Swollen Pickles

For those of us unable to make it to Germany for Oktoberfest I may have stumbled across the next best thing... Brewfest. One minor problem though, it's in Azeroth, so you're going to need a World of Warcraft account.

Once you've got that sorted, head to the beer garden outside the dwarven capital city Iron Forge. Then, drink up until your computer generated you cant walk straight anymore. Brewfest began on the 20th of September and will finish up on the 4th of October.

Besides the opportunity to get your geek drink on, Brewfest also opens up a heap of Brewfest related quests that will see you drawing your sword against the nefarious Coren Direbrew, leader of the Dark Iron dwarves. Defeat Direbrew and he drops a heaps of cool stuff at random, including some weapons and trinkets, as well as a couple of Brewfest mounts, the Great Brewfest Kodo or the Swift Brewfest Ram. Personally I'm after the Kodo, cause it looks cooler, but as of writing this, I've paid Direbrew five visits, for a total of 25 drops, and neither the Kodo or Ram have dropped once. With a couple of days left my luck might change.

I've also got four days left to complete two of the final achievements in order to take the title of Brewmaster. I have Drunken Stupor (basically getting sh!t faced and surviving a 65 yard fall) and Disturbing the Peace (While wearing 3 pieces of Brewfest clothing, get completely smashed and /dance in Dalaran) left to complete.

Not surprisingly the event has spawned a range of real world merchandise including the "Tankard O' Terror", that can hold close to 2 litres of your preferred beverage. Personally, I'm feeling more than a little include to pick up one of the groovy Brewfest t-shirts. I'm sure chicks dig dudes in World of Warcraft apparel.

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If you are in, or around, Melbourne this weekend you may want to head down to Federation Square for the global launch of the latest driving game for the iPhone. Unlike a lot of iPhone applications doing the rounds at the moment, the CityGT game is available for free.

In what is being billed as a world first, the creators are giving people the opportunity to play the game live on the big screen at Federation Square. Ever wondered what it's like to play a video game on a 40ft wide-screen? Here's your chance to find out.

It's not often you get something for nothing these days, so I'd suggest that you take full advantage!

Here are the details (from the press release) for those who may be interested in giving it a closer look

The game was created by Melbourne-based advertising agency, JWT, and offers the best driving graphics available on the Apple iPhone for free.

Join the driving fun at the global launch of CityGT at Melbourne’s Federation Square on September 6th between 11.00am-2.00pm. Have a go at CityGT on an iPhone and show off your driving prowess by playing on the big screen.

Go to the City GT website to find out more about the game before it goes live, and then go to www.apple.com/iphone/apps-for-iphone/ from the 6th September 2009 to download the CityGT game for free.

Edit: A video of the game testing at Fed Square is now on YouTube.

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The first Left 4 Dead first person shooter on the Xbox 360 was a cracker of a game. Stupid, mindless, fun. If the teaser trailer for Left 4 Dead 2 is anything to go by, it looks like its makers have upped the ante in terms of splatter and potential for gore. The apparent introduction of a chainsaw is a master stroke.

Check out the trailer below.

If you're into the zombie survival horror thing, check out The Walking Dead comic series. I've read the first eight trade paper backs (or 48 issues) and it's awesome.

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Here's an interesting little bit of information I stumbled across while randomly surfing through wikipedia this evening. It relates to World of Warcraft, so nerds can rejoice. For those unfamiliar with the game, your character can pick up diseases and/or curses when battling the enemy. Like in the real world, these things can be a real downer, causing you to perform at less than your best.

A year or two ago, Blizzard, the company behind World of Warcraft, opened the games first 20 player raid dungeon, call Zul'Gurub, as part of patch 1.7. Basically the dungeon saw players taking on tribes of troll who were under the control of the Blood God, Hakkar the Soulflayer. Upon battling Hakkar, the dude with the brutal death metal sounding name, players were tagged with a debuff called "Corrupted Blood", which was a disease that caused the player to have their life sapped over time. The disease could also be passed on to other players that were nearby the infected player. Blizzards intention was that the disease was to only affect players so long as they were inside the dungeon. Unfortunately there appeared to be a bug in the system that allowed the disease to be carried outside of the dungeon, by way of Hunter's pets and Warlock's minions. Before long, corpses littered the World of Warcraft... (more...)

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It's official. I'm a grade 'A' nerd. In some peoples eyes, I will have hit rock bottom. I have now played World of Warcraft. How'd this happen? Well, I've been curious for some time, so having a bit of spare time up my sleeve, I went and bought a copy from JB HiFi. In the week that I've had the game, I have to say that it's become a guilty pleasure. It's a simple game, but the key to it is that it's executed on such a grand scale, that it's hard not to become drawn into it.

After loading up the game, I had to register a World of Warcraft account, which was easy, and then created my character... Daken the Night Elf. I decided to create a Hunter, because they are good with a bow and arrow, and they can keep pets, once you reach a certain level. In a tribute to He-Man, I've named my pet tiger Battle-Cat.

If nothing else, my excursion into the World of Warcraft has reinforced to me that I shouldn't judge things before I've tried them. If you're into WoW feel free to stop by and say g'day to Daken, I'll be the guy shooting things with my bow and arrow, and building the Guild of the Swollen Pickle.

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I heard rumors that this game was on the drawing board but I had no idea that its development was so far down the track. I loved the first Marvel: Ultimate Alliance game, and if the sequel picks up where that one left off then it should be a cracker.

For comic geeks the first Marvel: Ultimate Alliance game it is a must, and is the only game I own both an Xbox and Xbox 360 version of. Word on the street is that Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2 will be out some time in the third quarter of 2008.

Nice... now I need a cold shower...

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Following my completion of Halo 3, I quickly popped the next game on my 'to do' list into the Xbox 360, Kane and Lynch: Dead Men. Kane and Lynch is an action/shooter style game borrowing some elements from the Hitman games as well as a hint of Gears of War (particularly the crouching behind cover feature).

I've seen it get mixed reviews, and to some extent I can understand why, but Kane and Lynch is not a bad game. No doubt it'll get some people off side thanks to it's liberal use of the "F" bomb, and even the occasional "C" grenade, as well as it's take no prisoners violence and story line, but then, those are probably the things I'd expect to find in a game focused on the exploits of two escaped death row convicts.

Throughout the main 'campaign' you play as Kane. Kane is "a flawed mercenary", on death row, for an unrevealed crime. Kane is busted out of prison by his former employers, a shadowy group called The7. These guys are obviously bad news, and from the beginning it seems Kane screwed them over on a job, leaving them to burn, and taking the loot for himself. He's given an ultimatum, retrieve the contents of a mysterious case, or his wife and daughter will be killed. The7 assign another death row inmate, Lynch, "a medicated psychpath", to monitor Kane in his progress, and help him where necessary. That signals the start of all the hijinks that span missions in the US, Japan and Havana.

Game play wise Kane and Lynch was simple and addictive. While you play as Kane, you are also able to issue orders to Lynch, and any other mercenaries that join you for certain missions. In many respects the game play could be compared to Hitman: Blood Money, if you replaced the 'stealth' aspects of Hitman with the run and gun aspects of Gears of War. If you are familiar with Hitman, this game will take you all of 2 seconds to become accustomed to.

You can't take to many hits before you hit the deck, however, so long as an ally is nearby, that can quickly administer 'first aid' in the form of adrenalin shots. Also, as you take more damage, things start to get a little hazy, which is an interested effect.

I actually found the story line for this game to be quite good, and I'm not surprised that there are rumors of Lionsgate turning the game into a movie, with Bruce Willis and Billy Bob Thorntan were rumored a candidates for the Kane and Lynch roles at one point.

One criticism I have with the game is that it was quite easy in patches. It was a quick game to get through. It probably has the potential for greater replay-ability though as compared to Hitman, which I guess is a positive.

In summary, Kane and Lynch was a decent game, not for the faint hearted or easily offended. I'm docking points because of the ease of completion, but if you can pick this up as a 'platinum edition' game then it'd be worth it. I'll give it 3.5/5.

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