Crysis 2

Not impressed with the SP so far. AI can be as dumb as it can be but at times deadly. There's just no consistency. I think they should have worked much harder on AI.

Script is not brilliant either. Missions will started with lame ideas such as a top scientist saying "Oh shit, I screwed up! I forgot my address in the office computer. You have to go and destroy it or they will find me."

I might just stop reading official game reviews as they are like this game's AI, you never know if you're getting genuine review or not. It appears most of them are totally corrupted. Just checked Metacritic now and the game has got 47 reviews of which 46 positive (http://www.metacritic.com/game/xbox-360/crysis-2) with total average score of 86/100. Compare this with COD Black Ops which has got total average score of 87/100 you'd think that the two games are the same in quality but I thin Black Ops is much, much better made game.

Nokia OVI maps

I've had so much trouble with Nokia Ovi maps since I got my Nokia phone. Really pleased they decided to offer them free of charge to all Nokia users but for every praise I had curse. Last time I went to Paris I downloaded the map for France via home PC and made sure the phone is fully synced.

But unless I connected to internet it would not display any roads, basically maps were blank. Soon as I connected to internet it would start downloading tons of data which I assume is the maps of the area I was in. Needless to say this was mounting to cost me more than a dedicated GPS device with roaming charges and data. So had to give up on it and just use paper maps which was a real pain.

However, as an experiment I recently solved this problem. I know this is not what Nokia/Ovi suggests you to do but the for me the solution is to download maps directly to your phone via WiFi, not through the PC/USB. I've now disabled internet connection on the Ovi Map settings on the phone and can still get maps more or less instantly. Got there in the end. Not sure if it will fall apart when I connect the phone to the PC but I'm seriously considering not to use Ovi PC suite at all.

Nokia doesn't like m4a files

My Nokia 5800 XpressMusic will automatically include all mp3 files in the music library. Recently I manually copied some files (as partial sync is too fiddly) and when I went to play them noticed some songs were missing from the library. When I checked with the File Manager I found out that files were there but for some reason they were not showing in the Music Library. Checking the files noticed that all files missing were .m4a files and if  I open them from the File Manager they would open on OVI music player and would play fine. So I went back to the music player trying to find some setting somewhere which excludes any file that is not mp3 file, but there was hardly anything in the settings. So after a lot of fiddling I found an option in the menu which you only get on the first Music player screen "Refresh library"! Took a minute and bang, it found over 50 new songs.

So the lesson of the day is if you copy anything other than mp3 files make sure you hit Refresh library on the main menu.

Video games wish list for the next couple of months

So we had Homefront and Dragon Age 2, what's next?

Crysis 2 is out this Friday which is promising to be a solid game.

Next month we have Portal 2 YAY!

Month after, in May, LA Noire YAY! (FEAR 3???)

Homefront

Rented it from Blockbuster today. Bloody bastards used the code so can't play it online unless I pay for the online pass and judging from the first two chapters on single player I don't think I want to spend another penny on it.

So far single play is very average. It is trying to copy COD and Battlefield but it is lot less sharper than any of those games and not just visually but the gameplay as well. Hopefully things will change for the better as I play along. I've got another 5 chapters to play so we'll see...

I don't like Harmonix

My game shelf is getting overloaded so when a friend reminded me that I can download songs from Lego Rock Band to play them on Rock Band 3 I thought here's a game I can get rid off. Checked RB site and bang on the homepage it tells you how. So went on Xbox and eventually got a prompt to pay 800MSP to be able to do this! Not happy as I already payed for these songs when I bought the game. So now I'm going to trade it in just to get those 800MSP back. Annoyed!

Double Cross - James Patterson

I recently finished Double Cross by James Patterson and must say I was fairly disappointed with it. I get the impression that the book was written rather carelessly. Patterson must have wrote this book whiles thinking about other things, because it is just simply poor. Appart from some poor writing, there are major problems with the plot. I found my self in 'oh, come on!" moments quite a few times. If you are a huge fan of James Patterson give it a go, otherwise not worth spending time on it. I'll give it 1.5/5 stars.

Unreal Engine 3 looks awesome

I don't care what the game is if it looks like this. Watch it on HD.

Dead Space 2

Literary just finished Dead Space 2 and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Scared the bejesus out of me but was worth it. It is funny because I have Dead Space gathering dust on the shelf for years. Tried to get into it several times but I only got to chapter 4 and gave up on it, but I will now get back to it and see what preceded events in Dead Space 2. There is a short film describing what happened prior to Dead Space 2 in the disc which helped a bit but I'd like to "see" it first hand. Here's the film:

Bulletstorm - Epic Edition

Fancy a game where you can play the role of a crazy drunken mercenary full jokes? Then make sure you pick up Bulletstorm. I haven't played much of the multi-player modes (Echoes and Anarchy) but almost finished the single player on normal.

What makes Bulletstorm unique is the use of skillshots. The game  awards players with credit for killing enemies in one of over hundred possible ways. This gives gamer a mini-game within the game - make kills fun. Works great when you had a stressful day at work and you need to let some of the steam out so you don't have to punch the manager when you go back to work the day after.