PSN Welcome Back: Dead Nation, Infamous

Since Sony have so kindly offered it's loyal supporters a choice of two free games to 'welcome' them back to the Playstation Network I decided to take them up on their offer and choose Dead Nation and Infamous. I've not heard much of Dead Nation but I played the Infamous demo and thought it was alright but not worth paying the full price for. I'll gladly take both for free though!

Dead Nation

Infamous

Dead nation is a game I'd definitely pay the full asking price for. I've played it for around 6 hours already and am just past the half way mark. It's a top down, twin stick shooter made by the same developer that made Super Stardust HD. The setting is just the same as most zombie outbreaks where you are one of the only survivors and you must fight your way through the infection to get to safety.

Expect to see lot's of explosions

Example of HUD

There is a story but it's not the reason you should play this game. You should play it because it's hella fun and extremely addictive. There's a wide range of zombie enemies to fight off each which need different approaches to combat and lots of loot to pillage! There's a main story campaign, separate mission modes, offline and online co-op. If you've got a PS3 and are still undecided on which 2 out of the 5 games your going to choose, I'd urge you to pick up Dead Nation as one of them.

As for infamous it's taking forever to download so I've not got much to say on that but I am looking forward to going on a rampage of destruction through the city!

Here's a video displaying some of the chaos you can indulge yourself in.

Amazing Photograph,

Apparently the above picture is actually real! It looks like a blatant photoshop creation at first, but according to National Geographic it's a raw photo with no filters or any effects used to manipulate it. 

On the National Geographic site it describes the photo as:

" Tinted orange by the morning sun, a soaring dune is the backdrop for the hulks of camel thorn trees in Namib-Naukluft Park."

The photo was taken by Frans Lanting who works for National Geographic. You can find more of his work on his website. 

And here's a random video of the week.

Brink

Has anyone played Brink yet? I was eyeing it with curiosity as the game play elements sounded pretty cool. Parkour kinda jupming and running while gunning.

I heard the class system feels kinda like Team Fortress 2 and the campaigns are like Left 4 Dead while the game play mechanics feel samey as Mirrors Edge. Sounds like they've put together loads of different elements that have been reasonably popular.

It's good that they've not copied the likes of Call of Duty as it's been done so many times it get's boring(plus, imo, no one can do COD like infinity ward - so what's the point in copying?). The review figures(pinched from kotaku) don't seem to indicate it's a very good game, but if I were to follow review figures I wouldn't be playing a lot of the games I play now.

Review Figures

1up, seriously?

Gaming Special Editions

I absolutely love getting the special collectors editions of games. They usually come with a significantly higher price tag but it's usually worth it. I'll go through a couple of the best I've seen and a couple of the worst. 


I'll start with the titles that I thought had neat collectibles

Arkham Asylum: Collectors Edition

I only seen this recently and am gutted. If I knew before I bought the game that this was out there I would have definitely snatched at it. It comes with a 14" batarang! Unfortunately it doesn't detach from the stand it's molded to but it's still awesome. 


It also comes with a making of DVD(blu-ray with the ps3 version), art book, and a store case that is bat-shaped. The game was epic and it appears it's special edition was just as epic. 

Fallout 3: Collectors Edition

I'm a massive Fallout fan and so this is probably my favourite of all collector's edition games. It comes with items from the game(duh!). Not just any items though. Frickin' awesome items. The main piece that made me salivate to the point of soaking my t-shirt was the pip-boy alarm clock! It's also packed with a lunch box and a vault boy bobble head. On a less epic note it's got a making of DVD and art book(which are both generally expected of collectors editions now).

I've been trying to get one for ages but even the editions without the alarm clock are £150 or more!

Now for what I felt were not so neat.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 - Prestige Edition

This came with the what you would expect from a special edition: art book, metal finish on game case, a download token for original COD. However, it also came with a pair of fully functioning night vision goggles and a mannequin head for you to display them on. At first I did think it was pretty cool but at the end of the day it is pretty ridiculous. And for £130 I hardly feel it's worth it. Now the RC car you get with the black ops prestige edition, that is cool! I just don't see anyone using the goggles. It would be better to have a non usable pair that could be for decoration purposes only. That would make more sense to me. 

F.3.A.R (or F.E.A.R 3)

The reasoning behind this one is pretty simple. You get a scaled down version of the creepy (pregnant!)girl from the series with her child inside her which glows in the dark. WTF. I would not have that in my house for a million fudge donuts. Creepy as hell. The sheer amount of times I crapped myself while playing F.E.A.R(only the original, F.E.A.R 2 not so much) prevents me from ever attempting another play through. I was proud that I got past that final level!

Honorable mentions for awesomeness: 

• Fallout: New Vegas - Collectors Edition
• Halo 3 - Legendary Edition
• God of War 3 - Ultimate Edition
• Bioshock 1&2 - Collectors Edition
• Call of Duty: Black Ops - Prestige Edition 

Honorable mentions for not so awesome:

• Grand Theft Auto 4 - Collectors Edition
• Mass Effect 1&2  - Collectors Edition
• Dead Rising 2 - Collectors Edition
• Splinter Cell: Conviction - Collectors Edition

Starcraft Papercraft, Sims 3 Sale, Random Video of The Blog

Gimme Now!

I know I ranted about how I thought making an Audi car out of paper and I know I'm about to kinda contradict myself by saying I love these Starcraft paper crafts!


There Just so awesome though! The detail is incredible and the colouring is fantastic. If they were on sale I would definitely by them. Sadly they were made by a South Korean(I think) blogger.

Also, If there's any Sims fans out there you'll be extremely excited to here that Steam are having a humungous sale on at the moment as part of the EA deal of the day. I know most would probably want portal 2 to be the deal of the day but I can't see that happening too soon. My girlfriend loves the Sims so I may just get her all the DLC at a bargain price. I'll be in the good books for weeks!

Oh and here's someone with waaaay too much time on their hands!!!

Paper Audi's, Knitted Ferrari's!! -

What is the world coming to when you have people putting all their effort in creating a paper model of a car. I can understand that people love cars and love designing, creating, and driving them. However, I cannot see the enjoyment of piecing bits of paper together to make a car. One woman even knitted a Ferrari!

And now on to Portal 2!!!

When portal 2 was released earlier than expected, albeit only several hours early, I couldn't wait to dive in and play the hell out of it. I knew it wouldn't be a fully fledged long hall of a game but I knew that the time I spent playing it would be moments of sheer happiness! I wasn't wrong. The game is sweet, even with it's loooong loading times, and I found it hard to stop playing. The only aspect of the game I didn't like was the dumbed down feeling of the puzzles. I remember Portal having more difficult puzzles. Not a massive thing to harp on about but I definitely expected more of a challenge.

Has everyone else who's played the game enjoyed the shiz out of it?

Alienware Laptop, Extreme Ironing.

I seen a new Alienware laptop is going to be released. Has anyone ever had a laptop or desktop Alienware? I was once tempted when I was naive and didn't realise how much you could save by DIY. The new Alienware laptop sounds pretty niffty though. Here's the specs:

# second generation Intel Core i7
# 3GB NVIDIA GeForce GT555M graphics
# 1600MHz DDR3 memory(couldn't find how many gigs!)

And the most wtf video I've seen today...