Archives for December, 2007
Posted on Dec 31, 2007 under Main |
You know what, Bold Games? We’re going to give you a pass on the name. There’s no denying that releasing six Wii games on the same day that literally nothing else is coming out is actually pretty darn bold. We have no idea if these $20 games will be any good (Spoiler alert: They won’t), but if you can’t go more than a week without buying a brand new game, here are your choices:
Nintendo Wii:
- Monster Trux Offroad
- Classic British Motor Racing
- Kawasaki Quad Bikes
- Rig Racer 2
- Kidz Sports: Basketball
- Myth Makers: Orbs of Doom
What a fantastic way to start 2008.
Source: New games this week: Crappy racing edition
Posted on Dec 31, 2007 under Main |
From the Japanese sales charts, for the week leading up to Christmas, the PlayStation 3 outsold the Xbox 360 again, this time 7:1. This is an obvious sign of great wisdom among the Japanese. Of course, the PS3 outsells the XBox 360 every week in Japan but we just love reporting it, over and over again! As an interesting side note, the PSP sold an incredible 170,000 units.
Here are the official numbers:
- Nintendo DS Lite - 279,551
- Wii - 232,907
- PSP - 171,804
- PlayStation 3 - 58,167
- PlayStation 2 - 20,391
- Xbox 360 - 7,908
Note that these charts do not include Christmas Eve so all of those frenzied fathers trying to find gifts to keep little Timmy happy will not show up. Stay tuned for next week…
Source: PS3 Outsells XBox 360 in Japan 7 to 1
Posted on Dec 31, 2007 under Main |
Sony has announced an offer whereby, if you buy a Sony HDTV (select models) and use your Sony Card, you will get a free PS3. Details are a little bit sketchy online but check out the website for information. If anybody learns of the expiration date, please post it as a comment. Thanks!
Source: Get a Free PS3 with HDTV Purchase
Posted on Dec 31, 2007 under Main |
Nick Doerr
Filed under: Polls and Surveys, Community
The Poll Police want to wish you an early Happy New Year, assuming you use the Gregorian Calendar. They’d also like to invite you to take part in their latest investigation — the seedy underbelly of 2008 house many great titles, but some of these games will undoubtedly remain hidden longer than anticipated. So, of the following haphazardly picked titles, which do you think will get the most delays and/or the longest delay?
As for us, we’ve no idea. Like we said, these are haphazard choices and anything else could pop out of nowhere and get delayed until 2010 for all we know. However, we do know the results of last week’s poll. Take the jump to find out for yourself.
Wow! Imagine that. People get what they want on Christmas — the most-giving-est holiday of the year. We’re glad the majority seemed to enjoy their time off, but we do wish those with the negative responses a better next year, or a brighter outlook on whatever brought their holiday spirit down. Or whatever. We’ll be back next week and as always, thanks for voting!
poll-police
Source: PS3 Poll Police: Which 2008 game will get mad delays?
Posted on Dec 31, 2007 under Main |
Santa must have got my letter this year as not only did he bring health and happiness to my family and friends over the festive period, he also managed to snag a copy of Timeshift into my bulging stockings (well it is panto season after all).
Now, before I start this review let me make something quite clear, First Person Shooters (FPS) don’t do plot. There are bad guys with guns and it’s your job to shoot them before they shoot you. Id games got it right with the DOS version of Wolfenstein 3D that I played on a “State of the art” 386 PC back in the day when I should have been working a night shift. It works, so let’s not get hung up on why we are shooting these virtual victims, just enjoy it.
TimeShift is no exception to this rule I am happy to report. Basically it’s mad scientist makes suit that can travel through time, pops off to recreate the past in his own image and you have to follow him to stop him. That old chestnut. This will obviously not keep the likes of John Grisham awake at night with worry but if you want a good plot download a Dickens from Project Guttenberg, may I recommend “A Christmas Carol” as that would tick all the seasonal boxes.
So you enter the game armed with a gun and bad guys shooting at you, you don’t have your time altering powers yet so it’s a straight up shooter, and a challenging one at that, although in fairness this first section is nothing more than a tutorial, albeit a long one. Then with that out of the way you are into the game proper, and if anyone is familiar with the recent single player demo released on PSN then this is that level, replete with time altering powers - you can pause, slow and rewind time (handy), and this is where the fun really begins.
The best way of describing what it feels like is if you think back to the first Matrix film, and the way Neo paused all those bullets before him, we imagine you were the guy firing those bullets and you could stop time before you shoot. Headshot everytime, and as cool as it gets. Don’t think of a massive frag fest, this look a lot more balletic.
With the potential to be very confusing with all this time control flying around Saber Interactive, the developers, have put in all under one button, hit the L1 button and the games AI will pick the Time Power to use, although this can be overridden with a push on the L1 and taking an option from the onscreen menu, but trust me, L1 will take care of most requirements. So, gameplay is run, stop time, shoot bad guys, and occasionally reverse time to not end up a puddle under a large amount of debris.
Graphics are moody, atmospheric, and of course crystal sharp, it’s raining most of the time which gives the cityscapes a “Blade Runner”-esq feel to them, and when the temporal powers are brought into play the droplets form the sky slow, go upwards, or pause nicely. The ubiquitous ragdoll effects employed left right and centre these days are, of course, here and make every kill satisfying from each one of the two fire options on the 9 available weapons or a nicely planted grenade, that will even stick on an unfortunate soul if placed with loving care. Sound wise the guns make the right noises, along with the explosions, but there is little music to speak of in the background and sometimes the ranting form the evil scientist can get a little repetitive.
Online play is available on the Net or over a Local Area Network if you have buddies who will turn up with their PS3’s for an evening’s entertainment. On-Line the usual matches occur with the likes of Deathmatch and Team deathmatch as standard, with a match included called Meltdown Madness where you have to stop a giant machine exploding with the help of “Chron Grenades” which take the place of the time altering powers in multi-player to keep things running smoothly.
So in summary a good solid shooter, yes it doesn’t have an engaging plotline, memorable characters, or a soundtrack you will be humming for days. But it has a lengthy lifespan, and an enjoyable ride. Hats off to Saber for trying to do something new in the stuffed world of shooters.
TimeShift is published by Sierra, and retails for about £40 in the UK and $60 in the US.
Soon it must be “time” for a sequel……. See what I did there?
08 - Production Values
09 - Graphics
07 - Sound
09 - Gameplay
04 - Plot
Source: Review - Time for a TimeShift? (7.5 / 10)
Posted on Dec 31, 2007 under Main |
As campaigning for the presidential primaries reaches critical mass, America’s political eye will be sharply focused on a number of locations during the upcoming months — places like Iowa, Washington, D.C., and … Azeroth? Yes, the fanatical internet following of Republican presidential hopeful Ron Paul has spread its influence into the digital realm of World of Warcraft, and is currently planning a pro-Paul march from Ironforge to Stormwind on the Whisperwind server.
Most of us will be too busy attending the “Orcs for Obama” and “Rogues for Romney” rallies to make an appearance, but if you want to show your support for the Republican underdog, and you don’t have better plans for the night of January 1, then roll on in to Ironforge astride your Great Red Elekk and join in the festivities.
(Via WoW Insider)
Source: Ron Paul advocates plan in-game WoW rally
Posted on Dec 30, 2007 under Main |
Dustin Burg
Filed under: News, Halo 3
We guess having the privilege of owning a set of Halo 3 Recon Armor puts a giant “please hack my Xbox Live account” target on your back. A target that nobody would be proud to wear.
If you recall, Halo 3 gamer Skyllus vBi earned some shweet Recon Armor for his suicidal sniping abilities back in October which instantly brought fame, chicks and money into his life. But owning the l33t Recon Armor has also brought lots of jealousy and envy. Just this week Skyllus’ Xbox Live account was hijacked through what seems to be “pre-texting” methods by an unknown gamer who singled him out simply because of his Recon status. Skyllus is, in effect, locked out of his Xbox Live account. So far, he has reached out to Bungie and has gone through the proper 1-800-4-MYXBOX channels, but has yet to be successful in regaining access to his account since the hijacker changed all his information. An investigation is pending, discussions over at Bungie.net and TeamXbox are taking place and Skyllus is updating everyone on the status over at Team vBi. Hopefully, Microsoft will fix this mess and Skyllus will again regain control of his account and Recon Armor. And maybe Xbox Live CS will quit being duped by pre-texting antics. Shame on them.
[Thanks, xX Twilight Xx]
bungie, bungie-studios, halo-3, halo3, recon-armor
Source: H3 Recon Armor owner’s Live account hijacked
Posted on Dec 30, 2007 under Main |
Skyllus vBi, member of the professional gaming group Team vBi, just can’t seem to catch a break. After being recognized by Bungie for making a very popular Halo 3 video, Skyllus was rewarded with the incredibly rare in-game “Recon Armor”, which only Bungie employees and a select few Halo community members have. Of course, it didn’t take long for some of the shadier members of Halo 3’s player base to grow green with envy — Skyllus has reportedly had his Xbox Live account hacked three times since late October.
The latest hack that Skyllus has suffered has been particularly difficult on him, due to Live’s uncooperative customer service. After being told that there was nothing he could do to regain control of the account, and being given the runaround for a few hours, Skyllus had to settle for the promise of an investigation into the account in question.
Keep in mind that any kind of identity theft is illegal, especially if the hacker touches the victim’s credit cards (which are easily accessible through information on an XBL account). We hope that the digital notoriety that comes from wearing rare armor in a game is worth the risk of going to real-world jail.
(Thanks to everyone who sent this in!)
Source: Pro gamer gets XBL account stolen for Halo 3 armor
Posted on Dec 30, 2007 under Main |
Chris Powell
Filed under: New Releases
We’re really excited about Condemned 2: Bloodshot. So excited, in fact, that we’re actually not very upset that Sega quietly pushed back the game’s U.S. release date from February to March. It probably means the game still needs some more work, and we’d much rather Monolith tune this baby to perfection than to try to rush it to meet its deadline.
Heck, at least it’s not as bad as the delays for Haze and Home delays, right?
[Via Sega Nerds]
bloodshot, condemned, delay, monolith, sega
Source: Condemned 2 gets delayed until March
Posted on Dec 30, 2007 under Main |
Game developers always have a sizable stack of things to worry about when working on a new project; things like: Is my game going to be any good? Will people buy my game? Am I making Vampire Rain? Is it too late to cancel? Of course, financial worries are always present for developers, who have a growing number of costs to deal with during the creation of a game. However, according to a recent report by BBC News, budgeting woes have escalated into a full-blown panic among developers due to the growing cost of making games for next-gen consoles.
To put things in perspective, the article gives the example of Namco, who, in 1982, made Pac-Man for nearly $100,000 (today, it would be about double that amount, due to inflation). According to BBC News, the average PS3 game costs nearly $15 million to make — and that’s before any marketing is done for the game. Not only is this bad news for gamers, as it almost ensures our store shelves will be stocked with sequel after buyer-recognizable sequel, but it’s also bad for developers, who could go belly up after one unsuccessful title.
As technology continues to improve and game consoles get more sophisticated, we wonder how this price spiral will continue to affect the industry. Will there be more safety-ensuring corporate mergers? Higher quality games? Most worryingly — will there be too few games released to sustain the industry? The video game crash of 1983 was due to there being too many games on the market — will a situation on the opposite end of the spectrum lead to another crash? For all our sakes, we certainly hope not.
(Via Evil Avatar)
Source: Cost of next-gen game production is a burden on developers