StarCraft II

I bought this the other day after spending much time (whilst I should have been revising) procrastinating and watching lots of StarCraft II live streaming (mostly by Total Biscuit TotalBiscuit YouTube Channel ). I bought it mainly to see how well I could do in the online laddering system (plus it looked fun and I do enjoy a good strategy game). Having never really played StarCraft, although I've always been aware of the hype surrounding the original and the build up for the sequels, I was glad to find it very refreshing and a nice change to the usual strategy games I have played, such as Age of Empires and Command & Conquer. However, like I find with most games I play, I can play really well one game and then absolutely suck the complete proverbial behind the next. For this reason, I have not played as much online as I thought I would have because of my irrational fear of either winning too many of my ranking matches and getting put in a way too difficult league, or embarrasing myself and losing all these ranking games and then my motivation towards playing the game evaporating (although being put in lower league can always do wonders for your confidence). Either way, I'm sure I will get round to it and will no doubt blog about it. This game is also stopping me play L.A. Noire which I'm not sure why because I have been wanting to play it since I saw the first release trailer last year (yes I have no idea what is going on with my motivation at the moment!).

Glad that I bought an Xbox (who would have thought it!)

Before the Xbox 360 came out I had always been a Sony person. However, since purchasing a 360 a few years back this view has changed quite substantially. Sure, if I had the money I would probably have both consoles (why not) but the security issues the PlayStation Network has been having really have put me off wanting to give any sort of details away to Sony. As I blogged before and with the news that again Sony are having to investigate another security breach (see: BBC News - Sony investigating another hack ), I am glad that Xbox Live seems to be on the whole more secure. I also found today that Nintendo are also the victims of a hack attack by the aptly named group 'Lulz Security' (see: BBC News - Nintendo server attacked by hacking group Lulz Security ). It will be interesting to see if any/many reasonably serious crimes can be linked to data stolen from these security breach's (i.e. stolen credit details being used etc.), or whether these people carrying out these attacks are literally just doing it 'for teh lulz'.

Motivation failing...

This pretty much sums up my motivation towards my final 3 exams for my degree...

Hopes for Battlefield 3

So far, from what I have seen of this game, I am very impressed by how this game is shaping up. The 12 minute gameplay video released not that long a go (found at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zw8SmsovJc ) is definitely one that caught my eye. So much so that I really hope I have the money to afford a new high-end PC by the time this game officially comes out (November 2011). Having played the original Battlefield games (1942 etc.) on computer and having very fond memories of them, I really feel this is a series of video game that is best suited to the computer, rather than the console.

The Call of Duty series has become very predictable and generic. I still think that the overall gameplay and multiplayer experience are good and Zombies is always there for an occasional laugh. However, the rush to get a game out every year with the COD series has meant, in my view, the quality suffering (hence with all the problems Black-Ops has had and the multiple of patches being released since its launch). I think that I will definitely be purchasing Battlefield 3 and probably won't be getting the next COD game, purely just for a change and to try a game that appears to have been a lot better made.

-Update- Current Minecraft project so far

Updated a previous post the other day, however, when Blogger went down yesterday, for some reason that part disappeared off the face of the planet. In hindsight I very much doubt anyone would have seen it so making a whole new post seems more logical now! I tried to get a screenshot from the same sort of angle as the last one (if you scroll down on my home blog page you will see what I mean). I have added a ship to this project, as well as an indoor rollercoaster of some sorts. If anyone is interested I can try and post some more screenshots or even attempt a video guide for it. Just drop me a comment!

L.A. Noire Anticipation

I for one am very excited by this game and can't wait to play it. As soon as I saw the first trailer for it last year I knew I was definitely going to be buying it. Having been largely disappointed with GTA IV, Rockstar then clawed it back (in my eyes) with the awesome Red Dead Redemption (which I swear is the longest game ever!). The concept of L.A.Noire is intriguing. Rising through the ranks by solving different forms of crime sounds cool, however I do worry this may be overly linear and predictable but I hope that I will be proved wrong and still thoroughly enjoy it! Red Dead Redemption did get a little repetitive after a while, but I'm sure L.A.Noire will not suffer with that problem because every crime case is going to have a different story to it. Definitely looking forward to playing this game after finishing my final exams as a treat to myself lol.

BlogCatalog

As I'm more than likely going to be unemployed for some time shortly (I refer you to: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-13361769 ), I will probably try my hand at doing a review of the game just to pass the time as I trawl through job websites and hope I get somewhere with job applications!

The recent 'trend' of hackings carried out against various companies...

To all those who have noticed (or more likely not), dissertation time came around meaning this blog has been rather neglected. So apologies firstly for that.

Moving on, the main topic of this post (which has been floating around my mind for some time) is towards, as I see it, the recent 'trend' of notable/major companies websites or services being hacked. Since the turn of the year, the number of website hacking happening to various companies has become a worrying trend. I had the delight of having to cancel my debit card after being told by Lush Cosmetics (I used them to get a Christmas present for my girlfriend, I swear :p) that their whole website had been compromised and all credit card details and the like had been taken. A few weeks later, I was then contacted by play.com informing me that I was more than likely about to receive more spam than I already do because all their customer contact details (held on a company affiliated to them I must add) had been hacked. The Lush hacking gained a reasonable amount of press interest purely because some customers (they may not be anymore) actually had money stolen from their accounts.

An interesting article by Davey Winder (in PC Pro Issue 199, which links to the online article at: www.pcpro.co.uk/links/199security) is quite damning of the company and highlights the vulnerability of companies who are unable to afford greater online security. The bigger companies, such as Amazon and play.com seem a lot more capable of resisting such in-depth attacks, although Amazon were subject to DDoS attacks last September by the Anonymous group.

However, nothing compares in magnitute to the on-going situation over at Sony, which really does take the biscuit. Roughly 77 million people's details compromised and still no answers yet. If something on this scale is possible then one wonders what, or whom, is next. Personally, having an Xbox Live gold membership, I would like to think with the amount of money people have to plough into Microsoft to use this service that they would be able to cope better than the free PSN has done. Nonetheless, I wouldn't be surprised if something did happen (in my experience of Microsoft related things).

To finish this post, I wonder if the people who hacked into the PSN left this as little calling card....