Simple Gamer

Brazil vs Ghana 5th September 2011 Friendly Match

I went to view my very first live football match ever last Monday, a friendly match between Brazil vs Ghana at Fulham, Craven Cottage. It was an extremely enjoyable experience to me, especially seeing some great players such as Ronaldinho and Neymar in action! I managed to get some nice clips before and during the match too.

Brazil warming up:

Neymar shot, deflected for a corner:

Ronaldinho’s free kick, well saved:

Long time…

It’s been quite a while since I’ve updated the website, for a few reasons. First of all, after the RM Hackathon that I participated in, I went on holiday for a couple of weeks. Since returning from holiday, almost 4 weeks ago now, I’ve been pretty swamped with work as well as playing a few games here and there in the mean time. Of course, I’ve also been keeping an eye on the ongoing Steam sales!

I’ll write a bit more in-depth stuff soon, but I’ve picked up a fair few games recently on Steam: Mass Effect 1 & 2, Bioshock 1 & 2, Battlefield Bad Company 2: Vietnam and also Crysis 2 a while ago. I’ve played a bit of most of these games – I’ve previously completed Mass Effect 1 & 2 and Bioshock 1, but replays are always fun. Currently I’m replaying Mass Effect 1, started Bioshock 2 and always getting a bit of time for some online multiplayer in Bad Company 2. Plenty of gaming!

I’ll definitely update the blog more regularly now and with something more substantial, so please do check back. I’ve also reverted the theme to a previous one that I was using, and got the Google Reader news back for the latest news that I share via RSS. Do keep checking back!

Street Fighter IV for iPhone Impressions

I haven’t been playing many iPhone games recently, mainly because I haven’t had the time. These days, a lot of my free time ends up going to Battlefield: Bad Company 2 or other stuff. However, to entertain my train journeys, I’ve been playing a ton of Street Fighter IV – pretty much on a daily basis in fact!

Capcom had a sale on a range of their top iPhone games recently such as Resident Evil and Devil May Cry. I got SF4, and also Pheonix Wright, an awesome remake of a GBA game. Both were 59p each, so they were great deals!

At first, I was skeptical about how well a game like Street Fighter would play on the iPhone. Firstly, I wasn’t sure if the same feel of the game would be captured on the iPhone, and if it would play as smooth as console versions. Secondly, the controls are always suspect when using the touchscreen overlay. I’ve played games in the past that have used poor implementations of it and it really makes the game become a miserable experience. On a fighting game, controls are doubly important to pull off the right moves and combos.

I was pleasantly surprised to find SF4 plays extremely well. The gameplay and frame rates on my iPhone 3GS are really good, no slow downs at all. Plus, it genuinely feels like you’re playing Street Fighter. Certainly felt nostalgic for me! The controls works really well, I was worried that I’ll have a hard time pulling off certain moves with a touchscreen joystick, but it works well.

There are 13 characters to choose from, most of whom are classic Street Fighter characters. You can also unlock Dee Jay by beating the Tournament mode with each character or by winning a certain number of Versus matches. It’s a weird choice to have him as an unlockable character, but oh well. I was slightly disappointed at there just being 13 characters, since the full version on consoles has more than that including a few new characters.

The graphics look very good for an iPhone fighter. Sometimes character models do look a bit jagged, but that’s most likely a necessary sacrifice to make sure the frame rates are always high. I’ve never experienced the single player aspect of this slow down at all, however when playing a Versus match, it definitely runs at slower frame rates. This is most likely due to the game being played over a Bluetooth connection.

On the multiplayer side, it’s fairly easy to play a Versus match provided you know someone with the iPhone and you’re in close proximity to connect via Bluetooth. I was hoping it would have some online gameplay via Wifi, and allow you to play against random people. Unfortunately this isn’t the case however, and it’s a bit of a letdown since it can be hard to find people who have Street Fighter IV on their iPhones to play against.

On the whole, SF4 is an excellent iPhone game. It’s not a quick port, but feels made solely for the iPhone and optimised to run the best it can. Frame rates are smooth, except when playing a Versus match, and the controls work really well. Playing this game on something lower than an iPhone 3GS really isn’t advisable however, so be aware of what device you’re using and the processor speed.

Day 9/10: Steam Sale Final Day Disappointment

Final day of Steam sales today, until 6pm GMT tomorrow. It’s a pretty disappointing finish, as expected however. Steam time and again always make their last day of sales be a “best of” sales from the previous days, so for those who missed out on certain offers, this is your chance to pick up some titles. They include:

• Neverwinter Nights 2
• Stalker Bundle
• Hitman Collection
• Empire & Napoleon Total War
• Left 4 Dead 2
• Plants vs Zombies
• Killing Floor
• Amnesia
• Grand Theft Auto 4 & Episodes
• Need for Speed: Hot Persuit
• Dead Space
• Mafia 2

There are also a bunch of other ongoing sales, such as indie games and sales on games from certain publishers, so be sure to check it out as this will be the final batch of sales for a while. I’ve picked up the following games from this set of sales:

• GTA IV Complete Collection
• Plants vs Zombies
• Batman: Arkham Asylum
• Defense Grid: The Awakening
• Burnout Paradise: The Ultimate Box
• The Witcher: Enhanced Edition
• Flight Control HD

That leaves me a ton of games to get around to playing… eventually. Right now I’ve been playing Team Fortress 2 the most, and still need to get around to finishing Metro 2033. This will probably be the last update for the holiday season, as I’ll be back to work on Tuesday, however I’ll keep the website updated.

Day 9: Happy New Year! TF2 Mario Kart Map

A bit late, I know, but I was extremely ill yesterday and wasn’t able to update the website. As I said before, I did want to talk more about the Team Fortress 2 Mario Kart themed map, and found a good YouTube video of it, so thought I’d share it:

Day 7: Last Post of 2010

So it’s the last post of the year, and today has been a pretty relaxing day. I didn’t actually do any intensive gaming, but spread my time between a variety of things.

One noteworthy thing however is Team Fortress 2, specifically a Mario Kart themed map which is great fun to play in. I’m going to have to take some screenshots of it, but it really was awesome and well crafted, and even had the right music to it!

After enjoying Burnout so much, I purchased Burnout Dominator on the PSP. It’s decent but I don’t think it’s better than Burnout Legends from what I remember. The graphics don’t seem as polished either, which was a bit of a let down. Still, who can take away from taking down your opponents by crashing into them!

I’m going to keep today’s post short, since it’ll be the new year soon and everyone I’m sure will be busy celebrating.