Saturday, May 14

The Silver Standard


It may (but possibly not) come to you as a surprise to hear that I’ve never actually played games online. Despite having a 360 for years and a broadband connection, I’ve never combined the two properly.

I feel like I’ve missed an opportunity to experience something awesome, like going pants-less on a water slide (in theory this would be rad but you would most likely end up with a rash on my bum). Week in, week out, all I hear from Dutch and most of my other gaming friends is how blah blah was playing some game and then blah blah blah awesome finish.

It’s not that I don’t want to join Xbox Live – I regularly enjoy demo’s etc with the standard silver account – I simply can’t justify forking out the money for it. Sure I could pay a measly $40 to Play Asia for a Gold subscription but I just wouldn’t use it.

With ever increasing work loads along with a wife and a two-year-old to thoroughly enjoy, I’m pushing to get quality (a.k.a. any) game time as it is and quite frankly if I’m going to play something I don’t really want to play against some douche in another country who is going to swiftly annihilate me and then give my lifeless corpse a solid teabagging for added humiliation. I get enough of that when playing games with friends in my own living room.

But that was the old me; the me without the juiciest, time critical carrot dangling in front of my nose.

Thanks to a free Gears of War 3 beta code that runs out on Monday, I’m going to temporarily sign up with a free one month trial (that’s how little time I have to play games online – I won’t even sign up with a free pass) and play the game I’ve been drooling over. I know Dutch has examined the beta in detail so I won’t hammer on about it but I’m really excited about trying out something new.

As an added bonus, I should be able to play a bit of Duke Nukem Forever online too for a bit of a different experience.

Anyway, I’m really looking forward to my new gaming experience, even if it is one that millions of people have done, and do, on a regular basis. Have you experienced something new lately? How was your first dabble into online gaming?

6 comments:

  1. Enjoy the month while it lasts, my friend. I can't imagine the last half a decade without online play. Xbox Live or otherwise.

    While annhilation is often the order of the day, my few triumphs make up for all the teabaggings that a trilogy worth of Halos would afford me.

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  2. Why does teabagging seem to be such a massive hit on COD and Halo? Oh, that's right, the hordes of 12 year olds who play it.

    Dawson, I went for a pretty long time without the ability to play online, and I have to admit, it wasn't all that bad. Even this last month without PSN, I have played through ME2 (Nearly finished it twice I might add, amazing game), and thoroughly enjoyed trying to improve my virtual pro on FIFA 11.

    I enjoy online play, but I don't think it will be all I play from now on.

    On a side note, what do you think the two free games will be that Sony offers for the PSN crash?

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  3. I would think that they would be offering full retail games currently on the PSN (don't know for sure, but will let you know when I do):

    InFamous (highly recommended)
    Assassin's Creed II
    Borderlands
    GT 5: Prologue
    Prince of Perisa
    Rainbow Six: Vegas 2
    Assassin's Creed

    It would be mighty disappointing if Sony went on the cheap and said "Hey! Have Joe Danger and Pain. They're awesome!"

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  4. Sambo, here's the official listing:

    Two PS3 games from the following list:

    LittleBigPlanet
    Infamous*
    Wipeout HD/Fury
    Ratchet and Clank: Quest for Booty
    Dead Nation*

    For those with PSP accounts, you will also be eligible to download two PSP games from the following list:

    LittleBigPlanet PSP
    ModNation PSP
    Pursuit Force
    Killzone Liberation*

    Which is just brilliant because not only do I own four games on the PS3 list, I also have 3 from the PSP list. ARGH!!!

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  5. SCEE has since removed the post about the Welcome Back program. So hopefully they add more games rather than subtract from the list.

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  6. I would pick up InFamous (since I never played it the first time through), and probably Ratchet and Clank (I always liked those games).

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