GTA Online

I talked earlier about Grand Theft Auto V and how good of a game it is.

It still is, but I've been playing it's online mode almost exclusively lately. Going on heists with your friends or just taking care of smaller jobs amongst other things is a lot of fun.

But this weekend I've been racing. Soooo much racing. You see, I discovered that you can run solo races. This is both good and a bit bad.

The good sides are myriad. You get better at driving. You get to know the tracks, although at more than 80 tracks for cars alone, not to mention motorbikes, helicopters, jets and bicycles, it's hard to remember which race is which. And finally you get to play around with all the different vehicles in the game.

This last point is really cool, since you have to buy all the cool cars in Online mode. In the single player game, you can steal any car and just keep it, but in Online there is an invisible line and any car above that line is too hot to steal, so you have to pay for it if you want it. And some of those cars are ridiculously expensive.

But if you set up a single person race, you can choose which car to drive, and you can eventually test them all. This has been so much fun. Not to mention that all races this weekend has been giving double experience, but more on that later.

So what's bad? Well, there are lots of different ways you can modify your cars in GTA Online. But most of these mods require that you win a certain amounts of races. And that is hard. Naturally you can't loose a single player race, so they do not count against the unlock requirements. I really wish that you could race against AI drivers and that this would count against the unlocks. But no, you have to race human drivers, and I've done that too. I've even won some, but of you want to win in order to unlock things, it's pretty silly to compete in open races, since the odds of winning against eight other players becomes slim indeed. It is very exciting though. Very adrenaline pumping.

Finally the amount of RP (xp in other games) is surprisingly good, particularly when you get double

the amount. I made a new character on Thursday evening because I wanted a female character as well as my regular gangster, Vinnie. As of this morning, my girl Fan Mei, is almost 39. Vinnie is 54 and only the last four levels have been from racing this past weekend. So the rate at which you can level up your characters through solo racing is amazing. And you can make some serious money as well. I have pulled in over 300K doing this.

Free money and experience. What's not to like.

That is it for today, until I see you again, have an exciting week!

Grand Theft Auto 5

As I mentioned in last weeks post, my Blood Bowl career has been slowed down a bit by the long awaited arrival of Grand Theft Auto V.

GTA V for PC was delayed at least three times, and every time I shrugged and said “Oh well, it's better that they push it back and get it right at launch”. So the question becomes; did they get it right? The answer is yes, yes they did!

It's a real joy to play a game that's actually finished, unlike so many games these days that ship half done and get patched later, if at all.

GTA V on PC is an absolutely amazing game. The graphics are gorgeous, the voice work is great and the gameplay is the best in the series so far. The level of detail is insane. From the garbage on the streets to the characters actually using body language while carrying on a conversation in a moving car, the amount of things going on is astounding. Everything feels so incredibly alive, it's a joy to merely move around.

In a big departure from the previous games in the franchise, you control three main characters instead of just one. You have smooth career criminal Michael with his crazy family, streetwise Franklin working his way out of the 'hood and Trevor the lunatic. Trevor is not my favorite by a long shot, but I think he is the most entertaining of the three, he's just so outrageously insane.

Initially I was skeptical about this three character system, but it works really well, and makes the story considerably better and less linear. The only downside is when you want to keep playing say Michael, but he's out of things to do and you have to move on to one of the others. But overall I'm very pleased.

Being a game with such a focus on cars, I'm pleased to say that the vehicles handle better than ever. The streets are wide, and driving is a lot of fun.

The other major part, fighting, is also really smooth. From gun play to fisticuffs, I have no complaints at all. Well OK, one small complaint. You tend to get stuck on corners a bit. This can delay you at a critical moment, but once you're aware of this, it's no biggie.

The one “bad” thing I've found so far is the radio. Compared to previous GTA titles, this iteration has the weakest soundtrack of the bunch. But as always, you can put music in a designated folder and you have your own radio station. And this is the cool part: they have both a DJ and commercials on this station, which makes it feel more legit and less than a playlist.

For some odd reason, all versions, even the Steam version uses the Rockstar Social Club as a kind of DRM. 99.9% of the time this is a non-issue but I understand that it went down at one point which made it impossible to play even the single player story mode. I had hoped we would have moved past this by now. As with all DRM it punishes the genuine customers and ignores the pirates, since the DRM is cracked anyway. Especially on Steam this is so unnecessary since you can't have a pirated game on Steam. At least as far as I know. I myself haven't seen the Social Club problem, but I've run into similar issues with Uplay, Ubisofts “launch platform”.

To sum up: if you've ever played a GTA game and liked it, this is a game for you. Simple as that. I can see no reason for any fan of the franchise to skip GTA V. Now, there is an online mode that I have yet to try, so I won't comment on it. More on that when I have some experience.

That's it ladies and gentlemen, so until next time, have a great week!

Blood Bowl

Back in the early 90's I bought the 2^nd edition of Blood Bowl the board-game, and although I liked it I never played it much.

But now I've become completely hooked on the computer version, specifically Blood Bowl: Chaos Edition.

Simply explained, Blood Bowl is an alternate version of the WarhammerFantasy world, where the different races play a kind of American Football instead of fighting wars. It's ultra violent, complex and tons of fun.

With 23 playable races in the chaos edition you get so many choices since every team plays differently, and thus demands their own strategies. For example, the orcs are a very bashy team, that is they are more interested in hitting the opponents than making skillful touchdowns, but they are clumsy and slow. In complete opposition are the elven teams that really have to be careful about who they hit and when. The elven strength is their speed and agility which allows them to jump around and make plays other teams can only dream about.

I really like the way you start by choosing your race and then build up your team. You get a set amount of money and you have to have at least eleven players on your team for it to be legal. Since different teams have wildly different costs, this becomes a very strategic decision indeed. Add to this the ability (need) to buy re-rolls, cheerleaders, assistant coaches etc, and the process can become pretty hard. But that's all part of the fun.

Then as you progress in the campaigns and championships you earn money to buy more benefits, new players, or indeed replace players that were injured or even killed.

All in all this is a wonderful, complex and very exciting game. I don't know if I can recommend to it people who regularly play other sport games, but for those who don't (like me) this works wonders.

I rediscovered this game by watching The Game Stations league on Youtube, and if you are at all interested in what you just read, do check it out. It not only serves as a tremendously entertaining demonstration of the game, it also teaches you to play it. To be honest the tutorial is pretty lousy, and this taught me the game so much better.

That reminds me, you don't have to confine yourself to playing against the AI. The game is fully set up to play online, either against friends or strangers. As a bonus, you don't have to get the more expensive Chaos Edition, since at least the Legendary edition is compatible with the Chaos Edition. You simply can't play as the Khorne, Underworld or Chaos Dwarf teams.

So, if this has tickled your fancy, go forth and play Blood Bowl! Personally I know that my teams are going to be progressing slower in the coming days since I'm downloading Grand Theft Auto V as I write this, and I know how immersed I get in those games.

That's it, so until next time, have a great week!