Acksaw's Space

Many apologies sports fans, the old ‘saw boy has been somewhat busy of late and completely neglected his space from love and devotion.   Without further ado’s let me put this into check and get you up to speed with the world of me and video games…

Halo Wars

Ohhh yeah!  A fully optimised RTS for consoles!  Surely not?  Well, I’m pleased to report that Ensemble Studio’s effort has been a darned good one, not only is it THE best RTS on a console it also encompasses my favourite franchise; Halo.  A win, win situation if you like.  Want to find out more?  Check out my review on XboxGameZone here!

Matt Hazard: Eat Lead

Maybe not quite in the same league as Halo Wars but this game has humour, it also has lots of guns and therefore lots of shooting.  In theory the perfect concoction to make a gaming classic, however you may want to check out my review here first.

Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X.

Yep, we’re not finished yet.  Ever fancied yourself as a bit of a Tom Cruise?  H.A.W.X. drops you right into the cockpit of a modern day supersonic jet fighter and gives you loads of weapons to play with.  Sounds good?  It actually is good and rather damn fun with it, forget about lowering your flaps, all you need to do is shoot stuff.  I liked it, see why at XboxGameZone here.

Ahhhhhhhggggghhhrrrrr!!  A Non-gaming day?…  Have I suffered the infamous RROD?  Has the local power station melted down?  Nope, the answer actually demonstrates that I do exist in a world outside of the virtual one that I so often propagate.  In fact it also shows that behind the rugged battle-scarred Halo head gear exists a man of love, kindness and humility, probably not unlike the ‘Chief’ himself.  I bet at some point between Halo CE and Halo 2 he took the odd day off to take Cortana to the movies or out to dinner.  As for me, I’m taking the lovely Mrs Saw out to the local Thai restaurant, where we shall celebrate our 5th wedding anniversary.

My better half is what I would describe as a ‘non-gamer’, she really doesn’t comprehend the enjoyment I get from endlessly shooting bad guys.  I think that some of this is due to her having incredibly bad 3D spatial awareness, I’m not saying she’s clumsy, but she does lose her bearings (not marbles) surprisingly easily.  At some point a sat-nav is going to be a God-send of a gift to her.  She’s tried to understand my fascination with the world of Halo bless her, but I have to say it was comical to say the least. 

For those of you familiar with Halo CE, you’ll remember the first level where you are working an escape through the stricken Pillar of Autumn.  Surrounding you are ship-shaking explosions, multiple Covenant incursions and general mayhem reigning throughout.  The level is constructed predominantly of poorly lit corridors with many twists and turns.  Unfortunately this was far too much for my beloveds’ strictly 2D perspective.  The cross-hair of her Assault Rifle was soon buried up into a corner of a room, and she was spinning the Chief round manically yelling “I’m stuck!”  It’s very endearing really, and she does understand that when the view shifts into the third dimension she just as well put the controller down.  There has been the Wii, which has undoubtedly pushed her toward the title of ‘almost a casual gamer’.

I can’t grumble, Mrs Saw has put up with my gaming hobby for over 10 years now and accepts that those headshots are part of my required R&R.  In more recent times she’s even been most supportive of my newly expanded gaming role in the form of my XboxGameZone reviews.  Not only has she understood my need to go ‘work’ on the Xbox and spend hours at a time typing, but she also devotes time to proof my pieces.  Now although this doesn’t take long to slot in the odd comma where I’ve made a sentence far too long, but it does mean that I do make her read about ‘games’. 

A big thank you Mrs Saw, or should I say ‘Tank you’ in view of my latest piece ‘Death Tank’, you’re my rock and I love ya more than ‘twelvety’.

I dedicate my Death Tank review (I’m sure she’ll be dead chuffed….Not) to the wonderful Mrs Acksaw, and should you want to read it you can check it out here: XboxGameZone

Right enough with the sloppy love stuff I’m off to pop some heads!

Do you like going fast?  Do you like smashing things up?  If the answer is ‘yes’ to both questions then read on…

Let’s face it, when you watch a Grand Prix or rallying what are the standout points of the race?  Pitstops?  I don’t think so!  More than likely the answer is going to revolve around crashing, and preferably that crashing will take place at high speeds.  As our good old mate Newton dictates: Force = Mass x Acceleration (or deceleration in the case of crashing).  Basically loads of speed = huge crash, and lets face it as long as there aren’t casualties involved then they provide a highlight to a sometimes dull race.  Fortunately ‘Criterion’ has recognised the popularity of these crashes and built a whole game around destroying cars.

So has Burnout finally blown a big-end and ground to a halt or is it still the eye-watering speed demon of arcade racers?  Want to find out more?  Then check out my review on XboxGameZone

So, those of us in the Halo ‘loop’ will be more than aware that some of our more fortunate gaming colleagues will already be killing each other in 3 new maps available in the limited edition of Halo Wars.  The rest of us will have to wait until the Mythic Map pack is available for download from the Marketplace in a ‘few weeks’ as revealed by Bungie.  The cost of this download will be 800 points, and by all accounts should be worth the expenditure.  However, my gaming colleagues and I would really like to see Bungie treat us big-time by releasing all the old Halo 2 maps as a download.  Don’t worry about tarting them up, just release high-res versions of the originals!  I want to play capture the flag on Relic, rockets on Foundation and Slayer on Ivory Tower, surely not a big ask?  Please Bungie, we love the new maps but how about some ‘old-skool’ retro action for us Halo veterans?

Xboxgamezone roving reporter now safely back in the green rolling hills of sleepy Devon. 

Well, that was my first press event and I’ve got to say it was most enjoyable experience indeed.  The guys at Ubisoft were really friendly and laid-back, it was pretty much a case of ‘this is our new game, have fun and enjoy it’.  I found H.A.W.X. to be a really good game as it turns out, the demo doesn’t really give the proper ‘feel’ of the game and I came away with a very positive vibe.  I normally would dismiss an ‘air combat’ game, they tend to go all ‘simulator’ on you and then my feeble brain switches off from information overload.  But you know what?  You could just shoot stuff, loads of stuff in fact and all in a gung-ho frag-fest style.  Anyway, I’m not going to say any more, if you’re interested in a detailed report on my visit to Ubisoft, then pop-on over to www.xboxgamezone.co.uk for the full-fat preview.