The return of Halo 3

Its been a while since I posted about Halo 3. The primary reason for this is that I have been spending an inordinate amount of time playing Mass Effect (awesome game!). However, I recently started playing Halo 3 again and made a startling discovery. There is now a website online (geevee) that will convert Halo 3 video clips into normal video clips!

And thus begins an all new era of boredom on my gaming blog as I share video clips of my Halo 3 games!
:p

Anyway, to kick start things, I will go back in history and give you a video of my first ever kill in Halo 3. Actually, as I mentioned before, the guy actually killed himself using his own grenade. Still, the game registered it as my kill. :)

And here is another video of my first kill - this time taken from a different angle. In this video, you can see more clearly the grenade suicide by my opponent.

Psychonauts

I'm still in the middle of playing Psychonauts and I have to admit that I'm having a mixed experience.

The story and graphics in this game are pretty good. Its a very distinctive graphical style, almost comic like in nature. However, what really sets this game apart is the zany humour. The game is highly original.

Just in case you don't know anything about it, here is a brief synopsis. You play the role of a kid who runs away from his home in the circus so that he can attend summer camp. The reason is that this kid has psychic abilities and the summer camp is no ordinary summer camp. Rather, it is a secret government training facility where future psychic warriors (aka pschonauts) are trained. The gameplay is in the form of a 3d platformer which primarily takes place within the minds of various different people.

As you can see from the synopsis, this game is bristling with originality. And there are lots of nice touches which you see throughout the game. The designer (I believe it was Tim Schafer) has really put a lot of love into designing this game and it really shows.

The only problem is the control scheme. Because I don't have a gamepad for my PC, I'm playing this game while hunched over the keyboard and staring at my 15" monitor. After having gotten used to playing action games with a gamepad and 42" plasma tv, its hard to make that adjustment back.

While I should be having a great time playing an original game, I just can't help noticing the shortcomings of the keyboard control scheme.

GameTap

GameTap is an interesting concept.

Online retail in the video game market is nothing new. Many brick and mortar stores also allow you to buy video games online where after payment, they would send the game to you. Broadband allowed people to take this to the next logical step - being digital delivery (eg Steam and the website Direct 2 Drive) where you could download the game and play without the need for a physical disk.

GameTap seems to be the next logical step after that. Basically, GameTap is digital delivery of rented games. You can pay a monthly (or annual) fee and get access to over 900 games. Admittedly, some of them pretty shitty but included in there are some pretty good games. The only problem is that GameTap is not currently available internationally (although the website says this will be avialable soon).

What is most awesome about GameTap is that you can also get free access to several games. Currently, they have Psychonauts available for free until 31 December. I've played a couple of hours so far so keep an eye out for impressions soon.