My Judgement Day is almost here. Our humble studio is releasing its first commercial game, and with that we leave ourselves open to criticism from anyone and everyone, Ye Mighty games press, sympathetic friends, angry forumites, everyone.

For the sharp-eyed amongst you, you may notice I’ve been absent from posting here for a while, this is because I’ve been working towards the penultimate deadline: release date. Not only do I have the elusive release date to meet, I’m doing my best to fulfil my additional PR responsibility, and in a strange role-reversal, finding journalists to review our game. I’ve reviewed other peoples’ games for years; the good, the bad, the ugly and I’m feeling apprehensive as to how our game will be received. Despondent about our hard work – because I know exactly everything I’d change, if I was more experienced, more competent with the software, and had more time.

Looking back at my review style, I can be very cynical, adolescent and insulting, because that’s the kind of material I like to read in a review, even if it’s ridiculous and completely out of proportion. I’ve been more concerned with writing an entertaining piece that people will enjoy, rather than something factual and informative. When I buy a games magazine, I’m the person that skims to the poor 2/10 review before checking out any interviews or previews. I adore Yahtzee’s Zero Punctuation. I laugh heartily as the tiniest most insignificant aspect of a perfectly decent game is ripped apart and mocked.

I feel compelled to explain to people that we have been working on this title alongside our end of year assignments for university, I have been sleeping on a Thermarest with dead wood lice. I have sacrificed my social life and sunlight, been on a diet of caffeine, noodles and cornflakes… to be honest I could rattle off a giant list of problems, personal reasons, annoyances and frustrations. To get to the crux of this long-winded point, there is no valid excuse for the final quality of our game, not a single one. I cannot add on a message saying, “Sorry if you didn’t enjoy this experience, I was trying to resolve an argument combining 2am, Henry the Hoover and ants”, because it doesn’t validate or justify anything for the player.

A while ago, I called Final Fantasy XII crap. CRAP. I have to say that even if the game didn’t push my buttons due to the annoying, repetitive pathetic main character, near useless Espers, a story that flew straight over my head and a walkthrough guide with text so small I needed a magnifying glass to read it (stop it Emily! Stop!) this game is ‘crap’ in no way, shape or form. The soundtrack is magnificent, and for every plank of a character, there is a sturdy handsome male with a giant sword (and the only one insinuating something rude in that last sentence is YOU).

So with a heavy heart, it’s almost time for me to receive the kind of criticism I’m accustomed to both hearing about in other games, and in turn dishing out. I will take it on the chin. I will not be sticking my fingers in my ears, but it may be time to equip some heavy armour, cast Protect and receive a little less physical damage.

If you’ve ever visited our lovely li’l forum you will no doubt notice the huge Left 4 Dead thread, and if you dare venture into it you’ll clearly see that some of us here at Ready Up have a bit of a “thing” for the wonderfully satisfying zombie filled shooter. So much so that it’s possibly one of the only threads that hasn’t been derailed… much. But come on, we’re only human, I don’t know how any FPS fan could not fall in love with Left 4 Dead. For a start, it’s made by Valve. Valve, to me, equals WIN. I would sell my soul to the devil to get my hands on Half-Life 2 episode 3 right now! *looks up, no sign of the devil, feels sad* I love Left 4 Dead because it is just so very very “Valvey”, clever and brilliant in every way. Except for one, well, actually, four.

I’m not going to go into it, I’ll annoy myself, and we’ve discussed and blogged about it many times before but OMFG! Why why why why why are Bill, Francis, Louis and Zoey so useless?  How they ever managed to stay alive before we came along and started controlling their actions I will never know! It’s almost as if Valve, made them so infuriatingly rubbish at the very game they were created to dwell in because they wanted us to play with friends and, eeeeew, socialise!

So that’s what we did, Wednesday nights became Ready Up’s  Left 4 Dead night, and much fun was had by all, pouncing, smoking, head-popping, fire-starting fun! But there was always talk of the promised DLC, new maps and a new challenge, “Survival!” How excited were we on L4D DLC day? Well let me tell you, LOADS!  In Survival mode, wave after wave of infected swarm at you from every angle. All you have to do is stay alive for as long as you can. It’s like the inevitable ending to almost every zombie story ever told. The lift never opens, the APC doesn’t turn up, the chopper never arrives to whisk you away to safety. The world is entirely over-run, it’s so unfair, they’re not allowed to be that fast y’know!?  The screaming horde won’t stop advancing and you just know you’re not gonna make it out alive, but you keep on trying, you keep on killing, you keep on surviving.

The survival instinct is strong in us all, never surrender, never give up. Keep planting bullets in those undead bastards til you’re flattened by a flaming tank, defend your team-mates from the onslaught of claws and tongues and vomit til you can carry on no longer and melee spam until… wait!? What!? Melee fatigue!?  Noooo, that type of thing causes incaps! Downed on the ground alone, two tiny pistols against a swarm of zombies tearing at your flesh will result in certain doom but even then, after death, don’t ever quit, keep mashing RT, I’m sure it helps! And anyway, if you do find yourself struggling to make an impact on those leaderboards, you could always take a bit of advice from these two Ready Uppers -

I have managed to tick another game off my long list of things that I must complete: Professor Layton and the curious village. I have that nice warm inner feeling of achievement – and I like it.

Professor Layton awoke something in me that I have not had with a game in a long time. This was the need to actually complete all of it. Normally these days just getting to the credit sequence is enough for me to tick a game off. However that is generally not the game 100% completed, it can be less than 33.33% as I have only done it in one difficulty mode and certainly didn’t find all the extra content.

So I have successfully completed every puzzle in the game. This did sadly involve me looking up a walk through to find the last hidden puzzle in the map but I solved them all on my lonesome. I even did all Layton’s challenges - go me.

So what did I do when I had finished? Well I was on such a puzzle high the only thing that could fill the void was a 1,000 piece jigsaw… and I totally aced that. However I must now return to the virtual gaming world again because other people have requested use of the sitting room table.