This advert is quite simply my favourite thing at the moment, I love it.  I even bought some head and shoulders it was so good.  I’d love to go on a date with the main girl.

In recent months I have increasingly watched as facebook gaming becomes more and more sophisticated while maintaining it’s ‘casual’ and welcoming roots.  I’ve been highly impressed by the direction these games are going in, and while I’ve always seen this as a great new market I’m now also convinced that these can even become more a part of the core gamer market too.

The game most recently impressing me is the relatively new Backyard Monsters.  Like The Casual Collective’s previous facebook game Desktop Defender, the title has been designed with facebook’s unique feature set in mind.  Things such as status updates, friend invites and encouraging return visits – they’re all here and implemented with care and consideration of the user – these are things I don’t really need to cover as we’re all aware of how these things work.  Just know that here they work very well.

What I’m most impressed by in this title is the merging of a classic genre (RTS) with the unique features of the facebook platform.  The single player element of the game has you developing a base, resource collecting and building up an army of cute monsters with which you will attack your foes.  While light attacks will come from computer generated wild monsters the main element of combat is taking on other players of the game – I’m yet to get to this point to won’t comment on it, I’m confident it will work well going on my previous experience of this game and others.

The game looks simply gorgeous, clean simple graphics that wouldn’t look out of place in a full blown boxed game.  I’m very very impressed with what these guys have achieved in this respect.  The game is predominantly played within the facebook window, but you can go full screen if you need to see more of the play area, a feature that works very well and I’m sure many more games will take note of this feature.

I know I haven’t gone into the game too, but I truly see this as one of the best social games out there with something for everyone, and as it’s free to play you can all try it for yourselves – and I really hope you do.  The Casual Collective are doing great things in this space at the moment and I hope they can keep up the good work.

With facebook games advancing, iPad bringing sophistication to the mobile gaming platform and increasing numbers of smart phones the new guard of gaming is truly coming into it’s own.  3DS and the other tradition based new platforms will really have to be something special to keep up with new formats.  It will be a fascinating battle to watch and will only benefit us – the gamers as new merges with old in our available playtime.

Today I had finally had enough of the Astra hire car so in a fit of rage I told them to come and get it.  The Lotus used to make me happy by the time I started working, this piece of crap was making me decidedly unhappy, so it had to go.

So tonight, and from now on, I will be riding the bus to and from work.  For the first time it was actually pretty pleasant, nice and quick with a walk in the sun to and from my destinations.

Of course I’d rather be in the Lotus but for the time being this is going to be pretty good I feel.

A few weeks ago some silly woman crashed into the side of my car, resulting in a fair bit of cosmetic damage.  More importantly it also ended up breaking my chassis due to the front wheel contact.  Amazing scenes.

So we’re having all of this great weather and now I don’t have a car to go out in and enjoy it, would have loved to of been able to take it out this weekend for a spin around the sights of central London.  Due to waiting got parts the car could be off the road for up to 3 months, 3 months of no car and waiting while the good weather passes me by.

For now I have an Astra – one of the worst cars I have ever driven in my life.  I really hope I don’t have to put up with it for too long, I really can’t take it.

The Vespa shopping is well underway, the sooner I can get one the better!

Having left this blog to fend for itself the last few months it is time to try and get back on the case.  I’m not entirely sure what I want to make it, a mix of things I like seems tempting but surely I need a proper theme to follow.  I don’t think anyone is too interested in my random hobbies but then am I able to just keep to one set theme?

I want to cover cars, tech, travel, games and maybe a few other things.  So this could all get very random over the next couple of posts, let’s just see how it goes.

Well it’s been 2 years since Beijing 2008 and this of course means that it’s time for Vancouver 2010 – The Winter Olympics.  As a sporting event I have to admit that this doesn’t hold a great deal of interest for me, I’ve never been involved in any winter sports apart from the odd snowball fight as a tearaway child.  However, even I can see that the selection of events makes for a far more compelling videogame than the summer event.  Available on PS3 and 360, let’s see how the game stacks up.

As you might expect from an Olympics based title, it’s not the best thing ever.  The games themselves are very nicely presented, with an over the shoulder view bringing you right into the action, though your character can sometimes get in the way – not exactly what you want when your hurtling down a mountainside at 100kph.  There’s a quite booming rock soundtrack, some of which I quite like but a lot of it just seems to go past me as a bit of a noise.  In general the game looks lovely, the speed of events is captured well and there doesn’t seem to be any noticeable issues with the way the game looks.

As far as gameplay goes there is a lot of button bashing, a few corrective moves and some light nudges here and there.  For the most part your just trying to guide your character down the hill as best you can, I’m sure there is some room for skill to improve your performance but I can’t see too many people bothering to master it, maybe if your a young child and this is the only game you can afford, otherwise I think people will move on fairly quickly.

If you really love the winter Olympics then you may find this is a nice little way to be involved, otherwise I’d steer clear to be quite honest.  The verdict:

Don’t Bother.

However sometimes you can’t just play one game so I am in the process of downloading Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band for Beatles Rock Band and I’ll have a play through of one of my all time favourite albums.  I’m sure most of you will have played some form of Rock Band or Guitar Hero so I won’t bother going into the finer points of the game.  Needless to say if you’re a fan of either The Beatles or the Rock Band style games then you should most certainly have a go on this.  It’s fantastically put together and the tunes will have you singing a long for hours.  My verdict:

Try it.

So my second day playing an hour of games and today it was the new release Bayonetta, which I recently set out as my game of the week.  Developed by Platinum games and published by SEGA, this game was released just yesterday (8th Jan, 2010).  I’m playing on PS3, but the game is also available on 360.

There’s really not much I want to say about this game as it’s absolutely fantastic, I would hate to give away anything so I’m just going to sum up what I’ve seen of it so far.

The game is a 3rd person action/shooter, with a female lead who goes by the name of Bayonetta.  Guns on both hands and feet and a quite frankly amazing range of close combat attacks.  The graphics are sublime but the key thing for me so far is the music and sound direction.  It’s utterly amazing, by far the best of this generation in my opinion.  It pulls you in and will not let you go, I’ve already played far more than my allocated hour, and expect to have the game completed before the weekend is through – something I very very rarely do nowadays.

This is up there with the very best, I suggest everyone go out and buy it!  I can completely agree with the mass praise and perfect review scores.

Try It!

As a way to keep up my gaming I thought a good thing to do would be to set aside 1 hour of my day, every day, to play a game and report back with my findings.  These won’t be long reviews, and I won’t go into massive depth on story or gameplay.  What I will aim to do is give the gist of a game from my 1 hours playing.  I may go back to games I like, or I may try something new every day.  Please let me know if you have any suggestions, recommendations or thoughts on this plan!

On with the games!

The first game I have decided to play is Jambo Safari on the Wii, developed by Full Fat and published by SEGA.  As good a game as any to start with I think.

The game is based on an old arcade property, where players would drive around a reserve and try to collect up sick or injured animals.  The basic aim of the game remains the same, but a number of features have been added to pad out the game.

The core of the game is still driving and capturing animals, and it’s actually rather enjoyable.  The controls are iffy, using Z to accelerate and C to break, for me this meant using the same finger – not the best start to a driving game.  Due to the very simple nature of the gameplay and the open plains you drive on, breaking didn’t seem needed so I was soon over this control limitation.  My other issue was that objects in the world are either solid as a rock and will stop you dead or else as dangerous as oxygen, seeing you drive straight through them.  This can often mean you need to reverse away from something that you have just crashed into, which is cumbersome and slow to engage.

Enough of the griping, from here on in I found the game really quite relaxing.  It’s never going to win any awards but it’s a solid title that gives you exactly what it says.  Beams of light shine down from the sky leading you to your next mission (which you can complete in any order), simply drive where instructed and your challenge is set down.  Things such as catch 3 lions, race a track in a given time or collection missions for other people you meet around the park.  I managed to get into the 2nd area of the game while playing and found the missions to be relatively easy but still enjoyed them.  I think I’d actually be tempted to play this game further!

There are a few issues while playing, the graphics can make it very hard to see whats happening, the radar is very unclear, you can’t really place where you are within it due to there being no clearly defined player marker.  I also found collection missions hard due to the items I was collecting not being very clear within the world.  The improvements of these to points would have enhanced the game a great deal in my opinion.

I had a quick play with the customisation features, selected a new car with a camo paint job, the selection of options seemed deep and easy to navigate.  I also visited the vet area where your captured animals go.  You can name them, pet them and I believe help in their treatment though I did not have anything to treat.  I named a few animals and decided to stroke one, you have to find the areas it likes being touched in (dodgy) with the pointer, and then his happiness will rise as you stroke.  I found it hard to find the right areas and it didn’t make a lot of sense, the animal ended up more angry afterwards than it had been before!

So, my quick play through and what’s my verdict?  I really rather like the game, the graphics are not amazing but suffice, gameplay is simple and relaxing and you’re not killing anybody which makes a nice change from the norm!  It’s no masterpiece and don’t expect it to live up to the offerings of Nintendo, but it’s a solid title and a great non-stressful way to spend your time.

As these pieces are based on a very quick play I’m not going to give a rating, instead one of two options, a ‘try it’ and a ‘don’t bother’, seems simple enough and probably about all I can realistically offer.  So what of Jambo?  i say:

Try It!

Today Nintendo President Satoru Iwata gave the first glimpse of what we might expect from a successor to it’s massively popular DS in an interview with Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbuni.

Only dropping a few hints, these were more off the cuff remarks than any solid confirmation the device is actually on it’s way anytime soon.  So as it stands we can expect:

- Motion-sensitive controls
- Highly detailed graphice
- No subscription fees or bundled access to networks

So we really don’t know all that much, and given the massive success of the DS itself over the Christmas period I doubt we’ll be seeing this new device anytime soon.  I doubt we’ll even see it in 2010.