No Signal Input

Currently...

2011-11-18T15:39:00.000Z

I'm currently writing over at Xboxer360.com and I have been doing since late 2009. I'm hoping to revive this blog soon, possibly with a move to Wordpress, so fingers crossed I can get that done asap.

In the meantime you can follow me on Twitter @Nosignalinput

You May Have Noticed...

2010-01-12T00:06:00.003Z

...that this blog is effectively dead.

We've been here before, haven't we? I suppose this is the domain of any writer, but the trick is to try to not let yourself get burnt out and that's why I put this blog on hold.

Thankfully I got myself a full time job, but I also ended my time at Button Smasher and wanted to get back into writing. Unfortunately a 9-5 job doesn’t leave you with much time to dedicate to updating a blog daily, but I have been trying over at my personal blog (I managed to complete everyday of Holidailies 2009). It also doesn’t leave me with much time to dedicate to my gaming passion; so the choice is between actually playing games or writing about them, so you can pretty much guess what option won.

I haven’t given in though, and I’m now writing news over at the VGR Network. I’ve also joined the review team and I’m currently reviewing Alien Breed: Evolution that will most likely be up on the site this Friday. I’m really enjoying the community at VGR and it’s good to be with a site that could blossom into something big if we work hard at it.

As for this blog, I’m going to try my best. As much as I hate to say this I can’t spend my entire waking hours writing. I have a life, and I can’t stay cooped up in my room putting sentences together all the time (although I suppose I could do it on the move with my iPhone 3G). It’s also hard to write about gaming when you need to actually play games and, in my case, also keep up with the gaming news. Basically I’m going to have to limit myself, and I think two or three posts a week may be the best I can do right now. I can’t make that a promise though.

As in any situation making promises you probably won’t be able to keep is pointless. In the blogging world it only pisses off your readers, and a pissed off reader isn’t likely to return. I know I’ve done that a few times, so I must apologise for that.

I could ramble on all day, but I’d rather leave it at that rather abrupt ending if you don’t mind.

The Gamers That Help You

2009-10-21T21:35:00.006Z

Just a quick update today as I'm extremely tired and I haven't had a chance to write the post I wanted to write (that's probably because I decided to have another go at Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay, which just ended up frustrating me due to a annoying bug I discovered).

Anyway, I'd like to point you towards an interesting article I read on the bus home from work (Oh iPhone 3G, how I love you so!). The article is about an area of gaming that we hear little about, which is the world of the gamer who dedicates many an hour to creating free guides for games. You only have to take a look at a couple of the guides on GameFAQs to see the dedication that is put into each and every one by its creators. Most importantly the majority aren't getting paid for the work they put in; simply doing it out of love for the game and the satisfaction that comes from helping others.

"I really get a feeling of accomplishment when I get emails from somebody who bought the game for their child, and the child gets frustrated, and that gets the parent frustrated, and they come online and get the help they need and everybody's happy," Will said. "And I've gotten emails from people in their seventies, playing games. I got one email from a man stationed on a ship in the U.S. Navy. He had one game he'd brought with him, and he wanted me to email my guide (Dungeon Siege II) to him."

Williams has seen this kind of gratitude, too: "I've gotten some seniors who wrote in to thank me for my Metal Gear Solid 4 guide. For my Wall-E guide, I get pretty frequent thank-yous from parents. It's cool. It's like, whoa, people actually appreciate this." - Kotaku

It's a decent read, so I encourage you to take time out of your day to read the full article. It makes you want to send emails out thanking the creators, as these guys are putting in all the hard work for your benefit whilst asking for nothing in return. I would be lost without the service they provide, so I have massive respect for them.

One thing they don't provide is the answer to why Vin Diesel has such a shiny bald head, as I'm surprised you can't use it in CoR:EfBB to dazzle your enemies ('All he saw was a rapidly growing bald spot before he was shivved in the neck'). Instead I have to resort to sprinting from shadow to shadow and trying to avoid getting shot in the arse.

Back to a Working and Gaming Life

2009-10-20T21:37:00.005Z

It’s been a busy few months and, to be honest, I totally forgot about this blog after I got fed up with all the frustration stemming from the url problems (which may actually be fixed now but I’m not certain it will last very long). I suppose I better give you the good news though, and that’s the fact that I’ve finally got a full time job. So, now I no longer have to worry about money (much) I can feed my gaming habit which obviously now gives me something to write about. I have really missed it though, and now I have a massive load off my mind I can concentrate on improving my writing abilities. Let’s get back to the real reason of this blog though, and that, obviously, is the games!

Since my last post I’ve actually done a lot more gaming than I usually do which, for someone who runs a blog dedicated to the topic, is a strange thing to say. When I had free time I spent it doing other things, which isn’t a bad thing but it left a stack of games unplayed and my rentals just lying around collecting dust (luckily I pay monthly through Boomerang). I’ve played everything from Castle Crashers to Prototype and GTA IV: The Lost and Damned to the original Fallout (which is going for an amazingly cheap price on Good Old Games). It’s just good to be able to come home and get a few hours relaxation on a game. When I could do that whenever I wanted it didn’t mean as much, but now it strangely feels more fun when I’m trying to fit a session into the few spare hours I have on weekdays (I work from 9am until 5.30pm, but I don’t get home until about 6.15pm). Of course, there’s always the weekends but I do try to fit other things into my life apart from gaming.

One game I’m not really having much fun with at the moment is The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay (the Xbox 360 remake). The game is just too damn hard, and because I can’t play in high definition at the moment (my last monitor apparently ‘broke’ but I’ll be getting a new one at the end of the month, which is actually better than my old one as it goes up to 1080) it’s hard to see what’s going on in the really dark places – which there are a damn lot of! I’m contemplating sending it back to Boomerang, but that will be breaking my unwritten rule that I complete games before I send them back for another rental (plus I can be a bit of an achievement whore at times and there’s still plenty up for grabs).

Another benefit of my monthly wage is my new iPhone 3G. I got it on an 02 contract last Friday and I already want to marry it (maybe there’s an app for that?). Games wise I’ve bought Crash Kart and Bejeweled 2; both of which help to pass the time on the bus to work (although Crash Kart is a little hard to play when the bus is bumping up and down). I’ll be trying some more out over the coming weeks and I hope to write mini-reviews here for them.

I’m crossing my fingers that the url problem will stay fixed for tomorrow, but I will be posting some more impressions on what I’ve been playing lately either way. I may also be working on another project, so stay tuned for details on that.

Domain Headaches

2009-08-05T19:46:00.010Z

The site has been down for all of last night and most of today, mostly due to too much tinkering on my part. As you may have noticed I've had my own domain for quite a while now (although I still use Blogger to host) but I've also had a very annoying problem with it.

If you go to http://www.nosignalinput.co.uk it works totally fine, as does http://nosignalinput.blogspot.com, but missing out the 'www' part will not load the site. I have been trying to fix this, following tonnes of tutorials, but it has pretty much been to no avail. I did fix it last night, but it stopped working soon after and most of today has been a complete headache trying to get things back to normal.

So, now the site works again but I still have the same problem as before. If anyone knows anything about CNAME's and all that crap then I'd appreciate some direct advice, as most of the tutorials out there say a lot without actually saying anything useful about fixing the problem. I don't need a detail explanation of CNAME's and DNS, I just need a fix!

I'm just about ready to give up on this one, but I know it works somehow!

UPDATE: ...and just like that the problem is fixed! I must have done something right, and the DNS settings have just finally updated. I won't hold my breath that the problem stays fixed forever though.

Now back to your regularly scheduled blogging!

UPDATE 2: Sigh, it seems the problem is not fixed. I've reverted to my old blogspot address for the meantime while my new DNS settings take some time to propagate the Internet (I'll probably still have the original problem though). There's no need to change your links as my http://www.nosignalinput.co.uk address is redirecting to my blogspot address.

Why can't things ever be simple?

UPDATE 3: Ok, everything should be back to normal now. If you're coming directly to the site you have to put the 'www' in front of the url because it's still not working without it. I'll give it a few days to see if it puts itself right, but past experience shows me that it probably won't work. I'm fed up with messing with it anyway, and the offline time I've suffered through has wiped out what little traffic I had left.

P.S Gnome, if you're reading this can you tell me what DNS settings you used to get your site to load with and without the 'www'? Thanks!

Even The Smurf's Can't Save This Horrible Game

2009-08-04T22:03:00.006Z

I felt it fitting that I should wait for the new month to return to blogging here (after that post I wrote a few days ago anyway), but obviously I didn't find it fitting to prepare a proper post. Instead I'm going to show you a video of possibly one of the worst games I've ever seen - and I loved The Smurf's!

The video above is of Smurf: Rescue in Gargamel's Castle which was released for the Atari 2600 and the ColecoVision back in 1982. During the next 3 minutes and 12 seconds you will bear witness (if you can make it that long) to the most awful and unimaginative level designs I have ever seen. This is a world in which fence posts can kill our little blue friends instantly, along with other bits of seemingly random scenery, hampering your quest to save every Smurf's wet dream, Smurfette.

When you finally reach her (after a few screens of utterly boring - and often repeated - scenery) you're pretty much cock blocked by a skull, which seems impossible to jump over. According to Wikipedia there are other levels after this (even in 1982 a 3 minute game wouldn't be good value for money), some with BATS!, so how the hell do you beat that dastardly skull?

If anyone has been subjected to the horror of this game in the past then let me know in the comments below. I'm counting on you retro buffs that visit the site, although I suppose even you lot would want to forget any experience you had with this horrific 'game'.

N.B. No, Smurfette is not topless. It is merely a glitch, although a great one for any young lad playing the game in 1982.

Writing About Writing

2009-07-27T23:55:00.005Z

No, I am not dead; I was just really burned out and couldn't put a decent enough sentence together to post here. See? That last one was pretty awful.

I am a victim of the recession, unable to get a job since I graduated last July. Since then I've been applying to jobs that I shouldn't even be thinking about, but that's the way it goes when you need to start earning money. I either get the reply that I'm "overqualified" (I suppose it's a polite way of saying "I don't want you to be taking my job a couple of years down the road") or that I "don't have enough experience" (this is for the graduate jobs, but I can't get experience because I'm "overqualified". Catch-22, right?). It is incredibly frustrating, and I really don't know how people who refuse to work cope with sitting on their arses all day.

Now all this free time has left me with the option of concentrating on my writing. It has also made me realise that I really want writing to be part of my future career, but I know that it's little more than a hobby right now. Sure, I have my small job over at ButtonSmasher and I love it, but all this worry about not having much income has dulled the creative mass of flesh in my skull. I'm finding it hard to come up with original articles, and I know that pumping out news articles doesn't really flex my abilities when it comes to writing. On that note I have decided to do something about it.

There is no point in moping around feeling sorry for myself; my brain wants to be used. I need to put all my spare effort (e.g. when I'm not looking for a job) into my writing. I know I have the ability to be an incredibly creative person, as I have been in the past, and wasting this talent is not going to get me anywhere in life. I may be unemployed, but I have been given the gift of enough free time to do something with my life. I may never get this chance again, so I need to grasp it while I still can. The more I write, the better I will get. Well, at least that's the way it's supposed to work anyway.

I guess this is the long way of saying that I'm back to updating this blog, and hopefully I'm back to writing something that anyone who stumbles across this blog can enjoy. In the end it may not support me financially, but writing is my passion and every day I don't write I feel a little more depressed. I may very well end up working in Tesco, but at least I will come home to a place where I can flex my creative muscles.

Share this with me.

(Image source)

Microsoft E309 Press Conference Report Is Up!

2009-06-01T23:38:00.002Z

I've written my impressions of the amazing Microsoft E309 Press Conference held earlier today over on ButtonSmasher.

Click this link to go and have a read, but please let me know what you think about the new announcements coming out of the Microsoft camp.

Tweeting Microsoft’s E3 Press Conference

2009-06-01T16:37:00.002Z

Just a quick heads up to say that I will be tweeting the upcoming Microsoft E3 Press Conference over on my Twitter account here.

I will also be writing up a full report on the press conference, but if you want my live analysis then my Twitter account is the place to go. My detailed analysis will appear over on ButtonSmasher later today, and I'll be doing the same with Nintendo's and Sony's press conferences tomorrow.

The press conference kicks off at 6.30pm UK time, so if you wish to watch it there's a bunch of live feed links here.

New Dead Rising 2 Trailer

2009-05-31T22:57:00.003Z

I've already hinted that I'm going to miss Frank West (he's covered wars you know!), but I think the alleged 7,000 zombies in the new trailer above more than makes up for any awfully named character (Chuck Greene? What were Capcom thinking).

Unfortunately that's all we'll be getting of Dead Rising 2 for the moment; because all this swine flu malarkey has caused Capcom to scale back its E3 attendence and their Japanese demonstrators won't be coming along to enjoy the show and, thus, let us enjoy any new Dead Rising 2 information.

With all the other amazing things that will be coming out of E3 I'm sure I'll be able to survive, but you can't help feeling that E3 2009 has already disappointed us before it has even begun.

E3 2009 Is Almost Here!

2009-05-31T22:47:00.004Z

(Image courtesy of Kotaku)

E3 doesn't technically kick off until Tuesday, but some of the press conferences start tomorrow. I'll be blogging about the newly revived conference all week, although it will mostly be done over at ButtonSmasher.

I will be posting bits and bobs here as well, largely those things that don't fit into ButtonSmasher, so keep checking both blogs if you want to read my angle on new games and announcements.

I've already kicked off the fun with a post on the new PSP Go, but I'm sure E3 will have more than its fair share of surprises for us.

Screw all the haters - I love this time of year!

Sonic The Hedgehog Comes To The iPhone - Is Your Finger Up To The Task?

2009-05-21T21:41:00.004Z

You would have to be a bit of a poor retro gamer if you have never played the original Sonic game, but you can now try out the 150th port (obviously an exaggeration, but you'd be surprised at how many systems the game can be played on) of Sonic the Hedgehog through the iPhone.

All seven zones are packed in, along with the special stages, but you may be wondering how the game controls on a touch screen phone. The controls are handled through on-screen controls (you can see the d-pad and 'A' button on the screenshot above), which already sounds a little off-putting. Speed, of course, is crucial to any Sonic game; so if the controls aren't up to handling Sonic and his little red shoes, and the precise jumps required, then it's not going to be very fun.

I really do appreciate old games being ported to platforms like the iPhone - in turn making them available to the masses, or at least those with enough money to be able to afford an iPhone or the ridiculous contract fees - but if the game is nigh on impossible to play then you quickly find yourself being unimpressed. A game like Peggle may be a perfect fit for the iPhone, but there are others that just aren't suitable for the phones control scheme.

Since there's currently no demo I'd exercise caution in buying this port, but if money is no barrier then you can pick it up for £3.49 on the App Store right now.

Game Diary - 18 May 2009: Big Badda Boom!

2009-05-18T18:04:00.006Z

Although I've been playing a lot of games recently (as you're about to find out) that isn't my excuse for neglecting this blog. Sadly my mum died back in February, and since then I just haven't found the strength to write original entries outside of my ButtonSmasher job. I'm slowly getting back into writing, and part of that is reviving this blog. That means getting out the shears and weed killer and going to work.

Where was I? Oh yes, the games! Over the last few months I’ve been a member of Boomerang; which is a video games rental website that allows me to rent one game at a time for as long as I want for only £9.99 a month. There are higher price structures that allow you to order up to three games at a time, but I have enough trouble finding enough time to play one amongst all the other games I have that lay unfinished. Anyway, this service has allowed me to experience a lot of games I wouldn’t normally have bought; either due to lack of funds or not being interested enough in the game to pay full price for. All I do is play the game, complete it, and then send it right back to get another within two days. Playing all these games should have been pure fodder for more reviews, but as I said above I really haven’t been up to it.

The game I have at the moment is Mercenaries 2: World in Flames, which - despite everything I read about the game being bad - I’m really enjoying. It doesn’t take itself too seriously; and if you’re after a good storyline, character building and great voice acting (sorry Peter Stormare, but you’re awful in this) then should look elsewhere because Mercs 2 offers none of these. Instead it offers plenty of explosions, and then some more. There’s nothing more satisfying than dropping a tactical nuke and leveling half a city, unless you’re doing it in reality as then you’d be a mass murderer. Red Faction Guerilla may be one upping the whole destruction thing that Mercs 2 has going on, but the difference is that Mercs 2 does it with style. Grappling onto a moving helicopter and tossing the pilot out may not be realistic, but reality is more often than not very boring.

When I play Mercs 2 I’m not looking for a stellar storyline, I play other games for that, I’m just looking for some good old fashioned fun – with a truckload of explosives thrown in on the side!

Another game I’ve been playing recently is The Darkness. I picked it up for £7.35 on Amazon and I don’t think I’ll be getting a better bargain in a long while. I’ll talk more about that in the next diary entry though, so goodbye for now!

World Officially Ends On News That Mr. T Will Fight Nazis With Will Wright

2009-04-27T18:47:00.007Z

While you get over the shock that I'm actually posting let me talk to you about something so incredibly baffling yet, at the same time, awesome. In fact, your head may just explode when you read the next paragraph.

Will Wright - one of my favourite game designers - and Mr. T - who happens to be everyone's favourite action hero, right? - are going to star in a game together. While you process that information let me tell you what the game is about.

The first game will see Mr. T take on Nazis and their gigantic machines in the varied universe of South American rain forests, lost ancient cities, industrial complexes and contemporary military installations. Along with Mr. T and other characters from the graphic novel, the game will feature none other than Will Wright. In this universe, Will Wright is not a top-notch game designer but a top-notch American geneticist who was kidnapped and coerced to work on a diabolic plan. Mr. T and Will Wright will join forces to annihilate the Nazis and their hardware.

Yup, you read that right. Mr. T fighting Nazis while rescuing The Sims creator Will Wright. I'm struggling to think of a plot that can be more insane, yet incredibly enticing, than that.

...and just like that the video game industry came to an end. Why make more games when one just made the universe explode into awesomeness?

UPDATE: Destructoid has an interview up with ZootFly's Bostjan Troha, who gives a little more insight into the game.

Mr. T and Will Wright team up against Nazis in ZootFly game - Joystiq

The Watchmen Xbox 360 Giveaway

2009-03-20T15:44:00.006Z

FresnoBeehive are giving away this snazzy looking Watchmen skinned Xbox 360. Unfortunately the skin only has Silk Spectre II and Nite Owl II on it; so there's no love for my favourite character Rorschach or Dr. Manhattan's big blue penis (thankfully). Still, I wouldn't say no.

Other prizes include a my.vu personal media viewer, the Watchmen movie soundtrack, posters and passes to see the movie.

All you have to do is write a review of the Watchmen movie in 50 words or less and post it here. Each review will be placed in a draw to win one of the above prizes, including the 360.

As a side note I'm currently reading Watchmen after going to see the movie at the cinema last week. I absolutely loved the movie and from reading the comic I do feel like the movie did a good job of catching the spirit of the comic. Obviously there is also a fair bit missing from the movie, but some things do have to be cut when it comes to adapting a graphic novel into a movie.

(Via Kotaku)

The Behemoth's Latest Game

2009-03-20T13:19:00.004Z

The Behemoth team, who you may remember from the excellent Castle Crashers and Alien Homid, have released a trailer of their latest project. The game is currently in the early development stage, so don't expect to learn much from the trailer above. It does show off some very lovely gameplay, but you'll still be left with a sense of not knowing all that much about the game you just saw.

From what I can gather it's going to be a platformer (duh!) and will, as usual, be heavily multiplayer orientated. Finally we won't be playing it until sometime next year.

Anoop Gantayat got a look at the game at the Tokyo International Anime Fair and posted a few impressions over on his blog. Apparently everything that has been shown so far is for 'sample purposes' only to judge how the audience will react. Anoop also detailed four mini-games that were accessible in the demo.

Block painting game: As players run around the play field, they turn any blocks that they touch to their own color. The goal is to do this for more blocks than your rival. You don't have to do anything to the blocks to change their color -- just walk over them or bump into them from the side or below.
Soccer game: Players attempt to knock a soccer ball into a goal. This is done by simply bumping into the ball or punching it.
Gold collecting game: There's a giant goldfish floating about the stage. When struck, it releases gold. The goal is to collect as much of the gold as possible.
Soul collecting game: In this mini game, when an enemy is defeated, his soul floats away. Collect an opponent's soul and you get big points. If you lose your soul, you can chase after it once you've respawned, assuming it hasn't already been taken. - Andriasang.com

The demo was also being shown on the Xbox 360, but Behemoth have stressed that they will not be discussing what platforms the game will be available on just yet.

Anoop's blog has more details, and be sure to check back here as more info is available.

Tribes Coming To The Web Browser

2009-03-17T17:00:00.004Z

Don your jetpack and pick up your suitably sci-fi weapon as the original Tribes is making its way to the web browser.

Browser-based games are all the rage these days, and releasing a game that will work on a high percentage of PC's is crucial to making it in the casual market. We've seen how immensely popular these games can be with Quake Live, so it makes sense that another classic FPS is going to be revived for the masses. InstantAction.com, a web-based games service, will be taking the helm on the revival; bringing enhanced graphics, 'powerful browser-based gaming tools' and better modding options.

The game will be playable at next week's Game Developers Conference, where visitors will also get the chance to learn how InstantAction managed to bring an updated version of the original Tribes to the web browser.

I love how far things have come, meaning that we are now able to play what were pretty impressive games for their time in nothing more than a web browser. Hopefully the queue's to play won't be as massive as Quake Live, but don't count on it.

More screenshots at the link below!

InstantAction Brings Tribes To Your Web Browser - Kotaku

Feel Like Wasting Time? Play Tetoris

2009-03-15T23:20:00.006Z

Ever wanted to play one giant game of Tetris? No, me neither and you'll see why after you play Tetoris.

It's one giant grid, with pieces so tiny that you have to have the patience of a fox to even clear one line. I managed the first line (that screenshot isn't from my game) and then got bored, so I resorted to holding the enter key (which drops the pieces) and watching the blocks as they stack up. The result is something like the above.

If you actually got a score higher than '0' (it's 20 points per line) then feel free to post it in the comments. Anyone who has the patience gets a free cookie.

Tetoris - Soviet Russia (Via Kotaku)

Only A Matter Of Time - German Shootings Linked To Games

2009-03-12T22:07:00.003Z

You're probably already aware but yesterday a 17 year-old German, Tim Kretschmer, entered his former school and killed 12 people, 9 of them students. He then left the school and killed three other innocent people, before killing himself with a gunshot to the head when cornered by police. A tragedy of course, but there will always be people who use such an event to further their own ends.

The Associated Press, a news agency I always thought was reputable; saw fit to mention that the killer played video games in a recent article.

A 17-year-old, who would give only his first name, Aki, said he had been studying this year with the shooter at a private business school, and described him as a quiet, reserved person.

Aki said the two played poker together, both in person and online, as well as a multiplayer video game called "Counter-Strike" that involves killing people to complete missions.

"He was good," Aki said. - Associated Press

Later the BBC also mentioned this in a report on the 1 o'clock news. Why mention this though? He was a 17 year-old male, plenty of guys his age play video games and don't go around shooting innocent people. Even if he was influenced by video games he would have to have something wrong in his head to not realise that the one world is virtual and one is reality. It's more likely that he was just an extremely paranoid person and thought the whole world was against him.

Plus, there's also this little matter;

Mr Rech revealed today that Kretschmer had received treatment last year at a psychiatric clinic in Winnenden, to which he fled after the school spree and where he shot dead a gardener before hijacking a Volkswagen Sharan car. - The Times

This is someone who had already been treated for psychiatric problems, so trying to make video games a scapegoat just because an extremely disturbed person thought that shooting people for the hell of it was ok is crazy. Millions of young people play violent video games and watch violent films, and 99.9% of them don't go and kill people. If video games were so bad then wouldn't we all be going on a rampage? I think Tim would have done this whether or not he played video games; it's just something the media like to jump on to create headlines.

I was going to go into further detail on this, but this excellent post explains everything I wanted to say. Check it out, but make sure you keep your comments civil.

Here's 67 Games For You, All Under 4k In Size

2009-03-12T21:02:00.006Z

I am constantly astounded by the abilities of the games developer community. Faced with a challenge where many would give up these developers (many of them so-called 'bedroom' developers) shrug off such concerns and plod on with the task. This determination leads to what this post is about, 67 games that have been made using only 4k of memory.

These 67 games are entrants in the Java4k 2009 competition, and the finish products just go to show that less memory to work with doesn't exactly mean you'll get a bad game. It's the age old question; does it really matter about graphics if the gameplay is top notch?

My favourite game is Left 4k Dead (pictured above) - a pretty good minimalist representation of Left 4 Dead - but there's some more gems in there; 4bsolution, F-Zero 4k, MEG4kMAN and NiGHTS 4k.

So there you have it, I've just given you another reason to procrastinate today!

Java4k 2009 Competition - Java4k.com

So Is Resident Evil 5 Racist? Apparently Not

2009-03-07T17:11:00.005Z

Way back in September 2007 I posted an article about a number of other articles that had accused Resident Evil 5 of being racist towards black Africans based on a simple trailer for the game. The consensus was that the game was no more racist then previous instalments in the franchise (which is not racist in any way, unless your warped mind views it in that way) and you were shooting people infected by a deadly disease that made them want to eat you, regardless of skin colour. Many of you agreed, but now we have an expert to back us up.

Videogamer.com recently played through the first three levels of Capcom's Resident Evil 5, inviting one of the UK's top experts on racism to play along. Glenn Bowman, Senior Lecturer at the Department of Anthropology at the University of Kent, actually saw sense and decided to try the game out for himself rather than make baseless assumptions based on a few trailers of the game.

So, what's his verdict?

"I don't think it's racist. I think people are looking too quickly to be able to jam that label onto it ... maybe they'll make the next game happen in Finland and you'll have a whole series of Inuit’s and the like being really scary and running around with Walrus heads on. I think it's silly to call it racist." - Videogamer.com

He also echoed something I previously touched upon, that "the blacks are cleary being set up as victims". They are the victims of a virus that does not care what skin colour you have, and will turn you into a mindless cannibal regardless. That's what I tried to stress originally, but those who had cried 'racism!' had failed to see the context in why black people were acting this way. It wasn't because Capcom were trying to portray blacks as savages, it was because there were infected with a disease that didn't allow them to think about their actions. White or black, the zombies in the Resident Evil franchise have always been this way.

There's a lot more to it than that, and Bowman touches upon the African setting, tribal imagery, and anti-colonial themes that are prevalent in the game. It's an interesting read, and will hopefully finally put to rest those ignorant comments about Resident Evil 5 being seen as racist. Then again, I don't expect that the people who originally made those statements will ever actually play the game anyway.

Not surprisingly Capcom seems to be a little sensitive about the whole racism thing, telling some British Resident Evil 5 reviewers that they should avoid writing about/taking images of the games island section. Apprently the enemies in this section have spears, something which won't go down well with the PC crowd. Hopefully Capcom will soon reveal why they don't want this section showing off just yet.

So maybe this won't be put to rest straight away after all.

EXCLUSIVE: Expert delivers verdict on Resi 5 racism row - videogamer.com

This Replica Bioshock Syringe Wants Your ADAM

2009-02-27T15:31:00.005Z

This Bioshock ADAM syringe replica (that the Little Sisters in the game use to extract ADAM from corpses) has been lovingly crafted by Harrison Krix, the same guy who brought us the amazing Portal gun replica.

The replica comes complete with baby bottle nipple - which the Little Sisters drank the ADAM through - something that Krix felt was missing from previous attempts at replica's.

Head on over to his blog to see how Krix put together this superb piece of gaming art.

Bioshock Little Sister ADAM Syringe - Volpin Props (Via Kotaku)

A More Realistic Take On Our Favourite Game Characters

2009-02-25T17:00:00.004Z

Take a wild guess at who those cute little guys up there are supposed to be. No? Well, that's Sonic and Knuckles according to Tom Rhodes' more 'realistic' take on some of our favourite video game characters.

What if Lara Croft had looked more like a real archeologist (because we all know how 'nerdy' those are)?

I think that's pretty much wiped out any of the fantasies you had about her as a young boy.

There's a tonne more over on his blog; including Duke Nukem, Earthworm Jim and Mario.

Old Game Characters - Plan to Fail (Via Kotaku)

Quake Live Is Here!

2009-02-25T16:48:00.005Z

In case you haven't realised (and you'd be extremely alone if you hadn't) the Quake Live open beta is now, um, live! Well, it should be live anyway, as right now the main site has a placeholder saying "Quake Live will return shortly". It seems they didn't anticipate how popular the open beta would be. Even if you do get in you get stuck in a queue behind 24,000 people (that was the last queue I was in anyway).

Thankfully I was in the closed beta so I've already had a sweet taste of the game. The technology is incredibly cool, allowing for a fully fledged version of Quake III to run smoothly in your browser (although, unfortunately, it doesn't currently support Google Chrome). The game is just as good as I remember, back in the good old days of games with friends over LAN.

Anyway, when it finally comes back online and I've had chance to have a fair number of games I'll give you some updated impressions. In the mean time you could always try it yourself (once the game is back online), even if that makes the queue's longer for me...bah!

UPDATE: The game is now back online, although I'm currently 25,700th in the queue.

If Halo Were Final Fantasy...

2009-02-13T22:34:00.002Z

...it would look something like this, or at least it would according to this video.

At over five minutes long it does get a little tedious, but it's still pretty well done.

F.E.A.R 2: Project Origin Live Event!

2009-01-29T10:40:00.005Z

If you're waiting for more little girls to scare the life out of you like me (don't read too much into that!) then you're in for a treat! An exclusive event that allows you to be one of the first to play F.E.A.R 2 will be held in London on 12 February. You and seven other gamers will be invited along to pit your wits against each other in F.E.A.R 2's multiplayer mode.

If you want to register for the event then you'll have to be quick, as the closing date is next Monday. It's an all expenses paid trip, but only those who are over 18 and residents of the UK, France, Germany and Holland are permitted to register.

Head over to the What Is Fear? site now to register for your chance to win.

If you do register then remember that you can test your skills out by downloading the demo here (it's also available on PSN and Xbox Live). As usual there's a mixture of fast-paced action and horror, which suits me just fine; especially when it's compared to the slowness of Resident Evil 5's gameplay. I know that it might be wrong to compare the two, but I'm still slightly peeved at the horrible demo that Capcom put out.

Resident Evil 5 Demo Impressions Are Up!

2009-01-27T19:04:00.005Z

For those of you who are interested I've wrote up some impressions of yesterday's Resident Evil 5 demo. You can check them out over at ButtonSmasher, but the short version is this;

I'm incredibly disappointed!

Actually, that might be all you need to know, but please check it out so we can have some sort of discussion about its good (if you think there are any) and bad points.

This Guy Rules Marble Madness

2009-01-20T20:33:00.004Z

As a kid I was never really all too fond of Marble Madness. It wasn't because I thought it was a bad game, rather because it frustrated the hell out of me because I could never get past the first few levels. Well, this guy has way determination than myself and managed to complete the entire game in under two minutes thirty seconds (he may have done it faster if he hadn't died once).

This would be the point that I'd usually say that some people have way too much time on their hands; however, this time I'm just jealous of the pure skill that doing this would take. Sure, it probably took hours of training to accomplish but, hey, it's still a pretty good accomplishment. Plus, it entertains the rest of us, and what would the world be like without speed runs? They'd probably be a few less thousand videos on YouTube for starters.

(Via Kotaku)

Happy New Year!

2009-01-06T18:06:00.003Z

Firstly, Happy New Year! I hope you all have an amazing 2009, as I know I'm going to try and make this year the best year ever (despite having no full time job in a horrible economy).

I'll admit that I haven't had much time to update this blog, which is largely because most of my posting time is taken up by my work over at ButtonSmasher. I'm going to try and balance the two from now on though, as I've put a lot into this blog and I'd hate to see it die.

Here's to 2009!

Tom Nook Must Die!

2008-12-15T02:41:00.003Z

Even after all this time playing Animal Crossing: Wild World, I still hate Tom Nook more than ever.

5th Cell's New Project: Scribblenauts.

2008-12-08T11:29:00.005Z

5th Cell, creator of unique DS games Drawn to Life and Lock's Quest (both of which made ingenious use of the DS touch screen), have announced that their next project will be called Scribblenauts. The premise of the game is in the name, which has you solving puzzles by writing words on the screen.

For example, the objective of the game is to help Maxwell(the game's protagonist) collect 'starites'. If you're faced with a 'starite' in a tree then you could write the word 'ladder' on the touch screen and a ladder would appear. You can then use the ladder to climb the tree and collect the 'starite'. This isn't the only way you can get the 'starite', as you could write 'beaver'. This would spawn a beaver, which would bite into the tree and eventually make it collapse - bringing the 'starite' to Maxwell!

The game's creative director, Jeremiah Slaczka, says that 'the only limit is your imagination'. Right, but can you write anything and it will appear? How is this even possible, especially on something like the Nintendo DS?

There're more ways of doing it though obviously. You could write "axe", and then cut the tree down using the object you spawned. You could write "shuriken" and throw that at the Starite in the tree and knock it down. It's all based on real physics and interaction, so there's nothing pre-canned. You could write anything though; imagine you write "goldfish" for some reason, well a goldfish would spawn and sit on the ground. It wouldn't help you at all in that puzzle, but you could do it.

IGN: So you're talking about any noun, right? Any object, or item you can think of?

Miah:Correct, yeah. - IGN

I'm thinking that there may be some serious limitations to this game, especially if one were to write, for example, 'penis' (it's pretty much a given that 'vulgar words' won't be allowed). Wouldn't it take years to include every single object someone could possibly think of? I just don't understand how it can work. Even if the system can learn how each object interacts with each other, I didn't have a clue that the DS was capabable of something like this.

With that said though it does sound like an incredibly neat idea, and I can't wait to hear more about the game.

World Debut: Scribblenauts - IGN

Mario Kart Made a Reality.

2008-12-04T21:56:00.004Z

MARIO KART (REMI GAILLARD)
Uploaded by nqtv

I'm not really sure why I'm posting this, but the French + driving always makes for a good laugh. Combine that with notorious French prankster, Rémi Gaillard, driving around as Mario and you're on to a winner. Surely? I really don't know.

Rémi dons a Mario costume and drives around in a kart - Mario Kart style - while throwing bananas at traffic and generally acting like an idiot. At one point he even drives off from the police, but who knows if that was a set-up or not?

Unfortunately the guy didn't turn into Bullet Bill and go flying into the Eiffel Tower, but one can only hope that we'll see that next time.

(Via Kotaku)

Mirror's Edge Paper Craft.

2008-11-14T18:54:00.003Z

If you haven't had enough Mirror's Edge extras yet (or you could always try playing, you know, the full game!) then check out this excellent Mirror's Edge paper craft that Gavin Schmitt over at Robot Martini has lovingly crafted.

Head over to the site to download the PDF of the paper craft designs and show off someone elses talent on your desk at work!

Mirror's Edge 2D.

2008-11-13T15:52:00.004Z

If you're too poor to afford EA's Mirror's Edge (and have already tried the demo) then don't fret, the world of free 2D gaming has you covered. Ok, so it's nothing more than a one level tutorial at the moment but we've been assured that the full version will be out soon.

Brad Borne - the guy who brought us Fancy Pants - has re-created the glorious parkour inspired game in 2D form, bring us such moves as wall running, wall jumping, terrifying leaps and all that other jazz that comes with parkour.

The full version will have leaderboards, but you'll have to be satisfied with this superbly animated taster for now.

Mirror's Edge 2D - Borne Games

Got a game you want me to take a look at? Email me or comment in the comments section!

99 Bricks

2008-11-06T15:30:00.004Z

99 Bricks is Tetris without the Tetris part, which is slightly better than it sounds.

The premise is pretty simple: stack 99 bricks on top of each other to build the highest possible tower, but remember that physics still play a part. Well, physics are supposed to play a part but the bricks do seem a little more slippy than they should be.

Got patience? Then you may do well in this game. My highest tower is 389, and after that it collapses in a complete mess.

99 Bricks - Kongregate.

Got a game you want me to take a look at? Email me or comment in the comments section!

Bomba

2008-11-04T02:21:00.008Z

Nitrome's latest release is Bomba, one of those mouse avoidance games that you need an incredibly steady hand for. The objective is to activate all the stars on a level, but the catch is that you can't touch any solid object or you die.

The levels get increasingly more challenging as you go long, introducing new ways to get your little bomb to safety. You can set on fire to burn through the blocking green moss, use bombs to blow it out of the way and maybe some other stuff further along in the game. I don't have a clue because I gave up on level 11 out of sheer frustration. You have a timed bomb to blow up the green moss and I just can't get to the last piece of moss without blowing up or crashing into a wall.

I really wanted to like this one because, well, how can you not like that cute little bomb? However, I'd rather not go bald at the tender age of 21.

Bomba - Nitrome.

Got a game you want me to take a look at? Email me or comment in the comments section!

Airmilf.

2008-11-03T21:54:00.007Z

Since it's the US election tomorrow (I'm British, but go Obama!) why not have an election themed game? Well, here you go!

Comedy Central's Airmilf lets you put Sarah Palin's hunting skills to the test. You control the lipstick wearing pitbull as she tries to defend the Elk's from attacking wolves. Of course, she's only doing this so hunters can shoot them later, but who am I to question this strange woman? Headshots will gain you money for the Republican campaign, and you can also pick up bonuses by shooting them. The same goes for special weapons, which include airstrikes and flamethrowers.

There's only 15 levels, and it's easy enough to kill the required amount of wolves on each level. What's hard is trying to avoid shooting the elks, and eventually you may just give up and start shooting everything in sight (kind of like what I did). It's fun for a short while though.

Good luck to Obama tomorrow, and if you're eligible to vote then get the hell out there and vote for him!

Comedy Central: Games - Indecision 2008: Airmilf.

Got a game you want me to take a look at? Email me or comment in the comments section!

Farm Mania

2008-11-03T15:56:00.007Z

Ah, the good old time management game! I tend to see a new one of these every week and, more often than not, they don't really tend to add all that much to the formula. However, for some reason I always put myself through the frustration of playing them as increasingly frantic clicking seems to appeal to some depraved part of me. Farm Mania isn't much different, and if you hate time management games then it's probably not worth reading past this paragraph.

Lets get the story out of the way first, although it's really not that important. Your character, Anna, has been tasked with trying to turn her Grandpa's farm around (which reminds me a little of Harvest Moon). Every now and again you'll get a Diner Dash style comic strip that continues the story, but it's not going to win any awards. Anyway, you'll start off with little more than a vegetable patch (apparently Grandpa hasn't been working all that hard) and a few pumpkin seeds. Once planted you can tell Grandpa to get some water for the well and, once collected, you can water each of your crops, sow the soil and, eventually, take them over to the bike for delivery. Once the bike returns you'll get money; which can be used to buy animals, crops, buildings and new equipment at the end of each level. Bear in mind that each level has a time limit, but the speech bubble prompts that tell you to complete each action also have time limits.

Sounds simple, right? Well, it is at first. The key is to pace yourself as you'll eventually be doing so many tasks that you can't really keep up with them. New equipment will mean you can do each actions quicker, or in a larger quantity, but if you try to do too much to quickly earn this money you'll eventually find yourself overwhelmed and lacking in hair. There's a few bonus levels to give you a bit of a breather, and there's also a casual mode if you don't like the level time limits.

It's actually a surprisingly long game, but it can also get pretty hard pretty quickly. It doesn't really try anything new, and if you don't like time management games then you're probably not going to be turned around by this one. Like I said though, you probably haven't even read this far if you don't. For those that have give the demo a try (which gives you 60 minutes of play time) and let me know what you think. Don't blame me if your heart explodes from stress though.

Are time management games actually fun? Or do we just enjoy torturing ourselves? Who knows, but they're strangely addicting.

Download the demo or buy the game here.

Got a game you want me to take a look at? Email me or comment in the comments section!

Far Cry 2 Impressions.

2008-10-28T04:14:00.006Z

Orignally posted at ButtonSmasher.

I've been playing Far Cry 2 most of the weekend and today (it came out on Friday) and I'm kind of on the fence in regards to my impressions of it. It's not that it's a bad game, it's just that there's plenty of minor annoyances that bring it down. I'm still enjoying playing it, but I can't seem to get around the fact that it seems a little too repetitive and may be better if it's played in short bursts.

Let's get the good things about the game out of the way first. Firstly, the graphics are absolutely stunning and the games recreation of Africa is superbly realistic and a pleasure to drive around in. When you're playing on a HD screen you can't help but let your draw drop the first time you're driving down a jungle path with the sunlight streaming through the treetops. You'll also find a number of wild animals wandering around the landscape - which include zebras, buffalo and gazelle, but sadly no predators - which adds an extra touch of realism to the game world.

I also like how you can approach each situation tactically. I've heard some complaints on the Internet that all you seem to do is attack guard posts and objectives guns blazing while tossing a few grenades or Molotov Cocktails. If you have a tactical head on you then this is simply not true. One of the techniques I often do is throw a Molotov Cocktail as I approach then go the opposite direction to the spreading fire. This way you can sneak up behind the enemy and chop into them with your machete. This isn't the only way of course, but it's totally up to you when deciding how to approach a situation as the game doesn't force you to do it one way. Snipe from a distance, go in guns blazing, approach underwater, strap an IED to a jeep and jump out before it hits your objective - whatever you want! Those who say attacking is repetitive just aren't using their brains. Moreover, the AI can often be pretty smart (although it can also be pretty stupid, such as not noticing you standing four feet away) so get used to them flanking your position and using the foliage as cover (this is both good and bad as half of the time you can't see where the person who's shooting at you is, but it also means you need to be constantly aware of your surroundings).

Forget tactical attacking for the moment though, as there are plenty of moments that may frustrate you. For example, it's annoying to have to fight your way through every single guard post you come across because the guards respawn as soon as you've left one. Sure, you can avoid them but this often takes you even longer to get somewhere or is downright impossible due to the way the game often funnels you through these guard points. Even if you try to drive right through them it will be pretty much guaranteed that a few of the enemy soldiers will jump in a jeep or two and give chase. If you get out they'll make this annoying revving sound as they try to run you over which, unfortunately, has happened to me a number of times. Combine all this with having to drive absolutely everywhere, which you'll be doing a lot of while also stopping every two minutes or getting attacked by a random patrol (there are buses but they only take you to certain places, and walking is out of the question with a map as big as Far Cry 2's) as there doesn't seem to be any innocents in Africa. Not that I'm condoning shooting virtual innocent people of course, it just seems a bit unrealistic that Africa is only populated by gun toting factions.

Far Cry 2 adds a further touch of realism by having vehicles break down on you, which means you have to get out and fiddle with the engine. Weapons will also jam in the heat of battle and eventually explode in your hands, which means you're better off buying new weapons before each mission as old or enemy weapons will be rusty and unreliable. Getting down to the last bar of health also means you quickly have to find some cover to pull the bullet out or put your arm back in your socket (because we all know that removing a bullet or using a syringe will magically cure all wounds!). All this is cool for the first time but can get a little tiresome when you have to climb out of your jeep in the middle of nowhere for the 300th time, but it at least makes the game a little more exciting. Furthermore, even though it's supposed to be realistic the act of doing all these doesn't feel that real, especially when a gun is rusting after 10 minutes of use.

Finally, there's the multiplayer. I haven't played all that much of it yet so it may start feeling a little better, but it's nowhere near on par with Call of Duty 4's excellent multiplayer mode. It seems impossible to kill someone with a sniper rifle unless they're standing still, but that may just mean I suck. Thankfully the game is given extra life with a powerful map editor that allows you to create pretty much any map you want and make them available to play by the rest of the community. I personally can't wait to see the creations that come out of this, but it's a shame that the editor is part of a multiplayer mode that isn't really all that great.

Despite all my objections something keeps me playing Far Cry 2. Maybe it's the freedom that's allowed when choosing what to do next, or how to approach a particular objective. Sure, you may only be killing a lot of people and blowing things up when you actually get there but you at least get to do it in a number of different ways. It's not perfect by any means, and is marred by repetitiveness that is only made worse by trying to mix things up every five minutes with guard posts that only become repetitive themselves. Somehow I'm still finding it fun, but only in a way that an average game can be fun while you try to get the most out of your money. Just get used to being chased across Africa while being shot at by a machine gun turret every few minutes.

Far Cry 2 is out now on PC, Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 (impressions based of this version).

The Evolution of the Zombie (Resident Evil Style!).

2008-10-17T22:06:00.009Z

Resident Evil 'Zombie Evolution' clip

Since my article on racist accusations towards Resident Evil 5 seems to have exploded in popularity lately (even though it's over a year old) I thought I'd post this nice little video. It charts the evolution of zombies since the good old days of the original Resident Evil; all the way up to the parasite controlled 'zombies' of Resident Evil 4 and the 'controversial' Resident Evil 5.

Enjoy!

Is This BioShock 2?

2008-10-16T16:37:00.005Z

I think the answer to that question would be yes. Tucked away in the 'Extras' section of the PS3 version of BioShock - and apparently only unlocked after you've completed the game - is a short trailer for BioShock 2. The video above is in shaky hand-cam but it's still good enough to determine the production values and come to the conclusion that it's probably real. Let's face it, 2K Games would be fools if they didn't put out a sequel.

The video shows a girl staring out to sea with some sort of teddy bear in her left hand (it looks a bit like a Big Daddy to me). Then the camera pulls back and some digimon-type things pop up out of the sand (you can kill me for writing that sentence) before revealing the name of "Bioshock 2: Sea of Dreams". The girl is probably a Little Sister that has grown up, but don't quote me on that.

It' s nothing more than a teaser, and it will probably be confirmed for real once the PS3 version is officially released tomorrow in Europe, and October 21 in North America.

(Via Kotaku)

Pro Killer Man.

2008-10-06T01:22:00.005Z

Pro Killer Man's pseudo-3D style presentation masks a relatively simple yet fairly difficult concept. All you have to do is kill the man in white and run for the exit; but obviously it isn't all that simple. Firstly, once you kill your mark any cops will be alerted to your presence and will immediately run towards you guns blazing. Secondly, the room is packed with people and killing one by mistake (which is extremely easy to do considering how fast they move) will bring another cop down on your head, and if you kill him another one will jump right in his place...sigh.

Amusingly the cops don't seem to bother about killing other people in their quest to put a bullet of sweet justice in your head, but it also means you can use the throngs as cover as you make your escape. Well, you can in theory as the cops move so fast and have such a good aim that it's pretty easy to die within half a second of killing your target. The key is to kill your target when a cop or the cops are on the other side of the room; but don't forget that you have to run past them on the way back! Later stages (there are 10) will introduce hiding spots where you can wait for a cop to move to the other side. They'll also be bodyguards, which you'll have to kill first if you want any chance of surviving.

In conclusion it's a pretty frustrating game that can be completed if you have the patience (and somewhat of a tactical brain). You can see for yourself by downloading it here (the link is in the first post of the thread).

Got a game you want me to take a look at? Email me or comment in the comments section!

Source Mods Now Available On Steam.

2008-10-05T15:06:00.004Z

I love the Source Engine. Obviously it has given us great games such as Half-Life 2 and Team Fortress 2 but it also gives us some rather excellent mods. I'm still having tonnes of fun with Garry's Mod but there's far more available that I haven't even touched yet.

Until now you had to download any mods individually and then install them, but this is all about to change. You can now download five Source mods (with more to come) in a totally effortless way through Steam. These five mods are Age of Chivalry, D.I.P.R.I.P., Insurgency (above), Synergy and Zombie Panic. Plus, to top it all off, Half-Life 2: Episode One is now available for only $5! All this means that the mods will appear in the 'My Games' list, they'll auto-update and they also support Steamworks (providing stat tracking).

Over the next week or so I'll be taking a look at each mod and posting my impressions of them right here on the blog. Stay tuned!

Source Mods Free On Steam - Kotaku

Rapidwars

2008-09-29T14:19:00.003Z

Rapidwars is pretty much Geometry Wars without the name or the pretty graphics. Like in the latter named game you can gain power-ups and multipliers to defend yourself against the increasing amounts of 'fearsome' colourful shapes attacking you and, like in Geometry Wars, most of them will quickly follow you around the small playing field until you destroy them. Thankfully your ship automatically fires its weapon constantly so you only have to concentrate on movement. You're also given a health bar instead of lives, so this makes it a little more forgiving when you accidentally bump into something. You can also collect health packs from destroyed enemies if you're running low.

In my opinion it seems a little slower than Geometry Wars, but that's maybe because I can't exactly get that far. In any case, you'll have so much thrown at you that you'll need some serious skill in order to get gigantic high scores. Just remember that it may suck hours out of your day, but I suppose that happens with most of the games I post about here.

Play it here!

Got a game you want me to take a look at? Email me or comment in the comments section!

Booze Tycoon.

2008-09-28T17:04:00.008Z

Finally something that combines two of my great loves; video games and beer!

Booze Tycoon is a new browser-based game from Swedish developers Haxtech. As its name suggests the aim of the game is to build-up and control a successful alcohol brewing business. You’ll start out with nothing but a funnel and a sock to distill your beer but, gradually, you’ll start building up enough money to move up in the world, start upgrading your equipment and eventually buildings such as factories and nightclubs (which will bring in more money as long as you’ve kept them stocked).

The process of creating alcohol is pretty simple but requires a few steps, each of which take time depending on how much is being done. For example, to produce mash (which is required to make alcohol) you need to order sugar, yeast and coal. At first you’ll only be waiting around half a minute for them to arrive but as you begin to order more the times will increase. Going to other sellers will shorten this time but will also up the price and the minimum amount you can order. Creating mash works pretty much the same way, except different sellers will be able to create different amounts of mash at the same time (although, again, this will increase the price and time required to do it). Systems like this make the game perfect to play on a dinner break or a quick rest at work (not that I advocate playing games at work!).

After you’ve got the booze you can sell it to distributors or private buyers. Some sellers (like the dealers, entrepreneurs and export) will pay loads for your product but will also demand more of the product. You won’t be able to meet most of their demands until you’ve upgraded your warehouse with more space and upgraded your equipment to accomplish it all in larger quantities. However, selling larger quantities will give you more experience which gives you skill points to spend when you level up. These skill points can then be assigned to increasing your players fighting and theft abilities and, obviously, the more skill points spent on them will affect your performance in each skill.

If you don’t feel like spending your hard earned cash on the products required to create booze you can always try robbing it, although failing so will get you thrown into jail for a period of time (the lowest being about 8 minutes). You can also get thrown into jail for simply selling the booze, although it’s not entirely clear why. There’s also some sort of fighting in the form of gangs, and you can buy weapons and security to protect your interests, but since there’s not many gangs available to join at the moment and all my applications have been rejected I haven’t had chance to try this yet. In any case you can’t fight until you hit level 25 and you have to be online for someone to be able to fight you. The winner of a fight apparently gets some of the loser’s money, although I’m sure more will be implemented further down the line. Finally, there’s a VIP mode where you can pay to accomplish actions faster and use various other features unavailable to

One minor annoyance is that you have to accept every product/mash/booze delivery coming into your warehouse manually, which I guess keeps you on your toes but it does get a little tedious. Also, I had a minor bug when I first joined the game that rendered the entire website in Swedish. Thankfully, the developers fixed my problem extremely quickly so all is now well.

The community isn’t massive at the moment and most of them are Swedish (or at least speak the language, but most them know English as well) but it's just launched so give it time. The people I have talked to are really friendly and helpful and I’m sure more players will come along – including more native English speaking people – as browser-based games always seem to garner a massive player-base. Haxtech seem very open to new feature suggestions so don’t be put off if you find some features lacking right now as I’m sure they’re hard at work on new one’s behind the scenes. It’s still pretty addictive at the moment and time-based games you can play in short bursts and also have a business head on you then you’ll probably love Booze Tycoon. If not then Booze Tycoon probably won’t change your mind but then you probably didn’t read past the first paragraph anyway.

Try it out here!

Got a game you want me to take a look at? Email me or comment in the comments section!

The West - Browser-Based Wild West RPG Fun!

2008-09-23T15:37:00.007Z

Innogames, creator of the massively popular Tribal Wars (a game I'm still avidly playing over a year since discovering it), has recently released their second game for the browser-based game market - The West. The West is a browser-based RPG set in the Wild West of the USA and, like Tribal Wars, it's one of those online games you can play while still having a chance to live your life.

Don't expect spectacular presentation as, like Tribal Wars, most of the game is played through a simple map and a few other various windows. It's the player interaction that makes games like these successful and, in the end, it's really what you make of the game yourself. The West won't shy away from player interaction as, again, Innogames has done hard work building a community around the game in the form of forums and in-game communication. The main area of play interaction, however, is in the form of player controlled towns. Players will be allowed to build towns together (I suppose they'll work a little like the tribes on Tribal Wars as you'll also have a 'town forum' to go with it), trade with each other and 'duel' with each other (but you need a mortician to revive you if you lose).

Like any RPG The West has it's quests and skills/levels/exp to upgrade. You can also do jobs, such as working on a tobacco plantation and selling on the produce you acquire while gaining experience. These jobs take time, so if you set yourself a job for two hours you can log off and go do something else. Doing jobs and other activities will expend energy, so if you use all this up you'll have to wait for it to regenerate. Thankfully a premium system has been implemented that allows you to purchase more energy and allow it to regenerate past the current 3 points an hour.

It's all a little bare bones at the moment and there's a lot of features that are yet to be implemented. If Innogames manages to build up a strong community like they did with Tribal Wars then it could turn out to be a pretty successful game, but you also have to remember that there's a lot of browser-based RPG's already out there on the market. In any case it's one to watch.

The West - Innogames.

Got a game you want me to take a look at? Email me or comment in the comments section!

Related Posts:

Tribal Wars - Another Free MMO!

ButtonSmasher: Fracture Demo Impressions

2008-09-23T15:34:00.004Z

A quick plug for my other video game blog (courtesy of Pricegrabber.co.uk) as I've posted my fairly long walkthrough/impressions of the Fracture demo that's now available on Xbox Live and Playstation Network.

I always have content going up on ButtonSmasher so, as usual, be sure to check it out when you get the chance.

Modern Video Games - Atari Style!

2008-09-17T23:23:00.004Z

The fine and artistic folks over at The-Minusworld have created excellent retro Atari style video game covers for a number of modern games. Up there is Halo 3 (obviously) but they've also done games such as Grand Theft Auto IV, Resident Evil 5, Bioshock and Call of Duty 4.

Hit their site for those listed above and more to bask in the glory of a Big Daddy in 8-bit!

Atari Modern Classics - The-Minusworld.

Planetside's Epic War Stories.

2008-09-11T15:24:00.004Z

The excellent PC game blog Rock, Paper, Shotgun's Quintin Smith has posted an epic war story about not winning a war, bu the great memories that come from losing one. His tales of frantic fighting from but a few holding out against the might of a full-scale assault comes direct from SOE's hugely ambitious, but not hugely successful, Planetside. The annoyances of a bug bring about one of the most epic last stands ever recorded in the MMO world.

It should be pretty easy for you to understand the severity of our situation if I just tell you that it felt like we were the ones doing the damn assaulting. We were so outgunned that just trying to man the walls got you shredded by lasher and sniper fire before you’d even lined up a shot. It was wild. Those forests around us were more purple than green. I’ve got no idea how it was we lasted as long as we did, but I’d hazard that those guarding the doors ended up pulling off some real Battle of Thermopylae shit. - Rock, Paper, Shotgun

I never played Planetside myself (although there was a time when me and my brother were determined to get out hands on it. Sadly I could not afford the monthly fee in my teenage years) but it always struck me as a pretty epic game that was way ahead of its time. The fact that you were fighting a war with and against thousands of other players must have led to some pretty memorable moments, and it makes me sad that I couldn't be a part of it. It's also strange to see that such memorable moments come about from something the developers didn't originally intend to happen, but gamers always have a knack for doing that. You couldn't lose in Planetside so when people were faced with that very prospect it gave them something to fight for.

I have plenty of memorable moments from multiplayer video games and I may someday record these moments (although probably not as well as Quintin Smith managed). This is why online multiplayer games will always have a special place in my heart, as everyone has their own unique and completely enthralling stories to tell.

Don't pull the TL;DR excuse, give it a read because it's definitely worth it.

Planetside: The 1% - Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Rustlers Machinima Music Video Contest Winner Announced.

2008-09-10T22:10:00.003Z

Remember the Rustlers Machinima Music Video Contest I wrote about the other month? Well, the winner has been announced and their lucky entry is above!

The prospective winner had to make a machinima video centered around (and including) Jonathan Coulton's 'Bacteria' song and Kerrin Hardy - the winner - did a damn good job of it.

"His video shows an Orc's first day working at 'Barleybeak's Chicken and Beer' restaurant, and it charmingly depicts Warcraft characters suffering from advanced dysentery - surely a WoW first."

Kerrin wins a Area-51® m15x Alienware Laptop, the lucky thing!

Spore Impressions - Space Stage.

2008-09-10T18:08:00.003Z

Above: One of galactic formations you may come across while exploring your own galaxy.

The space stage - the fifth and final stage of Spore - is hands down my most favourite of them all. Initially I was a bit disappointed that it didn't exactly take long to get to the final stage as I burned through the previous four stages in one playthrough (which I got a neat little badge for), but then I realised just how vast the space stage is and discovered the multitude of activities that keep you far busier than you were in the previous stages. When you first leave your home world and enter the galaxy map you are instantly confronted with a multitude of stars around your suddenly insignificant little spaceship. You may start to think that you already have enough to play with, until you pull back even further and see that your section of the galaxy now seems like a tiny blade of grass on your neatly cut front lawn. It's just incredible to see how big this game is, and it's something that wouldn't have been possible without the wondrous procedural generation technology that Spore employs. Why is all this space needed though? Well, checking the Sporepedia at the time of writing shows more than 11 million creations. If you're going to allow the player to come across the creations of other players then you need a damn big space to allow them to view all of these. Of course, you'll never see all of them in their entirety as there just isn't enough time in the world and more are constantly being added anyway. It's like the big bang, the universe you're playing in is still constantly being created even as your creatures live in it.

You'll eventually come across your first space empire, who may initially be hostile or pretty damn nice. In my own game I had the terribly demanding Mada Empire to the north while the lovable (and soon to be dedicated allies) Warzoleski Empire rested on my east. It didn't take long for my own economical driven Paomons Empire to establish trade routes with the Warzoleski's, and they were quick to agree to become my ally (possibly because they had their own troubles with the Selznik Empire and didn't want to be caught in the middle, but maybe the AI isn't that sophisticated). The Mada Empire, however, demanded I pay them every five minutes and, while I agreed to this at first, this inevitably turned into a full scale war. This was all in the first half-an-hour of play in the space stage, and it got a lot better from then on.

There are plenty of opportunities to earn cash that can be put towards new spaceship parts, establishing and upgrading colonies, weapons and terraforming tools. Firstly there's a nice nod to Frank Herbert's Dune with spice. Spice is produced on every colony you establish (except for those established on barren worlds) after you've built the relevant buildings (upping the 'terrascore' by terraforming a planet will allow you have more colonies and buildings on that planet, which will produce more spice) you can visit your colonies to pick up any spice produced there. Spice can then be sold in any colony (including your own), providing you have good enough relations with an empire to be able to trade with them. You can also set up trade routes that will eventually allow you to purchase a system and add it to your empire, but that's only if you're not a big fan of taking them by force.

Above: My current play area in the galactic map. The star with the blue circle around it is a previous save game with another species.

Another opportunity to earn cash is in the form of missions. Missions will range from scanning a planets lifeforms or abducting them to wiping out an infected species or wiping out another empires cities. While you'll gain money for successfully completing missions it will also increase your standing with the empire your doing the missions for, so you can try to keep on their good side while also being paid by them. Of course, this won't always save you as particularly troublesome empires will continue to demand higher and higher sums of money with the threat of war, but once you gain enough allies (and their ships in your fleet) it's not that hard to defend your planets. The problem with the missions, and constant attacks/infections, is that your constantly running around doing something. While being constantly busy in a game is no doubt a good thing it can also get too overwhelming, especially when your dealing with more than one at once and you have to choose which one has the highest priority. Some may say it gets a little repetitive but it's also incredibly addictive trying to collect badges and more money for upgrades.

My favourite part of the space stage is exploring, as obviously with a game built on users creations there's plenty to see. Firstly, exploring allows you to find artifacts and other rare items that can be traded for money or added to your collection. You can also discover new tools, such as a tool that allows you to colour the seas on a planet red. However, the best part is coming across new creations. For example, to the north of me is a race of sentient sofa's currently in the civilisation stage while deep in the stars I witnessed a race of apes fighting a religious war against each other while strawberries wandered the plains. If you do discover a race that's not yet made it to the space stage then you can install a monolith on the planet (2001: A Space Odyssey style) to help them on their way, meaning they'll be extremely happy with you. This doesn't always work out for the best as I did this with a race near my home star and they ended up declaring war on one of my allies, meaning I couldn't really help them out when they got attacked or I risked losing the new space empire as an ally.

It's not perfect - it can get extremely frustrating and the camera controls while flying (and fighting) around a planet can be a bit iffy - but it's extremely fun. You probably won't enjoy it if you don't like creating things, as each of your colony needs new buildings (you can use the old ones or other users creations but where's the fun in that?) . However, it's great to find something new everytime you play the game and I can't wait to see how this will be implemented in future games and future Spore expansions. It's definitely my 'must play' of 2008. Forget the DRM drama, buy this game! Who knows? You may actually learn something.

You can see some of my creations below:

This post was originally posted here at ButtonSmasher.

First Impressions: Spore.

2008-09-07T14:13:00.003Z

Just a quick note that I posted a few short impressions of Spore over on ButtonSmasher. I'll be posting more as the week progresses and I'll also have a full review up sometime in the next few days.

I'm thinking about doing a diary where I document some of the weird and wonderful things I come across in Spore while inserting links for you guys to add them to your own version of Spore.

Anyway, I'm really enjoying it right now but it's by no means perfect. Hit the post and check it out, although I'll be going into more detail soon.

What's the Verdict on Spore?

2008-09-04T15:27:00.011Z

Reviews of Spore are flowing in ahead of tomorrow's Europe release date and the September 7th release date for North America. Unfortunately I can't buy the game myself yet because I'm a bit skint (it would come at a time when all the good games are coming out) so it will probably be a few more weeks before I actually get to play it, much to my annoyance.

The game is receiving pretty favourable reviews with Metacritic giving it an average of 88/100. Reviews are largely centered around the game being pretty simple when split into it's unique part (such as tribal or civilisation stages) but much more wholesome when you play through all the parts together. Below I'm summed up a few of the reviews hitting the Internet

MTV Multiplayer said that Spore 'felt like nothing else' to play and concentrated on their feelings throughout the game rather than analyse general concepts such as graphics and sound. You'll become deeply connected to your creature and experience events during the creature stage almost as if you were the creature itself. Unfortunately the later stages, such as civilisation and space, loses most of this connection but you'll never lose that connection to the species as a whole. The writer, Stephen Totilo, couldn't jump ahead and play one stage on its own once unlocked because he believes you don't have the same connection with your creature and the world around it unless you start from scratch again.

IGN UK states that the game isn't what was fully promised but still a 'triumph' none the less. You only see the 'bigger picture' of game once you've played through it and started again from scratch, until then it simply feels 'like you've bought a Wii party game by mistake'. The creature and space stages are the ones that you're most likely to come back to, others being a little too basic and simple - but it's all part of appealing to a generation of Sims players. The civilisation stage is the area that needs 'the most expansion' as it's simply too restricted in how many buildings and vehicles you can build. Overall it's an 'infinite toy box' but needs an 'expansion or two to plug a few holes'.

Gamespy believes that, although the scope is great, the space stage can get get a little repetitive and casual players may have difficulty getting through it. Also 'while the gameplay isn't always perfect, Spore is a technological coup that opens up a whole new genre of gaming' due to the constant background sharing of other players creations. The ability to see everyone elses creations is where the game really shines, so you'll really want to connect Spore to the Internet to take full advantage of it. As I expected Spore 'sometimes falls into a kind of uncanny valley between casual play and a game that a hardcore gamer would love', which I think is what The Sims managed to do. The overall point of the game is gleefully exploring a universe created entirely by other players.

Eurogamer tells us to 'watch out for our Bank Holiday sofa sale species; they don't bite you at first, but the interest gets you in the end'. Your options 'multiply enormously' when you reach the space stage and the stages leading up to it start to feel like nothing more than a creation and tutorial game. The creature stage is apparently the best stage to view other players creations but there's 'not enough in the repetitive gameplay to encourage this'. However, it's all worth it for the fun you'll have along the way and the space stage 'overwhelms any disappointment'.

More Reviews:

Gamespot

IGN AU

IGN US

PTGamers (non-English)

PC Gamer UK

GameStar (non-English)

____________

Overall I think it sounds like a 'must play', if only for its unique creation and population system rather than the pretty repetitive gameplay. I can get over repetitive gameplay if the game itself is incredibly satisfying, and Spore seems to offer immense satisfaction. I just wish I had some damn money right now!

August, What The Hell Were You Thinking?

2008-08-29T01:47:00.002Z

Hmmm, so that was a bit of a crappy month.

The reason I haven't been posting is because my Nana died recently so video games obviously took a bit of a back burner. Any other bit of spare time has been spent writing on Button Smasher (remember that you can still read my quality *cough* yeah right *cough* posts there).

I don't know how many times I'm going to have to write posts like this but, in the end, life is unpredictable and you don't know when you're not going to have time to write. I don't get paid for this, I simply do it because I enjoy it and sometimes I have more important things to attend to.

With that said I'm going to try my best, because I love doing this when all's said and done and I love any feedback you guys give me.

Thanks.

Destructivator.

2008-07-31T20:46:00.006Z

The aim of Destructivator is to kill everything on the level. Simple, yes? Well, not really.

Timing is key in this game as everything moves pretty fast. Combine that with not being able to shoot upwards or in mid-air and you've got a pretty tough game - especially in the latter levels (even the first few levels are hard).

Seriously, you'll feel like you're on speed playing Destructivator.

Download it here.

I Was in the War.

2008-07-31T16:35:00.007Z

I Was in the War is a simple game with a neat concept. You control the white guy in the picture above and your aim is to move along a platform, whilst avoiding the various things coming from all around you. You can hit 'A' to flip onto the other side of the platform to avoid the things on the top, and vice versa. You can also hit 'S' to jump, which I did not actually realise at first, and it makes it far easier to avoid things - until the missiles start dropping anyway.

As you progress the screen becomes increasingly packed with things, such as missiles, helicopters and giant tanks. It's increasingly wacky but increasingly hard and my highest score is a measly 10355. Can you beat it? Most definitely.

Download it here.

Battlefield Heroes Delayed.

2008-07-30T21:11:00.004Z

The upcoming cartoon style free-to-play World War II game Battlefield Heroes (that's a mouthful) has been delayed until the end of the year. It was supposed to come out this Summer but EA has stated that the delay is due to the addition of new "social networking features".

It's probably for the best as Summer is obviously a dry time for games. Since the game is aimed at the more casual gamer it makes complete sense that these people are out enjoying the sun rather than staying in their bedrooms like the rest of us nerds.

I'm looking forward to this as I never really was a hardcore Battlefield fan (I started out on Battlefield 2 but didn't play too much. I ended up putting more hours into Battlefield 2142), but I'm always looking for something simple - and fun! - to play when I can't be bothered firing anything else up.

Check out the Wikipedia entry if you want to know more about the game.

Like an Internet Plague!

2008-07-24T22:06:00.003Z

If you can't get enough of my wonderful blogging here at No Signal Input (yeah right) then you can now catch new posts over at ButtonSmasher as well.

Don't worry, I'll still be blogging here as much as possible and this will remain the place where I point you to the latest in independent (and time-wasting) gaming.

I don't usually talk about my personal life here (I have another blog for that) but the reason why posting has been non-existent this week is due to it being university graduation time. I'll be back to posting properly when I've recovered this weekend.

A Brief Updated Look at all the Upcoming Spore Games.

2008-07-18T23:10:00.002Z

We all know that Spore is coming out pretty soon (if you don't you must have a pretty nice rock to live under) but, until know, we've known little about the spin-off games that will be accompanying it. E3 has given us a lot of new information so I've took some time to go over it and posted the most important things here. Stay informed!

Spore (PC/Mac)

First up there's been new information about the main game itself, especially as it was available for play testing at E3 this week. Most of the coverage seemed to concentrate on the tribal and space exploration stages of the game but there was also new information about the advanced editors.

The space exploration stage allows you to design your own spacecraft using an editor much like the creature creator already released. After your civilisation has celebrated the spacecrafts creation you go through a brief flying tutorial and then off into space it is! In space you can do various missions that extend from discovery (such as finding a downed spacecraft) to diplomacy with other races. Let's not forget the previously seen tractor beams that can abduct other lifeforms, which can then be dumped on other planets. Once you've completed your primary goal (to discover the centre of the universe) you have half a million other planets to explore according to EA. This all sounds well and good but I'm wondering if it will have enough depth to keep you interested in the long-term. There's only so many weird creatures you can take.

The advanced editors include the vehicle editor, which works the same way as the creature creator and allows you to morph and stretch your vehicle's chassis and then add wheels, wings, weapons etc. IGN, for instance, flew around in a spaceship which looked like a magic school bus. There seems to be no end to the creativity allowed and, apparently, this was also extend to buildings allowing you to create magnificent (if you're creative) cities.

There's a lot more to get into so you can check out these previews and impressions:

IGN - 'Next I discovered a world that had a fairly advanced society. It still hadn't reached space stage, but it did have cities full of tiny little Chinook people (the demo was using user-created content pulled from the Internet, and someone had actually made a creature that looks like a Chinook helicopter).'
Gamespot - 'When we first made our jump into space, we noticed that our home planet had a small moon orbiting it. By heading straight to this moon, we were given a brief mission to follow our onboard radar (a toggle-able power in one of our ship's ability menus, which also includes weapons and miscellaneous tools, such as tractor beams that can be used to abduct other life-forms) to a crash-landed spaceship, which we then scanned for data.'
Gamespy -
'For instance, our tribe was prospering and making new friends, but it was time to start dressing like future world leaders. The tribal clothing editor allows players to outfit their creatures with primitive attire. I decided our fish creatures needed a giant gold ring through the nose. And some feathers. With armored shoulder-pads. So far so good: My creatures started to look like extras from the "Road Warrior" movies.'

Spore: Origin

Spore: Origin is the name given to the iPhone version of Spore. With the iPhone apparently as powerful as Sega's old Dreamcast it's fast becoming the perfect casual gaming platform (most portable games are played on a mobile phone) so it makes sense that EA would want a piece of the pie. This is where Spore: Origin comes in and it seems like it will be a decent casual game for those away from their PC's/Mac's or even for those who aren't aware of Spore.

The game itself is a bit like the primordial stage in Spore, in that you direct a cellular level organism around and gobble up the smaller creatures. Controlling your little cellular creature is done by using simple tilt controls on the iPhone. It also infuses the creativity available in the main game you get to evolve your creature every few stages (the game allows you to use the iPhone's pinch controls to morph your creature). However, you have to watch out for the bigger creatures that will reduce the DNA metre you have to fill to complete the stage.

Spore: Origin sounds like Sony's previously released PS3 title flOw but with a little more customisation. While the iPhone will sport the best graphics and the tilt controls the title will also be available for other mobile platforms - meaning that they'll always be a way to get your Spore fix!

For more info check out this short IGN preview.

Spore Creatures

The DS version is taking a unique approach to the creature creator aspect of Spore. Due to the DS' inability to host a creature creator on the advanced scale of the PC version the solution is to piece together body parts. You can still stretch and move these parts around the body but it's nowhere near the freedom allowed by the main game. You can also colour and texture these parts so you're still allowed a fair deal of creativity. Your 2D creatures then move around in a 3D world (similar to Paper Mario) and more body parts can be found through exploring and taking on quests.

The stylus is put to novel use by being used in fights with other creatures. Creatures are taken out by effectively 'slashing' the monsters with your stylus. If you want more creatures to 'slash' you'll also apparently be able to share creatures with your friends over wi-fi.

For a bit more information check out these short IGN and Gamespot previews.

Anything Else?

Despite the insistence of a rather annoying girl on Livejournal there has been little information about what's happening with the Wii version (that means there's NO release date yet). It's not a port so this was not the reason for the PC delay but Will Wright did say they're currently in the planning stages.

Other than the Wii Xbox 360 and PS3 versions are still under consideration.

Sony E3 Press Conference Impressions.

2008-07-15T20:08:00.009Z

Well, after this certain announcemen t I said I didn't need a PS3 anymore but maybe...just maybe....I was wrong. When you present what's sure to be a pretty boring financial rundown using Little Big Planet you know you're on to a winner.

Well...maybe.

To be honest I was a bit bored during most of the press conference, this this may be because they chose to concentrate a lot on other media content for the PS3. They also talked about the PS2 - which was a little surprising but Sony thinks it still has life left in it - and the PSP.

Resistance 2

A gameplay demo was shown with some big ass monster smashing up the building the player was running around in. It looks...well...average. I didn't play the first Resistance so I can't comment on it all that much but it didn't really wow me. The 8 player online co-op and 60 player online multiplayer matches, however, does sound amazingly cool.

Anyone played the original Resistance multiplayer? Let me know if it's any good.

Little Big Planet

As I said earlier Little Big Planet was used to create an interactive graph for the presentation. That very fact just shows how customisable LBP is and if anything would get me to buy a PS3 it would be this.

I can't wait to see some of the creations people make with this game. It's all about user-generated content these days.

Playstation Network (PSN)

PSN now has over 180 million downloads under its belt so there's no question over whether or not people are taking advantage of it. Sony talked a lot about content for PSN and it seems to be a pretty big deal in making the PS3 more of a general media device rather than just a games console.

Like Microsoft they've got deals with some of the big movie studios (such as MGM, Fox and - obviously - Sony Pictures) and the resulting movies should be available right now (in the US anyway). TV shows will be $1.99 per episode while movie rentals will be $2.99-5.99 and $9.99-14.99 for purchases. You don't have to wait for the entire TV show or movie to download as progressive downloading will allow you to watch while you download. Any TV or movie downloads can also be copied over to your PSP so you can watch your content on the move. Sounds good huh? Well I wish Europe would have as much content.

More content comes from Gran Turismo TV which lets you watch content from motoring shows around the world online. Since this includes the excellent Top Gear it's a pretty amazing line-up of content.

Life with Playstation will also be hitting soon, which will deliver real-time news straight to your PS3. I assume this is a little like the Wii News channel.

Finally Ratchett and Clank: Quest for Booty will be released as a downloadble game on PSN. It's going to offer around 3-4 hours of gameplay but apparently have all the humor and action of a normal Ratchett and Clank game.

Some more PSN games:

Crash Commando Fat Princess Flower Pain: Amusement Park Siren: Blood Curse Ragdoll and Kung-fu: Fists of Plastic Pixeljunk Eden

Sony thinks it's going to be the 'ultimate social experience'!

Playstation Home

There wasn't much of Home shown but it will be available to try at E3 so they'll be more information coming out soon. One thing it did show, however, is the unique game spaces in Home that have environments modeled after the settings of each respective game. You can also jump straight into the game from these environments.

Three of the spaces shown were Warhawk, Uncharted: Drakes Fortune and Resistance 2.

PSP.

Resistance Retribution (a short of filler between Resistance: Fall of Man and Resistance 2), which is a third-person game, will be coming out for the PSP in Spring 2009. I'd like to say that i looks pretty decent for a PSP games but it's pointless because I know that PSP games can look damn good and this one is no exception. It's by the same guys who did the Syphon Filter games so I high hopes for it.

Other games include Patapon 2, Loco Roco 2, Lego Batman, Super Stardust: Portable, Valkyria Chronicles and Star Wars: The Force Unleashed amongst others.

More More More!

Apparently it's the year of the PS3!

DC Universe (an MMO)
Infamous (looks amazing. An anti-hero/superhero game in which you use electricity in a free roaming city)
Motorstorm: Pacific Rift
Quantam of Solace (Bond)
Ghostbusters Soulcalibur IV
God of War 3
The Agency (a spy MMO)
Killzone 2
Buzz Quiz TV
Singstar
Guitar Hero: World Tour
NBA 09: The Inside
Resident Evil 5
Mirror's Edge
Naruto: Ultimate Ninga Storm
Socom: Confrontation

Woah, there's a lot of games in this post.

Finally MAG (Massive Action Game...what an original name!) was unveiled. This game is a bit like Planetside as it allows massive battles of up to 256 players. To avoid massive confusion in these battles the game is squad-based allowing squads of 8 players each. This is combined with character growth (maybe a bit like Battlefield and Call of Duty 4) all taking place in one world.

That's it for the press conferences. I'll be posting more news from E3 in it's remaining two days.

Nintendo E3 Press Conference.

2008-07-15T17:49:00.006Z

Nintendo kicked off their conference with a video of people smiling and playing the Wii followed by the slogan 'We promise to keep the world smiling'. Well, from the things they've unveiled today show that Nintendo are very serious about keeping that promise.

Here's a quick run-down of the games and new innovations that Nintendo showcased.

Shaun White Snowboarding

Shaun White himself appeared in all his ginger glory! The game is controlled through use of the Wii Balance Board so you have to lean left and right to take turns. Nintendo's Sammie Dunnaway also made a fool of herself by trying it out.

Animal Crossing: City Folk

We all knew it was coming but Nintendo officially unveiled it during their press conference. While the game itself looks like a better looking version of the DS Animal Crossing there's a number of new innovations that takes advantage of the Wii. Firstly, as well as your town, you can also travel to a city where you can take part in auctions, visit the Happy Room Academy (how dare they give my house low points!), get some new fashions at Gracie Grace or get a new hairstyle.

Communication is once again handed through letters. However, you can now attach photos and send them to your PC or post them on the Wii message board. The biggest aspect of the new communication tools, however, is the Wii Speak. This is a whole new piece of hardware that acts as a microphone but the whole room can speak into it and interact with another room of players anywhere in the world. So, basically, people visiting your town can now speak to you instead of using some cumbersome chat interface.

Wii Motion Plus.

Wii Motion Plus is another new piece of hardware that records your exact movements and renders them on the Wii. This means characters on the screen will now follow your exact slight movements instead of during some pre-canned movements based on what direction you moved the Wiimote in.

Taking advantage of this new piece of hardware is a new Wii Sports game known as Wii Sports: Resort. They played with it on stage showing off Frisbee throwing, jet-ski riding and sword fighting (which, because it now follows your exact movements, looks pretty damn awesome).

Also shown was Wii Music. Using the Wiimote and nunchuck you can play up to 50 different instruments such as drums, a saxophone, a piano etc. You can then combine these together and play as band with three other people (which is what they did - to the Mario theme tune!). Although, again, it's cringe worthy I have to admit that it looks damn fun to play around with. Hell, after these announcements I may well go and get myself a Wii!

Wii Music is out in spring 2009.

Other Stuff (Including DS Games)

A few other games unveiled include:

Spore Creatures (you can share your creations on the DS just like you can in the PC version. The stylus is used to create creatures.)
Guitar Hero: On Tour (song sharing between versions)
A new Pokemon game (great...)
Grand Theft Auto: China Town (this was pretty surprising considering the family friendly DS. It takes place in Liberty City with a whole new game engine.)
Star Wars: The Clone Wars.
Rayman Raving Rabbits: TV Party.
Call of Duty: World at War (Looks pretty good graphics for a Wii game. It uses the Wii Zapper and has a co-op mode)

Last but not least, Sony is next.

Microsoft E3 Press Conference Impressions.

2008-07-15T15:20:00.012Z

So this is a little late but I figured it's better late than never. I actually sat through the entirety of the press conference, something I haven't really done in the past. I did feel that the press conference itself was pretty lacklustre, but this is probably due to the fact that I wasn't really interested in some of the announcements.

Here's a few short impressions.

Fallout 3

The first game to be shown off was Fallout 3. Even though I own Fallout 2 I've only played a little of it so probably can't comment on why people think it's such a big deal. However, I'm really excited about Fallout 3 and every new bit of information just gets me even more excited.

They showed a 1950's inspired nuclear shelter advert which showcases the heavy satire used in the Fallout series. Next up was a gameplay demonstration and, I've got to say, it's looking pretty nice. The target assisting system (VATS) looks nice - allowing you to blow off various limbs - and also harks back to the turn-based aspects of the Fallout series. You can, however, also take on the enemies in real time for those of you who like to do all the killing yourself. I'm also loving the radio on the Pip Boy 3000 as it's like GTA in a post-apocalyptic world!

The game hits the Xbox 360 this fall.

Resident Evil 5

I shamefully admit that I never actually completed Resident Evil 4 but, from what I played, I enjoyed it a hell of a lot. Resident Evil 5 isn't straying from the formula that made Resi 4 such a joy to play; such as the over the should style shooting and the more intelligent zombies (if you can still call them that). There's also an onine co-op mode, but I'm not sure if this extends to local multiplayer. This is a shame because I'd love to play it with my brother, just like I'm doing with Gears of War at the moment. Oh...and Chainsaw guy makes his re-apperance!

It's going to be a simultaenous release in Europe and North America on March 13 2009. Japan will get it a day earlier.

Fable 2

Here's another game that I'm looking forward to playing. There was little new information on the game other than it's finished. Peter Molyneux did however show off the interactions you can have with your family (you can get married and have kids) and also showed off how co-op play is begun. When you're logged into Xbox Live you can see your friends, who are playing the single-player game, floating around as orbs. To start a co-op game you go up to one of these orbs and interact with it and they pop right in! You have to admit it's pretty cool.

Fable 2 will be out in October 2008.

Gears of War 2

I like Gears of War but, honestly, this sequel looks like more of the same. This isn't a bad thing, of course, because it still kicks ass. It does look like you'll be fighting more locusts at any one time and this will either make it incredibly hard or incredibly cool (or both). The gameplay demonstration showed off a few new enemies (one locust had a shield, while others used grappling hooks to climb up walls and attack) and the meat shield aspect will act as moving cover. Plus, you can never go wrong with a flamethrower!

A new multiplayer mode was also unveiled. Horde will allow you and 4 other players to fight against wave after wave of increasingly difficult locusts.

Gears of War 2 will hit on November 7.

New Dashboard.

Some people like it, some people don't. Myself? Well, I think it was time that the 360 got an overhaul. It looks clean and simple and while some may say it shows Microsoft are going all out on it's casual userbase it's got some pretty nice new features.

The avatars...well...it's nice and cute but I don't think it was really needed. It seems like it's just trying to latch on to the Mii's on the Wii. The ability to stay in parties as you jump between games is very useful though as it's often annoying having to set up a whole new party just because you changed games.

One of the new channels is 'Primetime'. This allows you to play well known TV quiz games with the Xbox Live community. The first one to be released is 1vs100 (which is done by the National Lottery here in the UK) and the 100 people are all real people, as well as the one and the crowd. Add the fact that you can win real prizes and I think this will be pretty fun for when you're not playing you're normal games.

The Netflix annoucement is cool but it doesn't matter either way to me as Netflix don't operate in Europe.

Finally, the ability to install games on the hard drive (although you still need the disc) will lead to a much smoother experience.

For more on the new dashboard see these three posts.

Final Fantasy XIII.

There's nothing more to say other than what I said here. Well, other than...

YESSSSSSSSSS!!!!

There were obviously more announcements but I'm not going to cover all of them. Here's a quick run-down.

Lips (like Singstar. The ability to plug your iPod or Zune in and use any song is cool. Oh, and Duffy came and sang)
Guitar Hero: World Tour.
Geometry Wars 2.
Portal: Still Alive.
Galaga Legions.
A new South Park game (....)
Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts.
Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise.
Scene It? Boxoffice Smash.
You're in the Movies (Like the Eyetoy, incredibly cringeworthy watching them do stupid movements and dances on stage and then play it back as a movie)
Infinite Undiscovery.
Star Ocean: The Last Hope.
The Last Remnant.

The Nintendo Press Conference is next up!

The Sims 3 E3 Trailer

2008-07-15T14:42:00.005Z

While this trailer for The Sims 3 may look like an episode of Laguna Beach I'm surprisingly looking forward to the game. You see, not only does the game allow your Sim's access to the entire town without those pesky loading screens (and the ability to see what's going on elsewhere at any moment) but it also deals with the problem of one family aging while the others stay frozen in time - something which has always annoyed me.

I'm the kind of guy who loves to create stories so The Sims franchise has always been a favourite of mine. Unlike other people I don't actually care about the constant expansion packs because, hey, it's new content and at least EA are continuing to support the game. Couple that with an excellent community with literally millions of creations and you can have endless fun! Although that endless fun is sometimes pretty mundane...

The Sims 3 E3 Trailer - YouTube.

Morning Coffee E3 Edition - July 15th 2008

2008-07-15T09:00:00.002Z

E3 has begun and there's no shortage of news, so here's a round-up of some of my favourite links from the conference:

As you're probably aware (you can't call yourself a gamer if you aren't!) Square Enix has announced Final Fantasy XIII will be released for the 360. MTV Multiplayer attended the Square Enix press conference where a Q&A session was held. Here are some of the questions and answers.
Major Nelson discusses some of the new features of the planned Xbox Live update. These include; storing a game on the hard drive so it'll run smoother, the ability to purchase stuff on the Xbox Live marketplace from any web enabled device, and (YES!!!!!!!) 1680x1050 support through VGA and HDMI.
Portal: Still Alive is coming to Xbox Live Arcade!
Gamespy has an excellent Fallout 3 preview.
...and more on EA's Dead Space.
If you missed it here's Gamespot's coverage of the EA press conference.
...and here's what Will Wright said about Spore at that very press conference.
Gamespot has some impressions of the intriguing Xbox Live 'MMO' quiz game 1 vs 100 (we have a version of the TV show over here in the UK, done by the National Lottery).
Sim Animal? Ok.....

Um, we'll finish on that last one. More news coming your way soon!

Game Diary - July 14th 2008: A Cop's Funeral.

2008-07-14T22:28:00.006Z

I've decided to start a game diary, as you've probably guessed by the title of this post. It's going to be similar to what Stephen Totilo does over at MTV Multiplayer. Basically I'll document the games I play daily (although it may not be every single day, a boy has got to rest!) and add a few thoughts about the games as I play them.

*Spoilers ahead*

Today I've played about three hours of GTA IV. I know I'm taking a long time to actually complete the game but I really want to enjoy every minute of this virtual recreation of NYC and not rush my play-through.

I've just got passed the mission where you have to decide whether to kill Derrick McReary or his cop brother Francis McReary. I find it hard to make choices in GTA IV and I put that done to how emotionally attached I can become to some of the characters. It's an excellent story and because I have to interact with characters (such as taking them out for a drink etc.) I feel like I get to know them like I would in a book. I like the McReary family - especially Packie even though he can be a bit of an idiot. Anyway, this time the choice was a no-brainer for me. Francis had threatened to reveal dirt on Niko if he didn't follow his orders to kill Derrick and I was taking any of that crap. Plus, I kind of felt sorry for Derrick as the drugs and snitches had pretty much ruined the guy. I pumped one in Francis' head and there was one less cop in the city.

Next was the funeral scene. This is the second time GTA has included a funeral in the story (the first was at the beginning of San Andreas where Carl attends his mother's funeral) and in both cases it ends in a shoot-out. I felt like I was part of the family when I was helping Packie gun down the guys so the rest of the family could make their escape.

It's good to see that your choices in a game will have different ramifications down the line. I don't know what happens if you kill Derrick instead but I felt that killing Francis, while obviously wrong in a moral sense, was the right thing to do.

I'm loving every second of the GTA IV experience. You may not be able to have as much fun in the city like you could in previous GTA games but I think the superb storyline more than makes up for that.

Next up: I'm going to see GTA IV through to the end but I'm also trying to complete Gears of War with my brother. I know it's been out for ages but I've only just got around to buying it.

Final Fantasy XIII is Coming to the Xbox 360!

2008-07-14T19:09:00.012Z

I totally didn't see this one coming!

I've just been watching the Microsoft E3 press conference and in a cringe-worthy moment of 'I forgot to say this' Yoichi Wada of Square Enix showed a trailer announcing that Final Fantasy XIII is going to be released on the 360.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH YEEESSSSSSSSS!!!

I now have absolutely no reason to buy a PS3. Sony is going to be more than a tad bit annoyed at this.

I have more thoughts on the press conference (which was pretty lacklustre to be honest) coming up soon.

UPDATE: Here's the E3 trailer.

Morning Coffee - July 14th 2008

2008-07-14T09:00:00.000Z

E3 kicks off today so they'll be tonnes of news coming out over the next few days and hopefully I'll have time to pick through it all. For now, here's this mornings links:

Is writing about games a pleasure? Or are you worse off because you're approaching every game with a critical eye? It's an interesting observation that has always intrigued me. Julian Murdoch tells us his thoughts.
Gamasutra asks if exclusivity is harming digital distribution.
Why do scores matter so much to gamers?
Ten things that don't suck about the game industry...apparently.
How do you make James Bond less of a lover in a video game? It can't be done! IT CAN'T!!!

Damn, I'm tired. Hopefully Microsoft won't put me to sleep today.

Morning Coffee - July 12th 2008

2008-07-12T09:00:00.001Z

Well, since it's a Saturday you're only getting a few links this morning. With E3 coming up there's no shortage of news and speculation but, hey, it's a weekend and we're all allowed a break.

Here's your Lot:

MCV interviews the legend that is - and one of my favourite gaming personalities - Sam Houser of Rockstar Games.
'Fanboy' is now part of the Merriam-Webster dictionary. Oh lord, I fear for our safety as a species.
Kotaku examines...erm...why developers make female characters boobs so big (using the example of Soulcalibur's Ivy, which is easy to see why).
Finally another interview. This one is with Newsweek writer N'Gai Croal (of Level Up). Thankfully they don't get into that Resident Evil 5 crap.

I'm damn well looking forward to E3 next week - no matter how insignificant it's got these days!

Steampunk Second Life City.

2008-07-11T17:12:00.004Z

You can say what you like about Second Life but you can't deny that it's flexibility allows its residents to come up with some incredible creations. I love the whole steampunk scene and this creation is staggeringly amazing.

I may actually visit this creation myself has it's been a while since I popped into the strange yet wonderful world of Second Life. You can visit yourself by following this link.

New Babbage - A Steampunk City in Second Life - YouTube (Via Wonderland).

Midway Goes All Retro With Midway Arcade.

2008-07-11T15:51:00.003Z

Midway has returned to its roots and launched MidwayArcade.com, effectively jumping on the bandwagon of selling retro games these days (Xbox Live Arcade anyone?). This means that more than 25 of excellent Midway arcade classics are now available for purchase and play on your PC.

Some of the games include Spy Hunter (above), Rampage, Rootbeer Tapper (I have fond memories of playing this in a school IT class), APB and Joust. The games are going for $5 in packs of three so it's a fairly decent price considering how much similar titles can set you back on Xbox Live Arcade.

While the prices are admittedly cheap I don't see why they couldn't have just made them flash games supported by ad's. You could say that a few people may just shrug and go back to their emulators but the keyword is 'few'. Midway is bringing these games to the mainstream who have fond memories of such games but don't particularly care about emulators.

MidwayArcade.com

Morning Coffee - July 11th 2008

2008-07-11T09:00:00.001Z

With Blogger's magical future posting feature these amazing links (because I only pick the best, of course!) will hit you in the wee morning when I may still be snoring in bed!

Speaking of coffee I remember when I had about 10 cups in one day due to working on a particularly tough university assignment. Let me tell you something, it's really not healthy!

Anyway, here's your links for this morning.

Tom Francis of CVG boldly vistits three popular MMO's (Eve Online, City of Heroes and World of Warcraft) to see if one can actually find love in an MMO. Wait, there are girls on the Internet? Never!
Kotaku predicts just what Sony has in store for us at E3 next week. E3 is sure looking pretty good this year.
Ars Technica asks if free is the future of PC gaming. Apparently not in the US.
We'll soon be controlling video games with our minds. This will most likely result in 14 year-old males touching the boobs of the women in Soulcalibur.
There's a trailer out for the upcoming Max Payne film adaption. Thoughts?
The Washington Post reports on post-it video game art appearing on the city office buildings. Awesome? Yes.
Finally here's the Wiimote candy dispenser. Candy has never tasted so good (and I'm going to regret using the word 'candy').

That's your lot for this morning. I'm off to drink more coffee, so don't be surprised when I'm hyper posting later.

Rustlers Machinima Music Video Contest!

2008-07-10T14:36:00.007Z

The wonderful guys over at Machinima.com (creating short films through video games) have finally taken notice of all of us over here in the UK. To celebrate the launch of their brand new UK site they're teaming up with Rustlers (always good for a quick snack) to offer this great competition.

All you need to do is to create a music video for one of Jonathan Coulton's (the guy responsible for the excellent Portal theme song 'Still Alive') songs, which you can download free of charge from here. For those of you with little creativity there also be a prize draw amongst those who sign-up to vote.

Prizes? I hear you cry! Well, first place will be awarded with an Area-51® m15x Alienware Laptop with Adobe Premiere Pro CS3. Second place will get an Sanyo Xacti DMX-HD2 Cam while the runners-up (ten of you) will get a copy of Jonathan Coulton's “Thing a Week” CD Box Set.

The competition is open to residents of the UK but I've been informed that non-uk residents can get someone in the UK to submit their entry for them.

Rustlers Machinima Music Video Contest - Machinima.com

Zombie Shooter.

2008-07-09T16:54:00.010Z

Regular readers of this blog (if I have any) will know that I’m very fond of anything to do with zombies, be it films, books or games. I even compiled a post of a few zombie browser-based games you can play on your coffee break. So, it’s with great enthusiasm that I dived into yet another zombie game on the market, which is simply – but appropriately – titled Zombie Shooter.

Well, I say dived but I only touched the waters with my little toe. Due to being a poor graduate I could only play the free version of the game, which only allows you an hour to play around with it. However, an hour is more than enough to experience the massive slaughter of zombies that you will partake in. The best feature of all this slaughter? The blood and zombie corpses don't disappear and continually cover the level in gore! All in lovely isometric glory!

There are three modes in the game; your usual Campaign mode with some sort of story, a mode called Survive mode in which you stand off against increasing numbers of zombies and bosses, and finally a mode called Gun Stand which is like Survive mode but you take control of a fixed gun gunning down the constant hordes of zombies. In this final mode you often end up with something like this:

Told you it was gory, and you'll be knee deep in the undead before you know it.

Although the two modes are fun you'll quickly bore of them. It's the campaign mode where the real meat of the game lies and the few levels I played were pretty average. I say average because of the awful AI. Once the zombies and other enemies see you they'll track you across the level, but if you go through a door and down the corridor in the opposite direction they'll follow your movements while forgetting that there's a wall between the two of you. This results in the zombies constantly walking against walls and other objects, or the latter enemies shooting at walls. It's pretty dumb and it takes a lot of the fun away from what could be a pretty good game. I also suffered a glitch where I got stuck on a piece of scenery and had to restart the level.

With the AI problems it's an average game at the best. If these problems were sorted out I'd say that it probably is worth the £10 price tag, but I'm saying that without actually knowing how many levels the game has.

You can download the free demo or buy the game from its homepage.

Got a game you want me to take a look at? Email me or comment in the comments section!

Totem Destroyer.

2008-07-09T16:17:00.005Z

Physics based games often annoy me. It's not the game themselves, in fact I always love novel ways of making use of physics in games (which is part of why I enjoy the Half-Life 2 games so much), it's the act of having to use your brain. Yes, I'm just lazy at heart.

Thankfully Totem Destroyer isn't too tough and it's actually pretty enjoyable through the act of having to discover just how you're going to get the golden totem down without breaking it. In each level you have to decide which block you want to destroy with your handy bomb. Each level gets increasingly more complex (although some of the complex levels are too obvious) but I often found that you can complete the level through sheer luck and frantic clicking. For example, the totem may luckily land on one of the indestructible black blocks which you honestly didn't mean to happen. Like me, however, you'll probably just shrug your shoulders and move on to the next level.

You can play the game over at the Armor Games site.

Got a game you want me to take a look at? Email me or comment in the comments section!

Dino Run.

2008-07-09T02:03:00.007Z

Take a long loving look at the above image. Go on, I'll wait here....

......

Now doesn't that look peaceful and tranquil? Doesn't that yellow blob that passes for a dinosaur look cute? Yes? Good. Now take a look at the image below.

There, my friends, lies DOOM!!! MASSIVE BOILING BLACK DUSTY DOOM!!!! (which I'm apparently running into)

Phew, now that I've got that out of my system let's talk about the game that inspires such rage.

Dino Run's name tells you all you need to know. You're a dinosaur and you need to run, simple eh? Well, not when you're running away from certain extinction as evidenced by the picture above. Along the way you have to avoid various obstacles such as dumb dinosaurs who won't get out of your damn way.....yes, this made me hate dinosaurs! Fortunately your 'cute' little blob of a dinosaur can eat the smaller ones, which gives you points and some sort of DNA upgrade (although this only happened once to me) that allows you to upgrade your dinosaurs stats. You also have to save eggs so, obviously, you can continue your species even when the whole frickin world is covered in a thick black cloud choking the life out of the Earth. See, I don't see what the dinosaur has to gain from running away as it'll eventually catch up to the little dude.

Anyway, you go through the normal routine of levels and different environments while the impending doom gets increasingly faster behind you. For you social types there's also a multiplayer where you can race against friends or strangers.

It's a neat little game, but my poor skills prevented me from seeing the end. So, I hand the task to a good gamer to see if the little guy makes it. I have become attached to Rex, even if he is now burning to death at the bottom of a lava pit.

You can play the game here.

Got a game you want me to take a look at? Email me or comment in the comments section!

Garden Gnome Carnage.

2008-07-07T18:51:00.007Z

If there was ever a game that could horrify the good old Gnome it's this one. I must first apologise for this senseless killing of elves (Gnomes must be related, somehow!) for no apparent reason but, unfortunately for the Gnomes kind, it's incredibly fun!

Garden Gnome Carnage is the name of this senseless elf killing machine and it's probably the first game I've played in which you play a building. Endless streams of elves run towards your building and their objective is to reach the chimney on the top of the building. Fortunately your defense is a garden gnome attached to a piece of string (I think the elves are trying to release him) which you can use to fling the elves away by moving the building with the cursor keys. You can also shake the nasty little elves off by shaking the building with the cursor keys, although the gnomes hiding under presents will carry on climbing.

Your garden gnome can also grab bricks from the building and toss them into the crowd of elves, causing small explosions of flying elves around the screen. The problem is, how do you replenish the bricks you've thrown? Well, this little service is provided by a black cat. Yup, a black cat. The cat will climb your building like the elves and, instead of being game over when he reaches the chimney, he'll fill your building back up with bricks! The annoying thing is that it's incredibly easy to knock the cat flying by mistake, although it is pretty funny.

Finally you're also under attack by elves flying on sleighs. If they reach the building they'll land on the roof and an elf will try to reach the chimney. Fortunately they can easily be knocked out of the sky (which is great when they land in the crowds of elves below) but presents will parachute out causing you even more problems. If it all gets too much (and believe me it will) then you can just bomb the little freaks with one of your airstrikes.

Garden Gnome Carnage is a strange and wacky little game and, eventually, it will quickly overwhelm you (you'll find out the meaning of the word 'carnage'). Racking up large combos is incredibly addictive and, like with me, it may actually suck a few hours out of your day.

You can download the game from here.

Got a game you want me to take a look at? Email me or comment in the comments section!

Mercenaries 2: World in Flames Gameplay Footage.

2008-07-04T18:20:00.005Z

I have little to say other than this game looks awesome. If you combine grappling hooks with explosions and the ability to approach a mission in any way you wish then you're on to a winner!

I've been looking forward to this game for a while now and this video just cements my excitement. You may wonder why I'm that bothered about Mercenaries 2 but I loved the first one and this one just looks ten times better. I just hope that destroying absolutely everything doesn't get too boring.

Roll on August!

Amazing GTA IV Fan Art!

2008-06-28T17:48:00.008Z

Just when you thought the GTA IV posts had ended I hit you with another one. This time around it's worth it just to appreciate this lovely fan art created by Patrick Brown.

Pictures like these just make me wish I could draw myself.

You can check out his other GTA IV creations and the rest of his gallery over at deviantART.

Releated Posts: A few GTA IV Impressions.

'It Wasn't Us!' Say Limbo of the Lost Developers.

2008-06-26T10:28:00.007Z

You can't really say that you're tuned into video game news when you're a few days late posting a piece of news. In this fast-paced world of online media you'll get a cry of 'OLD!' even if you're only a few hours later than everyone else. In the case of this piece of news I read about it when it was first posted on the 24th June but I didn't post about it due to sheer laziness (although, to be fair, I've only just graduate and I've been contemplating my less than stellar result).

Well, for the two of you don't don't already know the developers of Limbo of the Lost (that adventure game that has scenes you clearly remember seeing somewhere before) have finally commented on accusations of plagiarism.

In response to the shocking notification that some alleged unauthorized copyrighted materials submitted by sources external to the development team have been found within the PC game Limbo of the Lost, we (the development team) have given our consent and full cooperation to both publishers who are recalling all units from all territories immediately.

Please be assured that we do not condone in anyway the use of unauthorized copyrighted materials and if we had been made aware earlier, we would of course have ceased development of the product and rectified the issue prior to the publication process.

Sigh.

Ok, so even if some assets were outsourced to some lazy art guy they should really have people who check these sort of things out. Honestly? I think it's a blatant - yet carefully worded - lie and the longer they deny that they stole from others the longer the embarrassment will continue. You see, if they just admit it and disappear then maybe no-one will really care. The longer they drag it out means it's more likely that someone they stole from will take it to court. I'm not entirely sure something like that will happen though, since the game has been pulled from distribution meaning they can't profit from it anymore anyway. Besides, their financial status will be so meaningless that no-one will get anything out of it if they try to sue.

One thing's for sure - these guys will never be getting a publisher again!

Meanwhile you can follow this guys excruciation walkthrough of the game

Limbo of the Lost devs respond to plagiarism charges - Gamespot.

Related Posts: New PC Adventure Game - Limbo of the Lost - Accused of Plagiarism.

A Selection of my Spore Creature Creator Creations.

2008-06-19T21:22:00.011Z

I've been messing around with the Spore Creature Creator f0r a few days now and I'm loving it. I initially created some creatures with the trial version but I loved it so much that I purchased the full version. The full version gives you full access to all the parts and features of the Creature Creator (though I expect they may be further parts to unlock when the full game, Spore, is released) and it's high flexibility pretty much allows you to create any type of creature that your imagination can come up with.

My creations aren't amazing and, hopefully, I'll get a little better at it. Here are some of the creations I've made so far (you can add the creatures to your own Creature Creator by clicking on the name links, which goes to the Sporepedia):

This guy is known as Yurak (I know, it's a strange name) and the idea was some deformed version of a giraffe. I suppose I should probably have made him yellow but I thought orange went better with the black (it's a tiger giraffe!). Here he is with his kids:

Next up:

Limar!

And...

Deara!

Finally here's my attempt at creating a vaguely humanoid creature:

Homor (not Homer) also has his own video:

Check out my YouTube account for a few more! You can also visit my Sporepedia page.

Feel free to share your own creations in the comments. You can download the free and paid Creature Creator over at the Spore site.

SocioTown's Novel Way of Dealing With Uninvited Guests.

2008-06-16T23:02:00.004Z

If you've ever played Second Life or Habbo Hotel - as two examples - then you'll eventually have to deal with the problem of uninvited guests appearing on your 'property'. Sure, you could just allow certain people in or, as in the case of Habbo, simply set a password but those are just totally boring, right? Why block people from entering your virtual home when you’ll miss out on the fun of punching or swinging them out of the room? Before you know it you’ll be punching your friends outside just because it’s funny!

If you want to try these nifty moves for yourself SocioTown is now in public beta. I'll be posting some of my impressions soon.

Related Posts: SocioTown - A New 3D Browser-Based MMO.

New PC Adventure Game - Limbo of the Lost - Accused of Plagiarism

2008-06-12T16:27:00.012Z

Pretty much all ideas today are influenced by a previous idea in some way or another and, to an extent, this is completely acceptable. This is especially true in the video game industry as there are already established genres that are simply adapted to create something new. For example, the first FPS game (commonly thought to be Maze War) established the conventions that thousands of games since its development have used. No-one can be accused of directly copying the game in this sense as each successive game (for the most part) has built upon the genre in its own unique way. However, there is a difference between being influenced by a previous game and directly copying off a previous game - which is where the recently completed Limbo of the Lost comes into play.

You see, Limbo of the Lost is a point and click adventure game which, of course, has been done a countless number of times before and, of course, there is nothing wrong with this. What IS wrong with the game, however, is that it directly steals parts of level designs from other games. This includes backgrounds, textures, and even text. Let's see an example:

This is a scene from Limbo of the Lost which looks innocent enough, right?

Well, not when you compare it to a scene from Bethesda's 2006 game The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Even the painting in the background is exactly the same as the painting in Oblivion.

Here's another example:

It's pretty much blatant theft of copyrighted scenes and textures and it makes it especially worse when Oblivion allegedly isn't the only game that has been stolen from. Other examples include scenes from Thief III, Unreal Tournament 2004, Painkiller and Diablo II amongst others. You can find them all over at this forum post on NeoGAF.

The US publisher, Tri Synergy, told Kotaku that they have "discontinued distribution" of the game and are "just as shocked as everyone else" following the revelations. I still don't see how they - Majestic Studios - could have got away with this in the first place. Secondly, they did really think that the gaming and Internet community wouldn't notice this? We have way too much time on our hands.

The game looks pants anyway (check out the two incredibly awful trailers) and, hopefully, legal action may force this sham of a company out of business. I have absolutely no respect for people who are so uncreative that they have to steal other people's creations just to make some money.

Limbo of the Lost stole from Oblivion, Morrowind, UT2K4, Diablo, Silent Hill, more? - NeoGaf (Via Kotaku)

Sporepedia Is Now Live!

2008-06-11T20:38:00.004Z

You'd be forgiven for thinking that Spore was vaporware because, after-all, we haven't been hearing all that much about it lately. This makes it all the more surprising when, seemingly out of the bloom, the previously announced Sporepedia is suddenly released by EA.

The Sporepedia is basically an encyclopedic collection of the millions of creations that players have made in their own copy of the Spore universe - well, that is what it's supposed to be eventually. For now the Sporepedia is only populated by the creations the people of Maxis have designed but, once the game is released, you'll eventually be able to easily download them and add them to your own copy of the game.

The release of Sporepedia comes just a week before the Spore creature creator will be in the players hands (on June 17th). I for one can't wait - especially now that the system recommendations show that my aging PC can handle it!

Sporepedia - Maxis/EA

Tobioriya (Or, Um, Something to do With Arrows).

2008-06-05T17:55:00.005Z

Now here's an odd one. In Tobioriya you fire arrows at naked people jumping from a building. Yup, and that's about it. There's some sort of score system but because it's in Japanese I don't actually have a clue what any of it means.

Oh well, pinning some naked people to a wall is a nice way to kill five minutes. You can download it from here (it's the second from the top).

Got a game you want me to take a look at? Email me or comment in the comments section!

A Few GTA IV Impressions.

2008-06-03T16:39:00.010Z

So time got the better of me and I never actually wrote about my impressions of GTA IV. It's been a tough few weeks and, to be honest, updating this blog has been the last thing on my mind. However, I'm not here to talk about my personal life so let's get back to business. This isn't a review so I'm not going to cover everything, I just want to pick out a few of my thoughts about the game.

Playing video games has really been my only escape lately and it was a pure god send that a new GTA game was released during this time. I've always adored the GTA series, mainly because I can get lost in a whole new city while doing pretty much anything I want in my new home. GTA, as usual, didn't disappoint in this sense. As Niko Bellic steps off the boat at the beginning of the game you get a feeling his experience is the experience that many players feel when beginning a new GTA game for the first time. You're effectively a new immigrant to the city, just like the character you play in any new GTA game, entering a strange new world but also excited about the possibilities this new world presents. This links you from the start and, in the case of GTA IV, it's even more so with the character of Niko - an Eastern European immigrant. He's also an instantly likeable character, besides all the murdering he'll be doing, and you really get a feeling that he's doing what he's doing because he has to, not because he wants to. This attitude means that going on the usual GTA rampage seems out of character for Niko - it doesn't stop you doing it though!

For me the city is always the star of a GTA game. You can have a superb cast of characters and the best storyline ever but if the city isn't fun then it's not going to get me playing for long. You only need to drive down a single street in the revamped Liberty City to notice just how much care and attention has gone in to creating the immense detail that makes the city incredibly life-like. In the first few hours of play I saw a preacher spouting about the end of the world, workmen laying a new drive on a housing estate, people having conversations on their cell phones, random conversations everywhere, cops arresting and pulling people over. All this, and more (such as the radio stations and the incredibly detailed Internet), filled me with awe. It finally feels like you're living in an actual living breathing city instead of a bunch of buildings with empty lifeless husks walking around them. Couple this with some absolutely breathtaking scenery on behalf of it's New York City imitation and you're on to a winner.

This level of detail is also covered in the sheen of a totally new engine. Yeah, the game isn't the best looking game in the world but that's never expected from a GTA game and, besides, with a world like GTA IV's you can't really compare to other games that don't have the sheer level of detail but have incredible graphics. The game is by no means bad looking and it looks more realistic than ever. The weather effects are brilliant and each time of the day has it's own unique look. The character animations are incredible (although Niko can be a bit over-dramatic when he's nudged by a car) and, as such, gun fights now never feel like the same old point and shoot that the previous games had (although I love the new cover system it can be a bit awkward at times and the game still has a few targeting issues. Overall though the system is vastly improved so the few flaws can be forgiven). Everything just feels far more realistic.

There has been a few complaints about driving but I really don't see the problems myself. It's been described as being like 'driving on butter' but this is completely senseless in my opinion. It was far too easy to drive on previous GTA games, far too easy to scream around the corners when trying to escape from police. Scream around the corner in GTA IV without proper handling and you're going to end up hitting the nearest wall. Sure, it takes time to learn how to handle each car properly but that's the beauty of it. It's actually fun driving now because you have to think when approaching each corner. It's by no means at the standard of a racing game but it's getting there.

Multiplayer has been a bit up and down for me. The first few days after GTA IV's release saw me and a few friends playing it non-stop over Xbox Live. I hardly played the single player at first as free mode with a few friends was incredibly fun. It's just that it seemed to be a passing fancy for the friends I was playing with, whom have pretty much gone back to Call of Duty 4 while I play through GTA's singleplayer. Playing GTA IV with the random masses on Live is not half as fun - largely because it's full of asses but mostly because GTA IV is a game which is designed to enjoy with friends. 'GTA Race' is the only mode that I can really enjoy when I'm not playing with friends. Maybe it's because my friends love COD4 and I get easily bored of it that always leaves me in this situation as I'm the only one who seems to want to play GTA IV's multiplayer modes for an extended period of time. GTA IV's multiplayer is by no means bad when not played with friends but I feel you're missing out on a lot of what it has to offer if you're just playing with strangers.

It's not a perfect game by any means, but what game is perfect? I'm not the kind of gamer who'll get annoyed by a bit of pop-up and the odd glitch (although some of the glitches in GTA games can be incredibly fun) and no game is without it's flaws, specifically a game where an open world means it's harder for testers to cover every base. Although the storyline is absolutely stellar in this installment it's the city that's the real star and Rockstar North just provides the highly tuned tools to play around within its creation. The new generation of consoles doesn't just mean shiny graphics, it means adapting tried and tested formulas to fit with the tools the developer has at its disposal and also making sure that gamers will get something new and not just the same old game (no matter how much the said franchise has sold in the past because this streak will not last forever). At its core GTA is the same game it has always been but there's enough new and adapted quality as the crust to make GTA IV one of the defining moments of the current generation and maybe even the entirety of video game history. I, like many gamers, can't wait to see where Rockstar North takes GTA next.

Sorry.

2008-06-03T00:40:00.001Z

Nope, I'm not dead.

I'll be back posting again when I've had some sleep. Bet you can't wait can you?

Thanks To Deitrix!

2008-04-22T15:14:00.005Z

Just a quick post to thank Deitrix for the new and absolutely amazing header! No Signal Input is looking great these days. You owe it to yourself to go and visit that site to check out his brilliant art.

I will be back next Wednesday as that is the date I'm handing my dissertation in. The first post will most likely (it better be Amazon!) be my GTA IV impressions followed by a full-blown review some days after that (providing I can get through enough of the game without multiplayer distracting me too much).

For those of you who are looking forward to GTA IV as much as I am I hope to see you on Xbox Live sometime next week. If any of you are interested in having a game with me sometime my Id is tmullers.

I can't wait until I have the time to update this blog again.

Stupid University.

2008-03-03T20:42:00.002Z

Just a quick notice that, if you haven't guessed already, updates around here are going to be incredibly sporadic due to 18,000 words worth of university work and a dissertation to complete over the next few months. I don't have the time to play video games let alone write about them.

I will be checking my blog roll from time to time as I do like to keep up with the latest news, but don't expect me to be the most social guy in the video game community.

I really wish I could keep up with this because I love blogging but it just isn't possible at the moment.

I will update, but probably only once a week.

More Spore Goodness!

2008-02-15T13:00:00.006Z

It's only a few days after EA officially announced the release date of Spore and the Internet has literally exploded with a tonne of new information about the most anticipated game of the year.

First-up Kotaku gives us a video of a new look at the creature editor. More is revealed about the parts that make up a creature, what they do, and what's needed to gain the parts. Creation extends to air, land, and sea vehicles as well as buildings, accessories and UFO's (although the fauna creation option seems to have gone). Also shown off is one of the community aspects of the game - the content browser - called the Sporepedia. Here you can share your creations and download more with other Spore players. You can also comment on creations, track how many times yours has been downloaded, and limit content being added to game to buddies. Of note is the ability to record your creations and instantly upload a video of them to YouTube.This section also shows off some incredible creations, which confirms the amazing flexibility of the editor.

Next-up is 1UP's new preview of Spore, where it's revealed that players will be able to play any phase (Creature, Tribal, Civilization, and Space phases) straight out of the box. This does defeat the traditional format of progression in a game but highlights Spore's sandbox nature in which you make the game for yourself (much like The Sims). There's also an interesting video interview with Will Wright, part two of which will be coming our way soon (if you'd rather read than watch then Newsweek has another interview up with Will Wright, in which he explains the reason for such a long delay. Here's an interesting quote from Will: "If I took a building from my city, the program can look at other content that thematically matches that City Hall, and suggest that to me.").

Moving away from the PC IGN has a look at the Nintendo DS version of Spore. The game will be called Spore Creatures and while it will still retain some aspects of the creature editor it's a much linear product than its bigger brother. It's more of a adventure game in which you form relationships with other creatures, attack hostile creatures (using the stylus to slash) and explore the world for new body parts. The sharing aspect comes in the form of DS to DS. There's also a look at the mobile phone version of Spore. This is just the cell stage of the game but does include community aspects as you can register you creation online to battle against other players creations.

More Spore info:

Joystiq - '...we got too preoccupied gathering some fish and didn't leave any tribe members at home. While deserted, a large feral creature -- he reminded me of a monster from Where the Wild Things Are -- lumbered in to snack on our food stocks.'
- 'Spice is still the game's resource, but different planets harvest different colors of Spice. You can take advantage of these varieties with trade routes through the galaxy.'
- Also includes an incredible 81 new screenshots.

CVG - EA will release the creature creation editor a few months before the arrival of Spore (much like the body shop was released before The Sims 2).

Wired - "For any city, for any colony I make, a [musical] theme will be generated for it," he said." the music generator allows users to jump in and create their own themes by clicking and dragging musical notes. "I could put in the Star Wars theme if I wanted to," Wright said.

DS Fanboy - Europe will get Spore two days before the US release date (which is great for me!)

Gamespot - 'We chose to use a flying-saucer-shaped vessel as a template, and from there we altered the proportions, applied different colours and patterns, and adorned our creation with various cannons and lasers. Although there was no way that an advanced civilisation would be caught dead in such a monstrosity, it's clear that the tools will let players create pretty much anything they can imagine.'

There's your lot!

For Such A Small Guy He Sure Gets Everywhere!

2008-02-15T12:34:00.003Z

Those of you who are readers of the great and wise Gnome will know that he occasionally rises from his lair - filled to the brim with retro goodness - to bring his enlightenment to the rest of the web (do you think I'm plugging him enough here?). While we all know him for the lair he also runs Gnomes Gaming on the Go, The SEGA Master System Junkyard and Retro Treasures along with the occasional guest post here and there. You'd have thought he'd have covered all bases there but, no, on he moves to conquer the Internet.

Along with Chris (The Artful Gamer) and Gary (From the Gutter) Gnome is now writing over at the recently launched Game Cabaret which, in Gnome's own words, explores the 'the sexy, dark, humorous and at times serious side of video gaming'. After breathing in that new blog smell check out wonderful posts on 'Repressed Homoeroticism in R-Type' and realism in games through the film Cabaret.

With the excellent posts over at all three of these bloggers blogs I'm sure it won't be long before Game Cabaret is pumping out constant quality. Your owe it to yourself to check it out.

Spore Release Date Finally Announced!

2008-02-12T21:01:00.000Z

The Gods have finally seen fit to grace us with a Spore release date, leaving their masses of worshipers moaning in ecstasy (I should so write erotica). One of the Gods, of course, is the legend himself, Will Wright. From EA and Will comes the official release date of September 7th for PC, Mac, Nintendo DS and mobile phones (I wonder if every single version can make the same day).

"We're in our final stages of testing and polish with Spore," game designer Will Wright explained. "And the team at Maxis can't wait to see the cosmos of content created by the community later this year." - Gamespy.

The biggest game of the year? It better damn well be!

Spore Release Date Announced. - Gamespy.

New GTAIV Site Now Live!

2008-02-08T23:03:00.001Z

Just a quick heads-up that the upcoming Grand Theft Auto IV now has it's own fully fledged flash-based site.

Flash-based annoyance aside there's a tonne of new images and a few videos showing off the new environment and it's characters. There's also a map of Liberty City (where you can click on points of interest) which is likely the final design.

It's good to see some new stuff and it only gets me even more excited for the game. Roll on April!

Welcome to Liberty City. - Rockstar (Via Kotaku)

Bloomsix Announces New Mobile MMO.

2008-01-31T15:16:00.001Z

Amsterdam based Bloomsix has announced what will be the first mobile massive multiplayer online strategy game. Armada: Kingdoms will run on most Java-enabled phones and a public release is scheduled for Q2 2008.

The objective of the game reminds me of Tribal Wars. Thousands of players will own their own towns and also form Kingdoms with other people (like the tribes aspect of Tribal Wars). They then manage their town's economy and expand to attack their opponents. Bloomsix says the game will have a 'strong community' aspect to it (pretty much standard for any MMO which wishes to find success) and players will be able to interact with you even when you're logged out. It's distinctly casual - it obviously has to be when aimed at the mobile gaming market - and playing ten minutes a day will be enough to manage your town.

I've always thought a game like Tribal Wars would execute well on a mobile (cell phone for you Yanks!) as you - unless your after a deeper community experience - you never need to log in for that long each day (perfect for a trip on the bus or train). The only thing I'm worried about is the cost of playing such a game, since most WAP services still on a per-minute basis. It's also not the first time an MMO has been translated to the mobile platform (see Era of Eidolon for example) but apparently it's the first strategy MMO and I do feel this work's better with today's mobile technology.

Bloomsix Announces MMO Strategy Game for Java-enabled Phones. - Bloomsix (Via Kotaku)

Analyst Believes Spore Will Be Delayed.

2008-01-31T14:44:00.000Z

Mike Hickey, an analyst at Janco, believes that Spore may be delayed due to recent share underperformance at Electronic Arts. I didn't mention this before but the game was reported to be roughly ready for release around March/April. Potential delays would mean the game wouldn't see the light of day until the second half of 2008.

I think the popular saying 'No shit, Sherlock!' applies here. I say this because we've pretty much grown accustomed to seeing Spore being delayed and, hopefully, all these delays can only be a good thing. Personally I wouldn't mind if the game was released after Summer because I will have finished university then and, thus, have more time to spend gaming and creating a race of male genitalia.

Analyst: Spore To Be Delayed To Fall/Winter 2008? - Gamasutra (Via CVG)

Shameless Movie Tie-In #42561

2008-01-30T21:07:00.001Z

You've been dreading this moment, as have I, Saw is finally being translated to a video game. God help us all!

With something as big as the Saw franchise it was probably inevitable that a game would spawn from it, I'm just surprised it's taken so long. For those of you not in the loop Saw is set to spawn at least two more sequels (V and VI) so, unfortunately for the sane amongst us, the franchise is far from out of steam.

Brash Entertainment has been licensed to produce the game for Xbox 360 and the PS3. As many current generation games Unreal Engine 3 will be employed to, possibly, see the extreme tortures in glorious HD graphics (and they thought Manhunt 2 was bad!). The films are based around a series of tests and puzzles that always result in a twist you totally weren't supposed to see coming and I can somewhat see that translating to a game.

No matter how bad the Saw films can be you can't deny that the torture methods are superbly designed so it'll be interesting to see what they can do in the game. With all the furrow over Manhunt 2 it will also be interesting to see how the whiners react because, of course, films can show sick shit but video games are suddenly 'Think of the children!'.

Who's betting this will end up like must video games based on movies? You know...sells bucket loads but then ends up in the bargain bucket itself within a week.

If you really care you can sign-up for updates over at the official site. The actual game is due out in 2009.

Game Based on Saw Movies Due Next Year. - GameLife (Via Kotaku)

GTA IV Release Date Officially Confirmed.

2008-01-24T18:27:00.001Z

After months of speculation Rockstar has officially announced the release date of, by far one of the most - if not the most - anticipated games of the year, Grand Theft Auto IV. Emails sent out to newsletter subscribers showed a date of April 29th 2008 above a picture of lead character Nico and the title. The release will be simultaneous worldwide for both the Playstation 3 and Xbox360.

It's great to finally get a proper release date and, hopefully, the previous delays will only make a better game in the long-run. I suppose the only annoying thing is that it comes just before my finals!

There's a nice interview with Rockstar Games Vice President of Product Development Jeronimo Barrera over at MTV.

Turok - Demo Impressions.

2008-01-17T20:21:00.001Z

The Turok games are one of those cases where it would probably have been better leaving it alone after the success of the first game. Of course, video games are still a business and any successful game is more than likely to get a sequel. Turok spawned a franchise, and while the first is widely seen as one of the best games for the N64 the franchise flopped when the fourth installment (Turok: Evolution) was released on Playstation 2 and various consoles in 2002. Since then, thankfully, nothing has been released. Well, until now of course.

Buena Vista Games (yup, that's Disney) acquired the rights back in 2005 and have eventually managed to produce a game using the Unreal Engine 3. However, this is no Gears of War. They've gone back to basics and simply called the game Turok, whether that's an attempt to start afresh remains to be seen. The demo weighs in at about 1.2GB on Xbox Live but, unless you've got nothing better to do, it's probably not worth it.

Turok comes at a time when the 360 has enough decent FPS games to keep you occupied without shunting another one on you. If the game offered something completely original and unique then maybe it could stand on it's own but, at least in the demo, there's nothing more than a generic FPS with pretty dinosaurs. Sure, it looks good (not great but good) but what are fancy graphics if the game underneath it all is nothing special? Some people may say you can't judge the full game off the demo but a demo is supposed to show off the games strong points and, if that's what it's doing, then there's nothing particularly strong about this game.

The dinosaurs seem a bit thick but I have to admit it's pretty neat when they charge at you from all sides. However, sometimes you get knocked down so many times (since you often don't see them coming until the last minute, and if you do you don't see the one coming from the other side) that the screen turns blurry and red like you've just been poked in both eyes. It can be a very frustrating experience. You can get the dinosaurs to fight each other and the generic futuristic soldiers that appear (who totally suck at getting into cover by the way) but this doesn't really appear in the demo. What's the point in these features if you can't try them out before hand? Surely that's what a demo is for? Propaganda Games really needs to read these tips on how to make a decent demo.

Another gripe I have is the crossbow. I can deal with not being able to aim down the sight on the rest of the weapons but simply zooming in a bit when you aim the crossbow (which doesn't even zoom in any more than the other weapons) is unacceptable. For a start this is supposed to be the future, and even when crossbows were first invented they had a sight to aim down. Using the weapons just isn't fun, even dual-wielding has been done to death. Apparently the game will have some unique weapons but the demo shows nothing more than your generic shotgun and machine guns.

I wasn't expecting much from Turok and I didn't get much. Demo's are supposed to make me feel excited about the game and leave me wanting the full game to come out as soon as possible (like Bioshock) but Turok doesn't even come close to this. If you like generic FPS games with a few dinosaurs thrown in then you'll probably enjoy Turok but, for everyone else, there's so much more games of much better quality that you could be spending your hard earned cash on.

Turok will be released for the PC, Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 on February 5 in the US and February 8 in the UK. The demo is now available for download on Xbox Live.

Spore to be Released on the Mac. Still no Sign of it.

2008-01-17T02:18:00.001Z

Yesterday it was announced that EA are 'bringing its highly anticipated game Spore to the Mac sometime in 2008'.

"We couldn't be happier to bring Spore to the Mac at the same time as the PC version. Spore is a highly creative game and I look forward to seeing what the players come up with to fill the universe they design," said Wright in a statement. - Macworld

I don't really care much for this news but I would if I owned a Mac. So few developers both to bring out a version of their game for Mac's so this is exciting for people who own a Mac.

So why did I bother blogging this news if I don't really care? Well, it says 2008 so, even though there's not an official release date yet, it makes me more confident the game will be out this year. I'm getting increasingly worried about whether or not my rig will be up to it so I'm hoping the system requirements are on par with The Sims 2 (and providing smooth gameplay of course). Also, let's face it, we hear very little news about Spore so I'm taking it upon myself to report the news that does appear.

Mac owners shouldn't get too excited though. Considering how long this game is taking I wouldn't be surprised if it slipped into 2009. Still, fingers crossed eh?

(Via Kotaku)

Fresh Start.

2008-01-15T20:46:00.000Z

I've finally gone and switched to the new version of Blogger because I was having some problems with the older version. I couldn't get an 'Older Posts' link at the bottom of my blog, plus - let's face it - my layout was getting a little dated.

With all the headaches of the previous version I'm glad that it's so easy to set things up with the new version. Pretty soon I'll probably start customising it to my own tastes once I figure out how to edit the new template properly.

Also, thanks to Deitrix for the amazing header!

2007 'Game of the Year'.

2008-01-14T20:03:00.002Z

I know this is a little late but university work comes first and I had bucket loads of it. Wait, did I just say that? Anyway, I’m updating this at least every weekday from this day forth as I need something to keep me sane while I work on my dissertation. I also seriously need to start thinking about my future and I want writing to play a large part in it. Updating this blog can only help in that sense.

I’d like to say that doing this was easy, partly because I’ve played so few games this year, but it really wasn't. With that said from the few games I have managed to play through I’ve played some cracking ones because, often, I’ve only had time to play the best (or what I was told was the best) of what’s been a stunning year. It’s easier to choose from a group of sub-standard games that only include one or two amazing standouts but it’s almost impossible to choose a winner from a bunch of A-listers. I’m still going to try though, and you can see below that I really couldn’t decide. So, this year (and for the first time on this blog) my game of the year goes to:

Bioshock (Xbox 360)
Mass Effect (Xbox 360)
The Orange Box (PC)

‘Three games? Three????’

I know, it kind of defeats the object of ‘Game of the Year’ but I went over and over this in my head and I really couldn’t decide. Yes, each of them has their own problems but this is what balances the three out. This means that there’s really nothing that puts one below the other. Basically these three games are the most fun I’ve had in the video game world in 2007.

When I see a game get 10/10 or 100% I’m more than a bit sceptical. However, Bioshock may be one of the only games I’ve played that received these awards that really deserved it. From the moment the game begins – when your plane crashes into the freezing Atlantic Ocean – I was stunned. The world of Rapture is so believable, and so beautiful; that every step I take through it grabs my senses and assaults them with the feeling you get when you eat ice cream too fast. There’s a difference between playing Bioshock and eating ice cream too fast however. You don’t rush through Bioshock because you don’t want it to end. I spend ages on each area because I want to see everything; I want to take in every little detail, read everything on the walls, and listen to every sound you can hear in the distance. The moral implications the game presents aren’t as rampant as it may have first been presented but I found myself saving every Little Sister in the game – even when I was incredibly low on Adam! I just couldn’t bring myself to kill them. Bioshock is, without a doubt, one of the finest FPS games I’ve ever played. Not the finest game, but nearing that goal.

I’m never going to deny that the RPG is my favourite genre. I love a good story and if you put that in video game form then I’m probably in heaven. I’m going to come right out and say this first, Mass Effect is not the best RPG I’ve ever played but it’s one of the most enjoyable. There’s RPG’s out there with far better stories and there’s others out there with far better gameplay. Mass Effect, for me, strikes a balance between the two. I don’t care what people say about the active combat battle system. Yes, it wasn’t perfect, but I never expected it to be. While I do love a good turn-based RPG or a hack and slash romp they have got a little boring and Mass Effect provides a refreshing new perspective on the genre. It’s not perfect but I never expected it to be, hopefully it will have been refined in the next installment (Mass Effect is supposed to be a trilogy). The story, and the sense that you have some input in creating it, is what really makes this game one of my best of 2007. Like Bioshock I just couldn’t be the ‘bad guy’ in Mass Effect. I felt bad if I did something that made me a ‘renegade’ and the fact that video games now make you feel genuine emotion makes you wonder how people can’t consider it an art form. All this is portrayed with some of the best graphics you can see on the Xbox 360, it's just a shame they've often not loaded properly in order to cut loading times. I’m looking forward to the next installment of Mass Effect more than any other game at the moment.

I’ve already covered Half-Life: Episode Two but The Orange Box wouldn’t be complete without the other two (new) amazing games. Both Episode Two and Portal give new meaning to the saying ‘short but sweet’. Portal’s big idea executes flawlessly and the short span of the game means you never get bored, especially since the portal gun is used in increasingly more novel ways. I’ve not tried any of the user created maps yet but I’m sure they offer more frustrating and brain racking experiences. The ending? Absolutely brilliant! Team Fortress 2 is probably the most balanced multiplayer FPS available at the moment. Every single class is useful and they all play a part in the ongoing battles. Of course, they all have their strengths and weaknesses but – at least to me – these all seem equal (although the spy is bloody annoying!) It’s visual style offers something different and unique compared to the drab or futuristic settings that plague some online FPS games. It also brings amazing character to the game, something that is lacking in the online FPS arena. I don’t play it as much anymore but I have played a lot of multiplayer FPS games last year and Team Fortress 2 (even Halo 3) is by far my favourite. Three great games (and two great old games) for such a low price. You really can't beat a package that contains such class.

2007 was a great year and there’s a number of other games that could of made the grade. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare gets a mention because it was incredible fun. However, I didn’t feel it surpassed the other FPS games I had on the list. It did, for me, beat Halo 3. Halo 3 is overrated in my opinion and while I still enjoy it and play it online it’s not a ‘Game of the Year’ entrant. On the 360 side I have missed out on a few of the A-list (or just highly rated) games, because I’ve only just bought one, so I do feel like some of the great games of the year have passed me by. Thankfully I’ve managed to at least try a few of them, even if it only includes the PC and 360. Here’s hoping that 2008 will be just as great.