[SNIPPETS] My poor neglected 3DS, and other stories.

This week, I got my first proper serious 3DS headache. I'd had my eye on Puzzle Bobble Universe since it'd come out, but I'd decided that £30 was far too much to pay for a game which has bascially been around since the dawn of time. As soon as the price dropped to 12.99 I grabbed my chance and purchased it, skipping off merrily into the distance. No need for a review here. It's Puzzle Bobble. I've played it before, you've played it before, even your Dad's played it before. Never in 3D though, so as with all 3DS games I try, I flicked the 3D slider up to give it a ten minute blast to see how the gimmick fared with this one.

The thing about Puzzle Bobble is that it's a fair bit addictive, and it was only when I felt a vein throbbing somewhere behind my eye did I realise that I'd not got around to turning the 3D off, yet it took a full two minutes for me to take my fingers off the buttons they were glued to, to be able to move the slider back down. All in all, Puzzle Bobble is highly recommended, but then again, so are two paracetamol and a tall glass of water.

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In other, slightly more positive news, the 3DS eShop should be landing very soon (according to rumours, slap bang in the middle of Sony's presentation at E3 on the 6th of June. Nice one Nintendo.) and according to Nintendo World Report, one of the first apps (are we calling them "apps"?)  to be made available is Pokedex 3D, although this looks to be more of a collecting game using QR codes and Streetpass than a handy reference tool.

Also on my agenda of things to look out for about the eShop - how well will the new prepaid cards work, and will they be available from the Nintendo Stars catalog? This is (sadly enough) a serious concern of mine. For years Nintendo have had little scratchcards inside their games which can be redeemed on the website for Star Points, which can be used to buy useless tat such as bags, statues, frisbees and paper fans, and DSi users can use them to buy Nintendo points, which in turn can be used to buy DSiWare. Fingers crossed a similar system will be implemented for the 3DS, if only for the fact that I'm a stingy bitch.

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Other things I have been doing this month:

• Getting around to watching Pirates of the Caribbean 2, 3 and 4 in preparation for hammering LEGO: Pirates of the Caribbean as soon as I get a bit of free time. (Free time? Yeah right!)
• Watching the Husband playing LA Noire and deciding that yes, it IS technically excellent, but I just don't fancy it myself.
• Having SERIOUS tech envy at aforementioned husband's new phone, the Samsung Galaxy S2. Only two months till my contract renews, and I can give an Android phone a go!
• Getting excited for E3 - especially when one of my colleagues mentioned yesterday how it was about four months away - my response? "No, it's next month. Hang on, that's next week! Squeee!"

 

So that's about it for now. See you next week!

[REVIEW] A quick look back at Borderlands

With the arrival of several high-profile releases such as LA Noire and Brink (at least, you'd think Brink were high profile given the amount of advertising being pumped into it at the last minute, competition from the former much?) you'd think I'd have had my hands full reviewing these to be able to get my opinion out to you all asap. But no! I've been revisiting old games that have lain by the wayside for a while, the first and foremost of these being Borderlands.

Alright, so this was probably triggered by my last post, thinking about dear old Claptrap made me hungry for a bit of a senseless post-apocalyptic Mad Max-inspired shootfest. Yet for a game which (quite shamelessly) picks and chooses its influences and waves them in your face, Borderlands stands alone very well. For the uninitiated, it's a first person shooter with RPG elements - shooting stuff gets you experience, and as you gain experience you level up your personal skills and also your skills with each weapon, leading to bonuses to fire rate and accuracy, and also copious amounts of swearing when you're in the middle of a massive firefight with no SMG ammo and a level 1 shotgun.

My shoddy techniques aside, this is a beautifully action-packed game that is an absolute pleasure to go back to after a year or more of it sitting in its box. The graphical style is reminiscent of cel shading and gives the game a fairly unique cartoony look that caused some criticism amongst the Call of Duty crowd, and the story revolves around four mercenaries trying to gain access to the mysterious Vault which initially caused me to think it might be trying to rip off some elements from Fallout, but that could not be further from the truth. So since it's so cheap in the shops now, why not treat yourself! I'll see you in the arena!

[SNIPPETS] A round-up of February's activity.

Seems like real life's been keeping me busy for the past couple of weeks, not giving me an awful lot of time to get stuck into as many games as I'd like. In spite of that, here are a few snippets that kept me amused throughout the month:

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Would you let this tit anywhere near your car? I mean, seriously, look at him. Tim Westwood is, at 53 years of age, old enough to be my father. Whilst my own father (and many of your fathers, I suspect) is prone to bouts of daft behaviour, none have lasted as long as Westwood's delusion that he is some kind of "gangsta". I will not dispute the fact that the man has an unmatchable love for hiphop and rap music, nor the good work that he has done in bringing this to the people of the UK (for 25 years, no less!) but if he came anywhere near my car I'd go spare. Just as well then, that he doesn't feature whatsoever in Pimp My Ride DS, a game which was bought for me as a joke present by my lovely husband.

It is widely known in gaming circles that the Pimp My Ride game on the 360 is a massive pile of gash, and I expected no less from the DS version. Amusingly enough, however, I've found it strangely addictive, and keep popping it into my DS every now and again for a quick race. The massive downside to this game - can't be played for more than 20 minutes at a time, as it makes my eyeballs feel like they're about to bleed from the badly animated backgrounds. But hey ho! Not bad for £1.39!

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Oh dear, speaking of let-down games, I picked up a copy of Venetica on the 360 having read some crap reviews of how the graphics are appalling, but the game oddly charming. (For those wondering, yes, I AM some kind of masochist.) The story is cute, "orphan" girl's village is attacked by supernatural fellas, foster family reveals girl is Death's daughter, Death is in trouble, daughter must come to Daddy's aid. There were two major factors in me not giving this game a fair chance. The first was the fact that I had a migraine coming on, the second (which exacerbated the first point somewhat) is that this game is CLUNKY. The graphics, the controls, the menu system, all of it. At this point, I made a sad noise, gave up and went to bed. :(

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Other things that have kept me occupied this month:

Little Big Planet 2 multiplayer - Finally rediscovered the joy of 4-player 1-screen gaming. Even though I was the Sack Thing that died/got stuck/got left behind the most I found it exciting and not too frustrating. Not that I'd deliberately suicide myself at the difficult bits and wait to respawn at the next point when my chums had got there or anything...

Fallout New Vegas: Dead Money - After adding 8 levels to my character and summoning up the balls to finally go for it, I descended on the Sierra Madre. Yep, I'm still finding it pretty terrifying, but a new challenge as resources are limited for the first time in the game. Finding myself relying on my Unarmed skill, which I've never really used before.

Looking forward to the new Pokemon - By this time next week, it'll be in my sweaty little hands. Who will I choose as my starter pokemon? How will it compare with the other games? And how the hell will I get 300+ pokemon off my other carts onto this one? The fun and games, they begin again. *sigh*