Hello Danda,

How's life?

Oh, it is a shame how little I have written, but quite frankly, I hardly played any games at all in the past few weeks. I did play some GTA IV again, which managed to frustrate me quite a bit at some mission. Basically, I had to drive all the way across town to follow someone on a motorbike, and of course I fell off the bike at the first unexpected turn. So the guy got away. I restarted the mission, drove all the way across town, fell of the motorbike again, and again the mission was lost. After four or five tries I was so frustrated that I decided to do something else. So I was glad to hear it when a friend of mine told me that for the add-on The Lost and Damned they implemented checkpoints in missions, so you wouldn't have to start all over again. What a great idea!

Apart from that I have only played some DJ Hero on a friend's Xbox 360, and I have to say I found it quite entertaining. I didn't know most of the songs and I'm not a big fan of DJ mashup-music, so I suppose that's why I had more fun playing Guitar Hero with a friend on her Playstation 2 earlier this year. But both games are a lot of fun.

In other news, they released the game Dragon Age: Origins last month that looks really great. You bought it on Steam, right? Did you play it yet? I will definitely have to check that out at some point.

Well, Christmas is approaching and if all goes well, I should be able to do some serious gaming over the holidays/vacation. What's more christmasy than blasting some hellish spawn to pieces? Not much!

Later,
-- Superviv

Dreamkiller cañí

Atchon Burike!

I finished the game in one afternoon. It's a decent Doom-inspired FPS if you'd like to play a budget game from 2004. Yes, I know it came out this year.

Back from the cold (for a day!)

Hi SuperViv!

Here I am, trapped in a remote (and rainy!) part of Spain with no internet connection (I had to do a long walk to find a place to type this) and with no games at all. I had my laptop with me for a few days, but then I sent it away to see if I can get it fixed before I return to Germany on January.

But before I keep going, I'll reply to your posts. I know you are a staunch supporter of the Gothic games. So I bought them (twice, actually: in English and in Spanish), but I still haven't had the time to play them. I got them from one of your fellow German translators at the office, who was nice enough to give me a CD with the latest patch for Gothic 3.

Mass Effect is a great game, but it was tough on my crappy laptop, so I could only play for a few hours. I've seen some Alpha Protocol videos and it looks like they rip off that dialogue style and the action-RPG approach. Now the game has been delayed and I wonder if it was a good idea to pre-purchase it on Steam. But I still trust it to be good. I trust Obsidian, even if they took a lot of heat because their KOTOR II was released unfinished. They have a lot of history, and some really talented people worked on this game. That was a misstep, but their other games are very, very good.

But you know how this goes. You make a bad game, you are in trouble. And in these times, you make a really bad game, you are finished. You release an unplayable game like Lair, and you are whistlying your way to bankruptcy. You ship a really promising but obviously previous-gen game like Haze, you are done (Free Radical was absorbed by Crytek). You ship blander-than-bland dreck like Terminator: Salvation, you go under (that's too bad, because Grin had actually really talented people...). And now we have a new (deserving, I think) victim: Pandemic Studios. The creators of the awfully bland, unplayable (in a Just Cause way) Mercenaries 2 just released their final game, The Saboteur, which predictably is... not very good. At least it looks like it's just a mediocre GTA clone, not a complete mess like their previous game. And I love any game that has some naked chicks just for the sake of it, like The Godfather 2 or Conan, but I will wait until I can get it for 10€ or less.

And this leads to one of my own pet peeves... What's the matter with Rebellion? They keep pumping out very bad games, and they never stop. Yes, they had a hit with the first Aliens vs Predator, but after that, their FPS pedigree is dubious at best. Dredd vs Death was loathsome, and their recent Shellshock 2, which I would like to mention some day in one of my "pest patrol" articles along with other disasters like Damnation and Velvet Assassin, was one of the worst games released last year (only utter crap like LSL Box Office Bust was worse). Their latest "jewel" is Rogue Warrior, a should-be-released-as-budget title which is definitely bad. What is going on here? Why are they still releasing games?

I still can't believe SEGA cancelled the Obsidian-made Aliens RPG at the same time they announced a new, obviously quick'n'cheap Rebellion Aliens vs Predator title. A lot of nostalgic fans are drooling over the low-framerate teasers, but the fact is they look cheap and shoddy. For me, SEGA made the videogame equivalent to Fox shutting down a Ridley Scott or James Cameron Alien movie while greenlighting a new Paul W.S. Anderson AvP sequel.

Oh... I've spent too much time on this, and I couldn't say anything about my "survival gaming" practices. Maybe some other day! (Hopefully...)

See you soon,
- Danda