Game In Your Blog

The ineluctable modality of utter nonsense

2011-06-20T15:10:00.000-07:00

"Cuck-cuck-cuckoo" cucked Cuck Mulligan

Mr Holloway begins to contemplate the absurdity of the statement,

A petit rebellion surges from within,

"Cobblers" he ejects from his curled lips,

A swell of enjoyment abounds and Mr Holloway stands to attention,

Two Totem poles carved out of fine oak stretch from the town square into the magenta sky, Etched into the surface images of Shakespeare, Charlemagne, Hamlet, Napoleon, Freud, Tolstoy, Rachmaninoff.

"No!" not nearly obtuse enough,

A capibarra, kookaburra, the head of the constabulary,

The milk man, the post man, a man, the man, woman,

Mother, Grandmother, lover, other, sister,

Sis-is-is - is what? What is the purpose of this investigation?

Hanging from the totems a velvet chord suspends a Jacob's ladder

Each rung of the ladder an Escher painting,

The space surrounding is slightly distorted - the curvature remains unobserved by all but the most attentive,

Two of the local boys clamber up the majestic poles, their hands lightly greased in the way that is traditional,

As they slowly ascend the great height four thirty three can be heard emanating from a pair of gargantuan aging gramaphones,

Musical apparatus of this vintage is often unreliable and a slight deviance of the melody can be detected by those who care to inquire,

The piercing silence allows the youths to focus unabated in theirs, the most divine of tasks.

Mr Holloway suddenly becomes aware of a Mandelbrot set of divergent ideas,

Delving further into the chaotic cogniscience a path is illuminated between the multitudinal branching avenues,

"I'm struggling to follow my own trail of thought... admittedly however I could not be said to be competing with Joyce in any sense" Whinnies weak, whining, wet Waterway,

A frustration explodes outwardly and pointed demons enter from all directions,

"Your intellectual capacity is not considerable enough to achieve your misguided aim" exclaims Lucifer

"B-b-b-but"mutters mutton chop Holloway

"Of course if you'd researched beforehand in order to achieve the necessary plethora of references..." Beezlebub pauses,

"But then that would have contradicted your modus operandi to emulate the spontaneity of free thought" posits the great horned one,

"Simply put, you don't have the requisite intelligence, the knowledge, the spirit... the required mental clout to compete in this arena" states Satan smarmily

"Then I stand defeated. I shall lick my wounds, I shall do a jig and I shall cry to the moon"

"I shall return to the world with an altered mind, my honour perverted and my dignity averted" grieves yellow skinned horror Horroway.

"Cuck-cuck-cuckoo" cucks Prat Mulligan,

"The ineluctable modality of utter nonsense" moans the myopic mongrel Holloway

Miss me?

2009-10-21T11:05:00.000-07:00

If you've been wondering why I've been away all this time, this may go some way to explaining it. Enjoy :)

BATMAN!!!

2009-08-30T14:33:00.000-07:00

Spent most of today playing Batman Arkham Asylum. It's pretty god darned fantastic! Expect a review soon. but if you're on the fence at this point in time... don't be, just buy it; you'll thank me.

What do you think you're doing putting that in your body!?

2009-08-27T04:06:00.000-07:00

It appears I'm going off topic again... today I'm going to give some impression of my feelings of UK drugs policy (which is mirrored almost globally).

This article has been inspired by the government's recent decision to start banning legal highs due to the level of danger involved and the perceived moral consequences of leaving their usage unpunished. It has been decided this week that before the end of December the following substances will be band: BZP (also known as liquid Ecstasy due to its amphetamine like effect), GBL (infamous as the date rape drug, but also widely used by clubbers as a source of euphoria) and Spice (a herbal cannabis substitute sold as incense across the internet). Of course there have been a number of other substances banned previously and there are doubtless many more to come (from what I've been reading Salvia divinorium is currently skirting the cross hairs of policy makers).

The reasons for the decision to ban these substances seem somewhat questionable for the most part and at the very least, just a tad misguided. For instance, the substance BZP has now been in fairly common usage since the early 90's; now what you may be thinking is, 'well it must have been causing a considerable amount of damage during that time?' (these were my immediate thoughts too). However it turns out, that during 20 years of usage globally and numerous impartial investigations, BZP has only been directly linked to two deaths worldwide when used with MDMA (Although this is not what a recent BBC report would have you believe, with it stating "GBL and BZP have been linked to a number of deaths". Now while I can't argue against the fact that two is technically a number, this use of language seems rather misleading). Furthermore, medical institutions have reported it as one of the least prolific causes of overdoses, with a fairly low toxicity level making it pretty safe for low to mid level doses. This is not to say that it is without risks, it has been known to cause some mental issues and in some cases heart problems and seizures, but these problems are rare amongst users. On these terms, it would seem that the government's decision on this particular substance isn't so much based on evidence or reason, but instead some kind of weird moral sentiment. This might be perhaps a little less troubling if it weren't for the fact that we as a society have institutionalised two drugs which have been repeatedly proven to be more harmful. I speak of course of tobacco and alcohol. To put the two deaths caused by BZP in perspective, it has been reported that 1 in 25 deaths globally is attributable to alcohol usage (as cited in this BBC article http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8118475.stm). It's important I make myself clear here though, I'm by no means saying that we should put more restrictions on alcohol, simply that we shouldn't maintain this horrible double standard.

The other two substances might come under more legitimate questioning (GBL in particular, given it's potential to be used as a date rape drug). There have been a spate of GBL related deaths recently caused by mixing with alcohol. This combination of two sedatives runs a high risk of causing comas in those who take it. It would seem though that the problem here is not one of GBL's inherent risk, rather than one of people's lack of understanding of the risks involved. It seems odd that the tack that the government are choosing to use in regards to GBL is not that of it's use as a date rape drug, rather its complete failure to make people aware of its dangers. I'm not sure that the fact that it is used as a date rape drug is even a strong reason for its banning. Every day people are allowed to buy knives which they could potentially use to cause harm to others, do we ban knives; well of course we don't because their primary function is not to cause harm and the majority of the time their primary function is their only function. There is certainly a debate to be had though. It does seem to me though, that if GBL were legal and sold through legal establishments it would be possible to track GBL sales directly, increasing the chances of criminal authorities catching those who intend to use it for rape.

The herbal Cannabis substitute Spice again is definitely up for some form of open discussion. As it stands Spice is made up of a number of different substances, none of which are listed on packaging or on the websites where it can be purchased. Seemingly the issue at hand here is that people don't know what they're taking, furthermore medical establishments aren't aware of the long term risks involved with the product yet as no research has been commissioned. Ironically we have years of research on the long term effects of cannabis, which has yet to link any deaths to the drugs use or any of the more severe effects that the media has a rather bad habit for reporting as fact. Furthermore, if we were to legalise cannabis we would be in a position where we could tax its sale (funding further research and treatment for users who damage themselves), we would move it's sale out of the hands of criminals and we could be sure of its purity due to government regulation. But alas, this is a discussion for another day. I hope this article has contained a modicum useful information and that I haven't bored you by retreading the same old arguments you've heard a million times before :)

Thank you for reading.

Flash game round up, part 3 (Noobtoober suggestions)

2009-08-24T21:05:00.000-07:00

Well I was going to finish reviewing games from the newgrounds front page; but then a few of you sent me suggestions for games to review and I decided to review them instead. Thanks to everyone who contributed ideas (If any of you comment below I shall award you with a noobie for inspiring this digression ), it’s been great fun playing through all of the suggestions! Anyway, without further ado let the review commence…

Last Stand 2 (suggested by capnredchops)

There’s nothing more terrifying than an army of obese zombies!

As some of you might know, a group of scientists based in Africa recently tried to mathematically model the outcome of a zombie apocalypse… their findings? Well it turns out the only way that we can realistically survive such a scenario, is apparently to arm ourselves with combat shotguns and pray to Zeus (or any other historical God figure) for mercy… and preferably lots of ammunition. That being the case, you can consider this training for that inevitable day in the future when McDonalds infuse their burgers with the T-Virus (We all know it’s coming).

Last Stand 2 finds your character desperately trying to move towards Union City (I know, towards the city, what a tit!), where he has heard tell of a rescue plan. In order to do so however, you’ll need to cover a long distance. This requires supplies, people, traps and mostly importantly, lots and lots of weapons. On each of the 40 nights you’ll find yourself having to fend off gigantic hordes of zombies with whatever weapons you happen to have sourced during the day. Throughout these onslaughts you’ll find yourself restricted to move around behind barricades on the far right of the screen (also limiting the zombie’s easy access to your brains). You repel the armies of daytime TV viewers by aiming and shooting with the mouse (an often imprecise art), trying to score headshots to increase efficiency. Unfortunately the aiming is a bit hit and miss (pun intended) and you’ll often find that you get swamped because of the slightly dodgy system that is used. Thankfully most of the time you’ll have fellow survivors helping you, stopping this becoming too much of an issue most of the time. Furthermore, you’ll often find traps which can be employed to help with your quest to quell the quasi cadaverous masses (I had to force that one ), easing the struggle. At the end of each night you’re given twelve hours in which to search for supplies, survivors, traps and musty old pornography (what… there’s no one around to judge you!) and to repair your barricades. You’ll have to manage your time wisely in order to get the right balance of searching, travelling and repairing and successfully making your way through the campaign.

Overall the Last Stand 2 is an incredibly deep flash game with incredible graphics, good cinematics (a rarity in flash gaming) and fairly solid game play. The one thing holding it back is the shooting mechanic, but it’s unfair to mark it down too much because of that and on those grounds I grant it a strangely appropriate One and a half thumbs

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/439275

Multiplayer Jelly Battle (another suggestion from capnredchops

This is what happens when gelatine based confectioneries are introduced to communism

I’m not quite sure where the concept for this game could have come from, what I do know is that I like it regardless. MJB is a game of light tactics which can either be played by yourself against A.I opponents or multiplayer against fellow internet goons. The game itself has you playing as one of four sadistic jelly babies, who’s only goal is to massacre one another.

Each match pits you and your wits against three other players (all jelly, all pissed!) in a four way battle to the death. The best way I can describe the game play is as an actioney, turn based grid type thing. You attack other players by jumping to a different square with a power assigned to it. Once all the players have moved, each of them uses whatever power is assigned to the square that they’re inhabiting. It’s an interesting play style that nicely balances quick thinking, luck and skill together in a strong well presented package. The single player isn’t exactly stellar, but then one assumes that it only exists to allow for practice and to grant you the ability to play when no one else is on the servers. When I tried out the multiplayer myself I found that the match started almost immediately (meaning there’s still plenty of people playing this, so now is definitely the time to try it) and remained seamless throughout. It probably won’t keep you captivated too long (mostly due to the lack of challenging opponents) but it’s definitely worth giving it a shot while people are still playing it. MJB receives Two thumbs up as a brief bit of multiplayer goodness.

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/393177

Death versus Monstars (suggested by ultrabean2.0)

This is about as calm as the action gets!

I really can’t believe how good some of these flash titles are; this is one of many examples of a title that could happily co-exist with professional pay for play titles (With a little bit of extra polish). I’m not sure what the story behind the game is (frankly it doesn’t matter), but what I do know is that this is an example of how flash games should aspire to be.

In Death versus Monstars you play as death (or at least his disambiguated head), fighting off hundreds of colourful enemies with your heavily upgradeable cannon. The control scheme is quite different to the majority of things you’re likely to have come across before. You control Death by moving the mouse in the direction you wish to travel, with the cannon swinging round to fire in the other direction. The cannon can be locked in position at any time by clicking down the left mouse button, meaning you don’t have to be constantly changing directions to target enemies. You also have the option slowing down time at any point (trust me, you’ll be using this a lot) in order to outmanoeuvre enemies, by pressing down on the space bar. Obviously you can’t do this all the time as that would be daft, so you’re limited to a fairly generous amount of bullet time using a gauge at the bottom of the screen. There is another gauge to be found as well, the berserk gauge. Once the berserk gauge fills you can activate the berserk power by double clicking, granting a few moments of invulnerability and firing bullets from all angles, annihilating enemies, allowing much needed rest bite and massively increasing your score. As you play the game felled enemies will drop coinage which can be used to purchase upgrades of your cannon, your health and your berserk abilities; this adds a welcome extra layer of depth and gives the game extra longevity.

The game contains ten main campaign levels and an extra endless level where you can fight for score supremacy (Note: if you get this far check the high scores and you’ll notice that the top score is clearly a bot, either that or the guy who lasted 18 hours had taken an awful lot of speed. I’m currently 33rd globally). Each of the levels has one of two objectives, either kill X number of enemies or last n seconds. All of the levels are challenging and interesting in their own right, with a prevalent strong difficulty curve. Everything from the characters to the backgrounds is simple, stylish, slick and lots of other words beginning with s (except that one). This has quickly become one of my all favourite flash games and truly deserves the ultimate accolade of Two thumbs up

http://www.gamereclaim.com/2009/03/death-vs-monstars/

Tetris Friends (as suggested by ‘the three hole’?{couldn’t find you in the forum list}during the main show

At this early stage you’re opponents appear to be comprised of stray keyboard hamsters and nodding birds

Tetris friends is a website for Tetris lovers everywhere. There is a wealth of games available to be played on the site, but the specific game I intend to review today is 6P battle.

6P is another multiplayer battle game, but this time it’s a game that we all already know and love. The game pits you against five human opponents over a two minute period, during which your goal is to rack up as many points as possible, and make life difficult for other players. I’m going to make an assumption here and guess that you all know how to play Tetris and stick to describing what makes this game different. What really makes this game different from previous iterations is the targeted attack system. Every second line of blocks that you disappear causes two layers of blocks to form on another players screen, until they can get a line themselves. As you play a targeting reticule moves over each of the individual players screens, showing you which player will suffer if you perform an attack. This adds an interesting tactical element, as you score extra points for KO’ing other players. You have the option of either coordinating attacks on the weakest player, or simply scoring as many lines as possible (Note: this isn’t meant to be taken as a drug taking reference ) and avoiding unnecessary delays.

It seems to be that, at any time you want to play the server can instantly connect you with five other players (I’ve never had any delay) meaning that switching between matches is seamless and carefree throughout. Each player is given the option of creating their own profile, which is kind of an aside, but a pleasant feature all the same. Success in battles levels up your rank, moving you towards battles against more experienced/competent players. This is definitely a good thing as you’ll spend the first few matches playing against, what I can only are assume simple trained monkeys or young Earth creationists, leaving you somewhat miffed by the lack of challenge. It’s not long before you’ll find yourself playing against other people who people that have calculated how to use the keyboard and have the capacity for coordinated thought. Once you get into the flow of it, chances you’ll really enjoy what’s on offer here. 6P battle is quite clearly a fairly high budget title as everything about it is seamless and well presented , but it’s not the budget that wins out here… it’s the strength of concept and quality of delivery that takes the finish. This is another absolutely fantastic flash title and is one hundred percent deserving of a score of Two thumbs up

http://www.tetrisfriends.com/games/Battle6P/game.php

Red Star Fall (Suggested by BashmentGal)

Got this link from BashmentGal’s blog which you should really check it out athttp://thingsyoucantunsee.blogspot.com/

It turns out I haven’t got anything even vaguely witty to say about this image

Red Star Fall is one of a growing number of what I like to call “tactical falling games” . The aim in these titles is to drop an object (in this case a red star) to some point lower down the screen without dropping them too far. You do this by clicking on the blocks that you want to disappear and hoping that it doesn’t lead to your downfall. As you progress you’ll come across more complex towers, comprised with irremovable blocks and exploding blocks as well, meaning that the challenge changes incrementally.

Each of the game’s levels is scored for speed and efficiency, which is added up to a total score and can be uploaded to be compared with other player’s scores. All of the in game physics are perfect, never feeling erratic or unrealistic (which I guess is quite important in a game that is essentially about physics) and always responding correctly to new situations. If I have one quibble with this game (and there is only one), it’s that there’s not enough of it. I got to the end in less than ten minutes and was left with the horrible feeling of wanting more… but more didn’t come. While it lasts this is a very classy piece of flash, deserving of respect and admiration, thus its receival of the coveted Two thumbs up

http://armorgames.com/play/3420/redstar-fall

Well that’s it for this installment… I’ll most probably be back with one of these at some point in the future, but until then big thanks to you for reading and even bigger thanks to everyone who contributed ideas.

Yow!

Flash game round up, part 2

2009-08-20T12:42:00.001-07:00

Hello again gentle readers, if you haven’t already checked out part one be sure to do so. I’m still reviewing games from the Newgrounds front page, it’s taking longer than expected hence putting into small manageable sections. So get yourself comfortable and get ready for part two of my flash game extravaganza. Remember, I play crap flash games so you don’t have to.

Cyclomaniacs

No, your eyes do not deceive you. That is indeed Mr. T doing a back flip, on a push bike, on the surface of an asteroid

This is another game that I’ve found myself strangely enamoured by. I never really expect much depth in flash games, yet twice during these reviews I’ve found myself absolutely stunned by the amount on offer. Cyclomaniacs is a 2D bike race/stunt game which includes a large number of challenges, characters and backdrops. There are 20 available characters, 26 levels spanning across 6 zones with each level containing three challenges. That’s quite a lot considering you’re getting this all for free (you cheap bastard).

The aim of the game is to race through levels performing stunts to gain boost, collecting items and beating opponent racers (yeah original, I know). Each of the levels and characters is charmingly designed and well presented with decent background music implemented as well. The stages themselves are all pretty fun, with different tasks available allowing for plenty of variety. As you do better in the races you can purchase upgrades to your cyclist, gradually making you better at tricks and much faster. Everything flows wonderfully and there’s a lot of challenge on offer making this an entirely worthwhile game.

Another surprisingly good title. Two thumbs up

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/508422

The Competitor

the aesthetic is simple, yet quite sleek

This is a classic example of brilliant concept meets mediocre execution. The competitor sees you taking on the challenge of defending your base from a lone ship, by placing units across the battlefield. Not an entirely original concept, but the USP for this title is that you draw a line where you want your units to assemble. Definitely a very interesting idea; unfortunately on delivery it turns out to be quite weak. The problem is that you can spam the front end of the area with attack units, defeating the enemy before they have the chance to touch you at all. The designers have clearly tried to combat this by limiting the amount of units you can place using an ink gauge; unfortunately this isn’t enough to add any actual challenge. It also has the unfortunate result of making the whole experience feel pretty passive. Furthermore the game is criminally short… you’ll have finished with the title within 5-10 minutes. Despite all these quibbles though, it is well presented and quite interesting as a concept. For a good effort (if not great result) I award The Competitor One Thumb Up

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/508478

GT and the Evil Factory

I’m not quite sure why leaves are a problem for a robot

Again I’m slightly torn on this one. GT and the Evil Factory is a weird sort of action RPG type thing, in which you take the role of a rebellious robot. The first thing I noticed when I started playing this title is that the quality in presentation is massively varied. Throughout the game you’ll find really well designed interfaces, with some very interesting ideas in the presentation; but it’s all ultimately let down by crap art skills (Words can’t even begin to describe how crude it is… scratch that, what I actually mean is that they can, I just can’t be bothered finding them). Unfortunately the game play isn’t great either, despite being very well put together. For the most part you are required to collect orbs whilst dispatching enemies and dodging things. This might have been interesting for a couple of stages, but it wears thin pretty quickly. As far as I can tell it’s the whole game (although to be honest I got bored and stopped playing, so it might get more interesting). Another annoying little niggle I have with this game is that it’s filled to the brim, with terrible dialogue and atrocious spelling. I understand that a lot of people can’t spell very well, but if you’re releasing a game you’d have thought that you’d at least get someone who can to check over it.

I’m probably being slightly harsh on this game, but I really didn’t find it particularly fun and as such I have to give it an in-between thumb

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/508156

This is the Only Level

The wise man knows that there are many ways to play one level

This is the only level is very true to its name, there is indeed only one level. However, there are many ways one level can be played. As you’ll have noticed from the screenshot, the art style of this game is incredibly crude, but that’s the way it’s meant to be. The game is meant to exist as a simple thought experiment so complex graphics or area designs would over elaborate the experience. Unsurprisingly, the game does only have one terrain, but there are 30 different ways in which to traverse the level. Each time you make it through it posts you back at the start and leaves you to work out what to do. The puzzles are all wonderfully imagined and it’s entirely satisfying reaching the end. It’s only a very short game but it packs a trunk full of punch. As such I give this game two thumbs up

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/508676

And one more thing…

Bubble Spinner

Don’t look at it directly

Do remember having a life? I had one once, right up until the moment I received a link to this game from a friend (Thanks dickhead). Now I know I can never leave the house again, Bubble spinner knows if I leave the house, it’s important that I don’t upset Bubble spinner. Bubble Spinner wants your love too. Bubble spinner has bubbles for you to pop and soothing music that plays repeatedly in your head while you’re not playing Bubble spinner, just to remind you that you could be playing Bubble spinner. Bubble spinner wants to be your friend. Bubble spinner is very similar to Super bubble pop and a number of other franchises, but unlike those games, Bubble spinner has bubbles that spin. Bubble spinner will consume us all. Bubble spinner is a highly addictive high score chasing game, but don’t let that put you off, Bubble spinner always gives. Bubble spinner deserves more thanTwo thumbs up but unfortunately, I only have two thumbs to give.

http://www.deadwhale.com/play.php?game=774

Surrender yourself to Bubble spinner!

I’ll be back with the final part of my flash roundup shortly. I hope you’ve enjoyed it so far.

Flash game round up, part 1.

2009-08-20T07:50:00.000-07:00

Ok, so as most of you will have noticed, we are now firmly in the middle of the season of gaming drought known as the Summer. But fear not, with my help you may be able to avoid needlessly going outside and taking part in the dreadful art of socializing. My intentions are to wade through the positive plethora of mediocre flash games, to find the rare gems that shine through the shit. I’m going to start my search on the front page of Newgrounds, the home of many a flash gamer. So without further ado…

The Facebook game

A game for those amongst you who want titles that make an existential statement

This title sees you taking up the mantle of an average emo teenager, struggling to balance facebook with other important activities (like watching tv… or writing macabre poetry about dead animals). In order to play the game you use the arrow keys to move around between different items of interest, which charge up satisfaction metres. You have five major desires to salve in this game, these are taking pictures of yourself in the mirror (like the vain twit that you are), phoning your friends (to talk about the senseless masses who don’t understand you because they’ve been blinded by prejudice), listening to music (by some whiney American teenagers about how their parents have limited their credit allowance), romancing (with your miserable c**t of a boyfriend) and of course posting on facebook (to an uncaring, uninterested mass of faceless internet drones). It’s not long into the experience that you realise that there’s no winning in this game… there is only failure and misery. So on balance it’s not really a game so much as a depression simulator and in that respect, it succeeds. The most I can give this title is a halfway thumb as while it’s a mildly amusing joke, it’s not actually fun in any sort of traditional sense.

Note: If you are actually an emo kid and I’ve just really offended you, don’t worry I’m only joking (you miserable, self-righteous son of a gun).

Multi-task

Sometimes less is more or less, more

Now, this title has really charmed me, as it has the brilliant strengths of being incredibly simple, yet ludicrously hard. The game requires you to manage four mini games simultaneously, taking intense amounts of concentration and coordination. You begin by balancing a ball on a board which you control with the left and right arrow keys, which in itself is pretty easy. Before too long a second mini game is introduced where you have to move a block of colour out of the way of incoming arrows with the up and down arrow keys; still pretty simple. Now things start to get a little tricky. The third mini game requires you to move a green square around between different blocks (which are counting down from ten) with the W,A,S,D keys. I found that at this point I had to swap my hands around to counter cognitive dissonance. Then the fourth and final game is introduced. This last game requires you to pilot a ship out of the way of incoming blocks (pressing the space bar to ascend and releasing to descend). At this point the game is pretty devilishly hard, but it’s still doable. However the game doesn’t end with the fourth mini game, the longer you play, the faster it gets it eventually becomes next to impossible to progress without losing one of the mini games. This is a brilliant little game and deserves two thumbs up, for taking a simple little idea and delivering with grace and style.

Daytraders of the Dead

The cause of the G.R.E.E.D virus has been traced back to the eighties

The eighties have a lot to answer for, first they gave synth pop, Margaret Thatcher and Reagan, but now it turns out they gave us corporate banker zombies as well. Daytraders of the Dead is a neat little top down shooter where you take on the role of a vigilante, fighting off G.R.E.E.D zombies that have taken over our financial establishments. Apart from being a very funny concept, it is also a rather stunningly good flash game. As you progress through each level, you’ll find yourself blessed with a steadily improving arsenal of weapons and power ups, which never leave you overpowered, but give you a pleasing edge over the horde. I played through the title on the normal difficulty and found it incredibly hard, so there’s definitely plenty of challenge available here, with a hard difficulty and survival mode on offer as well. The controls are seamless, with you moving the character around with either the W,A,S,D or the arrow keys and aiming and shooting with the mouse. Furthermore the action never lets up making it an incredibly intense, exhilarating title which is relentlessly fun. Can’t recommend it enough Two thumbs up

YouDa Legend Amsterdam

Do you enjoy finding random objects for no clear reason? If so this is the game for you

I fundamentally don’t understand this game… I kind of get what it is and what it’s trying to do, but can’t help but feel that it’s a bit audacious trying to pass it as a game. The idea seems to be that there’s some kind of mystery (apparently) and you’re the one tasked with solving it. However it doesn’t actually specify what said mystery is, just that there is one and to be honest, I didn’t make it far enough to find out what was going on (thankfully). For some reason you go around finding objects off of a list in order to progress from one screen to the next. This may sound reasonable, perhaps even fun, but slow down and let me explain. The kind of objects that you have to collect include, potatoes, thumbtacks and paper airplanes… it’s like you’re playing as a sever OCD criminal detective (I don’t know about you, but I’ve never particularly wanted to play a game where the central character was Monk, from that god awful daytime tv detective show). As if this wasn’t bad enough, the game actively tries to stop you from playing by making the mouse move around like a feather caught in a gust composed of farts, every time you click too often (I’m sorry game, but if you’re going to force to look around dull backdrops to find potatoes, I am going to click around randomly and if you don’t like you can f*ck off, f*ck right off!). Everything about this title is pretentious and tedious in equal measure and deserves nothing but disdain. I can only recommend this game to you if you suffer from severe OCD’s or if you have a fetish for finding potatoes and as such I have to give it an exaggerated Two thumbs down

Well that’s it for this instalment. I’ll be back very soon with reviews of more flash titles from the Newgrounds front page. In the meantime please let me know what you think and let me know if I should try and make this into a semi-regular feature. Cheers for reading.

Yow!

Feel the wob!

2009-08-19T08:18:00.001-07:00

Check out my first forray into the dubstep world

Flash game round up.

2009-08-18T05:48:00.000-07:00

So I was thinking of doing a semi regular roundup of the most popular flash games on newgrounds. Is this something that people are likely to want to read? I'll probably post up something of the sort within the next week, so let me know what you think then.

Toodle pip

We love the slightly confused healthcare argument!

2009-08-13T17:59:00.000-07:00

Ok, I'm going to try and keep this brief (this is a games blog after all). Now there seems to be a few misconceptions regarding both our healthcare in Britain and what Obama proposes to do in the US. The first point to make is that the two are in no way related.

I'm sure anyone reading this already knows this, but Britain and America have very different ideals regarding healthcare. Here in Britain we run a socialised healthcare scheme, whereby any treatments are paid for out of peoples taxes. This ensures that everyone can get treated, but can sometimes lead to long waiting times for procedures and some treatments financial viability coming under heavy scrutiny. However in America most healthcare is dealt with by private companies, meaning that the cost of healthcare is burdened directly onto the consumer (It feels weird thinking about ill people as consumers). Because of this fact, costs are often considerably higher, meaning that many people cant afford treatments when they are in need. To solve this issue private insurance companies cover healthcare for a fee (some would call it an extortionate fee). Unfortunately these insurers are not particularly interested in peoples health, instead focusing more on profits. As a result of this, insurance companies often deny peoples claims fo treatment for entirley fraudulent reasons in order to minimise costs and maximise profits.

So that leads us to Obama's current proposals, the cause of all this controversy. The mistake many people are making is in thinking that Obama is trying to nationalize healthcare, he isn't. What he is in fact doing, is offering a public option for insurance, massively reducing the cost of insurance and increasing the number of claims that are met. He also intends to abolish healthcare costs for the most disadvantaged. This seems like a rather good idea, given that 46% of Americans simply cannot afford healthcare.

So why the comparison with the NHS? If any of you are familiar with the rightwing news networks in America you probably have a fair idea. What this comparison actually aims to do, is to disguise the fact that Obama is only providing public insurance, not healthcare. Why do this? Well it turns out that a lot of people inside the private insurance companies are quite scared by the thought of a cheaper more reliable coverage option (who would of thought it). Coincidentally, the rightwing news networks have a lot of links with the private insurers (yes, I am being sarcastic) and as such want to protect their interests. How better to do this than pretend that Obama is a socialist Nazi?

Ironically the media's attempts to divert people from the truth of the situation is working on exactly the kind of people it was meant to help. For the most part these people aren't well educated or particularly wealthy and their only source of information on the matter is the media. These people are being betrayed by the very people they trust and it is very deeply saddening. When you see these people on tv, storming town halls and slowing political progress it's important not to think of them as idiots or crazy people. They are very deeply scared that they are in danger of losing something, something very important and on those terms, they are sort of being rational. It's not they're fault they've been misinformed.

I'd like to make it clear that I don't have a bias towards either social or private healthcare (there are valid arguments on both sides and I'm not really in a strong position to decide which is better). However, I do have a bias towards everyone being able to get the healthcare that they need. The public option that Obama is trying to provide to the American people is a truly wonderful progression for the US and should be applauded. Anyone who doesn't trust the new option can stick with their old insurers if they wish and the people who haven't been able to receive healthcare in the past will now be able to. Hopefully this bill will pass and America will have a fully comprehensive healthcare service, then we can have a real discussion as to whether private or public healthcare is better. Until then, leave the NHS alone, it's doing the best it can.

Yet more changes.

2009-08-13T11:00:00.000-07:00

I've now changed the background as well, which you can probably tell. So, what do you reck, any good? If you lot think it's rubbish I shall change it back forthwith.

Cheers for the input :)

Keep gaming

Ha!

2009-08-13T05:39:00.001-07:00

Got this back in response.

"Thank you for your feed back but as explained to you earlier by myself on the phone this is NOT door to door sales and is for a managers job within our company.

Thank you for your response and for letting us know that you will not be attending the interview tomorrow."

Regards and good luck in the future.

Angela Rose
Office Manager
Dylan James Management Ltd"

What she fails to mention is that I would have been responsible for dispatching the proffesional Granny bulliers known as field representatives, as she highlighted during my call to them earlier. Don't let yourselves be fooled by these people, they're a bunch of cretinous scumholes, who'll do anything to scam you and the public out of money. Watch out for the Cobra group as well, it's all the same shit, designed to trick gullible people into signing their lives away.

Anyway, normal service shall return shortly.

Dear despicable corporate slugs

2009-08-13T04:52:00.000-07:00

Sent this letter to a company that I was meant to be being interviewed with tomorrow afternoon, when I found out they practise in door-to-door sales.

"Sorry, but I can't shift the idea that I'm being conned. I am principled against companies participating in door-to-door sales anyway. The whole practise is entirely cynical, forcing FR's to achieve sales in order to make a living and forcing consumers to make on the spot ill-considered decisions. It doesn't help anyone involved and in my mind it is tantamount to bullying. It may well be that you can account for this morally within your own minds, but I can't.

Good luck finding people prepared to sell their souls in pursuit of money; I shouldn't think you'll have too much trouble.

Yours begrudgingly,

Alex Lacey"

I did consider adding "Fuck you, you slimy, spineless, arse weasels! Hope you enjoy bullying poor people in the future, you feckless algae eating, scum suckers, you myopic, arse-licking, poor emulations of human beings". However I felt it might be a little unsubtle.

Quick question.

2009-08-10T02:15:00.000-07:00

Hello peeps. As you may have noticed I've massively changed the aesthetic of my blog recently and I was wondering what you all think. I was also considering changing the background, but obviously if you like it as it is I shall leave it as it is. I'd really appreciate your feedback on this one... cheers.

Space Invaders Infinity Gene Review (iphone/ipod touch)

2009-08-09T16:41:00.000-07:00

Background

Chances are that unless you’ve been living on a different planet for the last thirty years, you probably have a pretty comprehensive idea of what Space Invaders is. For those of you who are new to Earth or are just intrigued to know what I learnt from reading Wikipedia, here’s a brief history.

Space Invaders was first unleashed onto the unsuspecting Japanese arcades back in 1978, quickly becoming the most popular game on the market. The game was so popular in fact, that it was actually reported to be responsible for a temporary shortage of 100 yen coins in Japan at that time. With this kind of success, it wasn’t long before Space Invaders saw fit to invade western arcades to a similarly warm reception.

The original king of the arcades

The game consisted of a block of equally spaced aliens, slowly inching towards the player by moving horizontally across the screen, jumping down one space when it reaches the edge and moving back in the other direction. Players were required to eliminate the invaders before they reached their base at the bottom. As the player progressed through the levels the rate at which the invaders moved, steadily increased until it became nearly impossible to progress any further. Arguably the main hook of the title was the fight for high score dominance that it inspired in highly competitive gamers.

Following its arcade success, Space Invaders has appeared on a number of different consoles in varying forms. One of the more recent reboots was a title named Space invaders Extreme, a game which aimed to maintain the same feel, whilst heavily modernizing the game play. I personally haven’t had the chance to play it yet, but Tobin and Yuzo gave it a shining review on Noobtoob episode 142 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxNREACFBSo. This leads us nicely to the subject of this review ‘Space Invaders Infinity Gene’

Review

The game starts off very similar to the original

Concept

Space Invaders Infinity Gene (SIIG) has a very similar ideology to Space Invaders Extreme when it comes to re-imagining the franchise. However this time round Taito have taken the actual game play in a significantly different direction. As some of you may have inferred from the title, SIIG puts a heavy emphasis on evolution. This involves evolving game play mechanics, an evolving ship and I’m sure Taito would argue an evolved franchise.

Game Play

SIIG begins with you playing the original arcade version of Space Invaders for roughly fifteen seconds, but then things start to change considerably. As you watch your ships Pokémon style evolution you are treated to a quote from Charles Darwin, which states that “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change”. It’s not long before you realize just how appropriate this quote is. When you are reintroduced into the game, you’ll find that your ships cannons have been improved and that the enemy attack patterns have changed. The more you play, the more level design, enemies and your ship all change. You control the ship with a touch and drag interface, with the ship automatically firing unless you elect to control it yourself. Within a few levels you’ll find yourself gaining full movement along both axis and having to get used to a vertically scrolling environment. In essence Space Invaders evolves into a shmup.

This a whole different kettle of metaphor than what you’re used to

I’m almost certain that this revelation has resulted in a number of groans out there, but fear not, SIIG is rather good at what it does. One major advantage that this title has on other titles is that it never forces to learn via rote. It’s very rare for you to be restricted to a space of a few pixels and when you are, it’s normally because you haven’t dealt with enough of the enemies. Success in SIIG results from you being dynamic in your approach, not from having a good memory. That said the action does get rather insane at times, forcing you to react really quickly. This brings me to one of the games minor annoyances. Often when you’re hovering in the middle of the screen, enemies will fly in from the side so fast that even Chuck Norris would have his ass handed to him. What this essentially means is that you are for all intents and purposes, limited to the bottom of the screen the majority of the time.

Things can get a bit hectic at times

There are seven different ships made available to you throughout the game, all of which have their own unique attack style. These include: rapid shot, search laser, wave, lock-on, gravity, round and classic. Each of these unique weapons can be improved upon by collecting chromosomes scattered around the play area, increasing shot speed, radius and number of shots.

The campaign spans across 18 levels, the majority of which have some form of ending boss attached. One interesting aspect of the campaign menu is that the menu takes the form of a tree, whereby as you unlock upgrades and extras they sprout out of the level on which they were attained. It’s a very clever way of presenting the menu and leads to the pleasant consequence, that the majority of players are going to have different menus, dependent on how they’ve played. You’re not restricted to just the campaign mode though, in fact in some senses you’re not really restricted at all. Courtesy of the 3.0 firmware, it is now possible to play along to the tracks on your device, which essentially means there are an infinite number of different scenarios that you can play through. This is quite exciting as far as I’m concerned, but I don’t think it’s reached its full potential yet. The arenas produced by your music are all varied and very cool, but what I really want from this game is to be able to compete with other player scores like in Audiosurf.

Presenation

Everything in this title reeks of quality. The retro style vector graphics look absolutely stunning throughout and the animation is consistently sleek and simple. The soundtrack is similarly pleasing… that is as long as you’re not adverse to a smattering of techno. The majority of sound effects are ripped right from the original and nicely supplement the retro theme. All in all, the presentation is just lovely.

Conclusion

So… is it worth your money, that’s the important question. Well, for a miniscule cost of £2.99 I’d say so. Space Invaders Infinity Gene is a highly charming return to a franchise that’s older than life itself (note: not factually accurate), so go and give it a chance to suck you into the world of high scores and vector graphics once again… it’s well worth your time (not unlike a more exciting version of your grandparents).

Scores

Graphics- 4.5/5
Control-4/5
Gameplay-4/5
Sound-5/5
Value for money-4.7/5
Overall-4.5/5

Two thumbs up, go and get it if you’re looking for a nice brief distraction from the gaming drought.

Calling all gaming enthusiasts!

2009-07-17T05:29:00.000-07:00

I don't know if any of you are aware of this, but there's currently a computer games exhibition on in Manchester. The event is currently taking place in the Urbis building near next to Victoria station if any of you want to check it out. I went along yesterday and was pleasantly surprised to find what was essentially an arcade filled with games both old and new.

There was a good selection of different consoles available to play, but unsurprisingly Microsoft and Sony had payed for a lot of the space. I did notice a couple of absenties including the vectrex, the sega saturn, the Atari 2000, 2600 and 3200. To make up for that though there was a Jaguar on show, although true to form it wasn't actually working. One of the highlights of the exhibition for me was seeing some of the original artwork for the broken sword series on display, reminded me how long it had been since I'd played through the first two.

The show was thoroughly enjoyable with a decent set of games there for you to play, a set of interesting if somewhat shallow descriptions of gaming culture and a couple of sections where visitors could leave their own input. If you live in or around the Manchester area I strongly suggest that you check it out because it is for the most part, pretty kick ass. What I would say is that it's probably not worth travelling along distance to see it unless you were already headed to Manchester anyway. It costs £3 to get in and it's on the second floor of the Urbis building through till September... be sure to check it out if you can!

That is all.

The SCUMMy man

2009-07-15T09:42:00.000-07:00

Just a quick post today. I downloaded the demo for Monkey Island: SE off of live earlier and wanted to share my thoughts. I'd like to preface this by saying that I love the Monkey Island series, or indeed anything with Tim Schafer's name attached to it. However I must say that this demo is a bit disappointing, not least because it doesn't really contain any game play at all. If I were a newcomer to the franchise, I would be left with very little to deduct whether or not Monkey Island is actually a good game.

The trial version contains two scenes, one of which isn't even interactive. It begins with a scripted conversation between Threepwood and an old man atop a hill, which concerns Threepwood's desire to become a pirate. After this scene finishes you make your way to the Scum bar where you can take part in four different converstaions... then you leave the bar and the demo ends. How was this ever ordained to be a passable sample of the experience? Just one puzzle would have justified the trials existence, but no... nothing. To be honest the demo probably was tacked on as a sort of afterthought, but even so, they really should have done a better job. That being said, the humour in the game is still as funny as ever and the art has been remastered quite nicely. I couldn't help but feel that the animations were a little lackluster, but this is just a minor quibble.

The Secret of Monkey Island is definitely a classic title, so if you haven't tried it previously you should probably give it a shot (especially over the gaming drought known as Summer). If you have played it before and are looking for some nostalgia, again it's probably worth your buck but I'll let you justify the purchase to yourself. Anyway that's it for today. Toodle oo.

Argghhh!

2009-07-14T17:34:00.000-07:00

Sorry, it's been a while again. Unfortunately I've been very busy job hunting recently so haven't found time to blog about any new releases. However, what I shall be doing in the near future is blogging about some old releases instead. I'm not quite sure what I'm going to be reviewing yet, but I'll think of something.

In the mean time I thought I'd make a quick mention of the 1 vs 100 beta that's currently available for play on xbox live. while I haven't played any of the live shows yet, what I can say is that the extended version is a great deal of fun. If you weren't already aware, 1 vs 100 pits you and your wits against thousands of other contestants (slightly misnamed... 1 vs lots isn't quite as catchy though) through a course of 37 trivia questions. As you progress through each stage the difficulty of the questions ramps up dramatically often leaving you feeling like a trivia weasel, a quiz amoeba or the fabled knowledge slug. Unfortunately the game experience is tarnished somewhat by the considerably large amount of jerks who are clearly using google to find answers to questions (I've never seen more than 40% of players getting an answer wrong... I immediately smelt a rat when I remembered that more than 40% of people are idiots). Maybe I'm taking it too seriously, but I can't help but feel that it really is against the spirit of the game to be indulging in such devious practices. Cheaters aside, this is still a fantastic title that works seamlessly and is presented fantastically throughout. I'm not sure whether it's going to be free or not when it exits beta, but while it still is you really can't complain.

I shall hopefully return with more dubious insights shortly. In the intervening time I would like to announce that I hope you are all enjoying your Summers, and are indulging ventures more fruitful than playing video games and masturbating (I can dream can't I).

Red Faction: Guerrilla review (multi)

2009-06-18T05:00:00.000-07:00

There’s nothing like a dash of soviet imagery to set the tone for a game

*Since trying the multiplayer I've decided to put up the overall score slightly.

Background

Back in 2001 the original ‘Red Faction’ was released on the PS2, PC and Mac by Volition Inc. The game pioneered a new and ambitious engine known as the Geo-mod engine which allowed players to actively sculpt the environment by tunnelling through it. The geo-mod engine revolutionised how players thought about the game environment allowing multiple dynamic entrance points to any given scenario. The game took place on Mars in the year 2075 within the mines of galactic megacorp Ultor. Red Faction saw the protagonist Parker thrown into a full scale uprising against the Ultor Corporation when a guard kills a miner in front of him and a full scale riot breaks out. The intro to this game was incredibly well done and did a fantastic job of immediately drawing you into Parker’s universe. Furthermore, the game actually managed to maintain this high quality of storytelling through strong narrative and impressive scripted events. It wasn’t just the single player experience that shone though; the multiplayer was pretty fantastic as well. Although I never personally owned the game (never had a PS2) I have many fond memories of visiting friends houses so I could get another shot from this fantastic game.

It’s like Half-life all over again only this time you don’t have to feel bad about slaughtering Barney

On the back of the success of ‘Red Faction’ it wasn’t long before we saw a sequel. Red Faction 2 was released in October 2002 on both PS2 and PC. Unfortunately the sequel held very little in common with the original in regards to plot or overall quality. Instead of the more free-roaming style of the original, Red Faction 2 favoured a more linear on the rails approach, which needless to say disenfranchised many of the originals fans. The main storyline took place on Earth and followed a group of nanotech infused soldiers in their exploits. The only, rather tenuous link to the original was that the soldiers in the game had the nanotechnology that had been introduced in Red Faction. A more cynical man might suggest that this game wasn’t developed as a sequel, but was labelled as such to increase sales. I can’t personally comment on this one as I never had the displeasure of playing it, but I take it on good word that this was indeed a metric tonne of ass juice.

Don’t look at me… it’s too shameful

Intro
Considering the sort of pathetic whimper of a game that was RF 2, there were many people who were pretty sceptical about Red Faction: Guerrilla (myself included). If anyone out there is still maintaining that level of scepticism it’s my great pleasure to inform you that you need do so no longer. Volition have in fact gone completely the other way with this one. Where RF 2 was an unrelated, plain on the rails FPS; Red-Faction: Guerrilla is a massive, exciting, sandbox style direct sequel to the original. While this is a direct sequel, don’t expect to get what you’ve become accustomed to with previous Red-Faction titles. This is a completely different type of game to its predecessors… it’s also a lot better.

Boom bitches

The Engine
One would argue that perhaps the most important improvement to RF:G is the fantastic Geo-mod 2.0 engine (in combination with the standard Havok physics). The focus this time has been shifted from destructible landscapes to dynamically destructible structures. Now if you’ve played as many games as I have, you’ve doubtless seen lots of destructible structures in other titles. The thing is, you haven’t really, not on this scale. RF: G takes everything you know and expect from destructible scenery, defecates on it, puts it in a rocket, fires said rocket into the Sun… then the Sun explodes and everything you’ve ever known and loved is consumed by the glorious flame. Every material in this game has been modelled to break apart realistically on impact, every building has been designed brilliantly with key structural supports and weaknesses. When you destroy a building in this game, you tear it down piece by piece. Often you’ll find buildings shudder and creak for a few moments before finally becoming unstable and collapsing (Note: this is the closest any game has brought me to climax ). This is most definitely the Angelina Jolie of physics engines.

This game gives me happy times in my pants

Story

Fifty years have passed since the original Ultor riots and Mars has changed a great deal in that time. The whole surface has been terraformed in order to sustain life and to allow full scale planetary mining. Unfortunately, in the fifty years since the fall of Ultor a new equally sinister organisation known as the EDF has seized control of the planet and its workforce, once again forcing the people of Mars to work in unreasonable conditions for unreasonable hours (oh the martianity!). Needless to say, the people of Mars are once again rising up and fighting for their rights (to party). This is where you come in; you take the role of a miner named Alec Mason who is pulled into the conflict almost immediately on his arrival on the planet. As the game starts you meet your brother who straight away tries to recruit you into the Red Faction. At this point you have no intention of fighting the man or fighting for the people, you are just there to mine. However this dream is shattered when the EDF kill your brother in front of you and then attempt to kill you because of your relationship. As a result of all of this, you are unwillingly forced into the Red Faction and into bringing down the EDF. Mars’ surface is divided into six sectors (Parker, Dust, Badlands, Oasis, Free Fire Zone and Eos), each of which need liberating individually; I’ll go into this deeper later on in the review. Aside from the EDF and the colonists there is also a third presence on Mars’ surface known only as the Marauders; you don’t know much about them to begin with but they become a large part of the plot later on. Now, nobody is going to win any awards for the script of this game, but for what it is, it’s pretty good. It’s important not to expect the story to act as anything more than a pretext for this game, after all this is a game about blowing shit up.

Think of the hammer as the physical embodiment of your in game schlong (or boobs, I’m all for equal opportunities)

Game play

In a game where the sole emphasis is on destruction the most important concern should be, is the destruction satisfying. I can gladly say that this game achieves something far beyond satisfying. Every glorious moment of in game action feels close to masturbatory in its sheer odious pleasure (It almost feels sinful). This is largely due to the incredible physics engine that underpins the whole experience, but thankfully there is also a really good game to accompany it. As mentioned above, each of the surfaces six sectors needs liberating from the EDF presence. Achieving this goal is a multi-facetted feat requiring completion of story missions, destruction of key structures and a number of side quests for the Red Faction. My personal favourite task is taking down the EDF structures. In each case it is completely up to you how you go about bringing the enemy down, whether that means placing charges around the structure, driving through it, firing rockets at it or disintegrating it with nano-bots (we’ll talk about that later).

Each sector has two gauges assigned to it, one that shows the level of EDF control in the sector and another that indicates Red Faction moral within the sector. Bringing down the EDF within any given sector requires you to bring their level of control to zero before banishing them within the context of a story mission. The moral gauge has a number of affects on the game environment; these include the amount of salvage you acquire from completing missions, the amount of ammo you receive from ammo crates and how ready guerrilla fighters are to jump to your aid during combat. While these things aren’t necessary for your progression through the story, they do make things a little easier. There are a number of ways of bolstering moral, but generally speaking it involves destroying enemy propaganda and completing Guerrilla missions. It is possible to lose moral by dying or by accidentally killing colonists, but for the most part you won’t need to worry about it. The Guerrilla missions come in a number of different guises, each of which is pretty fun to play. Listed below are all of the types of Guerrilla action:

Defense: In these missions you help groups of Red faction fighters defend valuable locations from EDF assaults. These missions for the most part appear randomly on the map when you are driving around and are only available for a short period of time.

Controlled demolition: These missions require you to destroy buildings as quickly as possible with whatever weapons are prescribed to you. This is all about using your noggin along with a good deal of brute force to get the job done.

Convoy: Often you’ll get hailed on the airwaves as nearby EDF vehicles try to get between locations with valuable information. Not a big fan of these ones but there’s no punishment for not doing them, so I don’t begrudge their existence

Collection: These missions require you to find valuable vehicles scattered around the map and bring them back to the nearest safe house as quickly as possible. Often become more difficult than you’d expect as legions of EDF attempt to stop you from reaching your location.

Collateral damage: In these missions you find yourself at the helm of a rocket launcher mounted on the back of an old junker being driven by a crazed old Martian. The aim here is to cause as much destruction to EDF property as possible along a pre set path. Needless to say, these missions are epically good fun.

Heavy Weapon: These missions require you to distract large numbers of enemy soldiers with a ridiculously powerful weapon as your team mates infiltrate nearby buildings.

It’s like GTA and Jerry Brookheimer had sexy times and gave birth to a beautiful baby game

Any good demolitions expert knows that the key to success is a good arsenal of tools to achieve their goals. Apparently Volition Inc are well aware of this also with one of the most awesome set of weapons in any game ever being on offer in RF:G. To begin with you find yourself equipped with a set of remote charges, an assault rifle and a kick arse hammer. Each of the games weapons can be upgraded on exchange of salvage and more, increasingly destructive weapons become available later on as you complete guerrilla actions and reach certain plot points. To begin with I found myself mostly switching between the assault rifle and the remote charges, trying to balance the killing with the destruction. As I progressed though I actually began to find that the hammer was particularly satisfying to wield as it could competently tackle both structures and guards and look really good doing it. I think the point where I really completely bought into this game though was when the nano forge was introduced. The nano forge is a rifle that fires a swarm of nano robots at any given target and tears it apart into its constituent parts. I still find myself giggling with churlish glee every time I think about taking out one of the games bridges by standing beneath it, disintegrating the supports and ~~wank~~… watching the ensuing chaos. Other high points include the arc welder (A gun that generates a stream of electricity that can branch out and kill multiple enemies at once) and the thermo-baric rocket launcher (a gun so powerful that it can blast apart entire buildings in one blast). You can only ever carry four weapons at the time (one of which will always be the sledgehammer) meaning that you have to carefully consider which weapons you are most likely going to need for any given mission. Each of the games weapons is great fun to use (in my experience) and make for one helluva gun fight.

Cool guys don’t look at explosions

RF: G also succeeds in providing a fantastic array of interesting and unique vehicles to drive around the landscape. There is a great deal of different types of vehicle classes available for you drive across Mars’ surface, ranging from 4x4’s to sports cars, from taxi’s to heavy mining vehicles. Perhaps the most fun to use vehicles in this game are the giant mechanical walkers. Nothing can stand in the way of these bad boys (not even Chuck Norris); buildings are torn asunder as if they were made of crate paper as you stride forward wailing your massive mechanical arms. As one of my friends correctly put it “it’s like one of those shit mech games only really, really f***ing good”. The Mars landscape feels like it has been designed to fun to drive around with bumps, jumps and falls scattered liberally across the landscape. All of the games vehicles handle relatively realistically and all of them are great fun to drive. In the latter portions of the game you'll find that a jet pack is introduced into the mix. This massively changes how you approach your missions, allowing you to be a bit more haphazard than before. It’s really hard to complain about the driving experience in this game and because of that I’m not going to.

*Edit: A lot of people have been complaining about the sluggish control of the vehicles in this game. Now while I did notice this, I can't say it was a problem for me. It is definitely an issue though and potential buyers do need to be aware of it if they're looking to make a purchase/rental, especially if they think it's the sort of thing that is likely to bother them.

Let the mayhem begin

The controls throughout are pretty good for the most part. The weapon selection system took a little getting used to begin with but over time I actually grew to really like it. To select weapons you have to hold RB (on the 360) and press A, X, Y or B to choose the one you want. It is then possible to quickly switch back to your previous weapon by a quick tap of RB. One thing that really doesn’t work in this game is the cover system, it’s far too fiddly to use and ends up feeling a bit redundant anyway in a world where your cover rarely stays upright for very long. I can’t help but feel that if they’d assigned the cover to the left trigger and gone for the Rainbow Six Vegas style use of cover it might actually have been really good. This aside I never felt myself getting frustrated by unresponsive controls or bad button placement. Everything pretty much flows the way it should.

Graphics

I’m kind of torn on the graphics in this game. The thing is, the resolution is really impressive, the characters well designed and all of the vehicles and structure are really well modelled. However the landscapes are pretty dull for the most part, there’s really not a lot to look at in terms of scenery or colour. I don’t know what else you could expect on a terraformed Mars though so I’m not sure that this complaint actually holds any water; either way it’s not a major quibble. One thing this game does suffer quite badly with though is pop up. Most of the time you don’t really notice the pop up because of the bumpy nature of the landscape hiding it, but when you do notice it, it is pretty ugly. I can’t help but think that if they’re going to render such plain landscapes, they should really make a more concerted effort to get rid of pop up. To make up for this they have made the explosions really jaw-droppingly beautiful though. The beauty of the destruction brought a single tear to my eye on more than one occasion.

Sooo beautiful!!!

Sound

The sound is this game is also worthy of note. Each of the games sound effects has been created with a great deal of love, especially the falling buildings. Each building has a different set of sounds based on what materials it has been constructed out of. The last few moments of a buildings existence are always a treat for the ears with each shudder beautifully reverberating through every part of its remaining support and echoing around the decrepit walls. What I would say though is that this game is not going to win any awards for voice acting. It’s not badly acted or anything; it’s just all a bit generic. I’m almost certain that it won’t bother all but the most picky among you.

Multiplayer

Red Faction: Guerrilla offers some of the best multiplayer I have ever played. Volition have gone to a great deal of effort here to produce a valuable and interesting multiplayer experience which to be honest, could have stood up as a stand alone title. there are a number of different game modes on offer here with the standard set of death match variants and a capture the flag mode. Also included in the mix are modes where the emphasis is shifted to destruction (as you would expect really). One particularly interesting mode has each team assigned with base buildings to protect from the enemy. Upon building destruction these buildings can be rebuilt with the use of a special gun, (not unlike how the link gun is used in unreal tournament 2004) allowing for fiercely tactical matches where you have to be clever about choosing when to attack or defend. As I mentioned above, in the single player mode you get to unlock a jet pack later on in the game. Now in the multiplayer they've massively extended the list of backpacks that you can use. There are cloaking packs, healing packs, damage increase packs, speed packs, impulse packs (similar to the jet pack, but they send you up to a great height in one press), rhino packs (that allow you to ram through buildings), vision packs (that highlight all of the foes on the map) and concussion packs (which send out a small area wave that blast nearby foes off of their feet). I think that's all of them but there's so many of the bloody things it would be easy to miss one out. The backpacks really make this game stand apart from other online experiences as they do massively change the state of play in regards to tactics without making the game unbalanced or cheap. the game also includes an offline wrecking crew mode where you take it in turns to reap as much destruction as possible on the landscape within a minute. The wrecking crew mode also contains a number of interesting variants, which are a good deal of fun to work through with your friends (presuming you have any). I have a sneaking suspicion that RF: G may well end up being the next online multiplayer phenomenon; it certainly deserves to be.

Summary

In my personal opinion this game offers pretty much everything you could ever reasonably ask for from a sandbox shooter. The environment is vast, the missions are fun, the interface is easy to use and there’s a lot of depth of experience (but it’s never force fed to like another game that I shan’t name). This game isn’t preachy and it’s not going to change the way you see the world (or Mars for that matter); what it will do is give you hours and hours of unmitigated fun in both a vast single player campaign and it's thrilling multiplayer component. I just hope that we see a lot more from the geo-mod 2.0 engine as it really is superb. It’s been a long while since I’ve wanted to sit people down while I’ve been playing a game and say “look at this… man did you just see that!?”. I really can’t wait to see what Volition pull out of their hats next. Anyway you’ll have to excuse, I’m off to play some more Red Faction.

Scores

Story: 4/5 (it’s not exactly inspired or anything, but it does the job)
Game play: 4.9/5 (Every moment is truly glorious, it’s just a shame that the cover system wasn’t better)
Sound: 4.8/5 (The dialogue isn’t exactly amazing but the sounds of shuddering buildings as they slowly crumble more than make up for that)
Multiplayer: 5/5 (I think I might actually prefer the multiplayer on this to Halo 3)
Overall: 4.7/5 (There’s an awful lot of bang for your buck with this title… there’s also a good deal of boom, kerplow, pchhooorrr and smash)

Thumbs up purchase… seriously, go and buy this game right away. Go and give them money so they can make more!

Are video games losing the plot?

2009-06-04T10:55:00.000-07:00

There's a trend that has appeared recently in the mainstream video game market that is causing me and doubtless many others a great deal of distress. I'm talking about a trend more insidious than happy slapping, more shocking than school shootings and more pungent than a gaming convention. I am, of course talking about the trend that is cliffhanger endings.

Now, I'm not fundamentally against cliffhanger endings in all forms of media. As an example, the JJ. Abrahams TV epic 'lost' contains a cliffhanger nearly every week. The point is though, that it is weekly. If your favourite game ends with a cliffhanger, you're most likely looking at 2-3 years at least before the narrative is completed, by which time you've probably forgotten what exactly was happening or you just won't care anymore.

Ok, so computer games for the most part aren't particularly well known for strong narratives to begin with. Stories within games for the most part seem to act as pretexts for the action within the game, not unlike a bad Hollywood movie. A lot of the time this is sort of acceptable because the quality and depth of the experience on offer distracts you from the storyline. I do think this is pretty sad though, a good narrative can really give a game an extra kick making it shine just a little bit more than it's competitors. Would you kindly take your minds back to 2007, back to the release of Bioshock. I'm sure those of you who enjoyed the game did so largely because of a well structured narrative and a well defined mythos. Furthermore they didn't kick you in the teeth by leaving the story unresolved when you reached its conclusion, although the ending was a bit lackluster.

Now in contrast think back to Halo 2, again this game had a fairly strong story throughout with a consistent mythology and a strong narrative train. However, I think what most of us take away from that game is the horrendous ending. Certainly, when I think back on it I don't think about how much I enjoyed the story, but instead on how I was removed from the experience just as it looked to be getting a lot more exciting. Halo 2 isn't the worst offender though. the one that really springs to mind in recent gaming history is Prince of Persia. I'm going to put the ending in spoiler markers so as not to ruin it for you.

Spoiler:

The narrative ends with you literally undoing everything you've done within the game and releasing the main bad guy from his prison, with the words "to be continued" written on the screen. I find it hard to put into words how angry this made me, probably about as angry as I was when I found out that My Name is Earl had been cancelled

I think the most offensive part of the broken story in this game is that after its release, they announced that they would be releasing DLC to fix the story at a later date, meaning that if you'd rented (as I had) you'd have to pay to get the game again and then pay for material that you'd most probably only want to play once. The idea of paying to get a good story is just ridiculous anyway though. Can you imagine if your favourite book had an original version, but then the author decided that it wasn't up to scratch and then released a redux version where they fixed the story but charged a greater price for it? I suspect that for most of you, it would cease to be your favourite story because you would feel tricked and betrayed.

So I guess what I'm essentially driving at, is that good games deserve good stories. Most gamers are pretty discerning when it comes to deciding what kind of experience that they want from a game and for a lot of them that includes a good storyline. Apart from anything, if you get a good story out of it, it feels a lot less like you've been wasting your time. I hope that this problem starts to dissolve in the near future, because as far as I'm concerned the gaming market is slowly growing up and should probably stop reading 'Harry Potter' and should move on to some John Steinbeck instead.

Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on the Dark Athena review (multi)

2009-06-02T07:57:00.000-07:00

I feel that before I start writing the review I should give it some context… this is the fourth time I’ve started writing it (all previous attempts seemed to mysteriously disappeared into the ether). If this review comes across as slightly jaded that’s probably why

Background (Note: this section is entirely about the films so if you want to get straight into the review skip ahead to the next section)

The year 2000 saw many important events; Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi dies of a stroke, the billionth Indian citizen is born and in South Nigeria 250 locals are blown up whilst trying to scavenge gasoline from a broken petroleum pipeline. However the year 2000 saw one event more important than all of these… the year 2000 saw the release of ‘Pitch Black’ and the creation of the most badass criminal in all of the known universe, Richard B. Riddick. The role of Riddick was taken up by Vin Diesel (the only man to ever win an arm wrestle with a fully grown gorilla without the use of tranquilizers) who seemed to fit the character like a hand in a glove. Pitch Black picks up with Riddick after being rather embarrassingly captured by his arch enemy, a mercenary by the name of William J. Johns (Played by Cole Hauser). As you might expect though, the tables are soon turned as the ship that he is captive on crash lands on a desert planet allowing Riddick to escape. It’s not long before Riddick’s position as most badass thing on the planet is jeopardized though, as the ships crew soon find out that they’re sharing the landscape with a horde of carnivorous photophobic aliens.

This is where it all started

Pitch Black was met with a fairly mixed critical response, the crux of the issue seeming to be whether people bought into Riddick’s character. I personally found it to be a rather enjoyable film (although not without flaws), largely due to the fact that you were never quite sure what Riddick’s intentions were, or whether he was in fact a greater threat than the alien scourge. One of the films trademarks are Riddick’s luminescent eyes (that allow him to see in darkness) which he explains he received in the galactic super prison, ‘Butcher Bay’. This story became the focus of the first Chronicles of Riddick game; Escape from Butcher Bay in 2005. I’ll discuss this game at some length within this review as AOTDA contains a re-mastered version of the original game. Unfortunately 2005 also saw the release of a rather less impressive specimen within the Riddick universe in the shape of a film named ‘The Chronicles of Riddick’. Alas they lost the plot slightly with this one, replacing all of Riddick’s subtle deadly charm with an over jumped generic action anti-hero with all the poise and grace of a drunken badger. Fittingly the film was met with a withering response, as while the film was a fairly solid action thriller, it lacked any of the depth or nuances that made ‘Pitch Black’ shine. Thankfully, Butcher Bay was spared this kind of critical Butchering as it was actually a stunningly good game… and so the actual review begins.

Escape from Butcher Bay

A rare gem on the Xbox platform

There’s probably a few of those amongst you wondering if it’s fair to be reviewing a game from 2005 by today’s standards. Gladly I can inform you that for the most part, yes it is. Escape from Butcher Bay is nearly as impressive now as it was back in 2005 which is really a testament to the solid game design employed by Tigon Studios (Vin Diesel’s own game studio… how f***ing awesome is that?).

Papa always said "if you can't trust anyone else, you've got to do the job yourself"

Story

As the name implies, the plot of EFBB focuses on Riddick trying to escape from the infamous Butcher Bay. Of course this isn’t as easy as breaking out of your regular joint; Butcher Bay is the prison’s prison, it has been designed with criminals like Riddick in mind (Riddick is a better class of criminal though). Before too long, Riddick is causing all kinds of hell within Butcher Bay’s walls. The story throughout is fairly solid with the only major gripe being that the prison paying to house Riddick doesn’t really make a lot of sense. This aside, I enjoyed the narrative all of the way through the games 10-13 hour campaign. The in game dialogue and voice acting is all of a supreme quality, with one of the highlights coming in the form of the vocal stylings of John Di Maggio (The voice of both Bender from Futurama and Marcus Fenix from Gears of War). It’s always pleasing to come across a game where quality writing has clearly been a focal point of the development process.

Gameplay

Ok, this is where we have to start making some allowances for EFBB taking into account its vintage. EFBB contains a mixture of stealth and FPS gameplay which for the most part are separated into distinct sections. There have been a number of big changes to the FPS genre in the last couple of years, the most important of which being the fabled cover system. As you might expect EFBB lacks this feature to its slight detriment. Another aspect of this game that modern gamers may find irritating is the putridly stupid A.I. The enemies in this game are really, really dumb; it’s quite difficult to get across just how dumb they are. It’s not uncommon for the bad guys to start walking in circles or into walls or to start shooting at absolutely nothing. It can be quite difficult to predict their movements at times, as their movement patterns are as erratic as those of a fish in an electrified tank which contains water laced with speed. My only other slight gripe with the game play is the weapon selection system. To select weapons in this game you have to press the right shoulder button (on the 360) to bring up a circular menu. You then have to hover over the weapon you wish to equip with the right thumb stick. This would be fine were it not for the fact that the menu is quite fiddly and imprecise and you often end up dying because you can’t change weapons in time. Despite all of these qualms though, EFBB is a bloody brilliant game. The FPS sections of the game are pretty standard fair, you shoot things, things shoot you and a bloodbath ensues. Gun play is pretty solid throughout with all of the guns feeling chunky and powerful enough to satisfy most FPS junkies.

"I told you the food court would be closed"
"Can we please not make this into an argument?"
"I'm just saying that if you'd listened..."

In my personal opinion though, where this game really stands out is the stealth sections. The stealth mechanics in this game are absolutely sublime. There are very few things more satisfying than hiding in the shadows, stalking a guard as he passes you and then stabbing him in the neck with a screw driver (or is that just me). You never have to worry too much about making a lot of noise as when you are stealthing you can go into stealth mode, which allows you to move silently as you stalk your prey. Most of the lights around the prison can be shot out allowing you to sneak by enemies with ease. You’ll often find that if a guard discovers a smashed light, they’ll get out their flashlights and will actually become more vigilant than usual making things more difficult for you.

Would you like your guard diced or sliced?

The game also contains some really good hand to hand combat often throwing you into fist fights with multiple enemies. There’s also a couple of awesome mech scenes thrown in to keep you entertained. Throughout your quest for freedom, you’ll be expected to talk to a number of your fellow inmates in order to gain favours from them. Of course they always expect something in return; this can vary from assassinating other prisoners to collecting moths for them. Some of these tasks are necessary for story progression where as others can get you useful equipment or information. For those collectable junkies amongst you, there are a number of themed cigarette packs to be found around the landscape in order to unlock concept art for the game. Overall the game play is a rich if slightly dated and very rarely disappoints.

Graphics

For the most part the graphics in this game are pretty darn impressive. They’ve been completely overhauled to meet the potential of the next gen consoles and for the most part they’ve achieved that goal. Obviously some of the level design is a little uninspired by today’s standards as it wasn’t originally designed for modern consoles. Thanks to the improved engine though, both the lighting and the polygon count have massively improved making the adventure look very at home on the new consoles. All of the in game characters have been re-designed and wouldn’t look out of place in any modern shooters. There are a few minor graphical glitches present in the form of dead polygons and slow texture loads but these are fairly rare and don’t detract from the game in any significant way.

Assault on the dark Athena

Riddick is back... only this time marginally more awesome

Story

The story in AOTDA picks up almost immediately after the events of EFBB with Riddicks escape vessel ironically once again being captured, only this time by a troop of rogue mercenary pirates. It’s established that Riddick has previously made acquaintance with the leader of the pirates and there is some animosity between them. I never felt that this was ever resolved very satisfactorily and found it to be quite disappointing. Thankfully though, once again the story is fairly solid with Riddick trying to escape the Dark Athena to do whatever it is that he does when he’s not escaping captivity (I’m never quite sure what it is he does when he’s not escaping). I don’t want to risk ruining the plot for you, but what I will say is that the story doesn’t all take place on the Dark Athena. The change of scenery in the latter portions of the game is quite pleasing and I found it to add some needed variety to the experience.

Gameplay

It’s the same as Butcher bay…

Ok, you also get some cool new weapons…

Well perhaps that analysis isn’t quite fair, but for the most part AOTDA is just a modernized expansion to EFBB. This is by no means a bad thing. You get an extra 10+ hours of game in a new setting and some cool new ways to eviscerate your enemies. The new blades (the shylaks) that Riddick uses are totally kick ass and make you feel even more deadly than ever before. On top of this, the new enemies (the drones) can be used as temporary gun turrets or can be controlled from remote terminals varying up the game play nicely. There’s also a return from the ever fantastic mech scenes. What else could a Riddick fan ask for?

Is this the face of a man that you want to piss off?

Graphics

Again, the graphics are pretty much the same as in EFBB but you can tell that it has been designed for modern consoles from the ground up. The level design is a lot more ambitious with a lot of the games aesthetic looking absolutely stunning (especially later on). The areas in this game have been developed with the same level of love as EFBB and they really do deliver in terms of style. The character design is up to the same high standard again, my only quibble is that the main enemy looks a bit weird (it’s quite hard to put into words, but she definitely doesn’t look quite right).

Multiplayer

Right, I’m going to keep this quite brief. The online multiplayer section of this game seems to be pretty functional and has a number of different modes to keep you occupied. I found that I wasn’t particularly engaged by it though, AOTDA is essentially a single player experience and the multiplayer element ends up feeling like a bit of an arbitrary grace. I guess in conclusion, I can’t really complain about it; it’s nice that it’s there and it seems pretty sturdy, it’s just not really my cup of tea. Maybe you’ll like it better.

This tactic is likely to get you killed, sure the A.I is stupid but if you stand in the middle of a room firing a gun they'll remove the gun barrels from their nostrils and dispose of you in no time

Conclusion

So, is it worth your hard earned cash? Well, bearing in mind all you get here for your money I certainly think so. You’re getting more than 20 hours of offline game play here and a fairly decent multiplayer experience to boot. If you’re anything like me, you probably watched ‘Pitch Black’ thinking “God he’s awesome, I wish I could be like him”. Now that I have the ability to be Riddick I couldn’t be much happier. Sure it’s a little dated and Riddick’s character is a little shallow, but this is all forgivable. The voice acting throughout is funny and convincing, the story is good, the game play is great and you have shylaks… tell me that this game is not worth your money. For those of you who are only really interested in the single player I’d recommend renting and then buying it if you decide that you actually like the multiplayer. I personally love this game, it does annoy me at times but then again so does my girlfriend and I’ve put up with her for longer than I care to think about (note: if you have to choose between this game and having a girlfriend then please choose the latter. Games are cool but they’re not very satisfying sexually… I take that back, Vin Diesel is a sexy man). Have fun with this one.

Story: 4/5
Graphics: 4.5/5
Gameplay: 4/5 (a little dated in places but still awesome)
Sound: 5/5 (the voice acting is really fantastic throughout)
Multiplayer: 3.5/5 (sturdy, just nothing special)
Overall: 4/5 (definitely worth your money)

Thumbs up rental at the very least! I urge all of you to try this game, there’s lots on offer here!

Long time no C++

2009-06-01T06:28:00.000-07:00

Hello friends, enemies and randomers. It's been a while since I've posted on the blog and I thought I should probably laden you with a positive cornucopia of pathetic excuses... unfortunately I don't have any so I guess an apology will have to do. Needless to say, I am working to rectify this situation in the form of a review. So when can we expect to hear your oh so wise and entirely valid opinions gracing our fetid ungrateful ears I hear you ask. Well if things go to plan there should be a review of the 'Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on the Dark Athena' up by tomorrow my faithful subjects. Sorry it's been so long, I'm going to try my best not to hurt you like this again.

Keep gaming!!

Don' Shit Your Pants Review

2009-05-18T06:49:00.000-07:00

Once every now and then a game comes along that redefines how you see the world; values are questioned and attitudes re-aligned. In games like this barriers are broken down, bridges are built and we as the gamers are united, in what can be almost be described as a spiritual appreciation of true art. However... Don't shit your pants is not one of these games. Don't shit your pants is a game in which your goal is quite literally to avoid defecating in your undergarments.

The unglamorous but functional menu screen to Don't shit your pants

Now some of you may be saying to yourselves
"I spend most days managing to avoid shitting in my pants. How could this possibly be a challenge?"
To those cynics I say
"Hey... cynics. Stop being cynical you cynical, cynical people. Give me a minute and I'll tell you how it can be a challenge to not poo yourself".

One important difference between Don't shit your pants and real life non-shitting is the control interface. Normally when you want to not shit yourself it's simply a matter of thinking "I need a poo now", initiating a stimulus of your motor neuron pathways, waiting for the signal to reach your legs, traveling to to the toilet via this process, initiating a stimulus of your motor neuron pathways, waiting for the signal to reach your arms and hands, removing pants (this may be more tricky if belts or zippers are involved), sending another electrical impulse, placing your posterior on the toilet seat and letting rip (This entire process can be considerably more difficult if you lack working arms or legs, or alternatively are not in proximity to a toilet). Note: Most of the steps listed above have been greatly simplified by our advanced level of evolution, whereby an abstract thought can be converted into a physical stimulus with virtually no effort. Compare this to the control interface in Don't shit your pants. You are incapable of any thought whatsoever so you require external stimulus in order to complete any action. Unfortunately the only stimulus available is a typeface at the other end of a series of wires. Worse still, you are easily confused by commands and can only respond to the simplest of requests. You have no lateral thinking reflex so if say you were asked to push when you were say, required to pull you would not be able to comply in any helpful manner. You have developed a very upset stomach meaning that you are working to a strict 40 second time frame, if the gamer assigned to help you through your struggle is a slow typist it's almost certainly brown trousers time. All things considered, it's a lot easier to avoid crapping yourself in the real world.

note: The crown is reserved for only experienced shitters

As a gamer I am used to controlling my in game avatar with the directional thumbsticks or indeed with a mouse and the W,A,S and D keys, so I must admit that at first, I found the typing element a little jarring. However once I'd adjusted to this new way of approaching in game control I found it to be a refreshing change from the norm. Unfortunately I often found that the game wasn't programmed to react to the scenario I'd created with it often giving messages such as "I don't know how to set us up the bomb" or "I don't know how to become a political activist, engage with the disenfranchised public on a crippling tax policy, win their trust on emotional issues, run for prime minister, get elected, develop a stock hold of nuclear weapons, go into hiding in an underwater base in the mid pacific, nuke America and China making it look like each had attacked the other, stay under ground as the nuclear holocaust ensues, emerge from hiding once radiation has reached safe levels in order to re-unite the scattered remnants of a broken humanity, become supreme emperor of the world and lead the world into a new era of peace and prosperity". needless to say that as a result of this I found my imagination was considerably stifled.

Sometimes in life you just can't avoid depositing waste in your leg receptacles

Fortunately Don't shit your pants makes up for these shortcomings in a number of ways. Firstly I'd like to point out how absolutely stunning the graphics are; not only is the game in full 3D perspective, all of the in game textures are crisp and the main character is well defined (at no point becoming indistinguishable from the surroundings or crowds of generic enemies). The in game sound is equally impressive with more than four midi sounds present in the games sound scape. The game has ten different endings, none of which feel cheap or tacked for no reason. Each ending will leave you fully satisfied but equally curious about what other vistas can be discovered. On top of all this there are also ten achievements to be discovered each of which will bring a smile to your face. There are also two costumes in the game, the second costume being unlocked after full completion.

Some gamers try to avoid the inevitable by hiding behind a wall of questions

So what can we conclude about Don't shit your pants? Is it worth pissing away your time on a game about shitting? Well in this game reviewers humble opinion... yes it is. It may not strictly speaking contain much of a narrative or indeed gameplay; but these features have become overrated in recent years pushing aside equally valuable game elements such as confusion, disorientation and frustration. I would argue that many of us have forgotten what it is to be a true gamer. Gone are the days when we would spend hours looking for keys because all of the rooms looked the same and the doors had the same texture as the walls. Gone are the days when in absence of a feasible solution to a puzzle we turned off our computers, climbed into the fetal position and cried onto the lino flooring for two hours. Gone are the days where we tried to masturbate over a pair of 8-bit breasts instead of going down to the off license and buying a porn mag because someone might see you. It's truly sad that these days have come to an end. I'm glad that Don't shit your pants has tried to right this collective wrong and return us to the glory days. One hopes that this is just the beginning of a whole new retro-revolution where the focus is no longer on gameplay, story or high end graphics but instead humour, charm and all round fun. Don't shit your pants may have a few drawbacks but all the same, it's hard not to recommend. This game is a shit load of fun and as such I suggest that everyone should try Don't shit your pants.

Thumbs Up!

Don't shit your pants is available for free at a number of online flash game websites for free. I've pasted a link to just one of the plethora of hosting sites below.
http://www.kongregate.com/games/Rete/dont-shit-your-pants

Plants vs Zombies review

2009-05-14T04:14:00.000-07:00

If you've previously read my review of Peggle on the 360, you're probably aware that I have a bit of a penchant for Pop Cap games. Normally I don't buy into the whole casual gaming phenomenon, but Pop Crack are different somehow. They seem to have an adept understanding of what it is that makes games fun and addictive; something that is missing from a large proportion of mainstream gaming. With this in mind, I'm going to try my best to give a fair and balanced review of Plants vs Zombies (no promises).
Pop Cap games... because you don't have the willpower to say no

Plants vs Zombies takes its roots predominantly in the tower defence genre with a few interesting twists thrown in along the way, in the form of a series of mini games. The basic concept of the game is that you're a home owner who is under attack from the zombie horde who have developed a taste for brains. On the guidance of your insane neighbour (Who wears a pan on his head and has a habit of of blurting out spouts of incoherent blather), like any rational person, you turn to your garden plants to act as your first line of defence. Gleefully your battalion of botanical bodyguards rise up to the challenge of taking the 'un' out of the 'undead'. Still with me?

In the absence of government intervention, only plants can be relied on to defend your brains

To begin with the selection of plants available to you is pretty limited, with new variants becoming available at the end of most levels throughout the campaign. Later on in the campaign, some more specialized plants become available for purchase from your neighbour's shop. The amount of different plants available to you throughout the game is pretty impressive and grants a fairly good depth of strategy. Initially you are only allowed to bring six plant variants into the level meaning that you have to choose your defenders carefully based on what strategy you intend to play. Throughout the campaign you are shown which zombies you can expect to be facing before the level begins, which allows you to tailor your strategy before the get go. As you progress through the game more plant slots become available for purchase making your decisions at the start of the level a little easier.

You're given free choice of which plants will be defending your valuable grey matter at the start of each level

The control interface is pretty intuitive, with you simply clicking on the type of unit that you want to use from the selection bar at the to top of the screen and then clicking again wherever you want to place it on the grid. As the zombies make their way down the screen they are restricted to one of five lanes so correct infantry placement is very important (unless of course you think you'd be better off without your brains).

In order to purchase your petal'd protectors you're required to gather sunshine whilst in game play. During daytime levels sunshine periodically falls from the sky for your use; however this isn't enough sunshine to fuel a chlorophyll powered army. Thankfully, to tackle this shortage of sunshine, sun flowers can be planted to periodically make your day just that little bit brighter. During night time levels you rely entirely on this source of light so defence of your flowery friends becomes an integral part of your success.

As you make your way through the campaign levels you are introduced to a myriad of different zombie types each with their own set of strengths and weaknesses (all with a desire to excavate your skull). Each of the characters is charmingly designed and comes with their own short back story written in the plants vs zombies almanac (these stories invariably run along the lines of "At some point he found a bucket and placed it on his head"). Every facet of this game is brimming with playful humour which makes progressing through a each level childishly gleeful. Each stage has a new layer of strategy to consider from the backyard where you are expected to defend yourself from pool venturing zombies; to the rooftop where you are limited to plant pots. These slight variants on game play add a decent level of depth to the game play, but unfortunately never really make the levels particularly challenging.

Herein lies the games main weakness; the campaign never gets particularly difficult. To be quite frank I only ever felt that the game was getting 'hard' during the last three levels. One of the trademarks of the tower defence genre is its punishing difficulty, so it's quite disappointing that Pop Crack have missed the trick here. Don't worry though, there is challenge to be found in the form mini games and puzzle levels. Here you can find plenty of interesting challenges from zombie attack levels (where the acquisition of brains becomes your primary concern) to a brilliant take on bejewelled. There are twenty mini game levels and twenty puzzle levels leaving you with plenty to work your way through.

The onscreen action can get pretty hectic at times, but it never gets too difficult with effective planning

So is Plants vs Zombies worth your money? Well... I certainly had a lot of fun with this title (and will continue to do so). The level of challenge will probably be a bit disappointing for the tower defence fans amongst you but there is plenty of substance here to make up for it. A lot of love has gone into crafting this game and it shows. The graphical presentation throughout is pleasing, the sounds are hilarious (I didn't know there where so may ways to say the word brains), the character design is charming, the concept is pleasantly insane and there's lots of different levels on offer. For £6.99 on steam (British price) you really can't question the value on offer here. One thing i would say though is, if you despise tower defence games, this probably won't convert you; it doesn't redefine the tower defence genre, it simply tackles it with a bit more flare. As for everyone else, use your brains and at least try the demo to see what you think; I think you'll like what you find.

Scores:
Gameplay: 4/5 (Great fun, but too easy)
Graphics: 4/5 (Charmingly designed; resolution could have been a bit higher though)
Sound: 4.5/5 (Hilarious dialogue and catchy music throughout)
Value: 5/5 (Lots on offer for a tiny price)
Overall 4.5/5 (Exactly the kind of casual gaming crack that I've come to expect from Pop Cap)

Thanks for reading.

Quick update

2009-05-13T17:35:00.000-07:00

Hello peeps and peep-ettes. This is just a quick update to let you know that I am now posting my reviews on noobtoob as well as in my blog. I've decided that as a mark of courtesy I should probably upload to their site first in future, meaning that any reviews I do write will arrive here a couple of hours later than they do on noobtoob. I will however be reviewing the odd game from my back catalogue exclusively here along with my own infinitely wise insights into gaming culture, so please don't become too incensed. If you don't know what or who noobtoob are you should go and find out. I've linked the title of this post to their website and there's also a link on the right hand side of the page in the links section.

Thanks for reading and don't forget to be awesome!

Peggle portable

2009-05-12T09:58:00.000-07:00

Well it's happened... Pop Cap games have made a final assault on my social life and released Peggle on the ipod Touch and iphone. It's the same game that we all know and love scaled down to fit on the smaller screen, with a few interface tweaks to make it work better on the format. If you own an ipod and you're not particularly bothered about ever doing anything ever again, then I strongly suggest that you purchase this app. It's a steal at just £2.99!

Spore review

2009-05-11T22:00:00.000-07:00

Ok, what can I say about Spore. As you've probably noted from my previous blog posts (if you have indeed been reading them) is that I didn't come away from playing Spore feeling entirely positive about it; that is not to say that it isn't without some sizable merit. Spore first appeared on most people's radars at EA 2006 with a functioning demo of the creature creator tool and a demonstration of the creature stage. At the time audiences were wowed by the incredible technology behind the creature creator and somewhat impressed by the mind boggling concept of a gaming world where every inhabitant has been created by another player. It was promised that the game would involve you journeying from a simple multi-cellular organism to a species of planet conquering cultural behemoths and experiencing everything in between. The sheer ambition behind Spore's concept is not something that is often encountered in games and is definitely worthy of respect. Unfortunately as is often the case with highly ambitious projects, there seems to be a great deal of dissonance between the ambition and the actual result.

I'm going to start off by reviewing my favourite part of the Spore experience, the creature creator. This is where Spore really shines. The Spore creature creator consists a number of simple to use tools which allow you to create almost anything that you can imagine; anything from giant walking penises (a few examples, there were hundreds of these things online less than an hour after the creature creators release. Draw your own conclusions as to what this says about humanity.) to Tie fighters, from Wall-E to Goatse. All of the tools within the editor are incredibly intuitive allowing for maximum freedom. There are a number of default spine arrangements for you to work from but these can all be altered to meet your own vision (however grotesque or delightful that happens to be). You start off by choosing how long you want the spine of your creation to be, shaping it into your desired design and then choosing the body mass around around each segment of the spine. Once you've chosen your basic framework you can start to chose your creatures limbs (that is assuming that you're not trying to re-create the pillow man) and other features from a fairly wide selection of preset designs using the editors easy to navigate menus (these range from aesthetic features to practical features such as claws and wings, most of which adding specific attributes to your species). Each of these bodily extremities can also be heavily modified in terms of size, extension, direction of projection and their position. When you're happy with your creatures overall design it's time to bring them to life; this is where the real magic happens. You will be amazed as your creature starts to move around the environment just as you would have expected it to, with only a few exceptions where the creature appears to clip into itself or limbs seem to spaz around in random directions (for the most part this is the result of bad design rather than problems with the program). The results that can be achieved with the editor are truly wondrous and are clearly the work of a number of genius programmers (either that or at some point a deal with the devil was made for the base algorithms). It is almost worth buying the creature creator by itself just to marvel at the joyous result of years of work. Unfortunately Spore is meant to be more than just an editor, it is also meant to be a game and this is where things start to go awry.
What was originally promised of Spore was an epic evolution sim where you gradually evolved from a simple bacterial Spore to a fully fledged technological race. Unfortunately Spore completely misses the mark with each section of the game feeling entirely arbitrary. There are five sections within the game, most of which blatantly ripping off other (some would say better, more fleshed out games):

The cell stage (flOw rip off)- a simple stage where you play as a bacterial creature who's aim is simple either survive as a herbivore, carnivore or omnivore by eating plants or smaller creatures and avoiding being eaten by bigger more dangerous creatures. As you progress through the stage your creature will gradually grow in size and will gain access to more body parts that will allow it to become better suited for survival. This stage is actually pretty fun, but is regretfully quite short lived (especially considering that this was many players favourite stage).
The creature stage- as you emerge from the ocean and out of the cell stage into the creature stage you find yourself with a few slightly more advanced objectives. Your creature now has a nest which acts as your creatures base. Within your base you will find a number of your own species with which you can interact with; either by recruiting them to follow on your travels or by mating with them to add new features to your species. This is where just how arbitrary the in game evolution is becomes really evident. At any point during this stage you can completely reimagine your creature rearranging its limbs and adding new features. I personally found this rather dispelling with it somewhat undoing the narrative of my species. Your overall objective remains largely the same to the cell stage with you having to source food and survive attacks from the giant penis monsters that roam the landscape. At this point you have to choose whether to make other players creatures your prey (the fun option), or whether to befriend them by dancing and singing for them (the lame option). Wiping out other species is quite fun for a while (roughly 30 minutes in my case) but is on reflection pretty shallow. The path of the herbivore however... I'm not sure that this even constitutes a game; if singing, dancing and collecting plants sounds like a good game to you please feel free to put me straight. It is pretty interesting interacting with other players creations, but it never feels like a challenge to plough through this stage.
The tribal stage (pathetic rip off of any given age of empires game)- this is where Spore starts to become really putridly bad. You are now tasked with controlling a small tribe of your species and are tasked with becoming the dominant species in a small area. This can either be achieved by warring with neighbouring tribes using rudimentary weapons (spears, fire staffs or bows. The depth to be found here is truly astonishing) or by converting them with the power of music. That's right you heard me, you take control of neighbouring tribes by playing instruments to them. While this may be Bob Geldof's idea of a wet dream, I am not impressed; this is lame... really really lame. Whichever way you choose to play through this stage the game play is horrendously shallow, requiring no tactical thought whatsoever. All you have to do in order to win is to have more guys than your neighbour; that is it. The whole interface during this stage is horrible also, especially the map that you use to navigate which for some reason works at some obscure angle (it's like they subscribe to the Escher school of map design). During this stage you can equip your creatures with a small number of different types of clothing and jewellery but there is very little customisation possible here. I can't think of anything good to say about this stage, it is completely abysmal and frankly barely deserves the title of "game". The only saving grace is that it's forgivingly short.
The civilisation stage (can you guess what it is yet)- another disappointing attempt at emulating a better game, the civilisation stage sees your species in the battle for global domination. It is assumed at this point that you are the dominating species on the planet and find yourself fighting against cities run by other members of your kind. Throughout this stage you are afforded a pleasing amount of customisation with every building, vehicle and turret being entirely of your own design. You even get to design your own national anthem with a music generator designed by the legendary Brian Eno. Once again however the game play is entirely too simplistic. The aim of this stage is to gain control of resources and of any cities which are not under your control. There are three ways of converting neighbouring cities; you have the option of conquering with violence, democracy or religious indoctrination. None of the above methods are nearly as interesting as they sound, relying on relatively base levels of implementation. Conquering with violence requires you to make use of three types of unit; aerial, ground and water in order to obliterate your enemy. To be quite frank I was left feeling a bit miffed at only being allowed three types of unit as it leaves any combat you engage in feeling little more than shallow. The democratic approach is similarly un-fleshy, with the options boiling down to "we have a common enemy, lets kill him together" and "will you be my friend if I give you some money". In order to indoctrinate your fellow cities you are required to post giant holographic images of your nations religious figurehead into the sky in order to spew religious vitriol. Does this sound boring? If so, that's probably because it is. Once again there is no apparent challenge present and worse still, our old friend the Escher map returns to disorient you in ways only previous achieved by copious amounts of alcohol. Again thankfully this stage is relatively short lived allowing you to move onto the Space stage without too much trouble.
The Space stage (I'm willing to bet that this is a ripoff of some space sim, but as I've not played any myself I'm going to moderate the accusational tone)- the final stage in the Spore universe sees you travelling through space in a ship of your own design, vying for galactic domination via a mixture of democracy and violence. It's hard for me to make any sort of full and balanced judgement in regards to this stage, because if I'm honest, I got bored and stopped playing fairly quickly after getting started. I would say that it did seem to be more in-depth than previous stages with your species engaging in interstellar democracy, planetary terraforming and fighting off aggressive species of aliens. Unfortunately in achieving this depth, they ironically managed to the make the whole experience entirely tedious. For some obscure reason most of your navigation is done using the mouse wheel, which is incredibly annoying, especially when you're required to move between systems at a high frequency. Why you can't just click where you want to go, I will never understand. That simple interface change would have made the whole experience 100% less patience busting. The sheer amount of exploration possible is very impressive, as every system you enter has planets to be explored, many of which harbouring species in varying stages of development. I personally found this stage boring, but it may well be your sort of thing depending on how much patience you have and what kind of game you normally enjoy.

Overall Spore comes across as a pretty schizophrenic experience with each stage feeling interesting but pretty unsubstantiated. I personally found the games presentation to be quite rough around the edges as well, with some fairly flagrant graphical flaws and sub par graphics at best. It also feels like the game really could have benefited from some sort of multiplayer element. The amount of fun in any of the stages would be exponiated if you brought in the ability to play them against other humans; apart from anything else the AI is relatively lackluster and is a bit of a walkover at the best of times. In my opinion they made the mistake of hyping this game too early. By doing so it seems likely that they created an unhelpful rush to get the game out of the door, when to be quite frank, it wasn't finished. In order for this title to deliver on its promises it needed another year in development at least (Yes I have picked that timescale out of thin air and no I probably don't actually know what I'm talking about; thanks for your input fictional pedant). Having being developed by Brian Eno the soundtrack never fails to impress with each stage of development being perfectly supplemented by the score. The editor tools are also pretty darn good and are worthy of great praise from all who use them. One feature of note that has created a great deal of controversy is the SecuROM DRM software which prevents you from installing your copy of Spore more than five times, essentially turning your game into an over priced rental. This wouldn't be so much of a problem if it weren't for the fact that you can lose installs by installing new components on your computer. Worse still is the fact that you are forced to contact EA in America to request more installs if you run out. However I'm only interested in reviewing the game, not the DRM software that comes attached.

In conclusion Spore is an interesting experiment. It's certainly not the genre defining masterpiece that it set out to be and to be honest in a few places I'm not sure it even qualifies as a game. Will Wright should know better than to release an unfinished product at this point in his career and he deserves a much larger critical scathing than he has received. It's certainly worth a look if you're a creative type and you're not particularly bothered about depth of game play. If like me however you are a traditionalist and expect challenge and depth of game play you should probably look elsewhere. Scores: Graphics-3/5
Sound- 4/5
Game play- 2.8/5
Editor- 4.6/5
Overall 3.5/5 (Note: not an average)

If you have enjoyed this review please free to fuel my ego by saying so below or by subscribing to my blog. Equally if you feel that I suck please let me know, all criticism is welcome (Just keep my mum out of it).

A compensatory haiku

2009-05-06T15:33:00.000-07:00

As I haven't actually written my review of Spore yet I felt that I should instead compensate you with a poorly written haiku in the meantime. Enjoy

I aim to evolve
emerge from a shallow pool
little has changed

I sincerely hope that my terrible attempt at poetry hasn't left you permanently mentally scarred. Normal service should be returning tomorrow.

Just a quick update

2009-05-04T12:47:00.000-07:00

As promised, next time round I shall be reviewing a crap game. In many ways, it's been quite a difficult choice as i really haven't been playing many bad games recently (I have the guys at noobtoob to thank for this largely; if you don't know who they are check them in my links). There was however one game that immediately sprung to mind when I cracked out the mediocrity divining stick. There was one game last year that attracted such massive media hype and market intrigue that it would hard not to be aware of its somewhat benign existence. So, as you may have guessed in the next couple of days I will be reviewing Spore (or EA's sentient penis simulator as it's better known in some circles).

Come back soon for my full review of Will Wright's spore.

Dead Space review...

2009-05-03T12:47:00.000-07:00

Hello and welcome to my rather late review of Dead Space; possibly the most gut wrenchingly terrifying game ever created. In late 2006 industry mega-publisher EA games announced that due to growing internal concerns of franchise fatigue; the company would soon be releasing a host of new, original intellectual properties to refresh the companies somewhat tired image. Flash forward to October 2008 and to the release of Dead Space; one of the inspired results of said initiative.

Ok, enough of the history lesson and onto the actual game. As you may well have guessed from the title, Dead Space is a survival horror game set in space no less. In a slightly unoriginal plot formula; the main character 'Isaac Clarke' (Nb: Sci-Fi fans should be glad to note that the name is an homage to the great writers 'Isaac Asimov' and Arthur C Clarke) is part of a small crack team of engineers sent to explore planetary mining ship 'USG Ishimura' to discover the source of a mysterious distress signal. On arrival things immediately go wrong (Shockingly) as the team find their ship being pulled into the Ishimura by a distorted magnetic field leaving it damaged almost irreparably. Before I go on I'd like to point out that this, in my most humble of opinions, is the most visually splendid intro to any game that I have ever come across.
It's not long before you get separated from your team on the opposite side of a glass pane only to see one of your crew mates horribly eviscerated by a necromorph. The Necromorph are a race of parasitic aliens who attach themselves to human hosts, grossly mutating them into a number of different hideous forms (I don't want to talk about these too much as doing so would run the risk of a} ruining the plot and b} detracting from the pure gruesome horror of discovering them for yourself). If this is already sounding familiar to Ridley Scott's masterpiece of sci-fi 'Alien', there's a very good reason for that; it is Ridley Scott's film re-dressed in a slightly different context. However in my mind, this can only be considered a good thing; the writers go some very interesting places with the framework and apart from anything else, how many space horrors don't contain a race of symbiotic aliens? I don't want to delve into the story too much, as it is in all honesty, rather good and giving too much away would be a disservice to your game experience.

As I briefly eluded to earlier on, Dead Space is utterly beautiful. I guess the best place to start with any horror game is the lighting, especially in this case. Never have I seen such cleverly used in game lighting ; the deeply threatening mood created by the dimly lit corridors, or the absolute terror induced by the siren alarms (which act as a sort of strobe, briefly illuminating the enemy visually staggering their race towards you) is unrivalled in any game to date. Ironically however, the sound is where the game really shines.

This game is not for the faint hearted. The sounds in this game are without doubt the most horrifying thing I have ever heard (Even more terror inducing than the images stirred by the music accompanying two girls one cup). Every monster in this game has its own distinct, absolutely petrifying and piercing roar; each of which stirring far more than a simple jump, but actual physical terror. You will be brought down to absolute adrenaline releasing panic every time you hear one of these monstrous creatures approaching. Don't be fooled into thinking that this is as ghastly as it gets though. In this game you will die... in fact you will die lots of times and in many deliciously disgusting ways. The sound designers clearly wanted you to know this. Isaac's blood curdling screams of pain as his limbs are torn asunder are the stuff of nightmares (I mean this quite literally, I've had more nightmares about this than two girls one cup and goatse combined); the sounds of the sheer mutilation are also terrifically genuine sounding (They clearly had a lot of fun tearing up chunks of cow). Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of this game is the background noise. It's not uncommon to hear the scuttering and clanging of nearby necromorphs as you scour the Ishimura's decks. However one clever aspect of these background noises is that they don't necessarily mean that you are about to be attacked, it doesn't mean that you aren't either, but as you progress you'll grow to distrust silence just as much as the distant sounds of movement. To make matters worse, as isolation starts to take its tole on Isaac, the poor chap starts to hear things meaning you can never be sure exactly what's around the next corner. If you own a surround sound system of any kind, you're in for a tremendously terrifying treat.
One other astonishing technical aspect of this game is the aesthetic. It's absolutely gorgeous (as gorgeous as a ship filled with bloodied corridors and mutant aliens can ever hope to be anyway). Everything from the artistic design to mind bogglingly large number of polygons crammed onto the screen at any one time, is absolutely astounding. There are some minor jaggies apparent in the 360 version of the game, (I can't comment on the PC or PS3 versions) but they are barely noticeable and in consideration, it's hard to think of any 360 game where this isn't the case. The fact is that if you have any appreciation for the amount of work that has gone into this absolute spectacle of a game, you will be blown away.

Some of you may be wondering when I'm going to retract my head from the games arse and talk about the actual game play... well you're in luck. Like the majority of horror games to date, Dead Space is set entirely in the 3rd person (the philosophy of the genre seeming to be; if you can't see your limbs being torn off, then it might as well not be happening). There are some interesting twists in dead Space's presentation however, that do not exist anywhere else and are what in my mind, really set it apart from the pack. The focus here has been placed on complete immersion. This goal has been achieved in a number of different ways. Firstly there is no in game targeting reticule, all the aiming is done with the laser sights attached to all of the games weapons. Secondly, there is absolutely no pause menu. The only respite you're ever going to get is by killing all of the aliens (Yes this is cruel, but that's kind of the point of horror games). What you get instead of a game jarring pause menu, is a small holographic menu that you call up at any point during game play. Thirdly, and most importantly is the complete lack of an in game hud. Dead Space's developers clearly wanted to dispel the idea that you're playing a game and put you firmly in Isaac's shoes. Instead of your normal shield display in the corner of the screen you instead get a blue health bar along Isaac's spine that drains as you're ripped to shreds by the plethora of in game enemies. Also missing is the ammo gauge, with a holographic ammo counter above your gun replacing it. These subtle interface elements allow the game to completely consume you and for its wonderful cinematic quality to shine through. Every moment in this game in is brilliantly scripted, allowing every moment of the game to feel like a hollywood movie.
I can only compare the feeling presented by this game to the first time I played through half-life on the PC.
The gun play in Dead Space is also far different to any other game on the market. Shooting an enemy lots of times is no guarantee that they're going to expire; the only guaranteed result of such an action being an empty ammo clip. Instead the aim is to rid the alien scourge of their pesky limbs (Most of the enemies seem to emulate the black knight; often failing to be discouraged by a mere flesh wound) ; two or three limb losses disabling the majority of enemies. Often you find your priority shifting from simply executing a single enemy to slowing down a horde of enemies by removing their legs (or arms if they didn't have any legs to begin with) to buy yourself some precious time. All of the guns in Dead Space are heavily upgradeable, with Isaac using his engineering skills to insert power nodes into appropriate slots whenever he finds one of the many work benches scattered around the Ishimura. There are a number of satisfying weapons that you can get your hands on within the game; the first of which being the games trademark weapon, the plasma cutter. Other weapons include the pulse rifle (fairly standard rapid firing rifle), the force gun (the clues in the name), the line gun (a wide laser beam), the flamethrower (really?), the contact beam (a high energy laser beam) and my absolute favourite the ripper (fires a rotating circular saw blade that levitates in front of you). Each of the weapons has a secondary fire mode varying from a rotated line sight to wide area attacks. And when you do eventually run out of ammo, which is quite likely unless you're relatively proficient; you can always beat your enemies over the cranium with the blunt end of your gun.

Two other interesting game play elements are the kinesis and stasis modules. Using the kinesis module allows you to to lift, move and fire many objects within the game. This can mean anything from moving heavy boxes to creating makeshift projectiles to obliterate the enemy. The stasis module on the other hand brings any object or enemy within the game to a near stand still allowing you time to complete complex tasks or dismember your enemies at a leisurely pace.
Both of these modules are used for light puzzle solving within the game (Nb. you are invariably being mercilessly attacked during such sequences), which provide some nice contrast to the constant assaults from aggravated amputee aliens.

During your exploits around the Ishimura you will find yourself having to venture outside of the ships decks and onto its surface. As you may or may not be aware, there is no oxygen in space. this means that throughout many points in the game you're relying on your suits rather limited oxygen supply. You can upgrade your suit to have a larger supply, but most would advise against this; after all, upgrading your weapons would seem like the wise choice in such a hostile environment. One other interesting side affect of having no air is that there's no sound, or at least not beyond the dampened reverberations which travel through the ships hull. The game also contains a number of gravity free sections, meaning you're free to jump around from surface to surface at your own will (Of course the nasty aliens that are trying to remove your face are also gifted this liberty). This provides for some incredibly intense battles, where you really do have to be aware of what's coming from every direction.

So... did EA get it right. Given to the critical response to the game you would have automatically assumed that they had. However, sales figures for Dead Space have been poor at best. Herein lies the EA paradox. For years EA have gotten away with making lazy releases of sports or racing franchises with little more than a slight visual overhaul, some minor game play improvements and an updated rosta. The people go out in their droves to buy these poorly produced rehashes of the same old crap that they've been spoon feeding us forever. Now when they start to produce good original games (in my opinion the best game of last year in fact) they're rewarded with nothing more than a resounding meh from the consumers. This disturbs me almost as much as the gruesome corridors of the Ishimura itself. EA deserve reward and encouragement for producing such a brilliantly rich title. Instead they're rewarded with shit all in terms of sales and a complete lack of awareness from the consumer. Please, if you haven't already, go out and buy this game! Do it now!

And now for some arbitrary number allocations.

Sound: 5/5 (You will cry like an infant)
Story: 4.5/5 (Not exactly original, but pretty good all the same)
Graphics technical: 4.8/5 (not quite perfect)
Graphics artistic: 5/5 (Never has such a gruesome vision been realised so flawlessly)
Game play: 4.9/5 (I've deducted a point simply because I truly felt sorry for Isaac as his body parts were mercilessly removed)
Overall: 5/5 (truly astonishing title... it deserves your respect)

Dead Space is available on the xbox360, PC and PS3 with special content (armour and weapons) being available for purchase on xbox live for a small cost.

I hope you've enjoyed this review. If indeed you have, then please subscribe to my blog (or leave a comment below) where I promise I will be reviewing a crap game next time.

Peggle review!

2009-05-01T09:05:00.000-07:00

Don't play this game... please for your own sake don't do it. Sure it looks harmless enough with its cute characters and colourful backdrops, but don't be fooled. Peggle is the gaming equivalent of Crystal Meth.

For those of you who don't know what Peggle is it's the prodigal brainchild of Popcap games (Whose mission statement seems to be to destabilize society by crippling the population with casual game addiction), the cunning bastards who stole hundreds of your hours with games such as Bejewelled 2 and Heavy Weapon.

It's a game where you shoot ball bearings out of a cannon into pegs. Not sold yet? What if I told you there were four different colours of pegs to shoot at, each with different functions to fulfill? Maybe the moving bucket at the bottom of the board; the bucket that promises another free ball with which to clear the screen of those pesky pegs if you manage to get the ball to land inside that will sway you? It could be the wide array of colourful characters each with their own unique Peggle power or the deranged hamster that pops onto the screen intermittently proclaiming your Peggle brilliance with utterances such as 'Dude-ical' and 'Wicked Awesome'. In my case I simply can't resist the ever alluring promise of the that brilliant moment when you clear the last orange peg and Beethoven's 'Ode to Joy' belts out of the speakers; as the ball bearing bounces around in slow motion into one of the point buckets at the bottom of the screen releasing a shower of fireworks and partially blinding you with the flashing rainbow of joy as your score is calculated.
The aim of Peggle is to clear the screen of orange pegs whilst scoring as highly as possible. The problem is often you don't immediately have enough balls to clear the screen, so you need to earn free balls in order to complete your mission. There are two ways of doing this, you can either land the ball in the bucket at the bottom of the screen or you can aim to score 25,000 points, 75,000 or 125,000 with a single shot to earn one, two or three balls respectively. In order to help you achieve your point scoring goal there are two special varieties of peg which unlock your point scoring potential. The purple peg increases your point multiplier massively increasing your potential score. The green peg however is where the real bullion resides. It allows you the use of a special power unique to your chosen character; which can be anything from a a pair of pinball style flippers to the wonderful Zen ball that calculates the most morally sound path for your ball (i.e. it shoots the ball in the direction that will get you the most points) . The brilliance of Peggle largely lies in its ability to make a seemingly random sequence of events come across as partially controlled; allowing the game to become fiercely tactical whilst still achieving a level of lighthearted fun that isn't present in many modern games. Another aspect of its success lies in its complete simplicity; it's so tremendously easy to understand that even my parents became instantly hooked when I introduced them to it over Easter. There is really nothing wrong with this game, it is in fact perfect on a fundamental level. It sets out to be a simplistic, colourful and addictive point scoring romp and it achieves that in perpetuity.
Peggle's multiplayer element is also worthy of note with a fully functional online service and offline duel mode. The online content includes a one-on-one duel mode where players take their shots in turn to fire at the same board, battling for the highest score; and peggle party mode where up to four players play on seperate boards all fighting for scoring supremacy. In my experience the live lobbies have been easy to use and have worked pretty much flawlessly.

I love Peggle! It has consumed me in a way that no over glorified generic space marine shooter ever could hope to achieve. Furthermore, it has consumed anyone and everyone I have introduced to it. So in conclusion, Peggle is addictive like drugs and it spreads like an STI. Overall it's hard to give it anything other than 5/5 stars as its only negative attribute is that it's slowly destroying my ability to socialize.

If you think you're strong willed enough not to surrender everything you have to Peggle I strongly suggest you try it. It is available for download on both Steam and Xbox live where you can also try out a short demo. There are also variants of Peggle available for both the DS and the ipod but I will not be reviewing these.

Thanks for reading

(If you have enjoyed this review please subscribe to my blog or leave a comment below. I'm new to this whole blogging phenomenon so any constructive criticism or advice would be much appreciated)

Hello's

2009-05-01T06:25:00.000-07:00

Hello there and welcome to my brand spanking new, shiny fantastic games blog. I intend to be reviewing games for the xbox360, pc, DS games and most probably ipod apps as well (Sorry if your chosen format isn't listed but I am unfortunately a poor student who can't afford all these fancy gadgets). Hopefully I'll also be reviewing new hardware for all of the above formats whenever I can actually afford any.

Anyway; my first actual review of a games type thing should be up later today and will be followed by a few more in the near furure in order to make up for lost time.

I think that's all I currently have to say, so I think I'm going to stop typing. If anyone reading the blog wants to play against me online, my xbox live account is hamst3rf1sh and my steam account is latent_clause (unfortunately I don't have cod4 yet but i'm down for a game of peggle anytime!).

Game On!