The Wildest Video Game Dreams of Our Youth

I would like to think that I'm the kind of person who doesn't take things for granted. When things are going well, I tend to reflect upon it as much as I can. When things are going bad, I feel I have no regrets as I truly got as much enjoyment out of the good things as possible and still try to think of everything that's still good. They say "you don't know that you've got till it's gone", but not me. Nuh-uh. I relish what I've got with gay abandon, sometimes with aplomb. So, whenever I turn my Xbox 360 on, I gaze in wonder at just what a fantastic machine it really is, especially when looking back at the consoles of yesteryear.

The first thing that greets me when I turn my Xbox 360 on is that crystal clear, gloriously HD logo. I haven't got the best HD TV by any means, but it still shits its entire ass onto any previous TVs I've owned. Then, it's onto the dashboard, and goddamn, if that isn't a wonder to behold, too. I mean, think back to a year ago, to a time when we never had any of this; we've now got streaming news vids, tips, interviews, and a pair of emo dudes trying to be funny. We've also got much better friend interaction now, what with the party chat and avatars. Even just having Live Friends is something we didn't have 4 years ago, now it seems weird to think back to a time when social console gaming was merely a footnote on the possibilities of future consoles. I didn't even have Xbox Live a mere 2 years ago, let alone 4. To say I couldn't live without it would probably be an exaggeration, but to say I would miss it awfully if I didn't have it is completely accurate.

While that last paragraph may have read like some kind of forced Microsoftian propaganda, I can assure you it's not. It's just me doing what I do and knowing what I've got. When I indulge myself in the solitariness of past gaming consoles, it truly feels like there's something missing. I miss the little announcements of people popping online and seeing that Isis88 is a Level 15 something-or-other on Fallout 3, or that ZZKoverts always seems to be playing Tales of Vesperia. It's just nice to know that you're all still alive and that you're not at work, you're just chilling at home playing some video games.

It's almost like something from the wildest video game dreams of our youth. I've recently been playing Smackdown Vs. Raw 2010 and thinking back to playing WWF No Mercy on the Nintendo 64 and enjoying it immensely, but thinking of how awesome it would be to be able to give your custom wrestler his own custom tattoo, custom music, custom entrance, custom video, custom finishing move and all other kinds of shit that is actually in SVR 2010. If you'd have given me this game 10 years or so ago, I probably would have spaffed and shit my pants simultaneously. Due to the technical constraints of the N64, it was naught but a pipe-dream, but the tech has advanced enough to make it possible.

Say what you will about the Wii, but Nintendo's philosophy of 'technology doesn't equal better games' has been proved wrong by dozens of games on the immensely powerful PS3 and 360. It is not and has never been about the having the best graphics, it's about having the best game and then getting the best graphics you can muster out of the hardware, as done in the last generation by the GTA games. They're not the prettiest games of their generation, but they withhold a dizzying amount of content for the player and they sold by the bucket-load, also proving that amazing graphics won't guarantee you a number one spot on the sales charts.

With all this technology, we've got it incredibly good at the moment. It's easy to forget this when something goes wrong, when you get kicked out of party chat for the tenth time in an hour, or when your internets play up. I'm not saying whenever something like that happens you should sit back and quell your anger and just be happy with what you've got, because it's a fucking frustration when such a thing happens. I'm just saying that every now and then, just breathe it all in and try not to take it for granted.

Discuss this article on the forum.

Continue reading The Wildest Video Game Dreams of Our Youth

Review - Scribblenauts

• Game: Scribblenauts
• Format: Nintendo DS
• Other Formats: None
• Developer: 5th Cell
  
• Publisher: Warner Brothers Interactive
  
• Genre: Puzzle

The premise of Scribblenauts is simple enough. You control Maxwell, your objective is to find the Starite hidden in each level, to do this you must use the tools at your disposal to overcome the obstacles in your way.

So what are the tools at your disposal? Well, "archaeopteryx", "water pistol", "lepidopterist", "Higgs boson", "giant enemy crab", "ROFLcopter", "El Chupacabra", "wedding dress", "razor", "Anubus", "jiaozi" and the 22,086 other objects that can be summoned from the game's insanely comprehensive vocabulary. It may well be the first game where the Oxford English Dictionary works as a stand-in for GameFAQs.

Somehow, "Cthulhu" seems less frightening after you shoot him with a "mind control device" and start riding around on his back.

There are a few limitations on what you can summon - trademarks are right out obviously, as is anything vulgar and drug or alcohol references. Also if you name a specific person, real or fictional, then you are likely to get nothing (and a good portion of the names included are just redirects to some generic character - "Einstein" gets you a "scientist", "Blackbeard" gives "pirate", and "Leeroy Jenkins" maps to "knight"). Stick within the rules however, and far more often than not you'll find that whatever bizarrely esoteric object you think of has been anticipated by the developers. You can and will stump the dictionary if you try (a few unused words include "hacker", "australopithecus", "man-eating plant", "crocoduck" and "grid"), but the point is that you usually need to actively look for pointlessly obscure nouns to achieve this, leading to the polar opposite of the old "I don't see any 'unlock door' around here" issue that plagued text adventures.

Not only are so many objects and characters included in the game, but they all have their own properties. Throwing a "toaster" in some water will electrocute anything nearby, "rope" can attach any two objects together, and activating the "Large Hadron Collider" will destroy the Universe. What's more, summoning multiple things will often cause them to interact with each other. Summon a "vampire" followed by "garlic bread" and the fiend will run away in terror, likewise "bigfoot" will run from a "photographer" and a "dingo" will eat any "baby" it sees. There are times when the illusion is broken as two items fail to interact in the way you want (one mission asks you to fix a car, but summoning a "mechanic" is no use), but given that there is literally not enough time in a human life to try every combination, 5th Cell probably deserve some leniency on this point.

Here, we see an "elephant" firing a "rocket launcher" at a "separatist". Buy Scribblenauts.

So far, it sounds like game of the forever, but inevitably there are flaws. The biggest problem is the control system which assigns both movement and item interaction to the touch screen. Touch any unoccupied area of the screen and Maxwell will charge over there with no concern for whatever deathtraps may be in his path. This problem is exacerbated by the camera which snaps back if left alone for a few seconds, causing you to miss whatever you were trying to click on.

Another problem is that unsurprisingly some items are almost game-breakingly powerful., to the point that the temptation is to rely on them almost exclusively. Summoning a "black hole" will get anything out of your path, "Death" can easily win just about any combat mission, and a switch-flipping "engineer" can often skip large sections of a level for you. In this case it could be argued that the game only becomes boring if you are boring, and indeed the game becomes a lot more fun if you avoid the quick and easy path to go for more convoluted solutions. Unfortunately this doesn't work for the annoyingly large number of "move object X to position Y" missions. Most of these only have one real solution - drag it over there with a flying vehicle, so the only real choice is what vehicle to use and how to attach object X.

Plan 1: Have a "termite" eat through the bark.
Plan 2: Shoot the tree with a "shrink ray".
Plan 3: "Glue" a "giant squid" to the "space shuttle" and crash it into the Starite.

Still, these flaws aren't enough to spoil a game where "Abraham Lincoln" can zombify "god" using the "Necronomicon". Learn to live with the controls and experiment with alternative solutions, and it really is an experience like no other.

Score:
9/10

Discuss this article on the forum.

Continue reading Review - Scribblenauts

Life-Taking Horrors and Dog Shit

Gaming is a form of escapism - a chance to get away from a not necessarily unhappy but decidedly dull life. Not something to really moan about, but it's either that or you die. You risk your life every time you leave the house. Gap-year students always end up dead somewhere in Cambodia. Sky-diving? Fuck that. Pop down to the shops to get some Frisps? (Do they still make those?) That sounds more like it, but still, there's always the risk of getting run over by a bus. If you don't cross any roads that are on bus-routes, then that particular risk is reduced 100%, but, if you live in the Daily Mail's blinkered view of the world, you could still get stabbed by one of them hoodies what are found on every street corner, injecting heroin into the eyes of innocent children. Nope, stay inside, play games, 'escape' those four walls that keep you safe from the big bad 'outside'. When did anything bad ever happen to someone playing videogames? Can you get thumb-cramp?

The point is videogames are seemingly doing more and more to bring the outside inside without all of the life-taking horrors and dog shit that populate it. But is this a good thing? For instance, a lot of games nowadays seem to give you a very limited amount of weaponry you can hold at any one time, so much so that it seems a rather alien concept for a game to let you carry the arsenal of a small country in your back pocket anymore. The more realistic something is, the better it is, right? What if GTA IV was completely true to life; imagine having to steal a car, and whenever Niko breaks a window with his elbow, he'd be unable to use that arm for about 10 minutes because it caught him right on the funny bone. Imagine if getting arrested meant you'd have to sit through a cut-scene of Niko sleeping in a cell, being taken to court then getting roughly taken from behind in the showers by Big Phil.

Disregarding the fact that, in the Halo games, Master Chief is a super-human and, as well as being able to melee someone while dual-wielding without dropping one of his guns (like a big spaz), he should quite easily be able to carry more than two weapons but doesn't, and it's obvious to see why. When Halo first came along, it brought with it a revolutionary control system that became the unofficial industry standard, and the fact that its weapon management was assigned to a single button was the main reason for this. It liberates the player from having to either scroll through all the weapons they are carrying, or selecting them from a menu. This was often the bane of the average shoot 'em up fan's life; hastily trying to select the right weapon for the job whilst a group of enemies shoot the crap out of you. It also added a little strategy to the game as you had to think about whether the weapon the enemy dropped is worth swapping for one of your weapons, and whether it'll come good in use against possible upcoming enemies. Another thing this does is free up a couple of buttons to be used for other essential tasks and simplifies the control system. This is also quite realistic, as most soldiers in real life only really carry two guns with them; a big one and a little one, e.g. a rifle and a pistol.

It can only be a good thing when a developer takes inspiration from real life to make its game better. There's also the fact that the more realistic a game is – again, take GTA IV as an example – the more satisfying it becomes to do things we'd never do in real life, like go on a high-speed police chase or crash a helicopter into the sea. The better it looks the more immersed you become. But how come the ultra-unrealistic Halo only lets you carry two guns when the ultra-realistic GTA IV lets you carry around 5, as well as a knife or a baseball bat? Niko seems to pull RPG Launchers and the like from out of his kecks! This is all down to ease of play. GTA IV is quite a varied game; whereas one moment could see you having a shoot out with a group of enemies, the next could see you trying to take down a helicopter. You'll forgive this as a minor inconsistency and will thank Rockstar whenever Niko unloads his pocket rocket into the rear-end of someone's chopper.

Realism is arguably at its best when it's mixed with something that is fantastical, impossible or imaginary. One of the biggest reasons why Harry Potter, Star Wars and books or films of their ilk are so successful is because they seem believable. The world of Harry Potter is hidden and runs parallel to ours, so there's an appealing sense that it might be true (even though it definitely isn't). Star Wars felt believable because, Tatooine in particular, felt rustic and lived-in and the Millennium Falcon was falling apart, something that would definitely happen to a space-ship that has been modified illegally time and time again. The same goes for videogames. Mass Effect goes into explicit detail into not only how the human race found the technology to be able to travel to distant galaxies, but it also goes into an almost obscene amount of detail about almost everything in the game from weaponry and space craft, to diplomacy between different space-faring races. There's an underlying sense that if or when the human race is finally able to travel to different galaxies, then Mass Effect is what would probably happen.

And that's what videogames do best. As big a cliché as this next sentence is going to be, it doesn't take anything away from the fact that games do allow you to do anything, possible or impossible, from the comfort of your own home. So let gangsters, criminals, aliens, football players with muddy boots, rock stars, plumbers, bears with birds living out of backpacks, blue hedgehogs, pink echidnas, robots, elves, goblins, wizards and warriors, dragons, eidolons, titans, gods and goddesses, tomb raiders, pirates, ninjas, and gays all into your home. Just make sure that when you do, you're firmly gripping a game controller and that the door is locked. Who knows what could be waiting for you… 'outside'.

Discuss this article on the forum.

Continue reading Life-Taking Horrors and Dog Shit

Review - Pokemon Platinum

• Game: Pokémon Platinum
• Format: Nintendo DS
• Other Formats: None
• Developer: Game Freak
• Publisher: Nintendo
• Genre: RPG

Pokémon… a series that has taken the world by storm, blasting it with tons of anime, 12 of its own movies, a countless number of games, (seriously, I tried, I lost count after a while…), and quite frankly one of the biggest merchandising bases ever to be seen, from bed sheets to cuddly toys, figures, watches and electronics. Platinum is the newest game to come out of the cellar of the Pokémon designers. This one is the third game in the fourth generation to come out, where it's the two first games combined. Now, usually they don't really change too much when making these; they keep the story similar and probably the most ambitious before Platinum was Yellow, as it changed how you got certain Pokémon and most memorably, you had your adorable friend Pikachu following you.

There is quite a big difference between Diamond/Pearl and Platinum, and you'll notice it almost immediately, how you meet Professor Rowan and get your first Pokémon is completely different. They've also changed how the Team Galactic buildings look and in my opinion it was definitely for the better. The whole game just looks and feels a lot better to play than D/P; there's more added content to keep you busy and it seems like they've put more focus into the parts of the game which weren't as exaggerated in the last ones.

Wait… isn't this the final scene of Ghost?

There's also, as has been the trend in most of the third games, a lot more double battles, which means more shared exp which means more levelling-up This is always a good thing, although one problem is with wild double battles you have to knock one Pokémon out to catch the other, which gets quite annoying but thankfully it doesn't happen often in the game.

Another new addition to Platinum over Diamond/Pearl is the fact they have thankfully sped everything up. This means that battling, move animations and talking is all faster making the game a lot more fluent nicer to play.

Overall this game is definitely worth buying if your a fan of Pokémon, and even if you already have Diamond and Pearl as it has new events which means more ways of catching Pokémon, for example the current event is the Rotom event where you get a key to a secret room.

Score:
9/10

Discuss this article on the forum.

Continue reading Review - Pokemon Platinum

Retrospective - Kid Icarus

Featuring Frankenjam

• Game: Kid Icarus
• Format: NES / Wii (Virtual Console)
• First Release: 1987
• Developer: Nintendo R&D1
• Publisher: Nintendo
• Genre: Puzzle Thingie

Our second assault on gaming's past drags our puny minds deep into the recesses of Greek mythology as Frankenjam plays Kid Icarus! A little more well-known than Lolo, I'll admit, but who can honestly say that they remember it when it first came out?

Discuss this article on the forum.

Continue reading Retrospective - Kid Icarus

Retrospective - Adventures of Lolo 2

Featuring Frankenjam

• Game: Adventures of Lolo 2
• Format: NES / Wii (Virtual Console)
• First Release: 1990
• Developer: HAL Laboratory
• Publisher: HAL Laboratory
• Genre: Puzzle Thingie

Join us as we take our first dive, deep into the heart of gaming from yore, giving you our initial impressions of the games that made today possible... ish.
Our first plunder is that well-known masterpiece, Adventures of Lolo 2:

Discuss this article on the forum.

Continue reading Retrospective - Adventures of Lolo 2

How to Not Completely Fail… at Hexic

A Guest Article by Funk

OK, I don’t purport to be a Hexic master myself but I know there are a few people out there who don’t know where to start and might appreciate some pointers on how to get going. Hexic can seem more complicated than it actually is at first and if you’re having trouble making your first black pearl or even your first starflower, maybe my ‘common sense’ guide to maximising your potential might be able to help. I wanted to just write some basic tips that I know would have helped me when I started playing.

Contents:
My Philosophies
Strategy
Techniques

Funk’s Basic Philosophies
The following musings are I believe major factors in eventually becoming a master at Hexic. I am following these myself and my own skills have progressed. I look at a Hexic board completely differently now to when I started playing and although I do still make mistakes I am making consistently higher scores all the time.

1. Hexic is not a game you can play quickly. You must have patience, so take your time and consider every single move you make, like you would in Chess. Also, it can take hours to build a big score so don’t make rash moves. Take regular breaks if necessary. You can even quit the game and come back to it without losing your progress, take advantage of this feature as I find coming back with a fresh perspective can help you out in the long run.

2. While learning about Hexic keep it simple. Your first goal should simply be to know how to move pieces around in order to make a single starflower. So forget about high scores and black pearls for a while, just practice. Once you are adept at making one star you can move on to making and manoeuvring multiple stars. Then as your skills improve your goal will change again from making starflowers to producing black pearls. Then you can make some really big scores and win the game by making a black pearl cluster.

3. Never make a move unless it’s part of a planned sequence and you know or are at least 80% sure of what will happen next. Play the game in your head first. There is nothing worse than thinking you have your next star or pearl made and then when you make the ‘killer’ move in a sequence something completely unexpected happens and you’re back to square one. Avoid this catastrophe by planning carefully because being back at square one can often be more detrimental than you may think. Making a big mistake can knock your confidence. If that happens step back for a while.

4. Grasshopper say “Don’t try to run before you can walk. Patience and planning is the only way.”

Strategy
Some basic strategies
Always try to create your first stars in the centre or upper middle area of the board. This is a good springboard and makes it easier to keep control of the board and only destroy the clusters that you want to destroy. Obviously this will not always be possible - sometimes you will be forced to make moves lower down if only to change the layout of the board if you run out of good moves.

Try to avoid making moves and destroying clusters in the lower area of the board as this will have a knock-on effect at the top. More random pieces will fall and you might build up long strings of worthless combos that don’t do your score-making potential any good whatsoever. In the early levels, avoid chaining large useless combos by only destroying clusters at the upper area of the board.

Your best chance of making a really high score is by having a large number of starflowers on the board before you reach the level 4 - 5 mark. From there onwards it becomes more difficult to make starflowers and consequently black pearls are harder too. This is because there are more colours on the board (meaning less pieces of any one colour) and also more bombs to contend with. Once you start seeing pink and dark green pieces on the board, things begin to get tricky so if you only have a few starflowers (3, 4 or 5) on the board at that point, it’s going to be very hard work to build up enough more to make a decent score.

Don’t waste time when you see a bomb. A bomb at the wrong time can ruin everything. Focus entirely on getting rid of it. In the early levels you get nine moves to get rid of a bomb so you have slightly more freedom to move your pieces around whilst still maintaining control of the board. Later in the game it becomes more difficult to remove bombs in six moves or less so at times you have to sacrifice some of your hard work. Never think you can get rid of the bomb later, or ‘after I’ve done this first’ unless you have planned the moves carefully and are at least 80% sure where every piece will land. I say 80% because there will always be new pieces dropping down from the top that you can’t see yet.

Never mix special coloured star pieces with bombs. Removing all of one colour can ruin the whole layout of the board and set you back many moves. Only if you have already lost control of the board should you bother doing this, otherwise you risk dropping perfectly placed starflowers or pearls out of play and to the bottom of the board.

When you have a few starflowers reasonably spaced around the board, use them wisely to reposition more pieces and make more starflowers. Don’t rush to create a black pearl, wait until you have at least 10 to 16 starflowers on the board before you use up 6 to make a pearl, that way you can continue manoeuvring the other pieces around easily to continue making even more starflowers.

Wherever possible, make a new starflower around another starflower. The existing starflower will only drop down a little way while a new starflower will drop in from the top of the board. This is one of the easier ways of making starflowers because when you have two or three in close proximity you can use them like ‘cogs’ turning each one to exchange the coloured pieces from one ‘cog’ to the next.

Keeping between 10 and 18 starflowers on the board is the way to go. If you get to 18, try and make a pearl. The remaining 12 plus the pearl are more than enough to arrange pieces to create more.

Techniques
Basic starflower
Look at the board and try to locate three pieces of one colour together in a kind of U shape. There will always be one somewhere and if you’re lucky it’ll be in the middle or upper middle of the board. This is the ideal place to get a starflower because you have half of it made for you. Look around that area and see where the colours you need are and think about how you can go about moving them into position. Often there will be a piece that you need nearby but you’ll have no means to move it. Sometimes you have to destroy other clusters above the piece you need to bring down other pieces you haven’t seen yet. The important thing is not to rush into making a move without purpose. You can and will get those pieces you need.

Moving 1 starflower using another
When you have two starflowers together this is great. It is very easy to move them both to anywhere else on the board, just be careful that the path you take doesn’t destroy useful clusters or start chains of unwanted combos. You can use two starflowers together to go and collect a coloured piece from one side of the board and easily take it to another position where it can be used on another cog.
Choose which starflower is to become the centre of the cog, turn it until the one branching off is facing the direction you want to go in. Then simply highlight the branching one which now becomes the centre of the cog and turn again repeating the process until you get where you want to go. This is how to travel across the board. You can also do this with three and more starflowers but this requires more moves and takes longer to set up. I’ll add a picture for three or more starflowers next time I get into that spot.

Place starflowers equidistantly apart using the above method but so that they interconnect with either one or two pieces. This is your best tool in the game. It’s easily the best way to churn out loads more starflowers. Think of the starflowers like interlinking cogs, and by turning the linked cogs clockwise and anti-clockwise you can move a piece from one cog to the next.

Continue reading How to Not Completely Fail… at Hexic

TGN - A Week in Pictures

A guest article/idea by Falco
Lets take a look at the past week or so of TGN, in picture form so our tiny minds find it easier to process.

So I was thinking...


Hip Flasks fo' sale


Drugs, do u do any?


Red Dwarf: Back to Earth


I can change your outlook on life.


Why are you still up?


Date a TGNer


Family Heraldry


The video thread


Dressed to Kill


TGN a week in pictures


Who needs hair cuts?


Bitchy Friend

Thanks to Republic Fairchild, Krystal, Switch, Baka, Jabroni and Falco for this edition's images.
Continue reading TGN - A Week in Pictures

Review - Beneath the Ashes (Tomb Raider: Underworld DLC)

• Game: Tomb Raider: Underworld – Beneath the Ashes (DLC)
• Format: Xbox 360
• Other Formats: None
• Developer: Crystal Dynamics
• Genre: 3^rd Person Adventure

Not content with letting sleeping Tomb Raiders lie, we – the rabid excuse for a public – are once again force-fed another nauseating chapter from the life of the world’s most questionable archaeologist as she bends over in front of cameras in new and exciting locales. We are “treated” to an extension of Tomb Raider: Underwear in the form of downloadable content, as Lara ventures beneath Croft Manor for some reason or another that I shouldn’t give two green pasty shits about.

Quite why Crystal Dynamics decided to create extra content in the form of DLC that you actually have to pay money for – based on one of the most uninspiring chapters of the base game - is beyond me. Send Lara back to Thailand, or perhaps follow the details of her holiday in Tahiti as she plays Gears of War 2 with her rich friends for Christ’s sake. God forbid that we should have anything more visually stunning and appealing to look at than an upturned grey flagstone. Something that did raise a smile however, was how the much touted six extra costumes, created exclusively for this DLC, are simply a couple existing costumes with a palette change and four colours of bikini – made presumably on a budget, as there is a distinct lack of material covering Lara’s huge… personality. What kind of people do Crystal Dynamics take us male gamers for? I chose the blue bikini.

Both the main gameplay influences in action

Starting off the content in her father’s old secret study, Lara finds something that describes another thing that she wants for reasons that she doesn’t say, before jumping down a hole that I swear wasn’t there before in the main game. Sorry about those spoilers – I just couldn’t help myself. Eventually you will come across the ‘proper’ parts of Tomb Raider, and by ‘proper’; I mean the climby bits as no-one plays the series for its “in-depth combat system”. The good news is that these sections play very much like the main game and even come close to besting it in some respects, as the climbing is still enjoyable, albeit still clunky and forced in some places. You see, usually in a game like this, you get the feel for the character and their physical limits by now, but I’m still not entirely sure how far or high Lara can actually jump. Sometimes while grabbing wood (-en) beams, Ms Croft will flip towards her intended ledge with all the finesse of a Russian Women’s Shot-putter and end up 10 meters short with a face full of ground. Other times, under exactly the same conditions, she’ll have an epiphany and magnetically become dragged towards the target like a Ben and Jerry's van to a Weight Watchers meeting. Which outcome actually materialises when you play the game is left entirely down to Lara’s mood and whether she’s feeling pretty today, or something equally out of your control and fucking frustrating.

My initial concerns when I heard about this DLC was whether the catacombs of Croft Manor (of which, I’m still not entirely sure why they are there) would just be a depressing grey-fest or a slightly-not-as-bad-but-still-depressing-grey-fest. Thankfully - I think - it is the latter and I can think of at least one point where the game can actually be called ‘pretty’, as you ascend a giant waterwheel (again placed there for reasons unbeknown to me) and shafts of sunlight pierce through a fissure in the ceiling and light up the aqueous cavern below. Why then, would the developers insist on the rest of the level being a complete grey eyesore, rubbing your optic nerve with a metaphorical scabby flannel?

If there is so much natural light in these catacombs, why hasn't anyone noticed their existence before?

As a cop-out answer, I could say that Beneath the Ashes is ‘one for the fans’; something that you should get if you’re hankering for some action that’s more of the same. Instead I’ll just leave you with the thought of having to pay money to wade through gorilla faeces in order to obtain a rather nice cupcake. Sure the cupcake might be above average in texture and taste - and you can spend hours explaining that to yourself as you pace up and down the library in your smoking jacket – but it doesn’t change the fact that it’s probably not worth the entry fee.

Oh, and another thing! I think it’s absolutely wonderful when character dialogue kicks-in, just as an enemy is scripted to appear. I absolutely adore how I can’t hear what is being said over the sound of my shotgun. And I think it’s positively brilliant how I’m missing out on probably an important piece of key information in an otherwise incoherent mess of a story.

Single Player Score – 5
Multiplayer Score – N/A

Discuss this article on the forum.

Continue reading Review - Beneath the Ashes (Tomb Raider: Underworld DLC)

Review - Burnout Paradise: Ultimate Box

• Game: Burnout Paradise - Ultimate Box
• Format: Xbox 360
• Other Formats: PS3, PC
• Developer: Criterion Games
• Publisher: Electronic Arts
• Genre: Racing, Sandbox

Early 2008 saw the arrival of Criterion’s Burnout Paradise – a balls-to-the-wall, adrenaline-fuelled arcade racer that scrapped the menus for a free-roaming city with which to confound and annoy you. Upon lending yourself to the city for a few hours however, you soon found that navigating the twisty-turny streets like a twisty-turny thing became second nature, so fans of the game should feel right at home with the expansions as they are set once again in this ‘paradise’.

Wayne has already covered the core game and it’s assets in his review way back when, so I won’t go treading on his street-racing tippy toes… too much. The Ultimate Box contains the main Burnout Paradise game, with the inclusion of all the current updates and the free Burnout Bikes, in conjunction with the Party Pack – a pay-for add-on for offline multiplayer. From the offset you can see the transformation in the front-end menus as you are given the option to select ‘Burnout Bikes’ and the old favourite ‘Robotically-Controlled Driverless Cars’. As well as this, EA have jumped in with their big ‘online stick of internetz’ and offered the gift of a bulletin board detailing updates to the Burnout community and a nice little calendar detailing events to look out for – all while Paradise City loads.

Naturally, ever being the social stud that I am, I delved into the single-player Burnout Bikes as my first port of call, choosing the needlessly busty female rider in a fetching pink suit to tear some asphalt. What you notice from the word ‘go’ is the intense speed that is available to you from the off. The bikes pack a punch and it certainly gets the adrenaline flowing. It’s been a while Burnout, I’ve missed you like a fat kid misses cake. The good news is that the bikes handle very differently to their four-wheeled counterparts and it definitely feels fresh, even if you do miss boosting. You see, apparently the bikes go fast enough as it is, so there is no need for them to ever boost, making the ‘A’ button redundant in this mode. While perhaps leveling the playing field from wavy mounds to a smooth camber for those new to the genre, it does however render the tricks and stunts rather pointless as they only endanger your race rather than giving any sort of reward.

One of the biggest letdowns with the bikes mode that became immediately apparent is the lack of any sort of ‘oomf’ to the crashes. Instead of hurtling your twin-airbag parading avatar several miles into a particularly painfully placed lamp-post as your bike crumples to the size and texture of an Oxo Cube, you are left staring at an invincible vehicle sliding carelessly along the floor with your magical rider having teleported off-screen out of harm’s way. For a series that parades itself on sweet-ass crash physics, this came somewhat as a shock when all I wanted to see was some humorous ragdolls thrown into traffic when I ballsed up for the umpteenth time.

Overall, Burnout Bikes is exactly what Criterion says it is – an add-on. There are nice little touches - such as half the events on the map being available at night and the other half being available during the day – but the mode as a whole is weaker as a stand-alone game when compared to the majesty of Burnout Cars; especially when you can drive the Delorean (for a small fee of Microsoft Points). Each event seems more like a lonely time trial rather than a ‘race’ and you’ll find yourself coming back to the screeching tires of the four-wheeled exemplars soon enough.

Here we see 'Jez' driving up the brown slope

A quick flex of my thumb and forefinger to twist the volume up on my speakers instantaneously created a crowd of friends to huddle into my room – and so we come to the Burnout Party Pack. A mode for up to eight players sees you and your acquaintances passing the controller around and taking it in turns to beat each other’s score. For some reason the menu aesthetics have been completely revamped for this addition and the game suddenly looks even more colourful than before, resembling a scene from Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory, and very aptly setting a ‘party’ atmosphere without killing-off small children in every scene. From the player-naming menu thingy, you are given the option of how many rounds you and your chums would like to compete in, from one to eight in three categories. ‘Speed’, being the obvious from a racing game; ‘Stunt’, having you rather unimaginatively clamouring through the air over an object; and ‘Skill’ seeing you showboating in any way possible to garner enough points to rub in the unsuspecting face of your compadres like the streaker at a sleepover.

Out of these modes, ‘Stunt’ is probably the weakest, as it just requires either a pass or fail attempt and, unlike the other two modes, completely trashing the expected score will get you no further than just getting by with the requirements. A problem that I find with the party pack is not so much a qualm with the formula, but that fact that I cannot choose a specific event to replay at my whim. A particular favourite of mine involved power-sliding round a monument for as long as possible, but as far as I can tell, this will only come up randomly out of the ‘Skill’ category for a round. While not a structural weakness in the building that is Party Pack, it would be nice to have a supporting beam or two in the form of extra options. As expansions go though, the Party Pack delivers a wealth of content that’s more perfect for playing with friends than naked Twister.

Overall, the Ultimate Box is exactly what it says on the tin. You take an updated version of an already great game, add in a couple expansions as well as a great little party mode, stick them into a bowl, and mix the funk out of them. What do you have? An updated version of Burnout Paradise with a couple of expansions and a great little party mode… in a bowl.

Single Player Score – 9
Multiplayer Score - 9

Discuss this article on the forum.

Continue reading Review - Burnout Paradise: Ultimate Box