I can't really back it up with stacks of experience. It does make me feel a bit of a fraud sometimes - more of that another time.

I may play some more TF2 before I go to bed, I don't have to be up desperately early in the morning.

Weekend Blanks

Another weekend almost over, far too quickly as per usual. Wasn't the best for games, it has to be said. Not really felt it, the pull wasn't there. I can't put my finger on why.

What did I attempt to play?

Rock Band 2 - spent a few hours in Tour mode ploughing on through. Call me thick but I don't understand the setup, I much prefered the old Guitar Hero career, it was a list of songs, you played them, more came along, you played those. You didn't get all that nonsense about hiring staff or 'spice' like Quadruple Or Nothing.

Project Gotham Racing 4 - it's one of those games I can keep going back to for a quick burn, even though I'm shocking at racing games. It's so satisfying, at least when I'm not bouncing off the corners.

Tony Hawk's American Wasteland - on the old Xbox, fancied some uncomplicated fun as I was downing a bottle of wine. Classic mode is still the best, throwing your boarder or skater or whatever about. Reminds me of a few years back when this sort of thing kept me rapt for hours.

Team Fortress 2 - on the PC this time, the game that keeps on giving. I put a few drum & bass mixes into Foobar2000, fired up TF2 and settled down for an hour or two. Next weekend I might just cut my losses and spend Saturday evening doing it, really go for it.

No great insights into the inept gamer this episode, I'm afraid. My twin brother is still here and it would be rude to spend more time than I do playing games.

Move Along Now

My twin brother is visiting me from California, so I've not been playing a great deal, not that I play a great deal generally these days, but certainly less.

What I have been playing though has been Rock Band 2, with Dan and Michelle. The last couple of nights we've managed to get through quite a few songs in Quick Play, me tackling Expert bass with gusto, and not dropping out that much, surprisingly.

Tonight I was torn between Rock Band 2 with my two cohorts and Team Fortress 2 on the 360. Over the last 7 or 8 months I've managed to play this every Thursday with some like-minded people on the RLLMUK forum, and it's been very enjoyable, with none of the bullshit you usually associate with online gaming.

So I interrupted rocking out and went off to char-grill some Heavies (yes, I love being a pyro).

And that's it really, no great shakes, move along.

More Rock Band 2

Got in from work and relaxed playing some Rock Band 2 with my friends Dan and Michelle. Below is our greatest moment this evening (I'm vimster by the way; click for the full pic):



Ah what great fun this game is. It works well online, I kept forgetting to turn my mic off, but it was generally enjoyable, mainly because I was managing to finish songs on Hard (bass) I'd not touched before. With some practice I'll be mashing away on Expert soon enough.

Saturday In a Nutshell

Okay, so it's very early Sunday morning, I've had a bottle of rather good rose wine, and just finished a session on Team Fortress 2 on the PC. The server I was on was slightly odd. They had a nuke that would go off at random points on the map and wipe anyone out nearby, plus when people got shot or died balloons and streamers would fly everywhere - I believe they like to call these party servers. In fact lots of the players were wearing party hats.

This rounded off a not-really-that-bad day of gaming. In the afternoon I played some more Rock Band 2, including a bit of online quick play with my friend Dan who is very very good on guitar. That was enjoyable, I even managed to play more guitar on Hard - satisfying.

In the evening I played a little Earth Defence Force 2017, a gift from a lovely friend of mine (thanks, Michelle). I had the PS2 version on import - yes, I actually imported stuff - and found it the most fun I'd had in years. So he 360 version was almost as much fun, blowing away giant ants and whatnot.

Anyway, it's very late and I need my bed. Goodnight, all.

Give the 360 a Rest

Just finished a marathon session (by my standards) of Rock Band 2, mainly drumming. Still trying to get the kit in the right place, get comfortable, but generally it was much fun indeed.

One problem I'm having is the cymbal on the Guitar Hero kit isn't registering every hit. It acts as the yellow pad in RB2. As I'm just playing on Easy difficulty at the moment it's not big deal, but unless I can sort this out it'll be a right pain on Hard and Expert.

All that aside it was very enjoyable. Giving the 360 a rest for a bit and will probably play some guitar later (the drums do make a noise).

And there's a new version of the online web-based shooter Quake Live out so I'll download and give that a go. I'm useless at it but the simplicity and immediacy of it make it good for just dipping into. And if I turn the chat off I can easily ignore the calls of "n00b" etc, and can pretend everyone who plays online games are thoroughly decent

A Little Positivity

Thusfar this blog has been me whining about being crap at shooters, so let's have a moment of positive thinking.

It was my 37th birthday recently and I thought I'd treat myself to Guitar Hero World Tour, the complete band pack. Actually I bought this so I could play Rock Band 2, but couldn't be bothered to wait for EA to get their act together - there you go, EA, another customer lost.

Anyway, I have the day off work today, and with excellent timing this huge box turns up full of rhythm-action-gaming goodness.

I put the guitar together and fired up RB2 (GH:WT can wait) and was instantly in games heaven, well, once I'd calibrated the guitar. I got 100% on Should I Stay Or Should I Go? by The Clash, on Medium though, didn't drop a note!

The drums are now set up so will be having a go on those presently, but just thought I'd say right now it's nice to be playing something I'm actualy not too bad at for a change - very enjoyable.

An Evening Of Mixed Fortunes

Firstly I had my now-weekly session of Team Fortress 2 on the 360. Technical issues marred this week's games but generally it was enjoyable, no messing about, scored points, wasn't at the bottom of the list (unless I picked a class I wasn't comfortable with), and came away feeling good.

I then agreed to join a game of Left 4 Dead, also on the 360. Haven't played this since before Christmas and was a tad rusty, but the game doesn't demand too much of you, not on Normal difficulty anyway, and whilst I was the only one not to make it onto the chopper at the end (got caught on the edge of the ramp by a Tank) it was all good clean fun and we worked well together.

At this point I should point out I was playing with people from the RLLMUK forums, and a decent bunch they are, generally.

Bouyed up by my enjoyment thus far I thought I'd round off the evening with another go on Battlefield 2 - third time unlucky. I found a server that only let low-ranking players on, and I thought this would make things easier, it didn't. Once again I was lost, couldn't locate my team-mates, would get killed by people I couldn't see - generally frustrating.

I'll stick with this server though and hopefully this will enable me to at least have a go without getting too annoyed. The main problem was whilst everything else has a massive glowing marker above it, enemy stuff doesn't, so although I managed to 'spot' an enemy tank (you use a key to warn other players of it), I'd never see enemy troops coming at me.

Right, I'm tired, it's very very late, I'm off to bed.

Punked and Busted

Thought I'd take the plunge and try Battlefield 2 online.

Firstly it kept kicking me off servers because my Punkbuster wasn't up-to-date or something, PB being some anti-cheat doo-dah. After messing about trying to get that sorted I eventually found a game with more than 1 person on it.

I chose to be a Medic as that would probably be the easiest to start with, and perhaps people would be more grateful for my healing skills. As I gathered I died rather alot, at times I'd be shot as soon as I spawned. Once again finding my troops was a hassle and I'd frequently get taken out as I tried to cross a street. More frustrating was when I'd get within a couple of feet of a fallen team-mate, ready to revive them, only to get shot. This happened several times and was extremely frustrating.

After a while I'd managed to get my score into double figures, then I was kicked from the server for no good reason - 'Admin decision', whatever that means.

Not the best start to a game, to be honest. Right now I can't really see me itching to play this every night.

Back to Team Fortess 2 then, i guess.

Battlefield 2

Battlefield 2, a game I've always fancied playing but never thought I was good enough - and by my initial experiences I was right.

Bought the Complete Collection off Amazon Marketplace for about £13 delivered, not too shabby. Spent an absolute age installing everything, well over 90 minutes of entering CD keys and applying patches, all the while thinking is this all to be in vain?

At about 12.30am I finally had the game running. My just-over-a-year-old PC handles it a max settings easily, so it looks fantastic.

To get used to controls and how it plays I started with the single-player mode, which I'm sure seasoned BF2 players would say wasn't a sufficient grounding in the game. I was woeful!

Okay let's see

• Kept getting lost - I'd frequently lose my AI squadmates and end up getting picked off by the enemy. Plus not knowing the map well I didn't know where to attack and in what order, something that I'm sure frequent play would remedy.
  
• Dying before realising it - despite trying to use cover, keeping low and avoiding open spaces whenever possible, frequently I'd hear a shot then die. You never get to see who killed you and from where, which I'm sure is how war works, but it was disconcerting to say the least.
• Confused - apart from losing my squadmates I'd also find all he icons all over the place confusing. Do I run towards that blue flashing one, or the purple shield one? Is the point I'm defending likely to be attacked or is it safe?
  

Bear in mind I was playng this on the hardest setting to prepare myself to be fully beaten stupid online.

Hmm, I'm yet to take this online and looking at my current ability level I feel I'm not ready. But for the hell of it I should at least attempt it.

An Inept Introduction

Hello, dear reader. I'm Keith and I'm an inept gamer.

The main purpose of this blog is, as it says in the description, to document the everyday experiences of someone who loves games, maybe even has a passion for them at times, but whose ineptitude and general lack of focus stops him being truly hardcore.

I was 8 in 1980 and have had the good fortune to see games on various systems evolve and grow to become what they are today. When I was a teenager in the 1980s I had a variety of computers, most notably an Amstrad CPC464, but also including a ZX Spectrum 48k and a Commodore 64 (though that came later). During the 90s computers were more my thing over consoles, my main machine being the mighty Amiga, though I did own a SNES and GameBoy too.

Through all this several things remained consistant: I never completed games, would get frustrated at not progressing, almost always lost out when playing against other people.

Yet I carried on!

I very much hope you get something from this blog, even if it's a regular dose of laughing at the noob.