Flapping My SPEEDTRAP

Game Review Blog Feel free to add me on Xbox I play Forza, F1 2016, Destiny, Skyrim, and many more. Xb SPEEDTRAP oX

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Need For Speed Underground. The PS2. A console that I had for many years and still do in fact. My childhood was this console. The PS1 before it was my first ever console and the successor to that amazing console was even better. As I've said before, racing and driving games are my forte. Out of all the different genres of games they are what I enjoy the most. If I were to rank my top 10 games ever. At least 6 or so of them would be racing. Need For Speed Underground was the epitome of a good game at the time it was released. The music was fantastic and as I go back and play it even now, I sing along and bop my head to the music. Being one of the few games at that time to allow the amount of customisation that it did. A truly phenomenal game. Of course. As is with every game. You start at the bottom with choice of several cars. Cars of that era, the Peugeot 206 S16, the Honda Civic, the Mazda RX7, the Golf gti all the way up to the Skyline Gtr and the Integra R. The Civic was always my favourite, it didn't matter if it wasn't the fastest or the best handling. It looked great with a little customisation. It was the car I used for nearly every play through. The RX7 coming a close second. The Integra R was a beauty to see too. There were the types of races you expect to see today. Drag racing, which you had to shift within a green part of your gauge to get a perfect shift and you only had to tap left or right to switch lanes. Sprint, from point A to point B the fastest. Circuit, I'm sure you all know what that is. Drift mode wherein you try to accumulate the most points by driving sideways and chaining drifts. And Knockout mode which is basically an elimination race where the last player to cross the line is eliminated. As you went through the game upgrading your car and making it look nicer. You had magazines putting you on the front cover which was awesome at the time. Of course you'd be hard pressed to find cars with the same look the cars in that game had nowadays. The style is outdated and it looks a little cringey. However, this game was my childhood. It was places on my shelf next to the likes of James Bond: Everything and Nothing and Driv3r amongst many others. If you have a PS2 laying around, I highly recommend picking up this influential game. Charity shops are a great way to get cheap old games. Picking it up for a quid or so is a bargain. Especially considering the price they were back in the day. Truly a great game that is sure to bring back memories and entertain for a few hours at least. Thanks All. Xb SPEEDTRAP oX

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The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition

Another Update here: As was definitely pointed out to me by a few people, the game does indeed tell you how to “shout”. It seems that I wasn’t paying much attention at that point. I can also say that dragons are absolutely everywhere. I’ve ran into about 3 in the past hour that I’ve played the game. It appears that this game is turning out to be every bit as I expected. Better even. Perhaps one problem is the difficulty of the game. Now whilst you can change it in the settings, as you explore the world everyone can go anywhere. Which seems like a point in its favour, however, me being not so good at adventure and fighting games, have found many a place that I’ve spent 30+ minutes sneaking through corridors and looting chests only to get to a boss that I am unable to beat. Whilst this annoys me no end, I do acknowledge that this is purely my fault and not the fault of the game. I would like to finish off by saying that a recommendation of this game is pointless. Bethesda Studios reputation precedes it and as such people want to play the game regardless. However, I would say that for people who aren’t so good at adventure/action/RPG games to take it slow. If you’ve never played a game like this before it may take some time to get used to. To all others I would highly recommend Skyrim, not that my opinion matters so much. Ill have to buy the original for the Xbox 360 and see if there are any major differences Thank you. Xb SPEEDTRAP oX

[flapyourspeedtrap-blog]

Thank you.

I’m very grateful for the replies helping me to understand that as it turns out, I'm the one holding back the game :). I'm beginning to realise that. As you may be able to tell, I’m new to this and perhaps need some more guidance in Skyrim ha ha.

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The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition

To start. Let me say that I haven’t played the original. I have only played the special edition and as far as I can see, there’s not a lot about it that’s exactly special. Sure, its a fantastic game so far (not yet completed). Having only just killed my first dragon whilst playing for about an hour and a half. I would say this game takes a little while to wind up to the exciting parts. With little explanation at the beginning, the game throws you in the deep end without so much as a tutorial to show you how to perform certain abilities. Myself having spent around 20 minutes trying to figure out how to use the dragon shout as it just doesn’t tell you. I have almost fantasized about this game for a long time. I didn’t get it on the Xbox 360 and I thought of missed out. Having only recently dusted off my 360 and began to use it with older games again. I hadn’t gotten around to buying the game. Of course recently they announced that they would remaster it for Xbox one and I giggled with joy. I can know say, having played the game for a couple of hours, its not as exciting (yet) as I would have hoped. I shall see if as the game progresses it gets better or my excitement heightens.

Update: Played for another couple of hours and I’ve noticed a problem. While the game does indeed have an autosave feature. It falls terribly flat. After many occasions of being defeated by a strong enemy only to end up right back at the start of the cave for example. Some of which took me about an hour to traverse. It seems that the autosave only saves randomly and whenever it feels like it. Which is quite disappointing considering how big and action filled this game is. You can’t go 2 feet without bumping into a wolf or a troll or a vampire. Dragons supposedly are the main interest in this game. Whilst hearing every NPC I walk by talk about the same things and how I’m a dragonborn. Its easy to forget that fact. Have only seen 2 dragons as of yet whilst playing the game for hours, I can’t help but feel let down so far. I expected dragons to be everywhere and to be killing one every hour or so. Overall, I have yet to be fully excited by the game. I haven’t yet been too drawn into the story as it progresses at the pace of a drunken slug.

Again, i will update as I play more and more. Hopefully the game will eventually up the pace and it’ll be excitement hiding behind every corner just waiting to pop out and surprise me.

Thanks All. More to come.

Xb SPEEDTRAP oX

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F1 2016 Career Mode

Career mode is the one part of this game that I've been looking forward to ever since it was released. As far as F1 games go, this is a cracker. With the resurgence of Renault (My personal favourite) all the way up to the rocket that is the Mercedes. With everything in between. With varied difficulty settings the game is suitable for any and every type of gamer. From the complete novice who has never picked up a racing game before right up to the professional gamer. Fully customisable setting for your car and the game ensure that you're not stuck on track for the whole 70 odd laps that some Grand Prix races have although it is an option if that's what you'd like. Settings such as simulation steering and tyre degradation amongst many other help to create a game that is most suited to your abilities. This new 2016 career mode come with new features such as a fully upgradeable car. With research points being the form of “currency” you use to buy these upgrades. You earn them for participating in practice and qualifying and then the race. More points are awarded for perfecting simulations in practice. Simulations such as the tyre management and track acclimatisation and of course qualifying pace. All of the simulations allow you to obtain information and to practice how well you know the circuit and to better understand the life of your tyres. The tyres come with recommended life spans but these vary with how you drive and how well you manage them. Upgrades are an essential part of this new career mode with all teams performing upgrades throughout the season. From how well your car saves its fuel to how much downforce the car makes to the amount of power the turbocharged engine pushes to the wheels. In my first play through I started with Manor (Formerly Murrissia) arguably the lowest performing team of the championship. By the end of the first season Manor, and myself, were around mid table doing well throughout the season overall. The second season is where things start to get faster and more competitive. With upgrades to your own car and every other team on the grid you have to be faster and better every time you're on the track. Learn. This is your second season. Tracks should be in your head and racing lines memorized. Battling, wheel to wheel racing. The second season is by far the best in my opinion. With fairly regular research points you should be fully upgraded by mid season 2 and you may even win the championship. Proving that you're the best around. Anything past that point and I began to lose interest. Its all very samey. Of course. If you've fully upgraded your car then there's nothing left to do. If you're regularly winning, you could always up the difficulty but again. Its a very short term mode in my opinion. Although it is intended to be played for 10 whole seasons. During that time you could of course switch teams but at that point in the game most of the cars are very similar performance wise and so career mode is quite limiting in its entertainment. Overall I would recommend this game to just about anyone interested in racing or simulation games or indeed anyone interested in F1. With the price of games these days i would suggest waiting until the price comes down. £40+ is not worth it in my amateur opinion. Thanks for reading. Xb SPEEDTRAP oX