This has been covered in the news a lot lately, but I’m still not over it and feel it deserves a place in our Rants section. I’m talking about Ubisoft’s truly bewildering (read: INSANE) new DRM system. I strongly oppose the principle of it, and fear what it may mean to the future of PC gaming, especially if other companies start considering similar plans…
Scribblenauts was the only DS game I bought last year. I never use my DS these days, it’s only useful purpose is for train journeys home from London, or for some multiplayer Bomberman shenanigans at the airport with mates. I can’t recommend Scribblenauts enough though – essentially its a database of words, which then come to life. You can think of almost ANYTHING and write it down in the game and watch it come to life. Its truly bewildering the amount of stuff they crammed into this tiny game disc. Scribblenauts 2 was unveiled at E3 this year, and it looks like it’s gonna be even bigger…
Imagine waking up to the deafening sound of air rushing past your body. You have no idea where the sod you are, you’re alone, falling, probably about to die. You’re in freefall. You panic. The ground is about 10’000 feet beneath you but approaching fast, you struggle to find your parachute but can’t get a grip of the rip chord. The air twists you and you’re spinning out of control towards a messy death, as the trees spring up towards you, you manage to open your chute just enough to slow you down as you slam through the jungle canopy and hit the ground. Then the title PREDATORS fills the screen.
I saw a pretty good film the other day called Carriers, which apparently came out last October. I had never heard of before, but it was in the Xbox Live movie rentals list, and because its name implied it had something possibly to do with zombies, I simply had to check out the trailer. What I saw was a film that I found to be very enjoyable, with some decent jump-worthy frights and a good enough script to keep me wanting to watch until the end.
I hate spoilers, so there shall be none here for ya!
Yesterday I somehow found my way into playing Team Fortress 2 again properly on my PC, despite only ever playing games on my 360 for the last 4 years or so. I felt like reminiscing a little about when I used to play games on my PC, and have been considering the possibility that I might well go back to PC gaming soon.
What makes you want to finish a video game? Just getting to the end of it is usually enough to satisfy most people to the point that they will happily trade it in for a new one right away, because, well – apart from multiplayer – there’s nothing left to do once you’ve completed it, right?
Don’t be stupid, of course there is!
The new Prince of Persia game treads very familiar ground. As a fan of the original trilogy, I went into this new instalment with certain expectations, and have generally come away pretty satisfied. 2008’s Prince of Persia game was disappointingly easy (it was literally impossible to die) whereas The Forgotten Sands goes back to its roots: brilliant environmental puzzles with the occasional simple, repetitive, yet fun combat.
It has been a superb time to be a gamer the last few years. The current generation has probably peaked in terms of quality, and we’ve seen some revolutionary gaming titles. The likes of Bioshock, Portal, and Dead Space are all superb examples of new franchises, but as is often the case in gaming we’ve had some truly amazing sequels. Grand Theft Auto 4 found universal critical praise (and mammoth sales figures) upon release, Assassins Creed 2 proved that listening to criticism will help you produce a vastly improved experience for your fans, and after years of delays and speculation Team Fortress 2 has shown just how far you can push the concept of multiplayer to its full potential.
This generation isn’t quite over yet, and these are a few of the games I’m eagerly awaiting, but haven’t heard much from recently…
After finally completing Transformers: War for Cybertron on my 360, I’ve managed to consolidate my thoughts and put down on (virtual) paper exactly how I feel about it. In short, I’m reviewing it. Was it worth paying full price at Game for it? Does it live up to the main concept behind the whole story of the Transformers where others have failed? And more importantly, does Optimus Prime ever yell “Autobots! Transform and rrrrroll out!”?
Imagine an island full of cute and fuzzy teddy bears, all with adorable, cuddly sounding names like ‘chubby’, ‘stardust’, or ‘niggles’. Now imagine being able to enter that world in the form of a bad-ass teddy bear with a lust for vengeance, as you take out your anger and frustrations at being an outcasted troublemaker on your fluffy, fellow island dwellers, with an array of lethal (and mostly sharp) weapons. Does that sound good? I certainly thought so!