Uncharted 3 is the latest installment in the wildly successful Uncharted series. It follows Nathan Drake, a modern day fortune hunter, … you know what, screw this. Behold Uncharted 3, my biggest gaming disappointment of 2011.
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Ready Player One is the latest geeky book phenomenon by Ernest Cline and also the January book for the Geek Girl Book Club.
Set in a dystopian future; economic and environmental catastrophes have resulted in a huge worldwide resource shortage. Anyone who can afford it escapes his or her poverty stricken existence by plugging into the virtual OASIS, an immersive Massively Multiplayer Online Game.
Upon his death, the creator of OASIS, wills his entire fortune, billions of dollars and controlling shares in the OASIS Company, to the first person that can find the three virtual keys he has hidden inside the game. Massive treasure hunting fever sweeps the world.
Five years later, not a single key has been found. Until Wade, a young man who, like most of his peers, grew up plugged into the OASIS simulation. He discovers, through luck, tenacity and a bit of brains, the first of the three keys. Pandemonium ensues and we get to come along for the ride.
Professor Layton and his sidekick Luke are back and ready to solve their third adventure filled with murder, mystery and mayhem.
In true sequel fashion, this third installment is identical too its predecessors. Oh the story is certainly different and the mini games changed, but the look, game play, and interactions are essentially the same.
In my case, this is not a bad thing. I had already dealt with my bout of disappointment when I played through the second installment, and accepted that the Layton series is not about to evolve. So more of the same is just I was expecting when I started in on #3.
Way back in the day, when Portal was first released, you know the dark ages of 2007, purchasing a game that I already owned didn’t seem worth it. Portal was bundled in the Orange Box, a Valve game extravaganza including such games as Half-life 2 (owned it), two expansion packs, and Team Fortress 2.
But the Portal section of the box made such huge waves, it peaked my curiosity so I ran a ‘portal game’ search. The result was a poor, browser based imitation that frustrated me within the first ten minutes. This just reinforced my resolve not to purchase The Orange Box and I carried on, blissfully ignorant.
Enter Portal 2 with its cooperative multiplayer. That’s a tag line that is sure to get me to sit up and pay attention. So I begged my buddy to play it with me and after hours of badgering he caved, but set this one requirement – I had to play the original Portal first.
Best blackmail ever!
Castlevania, though one of the longest and most glorified franchises, has never really been on my radar. It’s a bit of a drawback really, because I don’t have any warm gushy nostalgia surrounding this franchise, to soften any of its rough edges. In short, I’m less forgiving.
This also means I am not usually drawn to any new Castlevania releases, but a friend of mine insisted that this was the greatest game to evAr walk to the earth, so it had to be tried.
Let the slandering begin.
The first time I met Lara Croft was in Tomb Raider 2. She kicked some serious ass and I loved her for it. The whole game made such an impression that I have been following Lara’s trials and tribulations ever since. And though I have hung in there, the quality of the Lara Croft titles has been in steady decline.
That is until ‘Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light’ came along.
The last time I played a Prince of Persia game, Jake Gyllenhaal, the beefed out movie star of this movie, was probably still wearing footy pajamas. Which makes my game reference for this movie a bit outdated.
Even so, I was loath to pass this one up. The Sands of Time game was after all quite popular, plus beefcake, plus action movie. Total no-brainer.
Turns out, no matter how much beefing there is, I’m just not a huge Jake Gyllenhaal fan. Oh, he did a fine enough job, and he certainly didn’t ruin anything about the movie. One brand new little six-pack just isn’t suddenly going to make him my type.
From what I can tell the game aspect was translated fairly well. Plenty of fighting, lots of acrobatics and even a fair amount of ‘sanding’ back in time. Actually by the end of the movie all I could think about was that the turning back time using the sands must be an awesome game mechanic. Made me want to play the game.
Reading ten a month has been a bit of a challenge, nine seems to be more my number. Ah well. Will just plod along and continue my attempt at ten each month.
<3
Inspired by the changing hues of the Fall season, October’s is nicknamed Literary Colors Challenge.
The goal is to read 10 books whose covers match predominantly the colors listed.
One of each: Orange, Red, Brown, Green, Black, Yellow, Purple, Pink, Blue, Silver/Gray
Meet Nathan Drake, fortune hunter, grave robber (with a heart), rock climber, gunslinger, truck wrangler, and part time archeologist. Sounds great right? Yeah well turns out he is also an idiot, albeit an exceedingly competent idiot.
His physical capabilities are incredible. The man can scale icy cliffs, shoot almost any type of weapon, fling himself from one moving vehicle to the next, all while hardly breaking a sweat, but he is clearly lacking the common sense gene (aka dumb as a brick.)
So busy playing StarCraft 2, not sure I will get around to finishing all ten this month. (Did manage to read all ten for July, whoot!)
Anyway here is my list and their assignments. =)
For our August challenge, Characters Alphabet Parade Challenge.
I have divided the alphabet into 10 groups and your goal is to match characters from your chosen books whose first or last names start with one of the given letters.1. A/B – Anya – The Darkest Kiss
2. C/D/E – Ehren – First Lord’s Fury
3. F/G – Fred – Wicked Weaves
4. H/I/J – Harry Dresden – Storm Front
5. K/L – Anna Latham – Cry Wolf
6. M/N/O – Kitty Norville – Kitty Raises Hell
7. P/Q – Paragon – Dragon Haven
8. R/S/T – Eric Sinclair – Undead and Unreturnable
9. U/V/W – Kate Winslow – The Hollow Kingdom
10. X/Y/Z – Zeb – Nice Girls Don’t Have Fangs
