I was going to attempt to convince people that I escaped my wedding in Greece via a tiny peddle boat, fled to Turkey, then hitched back to the UK... but I'm a really, really bad liar.

So I'm now a married man, which doesn't really change too much, but I do have to get used to calling Anna my wife rather than my girlfriend.

 

I'm usually fairly flippant about most things but I have nothing to really say about the actually wedding ceremony/reception other than it was a really really great, once in a life-time experience, that I'll never forget. 

 

Greece itself was hot, as usual... the sweaty kind of heat that makes it impossible to stay dry unless you're stood next to a fan.  They reckon in about 50 years time some of Greece will have a similar climate to Egypt... surely only those little dancing lizards find that kind of temperature fun... to everything else it's just too damn hot.

 

Of course there were no zombies in Greece... for that I had to wait until I got home.

 

I picked up Dead Rising on Thursday.  In short it rocks.  It's one of these games that if I don't control myself when I talk about it I start babbling... ...babbling like a demented zombie... on speed...

 

Technically, the entire game is hugely impressive.  Character models and textures are probably the best I've seen, the number high detail characters on screen is massive, the attention to detail is amazing, and the voice acting is top notch.   The only slight drawback is the survivors AI... despite your best efforts they seem determined to be eaten alive.

 

But all of that is peripheral... the game is really about killing lots and lots of zombies with a variety of deadly weapons. 

 

Want to see what happens when you throw a circular saw blade at a zombies head?...  what about if you run into a crowd of zombies pushing a lawnmower?... or can a zombie survive a blow to the skull from a potted plant?  Dead Rising allows you to answer all these questions and many more.

 

I know for a fact that I'll never look at shower fittings in the same way ever again.

 

I also picked up Tomb Raider: Legend and FarCry Instincts Predator (buy 1 get 1 free - thanks Virgin).  I don't have much to say about FarCry, I've only played it very briefly. 

I played and completed Tomb Raider in about 5 hours.  The game looked great, was very fluent, with a passable story, and good voice acting.  Graphically, what struck me was textures on Lara were excellent.  When she got out of water her skin looked wet... when there was an explosion her skin looked dirty with soot and dust.  Also the binoculars had a really auto-focus effect that didn't impress Anna but had me fairly giddy (I'm such a nerd).

I love the whole acrobatics thing....  jumping from ledge to ledge, etc... but, annoyingly, some of the toughest bits were brought about by awkward camera angles and controls, rather than actually devious game design.

 

Some of the physics based puzzles were good but they were few and far between... also tigers seem to live in the most unlikely of places and required an inordanate amount of bullets to kill.

 

I am been a bit negative... most of the game was really entertaining.  Croft Manor really suprised me.  As innocent looking as it was at first glance it was actually full of hidden puzzles. 

 

I think overall it was far too short, and the Prince of Persia games are better in this genre.  I certainly wouldn't pay £50 for it... in fact if you want to play it I'd recommend renting it rather than buying it because you can easily finish it in a couple of days.

 

Oh yeah... gamerscore is now over 2800.  Thanks Lara, you hussy, you put out so easily...