www.a51.org.uk

If you don’t already own the brief but excellent Portal, get over to http://store.steampowered.com/freeportal/ before May 24th and you can download it completely free.

As Valve have released a new version of the Steam client recently (which I think is a big improvement over the old one incidentally) the only catch is probably just to get more people using Steam.

This is well worth doing though! In fact, stop reading this and get over there and download it now.. Quick!

It’s just dawned on me that I’ve been doing this blog for about a year now. Where did that time go?

Well, a reasonable chunk of the last couple of months has been spent on Final Fantasy XIII. I’m slightly ashamed to admit I’ve clocked up over 60 hours on it now…. Although the first 30 hours of saves went down the drain with my broken PS3. It died just as I was about to get to Gran Pulse. Annoying eh!

I’ve also just started Dragon Age Origins as I was tempted by it’s current £15 price tag. Although I’ve been reading about the “freezing bugs” on the PS3 since the release of Firmware 3.30 so I’m trying to hold off playing this too much until they get a patch out, as the thought of restarting another RPG from the beginning again isn’t my idea of fun! (Saying that, I’ve only had a single freeze but I’m being very cautious.)

Not sure where I’m finding the time to play all these games. Although I don’t think I’m getting as many hours sleep as I should!

Just a very quick late night post to tell you that Steam has another sale on at http://store.steampowered.com

At the time of writing they are flogging Grand Theft Auto IV for only £4.99 which is a bit of a bargain if you have a PC that can handle it.

Keep that page bookmarked too as the offers are changing every day.

It’s not often that Microsoft gives you the opportunity to earn cold, hard gamerscore for nowt. But if you don’t mind installing the Games for Windows LIVE client from http://www.microsoft.com/games/en-us/live/Pages/livejoin.aspx you can also get Tinker for absolutely nothing which includes 200 points worth of achievements.

Tinker is an isometric 3D style puzzle game which you’ve probably seem a hundred clones of previously but it’s polished, good fun and worth a download.

By the way, the system requirements for Tinker imply that it needs a 3GHz processor and a Geforce 6600/ATI 1300 graphics card… My own system is substantially below that specification and it runs fine!

Because it certainly seems like it. For example:

• Steam are selling some really good games at stupidly low prices here: http://store.steampowered.com/early-holiday. The THQ complete pack for £26.49 is very tempting but I’d never get around to playing all the games.
• XBox Live is allowing Silver accounts to play online for free all weekend as part of Xtival at http://www.xbox.com/en-GB/xtival09winter/.
• Sony are giving us some free Uncharted 2 downloadable content as confirmed by C&VG
• To celebrate Killzone’s fifth birthday it’s a Double XP weekend for Killzone 2 on the PS3 and there is the possibility of some free DLC at killzone.com

Not bad eh!

Well, the Modern Warfare 2 release didn’t go too badly eh! Launch party in London’s Leicester Square and it sold 1.23 million copies on the first day in the UK alone (according to gamesindustry.biz).

I wasn’t planning on buying it but I couldn’t walk past it in Morrisons when it was priced at only £25.99. (So much for the £55 everyone was expecting to pay!)

Unfortunately I haven’t been able to get it online at all tonight. I’m hoping this is just a temporary glitch and Infinity Ward haven’t underestimated the amount of people trying to get online. (Surely they’d have to be completely stupid if that were the case though?)

More good news for those of us stuck in the UK and still gaming in a recession. The price of Crash Commando is being reduced for a couple of weeks on the Playstation Store.

I vaguely recall playing the demo when it was first released but it might be worth a second look now.

Here’s the official announcement from Sony:

From August 27, 2009 until September 10, 2009, Crash Commando will be reduced to half price, dropping from £7.99 to £3.99. If you’ve not grabbed the chance to blast your friends into oblivion, then there’s never been a better time to set your sights on the PSN game and arm yourself with its goodness.

Source: http://uk.playstation.com/games-media/news/articles/detail/item228090/Crash-Commandos-price-gets-shot-in-half/

It’s one of the most frustrating games I’ve played recently (admittedly I’m rubbish at it!) but if you own it and are up for more punishment, you’ll be pleased to hear that the Pure Time Trials downloadable content pack is now free for Mirror’s Edge on the Playstation 3.

It’s not advertised too well though so you’ll have to search through the Playstation Store for it.

(Unfortunately it still costs on XBox Live. Then again, XBox owners are probably used to paying through the nose for everything by now :p)

To celebrate its anniversary Super Stardust HD is on offer on the Playstation Store for £1.59 (1.99 euros). You shouldn’t need any convincing to snap it up at this price as it’s one of the best shooters on the Playstation 3. Be quick though, the deal ends soon!

In other news (always wanted to say that!), DICE and EA’s free online cartoon-style first person shooter – Battlefield Heroes, has finally come out of beta. I’ve had a quick blast on it and it’s well worth a download. You will need real money if you want to customise your character to any extent but, so far, it seems perfectly possible to play the game and not need to spend a penny.

Just get to http://www.battlefieldheroes.com/ and sign up.

A bit of advice: Make sure you register an account and log into your account BEFORE you click the “Play Now” button and launch the Battlefield Heroes updater. (Initially I didn’t log in and ended up getting annoying “Build not found” errors whenever I tried to play the game. Very frustrating for an hour or so until I googled the solution!)

Sony unexpectedly announced the availablity of Final Fantasy VII on the US Playstation Store during E3.

Then, like an internet “Mexican Wave”, European users started demanding it too… AND… We’ve got it just a day after the US release (today)!

No one will know if it was planned to come out in Europe in the same week or whether SCEE were listening and rushed to get it to us early. The Playstation Store update was about a couple of hours later than usual tonight so it’s a possibility.

You can download it from the PS Store for £7.99/9.99 euros (1.3GB download) which is very reasonable considering it’ll cost you much more than that to get hold of pre-owned FFVII discs from eBay.

Small request: Please consider giving Metal Gear Solid the same treatment and we’ll all be even happier!

UPDATE 05/06/2009: I must have read someone’s mind! Konami has JUST confirmed Metal Gear Solid is going to be released on the US Playstation Store on 18th June. Hopefully it will hit Europe at the same time.

When you’ve been a train man as long as I have, you see a lot of people meeting, parting, joy, sadness… After a while, it doesn’t even get to you anymore. I wonder how long it’s been… There’s an invisible rail between me and the passengers. I could never live their lives. I’m just a train man plain and simple. It’s easier that way. That’s not to say that the crossing gate of my heart doesn’t hurt now and again. Back during the war, I remember there was a lot of painful scenes then. But, that’s a story for another day.
Train man, Sector 7, Final Fantasy VII