Happy 25th Birthday Samus Aran!

We had Mario's 25th anniversary and then Zelda's 25th now its Metroids turn.

I absolutely love the Mario and Zelda games but for some reason the Metroid games are at the top of my Nintendo list, I wouldn't say the Metroid games aren't popular because they really are, but compared to Mario and Zelda, Samus just seems more mysterious and different, I mean for years everyone thought Samus was a guy, oh how wrong they were . . . . soo very wrong . . . . hrm . . where were we  . . . oh yes Celebrating Samus's birthday :)

I first started the Metroid series with Super Metroid for the SNES and as you all know from my review of this game I LOVE IT! Its one of my top SNES games and in fact in my top 5 of all time games. The next game in the series I played was Metroid Prime for the Game Cube and wow did this game blew me away, The step from 2D to 3D graphics were amazing and brought what we imagined as kids on the SNES version to our screens. At first I didn't know if this kind of game play would work for Metroid, but ill give it to Nintendo they got it spot on.

Ive played almost all of the Metroid games but for me those two are my highlights in terms of game play and story, I cant ask for anymore out of a game than what Super Metroid, and Metroid Prime offer, 100% perfect to me :)

The only one disappointment to me is Nintendo. Where are you? Why are you not celebrating this event? they realised a limited addition game for Mario on the Wii, and Zelda got a Symphony Concert! So whats Samus getting? Well so far nothing :( not cool Nintendo not cool. At least we have a great collection of Metroid games to play so ill settle with that at least.

So there's nothing further to do but to raise our glasses to Samus and her amazing games she has given us over the past 25 years cheers :)

Sonic The Hedgehog 2

 One year after the realise of Sonic The Hedgehog 1 the second one came out and what a sequel it was, I cant say I remember this game when it was first released, being 2 years old probably didn't help :) but when a friend of mine got a Sega mega drive I remember living there for days on end, at that point the console I was on was the Super Nintendo so for me Sonic was a whole new concept far different from the Mario game play I was used to. One great addition to the game was the 2 player concept which meant neither me or my friend was sat waiting for the other to die to get a turn :) I'm not saying the 2 player was perfect but it did give the game some more playability.

 The concept behind the game is pretty much the same from the first, but this time round there's a few more additions, as I mentioned earlier the 2 player ability was added, but other than that there's a few more features to see, one of my favourites is the spin ability. The issue with the first game was at some stages, walking up a small hill for example slowed sonic down way to much, with this new spin ability you can spin you way out of such obstacles with ease and get sonic back up to the speed we all know and love. The 3rd change was to the bonus stages the way you get them has changed and the stages them self's have changed, were as before you needed 100 rings at the end of a stage and then jump through a giant ring, this time you get portals at check points and if you have 50 rings bam your there. The stages them self's are similar to a bobsleigh course and have you racing down them collecting as many rings as possible while avoiding the bombs.

The special stages in this game created a whole new view to sonic games and gave the first 3D sonic effect. The idea of these special stages is the same as the first game and is to gain Chaos Emeralds, the difference though was that once all 7 were found sonic could transform into super sonic, now I'm gonna be honest I absolutely love these stages and the super sonic form, but god these stages are sooo hard I've never been able to get all seven not on the original Sega or even on the PS3 version, which is crazy because on the PS3 version you can save when ever you like, yet no . . . I still cant do it *Sigh* Maybe one day.

If you were to ask me which I prefer sonic 1 or 2, I would have to say, I have no idea both are amazing and to choose one of them doesn't seem right to me, if your gonna buy an original sonic game buy 1 and 2 together you will never regret it. Its perfect game play, graphics, sound and levels make these games great and will always bring me back for a play through or two, its Sonic The Hedgehog 2 . . . WITH TAILS oh yer :)

Total Top Spec Gaming Score 10 / 10

Link to: Sonic The Hedgehog 1 review.
http://topspecgaming.blogspot.com/2011/03/sonic-1.html 

10,000 Page Views

 
If anyone has looked over to the left of Top Spec Gaming in the past few days you may have noticed that the page view counter clicked onto another digit now making 10,000 views just wanted to say a massive thank you to everyone who has checked out the site since we started back in september 2010. 


As the Top Spec Gaming site evolved and gets bigger I want to start giving back to all the viewers of the site so in time I plan on doing some kind of give away of some sort so be on the look out for when that happens :)


Anyway thanks again and ill see you all in the next post happy gaming :)

Up coming games im looking forward to.

The year 2011 the year that for me has and is going to be incredible for gamers so I thought I would share my thoughts on the games already released and some upcoming titles of 2011. So far this year we have already had the release of Dead Space 2, Portal 2, LA Noire, Brink, Killzone 3, Little Big Planet 2 and soo many more.

But it doesn't end there ohh no its only just started in the next few days we have some huge titles due for release Infamous 2 is out today, Infamous was an amazing game for the PS3 and I cant wait to get my hands on this game, with new features such as new ice powers and a tesla coil weapon this game is looking very promising. 

If that's not enough on June 14th Duke Nukem Forever is due for release that's right after sooooo many years of waiting were finally going to get this game finally, I'm really excited about this game the only 1 thing that worries me is that because the game has had so much hype and such a long wait will it live up to expectations I certainly hope so. 

Out of all the games this year that have already been released and are going to be Duke Nukem is at number 2 on my list of game this year, WHAT I hear you ask what can possibly beat this game that's been 13 years in the making well let me tell you . . . Uncharted 3! As you all know I rate uncharted 1 and 2 as the best games I've ever played so the 3rd should be amazing, judging by the jump the game make from the first to the second in terms of game play and graphics the next jump to the third should blow our minds.

On September 6th Resistance 3 is due for release into our gaming hands which is another date I'm looking forward to I'm a big fan of the previous 2 resistance games and from what it looks like this new game shares the best bits from the two which in my opinion will make a great game.

Batman Arkham City is also taking a spot in my gaming shelf's interests out in October this game Carry's on from the previous batman game Arkham Asylum I personally thought the first game was great and the only one thing missing was more space to explore, well this new game has that covered and we will now have an entire city to explore. This game is set to have a huge array of bad guys and characters which is what makes batman so great.

Prototype is a game I'm still yet to play but from what Ive seen and heard its a game I'm definitely going to play through sooner than later especially when the sequel Prototype 2 is set for release in 2012 that gives me around 8 months lol plenty of time :)

Ive never really been a Call Of Duty fan the early games were good for the PS2 but the latest releases have never really grabbed me I played the first Modern Warfare and the story was pretty good but I never really cared much for the multi player, as for Black Ops I own the game but I'm still yet to play the game Ive just got way to many games to do at the moment and it doesn't seem to be top priority at the moment, having said that the new Modern Warfare 3 is set for release in November so anyone who loves the Call Of Duty series get ready for then.

Talking of First Person shooters Battlefield 3 will be coming out in October now as I said before I'm not a major fan of Call Of duty but the Battlefield series has had me playing quite a bit lately so I'm more interested in what the new Battlefield 3 has to offer, now judging by the trailers this game looks pretty epic so I'm thinking a pre-order of this is on the cards.

There is plenty of other games due for release in 2011 but the ones mentioned above are the games I'm most looking forward to. As a gamer 2011 is going great and looking at whats to come its one of the most promising gaming year so far. Hope everyone is enjoying the year as much as me happy gaming :)

My New Phone and Angry Birds

I came to the end of a very very long contract 2 weeks ago with a very cruddy phone so I was very excited to finally have a smart phone in my pocket. I was looking at every smart phone on the market for a number of months before settling on one phone I looked at plenty of different phones and makes from the PlayStation phone to the obvious I Phone 4 which was the one I was going for until I saw the HTC Desire HD I had the two phone side by side and the HTC just took it for me better camera better contract its just a all round better phone and cost less which was even better :).

The great thing with this phone is that I now have a HD camera and video camera which means I can now film and picture my own images this gives me more freedom about the images on Top Spec Gaming. As well as that I now have the ability to post on the move so I don't need to be sat at my laptop to do a post or update which means I can put content up more often.

And finally the best thing is that I don't have to hide my phone when in public :) Now seen as Top Spec Gaming is about video games 'hence the name' I guess I should put a little about the games that are available for these smart phones and what better way to start than with Angry Birds, one of the most popular games for smart phones at the moment has to be angry birds and now that I
have this game too a can see why. 

The game is very simple and is great for pick up and play game play, its also incredibly addictive which is another reason for the popularity of the game. I was very happy to see that on my phone I could get angry birds for free another bonus with the phone :). So whats Angry Birds all about? Well to explain as simply as I can, Pigs have stolen the birds eggs and are the birds going to put up with that NO so what do they do? they build a huge slingshot and hurl them self's at the pigs simple huh :) Its a classic tower destruction game were you launch projectiles at weak spots of a structure to destroy it as efficiently as possible.

The game has soo many levels and other expansions that the game never gets old or boring and will have you playing for hours. With each level comes new types of birds with different ability's and new structures to destroy, some have to be dealt with simple strength power were as others need more precision shots to weak parts. Since the release of Angry birds a number of other titles have been released 2 of which I've recently downloaded Angry Birds Seasons and Angry Birds Rio these titles are just as good as the first and just give gamers another load of different levels and scenarios to try out only increasing the life of the game :) All in all a great game and defiantly worth the download :)

Angry Birds: Total Top Spec Gaming Score 9.5 / 10 

HTC Desire HD: Total Top Spec Gaming Score 9.6 / 10

Were have you been Adam?

Hey guys just a quick update on whats going on since I haven't posted in a while. Don't worry I'm still here and I'm still posting Ive just had a LOT going on at the moment first work has been stupidly busy and since I live in England we have just had 2 bank holiday weekends so I'm having to do 10 days work in 6 :( Ive also just had my 21st birthday so lots of nights out lately :) on top of that Ive split with my girlfriend of 3 years a few week ago so that really sucks :( and finally I've been having a few issues with my Internet connection but that's all sorted now :)

So there you go pretty busy and crazy few weeks I'm still getting my head adjusted to everything that's gone on but I'm getting there and the posts on Top Spec Gaming should be back to normal soon.

Oh another major thing that's pretty bad is the PSN hack I haven't really been on my PS3 since the network was brought down and I haven't really been gaming since really finding the gaming drive hard to come by lately, Ive been playing around on mine craft a bit since its a relaxing game to play around. What ive been doing gaming wise lately is watching "lets plays" on YouTube its great to see another persons view on a certain game, in particular I've been watching mine craft and a new game that's not even been released yet its called Terraria and people are calling this the 2D mine craft the game looks great and I cant wait to get my hands on this game, the guy Ive been watching most is called Dion AKA PBat here's the link to his channel http://www.youtube.com/user/PaperBatVG

So yer if you want to know more about this game give it a look over, looks very promising, So a bit more on the PSN hacking, I'm sure you have all heard whats been going on as its been in the news and nearly every website, whats basically happened is some one has hacked the PSN network for the PS3 and "may" have taken all our personal details including credit card details not cool, being a PSN user Ive probably been effected by this and Ive taken all the precautions I can. (Changing 25 passwords is not fun ill tell you that lol) I really don't know what to think or who to believe in all this but what I know is Sony should not have been able to be hacked and you would think someone as big as Sony should be safe, I guess it just shows if someone wants to hack something they really can, its a scary world out there guys.

Well I think that's everything that's been going on hopefully the PSN will be back soon and everything else will return to normal again. Thanks to everyone still visiting the site and ill see you guys soon :).

Lets try something a little different :)

So far on Top Spec Gaming Ive mostly done game reviews on the main page so since this is essentially a blog I'm going to try and ad a more personal touch to the site and blog a bit about what I'm doing at the moment in the gaming world.

The renting month :)

As Ive mentioned many times before I'm a bit of a trophy hunter on the PlayStation 3 so that's probably taking up most of my gaming time, Ive started renting on Love Film recently so Ive been renting small games that wont take up too much of my time. I started out with terminator salvation which is a OK game nothing special but was worth having a play through and after a few hours *Bling* platinum :)

For those of you not familiar with the PlayStation 3 or trophies there the same as Xbox 360's achievements and are given to the player for completing certain tasks such as finish a chapter in a certain difficulty or more complicated things like kill so many enemies. Its a way of rewarding the player for playing the game and a nice way of showing of your skills as a gamer. there are 4 different trophies: Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum as you can guess bronze trophies are easier to obtain silvers slightly harder golds are rarer and usually are much harder and platinum's these are only gained once you have all the trophies in the game your playing.

So after I sent of terminator salvation I next received Trivial Pursuit which is not the type of game I usually play as its more of a multi player game my girlfriend had a few games with me and within another day or 2 of gaming you guessed it *Bling* platinum :) Again the game isn't as epic as other games out there but that's not what these games are about its just a good multi player game to have a laugh with a few friends. The next game I rented was a horror/ Survival game called Alone in the dark, I hadn't heard much about this game but Id seen the game on lots of players stats. This game is great and terrible at the same time, The game has soo many great ideas that no other games have but the only problem is the fine tuning of the game its like the creators spent too much time thinking of all these great ideas and forgot to make sure they all work properly which is a shame, don't get me wrong the game is playable but there's too many glitches and problems for it to be a great game but defiantly worth a play through. And oh yer got the platinum that's 3 in a row in under a week lol.

And now were at the game Ive just received came in the post yesterday, its monopoly streets first of I love monopoly its a great game and to have this in video game version with trophies is great :) so far I'm about half way through the game just have to get into some online play. Now I'm guessing you all know how monopoly is played so I wont explain but this game uses the old game board and has come up with a great way of turning it into a interactive experience, there's a choice of different game boards such as the old retro classic and new ones like the real city which is great. Again like trivial pursuit its a great multi player game and yesterday I had my friend come round and we had a few games. At the moment I'm on 27 trophies out of 41 so I'm guessing by the end of today I should be done.

So that's whats been taking up most of my gaming time the rest has been on MineCraft, its a game I can go to that has no time limits no stress and is just relaxing to play :) that is unless a creeper blows up in your face :) so that's whats happening pretty much at the moment. Let me know if you found this interesting if its a popular idea ill do some more posts like this and if you prefer the more personal posts to the reviews ill do more like this. See you all later happy gaming :)

Terminator Salvation: Total Top Spec Gaming Score 3.5 / 10

Trivial Pursuit: Total Top Spec Gaming Score 4 / 10

Alone In The Dark: Total Top Spec Gaming Score 4.5 / 10

Monopoly Streets: Total Top Spec Gaming Score 7 / 10

 

MineCraft

This is MineCraft, well not just this picture its more than that :) MineCraft is an indie game which basically means its a game that's constantly being developed and updated and usually is made by a single maker or a small group and as you can see on the first picture MineCraft is made by a man who goes bu the name Notch. Anyway Ive been putting this review off for a few weeks now, its not because the game is bad or anything its just gonna take so long to review, as simple as this game is there is so much to get down. I guess I should start with what your all thinking the graphics. One thing I almost did was look straight past this game as I nearly judged it by its graphics, the one thing that got me looking into this game was the old school look of the game. We all know I love a good old school retro game so it got my interest. After some research and a few months playing Ive got to really appreciate the style of this game and really love the graphics.

So once you get over the graphics and style you can really get into what this game is about, for me its split up into three parts, First is creating and crafting all kinds of worlds, Homes and anything you can think of, the second side is adventure and searching the different worlds that you find your self in, the final part is survival, making sure you survive and live in this world. One thing I always get asked is what do you actually do in this game, and I always say the same thing you can do anything you like its so open ended and anything is possible . . . well within reason that is :)

The first thing that you do in this game is create your world, You can pick a name of your choice and then its time to generate your world there are two options for this you can have the game randomly design your world or you can select a seed. The great thing about this game is that every time someone plays this game the experience is always different. The secondary option of picking a seed allows you to play a set world which is always the same but even then will always be played differently by different players. Once you have your world generated its time to start your adventure. The idea is that you have crashed into this world all alone with nothing and you have to survive, this sounds all well and dandy and from the pictures above it all looks swell, That is until night, if your not in some shelter by the time the sun sets you may be in some trouble because as you soon find out this is no ordinary world, this is a world that changes in the dark Spiders, Zombies, Skeletons, slimes and creepers are all out to do one thing kill and destroy.

Once you have your shelter and survive your night its time to start exploring your world and start building, expanding and creating. You can build tools to help you build quicker and more efficiently, weapons and armor to help protect your self and furniture to store your items or rest. One thing that's most important in this game is light, if at any point you see a dark area a Creature can spawn there not so much a problem in the day but at night torches and light sources are a must. MineCraft does have multi player but for the moment its not a full design and is run by the player creating there own servers, I imagine there will be a built in multi player at some stage.

All in all this game is great and can only get better with every update this game gets at the moment the game is in Beta and costs €14.95 and when the game is released as a full product it will sell at €20.00 so go buy it now and get the discount :) you wont regret it trust me.

http://www.minecraft.net/



Heres a fan made Trailer that shows the game of well.

Ill include a few use full links bellow that are worth the look:
http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Minecraft_Wiki
http://www.minecraftforum.net/
http://notch.tumblr.com/

Total Top Spec Gaming Score 10 / 10

Sonic The Hedgehog 1

As a PlayStation plus member I received this game for free this month and boy am I glad I did! This game is one of my favorite Sega games of all time and to this day still have it for my Sega mega drive it was awesome in 1991 and its awesome now! One thing that I really liked was the introduction of trophies, now Ive played this before on the PlayStation with sonics ultimate collecting but it only had one trophy for it so I only did one quick play through, with this though they have included 12. Not only did they add 12 but there great each one gets you playing this game differently there's speed ones that have you finding the fastest route, collector ones which have you finding rings and emeralds, and survival trophies that have you slowing down and keeping hold of those Shields and rings its a great idea and one that got me playing 4 playthroughs of this great game great work :).

I'm not sure there isn't anyone who hasn't played this game or seen this game but I'll explain it anyway, this game has you playing the role of sonic a blue hedgehog that goes on a mission to stop the evil Dr Robotnic who has kidnapped all the forest creatures, Shocker I know :) Now the thing about sonic is speed hes a total speed freak and its one thing that sets this game apart from the others. The game is simple there's only one button that's jump and the directional buttons its simple but executed really well.

The level set up is similar to many games of this type and age, there are certain worlds and are split up into 3 levels the 3rd ending in a fight with Dr Robotnic, each world has a different feel and look to it and every level needs a different approach some require speed while others require more precision jumping and accuracy. All in all this game is great its perfect for a pick up and play game and can be picked up by anyone of any age and that's why this game is so successful, its Sonic The Hedgehog 1. 

Total Top Spec Gaming Score 10 / 10

 

ElectricMan 2

I recently posted a game on Top Spec the other day called defend your castle which was a game I played tons at school, This game I'm showing you today was a game I played a ton when I was at collage and wow did I love this game in collage. This was another one of those flash games on the Internet that everyone was playing at the time, I'm not sure what reminded me of this game but yesterday it came to my mind so I gave it another play through. Its Electric man 2!!!

So whats this game all about? Well when you start you create your fighting stick man, give him a name and an electric colour glow and your ready to start fighting in the Tournament Of Voltagen!!! You begin in round 1 with 4 matches all with different opponents each with different health and skills. The aim is basically to destroy all of your opponents and progress to the next round. do to this you have 3 moves Punching, kicking, and grabs each of these moves have different uses for example if your running when pressing the kick button you do a running kick. On top of these 3 moves you have 3 slow motion moves which are the same as the previous 3 but are much stronger and cooler.

As the rounds progress you will have to battle your way through more enemies with more health and that's when this game gets real challenging, you will have to be quick, agile and string together each of the moves into a devastating combo. There's 4 rounds each with 4 stages once you battle your way through that you still have a 2 match semi final and then the championship final. Are you up for the challenge? Well the games bellow if you think you have what it takes, Enjoy.

Total Top Spec Gaming Score 9 / 10

PlayStation 4

Yes you heard the title correct its the PlayStation 4. With nothing much to do I decided I would do some random searches of the Internet, one thing I randomly typed in was PS4 just to see what came up I found the usual fan work and fake posts but one site I found looks pretty legit.

The site is http://www.ps4playstation4.com/ps4-release-date-countdown-begins 

It has tons of information and answers as well as the picture found at the beginning of this post I'm doubt full that it will look anything like this but its cool to have the ideas down.

One other cool thing they have is a countdown timer to the release date which I'm going to put in this post :)

So with 1 year and 9 months till the release date what do I think this machine will have well the first thing I expect they will improve on is speed, start up speed and loading speed should be improved especially as games will only get bigger and better. More memory will be a must for this console the new slimline now has 160GB all the way to 320GB so the PS4 should have more than that. I'm also guessing that CDs will be a thing of the past with this console, we have already seen the PSP GO without its slot for UMD's and only uses downloaded games this is what I'm guessing the PS4 will be like. Finally I'm hoping for some new features virtual reality is something Ive always wanted and maybe even some kind of built in motion controller of some sort.

That's some of my ideas I'm sure there's lots of things that this thing could have so if any of you out there have any ideas feel free to leave a comment.

Bafta Game Awards

I recently received an email from Game the other day telling me about the British academy video game awards which I found pretty interesting. There's 10 games to choose from and basically vote for your favourite, there games from all genres and platforms Here's the choices:

 

Call Of Duty: Black Ops - (PS3, Xbox360, Wii, PC & DS)

Dance Central - (Xbox360)

Fifa 11 - (X360, PS3, Wii, PC, PS2, PSP & DS)

Halo: Reach - (Xbox 360)

Heavy Rain - (PS3)

Limbo - (Xbox 360)

Mass Effect 2 - (Xbox 360, PC & PS3)

Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit - (PS3, Xbox360, Wii & PC)

Red Dead Redemption - (Xbox 360 & PS3)

Super Mario Galaxy 2 - (Wii)

If Your interested on what I voted for it was between 3 for me Heavy Rain, Red Dead Redemption and Super Mario Galaxy 2. In the end I went with heavy rain, the game just did it for me and was something like Ive never played before. But don't let my choice sway you its up to you which is your favourite. So who desurves the title of Best video game of 2010.

Here's the link to the site and information on each game:

http://www.baftagameaward.com/awards/index.html

And here's the page to vote:

http://www.baftagameaward.com/Voting/Voting.aspx

One other good reason to vote is that you will be entered into a prize draw where you could WIN a Microsoft Home Entertainment System!! which is always a bonus :)

The Winners

You Voted and Here are the winners and the awards they won.

Action Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood	Artistic Achievement God of War III	Gameplay Super Mario Galaxy 2	Handheld Cut the Rope
Family Kinect Sports	Original Music Heavy Rain	Social Network Game My Empire	Technical Innovation Heavy Rain
Use of Audio Battlefield: Bad Company: 2	Multiplayer Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit	Sports F1 2010	Story Heavy Rain
Strategy Civilization V	Best Game Mass Effect 2	BAFTA Ones To Watch Award Twang!	GAME Award 2010 Call of Duty: Black Ops

Tetris

Tetris, the game that for me started the handheld market, when I got my first Game Boy this was one of the only games I had but did I care nope because this game is awesome it never gets old or boring I remember many days as a kid playing this game and kept me from going crazy in those long drives in the car. The idea is simple the game play is easy to pick up and is a perfect way for anyone getting into gaming.

The version that I used was for the original game boy oh yer green screen for the win :) but all jokes a side this game and handheld console rocked and to this day I still pick this up the odd time and give it a blast. The game itself is about building lines of blocks you randomly get given different shapes of blocks which you must rotate and place together as close as possible trying to avoid creating holes when you create a full line horizontally it disappears giving you points and more room to build clearing multiple lines together gives more points. As you clear lines your level increases which speeds up how fast the block falls giving you less time to place a block giving more room for error, the game finishes when the screen fills with blocks so keeping everything as low as possible is the key.

This game is now readily available on almost everything there's hundreds of versions on the Internet and tons of versions on other consoles but the original for me is the Game Boy. Ill put the game bellow for you guys to play, I cant imagine there is many out there that haven't seen this game or played it but if your new to Tetris its defiantly worth a try.

Total Top Spec Gaming Score 9 / 10

Controls:

LEFT and RIGHT keys - moves block left and right

UP Key - Rotates block 90 Degrees

DOWN Key - speeds up the blocks fall

P Key - Pauses game

Q Key - Quits current Game