Looking Back...:The Last Stand

I'm not a massive fan of computer gaming. Browser-based gaming has never been part of my gaming routine and has ceased to enthral me despite purchases of newer and better computers on my part with faster Internet connections, also. But, just like if you're not too keen on The Beatles, you have to respect it/them for their impact of their avenue of media. The Beatles revolutionised the way music turned out by creating (a) new genre(s). Browser gaming changed the way we spend/waste our time at school/work... And I respect it for that.

I first heard about The Last Stand (TLS) when I was shown it when I was round a friend's house.Having spent the night there for a sleepover, we were both tired and bloody bored, too. Having played a couple of games on his Xbox 360, he moved onto his computer and surfed the net for a bit. He then showed me TLS and I loved it. I don't know whether it was the fact that I was 11 or that I liked a bit of violence at the time but killing zombies appealed to me immediately and immensely.

The game is a third person shooter where you are behind "cover" and you have to kill zombies to stop them from reaching you and eating your brains (once the cover is destroyed then it's usually over as the zombies quickly descend upon you). The rest of the game is spent finding survivors to help you kill the zombies or looking for weapons. You can have up to seven survivors, including yourself, with the seventh survivor always brandishing a hunting rifle which can take out a zombie in one shot, so my advice would be to gather survivors as quickly as possible in your daylight hours so as to quickly obtain this asset.

In terms of weapons, there isn't a massive variety for your wall but it's big enough so as to keep you satisfied. There's standard pistols then it moves onto shotguns then machine guns with quirky weapons such as the chainsaw adding a little bit of "ommph".

To be honest, it's one of only a few browser games which I play occasionally. I have always adored it and my love affair has continued with The Last Stand 2 being released and 3 having its trailer on YouTube. It's free. The link's below. Have a go. :)

SkyrimAddict

The Last Stand -  http://armorgames.com/play/269/the-last-stand

Cool YouTube Users: officialxboxmag

I bought my first Xbox 360 magazine when I was first interested in Guitar Hero: World Tour. I bought the magazine with the glossy cover and Guitar Hero on the front despite the fact that it wasn't "official". I was, indeed, susceptible to anything that looked good so at the time I bought games depending on their trailers or cover art or what a friend owned. Then, about a year and a half after my first purchase, a member of my family offered to buy my magazine for me. Not knowing which one I usually purchased, they bought the Official Xbox Magazine (OXM) as it was the most expensive of the solely Xbox 360 magazines. Having read the magazine and used its disc, I was certain that I could only buy this magazine in the future months to come... And I still do.

As with most businesses/brands, they have their own Facebook and Twitter pages along with a very extensive website which is run by some top people (as is most of the things they do :S). The most recent of their uses of popular "social" websites is their use of YouTube.

Despite not having a lot of time to do YouTube videos (they have to work for their actual jobs), there is a large variety of videos that make up their uploaded videos section.In the last month or two it has, admittedly, been a lot about Minecraft due to the immense popularity of it on XBLA. However, even one game can bring about a diverse selection of different videos from an introduction, to gameplay to OXM Land which is basically their world and they let 100 people onto it to build whatever they want... The results are quite staggering and impressive.

That's not to say that it's just Minecraft. Their most popular videos have come from Matt Lees (AKA OXMJamSponge or "the guy with the weird hair-do") and his ability to make any game sound quite exciting. An example of this is Dragon's Dogma. Not an extremely successful game, by any means of imagination, but Matt has made introductions to different types of systems found in the video game including the Pawn system, level system and the different classes, though he's only shown us a few in his videos. :'(.

The most recent video of interest is a Star Wars 1313 gameplay video, with Matt asking someone from the development team about LucasArts' CGI effects team (which recently worked on The Avengers) while showing off the latest of gameplay shown by the developers. It looks really good, but I wouldn't be surprised to see it be for the next generation of consoles. However, it's Matt being there that consoles any worries about it and I'm sure it will be great whichever generation it comes out in.

I've been subscribed for about seven months and I always look forward to seeing an OXM video pop up in the subscriber's box... Maybe you should too.

SkyrimAddict

Star Wars 1313 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbhcsrYnW1c
Dragon's Dogma - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_c8krHCKHDI&feature=relmfu
Minecraft introduction - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jt9dHr0Veo

Cool YouTube Users: OfficialNerdCubed

I initially found this YouTube channel when I was searching for Bully (video game made by RockStar) and I found a "Let's Play" by Nerd³. Needless to say, I was quite hooked just with that first video. Featuring the leader of the Procrastinators (the subscribers are the Procrastinators :S) he basically just does Let's Plays of various games. Of course, the person that plays the game has to be entertaining in his commentary and our leader is, indeed, very funny. Maybe it's because he gives out tonnes of random British culture references (he's British, funnily enough) but his humour is certain to cause anything from a giggle to ROFL or even get to the point of LMAO, though I'm quite sure that doesn't happen in real life... quite sure.

The video games he picks are also part of the entertainment. Games played include AAA titles such as Sleeping Dogs, Spec Ops: The Line and LA Noire, hints at his childhood with Hard Time, Robot Wars and I Wanna Be The Guy: Gaiden and just random fun games such as Sims 3, Red Faction: Guerrilla and Spore. There's also a kind-of obsession with simulators with Bus, Garbage Truck and Farming simulators... Boring games there but our leader is great at making them entertaining by failing miserably, speeding and parking a tractor on top of a car! Hilarity ensures.

I am quite a new Procrastinator and I haven't even watched a quarter of his videos but, when I get the time, I really do hope to; he makes any game have personality and fun. Except Tom Clancy: H.A.W.K 2... That game didn't deserve it apparently xD

Oh and below my user name is my favourite Let's Play by NerdCubed; it's nearly 50 minutes of pure laughter.

SkyrimAddict

Nerd³ Plays... London 2012: The Official Video Game of the Olympic Games -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dJipUiJ9wY&feature=plcp

Looking Back...: Age of Empires

Having the summer off can bring times of severe boredom and having gotten bored of all the "new" games I own (despite not having played at least 5...) which led me to the conclusion that I play an older game that I haven't played in years. Looking through my PC collection, I realise that I had a good gaming upbringing with such hits as LOTR: Battle for Middle Earth 2 and Rome: Total War (I was a violent child, it would seem). The game that caught my eye was Age of Empires. I have the first game and it's expansion pack in a single disc and it was my first PC game and quite possibly one of my first video games. :') Playing it brings a sense of nostalgia as I remember the day of just starting a death match and spending the whole game deforesting the trees on the map... Simple times.

From the perspective of my present self, I feel that the core game play is still top-notch and I am very sad that Ensemble Studios (the developer) went bankrupt; I love(d) 2 and 3 too.

Still; I have forests to chop down ;)

SkyrimAddict

Cool Youtube Users: PewDiePie

Unlike the other two Cool Youtube Users I've mentioned, I have only just become aware of PewDiePie's existance... And that was due to my fascination with Happy Wheels. In any case, I found PewDiePie and have become a "Bro" due to the clicking of the "subscribe" button and with that comes great responsibility to sit through about 30 minutes of videos from the youtuber... And I love it!

A bit of background info would not go amiss, perhaps; PewDiePie is a Swedish guy living in Italy and he releases gaming videos of him playing (mainly) horror games with other video games coming in to lighten the mood. Despite the use of horror video games, PewDiePie always makes me laugh in his videos with his amazing reactions to anything scary (escpecially Slender XD) and his constant stream of obsenities in his wacky accent that just makes the whole experience very enjoyable. It's not just that though; his gf plays in some videos with the comments full of "THEY MAKES SUCH A GREAT COUPLE <3" etc. and they do seem to feed off each other (in the comedy sense)

As mentioned before, he has played a horror game called Slender about 10 times over all in 5/6 videos... The link below is for his first Slender video and it's the one that got me hooked on the Swedish youtuber... Tread carefully :P

Skyrim Addict

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZMBG4Pn3Sg&feature=relmfu

BF2

About 6 months ago I bought BF2 after thoroughly enjoying BF: Bad Company but I didn't really play it that much; just completing the campaign and getting to about level 5 in multi-player. After a bit of stressful week, I decided that a release would be good in the form of BF2. The reason for this is that it fuels adrenaline rushes that I hardly experience and it feels so good to "kill" an @$$&**£ that has been sniping me for the last 15 minutes. The result is that I'm quite addicted to it with several hours everyday being dedicated to being awesome at the Engineer class or trying to level up the other classes. Either way, I usually have a lot of fun playing and may even get BF3 at some point in the future... I am really behind the times. xD

SkyrimAddict

Ignoring Past Excuses

As the title suggests, I have ignored the rule of not buying and playing Minecraft and I now play it often... and it's great! Really, really good and I can't believe how good it is... The way that the map you play on is randomly generated (mine's called "Brave New World"), the fact that you can do anything you want with no constraints and that your friends can come into your world and help you build that amazing skyscraper you had plans to build or you could go into their world and blow their house up by inviting some creepers to stay ;)

So far, I have built a mine-shack that is next to a mine I have dug with the finding of iron, coal, gold and redstone being one of the best experiences in gaming. Near to this is my main house in the middle of a body of water with a bridge of sand joining from all directions at the front of the house... and I'm proud of it! That's why Minecraft is so great; it takes the idea of crafting and if you put the effort in, you can create some truly amazing pieces of art/architecture.

I must go, "Brave New World" calls me.

SkyrimAddict

Cool Youtube Users: freddiew

As you probably know, I enjoy playing video games and I like watching videos on YouTube to do with videogames so when someone comes around who uses games as their inspiration for their videos then it just seems natural that I become a massive fan of theirs. Freddiew is one of those people with videos that include real life Mario Kart, GTA and a first person Mario Bros. video that I just love as they are based on video games but also very original, also.

The newest and my most favourite video is that of "Skyrim Badass" that is basically being an @$$ in Skyrim in real life. With the life-like graphics and the sword-fighting choreography, I love this video and I have watched it many times already...

...and it's not just because I love Skyrim!

SkyrimAddict

Minecraft for 360

The news that Minecraft was branching out to different gaming consoles was of no surprise to me as it was the most popular game on the computer over the last few years and the owners were looking for new revenue streams. Minecraft will get it's release as an Xbox Live Arcade game where people can do as they do on the computer; namely mining, crafting and fighting with creepers. You can basically do what the computer guys are doing minus the regular packs and updates that the computer game gets.

When I first saw Minecraft I thought it would be a fad and one that would be over quickly due to its block-y graphics and its weird game play. But then it turned out to be a long-running, extensive gaming experience that most people I know have played or are playing.

The release is welcome and I for one will be buying it... little pickaxes and beds here I come!

SkyrimAddict

Halo 4

So, moving away from Skyrim and RPGs in general I would like to write about Halo 4 and how it's shaping up to be "Game of the Year" already. The trailer was released several months ago and showed the audience Master Chief floating through a spaceship on a jet pack with Cortana giving orders. The trailer looked good with subtle hints about what was to happen in the future.

Halo 4 will be the start of a new trilogy for Master Chief with worlds such as the exotic jungle planet of Requiem to play on and co-op missions that allow you to get to know your Chief better. The multiplayer also looks good with the whole Red vs Blue situation finally being unveiled as a proper story rather than just what-it-is.

The design for the Chief and his enemies has been radically overhauled with the only things remaining including the general shape of the characters and the helmet that Master Chief wears.

I loved Halo: Reach and at first I was hesitant at what 343 Industries could bring to the table in terms of Halo but so far it all looks good. I can't wait to play it later this year.

SkyrimAddict