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Showing posts with the label bored of the same arguments

Bye Bye Game Focus

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We're all about being open and transparent with YOU, the homeless transsexual checking the Internet when you should be working and this post, friend((ette)?) is going to be a short one. London indie game store GAME FOCUS has closed its doors ( EDGE has the scoop ). This is a fucking tragedy and much more sad face for us than the whatever-the-fuck-is-happening-with-GAME.  Game focus was a lovely little store that we'd frequently go to just browse. Not only did they have OLD FORMATS, pretty much every GBA and GC game I bought was from here but they used to have amazing displays of limited edition games, consoles and peripherals. Also they sold PlayStation promo copies for like a pound each. They did not give a fuck even though they were emblazoned with "PROMOTIONAL COPY NOT FOR RESALE".  The shop took a bit of a dive when they moved all the DVDs upstairs and the games to the basement and for some reason their amazing display cases got culled and the

Book Club

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Occasionally we stub out our crack pipe (hard but do-able), log off the forums and give up our angry Internet man jig to don a smocking jacket , pour ourselves a Malibu and read a book like in the olden times. This weekend we donned three smoking jackets, poured ourselves three Malibus and finished reading three books. Our English teacher will be so happy with us.  First up is Jacked The Unauthorised Behind-The-Scenes Story of Grand Theft Auto which makes us feel ignorant about the history of video games in the same way that Replay A History of Video Games highlights how ignorant many games 'journalists' are . Yeah we loved Lemmings and knew that DMA made GTA but we didn't know that they were Scottish. Shame on us. The book is a good read. The first thing it made us do is want to play GTA again. Five hours later we picked the book up again and cringed over how gushy Kushner can be sometimes. But I guess that's the deal when you are writing an unofficial biograp

Another day another pre-owned QQ

This time from should-know-better David Braben. EDGE 'have' the story Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V from Gamasutra. Every now and then someone from the games industry will raise their head above the parapet and blame pre-owned games for their own poor sales without a shred of evidence to back it up. Here's choice quote from Braben on why pre-owned is killing single player games: I mean, the idea of a game selling out used to be a good thing, but nowadays, those people who buy it on day one may well finish it and return it. And of course, marketeers not marketing games after launch week really helps too right? Oh and the so called gaming press asymmetrically hyping a game up to launch then dropping coverage as if the game never existed once it is actually out has nothing to do with it? Perhaps devs should make a game that last longer than a day or even games that people might want to keep? Presumably, Braben has data for how pre-owned has adversely affected Frontier Developments

BAFTA Game Awards: LIVEBLOG

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I mean. What were we expecting? Finally a games award ceremony that did games proud? An awards ceremony without cringey moments? We should know by now to temper our expectations. Highlights: Notch gave an excellent speech that at least gave the impression somebody at the ceremony actually knew about games. The début games category was strong. Modern Warfare 3 not picking up any awards.  Also, at some points there were some attractive ladies on stage (and the Saturdays). Lowlights: Little Big Planet 2 not only getting nominated but winning three awards! Dara 'O' Breen or whatever his name is misgauging quite a few jokes by either being too in-the-know or too off-the-peg-stereotypes. About six games getting nominated for most of the awards. Poor categories as ever. Proper Z-list celebrities presenting awards, at least poorly known games industry folk look liked they knew why they were there and what was going on. Rare people for being too a) American b) Arrogant c)

Dilemma: Guiness World Records Gamer's Edition

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Aaaaaargh. I hate it. Stupid records like 'World's Most Successful Pokemon Playing Family'. That isn't a proper record. 'World's largest controller' IT WAS PURPOSEFULLY BUILT FOR THE BOOK. How does that count? What an utter nonsense. Combining the world's most pointless record keeping organisation with one of the world's most pointless leisure-time endeavours surely deserves a record for the world's most pointless collaboration? Also 90% of these records are absolutely contested, instantly out of date and very poorly monitored and some come from the INTERNET of all places. We all saw King of Kong are those guys to be trusted? Woooooah. Amazing. Did you know that: The Elder Scrolls: Daggerfall has 750,000 NPCs? And that the fastest speed run of Tomb Raider is 2hrs and 39 minutes by a woman! Did you know that Resident Evil 2 is the most popular RE on the PS2 ( change the record dudes )? Did you know that Darkstalkers umm mash up/spin off 

Jurassic Park: The Game

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Another quickie. Is it me or is this game even out yet for the consoles? Telltale's site isn't helpful. Nothing in GAME or HMV. Amazon don't seem to have it. Xbox isn't promoting it very well. Nothing on the official PlayStation site. UPDATE: Ah ha apparently it has been delayed for the Xbox in Europe. Maybe Telltale should have that on their fucking website ? That's how you do retail apparently. Pissing off the one person who actually might tolerate your piss poor QTE game. ANOTHER UPDATE: Too late! I watched most of it on Youtube. Sorry guys you lost a sale.

Modern Borefare

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Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 is out very very soon. It'll no doubt sell well, there may be news stories about how many millions of pounds people shirking their day at work to play it will cost the economy. We however, could not care about one of gaming's biggest annual events. Way back when, we were fans of Call of Duty, Brothers in Arms and Medal of Honour. The historical focus appealed to us. This was when FPS still worked off the Doom format. There was shooting to be done, "keycards" to be found, missions to be completed and if that wasn't enough the couch co-op wasn't too bad. Things changed with this: Showing its' age now, astonishing how much things have changed since 2002. I remember the first time I played through this, my mind was blown. It was unlike any experience I had in gaming before, incredibly exciting and powerful especially given the basis of this level on real events of the D-day landing. On a second and third playthrough however, it i

Legend of Zelda Skyward :(

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Wii game Legend of Zelda Skyward Sword is due out in less than a month and already, with some predictability, it is picking up some great reviews. The EDGE review goes as far as to say "How apt that this ultimate tale of hero-making should see Nintendo’s hardware become the console it was always meant to be." and ONM gives the game 98%. The editorial of this month's EDGE encapsulates how we feel about modern gaming. Oh how we've forgotten what "proper" gaming was with the seemingly unstoppable tide of "games" you "play" on your phone. This is gaming. That sense of wonder at a virtual world that is unique to the feeling that games give you. We should be happy. LoZ:SS is evidence (alongside Xenoblade Chronicles and the upcoming project rainfall releases) that there's life in the Wii yet and further proof that graphics do not necessarily make a great game. Much like the Gamecube, at a time when the Wii is increasingly referred to as a &

REPEATED ASS KICKINGS

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We've been playing a bit of Pokemon White recently (well, a third of us has at least). It tends to be how we play pokemon games, Weeks of intense activity, followed by months of abstinence. Then we're back in again and in again big. I've still got quite a lot to do, players will know how it is. Pokemon to catch, Ghetsis Goons to find, trainer card stars to acquire. I thought I'd try some online battling. My god. Frustrating. We already complained about the lack of imagination that players have back in April . Well it turns out that since then, the nuances of the meta game, tested through millions of online battles have trimmed down the options for a competitive team to what seems like a handful of team combinations. Not only does this make for very boring games but the easiest counter-strategy is for players to join in with a me-too team. Currently, you can expect to see Hydregion, Amoongus, Reuniclus and Chandelure in 90% of double battle teams. SNOOZE.

A Boo Hoo Hoo!

Yet another Pre-owned hurt my games sales. This time it's Q uantic Dream . I actually remember looking for a copy of it a month after it launched. For sale. In a games retailer. In London. Couldn't find one. But yeah, hey. I'm sure it the secondhand sales thing.

The next thing we're getting pushed on us

Ninja Theory "the big retail model is creaking" and "the digital revolution can't come soon enough" Via EDGE Yeah sure it can't. Especially when you can't be bothered to do any market research before you spend three years and millions of pounds on making a game, do any proper marketing, don't do product support beyond launch day, you don't even sell your own game through your website*, new or pre-owned copies aren't available on the high street after week 1 and you don't do much localisation beyond English. Yeah. Gee. I wonder why your products haven't been selling like hot cakes. Boo hoo. * In fact on their official website they haven't even bothered to list their game Enslaved. You know the one that came out almost a year ago.** ** In fact... to: webmaster@ninjatheory.com subject: Your website kinda sucks To "The Webmaster" You haven't even listed Enslaved yet, you don't tell people where they can buy your ga

Wikipedia, therefore the world, is run by men

In today's Observer Carole Cadwalladr (who?) writes part of her column on the interesting statistic that wikipedia is a very mael dominated site. Fair enough. She then however, equates this to men controlling human knowledge (wikipedia's version of it). Pathetically she compares the word count on the page for menstruation against Star Trek and gender inequality against William Shatner. Something Awful have been covering the patheticness of wikipedians for a long time and to be frank, a lot better than award winning Carole's attempt. To look at these statistics and come to the pithy conclusions she does and to try to equate this to equality is special pleading of the kind reserved for Sunday newspaper columnists struggling to make up the word count for their articles. Wikipedia is written by volunteers. Draw conclusions about what men do with their free time as compared to women (shopping? being duped by cosmetic adverts? shoes?), fine. But men controlling knowledg

Golden Joystick

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That time of year again. Another stupid gaming awards ceremony. The problem with game awards is that they try to be like film awards but games don't really work like that. Let's have a look at the UltimateGOTY nominations: Sad face just doesn't cover it. Maybe the selection isn't that bad it's just well, this screenshot says everything doesn't it? Is this it? Is this what we'd be dreaming next generation was going to be delivering? Here's the same selection with sequels and remakes taken out. Two interesting but flawed games. Do that excercise again but only keeping PC games, or downloadable games or pah. Same old arguments. Unlike films, there are a bazillion games released every year and I know that my personal choices don't overlap with everybody's but there are a few outstanding issues. What's with the categories? Either have categories that work or just make em up. I know I'd never put Portal 2, Dead Rising 2 and Little Big Planet 2

To Do

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We were discussing games we were playing the other day and as it transpired, neither of us had been playing games for 'fun' recently. Richie had been grinding a stupid achievement in Last Remnant and I'd been playing through Tatsunoko vs Capcom to get third and fourth costumes for characters I will never ever use. Also, some of the most vivid memories I have of games is ridiculous repetitive nonsense. I remember running in and out of the entrance to the Gold Saucer in Final Fantasy VII to a guy who trades one form of virtual money into another. Even worse was watching a friend dodge lightning bolts in Final Fantasy X. Capcom also brings on the pain in most of their titles, unlocking Tofu in Resident Evil 2 and getting the rocket launcher in Resident Evil. Me and my famly also spent hours and hours in the original Tomb Raider trying to get t his medipack. Turns out it was 'unreachable'. But I guess the question is, why do we do it? Are we having fun? Richie and I de

All Kinds of Wrong

According to this authentic looking website , a study by Doritos woman play computer games just as much as men. Some even prefer it to sex. But here's the best part: Worryingly, one in five even admitted to regularly gaming in bed. Shit. This could mean the end of the species. The mail also has the story but recently has changed "a shocking 49 per cent of women confess that they too are addicted to Internet games". to "a surprising.....". All around it is a fairly silly study and from the looks of it it is equating 'spend more time' to 'prefers'. In which case I 'prefer' waiting for the most unreliable bus in London to sex. These two media outlets also insinuate that it is fine for men to waste their life playing video games but not women. We've been trying to find the survey but it appears to involve having to go on some promotional facebook thing.

Ahhh PC games

Time for the yearly dip into the world of PC games. Just under 3 hours of downloading and updating nearly done....

Wot No Wii? Part #3

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The last panel in this week's triptych about Wiiblindness in the games industry. In the last part I already mentioned EDGE. EDGE 227 has a largely thoughtful article about online multiplayer in games raising all the interesting points around when and why online multiplayer is shoe-horned into a game (e.g Dead Space 2), whether it's devs, marketeers or the consumers who are responsible for more and more games shipping with online multiplayer and the curious mystery around the virtual non existence of crossplatform onlinemultiplayer with one not so notable exception. For no discernable reason not a single Wii game, nor the console itself is mentioned even when it may be pertinent to. Sure, the console is still widely viewed as the little engine that couldn't but it's a glaring omission not to mention Mario Kart Wii when testing 2009 titles for how active communities are. That's a three year old game that not only still has an active community but also a title that get

Giving up the...

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Apologies to regular readers but here is yet another angry rant about game retailers in the UK. Fortunately, most have been driven to extinction by failing to see the writing on the wall over a decade ago when online mega retailers could beat the high street specialists in choice, price and service. PLUS the only convenience that high street retailers offer is immediacy. I can pick up a game there and then and be playing it that day in theory. However, as a concerned citizen it saddens me to see the decline of the high street retailer. Last week I found myself with some extra money following my birthday and consulted 'the list'. Now, I'm an avid gamer. I've played thousands of games, own hundreds and write for three gaming blogs. However, I also have a fairly demanding job, a family, friends who I don't see half as much as I should, passions other than gaming and a hundred other little things that take up my time. Not only does this mean that those heady days and ni

Pokemon Black & White and the failure of imagination

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We've been putting a lot of time into Pokemon Black and White. One of the best new(ish) features of the game is that now it is easier than ever to play online. All of the online bits from before are bundled in the new games almost to the point of inundation. Not all of the online functionality is up and running yet but there's still lots to do with the Global trade service the doesn't really work GTS negotiate, random WFC battle match-ups and the Wi-Fi battle subway. Problem is that most players seem to be lacking in imagination and if you spend the slightest bit of time online you'll end up seeing a lot of the same pokemon over and over again. For example, expect to battle endless Hydregion and Volcarono. Not only does this make the game very boring but now that there's more pokemon than ever it would be nice to see some teams that were mixing it up a bit. Yeah sure, picking the pokemon with better than average base stats lets you win easier but we could all be p

3DS features nobody will be using in six months time

The predictions are in. Remember the GBA-GC controller and the four games that used it? Remember the proto street-pass thing in Nintendogs and Dragon Quest and pretty much only in those two games? Wasn't playing your own music in Endless Ocean great? Shame that didn't take off. Here's the tech that will probably be dropped almost instantaneously by gamers and developers on the new 3DS: Street Pass - Fine for Japan where gamers actually congregate. Virtually useless here. Backwards compatibility - Expect this to be dropped with the 3DSlite or the equivalent. Augmented reality Fun the first four or five times and for showing non-gamers how fun the 3DS is. Doubt there will be a sixth time. 3D messaging Remember those three messages you sent via the wii message board? Expect more of the same here. Video content Ever played music through the wii or even visited the photo channel? Nah thought not. Call us bitter but c'mon face it. This gimmickery is fine for filling up the