Following tradition, November has heralded the start of the gaming season. This week i've picked up two games: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (MW2), and New Super Mario Bros Wii (NSMBW - hmmm, maybe I won't use that acronym :S).

Anywho, MW2 is this year's massive release. Like most people, I was absolutely awed by the story and execution of MW1 two years ago, so this sequel was always going to have some big shoes to fill.

Ignoring the PC multiplayer debacle mentioned previously and concentrating solely on the single-player experience, I somewhat disagree with the mostly universal-acclaim this … Read more →

Released this coming week, it's no secret that the biggest game of this year was always going to be Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Most other publishers have pushed back their big titles to next year partly to give this game room away from theirs.

So there was always going to be high expectations for this game. However what has transpired in the past few weeks has not just disappointed, but horrified hardcore PC gamers.

It has been revealed in recent weeks that many of what most would regard as 'standard' features of PC multiplayer FPS gaming has … Read more →

Well I'm finally typing this blog entry out over a brand spanking new Naked ADSL2+ connection. To fill in since the last entry, the second tech (an Optus contracted one) came out on Thursday and signed off on the Telstra tech's connection. However, I still didn't have a connection: the signal to noise ratio was ridiculously low (higher is better), and the attenuation on the line was far too high for my distance from the exchange (lower is better there).

After ringing up my new ADSL ISP, Netspace, they did some open and closed line tests and got some pretty … Read more →

The big geek news of the past week was the general retail release of Windows 7. I haven't had too much more of a play with it since I used the Release Candidate back in May, but I hope to have a bit more in-depth look at it soon.

That said, i'm not planning on upgrading my current computer to the new operating system. I plan on building Trogdor's successor in February near my birthday, and i'll definitely be getting 7 on that. It's going to be hard resisting doing it sooner, new toys are always fun...

Moving … Read more →

Another game that I've gotten addicted to recently is World of Goo, which is an award-winning puzzle game from last year. Last year I really liked the demo of the game, but just couldn't justify paying the USD$20 they were wanting for it.

Well right now they're celebrating the first birthday of the game, and the awesome independent developers (2D-Boy) are running a special this week in which you can pay whatever you feel like and get the game. Yep, pay anything you like for it; from a single US cent to whatever. Big props to 2D-Boy for this, … Read more →

There's been quite a bit keeping me occupied recently.

Last week I ended up getting the Logitech G330 gaming headset in order to properly play co-op with Left 4 Dead. it's a bit of a strange experience: i've never played online much with earphones, let alone using a microphone to communicate and strategise in-game.

Over the better part of a week, i played through all of the 'campaign' of L4D with Michael, and various other stragglers who wanted to play at the time. It was a quite enjoyable game, if not a little on the short side. The 'versus' … Read more →

So far this year has been a very disappointing one gaming-wise, especially on the PC. In looking over my blogs I can't think of a single noteworthy PC gaming title throughout the whole year, and on the consoles there hasn't been much to talk about either.

In order to reverse the trend and get some good gaming under my belt before the end of the year and COD:MW2, i'm getting a few older titles to fill the gap. First up, Michael eventually convinced me to buy Left 4 Dead for a half-price weekend on Steam. I haven't played it previously … Read more →

The big news of the past week is the arrival of my brother's baby daughter. It's the first child from my side of the family (despite Despina having three nephews on her side), so that means my parents are now grandparents! A big public congrats to my brother and his wife.

There was no Futsal on Friday night, so we went and saw the baby at the hospital. Saturday I wasn't feeling fantastic and spent most of the day lazing around trying to rest. Felt a bit better on Sunday to go and play our indoor game, which was probably … Read more →

We won our mixed futsal game last night, and a few of us on our team have at least a few bruises to show for it. The other team was very rough, and it's doubly frustrating in that the one of the referees there doesn't seem to be consistently applying the rules. Anyway, we won the game comfortably 7-1, and could have scored a lot more. Des, who was the only girl playing on our team (and thus had to play the entire game), played awesomely.

As we played in the early game that night, afterward we went to the … Read more →

The big news of today was the government announcing it's intention to split up Telstra into retail and wholesale companies, basically whether Telstra likes it or not.

Although i've been fiercely critical of this government in terms of IT, mainly in relation to their planned idiotic internet-filtering policy, i've got to say that it's a welcome refreshment to see them show some cahunas and do something positively right, and i've got no problem in showing it.

Splitting Telstra up is something that should have been done more than a decade ago before they starting privatising it, and a result … Read more →