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Showing posts from November, 2008

Issues in gaming: The Watchmen

Lots of people complaining about the Watchmen being turned into a film. Also, some people complaining that it is being turned into a game. All complaining that it would be inappropriate to convert such a masterpiece as it was meant to be a comic and the creator never wanted it to be adapted. Yeah, that just doesn't wash. Of course it will be shit film and game because most films and games are shit. Broken. Couldn't carry a narrative to save their lives. Boxed in by gaming conventions and held back by lack of creativity we are a while off yet before games can carry a serious story without: a) Getting silly in the last two levels and brining in Aliens, Monsters, Cloning, Mad Doctors or just losing the plot a bit. Finished a game recently, no? Seen a good ending in games ever? No. b) Having some kind of moving crate/box or barrel problem to solve. c) Crappy AI........ ....... aaabaggd) Sharing an online world with the actual scum of the earth empowered by the ability to insult y

Going underground...

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As you are no doubt aware the end of the world is nigh. If we don't deforest it to death we'll all poor ourselves to death. Fortunately, for the moment the recession seems to be hitting people who have more than one houses and mortgages and savings hard. So for the meantime gamers are safe. For now. However, Midway are not safe. Apparently they risk being delisted from the New York Stock Exchange. This is bad apparently. Obviously, this sucks for Midway employees and for that we are sorry. On the upside we hope to god that the IP rights for Mortal Kombat are lost in the ensuing sell offs and folding because we, for one, think the world would be a much much better place without the poor man's Street Fighter. Good bye Mortal Kombat. And good riddance.

Photocopier

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Note to anyone who has been, is or ever will be associated with a Star Wars game. Is it at all possible to be so brash to ask that we the gamers don't have to play the Echo Base Hoth battle ever again? Can't we come up with some kind of peripheral that scans all your memory cards and save files in your house and just skips that whole level if it finds a Star Wars save game, which we must have done about a million times. Yes, using the tow cable to pull down the At-Ats is fun the first two hundred times but enough is enough . Lets stop it now and come up with something that we don't have to borrow from 1980. Because at the moment, when I die, killing that first zombie in resident evil (and subsequent remakes) and going round and round At-ats is going to take up a considerable chunk of my whole life flashing before my eyes. Like more than a fifth at least.

Consoles are dead long li

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Sorry I couldn't finish the title because my computer crashed. Lets start again. Conso Sorry I had to install a patch there. I'll try again Consoles arrererherjehjrhe Sorry I had to install another patch. Hello? Hello? Is my microphone working? Hello? I'll try again. Hang on. COnsoles are Sorry. Three of my friends came over so we were playing multiplayer games. You know the kind you don't get on the PC. Only got shitty RPGs and RTS. Where was I. Did that work? No. No. I think I need a new graphics card actually. Oh. I'm sure I had a save file. It's probably on my old PC or I deleted it or something. Hang on. Yeah I'm at a friends house now. What? I can't use it on her PC? Hang on. Graphics Card issues. Now my monitor won't work. Nope. Cra@ ~~^^ggg1. Cra^#ing Finally. On a Mac now. So, today children my point is consoles are deeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Little Sales, Big Joke

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Of course I am talking about LittleBigPlanet. Remember the hype? The endless conference videos showing the game, Kotaku, GameSpot and every other popular gaming blog totally selling out to Media molecule? Those annoying videos where someone recreated another game in LBP, a game that you could probably by on the virtual console anyway? Did anyone see the akward TV spots? This is egg on the face of all those with high hopes for this "game" and ultimately a sign that a game like LBP may be great in an office full of game journalists with a shared PS3 but for the average joe? It seems that Mario Kart Wii will do fine. So where does this leave the PS3? Pretty much all the stuff that was due for launch finally came out and it all came out with a poof! Rather than a bang. Is anyone even playing MGS4? No, thought not. Resistance 2 and Resistance? HA! Ummm... Home? Oh not out yet. So much for killer aps. Looks like the 360 fanboys won the skirmish, battle and war.

Gender issues in Games

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So it seems from my all important viewpoint that a whole bunch of losers insist about worrying about gender in games the whole frickin time. "All girl characters in games just look hot or cry except when they are big and fat ". And someone will whinge about it if they are all, any or either of the above. So what? Get over it. Male characters have a raw deal in games. So there. All genders get a raw deal when depicted in games. But that's no surprise the same is true in children's drawings, advertising and every other medium ever. Street signs have better narratives than most games the only good thing games have is shiny graphics and a distraction from daily life or news of stabbings, economic crash, climate change. Do not look to games as a fulcrum in your hack paper on gender in games. I mean you Terra Nova . No. The losers mentioned above use their internet moaning like a horde of "liberal" zombies to skirt around the real gender issue in games. This

Exclusive Fable 2 Review

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P.S. Fable 2 is just Fable with a dog. Richie.

Impressions.

This weekend I had a chance to catch up with two new games on the Xbox 360, the alleged "real console". Saying that will make PS3 owners scoff, Wii owners laugh in their gazillions and PC owners head straight to their favourite forum to rat me out for the console loving luddite they expect me to be. Turning on the spot is over rated any case. Anyway, as we are in the midst of the winter of good games after the seemingly eternal summer of absolutely shit games I was anxious to try out two of the games I was particularly looking forward to. Gears of War 2. DANGER DANGER! SPOILERS IF YOU COULDN'T GUESS THE GIST ANYWAY Having enjoyed Gears of War after it came out and long after most Xbox 360 owners had changed their 20 second attention towards something else a little bit different (Does anyone even play Halo 3 anymore?) I was looking forward to the second one. I'd read a bit about it and Cliffy B spouting off about the story and it being, bigger and better etc. etc. The

We got another letter!

Dear Thatguys, Since you guys seem to be into survival horror, I was just wondering what you think of Silent Hill: Homecoming. And what do you guys make of Dead Space? Regards, Sherryluvr296. Well reader, thanks for your question, clearly you are an avid reader and saw our recent epic post on survival horror. Firstly nobody has actually managed to have a proper play at Silent Hill: Homecoming because yet once again, Europe sat at home quietly waiting by the phone for Konami to ring. They promised they would phone in mid-November, but no. We just get a text from our mutual friend Kotaku, saying that Konami is having a bit of a hard time and wont be able to meet up until at least Q1 of 2009. So we retire back to watching X-factor, crying softly into our knitting thinking about all the dizzying and sordid acts that America is currently doing to Konami's Silent Hill! In short, we are looking forward to it… Expect a review in 2009 along with us prising Konami for giving us some really

I lost my friends to WAR.

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Yeah, WAR. WAR is hell. What is it good for etc. All those cliches. Insert them all here! Well WAR is good for losing five friends. That's what it is good for. A bunch of my staple geek friends all got themselves playing Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, through a combination of relationships ending, boredom and geographical distance. Now they play it. A lot. (Un)fortunately, I am copied into all their emails so daily I get 145 emails which roughly broken down are: When we gonna meet up tonight, tomorrow, weekend (45%), what we did last night for those who couldn't make it (35%), hey guys I just read the wiki and we should.... (10%), microphone, PC, problems (10%). And dps jokes and all other acronyms which I couldn't care to google are the new order of the day. Just today I got sent this: LOLLERCAUST you will all no doubt agree. But do I despair? Nah. It's how MMORPGs work and the mix of my friends who now play WAR is testament to the tried

Garry's Mod

Click the title if you don't know what it is. It is a silly place with so much potential but it is rarely ever realised. For every 14,0098 awful videos like this this and this there may be one good video or idea. Concerned comics is one such idea as is this simple one stolen from here . The rest however, is a fetid mess. Like a child's bedroom. Banal, derivative nonsense. It is horrible to behold yet it is often followed by clammy sweaty palmed comments of "LOL" and "AWESOME" and it looks like they genuinely mean it. It's what games would be if fan service overwhelmed everything else. Glimpses into the psyche of these morons shows levels strewn with melons (LOL MELLONS) or with G-Man doing the retarded and cliched Gmod dance. What do I care though? I'm seventy going on dead but for you. You poor sorry souls. For you these people are your future . :( Indeed.

Chortle

Been playing a lot of SSBB recently and this video really struck a chord. Gotta love Captain Falcon even if you hate his games.

No Matter if you're Black or White

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As everyone knows by now Resident Evil 5 is coming to both the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3. This week capcom announced some of the DLC which will be available for specific versions. We've gots the lowdown here mofos: Xbox 360 1000mp Resident Evil 1 Rocket launcher. If you don’t purchase this then upon start up you are faced with the “you are dead” screen from the end of the PlayStation Resident Evil 1. Because there was no rocket launcher Chris died at the end of RE. Buying this content means that Chris didn’t die and you can play Resident Evil 5 as per usual. 450mp Training for Chris. After purchasing this content Chris can fire weapons and throw grenades without risk of hurting himself, fumbling reloads or turning the safety on and off. 200mp Lemsip for Chris. Upon purchasing this, Chris will stop occasionally sniffling or complaining about having a “stuffy head”. 300mp Zombies. Buying this content unlocks an extra zombie at the beginning of the second secti