First post of the year!
Just a heads-up, really: Althir is working on a project that I think you should take a look at.
EFM
Comics and other shenanigans.
Linux isn’t perfect.
But then again, I never claimed it was. It’s imperfection is most apparent when trying to play Windows games, for obvious reasons: They are WINDOWS games. Duh. However, there’s been efforts to allow people to use Windows programs (and games) on Linux. These efforts are called Wine.
Why am I telling you this? Because in early August, my beloved friend Mythos gifted me a game on Steam. It was called Poker Night at the Inventory. And even though the long loading times were anticipated (It’s sort of normal for Wine programs), the lack of sound was a real punch in the crotch. And I don’t just mean there’s no background music: There was a complete and utter lack of any sound whatsoever. I tried a few things, but ultimately uninstalled it, leaving both me and Mythos unsatisfied.
However, after finally getting Team Fortress 2 to run on Wine (And I have to admit, it’s actually more fun than it was. My sincerest apologies, Valve), I bought the Tales of Monkey Island pack off Steam for about eight bucks (it was a 75% discount for Wednesday only). It runs perfectly, and since Tales of MI was made by Telltale… well, I installed Poker Night at the Inventory again. And even though I usually don’t review PC games, here’s one just for Mythos. I love you.
Yahtzee made that joke already.
It was a boner joke. And a bad one. Poor angloaustralian bastard.
Where was I? Oh, yes. New game. Good game? We’ll see. Read more
My Boring Reviews
A thing I do is writing reviews. Never had a real reason to do it, I just did. Occasionally wrote one whenever I felt like it, but when I got here, to EFM, I took the time to write short reviews on each and every Xbox game I got. Started with a very long post and a lot of short reviews in that one long post. Anyhow, I found these short reviews to have little content, they don’t address many aspects and for someone who considers purchasing a game, such a micro-review is practically useless. So I went ahead and made up a rating system that consists of more than two different ratings: A regular five star system where each of the major aspects is of equal value.
Another Blue Ribbon?
Then I made a new WordPress blog, because installing and setting up a full-on CMS is a lot of effort. Heck, I even chose a theme from the first page. The star image is however custom made. In Blender. I’m such a 3D guy. After a few setbacks when trying to figure out a couple of things, it’s finally going relatively well. I recently figured out how to force a line break, something not even Google could answer conclusively. Not important for posts, but for the category pages.
Speaking of categories, there’s distinct pages listing reviewed Xbox 360/Xbox LIVE Arcade/Indie/Xbox games as well as DLC. Now, aside from the 360 and XBLA section there’s only one entry for each category, but that’ll be fixed soon, since at the moment I’m aiming for a pace of one review per day – until I’m out of games, that is.
The blog, aptly named Althir’s Boring Reviews (In memory of my old blog, Althir’s Boring Blog) can be found here:
Erm, click me. If you want.
This does however not mean I’m leaving EFM – I don’t even intend to stop the short reviews. But I’ll probably post links to the full reviews along with them from now on. Anyway, ABR is pretty much just for Xbox related stuff, so anything that is not Xbox, such as the eventual third issue of PSD, will still come here. I’m mainly putting these somewhere else because I want them to be sorted properly, alphabetical and by platform, and Mythos denied me a “Reviews” section altogether a while ago. With a good reason though, so no hard feelings.
A test run
You may have noticed that my Xbox 360 – Reviews do not always contain… valuable information for those who ponder getting the game. Thus I created a separate blog, which as of this moment is not open to the public, where I’ll properly review games. Made up a rating system and everything. So, to test how well I do reviewing, here’s my first one, so I’d like some feedback on where I failed and how I can improve:
I’m probably the last person on the planet to do this
And I won’t even write a proper introduction. This post is going to be long enough without one. In short, got a new game. Here’s your review.
A Gift
XQXM9-XCT2R-2TDGC-7TH7K-8MWP6
Here, you’re welcome.
What is this? Well, the first one to enter this code at xbox.com will be blessed with a Gears of War 2 map pack – the Flashback Pack – which I can’t use because the code is invalid in Germany. I tried everything in my power, including accessing the website from an actual British computer in England, the code won’t work. Yes, I bought Gears 2 used. But the code was on a card with the silvery crap still covering the code so I am absolutely certain it’s not been used yet. I do not know if it will work for anyone who is not in the UK, but it won’t work from Germany so don’t bother wenn du das hier verstehst.
Again, go to Xbox.com, sign into your profile, select “Redeem Code” and enter it. Alternately, you can do this from the Xbox dashboard.
Update: The code was used. And he who did it was kind enough to thank me. Amazing.
The Chain Saw is back… with a vengeance!
Or something like that. Erp. Recently I received a parcel from Britain. Inside were two chocolate bars of a brand unavailable in Germany and, more importantly (and also unavailable in Germany), Gears of War 2.
The good: Chain saw gun. Chain saw duels. One boss can only be defeated with chain saw duels!
The odd: Dom has a wife. And she is lost. So he misses her. For literally half the game he whines about nothing else. Sounds like an attempt to humanize the character. And in the end, it works.
The bad: Every. Single. Time. You start the game, you have to wait for a while which feels like an eternity while it claims to update the network settings. Which have not changed in the least since the last thirty times it updated them. Arghl.
Also, which is a major pissoffness on my part, the game shipped with a DLC code for a mappack. Which is invalid in Germany because the game is banned here.
I also noticed a trend: Gears had A. Carmine. He was a fellow Gear and the only one who wore a helmet. He also didn’t last long, was sacked in the first act. Gears 2 has his (younger?) brother B. Carmine. Who also wears a helmet. And, surprise, he’s also sacked, albeit later on. Don’t get too attached to the Rook, mate. As I was told, Gears 3 has C. Carmine, who also wears a helmet. I don’t know how his story ends, but if history is any indication…
Also, Horde mode. Fuck yes. It’s you and your teammates against neverending waves of enemies. I approve.
Rating: Recommended!
I mean, holy crapness.
And I also made a couple of purchases on XBLA. Namedly, two games. Here we go. Read more
Sadly, every single title I could think of would be seen as a quote from Top Gun.
I haven’t even seen Top Gun. Nor do I want to. But they put this one line in the ads every time when the film is on TV.
After the disaster that was Dead Space in German (I elaborated back in that review so I won’t rattle it down again), I swore to never ever ever buy anything per Games on Demand ever again. As you can probably tell simply by me explicitly pointing this out, I did it anyway. This time it was Need for Speed: Most Wanted, which would be my oldest Xbox 360 – game now were there not also Monkey Island 2, which probably even predates quite a few of those who read this text. Just like DS, Most Wanted only came in German – which I loathe – and French – which I do not speak. But fortunately it automatically selects German for me rather than displaying a menu with French pre-selected, that can only be influenced by the D-Pad and defaults to French after just a few seconds. Damn you, Visceral! Where was I? Oh, yeah. Read more
About EFM
EFM is a blog dedicated to multimedia entertainment. We provide news and opinions on movies, books, video games, and other forms of entertainment, and share our own creations for your viewing pleasure.
