Steam sales!

Man, I love the sales that Steam has on.

The one currently is the "Summer Camp Sale" it's final day is Sunday (10th July).
So far I've been quite tame, I've only bought a few games, the latest one being Amnesia. Great game, the atmosphere and suspense is amazing. I was genuinely scared while playing it. Which is quite rare for games these days.

Also in the sale there is a thing where certain achievements you earn each day give you tickets in the Steam store, kind of like a carnival. You can spend the tickets on items such as DLC, exclusive offers on games etc (Each items costs 3 tickets). It's really quite good and gives something back for playing titles and also acts as an incentive to play new ones.

In other news and slightly off topic, I'm really hyped for Battlefield 3!

Now we are the world and we are the people. We are the world and we are the people and we will be heard.

Each nation used to provide its country with security
With factories providing arms for their country
Now multinational companies compete in the arms trade
to serve any customer, maximising the money to be made

So just as farms compete to provide fruit for other countries
So people can live to enjoy the taste of nature
National warehouses compete to provide arms around the world
To aid death
And all hell unfolds.

Our gracious queen
Should grasp her crown
And take a good fucking swing at Blair and Brown
For leading her countries to illegal warfare
And trying to pass it off that we're doing 'cause we care.

Now prudence of wars are a redemptive cause
I've never heard such nonsense under international laws
We think we have the right to enforce democracy
When we're weakening ours everyday
What hypocrisy.

FML! 1080

http://www.livestream.com/1080t/video?clipId=pla_5b47663d-5c58-4829-8052-95b1f41102d1


Watch this, hear me rage. etc.

Take care.

Last weekend!

First of all, sorry for lack of blogging. I've been pretty busy the past few days but I'm off today and tomorrow so I'll take the time to blog.

Saturday!
Everybody loves weekends, right? Well last Saturday I had a feeling of "dislike" (I'm always told hate is a strong word). This is because I was doing my usual shift at the pub and it was busy...

By busy I mean it was packed. Good from a point  of view that my mates pub is taking a fair bit of money but bad when there's only 4 of us behind the bar and one of them is in and out of the kitchen cooking. We had a private function in the lounge, a birthday party. We had roughly 80 guests. Upstairs we had another party and we also had ladies in for a hen night, as well as the bar and its regulars. Add all that up and it equals chaos.

Myself, Chris, Zoe and Jess ran our socks off all night. Serving drinks, cleaning up and at one point we ran out of glasses! They weren't coming back so we had to get as many in as we could while the bars were "quiet".

It was quite stressful for us all and we called last orders earlier than normal, served everyone then closed the bars and had a break. During my break I went outside for a smoke then came in and sat down with a pint with the regulars and chatted with them until we had all chilled out and then began to start the clean down. 

I was working until 1:30 easy, it was madness.

Sunday!

Sunday I spent with my girlfriend Nic, we decided to meet up before I had work and go for a meal. We had our meal and a few drinks and then I decided that I was a bit too drunk to turn into work. 

You know the deal, one pint turns into two, and two turns into 3 and before you know it you're sitting in the sun drinking them like there's no tomorrow. Graham ended up covering my shift and since I wasn't working I called Ash and James and got them down. We had a good day just chilling and then we all went back to mine and watched the new episode of Top Gear.

All in all it was a busy week and an even busier weekend! It was fun though. I'm next in work on Thursday night so I'm just going to enjoy my days off and also try and get some blogging done.

Until then! Take care.

DLC

I'm sick of games over using DLC (Downloadable Content). When DLC first started out it was an occasional feature which offered extra levels, missions etc a few months after the release of the game. Adding extra lifetime to a game which is say a year old. I mean who doesn't want extra stuff in your favourite game, right?

The problem is now that games are coming out half finished or with content missing and then a week after the game's release there's DLC released at extortionate prices. Downloadable content seems to be the latest "cash in" thing with the industry. More and more broken games are released with every month. Triple A titles full of bugs with content that was hyped up and promised when it was first shown is then added as DLC for an additional fee.

"Why make an update and add new areas and content to games for free? That's old school, an let's be honest 2 of these maps should have been shipped as part of the game an the other 2 are late because they're pretty average. You know what? Let's just go ahead an release them as a map pack and you know what else? While we're at it lets charge them £12 to play them. Oh and before I forget tell Tim to finish off the rest of these maps an we'll release a new pack every 2 months."

It's pretty crazy, coming from a PC gaming perspective, looking at the Black Ops Steam page. (Sure, Steam generally seems to be more expensive but that's to be expected with them being "Direct to drive" service and Valve's cut in the whole thing blah blah) but the game is down as £39.99 and then the "First Strike" and "Escalation" pack are both down as £11.49 each. If my math is correct that's £62.97 for an average title. Yeah the single player was good. Sure the multiplayer was fun for 10 minutes but is the game worth £62.97?

I feel for the Console gamers though, I moan about £62 for a game. At HMV they have Black Ops down as £42.99 for the Xbox 360 version. If the DLC is priced the same (as it should be) then that's £65.97! An extra £3? £3 FOR WHAT?!

Going back to my view...
£62.97 of my money? My hard earned money... No thanks, I'll pass on DLC until it provides something more than 4 maps. Until DLC means I benefit from purchasing it, not the guys down at the studio fancy a new Mercedes. 

Ask yourselves what you could do with £60. (or in some cases £65) then ask yourselves is the content worth it?

Dear Agony.

I will find the enemy within
'Cause I can feel it crawl beneath my skin
Dear agony, just let go of me
Suffer slowly, is this the way it's got to be, dear agony?
Suddenly the lights go out
Let forever drag me down
I will fight for one last breath
I will fight until the end.

My Dad

Me and my OLD man, have pretty much been to hell and back... all through me. Hes always been there and even though we clash sometimes we'll always move on and I'll always be his son and he'll always be my dad.

I'm so much like him its unreal. I honestly don't mind though because he's an awesome man.

I went downstairs to get food as I had oatcakes left (My tea from yesterday) so I opened the fridge an noticed where 3 of my oatcakes would have been there was an empty space. I ranted and raged at my mum who told me that my brother had ate them to which I replied "It's not good enough, they're mine, he ate his and mine. It's bullshit" or something along those lines. Then my dad said "Yeah like someone drank a bottle of my beer as well" which made me stop and think about what I'm doing.

My dad knew I'd done it same as I knew my brother had ate my food. We're exactly the same but he's a lot more wiser and because we're the same there are things which he does (probably on purpose like the beer thing) to make me realise what I'm doing and keep me in check.

Thanks Dad.