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Joel

Brisbane, Queensland, AUSTRALIA


Joined October 30th 2006

Number of Posts:
14

Number of Comments:
6

Karma:
2



Explosions make anything cool...

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Recent Posts

New Reviews Coming Up

December 12th 2006 10:40
Hello fellow readers, from now on every two weeks I'm going to do up a post to give a rough Idea of what I'm going to be doing on giventogaming over the 14 days. I'm going to have several new reviews for some new PC games, new Xbox 360 games as well as reviews of some independent games competing for the Independent Games Festival 2007 prizes (www.igf.com).

That's right I'm going to focus over the coming months of reviewing the best and the worst of the independent gaming world. From what I've tested theres some real gems as well as some complete utter pieces of shite, so it should be interesting.

Some of the upcoming PC and Xbox 360 games to be reviewed coming up are:

Battle for Middle-Earth 2: Rise of the Witch King
Perfect Dark Zero (PC)
Rainbow Six Vegas (X360)
Call of Duty 3 (X360)
My Gears of War Experiences
Battlefield 2142 check up after several patches (will I still be pissed at EA?)
Hopefully a Supreme Commander Beta checkup (fingers crossed)

and whatever else I feel like playing.

Stay Tuned, Battle for Middle-Earth 2: Rise of the Witch King review to come Wednesday.
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Halo 3 Trailers

December 10th 2006 14:01
Well its been out for a few days now, but since it is such an anticipated game and it is such a awesome clip I thought I'd show it off here. Apparently it has been getting a lot of air time on TV over in the states but the only game ad I've seen lately was Call of Duty 3. Anyway I've included the first teaser trailer for Halo 3 and the newest one (top one is the newest). The older trailer was made by the actual game engine (which means it's gonna be one damn good looking game) whereas the newest one is pre-rendered.





And just to keep going with the Halo theme here's the trailer for Halo Wars. It's a real time strategy game for the Xbox 360 set in the Halo Universe, and set before Halo 1 (so its a sort of prequel).

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Gears of War Review

November 28th 2006 03:14
Gears of War XBOX 360 Review

Developer: Epic Games
Publisher: Microsoft
Price: $79 - $100
Website: www.gearsofwar.com



Gears of War may quite possibly be the best console game of the year, and if it was released on the PC probably the best PC game of the year as well. Well maybe if Oblivion didn't exist. What isn't undisputed is that this is the best game on the Xbox 360 out yet. Full Stop.

Gears of War is different because it doesn't use a first person perspective like you would have thought, instead it uses third person which is just as good in my opinion. Using third person makes the game much more tactical than your average Quake 4 which relies simply on brute force (you can only carry four weapons as well, instead of the usual 20). Cover is essential in this game, I don't know how many times I died because I just went in guns a blazing only to be shot to pieces in seconds (or ripped apart by feral monsters). When you tap the A button near some type of cover (burnt out car, wall, sandbags etc) you are protected from most attacks, while using your aim to peak out and take pot shots at the enemy. To move out of cover you can either tap the A button to jump over it, or do a action hero dive, or even a SWAT turn (a spin move from one wall to another). When done right after a bit of practice this looks very cool, especially with the awesome particle effects created from grenades and bullets whizzing past.

The Locust a.k.a The bad guys


Graphically Gears of War is superb, I simply can't find any way to fault it, the landscape and battlefields are to put it bluntly: beautiful. What else is beautiful is the effects, such as the awesome 'Hammer of Dawn' weapon that fires a laser from an orbiting satellite down on the battlefield. The way blood spurts onto the screen (as though a camera was following your player) is hell cool, cooler still is how it gets there, a chainsaw on your gun. Yes there is a chainsaw on one your weapons called a Lancer, and by pressing B while charging into an enemy you get a very cool death scene whereby your player cuts the monsters in half. The aforementioned blood covering half your television screen. Move over GTA this is how you do video game violence. I've included a video off of youtube.com to give you an idea, oh yeah and the video contains graphic video game violence for those who are a bit squeamish.



I haven't finished the entire game, so when I do I'll do another update with a sort of walkthrough of the story, consider this review to be the first part of several Gears of War posts, I like this game that much. Stay tuned later on in the week for more gears of war updates.

Oh I almost forgot, this game gets:

9.5/10

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Worst Computer Disaster

November 21st 2006 23:47
I was going to post another review yesterday but I had a little technical error with my laptop, involving a glass of water and the said glass of water spilling on my laptop. I promptly turned off my computer only to find after draining and drying it that my entire hard drive partition was now corrupted (which isn't that bad considering I poured a whole glass of water into my computer). I've had to reformat and reinstall everything which is taking me forever.

Damn you water! Damn you to hell!

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Dark Crusade Review

November 19th 2006 01:30
Warhammer 40,000 Dawn of War: Dark Crusade Review

Developer: Relic


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Crazy Swedish Gamers Music Clip

November 16th 2006 07:12
Exams are finally over hell yeh! Which means more time sitting around playing games which means more posts yeh! The Beta Commander beta is still up I'm on the closed beta but due to Computer problems it doesn't work (will be doing a windows reinstall to get it going soonish). I shall also have a Dawn of War: Dark Crusade up soon as well as Hitman: Bloodmoney and Neverwinter Nights 2 reviews. But to celebrate my finishing study for another year here's a light hearted song based on a very popular Warcraft 3 mod called DOTA. Apparently if you live in Scandinavia and play online for most of your free time you pick up hot blonde chicks really easily, and here I am with my wit and charm...

All I have to say is 'Only in Sweden...' you have been warned


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Grand Theft Mario

November 9th 2006 07:11
From RobotChicken comes this hilarous adaption of two of the greatest video games of all time (oh and watch till the end for another game cameo)...now if only Nintendo had thought of this...


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Away for a week

November 6th 2006 12:35
Hey there orble readers, due to my extremely busy schedule as of late with exams and all I might not be able to post as often as I would like. This is just to let you all know that giventogaming.com is *not* dead and that I shall be posting a complete report of my closed Beta Test of the simply jaw dropping Supreme Commander very, very soon.

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Australian Wii Price List

November 3rd 2006 08:12
Nintendo has just confirmed the Australian price guide for the Wii and accessories.


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Defcon Review

November 2nd 2006 04:38
8/10

Developer: Introversion


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Recent Comments

Comment by Joel
on Supreme Commander Beta Test

December 3rd 2006 13:18
I've started it but as I've been having computer problem after problem it hasn't gone too well, and I haven't had a chance to do a complete run through of the entire game. I hope too very soon, fingers crossed.

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Comment by Joel
on Chrono Trigger (Review)

December 2nd 2006 02:57
Chrono Trigger is one of my favourite SNES games, besides Breath of Fire 2.

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Comment by Joel
on TV Characters You Identify With

November 16th 2006 07:53
Anti-hero's definitely, though I definitely like the Doctor how one minute he can be cracking a joke and the next he is hell serious. Maybe Wolverine from the old X-Men cartoon series, or Clark from Smallville (not because I secretly have super powers).

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Comment by Joel
on Have you ever left the cinema halfway through a film? If you have, why?

November 9th 2006 08:39
I only really watch films that I know I will like, but recently watching Ultraviolet with Mila Jovovich I had to force myself to keep watching as I didn't want the money I paid to be a waste.

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Comment by Joel
on drugs are bad but beer is good...right??

November 3rd 2006 03:35
Are you saying that beer is just as dangerous as drugs?

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Comment by Joel
on Top 10 Scariest Videogames

November 1st 2006 22:27
FEAR should've been in there, I never played it at night cos of that damn little girl

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