The Life and Times of DarthHomer

Special Guest: Issac Clarke

2011-01-27T01:36:00.001-08:00

So Dead Space 2's out all around the world. From the hour or so I've played of it, it's quite a fun game, and if you've got the means to play it - Dead Space Extraction HD is also quite fun. But it's thanks to Dead Space 2 that I've gotta look at EA and question their crossing over ability, because it's something suspect.

For those who purchase a new copy of Dead Space 2 (either of the three versions), you'll get a code that allows you to download the "Ser Issac of Clarke" armour to use in the upcoming Dragon Age II. It's kinda similar to the same type of deal EA pulled with Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age: Origins, in which you recieved a code in new copies of the latter which allowed you to use the same armour in the former.

But the weird thing about all this, is why Issac Clarke? It's not that the character hasn't got the greatest design out there (the engineering suit has a neat look to it), but EA have this really odd habit of putting the Issac skin in a whole series of games that don't make a lick of sense. Don't believe me?

Here's Issac in Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10:

Here's Issac in the PSP version of Army of Two: The 40th Day:

Here's Issac in My Sims Agents:

Here's Issac in Skate 3 :

Here's Issac in Dante's Inferno :

I mean, I can understand EA's strategy here - they're putting Dead Space and Issac out there unlike a lot of their other brands and trying to get the name out. Compared to other EA games, Dead Space has two animated movies, three comic book series, a Wii (now PS3) prequel game, and XBLA and PSN prequel game to the sequel, and even an iOS game. Not even other, and possibly more popular, EA games have this type of additional items.

However, it seems just so random and pointless to do so - and worst of all, the Issac skin is completely out of place for most of those games I mentioned above. You'd have to be mad to justify the costume being in Dante's Inferno, it clashes with the design aesthetic in Dragon Age; but the most jarring is in Skate and Tiger Woods - more so in Tiger, which uses real-life locations and people. It just feels...weird.

For comparison's sake, Sony have it down pretty well on how they let Kratos be used in non-God of War games. Sure, he's made appearances in games like Everybody's Golf (subtitle?), Modnation Racers & Little Big Planet, but at the same time - you look at his use in PSP title Soul Calibur: Broken Destiny and the upcoming Mortal Kombat. Thanks to the God of War games being kinda-fighting games, he's a natural fit in playing, plus his backstory actually makes him fit in with the Soul Calibur storyline better than every guest character not named Link. As for Mortal Kombat, anyone who's played a God of War game can tell you that he's an absolute perfect pick.

I mean, I'm all for EA trying to get Dead Space out there...but putting him in every bloody game ever isn't going to work. What's next, an Issac Clarke driver/car for Shift 2 Unleashed?

2010 in Review

2010-12-30T10:44:00.000-08:00

When all's said and done, 2010 was probably a bit more of an interesting year than I'd have anticipated. When it started, I created a list of things I wanted to achieve before years end (such as get a girlfriend, get a full time job, leave the state - that kind of thing) and wanted to see if I can achieve at least one of those. I'm glad to say that I did.

Let's start with the thing that defined most of the year for me, which was getting a job. Between finishing up University in November and going through the graduation sometime afterwards, was the constant searching for a job. I spent pretty much half the year trying to get some work, had way too much free time than I really wanted.

Job searching would have to be the most painful and depressing experience I've had to go through in the last few months - constantly writing up cover letters and resumes, constantly getting rejection, constantly getting no explained reason as to why I didn't move to the next phase...it came to the point which I had to get some assistance from the local welfare groups, which was the most fucking depressing thing I'd ever have to do. There's nothing I hate more than not only being taught "HEY, THIS IS HOW YOU GET A JOB!", but also waiting in line to submit paperwork to be paid for effectively finding a job.

Things turned around in the middle of the year - I managed to get a spot in a somewhat local council which saw me volunteer as a trainee teacher, which if I had stuck around - would've seen me teach elderly or newer citiziens to learn how to use a computer. I had left because of a job interview attained by one of the people at the council, for a company that specializes in mail insertion and delivery, and it was a full time gig! And thankfully, I had gotten that job!

Getting used to it was probably the hardest thing. Initially, the job was quite a distance away from home, which resulted in a 5am wakeup, leaving home at 6am to make a 7am start, with a 3pm finish. Was a rough few months, in addition to learning how to actually do the job. Then there was leaving all the free time I had accquired, which meant that a few commitments I had prior had to be changed. Though this all got better when the job shifted much closer to home.

As for Level 3, it was a fantastic year. Getting recognized for my Twitter (that'd be DarthHomer), taking part in much live stuff at the various Monash Computer Games Boot Camp's across the year, learning how to create a livestream (and by extension, a live show), and taking part in the 200th episode of the show. Makes the bad stuff associated with it seem like nothing in the long run.

Only real disappointment in this regard was the stopping of the audio podcast. Sure, there are respectable and understandable reasons, but it sucks that something that I've put a tonne of time in has suddenly stopped. And sure, the livestream is awesome and all, but the personal investment is too great to me to not let it pass by easily.

I guess 2010 wasn't that bad of a year after all. Well, the second half was anyway - I can't recall much of the first half. Bring on 2011, I say.

Project CRPG #1 - An Introduction, of sorts...

2010-12-18T00:49:00.000-08:00

I have a terrible habit of buying a tonne of games that I never get around to beating. Mostly because of lost interest, but there are cases where I've been pissed off with a game, is virtually unbeatable (for whatever reason) and plenty more reasons I can't quite think of at the moment. Point is, I have a problem. For the most part, I've been doing my best to curb that habit this year - most of the games I've attained I've given a fair go and attempted to beat - with more success than actual failure. But rarely do I go back and attempt to finish a game in anticipation for a soon to be released sequel.

Yeah, this requires a bit of backstory.

For the longest time, I've been wanting to finish the original Dragon Age - even with the announcement (and subsequent release) of the Awakenings expansion and the sequel, it was always something that I had meant to do, but was swamped with other things that I had wanted to play. The same goes with the Witcher - a game that I had really dug, but lost interest in.

And almost with the same time frame, I heard Dragon Age being discussed from the perspective of someone who hadn't played the game before on local podcast "GameTaco", and the subsequent announcement of the Witcher 2 release date triggered something within me. The desire to go back into those worlds and see the ends of their stories.

It was perfect timing too - there weren't very many more console games that I had wanted to play through (except through mostly older stuff like the Sly Trilogy or Prince of Persia Trilogy), and I'd all but lost interest in Fallout: New Vegas (which was taking up all my PC time).

I also guess the other trigger was the story incentive. Both Dragon Age II and Witcher 2 take advantage of cleared saves to tell new events in the story, and I didn't want to go into either sequel completely fresh - I wanted my world and my story to continue. That, and Bioware had done a pretty great job of it in Mass Effect 2.

So the goal was set - I've got until March 2010 to finish the original Dragon Age, and May 2010 to finish off the Witcher. No matter what, I'm going to finish both games, because I know I can. Sure, it'll mean juggling my game review commitments, jobs and other fun stuff, but hey, why not? Plus, I want to write about these things for as long as I can keep it interesting (or find something interesting to talk about.

Thus begins "Project Beat CRPGS Before Sequels Come Out", or "Project CRPG", for short. The name comes from Donald, a co-worker on Level 3, whom had a personal project called "Project RPG", in which he attempted to beat as many RPGs this year as he could. At best, he got quite far into Final Fantasy XIII, which is more than what I can say about myself!

Either way, welcome to a wonderful journey. First stop, revisiting Dragon Age: Origins...

Review: DJ Hero 2 (PS3/360/Wii)

2010-11-09T22:55:00.000-08:00

DJ Hero was one of the most ambitious titles of last year, and really didn’t get all the recognition that it really deserved. Admittedly, it was a bit of a bold gamble (especially going as crazy as pricing a special edition at $300 AUD, shortly reduced to $100), but for those who took the risk, it paid off with one of the freshest and most exhilarating rhythm games seen in some time. Regardless, a sequel was expected, and DJ Hero 2 doesn’t fail to impress – providing one of the best rhythm game experiences of 2010.

For the most part, DJ Hero 2 is a refinement of last years game – it improves on just about every aspect of the gameplay, without adding too much new. For starters – freestyling now plays a bigger role in the game. Previously, the only real element of personalization that you had in a mix were via sample zones – which were tied to generic sets you needed to unlock (which everyone just used the Public Enemy samples, regardless). Not only now are the samples tied to the different songs in a mix, but there are zones now where you can freely swap between the two songs in a mix, as well as zones where you can freely scratch. And you’re now scored for all this – adding in not only a deeper layer of personalization to a mix, but also giving you an incentive to experiment to try make a mix sound fantastic.

Replacing last years rather haphazard single player mode is Empire Mode. There’s supposed to be a story about how you’re travelling around the world, building up your brand, but it’s something that only appears in the loading screens upon starting the domination of a club. Effectively, Empire Mode is more or less a much more organized career mode than last years – the flow of each club starts off with you playing as one of the many guest DJ’s (such as the RZA, Deadmau5, David Guetta etc.) in a megamix (three/four mixes combined together), a few setlists, a battle against a rival DJ, a battle against a guest DJ, and an unlockable bonus mix to play. It’s not revolutionary, but it does what it’s expected of.

However, the most significant addition to the game is a bigger emphasis on multiplayer – which was an element that was underrepresented in a big way in the original game. In one of the best moves developer Freestyle Games could’ve made, DJ Hero 2’s multiplayer component is heavily inspired from sister studio Neversoft’s underrated Guitar Hero 5. The Party Play modes (the drop in/drop out co-op) are present, as well as a host of different competitive multiplayer modes – the most prominent of these is a checkpoint battle, wherein you battle to see who can do the well across a mix. Unfortunately, I hadn’t had much of the chance to check any of these modes out – lacking an additional DJ Hero turntable to do so.

In addition, one of the weakest elements of last years game – the DJ vs Guitar mixes, have been completely nixed, replaced by a singing mechanic. Unlike with the DJ/Guitar work, you can play co-operatively on a larger portion of the mixes – which immediately is a plus. That being said though, the mechanic is something that provides an interesting experience. Unlike other games with a singing mechanic, DJ Hero 2 requires you to know how to sing two songs at the one time, as well as making you forget how you’re supposed to sing the songs, thanks to the mixes changing up the order in how lyrics progress. It functions well enough, but it certainly won’t be a replacement for other games.

Visually, DJ Hero 2 is underwhelming. Not that it looks bad – but it lacks the distinctive style and look of the first game that defined what DJ Hero was about. Ditching it for a more realistic look doesn’t quite work here. The environments do look great, as do all the animation work. The models for the guest DJ’s range from good (The RZA, Deadmau5) to kinda off (Tiesto, David Guetta). Otherwise, looks fine.

It’s a completely different story for the sound. As mentioned above, the guitar based stuff has been completely nixed, and there’s practically no repetition in terms of the mixes (so no more of that godawful Billy Squier song that was mixed with at least 5 or 6 songs). As such – there’s much more of a focus to the soundtrack on music that can be mixed together well, providing one of the best soundtracks of 2010. In particular – some of the house/electronica mixes towards the end of the setlist are quite fantastic, such as New Orders “Blue Monday” vs Calvin Harris’s “I’m Not Alone”, or even Janet Jackson’s “Nasty” vs Justice’s “D.A.N.C.E”. With that being said, there are quite a few dud mixes – it becomes apparent that no matter how much you scratch, mix or fade between; you’re never going to make Soulja Boy, Lil’ Wayne, Lil’ John and Chamillionare sound good.

As far as sequels go – DJ Hero 2 trumps the original. While it doesn't add anything particularly revolutionary or game changing, it's a fantastic refinement on one of the better games of last year. It's worth it alone for the fantastic soundtrack. Just as long as you ignore the singing portions of the game, you're going to have a hell of a time.

The Bomb Just Went Off

2010-09-09T19:32:00.000-07:00

I'm not a particularly huge fan of Giant Bomb. Sure, I do enjoy their video content and their podcast, the Giant Bombcast, is very entertaining- but that's just about it. Their opinions rub me the wrong way, their fanbase is far too obnoxious and praising...but I do quite like the other Whiskey Media sites. What's this got to do with anything, you may enquire?

Whiskey Media is starting up a subscription program across all its sites - with two models. For $4.95 US, you get a monthly subscription, access to HD Video Content, an exclusive HTML 5 mobile site and access to a live show on Fridays and premium profile content. For $50 US a year, you get all the above, plus no ads, $10 in savings (their words) and a custom T-shirt.

I'm not going to get into why Whiskey Media should be charging for this - there have been plenty of examples of websites charging for "premium" content and have had plenty for the people who don't want to pay and still have a great experience (IGN, for example). However though, this does affect one of the core WM elements that is honestly quite disturbing.

On the Giant Bomb side (via NeoGAF), their Bombcast will actually affected adversely. If you're a paying member of WM, you get access to the full Bombcast (usually which lasts around two hours). If you're not a paying subscriber, then what'll happen is that you'll get the first half of the episode, and then a week later, get the second half for free.

Put simply, that is a fucking horrible business decision.

Let's consider this from a number of angles. With gaming podcasts, timing is everything. News is very easily datable. There's always something new to cover and you can't really fall behind. By splitting the show in two and giving a week delay for the people who don't want to pay, they miss out on timely content. Admittedly, there are reports that they'll try limit the time-sensitive material, but at the same time, that'll still affect the podcast.

But what really gets to me is the sense that the only way to get a full show is to be a paying member. This isn't one of those sense of entitlement types of deals here - but a matter of telling their audience (which although I don't have numbers, is surely bloody high) that the ONLY way to enjoy a full show is to pay for it.

There are plenty of podcasts out there that ask for donations. Not aggressively, but at least have the option that if you like the show, you can give as much as you want - I've never come across a single podcast that's ever asked that if you want a complete show, you need to be a subscriber. Sure, there are things like the Ricky Gervais podcasts, but he barely does them, and the less said about him the better.

As well as that, paying doesn't exactly give you that much of a bonus if you just want to listen to the Bombcast. For everything else, you at least get higher quality video or no ads, which is something. Here, it's not like you get a super special high quality audio file or even bonus outtakes.

Though at least there's something good to come out of this. Whiskey Media's offering (via Twitter) to make the Bombcast free to everyone, should they get 5,000 paid members by September 10th, 10am PST. We'll know soon enough if it works.

Otherwise, it's a fucking terrible decision, and I hope to hell they recant on this.

Level 3 - Episode 185

2010-08-05T06:36:00.001-07:00

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Level 3 is back on the blocky with a new episode, Donald Reviews Silent Hill: Shattered memories, Jason gets in to some Deathspank and reviews it! Timmay finishes the reviews with Singularity. Hosted by Jason and Kirsty.

Level 3 - Episode 184

2010-07-22T08:01:00.001-07:00

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The definition of normal is a strange thing when it comes to Level 3, but here we are back with a traditional episode, Jamies reviews the latest Prince of Persia, Brad reviews Lost Planet 2 and Jason reviews Crackdown 2. Hosted by Jason, Mick and Brad.

Level 3 - Episode 183

2010-07-15T14:41:00.001-07:00

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This is the second of two episodes filmed live from the Monash Uni Computer Games Boot Camp, As we bring you a very special edition of Level 3 called Top Game a flattering parody of Top Gear. In this comical extravaganza Jason , Jamie and Kirsty get into a battle over which current generation console is the best.

Level 3 - Episode 182

2010-07-15T07:17:00.001-07:00

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This is the first of two special eps put together from live footage of our coverage of the Monash Uni Computer Games Boot Camp, this is an episode of interviews with some of the various speakers that attended the event. Hosted by Jason and Kirsty.

Level 3 - Episode 181

2010-07-02T08:49:00.001-07:00

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Another fist full of Game Previews this week with a dash of Weird and Retro as we set up for boot camp. Be sure to check out our website from time to time as we will be live streaming from the Monash Games boot camp all week.

Level 3 - Episode 179

2010-06-24T13:03:00.001-07:00

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Jason keeps his Thumbs out for Mick in this ice cold episode of Level 3, Reviews this week are Jason - Earthworm Jim HD, Jamie - UFC and Jason - Split/Second

Level 3 - Episode 180

2010-06-24T03:45:00.001-07:00

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Did you miss the E3 conference? well guess what so did we? But what we do have is a world cup full of trailers from E3 with a bit of net new in between just to mix it up a bit. Some of the bigger trailers include GT5 , NFS: Hot Pursuit, Fall Out 3 New Vegas and Crackdown 2 just to name a few. Hosted by Mick, Aleks, Jason, Mark and Kane on the baseball horn? Also see our competition page for VIP access to our Monash Uni boot camp night on the 3rd of July.

Quite Possibly the Stupidest Announcement at E3 2010

2010-06-17T02:56:00.000-07:00

So E3 2010 is going on at the moment in the US, and it's an been quite an interesting show. As most people would suspect, a lot of the show has been focused around Motion Control and 3D Gaming - both of which have lead to some of the best and worst moments of the show all round. Yet funnily enough, those weren't the worst announcements to come out of the show.

Lately, Konami have been really weird - announcing just the most random licenses to pick up and make games out of. This is the same company who tried to make a game based on the 2003 events in Fallujiah, and successfully made a game based around Saw, and are currently in the process of making not only a sequel to that, but also a Lucha Libre wrestling game (that's actually looking pretty cool to be honest). Yet that's pretty tame compared to the news that the latest announcement of a Glee themed Karaoke Revolution title.

Yes, Konami will be releasing a Glee themed Karaoke Revolution title.

I don't know where to begin with this.

I mean, I can understand the reasoning (THE SHOW IS SHIT HOT, AND IT MAKES MONEY) behind making the game and licensing the show, but it's the core concept that just baffles me. If you're not at all familiar with either - here's a quick summary. Karaoke Revolution is, surprisingly, a Karaoke title where you sing a whole bunch of cover versions of iconic songs. Glee is a sugary sweet TV show where actors sing a whole bunch of cover versions of iconic songs.

So...effectively, I'm singing covers of a cover.

Umm...what?

This is also the same year that saw Ubisoft present a Laser Tag game where the game is just a way of keeping stats, a game that is played by measuring your breathing via a not-Vitality Sensor and a Driver reboot that sees the main character of Tanner controlling other characters and shifting between them like a ghost, due to him being in a coma.

Good god, I just won't understand people. Still, least it makes sense for Karaoke Revolution to go for cover versions of songs, but this kind? Yeah....no.

Level 3 - Episode 178

2010-06-10T00:23:00.001-07:00

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Did anyone say air date change? We sure didn't :/ But alas it's here and Level 3 is back to is nominal time slot on Thursday' s 10:30pm on Melbourne's C31. This week Jason review's Alpha Protocol, Jamie Reviews Picross 3D, Jason reviews a swag of iPhone Games and Apps and finally Jason reviews Blur.

Level 3 - Episode 177

2010-06-03T15:07:00.001-07:00

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In the fully digital episode of Level 3 Jaime Reviews 3D Dot Game, Timmay reviews Dawn Of War 2 expansion Chaos Rising , Kane and Aleks Review the good ol` Turbo Grafx and finally Jason reviews Matt Hazard on XBLA

Level 3 - Episode 176

2010-05-28T02:52:00.001-07:00

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The Level 3 cRew has ridden in to town and the show is loaded and firing off with Jason's marathon review of Red Dead Redemption, Aleks and Mark discuss the RDR Community playdate (Big thanks to everyone who participated), Jason does a quick review of Afterburner Climax from XBLA, and finally Mick kicks Kane home with FIFA World Cup 2010.

Happy 30th Birthday Pac-Man!

2010-05-22T04:24:00.001-07:00

The late 70's to early 80's was arguable one of, if not the, most iconic periods in arcade gaming, especially if you were in the Japanese development scene - wherein some of the most iconic games ever created were, well, created in this period. We're talking games that are still as iconic today as they were then, such as Taito's Space Invaders, Nintendo's Donkey Kong and celebrating its 30th birthday today, Namco's Puck-Man, or as it's better known, Pac-Man.

You may think that Namco would have something special planned for it right? Y'know, since it's practically synomous with the company and they adore putting out Pac-Man anything, since it's still bloody popular. Nope. Nothing. Not even a port to yet another platform - because it's one of the few games that's available on just about anything...

Instead, a couple of Google engineers decided to do something even more awesome - create a port that'll run in the Google logo on the main Google page. Pretty bloody awesome, especially when you realize that you can actually play with two players, the second controlling Ms. Pac-Man. Good going Google, taking advantage of a massive missed opportunity that Namco could've totally taken advantage of. You've got less than 48hrs to play it before it's taken down, but still, it's rad.

So...yeah. Don't know what else I can say. Because let's face it - it's FREAKING PAC-MAN. It's one of those games that everyone knows about, anyone can play, and it's still completely awesome. I really don't know what else I can say about it that hasn't already been covered to death. If you just stick with the main stuff, and avoid most of the spin-offs, you'll be groovy.

Though if I were to recommend one Pac title for this special occasion, get the Xbox Live title Pac-Man Championship Edition, which is a fantastic remake of the original game. The iPhone version also works, but it's best played with a controller. Should you not have access at all to play the game, Ms. Pac-Man or even the original Pac-Man is also pretty awesome.

Happy 30th Birthday Pac-Man!

Level 3 - Episode 175

2010-05-20T13:55:00.001-07:00

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Another Big Episode here and what not, with Jamie Reviewing Skate 3, Jason reviews Super Street FIghter 4, Aleks and Kane Weird and Retrofy the SEGA Game Gear and Finally Donald Reviews the Massive Title Alan Wake. Hosted by Jason and Mick . Why are you watching this you should be playing Red Dead Redemption tonight the 21st of May with us at 8pm AEST on the XBL community playdate.

Level 3 - Episode 174

2010-05-14T05:39:00.001-07:00

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Donald is back with a dual review of two indie games vvvvvv and AAAAaaaaAaAAAaaaaaAAAaaaA! <- Yes they are the names of the games, We show a developers doco on Lost Planet 2, Jamie reviews Fruit Ninja on the iPhone and finally Jason Extra Life Reviews Bully. Hosted By Jason, Megs and Aleks. Don't forget our XBL community playdate on the 21st of May for the massive release of Red Dead Redemption

Super Street Fighter IV (PS3/360)

2010-05-05T23:23:00.001-07:00

A mate of mine once told me that no Street Fighter game is perfect the first time around, and that the re-releases were a good thing, because it helped develop the series into some of the best fighting games ever made. And he’d be right – it took Capcom five re-releases to get the quintessential Street Fighter II in Super Street Fighter II Turbo, and only two for the still mind blowing Street Fighter III – 3^rd Strike. The difference with those games compared to Street Fighter IV? The advent (or misuse) of Downloadable Content, wherein you don’t need a new disc to sell to get the latest version. But god bless Capcom for trying, because just over a year from the original console SFIV release, we have the latest version – Super Street Fighter IV, and it’s as good as you’d expect.

In terms of new stuff, there’s quite a significant chunk of new content here. Let’s begin with the 10 new characters, whose addition bumps up the total playable characters in the game to 35, only the second highest count of characters in a Street Fighter game; Street Fighter Alpha 3 takes the cake, with a total 38 playable characters in its most recent version. The eight returning characters all bring a welcome breath of fresh air to the game, and actually fit in rather well with the Street Fighter IV aesthetics and gameplay styles.

In particular, the Street Fighter III additions (Ibuki, Makoto and Dudley) are the most welcome here, and fit in fantastically – and are really quite fun to play as. Though it is rather curious as to why the remaining (and least popular) of the Super Street Fighter II ‘New Challengers’ T.Hawk and Dee-Jay were added. It’s not because they’re not interesting characters to play as, but out of all the characters you could possibly pick from…T.Hawk and Dee-Jay? Really?

In any case though, the two completely new characters – Juri and Hakan, bring a lot of great charm and interesting gameplay styles to the game. In particular, Hakan is very to play as. His Turkish Oil Wrestling skills make for a weird and flat out awesome show, and bring a bit more of an interesting wrestling approach to players than something standard like Zangief. While Juri isn’t as unique to play as, she’s a great character in her own right, and quite fun to mess around with. As a character, her ‘evil and loving it’ shtick is really quite welcoming and refreshing to see.

New character Juri is a blast to play.

The other big focus to Super Street Fighter IV is in its online mode. Previously – there were only two options for online players, to play a ranked battle or to not play a ranked battle. Here, the non-ranked battle option has been removed, and has been replaced with two new options – Endless Battle and Team Battle. Endless Battle is effectively a ‘quarter-match’ mode, wherein winners of matches stay on, and take on all comers in an effort to stay on as long as possible. Once that player loses, they move to the back of the line as new challengers take on the new winner.

As for Team Battle, it’s really quite self-explanatory. Players form teams of up to four a side and battle it out. In both this and Endless Battle mode, you’ll get to watch the other players fight it out, so it allows you to get a chance to see how other people play their characters and give you time to develop effective strategies to defeat them. A newly added Replay mode also allows you to watch and upload replays to help further determine strategies. All of the additions are great, and really do add a lot to building up SFIV as this online gaming juggernaut, stopping short of creating a form of social network within the game that could make for some very interesting stuff. Couple that with a soon to be released Tournament Mode, it’s great to see Capcom really taking the online modes seriously.

The other changes/additions aren’t as significant, but are still pretty rad. All 35 characters now have two ultra-moves instead of one (with the exception of Gen who has four!); there are new prologues and epilogues for each character in arcade mode (yet are all uniformly terrible); the car destruction and barrel busting mini-games from Street Fighter II have returned and are kinda fun to check out; and as to be expected – there’s a whole bunch of rebalancing, removing the game of its quite infamous “Ken Fighter IV” stigma.

Play through this as Cody or Guy. I assure you, the result is worth it.

It’s actually quite hard to find any actual negative or weak elements in the game, since everything here is still fantastic or has been improved substantially; the only complaints are more nit-picky than anything else. For instance, one can look at some of the feature set of the upcoming home release of Blazblue: Continuum Shift, and see some of the great things that Arc System Works have added that would’ve been perfect here in Super Street Fighter IV; such as a tutorial mode that teaches players game concepts as well as moves, a proper storyline that’s actually half decent and not completely throwaway, and an Fight Request- esque feature (i.e. the functionality wherein you can be challenged at any point by an online player in SFIV Arcade mode) that works in all game modes. While SSFIV is still a great game, one has a feeling that there’s still more that Capcom could have added, and pray won’t be adding in a new iteration of the fighter.

Visually, it’s practically the same as vanilla Street Fighter IV. This isn’t a bad thing, because the game still looks stunning, even two years on from its original release. All the new backgrounds and character animations look fantastic and gel well within the existing backgrounds and character animations.

Cody’s ready to beat the crap out of someone.

The same goes with the aural element. Well…almost. All of the new music in the game has a much more techno/trance feel to it, and while there are some great tracks (all of the remixed tunes and some of the new music is fantastic), the rest of isn’t as great. It has a very weird 90’s style thing going to it, which doesn’t really suit the game. All the new voice acting is quite decent, though if you have an aversion to English voices where you have the option to swap, the ability to swap voice tracks individually for each character returns, and it’s just as awesome as it was in vanilla SF4.

As to be expected, Super Street Fighter IV is another solid revision of what was one of the best fighting games to date. It’s still quite accessible & familiar, and has that little smidgen of depth that all great fighters have. All the new additions and rebalancing is very welcome and appreciated, though one most wonder whether or not Capcom could have gone a little deeper and added some more defining feature sets. Be that as it may, Super Street Fighter is very heartily recommended.

The Question of Accessibility in Fighting Games

2010-05-04T16:36:00.001-07:00

Compared to a lot of other popular genres of video games, fighting games are very unique in that they aren’t very welcoming to newcomers. Sure, once you get into the genre, you’ll find that you can bring your skills to a lot of different games and feel at home almost as soon as you starting learning a new game. But it’s the question of getting into it that proves most fascinating.

Two games that actually got me thinking a little bit of accessibility in fighting games are Tecmo’s 2005’s Dead or Alive 4, and Capcom’s 2010’s Super Street Fighter IV. At a base level, these two games couldn’t be any more different from one another, but they share the same problem – they are both quite difficult for newcomers to get into and enjoy.

Let’s begin with Dead or Alive 4. While the series is well known for having moments of ridiculous difficulty, the fourth instalment kicks it up several notches. It does help that there is a mode that allows the game to ‘drill’ the player throughout a characters moveset, the key problem here is that it falls prey to a design methodology that developer Team Ninja are well known for – making the game difficult, but if you learn how to play the game and learn the intricacies of the system, you’ll be fine.

Expect to see this happening. A LOT.

I say this because if you’re going into the game blind, you are going to be destroyed by the A.I. There’s no ‘easy’ mode, and you’ll need to know how to use the games counter mechanism, because the A.I knows how to use it, and will counter like crazy. Granted, the mechanic is pretty simple to understand, but the game doesn’t tell you at all about it – you have to go in to the ‘Sparring’ mode (which contains the aforementioned move drills); but even then – there is still a lot of the game’s basic concepts that isn’t exactly clear upon playing the game.

It’s sort of the same thing in Super Street Fighter IV. Admittedly, the game is a little more accessible thanks to multiple difficulty levels and a much slower pace of game and less moves to worry about; but even still, it’s not as friendly and open as it should be.

Should’ve done a focus attack there Bison. Don’t know what that is? Go read the manual.

Again, it has a mode that drills you into playing each character – and goes a step further by even teaching the player some very useful combos. But that’s just it – for all the additional teaching that the game does, it doesn’t go that additional step further and allow for new players to learn key gameplay concepts.

While I chose Dead or Alive 4 and Super Street Fighter IV for these examples, you could apply them to a number of other fighting games – even recently, games like BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger or Tekken 6 have nothing in the way of teaching players about gameplay concepts. While you could pass this off as saying that because they’re such long running series, they don’t need to accommodate for new players, I don’t buy that argument. I really don’t.

Example here being Sega’s 2004 fighter Virtua Fighter 4: Evolution. The Virtua Fighter games are known to be one of the most deep and one of the more hardcore fighting series out there, and if anything, the one that would most benefit from a tutorial. And you know what? It has that. And it goes a little further than saying “here’s how to block, here’s how to attack”, explaining how to best play in certain scenarios, as well giving players the ability to be drilled through character movesets. In fact, it was such a great feature, that it’s omission in Virtua Fighter 5 was a huge disappointment!

Admittedly, this isn’t the training mode, but if you were in training – you’d know how to not get your arse kicked by Akira.

Though it does seem like other fighting games are slowly realizing that accessibility is a good thing – the sequel to the aforementioned Blazblue; Continuum Shift, is receiving a tutorial mode. And of course, there are always things like YouTube or FAQ’s if you want to learn and see the base concepts of a fighting game, but it’s that little in-game help that helps just the same.

The Complexity Argument (Or Why Street Fighter III Shouldn't Be Ignored)

2010-04-26T07:00:00.000-07:00

With the impending release of Super Street Fighter IV, there's a number of different sort of memes popping back up all over the place, specifically in various commentaries about the Street Fighter series. The most common thing I'm seeing is derision of Street Fighter III, and how it's "too complex" of a game compared to the much more simpler Street Fighter IV, or even Street Fighter II.

As someone who took the time to understand and learn how to play Street Fighter III, I find the increasing number of complaints to be somewhat annoying, and almost ignorant to a point. Admittedly, my stance is a little biased - since I adore Street Fighter III, but at the same time, it's almost ludicrous that the game gets as much undeserved crap as it gets - since it does many things that Capcom haven't done as well since or before the release of 3rd Strike.

Specifically, let's begin with the "too complex" part that most people seem to complain most about. In particular, people cite difficulty with the parry system - wherein to parry attacks, you need to move forward just as the attack connects, negating the attack and leaving your enemy wide open. By doing this, it effectively negates projectiles (which isn't an issue, since MOST of the characters in 3rd Strike aren't projectile users), and allows you to counter pretty much every other attack, including Super Arts (which will get to in a later paragraph).

The most common misconception about this argument is that in order to basically play the game - you NEED to know how to parry. This can't be any further from the truth. In reality, it does help if you want to take the game seriously, but you don't need to know how to parry in order to play the game. I can't do it properly, and yet, it doesn't affect my enjoyment of the game. I know quite a few people who can't do it properly, and yet, they still enjoy the game. And if you want further proof that parrying doesn't ruin games - I CHALLENGE you to find someone complaining about the Just Defence system from SNK fighting games or Guard Impacting from Soul Calibur, and how it's "too complex" and ruins the game for them.

Another argument I've heard in favour of the game being "too complex, therefore it sucks" is the Super Art system. Basically, each character has three super moves, known as Super Arts. Once you pick a character, you pick one Super Art to use as your sole super move until you choose another character.

I'm more baffled that people have found reason to even complained about this. The ability to choose Super Arts allows for different styles of gameplay, and locks you to learning only one combination - should you JUST focus on doing just that. What's so hard about locking down one super move?

I'm guessing that a lot of people deriding Street Fighter III are people who grew up and played the ever loving crap out of the various different versions of Street Fighter II. In fact, if you were to read a lot of articles and even listen to podcasts from outlets like 1UP, Gamespot, IGN etc, you'll hear a lot of praising of Street Fighter II and how the participants spent a lot of time playing the game, but stopped at III, citing that it was too complex and focused at a more hardcore audience.

Well no shit it's different. It IS a sequel after all. Were you expecting a title known as "Street Fighter III" to be as iterative as a lot of the different versions of Street Fighter II? Of course it's different. It's a sequel, a completely new entry in a long running series - you'd better damn well expect it to be different from it's predecessors. If it had been exactly the same, these would be the same people damning it.

The point of this? Go play Street Fighter III. It's one of the best fighting games ever made, and Capcom's crowning achievement as a company.

Oh Japan

2010-04-18T18:35:00.000-07:00

There are many reasons why I love Japan, but this has got to be the most recent one. Why do I love Japan now?

Because they're the only place on earth where they'll have a TV show wherein the hosts are paid to get excited for precisely 10 seconds of gameplay footage.

Not My Game Room

2010-04-05T18:51:00.000-07:00

So with the end of March, we saw the conclusion of Microsoft's "Block Party" promotion, as they released the not-quite arcade 'game' Game Room - effectively a launcher for a retro game service that was just launched. It's not at all like Sony's Playstation Home, as screenshots would suggest, but it's certainly more interactive and has a tonne of potential on its hands. And it's locally developed too (done by Krome Studios), so that's always nice.

And yet, I just can't get into it.

I mean, it's nothing wrong with the service itself. The emulation on the games is surprisingly good (except for the Intellivision stuff - which can't really played properly), the addition of a rewind feature is welcome, a semi-achievement system (in the form of medals) is well implemented and fun, the ability to go to other peoples arcades is a good idea - all in all, good stuff.

Well, at least some people are enjoying Asteroids.

Sure, there is the fact that it's buggy as all hell, but that's not a shock. Stuff like not being able to purchase games initially, or even connect to the Game Room servers is annoying, but that can always be fixed over time; and if this generation has proven anything - it's not exactly a rare sight to see a patch for something be released onto a console. So you may be wondering what my problem is then?

Well, it's the game selection itself. Rather - it's what Microsoft thinks are suitable 'nostalgic' games to go onto this service.

Initially, the games that were released comprised of stuff from the Atari 2600, Mattel Intellivision and several choice Konami & Atari arcade games. In terms of names, there was stuff like Centipede, Asteroids, Jungler, Yar's Revenge, Adventure, Combat and more. All in all, respectable stuff, yet there's just one problem.

All those games? Not nostalgic to me in the slightest.

Let me put this into perspective. I was born in 1988 - my nostalgia in terms of arcades includes things like Street Fighter II, The Simpsons, Dungeons & Dragons: Shadow over Mystara, Daytona USA, Mortal Kombat - all these great games that were made during the last great years of the arcade. And yet, there doesn't seem to be any plans to release anything much more recent and actually playable onto the service.

And then there's the decision to kill the buzz on the product by not releasing anything until the end of April. Sure, it may be one way to get to the target of "1000 games in three years" that Microsoft are setting onto themselves, but a month? Really? Let's just hope that it isn't a regular thing and that the games

You can theme your rooms - having Atari games in your Intellivision room and Intellivision games in your Atari room...

It bums me out because I WANT to support this. I think it's a great idea, and the framework surrounding it is awesome, but I can't justify spending money on stuff that is unplayable by today's standards, and isn't relevant to me. And I'm sure that I'm not the only one that thinks this way.

Of course, it's still early days for the service - so who knows? If it's just focusing on Microsoft's definition of nostalgia though, then I'll be getting rid of the app and going back to MAME. At least there I don't have to worry about not being able to access the service because of a bad internet connection.

How To Fail Miserably At Getting Your Point Across

2010-03-18T15:07:00.000-07:00

So the South Australian election happened, and wonder of wonders, the Attorney General Michael Atkinson stepped down. All good to hear, yet this doesn't seem to make much progress in the whole getting an R18+ rating issue that Atkinson made himself a staunch opponent of. So until some progress happens, I guess there are people who still need to protest...

Look, I support the R18+ rating and what not. It may take ages before it actually happens, but I do believe that it should happen. I'm not alone in this belief, and it's great to see people actually protesting it in various cities around the country. That being said though, there's a fine line between protesting and challenging what the government has ruled, and just being incredibly fucking stupid and not only completing missing the point of protesting, but also doing harm to the cause as well.

Case in point: The Epic Zombie Marchmarch

Now, this isn't a new thing - flashmobs of Zombies walking the streets in Sydney are kinda common (YouTube's proved that). Usually, it's just for shits and giggles - people doing it to freak out other people. No real moral cause or belief funding it, it's just for the lulz. I can get behind that, but when you're dealing in a political matter, I can't get behind it. Not at all.

The group behind this, Aus Gamers United, mention this little bit on their Facebook group about who they are and why they're for the R18+ rating :

Right now, there is no R18+ rating for digital media in Australia, whatsoever. And anything that would otherwise qualify for such a rating is refused classification and denied release in this fine country of ours.

That isn't exactly true. There have been plenty of games that should be considered R-rated but have passed through as MA15+. But that's more semnatic than anything else.

This is a gross violation of civil liberties as adults, that we are refused a Mature rating for what is Mature content.

Now this sentence I have a problem with. And it's one word that falls against it. Take a wild guess what it is.

Thats right - adults.

They're perfectly right though. As an adult, I should be allowed to peruse what I want and not have it censored of refused classification thanks to rulings from the government that are archaic and are being held back due to a politician that himself isn't an idol of moral perfection. That's perfectly true. Yet as adults - the same people whom want this to happen, you believe that the only way of getting your point across is to dress up as zombies?

I'm sorry. But as an adult, I don't see how dressing up as a zombie gets the point across that our civil liberties are being violated.

Nevermind the fact that the whole zombie trend has long stopped being popular and now becoming increasingly annoying whenever it gets shown in media, but do these people not worry about people taking you seriously? They don't mind that people are going to see these gamers as freaks and potentially hold onto the view that all gamers care about are violence and just want an R18+ rating for more violence?

"But Jamie!" I hear you ask, "these people don't want to be boring and serious like the politicians they fervently despise - they want to protest their beliefs in a fun, colourful manner!" And that's perfectly fine, if there wasn't a political agenda behind this. I'm all for people trolling other people in real life, but when you're doing this to achieve a point, a serious one at that matter, I can't just believe that someone thought that this is actually a good idea.

Do you remember that similar rally that happened last year? Y'know, the one where retailer GameTraders were supporting people protesting by cosplaying? Oh, wait - that's right. It didn't happen! GameTraders had enough sense to realize that the point wouldn't be taken seriously when people would be dressing up as various video game characters. And it's amazing why the 1,000+ people taking part in this event don't realize it.

Honestly, if you're taking part in this rally - I'm not going to stop you. But consider this. You're potentially doing more damage to the issue and embarassment to the people who want to support this issue in a normal manner.

Heavy Rain (PS3) Review

2010-03-01T15:33:00.001-08:00

NOTE: Heavy Rain is a very interesting game, if only because a lot of the game can be very easily spoiled. That being said though, this review only contains information that has been made publically known and should not ruin the experience for players.

There are some fine lines defining whether or not a game is a series of actions and interactions where everything you do has an impact on the game, or just playing through one long sequence of unskippable events, feeling more like a movie than anything else. This is the dilemma surrounding the latest release by Sony and developer Quantic Dream’s latest title – the PS3 exclusive Heavy Rain. And for a game that’s been in the works for ages, it’s finally good that the wait was worth it. Somewhat.

Heavy Rain prides itself on being “Interactive Drama”, wherein a more traditional gaming experience is eschewed in favour of a much slower experience. This is a game that lives and breathes cinematic atmosphere – feeling at times like a very high quality crime drama. The story follows the lives of four individuals whom are after the one person – the mysterious Origami Killer, whose modius operandi is to kidnap young boys, drown them in rainwater (hence, the Heavy Rain) and places the corpses on a wasteland, with flowers and an origami figure. The shit really hits the fan when the son of one of the playable characters goes missing, as they’re put through the paces to learn just how far the character would go to save him; and forms a crucial part of the plot.

Each of the four playable characters aren’t exactly your standard game characters either – with each suffering from various problems and aren’t exactly pleasant to be around; such as architect Ethan – who after the death of one of his sons and divorce is starting to lose grip on reality, or FBI agent Norman, whom is struggling to deal with a drug addiction.

Much like with Quantic Dreams previous game, Indigo Prophecy/Fahrenheit (depending on where you live in the world), the game plays out via gratitutious use of quick time events and some minor forms of other interaction, mostly in the form of moving your character around the scene, picking up items, talking to other characters and so on.

There’s a joke here about the woman getting soaked by something. But I’ll leave you to guess that for yourselves.

But what really makes Heavy Rain stand out is how progression is handled. The game never stops for anything – time is always moving, so you’ll constantly need to make snap decisions and take advantage of the little time you have. Even things like character death don’t impact the plot – if any of the four characters die, the game doesn’t stop and forces you to reload, and it keeps going. The same goes with the Quick Time Events. They’re handled in such a unique way that it never really feels forced or tired, but fascinating. Best of all, there’s almost no penalty for failing most of them – save for the few occasions where you can kill characters.

That being said though, the game does have a few key problems with it. For starters, the game is a technical mess. Loading times can be exceedingly long, the audio drops out completely at times (albeit briefly), character animations define the laws of physics and much more. Then there are times when the game crashes, refuses to load and much more. Even with a 226MB patch as a mandatory download, it manages to be staggering at how glitch the game is.

Oh hi. I was the first character ever shown for Heavy Rain back in 2006 as a test character. And guess what? I’m still in the game!

As well as that, the story itself has its problems. While the experience overall is great, there are moments in the game where you’re constantly questioning to their existence. There are moments that are absolutely pointless to the overall plot, and feel utterly stupid to be playing. As well as that, the story makes some use of some rather cheap storytelling mechanics and pulls off some weak twists. It does tend to derail the story, but thankfully, doesn’t totally kill the experience.

Visually, the game ranges from tipping the uncanny valley to looking great. The character models in particular look fantastic, though there are moments where they’d fit in well in the Uncanny Valley. The animation on all the characters is great, but the facial animation can sometimes lead to some weird mouth movements that make for a better comedy than a serious scene. That being said though – the environments you move around in are jaw droppingly beautiful, fitting in well with the somewhat noir atmosphere going on. And yes, there’s a lot of great looking rain.

The same thing can be said of the sound – its equal parts amazing and equal parts unintentionally hilarious. The voice acting is mostly solid, though there are periods where the mostly European cast drop out of their American accents and back into tinges of their regular ones, or don’t even try to be American. That, and there’s quite a bit of weak delivery at times. That being said though, the music is fantastic, and does wonders to compliment the atmosphere the game is trying to present.

Overall, Heavy Rain is a unique experience that begs to be tried out, with some of the best music and visuals you’re bound to experience in a video game. Definitely worth it – especially if you’re after something new.

12 Games For Christmas - Game #12

2009-12-28T03:07:00.000-08:00

12. Real Racing (iPhone)

2009 has been one hell of a year for developer Firemint. The little known Melbourne company released their second, and first original iPhone game, Flight Control, to rave reviews and to an absurd amount of sales, and deservedly so – it’s a great game. However, I find that their other game they released this year, Real Racing, is a much more impressive feat – both in terms of it being a fun game to play, but also on various technical levels.

The most immediately impressive thing about Real Racing is just how good it looks. We’re talking late PS1 era visuals here, and nearing early Dreamcast levels of visual quality. The same goes with the menus, which offer some cool visual design ideas that match the most recent menus done by Codemasters. But then in terms of playing it, it’s even better.

There are five control schemes to choose from, which offer various combinations of automated and manual steering, braking, or acceleration, as well as choosing from various degrees of brake assists and accelerometer sensitivity. All this combines with the general way the game plays as a more simulation based racing game, and you’ve got a winning combination.

Unfortunately, given its status as an iPhone game, there isn’t much else to say about it. While it isn’t as insanely deep or customizable as something like Forza Motorsport 3 or Gran Turismo, the fact that such a game exsists on a platform where you’d never really expect it is just amazing. It looks great, sounds great, plays great, and is surprisingly deep. If you’ve got an iPhone or iPod Touch, and want a great game to go with it, Real Racing is right up your alley.

12 Games For Christmas - Game #11

2009-12-27T18:49:00.000-08:00

11. Shatter (PSN)

Let’s face it, the Xbox Live Arcade has a monopoly on the downloadable games service. It’s better organized and maintained than the Playstation Network, even if a disappointingly large portion of games on there are mostly ports of other games or shooters. Whereas on the PSN, sure there isn’t as much – but there’s a better influx of more quirky and interesting games. But what if you combine the best of both worlds – the arcade gameplay mixed in with some quirks? This is where Sidhe’s Shatter comes into play.

Shatter is very much similar to brick breaking classics Arkanoid or Breakout; the goal here to generally break all the bricks without losing your ball. Where Shatter differs is by offering the ability to control airflow. After shooting a ball, you can choose to suck the ball towards the paddle, or choose to blow it away from the paddle. This in turn helps to better strategically play the game and helps incredibly so in the game’s boss battles. It sounds weird, but it totally makes sense once you actually start playing it.

What generally does work about the game is the atmosphere. Shatter looks great, has some cool design choices, but what helps to accentuate the game is the absolutely fantastic music. Put simply, this is one soundtrack that’s worth tracking down. Hell, at one point – the entire soundtrack was being sold digitally for only $1.

If you’ve got a PS3, and want a cool downloadable game to show off to your friends, this is the one to do it. It’s a familiar game, with an entirely new coat of paint.

12 Games For Christmas - Game #10

2009-12-27T18:36:00.000-08:00

10. Batman: Arkham Asylum (PC/PS3/360)

Let’s get this out of the way. The last good Batman game was NOT the Batman game for NES. Konami’s Adventures of Batman & Robin was the last good one. That being said, let’s now talk about the best game to be released about Batman – Batman: Arkham Asylum. It’s a very interesting game to talk about, because not only is it the first truly good Batman game since aforementioned Adventures of Batman & Robin, but it’s also only the second game made by UK developer Rocksteady, whom at this rate, are looking more and more like a studio to note.

The premise of the game is loosely based on the legendary “Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth” Batman story, in which via a series of events, Batman is locked in Arkham Asylum and is charged with stopping the Joker from accomplishing his goals. The story and dialogue are particularly great, and the voice acting only adds to this. Put simply, the same voice actors whom voiced Batman, Harley Quinn and the Joker in the legendary 90’s Batman animated series revoice their roles, and do not disappoint. Mark Hamill, in particular, does an amazing job as the Joker – but anyone who’s ever seen the Batman animated series will tell you that.

As for the game, it’s really quite fun. I’ve heard the game best described as a “Batman simulator”, because everything you do never really seems out of place for the character. Sure, you’re beating up on enemies with a rather cool combo system, but you’re also doing your fair share of detective work and exploration/traversal. But another absurdly important element of the game comes in its stealth segments, which really help to make you think like Batman – since getting hit with guns is the only true weakness that Batman has.

But really, it’s something that needs to be checked out – especially if you’re a fan of Batman. The game looks and sounds great, and is a blast to play. The only thing that can kinda suck is that the last parts of the game are the absolute worst – they just become long, tedious and nowhere near as great as the earlier parts of the game. But if that’s the only problem with an excellent game, then I see no true problem.

12 Games For Christmas - Game #9

2009-12-22T21:50:00.000-08:00

9. Tekken 6 (PS3/360)

2009 was a hell of a year for fighting games. Not including Tekken, we received the home version of Street Fighter IV, UFC 2009: Undisputed, Blazblue, and while there were some duds (King of Fighters XII), there was little doubt that across the board, if you wanted a good game where you punched someones head in, there were fewer bad games to do it in. Yet why go with Tekken?

Yes, Tekken problems compared to some of these games. Initially, the online mode was janky as all hell and the scenario campaign mode (the big, new story mode) is not a particularly fun mode, and it’s the only way to get endings for characters. And much like Street Fighter IV, characters endings aren’t quite as good as they should be. Yet the one thing that Tekken has over most of these other fighting games is not only a diverse and large character roster, but also a large and diverse range of modes of play.

Where most fighters are cutting down on modes, Tekken has the traditional Arcade, Time Attack, Survival, and the always fun Team Battle mode, in addition to the surprisingly long Scenario Campaign mode and online modes. And the 40+ characters are all well defined and well balanced, and everyone can stand a chance against one another. And then you get to the final boss, whom will make you scream and shout in rage. It’s almost on the same level of frustration that Seth would frequently provide in Street Fighter IV.

And the game itself? It’s still the same Tekken fun. Sure, characters have been tweaked, but that’s all a part of the balancing. The new rage system, wherein once you’re at a critical level of health, your attacks become much stronger, is a great idea and helps to balance out fights and make them much more competitive, especially knowing that one hit can pretty much knock you out.

That being said, Tekken 6 still does have its problems. Scenario Campaign being perhaps the biggest one of them – it’s badly designed, not particularly fun and often frustrating. Azazel, the game’s final boss, is particularly frustrating when it really shouldn’t be, and anyone expecting a full renovation of Tekken is bound to not see anything of worth here – since it’s really just a tweaked version of the already excellent Tekken 5. Otherwise, absolutely worth picking up.

12 Games For Christmas - Game #8

2009-12-22T21:41:00.000-08:00

8. Rittai Picross (Nintendo DS)

Not every game on this list was released into English. This is the fate of Rittai Picross – a HAL Laboratory developed entry in the Picross series, which received a major boost in the form of an excellent DS game. The sequel (also on DS) takes the already established formula, and transposes it into the 3^rd dimension. And unlike many games that had to go through this transition, Rittai PIcross works nothing short of a wonder, providing one of the most compelling puzzle game experiences you’ll play on the DS this year.

If you’re not familiar with the series, the Picross games are essentially collections of nonograms; logic puzzles in which cells placed in a grid are coloured in or left blank based on numbers given on the sides of the grid. For instance, a line may feature the numbers “5, 2, 5”, which require you to fill in sets of five, two and five squares in that line, with blank spaces in between. By filling out these squares, you’ll begin to create a picture, which is the ultimate task at hand. Here, you’ll need to whittle down a 3D cube, until you get a shape.

It’s very hard to describe why you’ll keep coming back and playing the game, but you just will. It’s something that once you figure it out, becomes instantly addictive and just plain fun. Creating your own puzzles is also something interesting, and the sheer number you get with the game is also something that’ll keep you going for a while.

The only thing that remotely sucks about the game is the fact that it may not be released in English anytime soon. If you want to get it, you’ll need more of an experimentation knack than a knowledge of Japanese, as you can get by the game without knowing the language. All well and good, but some of the more advanced options you’ll come across are completely locked to you unless you can actually read Japanese.

Despite this, Rittai PIcross is one of the absolute DS gems of the year. It takes an already great puzzle game and finds a way to make it better and much more addictive. Sure, it may take a bit of work to play it in Japanese, but otherwise, it’s great stuff.

12 Games For Christmas - Game #7

2009-12-17T03:17:00.001-08:00

7. Rhtyhm Heaven (DS)

What’s the first thing you think of when you think of the term rhythm game? I’m willing to bet most of you reading this immediately thought of something like Guitar Hero or what not. And while you’re correct in thinking that it’s a rhythm game, that doesn’t come close to describing what Rhythm Heaven is, bringing it’s own unique definition of a rhythm game to the masses.

For starters, Rhythm Heaven is a mini-game compilation where rhythm is of the utmost importance. You tap and flick to a beat to complete a variety of goals. For instance, one such instance is in a factory where you’re building stuff. Two items roll alongside each other to a “Do Re Mi” rhythm. Once you get to the “So” part, you flick a bolt, and you build the item. Any earlier or later, and you don’t build it.

What’s impressive about the game is that for such a simple control scheme, it works well across a variety of different types of mini-game, such as a space shooter, choir practice, forming a cheer squad and so on. Also, the sequences you get into are some of the most insane and just amazing sequences you’ll see in any mini-game compilation this side of the WarioWare ilk.

That being said, the game has an insane learning curve. Rhythm Heaven is among one of the most brutal mini-game compilations you’re bound to play, with the game tolerating very few mistakes. It’s not entirely out of reason for you to fail a mini-game for missing only a small amount of the goal. And while you’re given a hint as to how to improve, it’s always never exactly clear as to what you’re supposed to do. Though if you do fail three times in a row, you can always skip the mini-game and move on to the next one.

Aside from that, there really isn’t much else to say about the game. It’s very hard to actually describe the game, since it’s something that you really need to actually play to properly understand. It’s quite unique, and despite the difficulty, is something that you can get into with the littlest of ease.

12 Games For Christmas - Game #6

2009-12-17T03:13:00.002-08:00

6. Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II (PC)

The original Dawn of War was such a huge revolution to me in terms of just how RTS’s could work. Introducing elements of cover and a more unique method of getting resources, it allowed many a person to get into the Warhammer 40K universe, and enjoy just how crazy it was. That being said, it took a long time to get a sequel, but when Dawn of War II rolled around, the wait proved to be worth it.

For starters, Dawn of War II differs mainly due to its complete and utter lack of base building or resource management. The game is strictly focused on unit management, and this is more evident in the single player campaign than anything else. Here, the game has more of an RPG element, which involves you leveling up your characters, finding randomly dropped items and much more. It’s much less of a standard RTS in this regard, but the strategy element is still something that’s deeply rooted within the game, forcing you to think how to best maximize what little you have. Also helps that many of the additions and improvements present in Relic’s other RTS, the excellent Company of Heroes, are present here.

The single player campaign has also seen some major changes. Instead of being a series of missions (like in the original game) or a Risk-style game (present in the Dark Crusade expansion), the campaign has opened up and become far less linear. Here, you choose you all the missions you undertake, travelling between three planets in order to accomplish them. These could be as complex as completing one of the many story missions, or just a simple defense missions against wave after wave of enemy.

The only thing that does really quite suck is the limited number of races. It goes back to the original four, with the Chaos marines replaced by fan favourite Tyranids; with the Imperial Guard, T’au, Necrons, Chaos and more left open for possible expansions. It’s unfortunate, but when you figure just how different the game is compared to the original DOW, it would take some time to rebalance the races to work with the new engine.

Besides that, Dawn of War 2 is great. The lack of resource management and base building is a refreshing change, and the focus on infantry management and near RPG-like level of gameplay is excellent. A must buy for anyone wanting to play a different RTS.

12 Games For Christmas: Game #5

2009-12-15T17:58:00.000-08:00

5. Killzone 2 (PS3)

Going back to the first time the PS3 was announced way back in 2005, one of the first things that Sony showed off was some footage for Killzone 2, a sequel to a game that while had some cool things about it, no-one really dug. But going back to the footage; despite it later being revealed to be pre-rendered footage, it was quite possibly the most stunning CG work that people had seen for a console, and while it didn’t quite match it when it was released four years later, it’s still damned impressive stuff. And easily among the best looking games on any console.

What makes Killzone 2 great is just how different it feels to most first person shooters currently available on consoles. This isn’t the rabbit fast pacing of something like Call of Duty, but more of a deliberate, realistic pacing. It’s slow, but definitely rewarding – as the game feels just fantastic. Everything has a good weight and feel to it, which is refreshing. And it feels very satisfying to shoot someone, which is all you can ask for a good shooter.

The other big different comes in the form of a cover system. It sounds like such a simple and pointless addition, but here, it totally works. And makes dying a lot less painful, especially when you know you can take cover successfully. It can totally change the way skirmishes play out. In fact, it’s such an awesome addition that you do really wish for other games like it to have it, like Modern Warfare 2; or wish that other games that at least used it would do it right, like Rogue Warrior.

Furthermore, the game is just a blast to play online. Why? Well, aside from taking the same base game and allowing the customization elements you’d have in something like a Call of Duty game, there are plenty of modifications to ensure that it’s a different, yet still fun experience. This includes major things like being able to run for infinite lengths, or smaller things like using your own music as the games soundtrack. They add up to make one of the more fun experiences on the Playstation Network.

If anything though, the only real thing that Killzone 2 doesn’t do well is originality. Sure, there are some cool new features and what not, but there’s very little originality, and does feel like yet another space marine shooter. But the games truly biggest success is just how much of an improvement it really is over its PS2 predecessor. And really, if you’re looking for a great FPS experience that you can only really get on the PS3, Killzone 2 is right up your alley.

12 Games For Christmas - Game #4

2009-12-15T17:48:00.000-08:00

4. The Beatles: Rock Band (PS3/360/Wii)

Thanks to Activision, 2009 saw an absolute glut of Hero games, ranging from the excellent (Guitar Hero Metallica, Guitar Hero 5), some decent (DJ Hero, Guitar Hero Greatest Hits and the Guitar Hero On Tour games) to the absolutely pointless and execrable (Guitar Hero Van Halen and Band Hero). And despite this, only one Rock Band game was released this year, and proved to be easily one of the better games of the year. Also kinda helps that the game is focused around quite possibly the greatest band of all time.

At a base level, it’s still very much Rock Band 2, just reskinned and focused around the Beatles. Totally understandable, but where the real fun lies in just how much of a Beatles experience that Harmonix have crafted into the game. The tour mode is the perfect representation of this, with all of the stages taking place over the different stages of the Beatles career, and all the unlockables are of note, from a lot of rare photographs to some curious little videos and what not.

But where the game really shines is in the dreamscape levels. Because the Beatles were a studio band for most of the latter part of the 60’s, the game attempts to recreate what the band were seeing when they were writing songs like “Yellow Submarine” or “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds”. And for the most part, it does look quite nice. This is despite the latter levels not looking as spectacular as the earlier ones.

Though really, the one point that may disappoint a lot of people is the track list. Sure, it has representation from every Beatles album, but some key songs (like All You Need is Love, Strawberry Fields Forever, A Day in the Life, Help!) are missing, leaving you to purchase these when they are released as downloadable content; and at the moment – you can only purchase A Day in the Life and All You Need is Love.

Overall, the Beatles Rock Band is possibly the best rhythm game of the year. Sure, it doesn’t do anything spectacularly new and what not, but it doesn’t really need to. Plus, it’s a fantastic way to get into the music of one of the greatest bands ever.

12 Games For Christmas - Game #3

2009-12-08T18:06:00.000-08:00

Game #3 - Red Faction Guerrilla (PS3/360/PC)

June 2009 might as well be known as the month where Sandbox games reigned supreme. Why? Because three somewhat remarkably sandbox games were released onto the market. You’ve got Sony’s infamous, which was a good, though flawed attempt. You then have Activision’s Prototype, which wasn’t very good at all. And then you come to THQ’s Red Faction Guerilla, which is probably the more interesting of the trio, for several reasons. For starters, there’s no need for superpowers – though the sledgehammer you get for the duration of the game is pretty damned super.

The first part is that it’s an interesting reboot of the Red Faction series. While the first two were somewhat decent first person shooters that never really did take too much advantage of the Geo-Mod feature that made it a big deal back in the day, here the Geo-Mod engine actually works to the games advantage. Destroying buildings and objects has an extremely large part to do in the game, and it never gets old. Never. And it’s not the stock standard video game destruction here – tearing down buildings in specific places does affect how the building will fall over, so if you hit the supports just right, you’ll have a much easier time taking the building than just randomly attempting to destroy the building. Or you could just drive a car into the building and use that to destroy it.

The second part is just the way the game feels. As an open world game, it compares very similarly to developer Volition’s own Saints Row series, but improved in some regards. For starters, the ‘respect’ system where you needed to consistently fill up a respect bar (by doing activities) in order to attempt any missions? Not present. As long as there are missions available to you, you need nothing more to actually do them, with the last missions appearing as you drain control away from the evil EDF. You can do the activities still, and some of them you can do repeatedly to earn more salvage (the games currency) and get closer to achieving some trophies or achievements.

That being said, there are some elements of the game that don’t quite work well in its favor. The first comes in the mission triggers – there’s an alert system in the game where green means you’re alright, yellow means that the EDF are onto you, and red meaning that the EDF are going to kill you. All well and good, but if you’re driving out to go do missions, you need to have a green alert to do them. It’s a pain, especially when it’s tricky to shake off the EDF at times. Furthermore, the difficulty becomes absolutely punishing at times, which really does hurt the game some.

Overall, Red Faction Guerilla is a fantastic return to form for the Red Faction series (RF2 wasn’t quite good), with the reboot working to create one of the most fun experiences you’ll have in a video game. Sure, it’s quite derivivative of Saints Row 2, but then again, is that really a bad thing? And also, it does get quite difficult at times, but that’s put aside when you watch as you take down a massive building with nothing more than a sledgehammer and remote charges. Quite something.

12 Games For Christmas - Game #2

2009-12-08T18:02:00.000-08:00

2. Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars (DS/PSP/iPhone)

I’ll be quite frank with you. I really didn’t like Grand Theft Auto IV. Sure, there were some impressive things about it (such as the voice acting and the way that the game felt), but for me anyway, that was more outweighed by the bad (mission design wasn’t up to scratch, soundtrack was very hit and miss, visuals were boring, police spawning was erratic and almost unfair, and the story wasn’t too particularly great). In fact, the best GTA in recent years is a PSP and DS (and soon to be iPhone) game – Chinatown Wars. And it’s amazing that it didn’t sell – given that GTA is such a mainstream game, and that the DS is so absurdly popular. In the US in it’s first month, the game sold less than 100K. Depressing.

The first thing that strikes you about Chinatown Wars is that it takes you back to a pre-GTA III era of gaming, but mixed in with some of the elements from later GTA games (such as the ability to use taxi-cabs and stuff like that). The second thing that strikes you is that it WORKS. Unlike the previous attempt at a GTA game on a Nintendo handheld, everything here just seems to work a lot better – from the multiplayer, to car control and just control in general. Hell, even the touchscreen specific stuff (for the DS version), actually works really well, even if some of it can be a little cumbersome.

Probably the most compelling thing about the game would have to be the drug trading mini-game. Put simply, it plays similar to the Drug Wars game that people have known and loved for many years, you buy low and sell high, control supply and demand, and just proves to be really quite fun. And hey, having it not edited for the Australian release was quite something. Plus, it’s easily the best way to get cash in the game, because you really don’t get paid enough for actually completing missions.

That being said, the game isn’t quite right. For starters, ticking off the cops is way too easy in this game than in previous GTA games, if only because there are cops EVERYWHERE, and touching them is really simple. The music is also an issue...It’s just not great stuff. While it is all licensed music, good luck knowing any of it. Furthermore, the combat’s a little iffy, but then again, it’s always been an issue with GTA. Oh, and there are still some niggles that make the combat still not quite right, but better than in past GTA’s.

Otherwise, it’s a fantastic experience and one that needs to be sampled on any platform. It’s a really enjoyable, if not flawed, GTA game.

12 Games For Christmas 2009 - Game #1

2009-11-25T00:13:00.001-08:00

Here we go, my annual "Game of the Year" posts. Always look forward to doing these, as it allows me to look back on the year that was and analyze what games were truly exemplary in a year full of fantastic purchases for just about anyone. Should also mention that everything here is stuff that I've played, so I can't wax lyrical on anything that I haven't sampled (i.e Borderlands, for instance).

And here we go...

1. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (PS3)

The Playstation 3 has been a joke of a console since before it even launched. I'm sure I don't need to bring up the $599, Ridge Racer and Giant Enemy Crab memes to remind anyone of that. And hell, for close to a year, there was very little reason for anyone to actually own one. But ever since then - the system's slowly been getting better and better, and the line up of exclusive software has been arguably the best of the generation so far. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves is a further example of that, and may very well be easily the best game released all year.

Uncharted 2 does many, many things right. It has some of the best characterization you'll see in any game, and while the story and characters can fall into stereotypes and cliches, that's the point - it's meant to be reminiscent of those pulp serials that helped inspire the Indiana Jones series of films, and really, is that a bad thing? When the game shifts to a cutscene, you're interested and excited to see what's going to happen next, and not only because the story, but also because of the visuals - Uncharted 2 is easily one of the best looking games you'll see on any console. It's no wonder why Sony went with the cringe inducing "it looks like a movie" ad campaign.

The gameplay has also seen some improvement. The difficulty now works better so that if you're playing on harder difficulties, it's still relatively manageable throughout the whole game, compared to the original, where it proved to be more of a pain than anything else. The gun combat has also been improved so that enemies don't take a ludicrous amount of damage to kill, but still doesn't feel right, compared to similar games like Gears of War 2, which has that whole cover based shooter thing down pat.

One are also worth commenting on is the improved stealth gameplay and multiplayer. Despite being initially thought as being terrible additions, they prove to be some of the best handled aspects of the game - the stealth isn't a required opiton to play the game, but it becomes incredibly useful later. The multiplayer is also one of the most fun games you'll experience on the Playstation Network, thanks to the fact that everything you can do in the single player you can do in the multiplayer, so jumping and climbing plays just as much of a role as taking cover or precisely shooting. It breaks the trend of fantastic single player games having unnecessary and often pointless multiplayer.

All in all, Uncharted 2 is easily one of the best games of the year, providing an excellent single player with a well thoughtout and fun multiplayer component. Looks absolutely stunning and matches that aurally to boot. And the best part? There's very little to actually complain about. Good news to everyone who doesn't own a PS3 - you now have your reason to pick one up.

The eGames 2009 Wrap.

2009-11-05T03:22:00.000-08:00

From October 30^th to the 1^st of November 2009, Melbourne was once again home to the IDEF Expo, featuring the fourth annual eGames Expo. As always, the Level 3 crew was there to help cover the show and expand our reach to newer audiences. However, this year saw some massive changes to the show – the biggest for us anyway was that we had our own booth for the first time – which proved to be a much more effective HQ for us than in previous years, and helped get the word out about the show in a big way. Hell, hearing Jason talk about that he signed his first autographs for fans was quite a surprise.

So what of the show? Let’s talk about specific moments:

A Nice Change of Scenery

The biggest change to the show came in a change of venue. Instead of taking place at the Melbourne Exhibition Center in Docklands (and right opposite the Crown Casino), the show was relocated to the Royal Exhibition Building in Carlton, which was right opposite the Melbourne Museum and IMAX theater. And for added value, it was a short walk to Lygon Street, home to some awesome Italian restaurants.

The new exhibition space proved to be quite the interesting change in atmosphere, where instead of being dominated by a dull grey and otherwise uninteresting area, we were surrounded by an older and much more visually interesting environment. There were paintings all over the roof of the building, which made it so much better to look at than before.

The front of the Exhibition Building (taken from here)

As well as that, the larger space also made the show much easier to traverse. Last year, when the Digital Lifestyle Show was introduced, there wasn't much of a clear division between the two shows, and it wasn’t exactly clear where one show ended and the other one began. Here, there was a clear division, which made traversal just that little bit easier.

The only real disappointment in the use of the space came in the fact that it wasn’t all used. There’s a second level to the Exhibition Building which, with the exception of a ‘Develop Theater’ and a media center, wasn’t used. But I’ll get to that later on.

Though while it was a great change of scenery, there were several reasons as to why it proved to also not be a terrific location…

Pressure Cooking

The weekend that eGames was taking place at had an average temperature of around 25-30 degrees as the maximum temperature. Now, while the Royal Exhibition Building is a great looking building, it’s also listed as a heritage building. That means that no matter what, it cannot be touched in any specific way – and needs to be preserved for future generations. This also means that there’s no air conditioning.

Now, I’m not too sure what the attendance figures were, but you’d have to factor in that both parts of the IDEF show were quite populated on the day, being a weekend and what not. But good lord, despite the heat, people still came. Also didn’t help that there were a lot of powerful lights set up around the show.

Though this was thankfully alleviated by the rampant abuse of the media lounge water fridge. Thankfully, someone thought ahead and prepared a LOT of water bottles and kept them nice and cool, and proved to be a popular spot for those who could get into there. As for everyone else? Well, I'm amazed as to how they managed to survive.

Can I Hear Myself?

One of the absolute stupidest moments of the entire show came in the organization of the main stage sound. Put it this way, where the main stage is, to the left of that is the eGames Masters stuff, and to the north of it is some more competitive gaming. Both have commentary, and both are LOUDER than the main stage. And it also helps that the main stage mics? Not particularly reliable. I was on the stage once for two of the days (Saturday was to help take part in an episode of the Lobby, Sunday was for a podcast with some of the people from Thumbpad), and it was hard to hear the people actually speaking. Turns out I wasn’t the only one who thought that.

From what I understand, the original plan was to make the competitive gaming stuff be on the second level of the building to keep it away from the main stage, but the organizers couldn’t get it approved. Though despite this, it's an absolute shame that it was really quite difficult to do stuff on the main stage.

Level 3 and Thumbpad do a podcast (from L-R: me, Anna, Jason, Mick, Megan, Jamie and Shane)

This also extended to our booth. We were right opposite the Monash University gaming tournament (the booth was originally setup to play host to the Monash High School gaming tournament, but the space was kindly given to us by IT head Andrew Owen), and once the games of Halo decided to kick in, did we lose any chance of hearing anything from our booth – sounds of explosions and gunfire were common place. Again, no disrespect, but bloody hell it was loud.

Just WHAT were you guys giving away?

Probably the biggest exhibitor booth at the show was easily Ubisoft’s, with some extremely impressive showings – such as Assassins Creed II, James Camerons Avatar (both in regular and 3D editions – the latter of which is impressive), the new Shaun White game, Rabbids Go Home and Splinter Cell Conviction (which was unplayable, unfortunately). To the side of their main booth, there was also Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and another game that I cannot recall at this point in time.

Ubi were great for giveaways as not only did they have a LOT of Avatar and Assassins Creed posters to give away, but also plenty of DVD’s with trailers for upcoming games. The posters made for great decoration for the booth, and we had plenty of people dumping the DVD’s at our booth. On the Saturday in particular, after lunch time, came one of the most insane things I’ve ever seen.

During this time, there was a large line of people at the Ubi booth, but we hadn’t any idea what it was for. Especially when you consider the line itself was just obscene. We’re talking close to 30, maybe even more people in line. The million dollar question was just what exactly were Ubisoft giving away at their booth that caused such a huge line.

Initially, we ruled out the posters, because it’s not like they had any real value, but as we started to film interviews with reps from Madman and 2K Games (whom were bordering on the Ubi booth), I started to notice that people were being handed somewhat more valuable things, such as copies of Tom Clancy’s Endwar (don’t ask what version, it was a tin case – but given the way it was shaped, either a PC or 360 version), and even some 360 Faceplates.

I’m still a little unsure on what exactly was given away, because everything I heard was heard via hearsay more than anything else.

Booth Organization Extraordinaire

As I mentioned in the intro, Level 3 had its very first booth at the show, making us the second media long term media outlet to have our own dedicated booth at the show (Australian Gamer being the first). Unlike with the media coverage, this is where I spent most of my time organizing it and ensuring that people came to the booth to talk all about Level 3.

The first day proved to be an unmitigated disaster for a large portion of it. We had only two things setup that day – a TV with episodes of the show running, and a Dreamcast with Street Fighter III – 3^rd Strike running all day. Since Jason and most of the cast/crew were either absent or elsewhere, we had very few people coming to discuss the show, and we were known as “the booth that the Dreamcast and Street Fighter at”. After I had left, I was told that it improved some, since Jason had actually returned and there was some discussion of the show actually happening.

The Level 3 crew, manning the booth all weekend!

The second and third days improved exponentially. Mainly because we had a really interesting competition going on; this also doubled as an excuse to get others to create content for us. Put simply, we had a green screen setup at the booth, with a camera. We’d get people to come to the booth and do a review for us. They could review any game they wanted, provided that they didn’t curse and that the review lasted no more than three minutes long. The catch was that not only would they win a game should they make a top three, but the best three reviews would be featured during Christmas time. We got over 10 of these, which were great, got a great representation, from some of the Swingamers people, to randoms, to forumites. We had even asked Yug from Australian Gamer to do some reviewing for us, which would’ve been awesome if he had gone ahead with it.

The Greatest Thing Ever?

Taking place on Halloween weekend, and given the fact that it’s a gaming expo, you would expect there to be some form of cosplay, or people dressing up in some spectacular fashion. And for the most part, I was very disappointed in this regard, because there wasn’t much there. Sure, there were a few awesome examples (such as a Midna, a Yuna, an Eva with a box, and a Meryl), but only one really takes the cake. And for good reason.

On the Saturday, there were a couple of dudes dressed up as Knights. I don’t think they were from any particular game or whatever, but they were in the full armoured suits and everything. In itself, it was a pretty cool feat, made even more awesome by the fact that these dudes were doing it on an absurdly hot day. And yet, that still isn’t the most awesome thing about this weekend.

Ubisoft had a Wii game on display known as “Just Dance” (ironically, the Lady Gaga track of the same name isn’t present), it proved to be quite popular, with people dancing all weekend to it. Towards the end of the Saturday, we were let known that the two Knights were actually playing this dancing game, and low and behold, they were.

I have video of the knights dancing to MC Hammer’s “U Can’t Touch This”, as well as Blur’s “Girls & Boys”, and it remains one of the greatest things that I have ever seen in my life; to see two dudes in full plate mail waving a Wii-mote and just dancing like an absolute tool. It’s amazing. Utterly, utterly amazing.

What Could Have Been Improved?

While eGames 2009 was a good show, it could have been a much better show. The biggest thing missing was a lack of big exhibitors from last year – namely Sony, Nintendo and EA. Granted, Sony probably would not have had a lot to show that was particularly new (aside from EyePet and the new Ratchet game) and the same case could’ve been made for Nintendo. Then again, Microsoft were only there to show off Forza Motorsport 3, a game that had only come out the week before the expo had begun, and arguably their second biggest game for the holidays, so make your own reasoning.

Megapowers collide! Yug from Australian Gamer, Jason and I talk business.

The other thing that was needed was more content on the main stage. Sure, while there was a lot of Rock Band, eGaming and stuff from the webshow “The Lobby”; gone were most of the other interesting show panels. Sure, there were things there from EA Melbourne (whom are an offshoot of Dead Space/Dante’s Inferno developers Visceral Games), and a few other developer things, but that’s it – there was nothing else, which proved to be a huge disappointment.

Personally speaking, my biggest disappointment was my ‘attempt’ to interview Ubisoft. I write attempt in that way because it never happened. Ubisoft PR blew me off the day we were meant to do the interview, citing that they prefer to let the developers of the products talk about them. Okay fine, understandable, yet tell me that next time before I ask you to do an interview THE DAY BEFORE, and BEFORE you commit to it.

Otherwise, it was a decent show. Could have been improved, but then again, what show can’t? Thanks to everyone that made it possible for the show to exist, and thanks to everyone that stopped by. Made from a great weekend, and let’s try do it again next year, kay?

Oh, and before I forget…

WE ARE THE SHOW!

What I Missed Out On...

2009-10-17T14:24:00.000-07:00

I don't know what it is about that series, but I adore the Tekken games. I don't know if it's the actual fighting mechanics, the unique characters, the awesome music, the insane extras Namco heap onto the game (Tekken 3 & 5, in particular), I'm not too sure. But the funny thing is, as someone who adores that series, and is jonesing heavily for Tekken 6, I'll freely admit that there are games in the series that I haven't played, and no desire to.

While there is the obvious answer of the Playstation2 Death by Degrees game, this also extends to the original Tekken game. I've only ever really played the home version once, at a cousins place, and all my other experiences with it come from the arcade version present on the Tekken 5 game as part of the incredibly awesome "Arcade History" mode.

Last I played it, it didn't hold up reasonably well. Granted, the game was originally released in the early days of 3D fighting games (and 3D in general), and Tekken was created as a response to Sega's Virtua Fighter (which had launched a couple of years earlier), but the way the game plays, such as still being on a 2D plane, slow fighting, and the general lack of responsiveness once you get knocked down. I mean, you can get knocked down and you takes a long and near excruciating while for you to get back up again. It's probably worth checking out later iterations of the series, if you're interested in the older games - Tekken 2/3 in particular. Though the idea of swapping cameras is a neat idea, and no other fighting game (and even later Tekken games) used this functionality.

Though thanks to stuff like YouTube, I've been able to catch up on one of the cooler things about the series - its CG endings.

Tekken is one of the few fighting franchises that does something unique with its endings compared to different versions. In the arcades, there is no story whatsoever - you're treated to a generic "CONGRATULATIONS YOU WIN" screen - similar, but not quite, to Virtua Fighter. It's a weird decision, especially when you consider that with the exception of those two games, pretty much every other fighting game worth its salt in the arcades has an ending. However, when the games are released onto home consoles, Namco go the extra mile to actually including CG endings for each of the characters.

Being the first iteration of the series, and also one of the earlier 3D games, the original Tekken has some of the most fantastically awesomely outdated CG I've ever seen in a game. The intro to the game looks and sounds like a bloody demo reel of a mid-90's CG artist - but doesn't hold a candle to the actual endings. Which are some of the most awesome things I've ever seen.

All of the endings in the game are about 30 seconds long, all of which set to the same piece of music. There's no dialogue, but there are associated sound effects. What gets me about these endings are twofold. The first is the effort that Namco went to for some of these. Take King's (the second ending, if you're watching the above video), for instance. If you can't watch the video, here's a quick explanation - King returns from the tournament to an orphanage, and as he arrives, the kids flood out to meet him.

To say that I was expecting kids to be flooding out of the church would have been the preferred response, but I honestly doubled back a little bit and was shocked to see that the kids themselves are actually REAL kids - greenscreened into the shot. You have to understand, there are practically no fighting games that have ever had FMV kids inserted into a CG shot. Though the pose that King makes as the scene fades out is completely awesome and made for some inappropriate captioning.

The other thing these endings (and the game itself), is that it's made for some awesome reactionary imagery. Yoshimitsu's (second from last) is the best example of this. Shortly after he opens up the case and the cash goes flying, there's a dude that just looks up in complete and utter disbelief that hundreds and thousands of dollars in cash is just FLYING around. His slowly transforming face as he looks up and sees the cash makes for quite possibly the greatest "OH MY GOD" look ever used (if not intentionally) in a video game. This is also coming from a video game where characters portraits literally distort when you select them.

I should probably go back to explore the original Tekken game, but really, is there any point now? The game has been superceded (and made better) by later iterations, the endings are all online, and hell, I can get a copy of the game free of charge by buying the PS2 (and I think PSP) versions of Tekken 5.

I would close off by saying that future iterations of Tekken never included awesomely bad reaction faces in their endings...but...

Nah...

How To NOT Use A Celebrity Likeness 101

2009-09-11T00:00:00.000-07:00

Activision's Guitar Hero5 has only just been released (well, over a week since it's US release, and under a week until its Australian release), and it's already under major fire for one of its big selling points. You see, the game includes a playable version of deceased Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain, playing along to versions of "Lithium" and "Smells Like Teen Spirit", the latter a huge coup for Activision (since it's the only song from the Nevermind album to not appear in its competitior, MTV's Rock Band), but that's not the point.

The reason for the controversy isn't the fact that the game has a playable version of Kurt Cobain. It's kind of sad enough to think that, especially since this is exactly the kind of thing that Cobain never wanted to happen - being extremely anti-establishment and what not. No, the controversy comes in the way the Cobain character is used in the game. And let me tell you, it ain't pretty.

No, you weren't imaging anything. You DID just see Kurt Cobain acting like Flava Fucking Flav.

So what's the response by Kurt's widow and former Hole frontlady Courtney Love? Well, let me describe it

in her words, from her Twitter account (via Kotaku):

WE are going to sue the shit out of ACtivision we being the Trust the Estate the LLC the various LLCs Cobain Enterprises

She then later goes on to mention that she reportedly didn't want Cobain in the game, though DID sign off on it. I say reportedly because she wrote this on her Twitter, and has it locked off.

Shortly thereafter, Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl, Cobain's bandmates from Nirvana, actually SUPPORTED Courtney Love in wanting Activision to fix this up, by releasing a statement (again, via Kotaku):

This is a statement regarding Nirvana, Guitar Hero and the likeness of the late Kurt Cobain.

We want people to know that we are dismayed and very disappointed in the way a facsimile of Kurt is used in the Guitar Hero game. The name and likeness of Kurt Cobain are the sole property of his estate - we have no control whatsoever in that area.
While we were aware of Kurt's image being used with two Nirvana songs, we didn't know players have the ability to unlock the character. This feature allows the character to be used with any kind of song the player wants. We urge Activision to do the right thing in "re-locking" Kurt's character so that this won't continue in the future.

It's hard to watch an image of Kurt pantomiming other artists' music alongside cartoon characters. Kurt Cobain wrote songs that hold a lot of meaning to people all over the world. We feel he deserves better.

So while there hasn't been a response from Activision yet, but yet, and I cannot believe I'm saying this, actually kinda agreeing with Courtney Love.

I mean, go back up and rewatch that video. It's Kurt Cobain, frontman of one of the most profilic bands in recent memory, and a staunch anti-conformist, singing a Bon Jovi song, amongst other things. A fucking Bon Jovi song.

Activision and Neversoft should've known better, and realized that maybe, just maybe, that it might be just a tad disrespectful to the legacy of Cobain. Yet you know what the ironic thing is? They actually do know how to show constraint and control when it comes to something like this. It's evident in 2008's Guitar Hero World Tour, wherein people could play as a recreation of iconic guitarist Jimi Hendrix. Unlike any of the other musicians in the game, Hendrix was only playable on tracks that Hendrix actually performed on. It wasn't possible to have him play Van Halen's "Hot For Teacher", for instance. It's also something that was alluded to in the statement by Grohl and Novoselic.

But yet, you really still can't have any sympathy for Courtney Love. I mean, she still would've had to have given her consent and approval for Cobain being in the game, and of course, pocketed from it. It's not the first time she's done it, and I won't be surprised if she's using this as a tactic to get more money. I still don't buy this "I didn't really want him in the game" argument.

Now let's see if the estate of Johnny Cash is going to complain about the same thing...

2009: Have Licesned Games Become Cool?

2009-09-01T16:18:00.000-07:00

Let's face it, unless you're one of the many people whom enjoy picking up a sports game ever year with the little things added, or the holders of an IP or a publisher, most people do not look forward to licensed games. Not often because of the license itself, but generally because the game is poor. It's been the same year in and year out for the longest period of time now.

But it looks that as we close out 2009, that publishers and developers are starting to 'get' the fact that just because you have a cool and/or interesting license doesn't mean you can't release a product that doesn't reflect this cool and/or interesting license. Sure, we had a few of those in the form of Star Trek D-A-C, parts 1&2 of Watchmen: The End is Nigh, Terminator Salvation and the recently released GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra, but for everything else? Well, it's generally been pretty good.

The first one that immediately springs to mind is Activision's X-Men Origins: Wolverine. The movie was one of the worst and most disappointing movies of the year. And yet, the game has been even more favourably rated. The Uncaged Edition (i.e. the super, over the top bloody one that was released on the PC, Xbox 360 and PS3) rates around the low to high 70% mark on Metacritic, and around 75-80% on Game Rankings, proving to be one of the more surprisingly good licensed games to be released this year. In fact, the one thing that the game did right better than the movie was that made you feel like you were Wolverine, which is something that really cannot be done with the movie. Oh, and made it bloodier - something that Wolverine fans would've loved.

THQ's UFC 2009: Undisputed is another example of this. Very few people were looking forward to the game before it came out (I was one of them), and then when the demo was released onto the Xbox Live Marketplace and Playstation Network, it blew a lot of people away - even more so since it was a completely different sport to what developer Yuke's (developers of the WWE Smackdown series, also from THQ) were used to. It scored even better than Wolverine, with an average score of 83 and 84% on the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 from Metacritic, and an average of 83% from Game Rankings.

Hell, even rhythm games have had their fare share of great licensed games. Take Activision's Guitar Hero Metallica for instance, two IP's that are almost synomous with selling out. Average scores? 84-86% on Metacritic and 85-87% on Game Rankings, with many reviewers praising (and rightly so) at just how well Neversoft created an experience ripe for Metallica fans. And while it hasn't been released yet (as of the time of writing), MTV/Harmonix's The Beatles: Rock Band looks set to follow in this trend of an excellent band focused rhythm game.

Though the one biggest recent example would have to be Eidos' Batman: Arkham Aslyum. Eidos are not exactly the most popular publisher with the general gaming populace (one only has to look at the Gerstmann-Gate saga or the reports of managing the scores given by reviewers), and the developer behind it, Rocksteady Studios, had only one other game under their belt - the somewhat underrated (going by reponses to people who've played it) Urban Chaos - Riot Response. And the other factor going into this? There hasn't been an excellent Batman game in years, with people citing Sunsoft's late 80's NES adaptation of the '89 Batman movie or Konami's 1992 and 1994 adaptations of Batman Returns and the Adventures of Batman and Robin as the only really great Batman games. Everything else? Medicore at best, unbelievably awful or cancelled (as was the fate of the planned game based around the Dark Knight movie) at worst.

The response was almost impossible to believe.

Metacritic averages the critical responses at around 91-92%, with Game Rankings averaging it at around 91%. It's nuts. So nuts that the Guinness Book of Records actually NOMINATED the game for a World Record - the Most Critically Acclaimed Super Hero Game Ever. I couldn't be making this up if I tried. Though generally, it does seem quite deserving, as from all accounts - the game is quite excellent. Not perfect, but still one of the better games to be released this year.

This trend could extend somewhat to whatever few major licensed games are left coming out this year. EA's NHL 10, given the last two iterations, should still hold up as being a fantastic game. Another EA product, FIFA 10, also looks to continue the series recent trend of being excellent. I'm also having high hopes for THQ's WWE Smackdown vs Raw 2010. Not only because it's THQ's last year as the publisher of WWE games, but because based on previews so far, it definitely seems like one hell of a game to go out on.

2009 has been one of the more interesting years for video gaming. We're talking about a year where some of the biggest and most interesting games scheduled to come out around this time have been pushed back to avoid conflict with Microsoft's Halo 3: ODST and Activision's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, two games that although will sell ungodly amounts. Though the one trend that I pray carries over into 2010 is this trend of great licensed games. It can be done, which is the one think that everyone has learnt from this year.

Justice Is Blonde

2009-08-18T22:45:00.000-07:00

A while back, I did a write up about a video game, in the loosest sense of word, known as Plumber's Don't Wear Ties. It was absolutely fucking terrible, the game I mean. Why? Well, it tried to be a videogame with adult themes and situations. It's also described as one of the the "porn" games for the 3DO. The reason why Plumbers sucked was not only was it perhaps the stupidiest video game ever written, but because there was nothing adult about it. Hell, it was basically a bloody Looney Tunes cartoon for teenagers.

Ever since I wrote that, I wanted to do more on some of these "porn" games, just to see if they offered any shred of entertainment value, or if they were just as bad as Plumbers. The problem that face me was that I wanted some decent info, as well as video of these games - but given the fact that the 3DO wasn't exactly the most popular of consoles, and the subject matter, finding video proved to be difficult.

Then the Game Heroes found video of the game Blonde Justice...

And oh boy, do we have a contender for a game that's even WORSE than Plumbers.

The game was released in 1994, again for the 3DO, by a company known as Vivid Interactive. Don't bother searching for their history - there isn't any. Though based on some advertisements in the game, they were mostly known for producing...adult entertainment games for the 3DO, with such clever names as "Sex", "Raquel Released", "Super Models Go Wild" and "Immortal Desire". They're related to Vivid Entertainment, one of the larger adult entertainment companies out there.

Getting back to Blonde Justice, it's a game both better, worse, and just as equally bad as Plumbers. How so? Well, let's begin with the good. The game uses FMV, and actually decent looking FMV too. One of the advantages that the 3DO had over the other CD consoles of the pre-Playstation era was that it was capable of playing higher quality video than what one could see on the Sega CD. As well as that, there's actually some some production values in the game - they're not exactly awesome, but hey, at least they are there.

One other plus, especially over Plumbers is that the game actually lives up to it's "adults only" tag. Slightly. There are a few instances of female nudity, though it's mainly just exposed nipples. There are plenty of instances of sideboob and arse, as well as other scenes of females doing other females, and implied masterbation. Granted, we don't get to see much, but hey, if you're going to make an adults only game, at least they've got the "porn" part somewhat right.

Moving onto the bad, is the structure of the 'game'. Simply put, there is no game. There is no interactivity with it whatsoever. The game is literally a 30-40 minute movie, divided up into five chapters. The chapter markings are also weird - the chapter stops are literally in the middle of a scene, rather than the end...which makes no bloody sense.

In fact, the comment about it being a movie is quite accurate. Go back up and look at the cover. Now, take a look at this:

Look familiar much?

Turns out that Blonde Justice on the 3DO is just an "interactive" version of Vivid Entertainments film, Blonde Justice. Most of the details on the IMDB page check out for the game...except the length of the film. The film is 72 minutes. The game isn't. We'll get into that later.

As well as that, it's actually hard to hear the dialogue. I know it's a porn game and all, and that you shouldn't be watching porn for the plot, but it's incredibly bloody difficult to actually hear any dialogue. Though the music is that cheezily bad it makes up for it.

And then we come to the horrible. This can be summed up in just one phrase - the story. It's meant to be a mystery story, or a thriller, but the game can't seem to make up it's mind. Why?

The story in Blonde Justice is by far the most stupid and idiotic fucking story that I have ever experienced.

Hey! I wrote that story!

It also helps that the story is told like as if a goddamned monkey told me to me and its gibberish was then translated via BabelFish. Like I said before, yes, I do realize that this is meant to be a porn game, and that I should give the story a pass, but no. Why? It's just so fucking stupid that it makes regular porn look bad. And in terms of storytelling in a movie designed to solely to get you off, that's something.

Here's the story in a nutshell. A blonde stripper (she's never named. Or she is, but because you can barely hear a thing, you can't make out a name) has been sent various letters by an obsessed stalker threatening to kill her with her stockings. She gets a policewoman to help her solve this case, until the blonde stripper decides to start carrying around a gun for protection. Her friend, known as Cora (whom is the only major character named), decides to put on a blonde wig and start grinding randomly on a pole with no audience cheering her on. The stalker then shows up, and thinking that it's the Blonde (he only ever sees the back of her), shoots her. The stalker is then cornered by the cop and the real Blonde, whom arrest him. Oh, and this is the last thing we get to see in the game..besides credits anyway:

That's not my censoring, that disc just got in the snapshot.

I'm not kidding. That is seriously the story in the game. It is given all of five minutes. Though that's not the half of it.

The way that the pathetic lack of story is told is also a huge issue. For instance, the opening to the 'game' kicks off with the Blonde reading the death threats, then her at her job, then her walking home, with the stalker following her. The game also forgot what it's supposed to be, because within 30 seconds, we see the stalker chasing after the blonde.

I just wanted to hug you goodnight!

WITHIN 30 FUCKING SECONDS, THE WHOLE POINT OF THE STORY IS RUINED. GEE, I WONDER WHO THE STALKER COULD BE NOW?

In fact, the 'game' is literally just a poorly assembled montage of random clips. You get the occasional glimpse of a story, then five minutes of women teasing you by removing their underwear with their back to the camera or hands covering their tits or cutting away just as something happens, then to another shot of a scene that hasn't happened yet, then back to some striptease, then to some story, and this goes on and on. It's incredibly disjointed

Cover your eyes! A terrible game!

It's like there was an internal conflict within Vivid as to the direction of the 'game' before the cameras started rolling. One side wanted two parts to the game, the story for those who wanted it, and then all the other shots of the stripping and what not. But then the other camp wanted nothing more than the striptease shots. In the end, they compromised some, but realized that the "plotted" segments were long enough, and needed some filler. Like, a LOT of filler.

No...cover your eyes. Not your tits. They're already covered by the top you're wearing.

Though what gets me the most interested is just why there is so much of a difference in terms of runtime between the two products. Based on the videos that I've seen there's at least 30 minutes missing from the film in the game version, which might explain why there is so much filler. I wouldn't honestly be able to tell you just how much is missing, or whether or not what we're seeing is literally what the game looks like.

But I've got to give mad props to The Game Heroes. It was really quite difficult to find any video or decent information on any of the other 'adult' games. Though with this nugget, perhaps I can find something new for you guys next time.

Though I am intrigued if the sequel to the film, released in the same year with most of the same cast, was ever made into a game. That'll be worth checking out.

Later

The Worst Game Ever. Period.

2009-07-21T18:52:00.000-07:00

I love bad games for the same way I love bad movies. Everything about it - from the terrible design, terrible writing, terrible acting, terrible sound etc. It never ceases to bring tears of laughter to my eyes, as well as lessons on how to actually not make a movie or video game.

Much like bad movies, there are really two types of bad games. Games that are so bad that they're good, and games that are so bad that they're horrible. But I like to think that there's a third layer to this - games that are so bad that their very existence makes people question their sanity. This is the latter. Say hello to Plumbers Don't Wear Ties.

Everything mentioned in the this cover? It's in the game...for better or for worse...

Back when the 3DO was at least relevant, there were five 'adult' themed games released for the system (don't ask me about the four others, I don't know of them). Plumbers is one of these. Despite it being advertised as a romantic comedy and having a reputation for being a porn game...it's the furthest thing from it. Why you may ask? Well, first off, it's not at all pornographic. That is, unless you count two of three shots of a woman's nipple, plenty of shots of her sideboob and arse, as well as a few shots of male arse. Though my favourite part? This is all censored, meaning you have to enter in a code if you actually WANT the uncensored shots. And before that scene actually starts, you are given a warning about the scene, telling you that if you're underage, to close your eyes until the music ends. Don't believe me?

Though that's not the half of it. As a romantic comedic, it's godawful. But that's just the start. Let's go through the game a little more first.

Here are our two "star crossed lovers". John, a plumber who runs a company known as "plumber on a bike":

And Jane...a daddy's girl who wants to find a man. Oh, and she has a job interview to go to:

Now, there's one other character in the game that serves some role, the Narrator. You're going to grow to hate this guy, because he'll constantly interrupt to tell you what to do next and how you're going. Though usually, he's there to tell you how much you suck. He's also got a penchant for wearing a chicken head.

The intro sequence to the game sets up the experience you wish you was only a dream. Aside from the toilet flushing and obviously early 90's Kirin Entertainment logo (this was the only titled developed by the company), we're greeted with an FMV sequence of two bre...I mean Jane, or as she prefers to be known as, "Microwave Jane". And no, I didn't make this up. Why Microwave Jane, you may ask? Cause she warms up faster than any girl, and jokes that she's so hot, that not only did the fire chief wrote a new code to make her wear a smoke alarm between her thighs, but the coastguard also noted that she was so hot she made tsunamis in her waterbed; as well a few other jokes about her being hot that are so incredibly fucking stupid that I'm not even going to type them out and save your your IQ, time and dignity.

Anyway, the sequence is to let you know just what the game is about. The goal is to get Jane together with another man, and sets you and your "hot little mouse" (her words, not mine) on to the task of doing so. She lets you know a few other things like how she doesn't do one night stands or other acts of prostitution, but we don't care. Hell, the camera doesn't even care. At one point, the camera starts focusing on Jane's breasts. Once she's done talking, the shot zooms out in a pretty cheap effect (every shot in this game does it), and we're not only greeted with a title card, complete one of the more recurring elements of the game - some of the worst music you'll ever hear:

I shit you not. This is the title screen.

We're also greeted with our first choice.

This leads to the first actual problem with the game. While it does feature a lot of audio, it comes at the expense of the game. I'll explain this further in a minute when we actually start the thing, but here's the first example. You get a person reading out a description of what each button does, but you can't actually move your cursor until the audio clip ends. It's especially the case when there's three items on screen - you have to listen to three audio clips before you make a choice, and any more of them again should you decide to change your mind. Oh, and one of them is read by an Asian woman who clearly hasn't been in an English speaking country for long. I'm half expecting a "love you long time" drop.

Anyway, if you're still with me, let's actually start this game.

The title sequence kicks off with someone singing the concluding portion of the US National Anthem...then we get a slideshow of NASCAR-esque stockcars driving about and what not. Looks like Kirin took the line from Prince's Lovesexy "when I touch it racecars burn rubber in my pants" literally. Oh, and for some apparent reason most of these shots have been applied with a negative filter, and a whole bunch of other filters. Furthermore, we see some random shots of a panda in a go kart, pasted in with the other photos. What kills me is that the panda looks obviously cropped in, with plenty of space from the picture it was copied from.

It's like someone at Kirin discovered Photoshop for the first time in the process of the applying the negative filter and adding in the panda thought it was the coolest fucking thing ever, and decided that Photoshop was that cool, to use it for as much of these shots as possible. And yes, the music is still garbage. Anyway, after the slideshow, we're introduced to John...and suddenly, we see the proper game.

Now, before we start the game proper. I ask you to go back up to the games cover. Based on this, you'd think it's an FMV game. It's perfectly understandable and to be expected. I mean the start of the game was an FMV, and it was released during a time where FMV games were at their peak. Hell, the front and rear covers basically show what appears to be FMV. With that established, allow me to deliver to you a megaton.

That intro you saw earlier? It's the only FMV sequence in the game.

As for the game itself? Well, It's a slideshow.

And it's not just a small portion of the game either.

The entire fucking game is a slideshow.

With voice over.

And minor forms of interactivity.

Now, I haven't a problem with low interactivity in games. Hell, series like Myst and Ace Attorney are examples of games with very low interactivity but there's always something redeemable about them (like fantastic music, writing, character etc.) Hell, visual novels pride themselves on having little to no interactivity. But that's fine, because usually there's some great art or writing and what not. As we have firmly established earlier, Plumbers does not have good writing. Furthermore, it looks cheap, has terrible audio (at times, it sounds like the actors are TOO close to the mic) and the worst part? It gets worse. And it doesn't stop getting worse.

There really isn't much to say about the plot. I'll go through it, because really, this game makes me want to kill myself the more I talk about it. John and Jane's parents both want their children to get married and what not. They end up meeting in a parking lot, where after an awkward meeting, Jane goes to a job interview. It turns out her boss, Thresher, is a pervert, and will only give Jane a job if she strips for him. She goes along with it, until she learns that it's being videotaped. then runs out of the room. Thresher, pissed off, grabs a letter opener and plots to stab her. She runs out into the parking lot, where John has apparently been THIS WHOLE TIME.

All three have this chase scene, which looks more like a fucking series of vacation shots than an actual chase scene, until they end up in an abandoned building. Thresher then offers her a shittone of money to sleep with him. She refuses (she can accept, but the scene is terrible and awful, and it's not the proper ending) and goes with John. They then end up happily ever after. As they ride off into the sunset, Jane also refuses to believe that John's a plumber because, well, plumbers don't wear ties.

Good. Fuckity. God.

Though that's not the end of it. You want to know the biggest problem with the game? Amongst everything else? There are no alternate paths. There are no alternate endings. There is only one possible thread you can take. And should you divulge from the path, you'll get given a game over scene..but you can go back to the previous decision point and then choose the right scene. No matter what, it's impossible to lose at the game, and you're going to get the same ending each time.

But that's just one thing. Let's take a look at some of the other more idiotic elements present in this...game.

During the job interview sequence, you're given a bunch of choices. You come across one, where it says that Thresher takes advantage of the situation. The audio clip here? It tells you that you need to be over 18 to play through this bit. And it's required to hit this option to continue as well. Hitting any other option sends you to a game over screen. From here, you get another choice to make. Here's the image in question:

Look at the text that it tells you - "she rejects the disgusting proposal" and "she'll do anything to get the job?!?!". Those images don't make much sense - because if she declines...why would she take her top off anyway? And sure enough, if you DO pick it, she still gets part of her kit off, then after a few minutes, realizes his disgusting proposal and runs out of his office. Without much of her top.

The score is also another element that doesn't work at all. Mainly because for the most part, the only score you get is in the negatives. No, I'm serious. Here's how the score roughly is shown on screen.

Score: -100000

You may be wondering just how badly you need to mess up in order to earn such a score. Well it turns out that's just gotten during regular gameplay. Since you can't really get off the path and what not, your score is always really going to end up the same amount. It also doesn't look like a mistake either, because the hyphen is so close to the numbers that it suggests negative value. Let's move on, the stupidity is killing me.

Later on in the game, the narrator gets attacked by some random woman in a Karate Gi (later a dress), whose role is, and I cannot believe I'm writing this, A TAKE OVER ARTIST, WANTED IN THIRTY STATES FOR HIJACKING FICTION. Oh, and she doesn't do anything useful either, she basically plays the same role as the narrator, complaining about how bad you've been going. The next, and only other time she returns, she reveals to be a feminist, complaining about why Jane shouldn't sleep with her boss.

Makoto, she ain't.

Then the narrator returns and kills her with a toy gun, which then results in about a minute of a gray filter being placed over the screen with copy/pasted bulletholes and gunshot noises going off. There's no blood. There's no violence. It's unbelievably stupid. LIKE EVERYTHING ELSE IN THIS GAME. Oh, and to top it off, there are sounds of DOGS APPLAUDING.

FUCKING. DOGS. APPLAUDING. ARE YOU KIDDING ME.

The ending also features one of the stupidest moments in gaming history. As the game ends, it then randomly cuts to an outtake. Literally, the dude messes up the line and the next thing we here is the actor, the director and the crew laughing about it and saying they're going to leave it in. Then the next thing we hear is the line being said correctly...and the thing about this that sucks? He messed up one word, and it wasn't even that funny. Like everything else I've just said, I'm not making a single shred of this up.

What kills me is just how this game got certified. While it's been documented that the 3DO was one of the more open platforms to develop a game on, I find it hard to believe that someone at the 3DO Company, the people responsible for ensuring that games get certified for public release and what not, thought it was a good idea to let this game be released to the public. If you tried to pull this shit out on today's consoles, there's no way it'd happen.

Though there is some good to come out of all of this. YouTube user Hormone1944 (who I gotta thank for the YouTube links I've used in here) has not only uploaded most of the video, but created it in such a way that you can effectively play the game. Gotta love technology.

But in all seriousness, this is easily the worst video game ever made. If you can even call it a game. I can't sum up the sheer amount of stupidity present in this game. It's baffling to think that people actually created this, and not think for one second that they're creating the single worst video game ever made. ET and Superman 64 might be awful, but at least you can actually play them. And hell, Big Rigs, while it's an unfinished product, is clearly much more playable than this garbage.

Though that has to say something. When your game is less playable than the unfinished mess that is Big Rigs: Over The Road Racing, then you know you're onto something horrible.

University Navigation Is A Bitch

2009-07-09T19:29:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I went down to Monash University's Clayton campus with the Level 3 crew to take a part in the Computer Games Boot Camp that was being run. It's essentially a program run by the University for kids in Years 9-12 to sort of get them excited about all the possible careers one can get involved with in gaming. It's a cool idea for an event, and something that I wish I had when I was looking for possible career choices.

Anyway, we went down there to do a talk to the kids. That part was done by Jason, Dale and Anna. I was there recording the thing. I'm in the middle of editing it now, and it should be uploaded hopefully shortly. But before I did that, I had to find the bloody place to begin with.

To be fair, it was mostly my fault. I had practically no familiarity with the campus, and I thought that all I needed was the building in which the event took place as well as directions to Monash. For that part, it worked out fine. Then I actually got to the campus, when I came to a shocking realization.

There were no maps. Or anywhere with directions.

I hadn't looked at a map of the campus prior, thinking that there would be at least one, if not more maps around the campus. Yet I saw none. I was just stumbling through the bloody campus until I saw some kids who were involved in the event (they had nametags), asked them where the building was, and they thankfully walked me to it. Then I was asked if I was a parent. I laughed.

But the point is, what kind of university doesn't at least have one map to show you where the bloody hell you're supposed to go? I mean, Deakin in Burwood is good in that there are maps everywhere. Vic Uni in St Albans and Footscray is the game. Ditto Swinburne in Hawthorn. It's bloody stupid to not do it, and to think that any and all visitors are going to check online for a map and NOT have one there is incredibly moronic.

It's like they expect you to go there to understan...

Son of a bitch...

Fate Told Me Not To See Transformers

2009-06-30T20:40:00.000-07:00

I probably should have seen it coming.

Prior to watching Transformers last week, there were several signs on the day telling me that I should've given the movie a miss, and save my money for something else. The first signs were reviews - two reviewers that I trust (Roger Ebert and Paul Rodgers of "Careful With That Blog, Eugene") both gave the movie terrible reviews.

Yet despite this, I knew that I couldn't believe it. The second sign was the Herald Sun review. Normally, I don't trust the words of Leigh Patsch, due to him spending more time summarizing the movie than actually talking about the pros or cons of the movie. Patsch gave the movie the same score as the Hannah Montana movie (released on the same day). Now I was curious.

Hell, previously I was willing to pay money now not for entertainment, but now? It was just to see just how bad Transformers really was. Yet the signs kept coming.

The fourth sign was the IMAX. Let me explain, my friend and I had decided that we were going to catch the movie at Melbourne's IMAX theater in Carlton, if anything for the experience. When we got there, the session had been completely booked out. Granted, this was probably my fault for not booking in advance and not thinking that such a thing would actually be booked out.

Yet we kept persisting. I had brought a copy of the MX Newspaper (it's the free paper you get at various train stations around Melbourne), which had actually contained sessions times for a vareity of cinemas. We then decided to hit up Hoyts Melbourne Central, due to it being close to IMAX Melbourne as well as the next session being somewhat closer (we got there at around 5:30pm, the session was at 6:15).

After a brief walk, we got to Hoyts with plenty of time to spare, only to have been met with the fifth sign - a stupidly long line. Granted, this was to be expected somewhat. After all, it's a Thursday night in the city, and the movie has been highly anticipated. Yet the line moved slowly...and I was annoyed that I wasn't going to get a spot in the cinema. We waited for around 20 minutes in line before we finally paid for our tickets, which lead to the last sign.

You see, when we had gotten to the ticket booth, we were given several options as to where to sit, thanks to the theater already being booked out. Specifically, we had told the woman in the booth that we had wanted a seat in the middle of the theater. We were given a front row ticket. Faantastic.

Then we saw the movie...which I'm sure you can read all my thoughts about.

Though it wasn't all bad. After the movie, we caught up with George Matthews of Australian Gamer (a site I love), and went out for some drinks and a meal. Was fun, more than made up for it.

Just goes to show that sometimes, it's not the destination that matters, but the journey to get to the destination.

Level 3 - June 26th

2009-06-30T20:03:00.001-07:00

Click to Play

Segments include a review of the Sims 3 by Anna, a Mega Drive retrospective by Aleks and Kane, and a look at the iPhone OS 3.0 update by Jason.

DarthHomer On Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (WARNING SPOILERS)

2009-06-25T20:42:00.000-07:00

Allow me to begin this by saying something which I know is going to get a lot of hate spewed towards me.

I enjoyed the 2007 Transformers movie.

It was by far not the best movie of that year, but compared to some of the other dreck that I witnessed that year (I can attest to have seen both Epic Movie and Alien vs Predator 2: Requiem in theaters), but it was at least somewhat entertaining. I know I'm going to attract a lot of hate for that, but I don't care.

Fast forward two years.

It's the week of the release of the hotly anticipated sequel, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Reviews are hitting the internet, and the word is getting out that the movie is nothing short of terrible. In fact, one particular review stood out to me - Roger Eberts one star review of the movie. You can best sum his review up with this opening paragraph.

"Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" is a horrible experience of unbearable length, briefly punctuated by three or four amusing moments. One of these involves a dog-like robot humping the leg of the heroine. Such are the meager joys. If you want to save yourself the ticket price, go into the kitchen, cue up a male choir singing the music of hell, and get a kid to start banging pots and pans together. Then close your eyes and use your imagination.

Wow. After having read that, I knew that I needed to catch this movie. So now that we're up to speed, let's actually TALK about the movie.

...Yeah. It's not good.

I knew going in that this was going to be more of the same, and have nothing really redeemable. Yes, it's a Michael Bay movie, so there's going to be an overemphasis on action and EXPLOSIONS!~ Yes, it's a summer blockbuster, so I shouldn't expect a deep and moving story, but replaced that with lots of shots of Megan Fox in poses and giant robots fighting giant robots. Oh, and EXPLOSIONS!~

But yes, this movie does have so major flaws. At least, the ones that I had with it. So let's go into those. This'll go into some spoiler territory, so if you're wary about what happens in the movie - stop reading now. I'll try to not bring up anything too major and what not, but bare with me for the moment.

Let's start off with the biggest problem. The length. In regular theatrical cuts, the movie is 150 minutes long. IMAX screenings have been reported as longer, but I can't comment on how long exactly. I haven't a problem with long movies, but I'll be damned that Michael Bay didn't at least consider maybe cutting down on the movie somewhat. Especially towards the end where the movie practically stops to have this giant battle in the desert.

Now, I can understand that Bay was going for this epic movie and what not, but at the same time, when there's as much explosion porn present in this movie, you kinda get sick of it real quick. It's basically like Bay realized that he had little to nothing in the way of plot and thought that the best way to achieve his vision of an epic movie was to pad it out with moronic 'comedic' moments and...well...EXPLOSIONS!~

Speaking of these 'comedic' moments, for some strange reason, the film contains an absurd number of sex/genital related jokes. It's not funny in the slighest. Especially watching dogs basically fucking one another. It's a moment so nice that Bay thought it'd be awesome to show it twice. Oh, and there's an instance of seeing John T.'s ass and package. The audience laughed their arses off at this. Sitting in the front row (thanks to a ticket snafu), that was the last thing I wanted to see. Then there's the "hash cookies" that Shia Lebouf's mother consumes which does not help make her anymore likabke. Even tackling a security guard didn't help that...though since when does pot give you tackling power?

Then there's the fact that characters have a tendency to disappear for a large portion of the plot. Take the titular Fallen for instance. He's hyped up as this big and stupidly powerful villain whom is so unbelievably awesome that even Megatron is sucking up to him. I mean, the subtitle of the movie basically makes us think that the Fallen is this one super bad motherfucker who's going to kick some major arse when he comes to Earth. Then he disappears for close to two hours, and only appears for a brief moment in a flashback, then again five minutes before the end of the movie, and does practically nothing but fucking job to Optimus Prime.

Biggest pussy of a villain ever.

As an Australian, I feel that I have to comment somewhat on the role of former Home and Away starlet Isobel Lucas. Prior to the movie, her role was being hyped up as her big breakthrough role and what not. Even after an extremely awkward interview on popular variety show Rove Live, she was still being hyped based on the cause of "she's an Aussie in a huge blockbuster film", similar to fellow Home & Away castmember Chris Hemsworth in Star Trek or Sam Worthington in Terminator Salvation. She appears for all of five minutes. I shit you not. And after her "big breakout role", she is never heard from or mentioned again. Sure, she's hot and all...but she doesn't really leave much of an impact on viewers (well, at least me), or the plot.

And then there are these two. Say hello to the Twins. Mudflap and Skids

You recall how a large portion of the movie going public absolutely despised Jar Jar Binks upon seeing Star Wars Episode 1? The same fate shall meet them. They contribute absolutely fucking nothing to the plot, and you wish that they get killed in the most violent and brutal way a transforming robot can. In fact, one of them comes close to dying, and SURVIVES. I literally cried out "BULLSHIT" when that happened. Then there's all the cries of racism, but honestly, I was too enraged each time I saw them to not take note.

I know I'm probably reading into this way too much than I should be doing, but really, let's take a look at two of the biggest and best blockbuster tentpole movies from last year: Iron Man and The Dark Knight. Both movies are the complete opposite of RotF - well written, well acted and had reasonable runtimes and uses of explosions. And they were fantastic films. This? Not so much.

Really, the movie would've been better served as a video game. Which it does have, yet reportedly isn't much good. Though weirdly enough, the online mulitplayer components of the 360/PS3 game is meant to be fantastic, and watching the last battle...it's something that would've been better served as an online MP game than an actual movie. For some reason, I got visions of a class based, multiplayer focused first person shooter.

Though honestly, I should give at least some praise in the CG stuff. As you would expect, the CG work is quite impressive, and the fight scenes are much better shot and laid out, unlike the first film - where the fight scenes were difficult to watch and make out precisely what's going on. Granted, there's a bit of that in Revenge of the Fallen, but it's much clearer than before.

Let's close this off. The movie isn't fantastic. It's too long, there's no story, the attempts at humour are stupid overall, it's just a mess. Yet it's going to be one of the highest profiting movies of the year, and more than make it's budget back. Despite this, here's the kicker though.

Once the credits hit, audiences were applauding.

I couldn't be making this up, even if I tried.

A packed audience in Hoyts Melbourne Central for the 6:15pm session on Thursday 25th of June 2009, applauded Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.

I sat there stunned.

A Years Difference – How Rock Band Influenced Guitar Hero World Tour

2009-04-05T05:21:00.001-07:00

I've been hitting up the music rhythm genre pretty heavily as of late. Round the end of November, I picked up Guitar Hero 3 (w/guitar). On Boxing Day, I picked up GH: World Tour (again, w/guitar) and not too long ago, purchased a copy of Rock Band (without any instruments). All three are good games. Guitar Hero 3 is great if you're stupidly hardcore and want to handle a decent, but utterly broken game. World Tour is good for parties, instruments and for a more hardcore, yet casual experience. And Rock Band? Well, the same idea of having fun in a party , but with plenty of music that you'll know, as well as over 500 songs up for purchase.

I'd wanted to compare these two games, but I didn't want to do it in much the same way an Australian game reviewer would actually compare them. I think it's really unfair to be comparing a game that was released late 2007 to a game that was released two months ago in the same way you'd compare two games of similar genres.

Personally, I'd recommend both of these games, but I'd like to focus on one specific aspect that I've noticed while playing both World Tour and Rock Band – specifically just how much of a difference a year can make on a product. There's more to it than the obvious statement that because Rock Band exists, Guitar Hero had to add in a drum kit and microphone for the 2008 version or risk being left 'out of date', as well as how because Rock Band handles its DLC, Guitar Hero's DLC plans were changed for the better.

Before I continue, it's important to note that this comparison is strictly for the current gen versions of both games. I'm using the PS3 version as my main reference here, but both games are similar enough anyway that unless specified, it'll also be relevant to the 360 version.

GAMEPLAY

In general, both games play almost exactly the same. You form a band with friends or people online and proceed to play songs for points. There's no denying that. But the ways that both games handle said gameplay is still different. One major is the way that the points boost powerup is handled. In World Tour, the traditional system has been changed somewhat. While Star Power is achieved in the same way achieved in any of the Guitar Hero games, once it's attained, anyone currently playing can use it. Example – the lead guitarist is the one that actually earns the Star Power for the band, but as soon as he gets it, the drummer can immediately activate it to gain a boost to their multiplier or save themselves from failure. It's a good thing if you need it to save a band mate who is struggling, but feasibly, unless there's more than one star power light lit up – only one member of the band at a time can use star power. This can be extremely annoying when you're playing with people who refuse to co-operate as a band and just use Star Power the second it's attained. It's an annoying design mechanic that should have been fixed.

Rock Band's Overdrive is slightly smarter in execution. It's exactly the same concept, but modified enough to actually make it awesome. Each band member gets their own unique overdrive which can be deployed at any time to increase the band's multiplayer (which Guitar Hero also does – minus the unique part). What's more interesting is the way that it's activated. For instance, players doing vocals or playing drums have it activate automatically after playing a serious of notes. Guitarists have to do it manually. It's...interesting, and works better for when you're playing co-operatively with other people, since you can easily co-ordinate when you'll activate it – thanks to the way notes are laid out. But at the same time, you'll want to activate your bonus whenever you'd like, and this is something that you can't really do in Rock Band.

Then there's some of the more unique gameplay elements to each game that also help to show just how much of a difference a year can make. For instance, Rock Band has a great mechanic where if you're playing with a band, and you fail out of a song, it continues, but you can't get back in unless someone sacrifices their Overdrive. It can't be done all the time though – fail three times and you can't go back in, and that players track is permanently muted. It's a very smart decision that Guitar Hero hasn't capitalized on – in this case, if any one of the four players fail a song, the entire band fails the song.

However, Guitar Hero includes something that's not in Rock Band and is extremely useful – a countdown after pausing. Let me explain this a little further. For whatever reason, you have to pause the game. You do whatever you need to do that required pausing the game and upon resuming, you are greeted with a countdown that will help to lead you back into the song. You'll also get enough of a look as to what notes you needed to hit when you paused that you'll easily be able to get back into the game. In Rock Band (or the previous Guitar Hero games), if you paused, the game would immediately start up again, and there's a chance that you'd miss out on whatever notes you were playing at that time.

Lastly, Rock Band has a huge advantage in the fact that if you play a song, it'll focus specifically on the instrument you've chosen. Let me explain – say you're playing Train Kept a Rollin' by Aerosmith on vocals; and solely vocals. The game will actually shorten the song allowing you to sing more and enjoy yourself by shortening or removing guitar solos. There's also a tapping mini-game in certain songs where you tap the microphone to simulate a tambourine or a cow bell. Guitar Hero doesn't do this. Instead, while you'll get sections to shout out to the crowd or sing any vocals, these are few and far between. As well as that, the songs aren't edited down – so if you're singing a song where verses are minutes in between one another, it gets boring quickly just sitting down and waiting for your turn. Granted, there's nothing wrong with listening to a song, but if you're just playing vocals, and you're stuck with practically nothing to do, it gets real boring real fast. Rambling Man by the Allman Brothers Band, while it's a good song, is almost borderline unfun to just sing during its second half.

So in this instance, World Tour still kinda does its own thing compared to Rock Band but yet hasn't really learnt or improved much. Star Power should have really be unique to each player, but this has been made up with the countdown after pausing – a very useful function that neither Rock Band or its sequel possess. With that being said, Rock Band does have some gameplay elements that Guitar Hero should have capitalized on – such as the way you can use Overdrive to save players who failed out or the unique Overdrives for each player. But at least in Guitar Hero – it's much easier to use your overdrive, especially in the cases of a drummer or vocalist.

DIFFICULTY

One of the big reasons why many people converted from Guitar Hero to Rock Band after Guitar Hero 3's release was due to difficulty. Aside from the far more difficult than necessary final set, GH3 also included one of the most broken and unrewarding gameplay modes in history – the Guitar Battles, which placed an emphasis on achieving Mario Kart like items to screw over the opponent than actual skill. This was extremely true during battles against the computer – who cheated like crazy, to the point where if you didn't beat them before their song ended, you'd lose regardless. But enough about that.

Let's kick off with Guitar Hero – who improved their difficulty EXPONENTIALLY. It doesn't feel as overly difficult and hardcore as GH3 did, and you'll find yourself doing much better overall. Hell, there's even a beginner mode (where you basically just strum – no button presses required), and the ability to change difficulty mid-song, which is always a welcome addition. That's not to say that Guitar Hero wussed out or anything. If at all, the game is still much, much more of a hardcore game than Rock Band is – aside from the whole part that if one person fails, everyone fails; the game features some stupidly challenging songs towards the end of the game, such as Van Halen's Hot for Teacher, System of a Down's B.Y.O.B and Joe Satrini's Satch Boogie. The latter of which is challenging enough on any difficulty. But regardless – that's how it should have been in the first place, starting off easy, THEN getting progressively difficult, but not stupidly and overly difficult by the end of the game.

Conversely, Rock Band handles its difficulty slightly better. While the original game doesn't individually score difficulty for each individual member (much like the sequel and the music store does), there is a tiering system in place that helps to clearly tell you how difficult a song is. I've already brought up how Overdrive can be used to save players, which also helps to make the game easier. In general, Rock Band was designed more for a casual audience, and it's not too difficult. However, that's not to say that Rock Band is too easy. You still have to play the songs – there isn't any of the No Fail mode present in Rock Band 2 here.

However, there's plenty of songs both in Rock Band (and the sequel), as well as DLC songs that prove to be an almost absurd challenge. For instance, there's a video of a three player band playing "They're Red Hot" by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. They're sightreading (as in they don't know the chart, so they're going by what they see), and fail within seconds. As well as that, there's a video on YouTube of a player fully clearing the song, on drums, on expert. Supposedly, Harmonix employees were freaked out with just how quickly the player fully cleared the song upon its release. Iron Maiden's "Run to the Hills" on the original Rock Band has also caused major issues – Harmonix developers have said that more people have trouble beating it on Hard than Expert on drums. As well as that, there are several Who songs taken from their Live at Leeds album – which are nightmarish on drums. I guess Keith Moon wasn't thinking about how other people would play his beats in a video game.

If anything, Neversoft have definitely fixed Guitar Hero in this regard, while not so much learning from Rock Band, but more from experience than anything else. After all, when Guitar Hero 3 was as overly challenging and broken as a rhythm game was going to get, you can tell that sweeping changes needed to be made. At least the final set actually poses a proper and fair challenge, instead of the game basically saying "LOL GOOD LUCK".

CAREER MODE

Sure, both Rock Band and World Tour are all about playing music co-operatively in a band, but every rhythm game has at least one mode where you play a structured series of sets and get rewarded with money or other unlockable items. World Tour has its Career Mode, while Rock Band actually has two – Band World Tour and Solo Tour. Both modes are distinctly different to one another, and we'll cover this now.

World Tour's career mode tries to deviate slightly from the Guitar Hero norm of playing tiers of songs, and after completing a certain amount, play an encore song, then moving on to the next tier until you've finished them all....but not by too much. In World Tour, the tiering system is still in place – in each tier, you get four sets to play. There are four tiers in all – with 15 gigs to play (four each in the first three tiers, two in the last, and one dedicating to playing custom setlists of songs previously played in the Career Mode). Each gig you play is a proper set though – you work your way through a number of consecutive songs before playing an encore song at the end of most of the gigs. You can play through the career mode five times – once for the band, and once for each of the instruments. Despite these five career modes, it's still exactly the same game, no matter what and how you're playing career mode.

Rock Band's career is slightly different depending on what mode you play. Band World Tour sees you start a band of 2-4 people, and then travel around the world, playing individual songs, custom sets, mystery sets or specialized sets, earning fans and generally...well...be a Rock Band! It's very open and can't really end...but there are some major problems with it. For instance, once you start a Band World Tour – and you've chosen which players are playing which instruments or who the band leader is (i.e. the person that does all the selecting for menus), they're locked. So if you've started a four player Band World Tour, and your drummer can't make it for whatever reason, then you'd need to start a completely new game, delete that member from the band...or just play random setlists in the quickplay menu.

Solo Tour is nowhere near as awesome as Band World Tour. In fact, instead of being as revolutionary as BWT...all you do in Solo Tour is play tiers, similar to what you were doing in Guitar Hero 3 (and even the Harmonix developed Guitar Hero games). Each tier has around five songs, and you need to play all the songs in the setlist to proceed to the next one. Unlike World Tour, you can only play three instruments – lead guitar, vocals or drums. There's no bass career. This is unfortunate, but kind of understandable at the same time (especially when you play Bass in either Guitar Hero or Rock Band). Solo Tour also doesn't let you create your own setlists, unlike Guitar Hero World Tour, and you'll have to do each song individually. Whether or not you find that a problem will vary depending on the person playing the game.

In this regard, it's kind of sad to see that Guitar Hero really hasn't learnt too much from what Rock Band has done. It still seems too...shackled by what the previous games have done that if any form of major change is introduced the career mode, then Neversoft/Activision might feel that the fans would rebel against them. Conversely, Rock Band's Tour modes are well intentioned and have some good ideas, but have some completely stupid elements in them (such as locking members in BWT, or having a mediocre single player mode) – though this was all fixed in the sequel.

USER INTERFACE/PRESENTATION

It's extremely important to be able to see how you're doing, especially in a game like this. As well as that, the way that the game is presented to you is also quite important. Both Rock Band & Guitar Hero have completely different methods of presentation and UI, and whichever one you prefer is based on personal preference more than anything else.

Rock Band is presented in an extremely simple way. The best way to describe it would be to compare it to how Sony treat their Singstar games, in that the frontend is simplified enough where you can quickly go pick a song and play it. The Solo and World Tour modes are again, just simplified where there's little between you and the songs. There's no story, no cutscenes, nothing. Then when you get into the game, there's still plenty of simplicity. Hell, there aren't any crazy animations when you go into Overdrive – just your notechart turning gold.

Though the one problem people have with the game is the design aesthetic of both the menus and the characters. Personally speaking, it's not that bothering – though it's easy to see why people would get sick of the cartoonish and at times, unappealing looking Rock Band characters. Though honestly, the same could be said about the Guitar Hero characters.

The presentation of the UI is also quite nice. The overdrive bar is laid out on the bottom of all the note charts, and the total score is presented in the top right-hand corner of the screen. In addition, is that the game will actually show off how you're doing by showing how many stars you've achieved. In fact, you'll get a noise everytime you get a star, and it's notable enough that you don't need to constantly be looking at how many stars you have to know how many you currently have. It's a neat addition, and beats waiting until the end of the song to know how you went.

As for World Tour...it hasn't really evolved much from Guitar Hero World Tour. The presentation of the game is still that over the top 'metal' feel, as well as feeling much more like a game, if that makes any sense. For instance, each encore is presented with a brief scene of something crazy happening – such as an electrical fire starting. As well as that, there are animated cutscenes, courtesy of animation house Titmouse (best known for Metapocolypse). What's disappointing is that they open and close each career – there's nothing in between, which is weird. Lastly, for some strange reason, the game reuses the biographies for each of the returning characters in World Tour. Surely it couldn't have been that hard to rewrite some new text?

Though what's even weirder is that the cutscenes actually focus on the four new characters that represent the drummer, vocalist, lead and bass guitarists. Which is quite dumb – since for the most part you'll be playing as either a customized character, one of the other returning or licensed characters. It feels quite jarring to know that despite you playing as any of the other characters, you'll get the ending for just the ONE character. Which is kinda dumb.

As for the UI? Well, it's basically the same as Guitar Hero 3's. It feels too much like Neversoft just took the GH3 interface, added in the drum and vocal track. You can't check how many stars you have until the end of the song, but unlike Rock Band, you can specifically check how you went in a particular section – making problem identification for specific areas easier.

DOWNLOADBLE CONTENT

Finally, and quickly, is the issue of downloadable content. I'll go through this quickly, since there isn't all that much to cover. We all know that this has been a huge deal with Rock Band – with such a large variety of music up for download at reasonable prices. But one of the better things about Rock Band's DLC is that (mostly) every week since the game's original launch, there has been some form of DLC released simultaneously on both the Xbox Live Marketplace and Playstation Store.

To better illustrate the point – here's a brief recap on how Activision treated Guitar Hero 3's DLC. All the items were released as track packs, and only as track packs. So if you wanted the Coldplay pack to specifically play Violet Hill, then you're stuck with two songs that you might not want. For the 360 version of Guitar Hero II, this was exactly the same scenario. As well as that, releases were few and far between – and to date, there are only two complete albums up for download (Metallica's Death Magnetic and Oasis's Dig Out Your Soul).

How did World Tour learn from Rock Band in this regard? Simple. DLC is now being released weekly, and you now have the option to download individual tracks instead of being forced to download packs. Granted, there are some songs you can only get as a pack, but when you figure that two of them are Hendrix packs, as well as how stupidly restrictive the Hendrix family are with using ANYTHING related to Jimi, it's understandable. So far, it's all well and good, save for the fact that the songs are exclusive to the Xbox Live Marketplace for two weeks, before hitting the Playstation Network.

From a business perspective, it makes sense. After all, more people own 360's and play these kinds of games on their consoles, so in that regard...I guess it's acceptable. But at the same time, it's still completely wrong. It screws out a potential half of their audience for little reason other than money. It's not like the actual content needs to be recoded too drastically for the each of the different versions of the game.

CONCLUSION

In the time between the original release of Rock Band, and seeing how its release has impacted the rhythm game genre, it's almost unfortunate to see that Activision and Neversoft really haven't learnt too much from what MTV and Harmonix have created. Don't get me wrong though, there are some things that have been learnt (such as an improvement in DLC releases, the pause countdown and the ability to activate Star Power at any point in the song or anyone can earn star power for the band), but at the same time, there are some stupid mistakes that should have been fixed (such as the fact that anyone can use Star Power) as well as problems with the game that were actually perfected in Guitar Hero 3! (Such as text entry and character bios)

But with that being said, 2009 is going to be a very interesting year for both the Guitar Hero and Rock Band franchises. With Harmonix not working on Rock Band 3, and Activision releasing a rumoured six Guitar Hero games this year (so far, Guitar Hero V, Guitar Hero Metallica, Guitar Hero Smash Hits and two more Guitar Hero On Tour games), there's plenty of an opportunity for Guitar Hero to improve itself. If not immediately, but slowly.

Let's just hope that the yearly exploiting for Guitar Hero actually helps the series.

Darth Plays Call of Duty: World at War

2009-01-20T21:32:00.000-08:00

Another year, another Call of Duty game. With Infinity Ward raising the bar with CoD4: Modern Warfare, it was a hard sell to most people that the next iteration in the series would not only be set back in World War 2, but not helmed by Infinity Ward, but another Activision-owned developer, Treyarch; who were responsible for the two CoD console games prior to the release of the Xbox 360, as well as Call of Duty 3, which has often been cruelly and unfortunately shunted.

Let's see how their latest effort fairs:

*...The Treyarch and Activision logos are set to footage of WW2 destruction...soundtracked by Mozart's Dies Irae? Dear god, I'm getting Clockwork Orange flashbacks. And since when did Activision let Treyarch take top billing?
*Wow. This main menu looks oddly familiar. Like a certain game released around the same time last year and was a huge hit...wait a minute! Isn't this the game that uses the same engine that powered that really popular game that wasr released around the same time last year?
*(in options menu) There's an option to turn down the violence? Am I sure I picked up the right game?
*(when starting new game) And I'm being told that this game does have graphic violence? Well it's a WAR GAME, it's not like there's going to be plenty of scenes of the Americans and the Japanese playing cricket, now is there?
*(during opening cinematics). Is it acceptable to say that despite the violent footage being shown...that this actually looks really cool?
*(within first five minutes of the game actually starting) I don't know if I approve of this whole darker and edgier CoD game. I mean, a dude getting a cigarette in his eye, then his throat slit, then another dude getting stabbed...and F bombs dropped? Good lord - talk about appealing to your fans...
*(when told to save a soldier named Ryan, but failed) Bloody hell, I TRIED KEIFER SUTHERLAND, I REALLY TRIE..wait, I had to Save Private Ryan? Heh.
*(while checking Trophies) THERE WAS A TROPHY FOR SAVING PRIVATE RYAN? (immiedately retries level)
*(after completing first level) I got a Silver Trophy for just beating the first level? Wow.
*I never would've thought I'd say this, BUT STOP BLOODY SWEARING GAME. It doesn't suit you at all.
*(while explosions go off, limbs fly off and people scream). The horror....the horror....
*(after an hour of playing) I have how many levels left? Sweet jesus (NOTE: Playing on the easiest difficulty might have been the problem).
*Wow. If I wasn't going for a trophy, this level would have literally taken me ten minutes to beat. My god.
*(when a heavy metal-esque riff starts playing) ...What.
*Wait a tick...the last mission of the Eastern Front campaign is to capture the Reichstag? I can distinctly remember that being last mission you play at the END of the original Call of Duty! (plays through mission)...and I didn't even get to see the dude I played as! That was lame.
*(After dying) What, no War quotes Treyarch? Come on...
*(after getting killed by a Grenade) I see Grenade Spam 07 is back in fashion (sighs)
*(during a Banzai charge) JESUS CHRIST THAT DUDE IS RUNNING TOWARDS M...(gets stabbed). So these guys are supposed to represent the tricky to kill dogs from CoD4 huh? Lame.
*(dogs show up)...That point is moot then.
*The Russians were really never THAT psychotic and violent...where they?
*Wait...what's the story here? There's no real link between these campaigns..hell, the ORIGINAL Call of Duty had links between these campaigns.

So yeah...that's World at War in a nutshell. It's not the best CoD game, but it's certainly far from the worst. The way that the each nation is portrayed is somewhat questionable, with the Russians being treated as psychotic monsters whom want to murder every single German. The best thing about the game is the way the action is portrayed - it's brutal and what not, which does set it apart from other WW2 games, but at the same time, there are elements that seem unnecessary, such as the swearing. And it's short. REAL short. But I guess the MP makes up for that.

Game Over. No More 1UPs.

2009-01-07T17:31:00.001-08:00

I don't normally like to comment on games journalism. Either because I can't really find a nice thing to say about it - different people have different tastes and what not. Personally, I've never been a fan of Jeff Gerstmann (before and after that whole saga), but most people like to think of him as some kind of reviewing messiah. Don't get me wrong, he's a funny dude, but I never saw the appeal in him. Actually, it's kinda funny I bring up Jeff - it serves a kind of link between what I'm really talking about here. But I'll get to that in a moment.

Though if you still haven't gotten it yet, I'm referring to 1UP.com and EGM being sold by Ziff Davis and purchased by Hearst Publishing (yes, the inspiration for Citizen Kane), and has become a part of UGO. The basic story is that while both properties were sold off, Hearst/UGO made some broad, sweeping changes to the organization. Specifically, EGM, which had been running for nearly 20 years, was closed down. The GameVideos team, and a HUGE amount of the staff from 1UP and EGM were let go, with about ten or so keeping their jobs (mostly senior writers and the two latest hirings).

Let me explain just how big of a deal this is.

Aside from losing their video team and a good portion of their editorial staff, 1UP runs a podcasting network that is second to none. If I hadn't been exposed to 1UP Yours, I probably would have never gotten into podcasting. As well as that, the other podcasts were top notch - for a while, the GFW Radio (aka 97.5: The Brodeo) podcast was almost essentially weekly listening, and more so when their magazine closed down. For the longest time, 1UP had been the king of gaming podcasts, and as part of the cuts...the podcasts are dead.

You're probably still wondering why the hell I brought up Jeff earlier. Much like Giant Bomb, I've got my problems with 1UP that most people seem to let slide. Stuff like GameVideo's not even considering to put anything less than HD content on their site, or not even considering that most people outside of the US don't have less than 250GB download limits, as well as putting filters into their videos to make them look edgy...but did nothing except try to look like something that was meaningless. Then there's various editorial decisions and comments that I thought were...questionable. For instance, one writer on the site (which I absolutely detest...and is one of the people staying on instead of some of the more talented writers/podcasters) mentioned that although Gears 2 looked good...it looked too good. And this dude's a huge Gears fanboy also.

Granted, with the struggles that 1UP have had recently, it's not a surprise that something like this happened, but with Hearst taking reins and essentially killing off the company....yeah, no-one really saw that one coming. It's a tragedy, and here's hoping that all those who lost their jobs do find some steady employment.

Except that one writer who still has a job. He doesn't deserve it.

The Experience of the Nintendo Experience

2008-12-12T15:54:00.000-08:00

When the news first broke about the ‘Nintendo Experience’ – I can honestly say I was surprised. Nintendo Australia actually trying something like the Nintendo World Store in the US. Granted, that’s not exactly what the NE is, but it’s still a nice first step. It’s the first of it’s kinda in Australia, and great to see it debut right here in Melbourne.

The extent of my experiences with the Nintendo experience range from attending a party prior (thanks to Will from Aussie Nintendo) and actually showing up on Day 1. The party itself was kinda cool – I mean, being one of the first in a brand new gaming retail endeavour, and the first in Australia? You can’t say no to that. But otherwise – unless if you were one of the VIP entrants (that weren’t media or an executive in some way), you didn’t really get much out of it. It was also really easy to tell who was whom. The executives were obvious in their suits. The media and VIP guests were easily recognizable in their casual clothes. The cosplayers were also easily recognizable in their cosplays.

Yes. I’m serious about that.

Aside from that, props to Nintendo for giving the VIP winners a copy of Animal Crossing: Let’s Go To The City. And with the Wii Speak peripheral also! Say what you will about Animal Crossing, it’s still pretty cool of Nintendo to actually give away a $130 bundle. Here’s hoping they weren’t planning to transfer their DS characters over...

The next day was the official launch of the store, and my god was it insane. I got there at around 10am (some of the forumites and I had agreed to do some shopping), and already there was a decent queue. When I came back around 10:30, the line had doubled. When I returned at 11:50am to do a podcast, they had only let in 100 people into the actual store. And there was an even bigger line outside. I’d liken it to something like a midnight launch to an upcoming videogame. Personally, I’d never experienced something quite like this.

And then people were being let in...

It was probably a smart idea for Nintendo to advertise the fact that the first 100 entrants to the Experience got a Wii or DS game (the visitors weren’t given a choice). It definitely attracted a hell of a lot of people – which is easily what Nintendo wanted. I honestly bet that they weren’t expecting THAT much of a turn out - just for people to get a copy of Wii Music or a Petz game. But wow, were people happy to get a copy of said game. I’ve heard stories about people getting there at MIDNIGHT for this. Hell, two of the forumites from the Level 3 boards got there are 8:30 in the morning for this. I guess you really can’t argue with the power of a free game – even if it is a bloody Petz game.

The real reason that Jason and I were there was to record a podcast. It was an interesting scenario, because this was only our second live interview based podcast (our first being the eGames one), and everything just fell into place. Really, the only interviews that we had established beforehand were with Kristy and Sandra – the Daisy and Peach cosplayers (who were big Level 3 fans). Everything just fell into place.

By far the most interesting interviews that we did were with Heather Murphy (the head of Public Relations for Nintendo AU) and Debra Mitchell (the head of Public Relations for EB Games Australia). What made this interview interesting was the method we recorded in. You see – we had decided early on that it was going to be really difficult to record using the in-built mic on a Mac Book Pro. I mean, you try doing that. So we decided to bring some mics. Jason couldn’t find his Guitar Hero World Tour mic, and we had no other USB mics on us, so I decided to bring my Singstar mics.

When we got the mics out, this made Heather extremely adamant not to be seen with them. I mean, YOU try explaining to the head of Nintendo PR that the only way that we can interview you and get your voice correct is by using microphones branded by one of your competitors. After explaining to Heather and Debra that it was only audio – there wouldn’t be any video/imagery taken, did the interview commence. As a joke, I tried to take a picture – but she didn’t see that as a joke. Though Jason did pass off the whole Singstar thing as a joke, which was kinda cool.

Interviewing Kristy and Sandra was also rad. What struck me about the girls were just how hardcore they were into Nintendo and Japanese culture. Example – I took a picture of them, and for some stupid reason, shouted out “Very Kawaii” (Japanese for cute). Their respose? “KAWAII DESU NE!” (or something to that effect, I can’t recall precisely). But just how hardcore Nintenphiles these girls were just completely stunned me. For instance, Alioth (one of the Level 3 fourmites) had brought in a Game Boy Advance SP with the Game Boy Camera add-on. Kristy noticed this, and responded that she actually had the Game Boy Printer companion add-on WITH HER. Then both Sandra and Krirsty also brought up how awesome “Dot Matrix” was – which was how the original Game Boy displayed colours. That I can remember vividly.

Otherwise, it was an interesting experience (god, I should really stop using that term). Meeting up with all these people and having a podcast that just fell into place (so to speak), was something awesome. With plans for Nintendo to potentially open up more of these stores in other EB’s in Victoria (and eventually other states), there really does seem to be no stopping Nintendo. It seems like the start of a beautiful friendship....

Things I've Uttered/Thought Of While Playing Need for Speed Undercover

2008-11-27T00:22:00.000-08:00

Alrighty. I saw a fantastic blog the other day where the writer was playing through the early parts of a game and proceeded to document his thoughts and utterances as he played. I loved the idea so much that I've decided to show how much I loved it by applying it to another EA game, this time, Need for Speed Undercover. It was a rental (because I'm not really big into the NFS games), but it should make for an interesting little read. Let's begin:

(During EA Title) "When did Black Box start to get independently recognized? Never saw EA LA or Tiburon getting recognized for their work..."

"Wait, this game requires an install!? Are you kidding me? Every single EA game on the PS3 hasn't needed a bloody install, and it runs absolutely perfectly...am I...wait, it's done? Whoa. That was quick".

(helicopters fly past the screen). "So how much do I need to pay to unlock those?"

(game begins as many, many cop cars are chasing me) "Jesus Christ, I know EA wanted me to buy the game, but goddamn, I don't think renting it was THAT much of an offense"

"The evil Asian chick from Die Hard 4 is giving me orders? Well...I guess I'll have to listen...she DID kick that Mac dudes ass...and Bruce Willis'"

(upon entering the open world) "Ok Maggie Q, you've just told me what to do, so where the hell do I start? There's nothing on the mini-map, there's nothing here that tells me what to do (drives around for a bit)...hey a race! Now was it THAT hard to put it on the mini-map?"

(during load screen) "I'm not good...And I'm not bad....philosophy....in an EA game? Now THIS is next gen!"

(race cutscene starts) "So why is it my totally 350Z got replaced with a not-350Z, while everyone else has more rad cars than me?"

(race finishes) "Wait. I beat all those cars...BY THIRTEEN SECONDS. On my first race. In a crappy Nissan. Something is not right. Lemme go into the option...jesus Christ it doesn't take that bloody long to autosave....alright (pushes start button), oh! So that's the main menu. Ok, rad. Let's go into options (does so), gameplay (does so)...there's no difficulty option? Not even a subtitle option?

...oh dear. We're in for a treat" (NOTE: I'm deadly serious about that margin).

(while in pause menu). "Ok, let's check what cars and stuff I can buy. (goes into Car Menu). Ok, let's see...American, Japanese, European...let's go to Japan (clicks – looks through all the cars). Hmm..the Lancer is locked, let's see...wait, what!? (message pops up – reading). You've yet to find this dealership...do you want to use your PLAYSTATION NETWORK WALLET to buy it?

That can't be right...(checks out some other cars – same deal). Oh you have got to be kidding me..(goes into parts menu – same deal). Oh you have GOT to be kidding me..."

"Ooh, Photo Mode (takes picture...game tries to connect to the internet). NO GAME, I DON'T WANT TO CONNECT TO THE INTERNET TO SAVE A PHOTO."

(driving by, suddenly a cop car sights me and chases me) "WHAT!? What the bloody hell did I do now? (drives by a billboard that says "Don't Even THINK about speeding"). Oh. That would explain quite a lot."

(during a cop chase) "STOP BLOODY SPAWNING JUST WHERE I NEEDED TO ESCAPE"

(during a 'Transporter' mission). "You've given me a car with no turbo, poor acceleration and low top speed, STOP TELLING ME TO DRIVE FASTER."

(during a Highway Battle). "Dear god, I'm driving hundreds of kilometres per hour, chasing some dude, and trying best him...it's the bloody Tokyo Highway Battle in peak hour. THIS IS AWESOME."

(while the frame rate breaks up) "Am I watching a car slide show, or am I interacting with it?

"HUH!? Did that car just pass through a barrier? When can I get a ghost car?"

So in a nutshell, this helps to describe NFS Undercover. It's not as bad as IGN says – not even close. It's enjoyable, but there's plenty of problems that do hamper the experience. Stuff like the broken framerate (which is a huge problem), the difficulty – that stuff is problematic. The mini-map is also useless. It doesn't display anything at all, which does not help in the slightest. But there's some inherent fun to actually be had – just don't go expecting something akin to Burnout Paradise. It's also unfortunate that this game will sell a whole hell of a lot more.

I've also easened up a bit on the whole "buy cars/parts via Real Life money". I can understand why EA would include a functionality like this, and I can also see who would actually buy into this – but it's still not right.

eGames 2008: Through the Eyes of Darth...

2008-11-17T00:27:00.000-08:00

Last year marked the first time that I went to the eGames Expo as more than just a guest, and become ‘media’. This year marked the first time that I actually had something to contribute to Level 3 than just be someone wandering the show floor with far more experienced media types.

I like to think that last year was my ‘work experience year’. You know, go with the guys who have more experience and see how they work, picking up tricks of the trade and what not. It was good, even though I barely spoke to anyone barring the Level 3 guys. It was the first time that I actually met Jason and the crew, so that was also helpful. A year later, and nearly 30 podcasts behind us, I felt more and more like a media person, and hence, more confident in introducing myself to some of the other media personalities and what not that were present.

I was there for two of the three days, and here’s a recollection of my experiences.
DAY 1 (Friday 14th November):

The day was split into two parts for me. I was there initially before the show opened to set up contacts for people that I wanted to interview for the podcast, then I had to leave due to reasons of examination. From there, I returned. When I got to the show, I took a series of images prior to the opening that I’ve uploaded onto my Picasa account, which show just all the preparation it takes to get a show like this ready to go.

Cosplayers were present across all three days in general. The one moment that blew me away, and this is something that I wish I took a picture of, a Link cosplayer rocking out to Guitar Hero. Also saw a pretty rad Joker (Dark Knight, of course) as well, aside from the various Best exchange of the day came as I returned to the show, some dudes were walking past a Mudkip cosplayer and remarked that she was a Mudkip. Her response? “So I heard you liked Mudkips...”

Sad, but I laughed.

Also had a chance to meet a few people I’m fans of. Specifically related to Australian Gamer. Matt and Yug are awesome guys. Yahtzee shocked me. I was honestly expecting the Yahtzee we know and love from Zero Punctuation...but instead, I got a polite Yahtzee. Which was rad, of course. As was seeing him rock out in Guitar Hero...

Recording with the Aussie Nintendo guys...now that was fun. We recorded literally at 5pm, and was the only thing that we had recorded that day. I had JUST come back from an exam, and I was literally out of ideas and had no plan, but the six dudes made it fun. What was a surprise to me when I was conducting the interview was that YouTube’s Blunty3000 was there. I had no idea he was at the show to begin with, and within recording distance.

Would have personally loved for him to get more involved in the show, but he was busy checking footage – and I honestly didn’t want to bother him that much. It made for a fun recording though...even if it’s a little non-sensical and almost completely directionless. There were plenty of moments that I wish we did record, especially from one Lamington Child...

Speaking of Lamington Child, he possibly had the moment of the day. I went walking with Keith to go take some pictures around the show (which is where we saw the Link cosplayer playing Guitar Hero), and when we returned to the Media Office, he was re-enacting the Caramelldansen dance. I literally stood there in the doorway stunned.

Meeting Craig Lowdnes and Jamie Whincup was surreal. I mean, it was literally a last minute thing, and while I’m not a big fan of motorsport...it was something. Hearing Craig talking about gaming was also something cool.

There was more PS3 representation than I thought would actually be there. For instance, Tomb Raider Underworld was ONLY shown on a PS3 (despite Eidos’s best attempts to trick gamers into thinking that version of the game doesn’t exist), Resident Evil 5 was only at the Sony booth, Mirrors Edge and NFS: Undercover were PS3 only. Matter of fact, the only NEW game for the 360 was either Gears of War 2, or in one of the stands, Guitar Hero World Tour...

Speaking of Guitar Hero WT, where was it? The full setup wasn’t there! That would have been a great play! And better yet, where was Rock Band?

I should allude a little more on the RE5 point. One thing that I noticed about the show was that in general, there was more unreleased stuff than last year. Obviously RE5, but Ubi also showed off Prince of Persia, Shawn White’s Snowboarding (Wii and 360 verisons) and Naruto: The Broken Bond. Almost all of the games at the Funtastic/Disney booth were unreleased (Pure being the exception). Nintendo’s even had a few – in the form of Animal Crossing: Let’s Go To The City and Kirby Superstar Ultra. EA had NFS: Undercover. Sony also showed off quite a few unreleased PSP games, including LocoRoco 2 and Resistance Portable. And while not at the Sony booth, Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm was shown off...

HOWEVER, AFA Interactive took the cake with all of their games being unreleased. Basically, these were the D3/Marvellous Games, which included Bangai-O Spirits (brutally hard), Little Kings Story (which is making its first public appearance outside of Japan), Matt Hazard (which I really hate hearing about), some game based around Ben 10 and more.

DAY 2 (Saturday 15th November)

Day 2 was really memorable for me. And I’m not just saying that. I didn’t spent as long at the show as I did the day before, but there was one main reason why I was there. I’ll get to that in a moment. Anyway, experiences:

Interviewing Matt and Yug was awesome. It was literally a 10 minute thing that was slightly more prepared than the Aussie Nintendo ‘interview’ I did the day beforehand, even if I did miss out on a couple of things that I wanted to mention. It was also pretty rad to also have Yahtzee there – he basically played the same role that Blunty played the day beforehand.

The big reason why I was there was that I was a participant on a gaming trivia challenge hosted by Yahtzee – and was participated by Jason and myself, Matt and Yug, and two of the dudes from GameArena (who didn’t show). It was fun – I find that I’m better at actually answering questions about gaming than re-enacting games without using much in the way of dialogue, but actions and sound effects. Re-enacting GTA 4 and Tomb Raider is harder than it looks. And I will gladly give Yahtzee credit for his “guess the game screenshot obscured by kittens”. Yes. Kittens.

Oh, and we won. That was rad. In the end, there was a huge deficit between us and Australian Gamer, but we didn’t care. But everyone had fun.

Almost immediately afterwards, Jason had to leave, and I (finally) got to meet up with our forumites. Well, the ones that had come, anyway. It was still really awesome – they were happy I was there (because I normally can’t come to a get-together, because of work). The get together at Galactic Circus was fun – actually managed to not (completely) suck at Guitar Freaks, and played a decent run on Drum Mania. Also had some fun with SF4, actually WON a few bouts (against the computer)...to which I then got my arse kicked in two separate games by some dude who played Blanka and Alioth who played Sagat. The latter I was playing as Akuma, whom is rad and all, but takes damage like CRAZY.

As well as that, Lux, Ali and I indulged ourselves in a bit of Mario Kart DS. Made us look like huge nerds, but really, it was either that, play Daytona, or...watch someone play Initial D. Now do you understand?

And to top this all off? There were some women arguing with some dude on the way home. Particularly loud too – possibly drunk. They were swearing their heads off, threatening to stab someone with a bottle...scary stuff, because really, it could get just a little out of control and someone could have been stabbed. But hey, what can you do? It was a Saturday night and all...

Overall, it was a fun experience. We all had a great time, and the show itself was a big improvement over last year. Some general thoughts about the show:

Is there really a point for Nintendo to KEEP showing Wii Sports? I mean, the game is two years old, and everyone who owns a Wii has the game anyway – there’s better stuff out there to show off what the Wii can do than just Wii Sports...

Kudos for Sony for showing off a good mix of old and new stuff.

Hey Microsoft, why don’t you want to show off how awesome the 360 is? The first year, there was a HUGE area for the 360. The second year was a massive downsize. This year? No official presence for the 360, unless you count the Gears of War 2 bunker. And hell, none of the 360’s there were playing anything unreleased – the only ‘new’ things there were Gears of War 2 and Guitar Hero: World Tour.

Speaking of the latter point, you could argue that because Microsoft already have the sales, they don’t need to show anything off...but there are still people out there not convinced enough to buy a 360. Like myself.

I felt like I should have done more interviewing with people. Or at least pick up my own recording device and recorded people on the show floor.

So yeah, that’s eGames 2008 in a nutshell. Can’t wait for next years show – here’s hoping that we can record more stuff.

In Construction...

2008-10-30T02:47:00.001-07:00

More to come as follows.

This is the personal blog of one DarthHomer - his life and his experiences for your expreience.