Last week was an amazing week for science. First we had the news that CERN’s boffins are almost certain enough to be reasonably confident that the Higgs boson (not “bosun” as I saw reported in a couple of places) almost certainly exists. The reported 5-Sigma level of confidence means that in a universe where it didn’t exist there would be only a 1 in 3,500,000 chance of getting the experimental results they have seen.
That covers the extremely tiny end of the size-of-things spectrum while the week’s other big science news, way out at the opposite end of that spectrum, is that scientists using the XMM-Newton space telescope have detected an 18 megaparsecs long dark matter filament. (A megaparsec is 3.09*10^22 meters.)
This thing is freaking huge! You know galaxies are big right? A couple of hundred billion stars, etc. So you know or can imagine that galactic clusters (literally clusters of galaxies) are even huger? And this dark matter filament contains and connects two galactic clusters! Just, wow! And its mass is “between 6.5 × 10^13 and 9.8 × 10^13 times the mass of the Sun”!
Yet despite all that scientific advancement they still haven’t found a way of slowing the passage of time that will allow me to get everything done that I need to. So I’ve not been playing much again, just my now-usual Mass Effect 3 multiplayer and a giggle-filled SingStar session at the weekend when I had some company.
In case you’re wondering, the left image is a graphical depiction of a proton-proton collision decaying with a signature that would indicate a Higgs boson; one of the universe’s smallest events that we had to build the world’s largest machine to detect. The right image is a computer-generated density map of the dark matter filament overlaid on a photo of the region of space in question. Cool, huh?
Anyway, gaming.
Josh’s gaming has consisted of continuing his Crushing run through of Uncharted 3 interspersed with “a bunch of” Treasures of Montezuma Blitz. That latter is seeing plenty of play ahead of many of his actual paid-for games thanks to its addictive nature. Haven’t played myself for a while, must get back to giving him some top-of-the-leaderboard competition.
Like a “Renaissance Batman” Aran is leaping around in Assassin’s Creed: Revelations, Templar Dens falling to his faction and world exploration taking precedence over story progression. After reviewing London 2012 he concludes that “there were parts that could’ve made it a great game but they were few and far between”. Aside from those he’s been expanding his Fable 2 property empire.
Toby finally caught up with one of last year’s titles:
I’ve finally got around to playing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 after borrowing it off a friend. It’s exactly what I anticipated – a linear shooter with massive set pieces and very little left for the player but to shoot. In saying that, I can’t deny that I thoroughly enjoyed it, and even though it doesn’t demand too much brain cell activity it’s “fire at anything that moves” philosophy is sometimes what I need after a long day. Though that’s probably not a good thing, right?
“Immensely enjoying” Metal Gear HD on his PS Vita we find Tuffcub who’s experiencing the games for the first time having missed them first time around on PS2. He’s still playing, and gushing about, the “utterly superb” Gravity Rush. Hyperdimension Neptunia, the “aging JRPG that tells the story of the console wars” had been given a rent. What about it has made an impression on our TC? “It seems to be 75% cut scenes of heaving cleavage and an awful lot of text.”
Finally, Alex has been playing Dyad – you can read his impressions here. He says it’s “mind meltingly brilliant” without ever verging into the nasty hipster style territories a lot of these sort of games end up in. “I showed it to a PS3-less friend and he’s now thinking about buying one”, he said. Must be good, then, eh?
And that’s it from us this week. How much gaming have you found time for in the last seven days?
The Lone Steven
This week, i completed Deus Ex:HR. The bosses are not designed for non lethal, stealth based characters so if you only have non lethal weapons, you are screwed.
Also picked up Portal 2 and completed that. Tis a very good game and i feel sorry for Wheatly at the end. Oh and don’t play Portal 2 after Dues Ex as it won’t work for some reason. As i discovered last night. O-o
Forrest_01
Confused by your last statement – What do you mean? As in Portal 2 just wouldn’t boot or something?
The Lone Steven
It came up with a yellow exclamation mark and refused to boot. I did a bit of research and it seems that DE:HR is the main cause of it. O-o
Forrest_01
Well that’s pretty bloody weird!
Would you perhaps be playing on PC or was that on PS3?? If PS3, where did the exclamation mark appear?
Sorry for the 20 questions (or 4 as it currently stands!), but i have never heard anything like one game from one company making a game from another company plain not work!
The Lone Steven
Twas on PS3. And i know for a fact that my blu ray drive is not on the fritz so i wonder if GladOS has something to do with it? *gives his copy of Portal 2 the evils*
It appeared on a grey background after i tried to boot the fecker up. :( Apparently, tis common. O-o
LTG Davey
Another week of variety for me this week:
+ Completed my ‘hardcore’ playthrough of Gears of War and have now moved onto Gears 2 – “It’s a giant worrrrm!”
+ Invested a couple of hours into Perfect Dark’s challenge mode, mopping up some achievements on the way.
+ Played a few rounds of Perfect Dark Zero, again mopping up some achievements.
+ A mate of mine popped over one evening this week so we fired up Shank 2’s survival mode (as usual)
+ Finished my Ghost Recon Future Soldier playthrough. Shite GR game but actually quite enjoyable when played as a standard 3rd person shooter.
+ Finally tried out the Dragons Dogma demo, which I actually really enjoyed so I may pick up a copy after it has a price drop
Erm, I think that’s everything :D
SpikeyMikey23
Apart from Snippets of MW3, I have started investing hours in Assassin’s Creed Revelations, although, I have only completed around 3 story missions, the rest of the time has been purchasing, renovating, training assassins and turning every faction building into a Courtesan Lair :D. For whatever reason, I like to get this shit done first, then i’ll smash through the story without interruption.
MGS HD Vita arrived today. I never played MGS1, I only played the demo of MGS 2, haven’t seen anything of 3. Bought 4 when it was released as Tesco mispriced it (£14!!) played to the end of chapter 1 and never went back for a reason I do not know.
Looking forward to sinking some hours into it.
Arkham City for me next!
Youles
Platinumed DiRT 3, Platinumed Sniper Elite V2, 100%’d Awesomenauts, 100%’d Gravity Rush since the last batch of DLC was released. Played the V2 Hitler DLC too.
Also completed my first playthrough and some mini games of Plants vs Zombies – really enjoying it! And I played a few games of MW3 which I found annoying as hell – seems to be laggy.
Helped some TSAers get some trophies on DiRT 3 and got heavily abused by R1MJAW in the Cat n Mouse meet last night, which was awesome as always, and we had a full grid thanks to Del! ;)
element666
Yes thanks again for your help mate,I’m dreading going back to do some of the single player trophies,like the bobsleigh one :o
Forrest_01
Tried that one last night – Controllers were nearly thrown.
Had to give up in the end though, as it was nearing 1 in the morning (i had been trying since about 11.30!) & shouting at the TV at that time tends to result in annoyed neighbours!
Wouldn’t be so bad, but i am consistently 1 second or so off the pace & cannot for the life of me work out where to make it up!
Watched a video of it on the trophy guide as well to see if i could pick up any tips on where i was going wrong, but that just served to pour salt in the wound as it is just a video showing off how the person who created it could get the platinum medal. No tips on how to do it or anything! Bleedin’ showoff!
R1MJAW
Yeah, was a good laugh last night, sorry for the abuse :p
Youles
No worries, it’s the nature of the game! ;)
Taylor Made
Been playing metal gear solid 2, oh my god this game is so stressful on the vita, I will rate it 6.5 out of 10 why cause of the sniping bit it’s messy & poor excuted they need a patch ASAP!! (vita version by the way)
I have warmed up to rayman such a fun game
element666
Been blasting through Strangers Wrath and im near the end and loving it!Also getting frustrated at the last boss on Ratchet and clank :s and lollipop chainsaw. Had a blast on Dirt 3 at the meet last night which was awesome (though I suck lol) Vita wise its been Metal Gear 2 which im finding more enjoyable on the go!and im still playing dungeon hunter alliance which I am enjoying though its getting to be a grind.
bmg_123
Deus Ex for me, and a ton of ‘It’s always sunny in Philadelphia’ on Netflix!
element666
It’s always sunny is amazing! Pure genius!
bmg_123
I’ve now watched the entire 7 seasons twice…I don’t care if I’m obsessed.
element666
Same lol
The mrs and me watched all 7 in 3 weeks,you just want more!
Kitten mittens!
bmg_123
…you’ll be smitten!
R1MJAW
I’ve mainly been playing Top Spin 4 on PS3 this week, although I did also start Quantum Conundrum … which is really good. I also played a little bit of Pinball Arcade on Vita.
Dom El
I continued my run through the Uncharted series, with 2 nearly in the bag now. Really enjoying them as well playing back to back.
Other than that I’ve played some 3rd Birthday and Virtua Tennis on my Vita, both of which are really good – definitely glad I picked them up in the PSN sale.
It’s my birthday this weekend so hopefully I’ll get a couple more Vita games (Gravity Rush definitely) and perhaps I’ll chip in on the Ouya kickstarter too!
Forrest_01
This week was pretty much like last week with a bit of Max Payne, some Lego Batman & The Amazing Piddleman. However, i also managed to make a start on Castlevania Lords Of Shadow which seems decent enough so far, finished off most of the singleplayer stuff in Worms 2 (the mp stuff seems quite daunting) & had a great session of cat & mouse last night with the guys on Dirt 3 (who also assisted in helping me mop up a few of the remaining online trophies).
I have now come to the conclusion that i am much better as a cat than i am a mouse though. Being aggressive as a mouse tends to be… troublesome. :)
Origami Killer
What do you think of castlevania then? Ive had the game for ages but only managed about 5 hours of the game so far, finding it very challenging even on the normal setting :/ Would be enjoying it if it wasnt for that
Forrest_01
It’s not too bad so far, but i am only around 3 levels or so in (far enough to get the first cross upgrade from the mausoleum).
The only criticism i would give so far is that it sometimes doesn’t explain fully what you need to do at points – Like the first lycan fight where you are attacked by the first Warg & it says to press R2 at the end of the fight to pick up the large stake, but if you miss the window, it just keeps telling you to press R2 for no real purpose.
Other than that, seems decent so far. Difficulty will need to be dropped to do some of those trials though! :O
Origami Killer
Yeah, expect a lot more of not knowing what to do. Happens a lot in boss fights and general platforming. Camera angle is a mess too.