A calmer person now... except Black and White 2 is..erm... yes.

[Nick]

What a hell of a week to decide to quit smoking!

All things considered, its actually going rather well. I'm finally starting to break the actual physical habits I picked up when I was smoking and only now fell the urge every now and then.

Most noticeable is after mealtimes, when I would normally go and light up, but also if I take a work related phonecall. We have cordless phones here and I'd take or make a call, or on the mobile too, and then head off outside for fag whilst talking to whoever... Those moments catch you unawares as half the time you don't even realise you're doing it... I still get up and wander off outside, but at least I'm not smoking now.

Otherwise, I hardly even think about it. A couple of nights ago I was really unsettled in the evening as I might have smoked two or three times while watching telly, but the last two night I seemd to have cracked that and last night I didn;t even think about it.

I'm not wearing the nicotine patches at night now either, which screwed up my sleep for a couple of nights, but the last two nights I've slept like a log... and I'm finding it easier to get to sleep too, which is always good.

Serious Sam 2 and Black and White 2 have been having a serious playing, which has probably helped keep my mind off the fags, and I have to say that the new 'First 15' feature, where I put up my first impressions of a game, seems to have been well received.

In the case of Serious Sam 2, first impressions were correct, it's an out and out blaster in the style of the classics like Doom and Duke Nukem. There's bugger all in the way of puzzle solving, a few simplistic secret areas and loads and loads and loads of bad guys to shoot. I've finished the game now and have to say that the last few levels were an absolute bitch, and, after a solid six hour session, it was starting to get a little tedious... But overall it was an enjoyable, if ultimately rather shallow, game of a fairly decent size. What does lift it out of the realms of just being mediocre is the Co-op mode which is simply fantastic, especially if you can find someone who won't grab all the best power-ups if they don't really need them.

Black and White 2 also lived up, (or should I say 'lived down'?), to first impressions as well. I don't think anyone can lay claim to being a bigger fan of the original than me, but this sequel just doesn't do it for me. It looks as though Lionhead have stripped out all the depth and little extras of the first game, dumbed the interface down for mass appeal and jazzed the graphics up to make the most of current hardware.

The end result is a glorified RTS with none of the interest of new units and tactical gameplay essential for an RTS, with weird god powers thrown in. Now you might well assume that I just don't get the idea behind Black and White at all, but trust me, I spent at least 4-5 hours just on the training mission on the first game, I played that baby until it cried for mercy, until I was an unfamiliar face to my kids and until my wife decided the only way to communcate with me was through e-mailing me so my villagers would let me know someone was trying to get hold of me... I KNOW what Black and White is all about.

Black and White 2 feels and plays more like Black and White 'Lite', the humour, the multitude of little tricks and gizmos, the sub-missions, all those little things that made the first game so good are either missing or just not implemented as well in this sequel and it's a bit of a disappointment. To be perfectly honest, you'd do the game concept far more justice if you just went out and found the original in a bargain bin somewhere and played that instead.

Anyway, enough drivelling from me, time to get on a get some work done, cos there's a whole slew of cool stuff to tell you all about.

[Lee @ SCAN]

Nick - you've hit the nail on the head with the B&W2 comments.

I too found the first better - and now I've gone back to playing that. The WHOLE learning aspect found in the first one has now gone and it's more of a B&W "kids edition" as opposed to a sequel.

There is no real "interaction" with the creature any more, you only have to slap/tick the beast a few times when it asks " Should I Poo on that villager " where in the first one you had to dish out some devine retribution at least 20 times to stop the theiving little sod from eating children

[DavidM]

Although it is the thing that may make it better for me... I didn't have the patience and just went around causing trouble in the first...