With the recent announcement over at Hothead Games of the impending sequel (September 21/22), I realized that we had neglected to review DeathSpank in a timely manner (or at all). I have only myself to blame, for as anyone who knows me knows about my love for what I call the Holy Trinity of LucasArts – Ron Gilbert, Dave Grossman and Tim Schafer. While trying to take fangirlism as much out of the equation as possible, I will say that I have yet to be let down by anything these men have developed, together or separately and I am pleased to report the same about Ron Gilbert and Hothead Games’ latest offering, DeathSpank.

Any reviewer worth their salt will immediately describe DeathSpank as Monkey Island meets Diablo: Take the humor of Monkey Island and combine it with the hack and slash of Diablo while throwing in a well-meaning but dumb as a post protagonist and you have DeathSpank. As such, I would say a player will find a dash of “The Tick” in there as well. The titular character of DeathSpank is a parody of every superhero you’ve ever come across, set in a sort of surreal acid fantasy setting. Bright pink landscapes, talking trees and feral chickens abound in DeathSpank’s world as he searches for a mysterious and powerful artifact (known simply as “The Artifact”, natch) while trying to free the world from the Evil Lord Von Prong and his Thong of Power (no, really).

Gameplay is fairly simple. DeathSpank must travel throughout the land in search of The Artifact while collecting orphans (yeah, you heard me) to keep them and their free labor away from Lord Von Prong. While traveling with his bag of orphans, DeathSpank must use the weapons at his disposal (swords, lightning rods, and crossbows) to defeat both Von Prong’s soldiers and the local wildlife hell-bent on sabotaging his progress. Additionally, DeathSpank can choose to embark on side quests to assist the downtrodden, ranging from finding a missing brother to collecting unicorn droppings to helping a yuppie build an exclusive suburban community. These side quests will garner DeathSpank stat boosts, weapons, and inventory needed to defeat Von Prong and liberate the land.

There’s something inherently charming about DeathSpank, though I am hard-pressed to say exactly what. Certainly it’s the clueless but ego-filled titular character, but there’s more here to enhance the experience of what would otherwise be a generic (but stylized) action RPG clone. Perhaps it’s the echoes of Monkey Island with all of the in-depth, humorous dialogue. Perhaps it’s the incentive to get as many of the weapons and armor as possible just to read the ludicrous names and descriptions (“Epic Shoulders of Epicness?”). Perhaps it’s the desire to see just how much more ridiculous the game can actually be. In the end it’s a combination of all these things, and the fact that DeathSpank is an epic adventure set in a decidedly non-epic world. All of the makings of a world-traveling epic are present, but for as large as the DeathSpank world is, it actually feels quite small, and fits nicely with the overblown ego of our hero. I’m certain the outhouse teleporting system contributes to this effect (yeah, I just said that).

There are a few problems with DeathSpank. As enjoyably random as the side quests can be, there are nearly eighty of them, and as such there are times when gameplay can become monotonous — all side quests follow the “go here, kill x amount of enemies/gather item, come back, receive reward” format. In addition, the jazz-inspired soundtrack loops quicker than I would like, but while it’s a downside worth noting, I find I didn’t mind all that much. Finally, I noticed a slowdown in the latter half of the game, causing brief but noticeable graphics flickering: an annoyance, and little more.

Is DeathSpank perfect? No, but it’s a heck of a lot of fun and despite its minor problems, I eagerly await September’s release of DeathSpank: Thongs of Virtue.

Blizzard have announced all reviews for StarCraft II will be launching after the game’s worldwide release. Rather than being due to some heavy-handed embargo or PR shenanigans, Blizzard (see also: ActiBlizz) explained they wanted to ensure reviewers were able to experience the game in an identical environment to the general public. Games that require massive online communities often are reviewed on closed servers weeks before a game’s release.

I, for one, think this is going to make the reviews for the game much more interesting to follow. Everyone is getting access to the game at the same time, so the suspicious “exclusive” review won’t exist. Instead you’ll be left with such wonderful questions like, “Did Website X really complete the campaign and give the multiplayer a fair shake before stamping a 10 out of 10?” If we were a massive site with an unlimited budget (ahem!) would we assign the review to our most dedicated staffer; a person who would be willing to sacrifice 48+ sleepless hours just to get our review out first?

Thankfully, writing for Nukezilla is a labour of love. In our case the StarCraft II review will be placed in the most steady and capable hands of our very own Mark “Junglistgamer” Steward. Mark and I have been playing SCII during the beta and as NZ‘s new Reviews Editor I can promise you our review won’t be rushed out the door. Mark and staff have been waiting 11 years for this. If Blizzard’s latest is a masterpiece, a massive disappointment or something in between, we’ll be sure to give it a thorough spin around the block.

Please continue to follow our coverage of SCII. We’ll post our Battle.net IDs on the forums so the NZ community can jump into the fray with us online and squash what’s left of our meager pride. My life for Auir!

Dr. Mazing in Infinite Energy Crisis has done the unthinkable. Having played as much of this game as I could stomach (I only made it to the fifth level before breaking down in tears), I have lost the will to play video games. Knowing that this game is around depresses me more than 9/11 and my dead grandma combined. Every bad stereotype and element you could concoct about the Indie Games section of Xbox Live is on display in this game. The gameplay is boring and repetitive, the aesthetics are blindingly and deafeningly bad, and every other element of the game is just shit. Read on and find out if I think this game is worth your Microsoft points!

This terrible, awful, no-good, very bad game begins with the titular Dr. A. Mazing (get it?) lecturing a class on some sort if infinite energy device he’s concocted. Shockingly, the device has caught the eye of intergalactic warlord Gazal Nim, who wishes to take it and do what we can only assume are evil things with it. It’s up to Doc Mazing and his assistant SomethingOrOther (I forgot her name already) to get the device to safety. This means running, jumping, and punching their way through ten levels filled with Nim’s robot armies.

Controls for this beat-em-up are head-achingly simple: the control stick causes movement, A jumps, X attacks, Y switches weapons. Simple, but still completely broken. You can’t move while jumping, changing weapons, or holding B (which is all that the B button does). That makes the jump-kick you can perform, like everything else in this game, extremely awkward. My eight-year-old Amish cousin could design better controls.

This would be a problem if the enemies were tougher than Nerf soaked in water. Gazal Nim should fire every single one of his minions if this is how they act. They constantly fight each other, get stuck on environmental objects, and rarely actually attack. The only danger in this game comes from the bosses, the mostly hair-pullingly frustrating sadists at the end of the levels. Rather than move like everything else in the game, the bosses have an ability to warp (read: stutter and glitch) to your position. Most of the bosses have close-quarter attacks that cause you to be stuck in the same place until you die. Others have ranged attacks that do absolutely nothing if you’re standing right next to them.

Doc’s attacks don’t really have a set amount of damage; each punch and kick is basically a roll of the dice, except the dice only has four, five, and six written on it. That means you won’t need any other weapon to take out roughly 90% of the enemies you come across. The other 10% must be killed from afar, so you’ve got to weaken them with the piss-poor lasers and grenades you can pick up. The grenade, when tossed, will hit anyone or anything it wants to, whether you intended it to or not. Same with the boxes and park benches you can find strewn across the levels. The weapons (the only three in the game) are depressingly weak, barely doing damage to anything.

Absolutely nothing about this game is pretty. The backgrounds look like they were done in a Chinese knock-off MS Paint program. Every animation looks like it’s causing the character performing the action physical and emotional pain. The different run animations keep going on when a character stops. The horrible doctor’s fight animation skips itself randomly in a “Oh God that man is having a siezure” way. Environmental objects explode, if you can call listlessly moving in mid-air exploding.

I could go into more of the shit this game feeds you (cutscenes that tell you nothing, random ships that crash and explode for no reason, etc.), but my soul is too tired to do so. Calling this game bad is being nice. There are zero redeeming qualities to Dr. Mazing. This is a game that, at some point, had multiple people saying to themselves “I can actually make money off of this!” That makes me sad about the world we live in. It’s not fun in any meaning of the word; it’s not “B-movie” good, or “so bad it’s good” good. It’s just awful. Not only should you never spend 240 MS points (seriously) on this waste of disc space, you should probably assault anyone you know who willingly has downloaded this.

(What does this score mean?)

Disclaimer: BitCore Studios sent us a review code for the game.

There are very few sequels that I consider to be stronger than the original source material, especially when it comes to video games. Off of the top of my head, I can think of four: Mega Man 2, Uncharted 2, Assassin’s Creed II, and Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge. I am well aware that I may be flogged publicly for declaring my love of the Monkey Island sequel over the revolutionary original game, but it did exactly what a sequel is supposed to do: expounded on the original source material and made it better. I can happily claim the same for the remake of Monkey Island 2, which delivers not only the game we all know and love, but a brand new experience to be welcomed with open arms.

Originally developed in 1991 by the Holy Trinity of LucasArts (Ron Gilbert, Tim Schafer, and Dave Grossman), Monkey Island 2 follows Guybrush Threepwood on his quest to find the legendary Big Whoop, a treasure no one can describe located on an island no one can find. During his quest to find the treasure, Guybrush inadvertently revives his nemesis, the ghost pirate LeChuck. It’s up to the plucky pirate to defeat LeChuck and win back the affection of his estranged love, the beautiful Elaine Marley. This is the game we all fell in love with twenty years ago: every setting, every puzzle, and every line of dialogue is accounted for, and despite the passage of time, it’s still hilarious and fun to play.

While 2009′s remake of the first game, The Secret of Monkey Island Special Edition, was effectively a trussed-up port of the original, the remade sequel introduces a few welcome changes. The control scheme in Monkey Island 2 has been updated to better suit console controls. Being able to manually control Guybrush’s movement with the directional stick is a welcome change from moving an icon and clicking to get him to start moving. Also changed are updated shoulder button controls, making item interaction in the game much less awkward than in its predecessor. The graphics are colorful, polished, and realistic-cartoony, keeping with the spirit of the original game. The introduction of a default verb setting based on item context is perhaps the most welcome change, keeping control tinkering to a minimum.

If it wasn’t enough that we were getting a great remake of a classic game, the developers have seen fit to include bonus features: concept art for the game which shows the evolution of pixel sprite characters into their polished counterparts, as well as an audio commentary by the original developers which can be played while adventuring through the game. The concept art, additionally, is meted out periodically through the game, achievement-style. I can’t quite explain why, but presenting the art as an in-game unlockable delights me to no end – perhaps it gives gamers time to acclimate themselves to the new Guybrush and company, getting to know them on their own merits rather than as reinventions of beloved characters.

As much as I hate to say it, there are a few problems with the game, but they pale in comparison to the overall experience. While the manual controls are welcome, as I stated above, there were instances (notably on Scabb Island) where I found Guybrush difficult to control when presented with a crossroads on the path. Additionally – and this may be the purist in me – I found the remastered soundtrack to be, while not bad, somewhat lacking, though I can’t quite put my finger on how. Oftentimes when presented with either of these above problems, I found myself switching to classic mode; to easily pass through a crossroads or to listen to the old soundtrack for a few seconds so I could appreciate the new music presented to me.

Incidentally, having mentioned the soundtrack, I would be remiss not to bring up Unconvinced Pete’s article (and look, there’s a new one now), which addresses LucasArts’ iMUSE sound system in the original Monkey Island 2 and in the Special Edition. While unfortunately not incorporated into the original Monkey Island remake (for authenticity, perhaps?), I am happy to report that the remastered soundtrack has utilized iMUSE once again, reviving the musical voodoo the original game performed so well.

In the end, however, these are nothing but minor grievances. Within the first few minutes of gameplay it is evident that great care was taken with this property. This game feels like a labor of love, made solely for the benefit of the fanbase, still going strong after twenty years. It is in Monkey Island 2 where I place my hope for the future of LucasArts’ developers. With Telltale’s recent successes in Tales of Monkey Island and their Sam and Max series, adventure games are poised to enter a mainstream revival. I can only hope that LucasArts will remember who they used to be before they started pandering solely to Star Wars gamers sometime in the mid-nineties and start developing the next great adventure game. Until then, I’ll keep my dreams with Telltale and in future classic adventure game remakes (are you listening, Sierra?).

(What does this score mean?)

Not many games connect with you on a deep personal level. Sometimes works of art reach an audience and expand their meaning past the creator’s initial intent. One of the core conceits of any piece of art or entertainment is the audience’s participation. What you bring to the experience is your attention, thought, memory, interaction and once it’s over, reflection. Flower was one game that touched many gamers with its artistic expression and green message. Braid turned expectations on their head with both gameplay innovations and an emotionally powerful plot twist at the very end.

Alan Wake is no work of art. It’s a highly commercialized video game product. That being said, I was taken in by the story, characters, location and complex and twisting plot. There are small number of things that mire down an otherwise slick presentation. Here begins my review of Alan Wake, brought to with limited (HA!) commercial interruption you by our sponsors: Verizon Wireless, Ford, Microsoft SYNC and Energizer.

Alan Wake (A. Wake, get it?) is a frustrated writer from New York City who visits the fictional Pacific Northwestern town of Bright Falls on a mission: get away from his claustrophobic apartment and breathe the fresh mountain air. The whole trip, however, has been a rouse perpetrated on Alan by his wife Alice and agent/friend Barry. You see, Alan’s been suffering from a massive case of writer’s block and they’re hoping the change of scenery will break up the mental log jam. To make a long story short, Alice disappears, Alan blacks out and wakes up a full week later with short term amnesia pursued by a malevolent darkness.

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In case you haven’t yet heard, the story is broken up into episodes, each consisting of approximately an hour of play time. The flow tends to be a daytime romp through Bright Falls where Alan meets with town folk and Barry all the while searching for clues that will help lead him to Alice. The rest of the game is set at night where an unknown force of darkness has gained control of the town and menaces Wake as he makes his way though forests, logging camps and abandoned mines. If you want to get the full experience, you must play this game at night with the sound turned up. Otherwise, you’re cheating yourself out of some genuine “Holy Shit” moments, none of which I will ruin here.

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Alan’s not a steroid-injected space marine. He’s a slow running (though shockingly agile) weakling. Your only weapons against the darkness are light in many forms and a limited arsenal of standard firearms. I completed the game on the ‘hard’ difficulty and found the combat satisfying and strategic at times, although by the end of the game I wasn’t ready to beg for more shooty-shooty. The use of light and the game engine’s ability to render light sources is the star of the show here. By the end of the game my only complaint about the combat was the developer’s seeming lack of imagination. A few more genius scenarios involving the darkness/light mechanic would have elevated this game to permanent greatness, but what they released is brimming with quality and a decent amount of depth.

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The writing and story of Alan Wake kept me hooked, chapter to chapter; eager to get to the end each night. I wouldn’t suggest playing this game through all in one night. Like a great TV show, each episode is its own miniature roller coaster. If you cut to the front of the line and ride through all 6 of them in one evening, you may feel cheated, without giving the game the opportunity to sink its teeth into you as you wait in line for the next thrill ride.

I won’t bore you with my personal connections to the story of Alan Wake, but suffice it to say the protagonist’s battle with darkness (real or imagined) is one I felt kinship with. Remedy have done something amazing here. They’ve created a game that borrows liberally from nearly all forms of pop culture: games, music, television and film. They’ve put them all into a blender and crafted something that’s neither a copy or a indecipherable goulash of references.

After discounts and “free” DLC, I figure I paid about $30 (US) for Alan Wake. I will be downloading the first and purchasing the second (and final?) DLC just to see where the story really ends, but I suspect Remedy to be classy enough to clearly separate this content from the arc of the main game. It’s no spoiler to tell you the end of the game answers few questions, but I for one welcome the next installment of Alan Wake, should the game prove to be successful.

…and now for something completely different.

My wife forbade me from playing Alan Wake without being present in the room at all times. This broke my self-imposed “rule” of wanting to play one full episode each night, as she tended to fall asleep after 30-45 minutes. Look, the game wasn’t boring her to sleep, we have two very active young kids and “mama be needin’ her beauty sleep.” My wife’s enjoyment and engagement of the game enhanced my enjoyment of Alan Wake and I hope her contribution below will do the same for this review.

Enjoy!

Of all the many games I have seen my husband play, Alan Wake is the first game in a very, very long time that I could not stop watching. I found the story to be well written and intriguing, so much so that I was driven to see how it all ended. There were a few too many similarities to Lost, but I liked the episodic format of the story.

There was a nice balance of suspense/thriller story alongside the gameplay. So many of my husband’s games are about shooting this or killing five of something else. The levels felt rich and helped me feel invested in the story. I insisted my husband read each manuscript page as we found them in the game. The pages helped flesh out the story and kept my interest progressing through each area to the next. Also, it was a time when we could take a break from the game’s more frightful sections.

There was one point in the game where I told Brett not to keep running around, but he ignored me. I told him, “Don’t run so fast”, but as I said the words, he ran right out of a dark room into a narrow hallway. One of the game’s oogy-boogies jumped out and I screamed and grabbed Brett, which made him scream. We laughed about that all night and he reminds me about it all the time now.

I was disappointed in how the game ended, but it still kept my interest. Overall, it felt like a good book that you could actively be a part of. It stands out from the rest of the major games Brett plays. There are other games out there, but other major games seem the same, God of War, Military Games, futuristic games like Mass Effect. I wouldn’t stay up until 4 AM to play these games, but Brett does.

Shadow of the Colossus was the only other game like this that felt different. It wasn’t a tired-ass story. I mean, how many military games can you play? What is so new and intriguing about Halo? What is that game even about anyway? I don’t think I want to know.

Images: Giant Bomb

I’ve always preferred arcade racers over racing simulators. I really don’t care how each nut and bolt is tweaked, I just want to go fast. On the surface Split/Second appeared to be a game that was built from the bottom up for me. Not only is the boring number crunching of racing simulators gone, but the entire race track is rigged to explode and everyone is trying to blow the hell out of each other. Unfortunately, what should have been a worthy competitor to the Burnout series is nothing more than a mediocre racer that becomes tiring quickly.

The premise of Split/Second is simple. You race from start to finish while trying to survive all the different hazards on the track, which range from something as small as an explosive barrel to multi-story buildings and entire ships collapsing. The catch is that these hazards are triggered by racers, so proper planning can take out 3 or 4 rivals in one blow. There are several other modes besides the standard Race that have great concepts but are implemented rather poorly. Air Strike involves you dodging missiles fired from a helicopter, but the hit detection is less than optimal, and it’s almost impossible to dodge missiles in narrow roads. And Elimination is the same as Race, except the car in last place is destroyed every 30 seconds.

The only mode that truly made Split/Second stand out from other racers was Survival. I don’t think I’ve ever been as excited and stressed out when racing as I was when playing Survival. The goal is to overtake armored trucks in order to put time on the clock. The problem is that the trucks are constantly dumping explosive barrels on track, and there are packs of AI racers whose sole objective is to get in your way. Add some human racers in multiplayer, and the chaos is unbelievable. But the Survival races are far and few between in single player, and all my attempts to find a multiplayer version of it were unsuccessful.

Which brings us to another problem with Split/Second. Multiplayer is key to making racing games interesting. AI quickly becomes predictable, but human racers always do something different. That is, of course, if you can find any human racers. Try to find a game for anything but Race, and you’ll be waiting for hours in a lobby by yourself. Give up and join a Race game, and you go up against people with cars twice as fast as yours. Single player unlocks are used in multiplayer, so be prepared to grind for the best cars in single player if you want a chance at winning in multiplayer.

Split/Second promises so much, but where is the substance? You soon realize that the game bases almost everything on the “wow-factor” of blowing the whole track up, but once you realize that most threats can be dodged, or simply absorbed if you’re driving a heavy enough car, the thrills wear off. Aggressive driving is pointless in Split/Second, since ramming or fish tailing is almost useless. It appears that using your car as a weapon was made impossible in order to force you to use Power Plays to take out your rivals.

The potential was great. They could have taken the aggressive driving of Burnout, and and perfected it to a truly chaotic art. Instead, they neutered any possibility of aggression to force you to focus on their Power Plays. I understand taking pride in your work, but I noticed myself using Burnout tactics almost subconsciously on my rivals, only to scream in anger as they did nothing. Split/Second is great for an afternoon, but once all the parlor tricks and pyrotechnics are done there is little to be said for this game.

(What does this score mean?)

Images: GiantBomb

As both a loyal Doctor Who fan and gamer, I felt it my duty to give the recently released game adaptation of the new-look series a go. With the Eleventh Doctor well-established (and being portrayed rather brilliantly by Matt Smith, might I add), the BBC have felt that now would be a good time to tackle the problem of transitioning the television show into an action-adventure game.

A problem, you ask? Surely the structure of the television show and the show aesthetic would make for a great videogame? That would certainly be good reasoning, but the problem isn’t so much with the actual transition but with the genre of game being made. How do you make an action-adventure game with a protagonist who doesn’t use weapons?

Enter Doctor Who: The Adventure Games – a free-to-play action-adventure series that uses the “action” element quite loosely. Your enemies can kill you but to beat them you must solve puzzles and complete objectives to trigger cutscenes which deal with the enemies you face. There’s no firing up of the Jammie Dodgers, oh no. You get the trusty sonic screwdriver and the Doctor’s mind as weapons – The Adventure Games is really a puzzle/action-adventure with the action bit in spirit.

City of the Daleks is the first of four adventures within the series – the other three are on the way so for now you’ll have to live with just stopping the Daleks. It won’t take you very long to do so, mind: less than 90 minutes after booting the game up and the credits were rolling. While the game is a free “episode”, I was expecting a bit more content – that being said, the game is directed to almost simulate the 45 minute television show and even though you’re playing the game, the attention to detail put into simulating the TV experience makes the short experience more rewarding.

In this outing the Doctor and Amy have travelled back to 1963 – they are in London, but it seems the Daleks have altered time and taken over the world. Only one human is alive now and after seeing her evade a Dalek attack, the Doctor and Amy pursue her to find out why and how events in time have been altered. The familiar witty humour and British charm the TV show has is on display in the game; the scriptwriting is just as good here as its televisual counterpart.

Both Matt Smith and Karen Gillan lend their voices to the game which makes things more engaging – the set-up of the game is so that you can instantly connect with the characters like you do with the show. The game even goes as far as show the characters’ mannerisms (although with the graphical quality being held back by its free-to-play ethos this isn’t as apparent as you may envisage).

It’s all well and good having the game play out like the show, but how does it actually play? Quite well actually: you control the Doctor (and Amy later on) using either the directional buttons or the standard WASD movement. You can interact with items and objects within the game – when prompted on-screen you left-click to get information, pick up a key item or a collectible or engage a cutscene. The collectibles are more of a fan-targeted thing: the collectible section of the game will pan over the series and it’s pretty much the game’s way of getting you to play the episodes more than once. Found all the collectibles? No? Have another go, then.

The movement of the characters and the click-to-interact control can be just a tad sticky but in the grand scheme of things I’m picking at an insignificant problem. I didn’t really have any problem when playing the game: whether that’s because the game was generally quite fluid or because the catering of the game aiming at a wider audience dims the difficulty, I have yet to decide.

When you’re not avoiding Dalek detection as you progress through the game you partake in puzzle solving: different challenges such as connecting wires without crossing them or moving a component around an electrical circuit maze without touching the sides are fairly simple challenges to complete. For your average gamer, you should have minimal trouble finishing the puzzles in the game.

In fact, you should have no real trouble at any point in the game: avoiding the Daleks is just a case of “if you enter their sight path, you die” and avoiding the other enemy featuring is just a case of dodging their attack. The Adventure Games won’t offer gamers any real challenge so if you’re not a fan of Doctor Who this isn’t the game for you. This is definitely a game designed to cater more to the fans and casual gamers.

The Adventure Games is bite-size, but considering it’s free and the set-up of the game is very much like the television show, you can’t really go wrong… if you’re a fan of the show, that is. The Adventure Games is definitely for Doctor Who fans and if you are one of them, you won’t be disappointed.

(What does this score mean?)

With a name like The Impossible Game, the icon for FlukeDude‘s odd little title took its place on my iPhone’s home screen with some pretty high expectations to live up to. Any developer who has the balls to put the word “impossible” in his game’s title needs to be extremely confident in the software’s level of difficulty. That is, the game needs to be bloody hard.

Fortunately, this is one area where The Impossible Game does not disappoint. It is, indeed, extremely difficult. The object of the game is to tap the screen at appropriate times to make a small orange square jump over obstacles. If this evokes memories of the runaway (get it) hit Canabalt, then you’re imagining this game the same way I did when I read the instructions. Good. Now, forget about Canabalt, because The Impossible Game is nothing like it. The two games share the “one button to jump, avoid obstacles” gameplay that seems to be gaining popularity in iPhone games, but that’s about it.

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Famitsu, the popular Japanese gaming mag, gave Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker full marks in a review. This score is reserved for only the very best games (understandably) and apparently is seen as quite an achievement in some circles. Where this gets a bit iffy is in the fact that Famitsu magazine is actually in the game (along with Doritos and Mountain Dew) and the mag’s former editor-in-chief, who’s currently the president of the company that owns Famitsu, appears in a bunch of the game’s adverts.

These facts weren’t included in Famtisu‘s review, which is quarter of a page long. No gaming magazine to my knowledge (and most sites) disclose simple facts like where they got or played their games, let alone if they are in the ads, but apparently this is a big deal. Big enough to warrant an article on Kotaku titled “Do Not Trust This Magazine’s Review Scores”.

In the article Brian Ashcraft wastes no time is painting Famitsu as a shady bunch. “Some would say that Famitsu has sold its soul long, long ago. The publication always has exclusives and game reveals before anyone else, arousing the suspicions of some.” He continues by bringing up damning “rumors” about how the publishers write Famitsu‘s game announcements. Apparently the lack of disclosure on the part of the mag “destroys any illusion of impartial reviews. Forever.”

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We’ve been conditioned by games to expect certain things. Red barrels explode, dramatic music indicates approaching enemies, and a wooden shack can withstand a hundred RPGs without collapsing. I like to refer to this as “game logic.” Game logic dictates that if a tank is firing at you, it only makes sense to hide behind something. Even if that something is a two foot high wooden crate, because according to game logic, it should be impervious to all forms of attack. It isn’t so much the fact that this would be utter insanity in real life, it’s just that we as gamers have been conditioned to accept this kind of thing as normal. I suppose this is why I’ve come to love Bad Company 2 so much. For the first time in a while, I’ve had to relearn some core FPS principles. Bad Company 2 took a good portion of my previous FPS experience and threw it out the window. And I’ve been having a blast ever since.

DICE have been pushing the new Frostbite 2.0 engine as one of the main selling points for BC2. As opposed to the original Bad Company, where only walls and parts of roofs could be destroyed, Frostbite 2.0 allows entire buildings to be collapsed with enough damage. But with games like Red Faction: Guerrilla turning building destruction into a science, how does Bad Company 2 stack up?

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TeamXbox have withdrawn their recent Final Fantasy XIII review after overwhelming reader response at their controversial 5/10. Despite stating clearly in the original review, (available cached for limited time here: page 1 and 2 [thanks Shane of Sarcastic Gamer]) that the reviewer was rating his experience up to a game breaking debug glitch on the third disc of their press copy, the score and subsequent public furore led the site to censor their own output.

In a recent note, Andy Eddy, editor in chief, attempted to “clear up” the reason for the article’s removal and editorial “step back”, citing “[sensitivity] to the potential for disappointment by readers who may have had high hopes for a title, but have those hopes dashed by a critical review”. Although the about turn was no doubt painful for the journalistic integrity of both the website and Andrew Fitch’s original critique, Eddy stands firm in asserting that:

For the record, we were confident that the review we put up earlier critiqued the elements of the game fairly and adequately, but the result of this process will be a review that’s complete beyond the shadow of a doubt and a full assessment of Final Fantasy XIII for Xbox 360.

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Usually I have a problem with the real-time strategy genre. I certainly appreciate the classics like Starcraft, Command and Conquer, and Civilization. Most of the time I tend to get bored with the genre as a whole. So I was excited when I had the chance to review Marvelous Galaxy, a new Indie Game RTS. I thought this would be a change to get back into strategy games. Thanks to creator Darix for sending us a review copy.

Marvelous Galaxy is a traditional RTS set in the far-flung reaches of the universe. As the leader of a small planet’s army, you’re tasked with gathering resources to forge your way across the stars. Along with resource management you partake in traditional RTS combat with your robot hordes descending on opposing forces to win resources and rule over the entire galaxy.

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Please forgive a tired audiophile and this metaphor infused survey of the last few months of podcast reviews. I’ve been taken prisoner by some amazing podcasts lately, some of which haven’t been featured on iCringe yet. Suffice it to say, when a show is fantastic and has a 30+ episode backlog, iCringe ain’t ah gettin’ done on-time.

I’ll be sure to review my new fine friends, but make sure to help me by sending in some of your suggestions (even the stinkers). If I skewer any of your favorites, please remember the one your dad (or uncle) always told you about opinions and how they are sometimes similar to oft used and maligned parts of your and others’ anatomy.

Thanks for your patience and your time. Without further adieu, here’s the first iCRINGE PODCAST ROUND-UP!

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Taking place in a reality in which heaven battles hell and witches trade vinyl records of angelic hymns with blaxploitation bartenders, Bayonetta is as distinctly Japanese as any game I’ve played in years. The plot, as far as I could discern, charts the titular protagonist’s attempts to recover her memories and prevent the reunification of three separate planes of existence. Mechanically, Bayonetta sits comfortably inside the “character action” genre based around third person melee combat and some occasional platforming spiced up with a few minigames and vehicle sections.

As far as a unique selling point is concerned, Bayonetta rewards the last second dodging of attacks by switching into ‘witch time’. You may already have guessed that ‘witch’ could be substituted with ‘bullet’ and this mechanic would remain the same. Time is slowed down for the player, allowing them to freely inflict damage on enemies without any risk or complete specific platforming sequences that are impossible otherwise. Carrying on the tradition of other games in the genre, there’s a certain degree of character customisation and item management. Between levels or at designated points in each stage, the player can trade in the halos they’ve received after killing enemies for various items or weapons.

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Ever since Activision took over the Guitar Hero series, they’ve been constantly compared to Harmonix, the originators of the franchise. Because of the very competitive nature of the current music game market, any new entry in the genre has been met with high expectations and little tolerance for mediocrity. Each new game needs to have lots of new features, a killer song list, and sturdier, more responsive plastic instruments with which to play.

After last year’s Guitar Hero: World Tour brought the series into the “full band game” fold, Activision have had plenty of time to evaluate where they succeeded and failed with it and craft a better experience for Guitar Hero 5. They were able to do this in many regards, but the game does still have a few critical shortcomings.

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I strive to review these shows based primarily on their latest episode. Sometimes though, if a show is completely new to my ears I’ll listen to past episodes to get a feel for the rhythm of the series as a whole. There are some shows that change format or cast members over a period of time that can drastically alter the show’s quality and thereby our review. The classic example of a show that fell apart due to changes in cast was the 1UP Yours! show.

The crew of Garnett, Shane, John and Luke was a major factor in getting me hooked on gaming podcasting. The whole thing started to fall apart when Luke Smith left to work at Bungie and from then on the show began its downward spiral. With each change in cast 1UP Yours! became a pale shadow of its former glory. Sometimes though, a fresh format can revitalize a ‘cast. The Videogamer.com podcast was reformatted recently and this week we’re reviewing their spin-off podcast this week Back on Topic.

How does their new show stack up? Read below to find out!

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Twin-stick shooters. Ever since the popularity of Geometry Wars, people have been attempting to make the “next big thing” in twin-stick. Most get tossed into the Indie Games section of XBLA to wither and die (as they rightfully should). But some rise above the rest, and even improve upon the formula of Geometry Wars.

Galax-e-mail, the first title from Bog Turtle Games (yes, of Elfland Reloaded fame), is one such Indie Game twin-stick shooter and a copy was kindly given to us to review. The game has you traipsing around the galaxy acting as a sort-of electronic mail delivery service. Your task is to destroy alien bases throughout randomly generated arenas until you find a warp hole that delivers your e-mail to its final destination. Neither storm, nor black holes, nor alien swarms, nor minefields will stop you from accomplishing your appointed course.

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Ubisoft has apparently been taking notes from Eidos Interactive in how to handle press reviews for their soon to be released renaissance era, 3rd person action, thriller, genetic time traveler, platformer Assassin’s Creed II. According to a translation seen on WEARETHEINTERNETZ, German games magazine Computer Bild Spiele claims Ubisoft refused to send them a review build of Assassin’s Creed II unless they would “guarantee the score ‘sehr gut’ (Very Good)” They go on to say, “We’d be more than glad to give the game a ‘sehr gut,’ but only if it deserves it.”

Computer Bild Spiele has promised a review in the January issue based on the publicly released version of the game as they were obviously not willing to play ball with Ubisoft. Seeing that the first Assassin’s Creed sold 6 million units+ worldwide and was critically well received, it seems foolish and arrogant for them to try to bully game reviewers for high scores on the sequel. Maybe they felt the stakes were too high this holiday season to show off their million dollar baby without assurances from the games press. I guess Ubisoft made them an offer they could refuse. Sorry folks, these are the jokes.

Via: Destructoid

One of the things that I have noticed while listening to a wide range of gaming podcasts is a lot of the shows fluctuate in quality from week to week. This may just be a byproduct of podcasting being a relatively new medium of entertainment, but it’s also a wide open format with no standards or restrictions. This roller coaster of quality can be applied to almost any show out there with few exceptions.

Many shows adopt strict formats to their show with regular features, discussion topics and musical breaks. While this tends to keep them more consistent, sometimes it can really drag down the energy of a show when parts of the cast tune out for sections where they don’t contribute. The rest of the shows go with a more wide open approach which can get help things get on a roll when the cast starts to go off onto a hilarious tangent. These shows also frequently fall completely apart on weeks when no one provides the random catalytic anecdote that leads to audio magic.

[Updates: It was the French PSM that rated Uncharted 2 an 11 out of 10. Also, they pointed out theirs is a monthly show. Thanks @OPM_UK for the corrections!]

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As a long-time music game fan, and a short-time Beatles fan, the announcement of The Beatles: Rock Band sent me into fanboy overdrive last year. Harmonix in charge of a Beatles-themed music game? Surely a recipe for success I thought.

Now the game’s been available for a while and I’ve spent a lot of time with it. Is it everything I hoped for it to be? Is it going to change the way people look at artist-specific music games? Are they really charging $100 for those Beatles guitars? The answer to all of those questions is “yes”.

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Your mother has always told you; “Beauty is only skin deep”, yet you still seek out that which is most attractive. Childhood joys of playing through a blocky pixel dungeons were replaced with detailed sprites then by lavishly painted textures stretched over high-polygon models. If given the choice of two products that appear to be functionally identical, you’ll pick the prettier one. For most of us it’s unavoidable; it’s human nature. Sometimes though, this pursuit of beauty can have its perils. Enter Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars.

If you’re new to Chinatown Wars and haven’t already experienced the game on the Nintendo DS, please disregard the following couple of paragraphs. Don’t worry we’ll get to you soon enough. All of this is your fault of course for not purchasing the game on the DS in the first place. Shame on you.

Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars on the PSP is a visually improved, more detailed and smoother experience than the DS version. All of the cut scenes have been redrawn, the music enhanced and the particle effects dialed up to 11. Only one thing is missing from making this game an odds-on favorite over its DS stepbrother. That feature is touch.

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The Indie Games section of Xbox Live scares me. Never has there been a game marketplace filled with such vast amounts of crap. I’ve rarely played great games on there; I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MB1ES!!!1, Galax-e-mail, and A Fading Melody are pretty much it. NG was sent a review token for Elfland Reloaded Volume 1 by the developers Bog Turtle Games, which looked pretty unspectacular when I viewed the info and screenshots on XBLA.

Depending on your sexual preference, Elfland Reloaded Volume 1 is a simple platformer telling the story of Elfie or Elfita. The male/female elf is tasked with visiting the alchemist Gorgimer so that he can concoct a potion to stop some trolls from attacking an elven city. Equipped with paralysis-inducing berries and a sense of adventure, you’re left to venture out in search of the great wizard to help you out.

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This week we’re going to start out with a quick explanation of our review scores. Similar to our Xbox Indie Games Recap, we’ve adopted a three tiered scale for our podcast reviews:

Unsubscribed! – We didn’t find much to like about this show. Maybe it was a particularly bad episode, but most likely this show is something we would avoid.

Salvageable – There are good parts of this show, but they are getting bogged down by a number of annoyances. Your mileage may vary, but we’re still on the fence.

Still Subscribed! – Wow! This is a great show. The show has great energy, a well rounded cast and is full of wit. We highly recommend this show with little to no hesitation.

As you can see we’ve added shiny new buttons above each score for those of you that are into that sort of thing. Please keep sending us suggestions in the comments section. We love to hear new shows and your requests will be heard and reviewed.

This week was pretty positive overall, so without further adieu here’s this week’s reviews:

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Most of the episodes from this week’s round-up are particularly bad episodes from otherwise good shows. As a result, expect some harsh words to follow. Remember, our criticism stems from an appreciation and respect for the hard work each group invests in the production of their podcast. If our remarks sting ever-so-slightly, keep in mind it’s all in good fun.

If it’s a perfect podcast you’re patiently perusing for, patently free from pejoratives or prejudices of any kind, please perambulate your way to the NGCast (which can conveniently be found on our very own site). We promise to provide you with a podcast that’s pervasive with previews and postmortems, devoid of any perfunctory protestations.

Also, journalism.

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Here at Negative Gamer, we like to emphasize the negative points in the things we like or can’t stand, in an effort to elevate the conversation, so to speak. Listening to gaming podcasts for fun can sometimes be an oxymoron. Just like Games Journalism, these 1-2(and God help us, sometimes 3)-hour internet radio dramas are still somewhat in their infancy. We could bring you highlights from the game podcasting realm, but instead we’ve decided to share the low points.

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