What We Played This Week – 08/11/09

To write about the games we’ve played, or to play the games we haven’t yet had the chance?  Oh, the ever-waging war inside a games writer’s head!  What did we get around to playing this week?

Matt’s Been Playing:

Cutting and cross-fading my way through the DJ Hero tracklisting all this week, which has been mixed in with playing Borderlands.  I finally discovered what everyone was talking about when they said that the ending sucked in comparison to the rest of the game.  Managed to get a bit of online co-op going, and even managed to find myself the “And They’ll Tell Two Friends” achievement.  I hereby promise that I’ll review it this week.  Along with the new Tales of Monkey Island episode and Sam and Max Through Time and Space.  Jeez, I’ve got my work cut out.

According to my Xbox GamerCard I’ve also been playing The Ashes Cricket 2009, which is actually Moose’s fault since he’s the one who started the game while my account was still signed in.  So now I might just insist that he complete all the achievements for me.

This week I’ll be heading along to the Melbourne Xbox Insider Tour (tomorrow, to be exact), so if anyone else is going just look for the guy with half-blue hair and half-arsed Klingon moustache attempting to hug MC Hammer.

Mark’s Been Playing:

Kicking it ol’ school.

In the sweltering Melbourne heat, I retreated indoors (surprise surprise), and with no decent internet connection to do some intehtube work on, sat down the rifle through the games collection.

The Orange Box was a purchase *ages* ago… purely for Portal (which, in my humble opinion, is the greatest puzzle game ever, purely on the basis that I hate puzzle games and I actually finished this one. Then went and played it again on “advanced”, another trait I never do). So I sat down to play some Team Fortress 2 (which I had heard would work fine, even on my capped internet, as iiNet have the Freezone, which apparently includes Xbox play). But I never got that far.

Back in the day, I never got into Half-Life and all it’s mod wonderment. Counter Strike was (and I may get shouted down, here) shite. The original Half-Life was kinda cool in the ‘pick up things, drop things’ way. And the graphics were neat (for its day).

Therefore, buying Half-Life 2 and never playing it, seemed to make the world an okay place.

Oh, how wrong I was. Suspense, gritty gameplay and cutting zombies in half with a buzz saw blade fired from a gravity gun. Lack of ammo, great voice acting. Chase scenes that are actually fun. Horror elements with towns filled with zombies, and a lone priest smashing their faces with his shotgun. Damn, son. *slow, appreciating claps*

E’gads, how did I miss you?

That was my gaming week. Stay tuned for more ol’skool wickedness I missed next week.