Sunday 27 February 2011

Customer Quotes

"That Justin Bieber 3D movie, is it in 3D?"
..yes

"Are you open?"
.. No we just like standing around in work clothes

"What films are you playing?"
After walking past all the posters, a timetable and a leaflet stand with what's playing

"Is *insert action packed 12a rated movie* suitable for a 4 year old?"
... If you think they are ok with it
*after film has finished*
"that movie scared my child!!"
It was your choice to take them in

Handheld Gaming & Me

With the Nintendo 3DS being released March 25th, and Sony's NGP (just call it psp2, everyone else will) recently announced, I started thinking about handheld gaming.

Currently the only portable gaming devices I own are my iPhone 3GS, and an original Gameboy Advance.

My iPhone is always on me, and the nature of my job means I may have 5-10 mins to wait before a film goes in, or comes out, so a quick game of Angry Birds is an acceptable way to pass the time.

My Gameboy Advance has been laying in a chest for the last 4-5 years, and may come out occasionally for nostalgia reasons, I still own original Gameboy version's of Tetris, Pokemon Red + Blue, and Super Mario Land plus a selection of knock off "nintondo" games i bought from eBay.

Saturday 26 February 2011

Half Term Hell Nearly Over

There are roughly two days before the kids go back to school, depending on where you live.

For me that means no more early starts, other than weekends. Which in turn means more free time to actually get through some of the games and blu-rays I've got piling up, I desperately want to put some time into a major Bulletstorm and DC Universe Online session or two.

People say I must have the most stress free job in the world, or the easiest.
Being a projectionist is a fun job but it will destroy film watching in your spare time. If you want to really watch a film on day of release you had better hope your not working.. Because after that first show of the run starts, you will learn the start of the films story (checking focus) and you will learn the end of the story (making sure your in to get lights on and projector stopped).

Admittedly the job is fun. Until something goes wrong, at which point it turns into a frantic race to fix whatever (film break, sound problem, light fitting falling out of the ceiling..) before anybody notices, or get it fixed as quickly as possible to minimise complaints.

Most of the time you will find me either in the back of the screens or out front being social, I don't believe in hiding away all day. And if I hid away I would miss some classic customer moments.

By law in the UK when you hit 15 years old you pay adult prices on cinema tickets.
Last week we had Darren Aronofsky's "Black Swan", a drama about a ballet dancer and her struggle to mentally prepare for a very demanding role, starring Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis. Personally I thought this film was awful, but it was quite popular none the less, It was also rated 15.
For one show a large group of friends came in and bought tickets, one girl arrived after everyone had bought tickets and tried buying a childs ticket for the performance, the look on her face as she was told it wasn't for children and as she had asked for a childs ticket we could not sell her an adult ticket was priceless. While her friends watched the film she stood in the bus shelter outside for two hours waiting for them.. Personally I think she had the better time.

Bulletstorm in progress

Bulletstorm has been released today, after a bit of skilful trading in on a few items at GAME my "EPIC Edition" for the xbox 360 only cost 49p.. Bargain.

I figured instead of playing the game through to completion I would give my thoughts and views as I go.

So far this is the most fun shooter I've played in a while.
Don't get me wrong I love playing Call of Duty: Black Ops, and Modern Warfare 2, but I class them as serious games with serious stories.

I have played up to act 2 so far and have had a big stupid grin plastered across my face for the entire time. At the start of Bulletstorm's prologue sequence/tutorial I had come to the conclusion that Grayson Hunt was an asshole. A drunken asshole with no chance of making anyone feel sorry for him. By the start of Act 2, after the introduction of your former commander and a little backstory, I did actually start to feel remorse for how his squad was betrayed.

The game itself looks stunning, and is probably one of the best looking I've played, the sequence involving you and your teammate Ichi on a cargo train being chased by dune buggies, another train and a giant rock grinder that looms over you is one of the stand out moments for me so far.

To be continued..


Friday 25 February 2011

Dragon Age 2 Demo.. 2nd attempt

Little update.

Yep, Still don't like it..
It just feels too... arcadey for me, too much like its attempting to go for a wider audience than the first Dragon Age, I don't have a problem with that in theory but if it starts to alienate players who loved the first game in a series then there's a problem.

(random picture grabbed from the internet... but it serves a purpose)

Also, why the hell does your character look drunk??

Thursday 24 February 2011

MMORPG's and Me

Me and MMO games have a strange relationship,

Asheron's Call (back in 1999) was the first online rpg I played, For the time it was stunning, lovely landscapes interesting little monsters running around, my first encounter with a Drudge, weird giant bush baby type creature, was a comical experience. I spent 5 minutes trying to talk to him thinking he was another player, not noticing my health decreasing until I finally dropped dead.

Lessons were learned, and I played on. Looking back this was the longest time I have actually spent playing an online role play game, consecutively , everyday for about 2 years I was logged in. And then something made me lose interest in it.

Dragon Age 2 Demo

I loved Dragon Age: Origins from Bioware, I'll admit I never finished it though, i kept restarting the game to try out different characters. so I really excited when I heard that the demo for Dragon Age 2 was was released onto the Xbox live marketplace.

as soon as I got in from work i started to download it, patiently I waited for the download to finish, had a cup of coffee, a bacon sandwich and watched the download bar creep towards 100%.

Success... it finished, I fired it up, Eager to see how this new story will start, and roughly 20 minutes later I was left with a feeling of "hmm". I was very disappointed. Something just hasn't grabbed me. maybe I'm a little tired.. maybe I've over hyped it in my mind. I realise a demo may be slightly different to the finished product. But to me it should attempt to grab the player, maybe I'm in the minority over this.. but if the finished game is anything like the demo I wont be rushing out to get it.

And if that's the case I'll end up framing the dead space 2 armour code voucher I have, as a reminder of what could have been

Wednesday 23 February 2011

Half Term Hell

As we are currently in the middle of schools half term week we have alot of parents/grandparents bringing their kids/grandkids in to watch one of the kids movies we are playing this week. That is fine, no problem with that..

But if your child/grandchild is over 5ft tall they do NOT need a booster seat!.

Congratulations your child now appears to be a giant, and the next group of small children that come in and do need one, get to stare at the back of your heads!

Not long and they all go back to school..


Waiting for Bulletstorm

There's only 2 days left until Bulletstorms release here in the UK, If I thought about it i could of ordered it online and had a chance of receiving it tomorrow, but I don't see the point in that.

I'm at work all day and the thought of having a new game sat on my desk waiting to be played would completely do my head in. It would be sat on the side, in it's shiny sealed case tempting me to open it, and if I did then what? I would look at the disc for abit, thumb through the manual and realise I still had 10 hours to go before I could even get home to play it

So I'll wait for Friday morning, stroll down to GAME, pay my money (may go for the Epic edition, free Gears of War 3 beta access ;)) and rush home to play.

Can't think of a better way to spend a day off work

Just testing..

Nothing interesting to say ATM, just testing out a blogging app,

And trying to figure out why Justin Bieber: Never Say Never is actually playing in 3D... As far as I can see it's abit of a gig, and lots of interviews...

also..

Considering what i named this, i suppose i should actually do something game related..

Really looking forward to this, Bulletstorm out in the UK this Friday (25th February), on the PC, Xbox 360, and PS3
(360 version for me)

First Post.... Hmm

I work in a cinema, and i play games. That sums me up completely

I spend my working days behind the scenes in the local cinema, I'm a technician or what's commonly referred to as a projectionist.
Ever sat down in a cinema and looked up at the little window from where the film is being projected through and saw someone's head staring back, that is me.
Most people think a job in projection is easy, just sit out back and press a play button.. That's true on the newer digital projectors, but on the older 35mm film projectors its a little more complicated, ever been sat watching a film and suddenly the screen has gone white? you can guarantee that back in that little room there is me, or someone like me frantically trying to salvage the movie.
Its down to me to make sure that the film your watching is as perfect as possible, making sure the focus is spot on, making sure if anything does go wrong you are none the wiser about it.

But in my free time I'm a gamer, i don't like the term "hardcore" gamer, as to me it implies spending every waking second I'm not working, playing games.

What do I want to achieve out of this blog? I'm not sure yet myself... when I figure it out ill let you know.
(Hell I'm not sure anyone will ever read this)