Dive! Dive! Dive!

Just before I started typing this I was all set on what I was going to write about, and that is my dislike of water levels in games. Now I know what you’re thinking, isn’t that a bit odd if you’ve read my blog entry two days ago? Well no, and I’ll tell you why… I don’t dislike water levels! So all in all that initial thought was a complete dud, and just like this paragraph has achieved a big fat zilch!

But that’s where you and I are wrong you see, as it got me thinking about why I had that thought in the first place and after absolutely seconds of thought I realised where it came from. You’re intrigued I can tell! The game I kept thinking of was Tomb Raider, a game of exploration. That’s good, I like to explore, I like to swim, so swimming while exploring should really float my metaphorical boat right? Wrong.

So what’s my problem? Well, funny you should ask as I’m about to tell you exactly that. It’s that Lara’s lung capacity annoys me. What I’d like her to be able to do is go down and not worry about coming back up for air. Stop sniggering at the back. I hate the fact that there's an imposed time limit before I have to come back up to the surface. Now you might say it's realistic, no one can hold their breath indefinitely, but is it fun? Sometimes time limits are a useful tool, other times they're just plain annoying and for me this dives straight into the latter.

Now Lara, you've been on enough of these trips to start getting your packing list right. How many times does this situation have to happen? Pistols... check, tight shorts.... check, magnetic grappling device?!... check, compact scuba diving equipment... ugh! Twice I forgot my PE kit and had to do it in my pants and my lesson was learned, the embarassing part is that I was 23 at the time.

Ever done PE in your pants, share you mental scars on the GAMEOV3R Forum and then tell us what you forgot to pack on your expeditions

Cry Me A River

I think of all the graphical improvements that have come along in this HD next gen era, the one that impresses and pleases me the most is water. I've been playing a lot of BioShock recently and the stuff is everywhere. Dripping down the walls, pouring through the ceiling and sitting in puddles on the floor. In some rooms you're knee deep in it and I love it! Despite the obvious problems with getting a decent plumber I can't take my eyes off it, and it's wasted more of my time in non-gameplay moments than anything else.

It takes me back to the time me and Matt were playing Gears of War online around the time we both bought our Xboxes and I said to Matt, you have to come and look at the sea! So off we trotted in the middle of this battlefield and stood side by side looking out over the balcony to the horizon with all thoughts of the ugly aliens baring down on us put right to the back of our minds. It really was a romantic little moment that neither of us mention anymore, but now I'm sharing it with you. It never would have worked with me in Birmingham and him in Scotland anyway! All joking aside I think we made a connection that day that eventually led to us helping GAMEOV3R create this place.

Anyway this has all got rather soppy now and all this reminiscing has brought a tear to my eye.... actually no, it's OK, I think they're just watering a bit.

Need a good plumber? Maybe someone knows one on the GAMEOV3R Forum... Oh and tell us about some graphics that blow you away while you're at it