I've just played through the most exciting moment of Sleeping Dogs so far, but because I don't want to spoil it for you I can't really say anything about it. I think overall the game doesn't quite link things together well enough to be a true great, but I'm engaged with the characters just enough to make what just happened a big moment. It was pretty obvious that a moment like this was going to happen to kick-start the second half of the story, but developer United Front handled it well.
In other news I spent most of the week playing FIFA 12 at lunch time in the office. There are definitely members of the team that take this more seriously than others, and it's always good fun to watch a certain ad sales man storm out of the room claiming he's never going to play again.
CS: GO is still dominating my out-of-work play, and until we hit the first big releases of the Chrimbo run-up (which admittedly will happen quite soon), I don't see that situation changing. Lake is easily my favourite of the new Demolition maps, but I've also got a lot of love for Safehouse too. Both seem to offer endless potential for cat-and-mouse antics, and though the 360 pad is hardly a match for a good old mouse-and-keyboard setup. I'm still managing to pick up the odd MVP award. And as I've said before, this never happens in other FPS titles.
This week I have unsurprisingly been playing a lot of Valve's Do-- I can't do it, I'm sorry. Everything I have to say about games has already been said, and if I write about Dota 2 none of you are going to read it anyway. There's no point. I played a few games of Dota, and kicked ass. Then I played some Guild Wars 2, and kicked more ass. Then I played a couple of games of Counter-Strike and died on my arse, which was quite upsetting. The common link is that these are all PC games, whereas right now this industry is utterly abysmal for console owners. Unless you're playing Sleeping Dogs, I guess. But, anyway, sorry console owners, even your version of CS:GO is a bit rubbish! I turned on my Xbox the other day to boot up Mass Effect 3 and it was horrible. Everyone: stop reading this right now (Dave probably has nothing interesting to say, anyway) and go and buy a new PC.
Join me next week when I'll insult other things that you care deeply about, such as rainbows, hob nob biscuits and your mother.
Someone in the office asked me the other day why I'd given up on the idea of pursuing my dream of becoming a pilot. I couldn't think of the reason why at the time, but after playing a little bit of SkyDrift, it all started coming back to me: for fear of crashing into a volcano or being shot out of the sky by a super shockwave.
I'd never heard of SkyDrift before spotting it in the Xbox LIVE sale last week, but given my odd obsession with anything that can fly, I felt compelled to give it a go. And I'm glad I did. It's essentially Hydro Thunder of the skies; a cheap aerial arcade racer that combines WipEout-style combat and power-ups with a few differently-themed hazard-filled courses. It's quite good fun, too, as most similar types of arcade racers tend to be. But my problem with it so far is that it doesn't push the ridiculous nature of bi-planes racing around volcanoes as far as it perhaps should. Despite the premise it feels relatively subdued, and I've often been left with the impression that I'm never having quite as much fun as the developer thinks I am.
Nevertheless, if you're into planes with guns strapped to their noses, SkyDrift seems a great way to fill the odd 20 minutes. And while I'm not sure I'd fully recommend it now it's shot back up to 1200 MSP, if you ever spot it in a sale again, be sure to take it for a test flight.
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