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Bioshock Log #001: Here be Spoilers!

I've just beaten Doctor Steineman. He's the first boss, so I figured now would be a good time to maek post with my thoughts so far. If you haven't played Bioshock yet (and if you haven't, you'd better have a damn good excuse) don't read this, because it contains spoilers (as if you didn't guess from the title)

Graphically it's nothing less than stunning. I can't wait to play it on an HDTV to see how much better it looks. I'll start off with some general thoughts, then outline my favourite moments so far.
The hacking minigame is a lot better than Oblivion's lockpicking. Instead of pushing up, and pressing A at just the right moment like in Oblivion (which really turned into luck as much as anything) Bioshock requires that you assemble a route from one side of the screen to the other in a time limit. It's pretty good fun. Failure leads to a small explosion, which damages your health, which isn't too big a deal since you can carry up to 9 health packs, and you can always find more, or just buy them from vending machines.

Now, onto my favourite bits. The atmosphere overall is amazing, but the scariest bit so far was when I went into the morgue. I mean, let's face it: a morgue is a scary place to start off with, but when you've got genetically modified super-freaks scattered about the place it gets even scarier. The freakiest bit though was when I turned a corner and found a Splicer crying over a coffin. She had her back turned to me, so I just zapped her and unloaded my shotgun into her. I went over to search her body (to see if she had any goodies), and then I realised something: the coffin was child sized. It gave me shivers just thinking about it.

Another terrifying bit was when I was just happily walking along, and found a body. I started checking it for loot, when the lights went out. That's scary enough, but then I heard the voices. I switched to my trusty shotgun. I couldn't see anything, so I couldn't shoot. Then the lights came up.
I was surrounded by 4 or 5 Splicers D: I was able to deal with them without too much hassle, but the initial shock was pretty epic.

Now onto my favourite bit so far: the battle with the good Doctor. I saw him slashing up a (dead) patient, ranting about wanting to make the perfect human. I went into the room, and prepared myself for battle. At first I just tried circle-strafing him. Then I remembered one of the promotional Plasmid videos I saw when I got my telekinesis powers. It claimed that you couldn't use it to stop a speeding bullet.
"Sod that", I thought. If Keanu Reeves can stop a speeding bullet, so can I. I switched to telekinesis, and stopped a handful of machine gun bullets. I then threw them straight back at him. Somehow this set him on fire, and he dived into a nearby pool of water.
"Aha. I have you now, Doc." I fired my electric powers into the water. He began to electrocute.
Job's done; the Doctors dead.
If it stays this good, it will be a strong contender for my GoTY.

We have the technology...

... let us use it to develop the most pointless features ever seen on a mouse.
Microsoft have unveiled their new Sidewinder Gaming Mouse. It's features include the ability to record motion of up to 20g. Impressive stuff. Let's look at what that actually means. 1g is 9.8M/S². 20g means an acceleration of 196 M/S^2. Fighter Pilots usually only pull 9 g. You're telling me that some fat geek (I'm not being insulting, Deus knows I'm fat and geeky) is supposed to be able to pull more g than a trained, fit professional?
At 20g, the mouse will weigh up to 600g. On top of that you've got the mass of your arm, multiplied by 20. It's the same as a bag of sugar, you really think you can aim with that thing?

Other pointless features include an LCD screen. For what purpose? When I'm playing a game, I like to watch the screen, so as to ensure I don't get shot to pieces. How am I supposed to do that when I'm struggling to read data off of some tiny little screen?
This is undoubtedly a fine piece of equipment, but it's over-engineered. Which is shown in the price - £35 for a mouse? No thanks, I'll spend the money on a game if you don't mind.

I'm James, and I'm a Pokéholic

Out of the past 60 days, I have spent more than 12 of them playing pokémon. That's 12 days as in 302 hours of playtime. I think I have a very real problem. Luckily I don't have many left to catch now, so hopefully I'll be able to stop playing. Hopefully.
This kinda explains why I have no job, no girlfriend, and no prospects.

Mario Strikers: Second Thoughts

OK, it's not that bad really. In fact it's quite good. I'm still rubbish at it, but that's cos I can't get the hang of playing on a pitch that is actively trying to kill me.
I suppose it's quite good fun really.


Oh, and I'm sorry for losing against Germany in that tournament I played in today. But we're England, we're supposed to lose against Germany.

Unless it's in a war.

Mario Strikers: First Thoughts

I am getting seriously pissed off at these games that make you wave your arm around like lunatic in order to use vital functions. I don't mind it in tennis, where the movements are like real tennis but in football you don't wave your arm to tackle, so why should I have to in the game?
Nintendo should have made a decent pad with buttons on it. That way they wouldn't have to compromise the gameplay with shoddy control systems.
Zelda makes you waggle your arm to swing the sword, which was bad enough, but at least using a sword in real life does involve moving your arms. But tackling? If your using your arms to tackle you'll be getting booked. Which brings me onto another point: Where's the referee? Why is the AI allowed to blatantly foul? I'm not talking about the Power Shots, (though these are annoying enough as it is) I mean actually shoulder charging me off the ball, leaving my guy unconscious for about 30 seconds.
There's a good game in here somewhere. It's just marred by these ridiculous waggle controls. For Christ's sake Nintendo, allow developers to use the Classic Controller\Game Cube pad where appropriate. Heck, you can make money out of selling the extra peripherals. Just don't compromise gameplay to show off how innovative you are.

I never thought I'd say this, but come back Pro Evo. All is forgiven.