NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams, Wii - £9.99 delivered
The SavyGamer Podcast, Episode 9
No, you're not missing an episode - this one's two episodes for the price of one, as I'm a lazy bugger and have to merge the two. We have a very interesting discussion on financing games and I dive into my backlog, finally. My audio's not great on this one as I had to work from a backup recording, but I think most of my points come across. Enjoy!
Show notes (Highlight to view):
00:00 Opening
00:37 Welcome
02:17 News - Portal: Still Alive, BioShock 2, MGS4 on 360, PS3 pricing and firmware, Will's various conspiracy theories around Microsoft and Sony, and a lot of things we're looking forward to in the future. Also a discussion on advertising and making original games.
39:57 What we've been playing - World of Goo, EBA, Sonic Chronicles and of course Rock Band and Halo. And more!
57:31 Bargains of the week:
Condemned 2 PS3/360
KORG DS-10 synth
Dark Messiah
Halo 3
Prince of Persia: Sands of Time
1:04:52 Eurogamer Expo - We'll be there!
1:09:17 End of Episode 9 - A special message
1:09:35 Start of Episode 8 with a classy DJ intro, and why SavyGamer didn't update often for a week or so
1:13:12 News: TGS - XBLA, NXE, ODST, other acronyms. Also our new segment - Game That Lewie Thinks Are '...Alright'. Also, do Nintendo have some plans for the DSi they haven't revealed, and is Multiwinia being ignored? LittleBigPlanet and the legality and complexity of user-created content - check out this calculator!
1:55:25 What we've been playing - Lost Odyssey, Mega Man 9, Toejam and Earl, and more!
2:16:38 Bargains of the week:
Boom Blox, Elite Beat Agents.
2:20:30 Close
Total Runtime: 2:20:36
Total Filesize: 131.9MB
Got feedback on the show? Post a comment, or email us:
LewieP - lewiep@savygamer.co.uk
Will - willeth@gmail.com
MEGA MAN 9, XBLA - Review
(also available on WiiWare and PSN)
Mega Man 9 is a game that shouldn't really exist. The current climate of videogames tends to be that games should be challenging, but ultimately beatable. This is a philosophy that works best with the majority of gamers - people who play a few rounds of Call of Duty after work, or pull out Wii Sports with the kids. People who use GameFly and expect to be able to whizz through a game and get the full experience, and then swap it for another. Even Ninja Gaiden, widely acclaimed for its unforgiving nature, takes pity on you if you fail too much and offers you an easier option.
These kinds of people will hate Mega Man 9. This is a game that will chew you up and spit on you if you let it. This is controller-wrenching frustration, an exercise in self-punishment, developed by sadists who I want to get hit by a fireball and fall into a pit and die so they can get a taste of their own goddamn medicine.
But it's glorious. This is what Mega Man is all about. Every time you die, it's your own fault rather than some issue with the game being 'cheap', and every time you hammer the A button to have one more go. It just takes you right back to the first time you played a Mega Man game and that pursuit of perfection - you need to know the level inside and out and learn the exact mechanics of the game. It really is comparable to the original series of Mega Man on 8-bit systems.
If there's one sticking point, it's that there's not enough there to appeal to the new crowd who might pick it up. It's not necessarily trying to, though. This is a game that would only ever appeal to an existing userbase, and if there's something that confuses me about Mega Man 9, it's that someone at Capcom thought it was worth making. I'm grateful to them for doing so, of course, but it is fanservice at its most overt.
It's an oxymoron in itself - a modern retro game. Anyone who only started playing games within the last few years and thinks 'retro is cool' will be frustrated and disappointed. Most who grew up with the medium have graduated to different, more forgiving experiences - in essence, grown out of it. And that tiny subset of gamers who still crave this kind of thing? Well, they already own it.
Bully: Scholarship Edition, Xbox 360 - £15.96
Bully: Scholarship Edition, Xbox 360 - £15.96 delivered
Silent Hunter 4: Wolves of the Pacific Collector's Edition, PC - £11.96
Silent Hunter 4: Wolves of the Pacific Collector's Edition, PC - £11.96 delivered
Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings, DS - £7.17
Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings, DS - £7.17 delivered
Amazon Super Saver Delivery Change
Amazon have just altered the terms for their Super Saver Delivery - now, instead of £15-worth of items, you only need to purchase £5-worth to qualify for free shipping.
While it might not be the best method if you want to get something in a hurry (like a pre-order), I've usually found Super Saver to take only a few days to arrive and now you don't need to go scouting for something extra that's cheap in order to take advantage of it.
KORG DS-10, DS - £23.51
KORG DS-10, DS - £23.51 delivered
Apply code "B4U" for 2% off.
This is the UK release. Check out my import review here.
Sid Meier's Civilisation IV - Complete, PC - £10.99
Sid Meier's Civilisation IV - Complete, PC - £10.99 delivered
Dark Messiah Of Might And Magic, PC - £3.99
Dark Messiah Of Might And Magic, PC - £3.99 delivered
Really fun game. Get it.
Dragonball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 2, Wii - £7.99
Dragonball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 2, Wii - £7.99 delivered
Halo 3, Xbox 360 - £9.99
Halo 3, Xbox 360 - £9.99 in store
A quick search looks like there is plenty of stock around.
Might be worth checking to see if a local PC World has it in stock too, and you can get them to pricematch it to £6.99.
Buy one get one free PSP/DS
This offer has been on for a while, but a few new games have been added, and some have dropped in price. Most notably, Space Invaders Extreme is now £12.98 on both platforms (DS/PSP).
Ratchet And Clank: Tools Of Destruction, PS3 - £13.46
Ratchet And Clank: Tools Of Destruction, PS3 - £13.46 delivered
Enter code "freedel" for free P&P
Poverty
Poverty is when people do not have access to what they require for an acceptable standard of living.
It's a funny term really. In a lot of ways, standard of living is pretty subjective. Depending on who you are and where you live, the criteria on which you judge standard of living are going to be different. What kind of things are essential? A car? An Education? Clean water?
A case can be made for all of them. In a hypothetical society where a car is the only feasible means of transport, not having access to one would be living in poverty. Education is one of the most important aspects of individual development. Clean water access is a basic human need.
Whether we like it or not, it serves a valuable social function. If everyone lived in relative comfort no matter what, there would be little to encourage people to succeed. I know I have seen people living in various degrees of poverty and thought to myself "I don't ever want to have to be in this position".
That's not attaching any blame or fault towards those who do live in poverty. The reasons for someone living in poverty are numerate and complicated, and often outside of their control. Maybe things would be better if the factors that determined whether someone lived in poverty had less to do with where they were born and more to do with who they are.
On an international level, it seems like it should be fairly simple to put into motion steps to reduce absolute poverty pretty drastically. Simple, but I guess not easy. It's just politics and economics. We have enough economists and politicians that we really should be able to resolve any political and economic challenge. I don't know what blend of free market economies, fair trade, international development, anarchism, science, communism, tax, infrastructure development, and just being nice is needed to reduce poverty in the areas worst effected by it, but I imagine that lots of people do know how to work it out. It's just about money.
Maybe I am under thinking it.
I don't really know what to suggest to you. I like to use SavyGamer to have a positive impact on the world whenever I can, but this isn't a problem I have the solution to. I don't know what I should do.
Is there anything that I should be doing?
There are lots of charities, but I've certainly not got enough spare money to give lots to charities, and charities themselves are kind of broken. I do volunteer work for Oxfam when I have the time, but I do that because I enjoy it, not because I think I am fixing the world.
I buy lots of fair trade stuff, but I don't really know how much of a difference that makes.
I used to sign lots of petitions, but not so much these days.
Does anyone have any suggestions for what the right thing™ is?
Update: I forgot to say, this is just my thoughts on the topic of poverty for Blog Action Day 2008
Please vote for SavyGamer
The RAM Raider Awards 2008 have just launched, and SavyGamer is eligible for the category of "Unwankiest Blog / Personal Website 2008".
I'd love it if some of you would vote for SavyGamer, either by emailing RamRaiderBlog@gmail.com, by Facebook or in the comments here.
The RAM Raider is a pretty great blog worth subscribing to, highly recomended.
Xbox Live Vision pack - £49.98
Xbox Live Vision pack, Xbox 360 - £49.98
This is the pack I used when I first joined Xbox Live. You get an Xbox Live Vision Camera, 12 months of Xbox Live Gold, a wired headset, codes for Live Arcade versions of Uno and Robotron, and 200 MS Points. There is also a free game called TotemBall on the marketplace that exclusively uses the camera.
Saints Row 2, PS3 - £15.97
Saints Row 2, PS3 - £15.97 delivered
Incredible deal. This looks like a misprice, given that Saints Row 1 is currently displaying the same price and that the 360 version is £34.97 (£31.82 elsewhere), but Tesco have a history of honouring these IIRC. Grab it if you want it, I won't judge you.
Enter code FREEDEL at checkout for free delivery.
EDIT 8pm 14/10 - This has now been corrected and is no longer available.
Gears of War 2 Limited Edition, Xbox 360 - £39
Gears of War 2 Limited Edition, Xbox 360 - £39 delivered
This comes with a code to unlock the golden Lancer for online multiplayer.
Fable 2, Xbox 360 - £33.18
Fable 2, Xbox 360 - £33.18 delivered
Use code 'perks' for 5% off. Thanks Kie!
Xbox Live 13 Month Subscription, £29.99
Xbox Live 13 Month Subscription - £29.99 emailed
This is from PlayTrade, which isn't run by Play itself but rather by its users. I think you can trust this given the testimonials, but bear in mind that you have very limited recourse should your code not arrive/work. Instead of a shipped product they'll just send you the code to redeem on your box.
If you feel uncomfortable about this then the next best deal is £34.86 delivered.
2100 Microsoft Points, £15
2100 Microsoft Points, £15 delivered
This might have to become the new standard. It's only just over a pound more expensive than the old Tesco deal, but it seems like much more.
Podcast episode 8 delayed :(
Sorry folks, I haven't been able to edit the show for this week before I head out the door to go to this event in London. I'll get it up early next week. Sorry!
Lost Odyssey - Review/How I fell out of love with the contemporary Japanese RPG and became a disenfranchised, prematurly middle aged, gamer
Lost Odyssey, Xbox 360 - £14.89 delivered
Review by LewieP
Lost Odyssey is a bad game.
The problem is, it's a good JRPG.
Every possible step of the way, it tries to delay you. It artificially lengthens the game by either poor design choices, or worse, intentional barriers, which only serve to disconnect you from your experience.
And playing Lost Odyssey will be a disconnected gameplay experience. It has cut-scenes, I guess this is par for the course with any modern JRPG, but they are far more jarring in Lost Odyssey than they have been for me for a while.
The cut-scenes are for the most part very well animated. However, all this does is highlight how badly animated the game is when you are in control. Kaim basically has the same quality of walking animation as Mario displayed in his 3D debut. The collision detection is awful, the environments lack any depth of interactivity. You can walk up to some objects, and press a button if you like. Kaim will then jerkily kick the object, and a glowing spark flies out of the object, and aparently that is supposed to signify you "Acquiring" the item. This whole process takes a good couple of seconds.
There are load times everywhere. Everywhere.
Everywhere.
Once, I walked into a building (loading screen), walked upstairs and went to sleep (loading screen), cutscene (loading screen), walked outside (loading screen) walked a few paces, and triggered a cutscene, (loading screen) which was then followed by a boss (loading screen).
The cut scenes are (mostly) skippable, which is something. I guess.
The battles can be quite fun, but they are limited. Every time you enter a battle, one of your characters does their best ventriloquist act (in cut scenes, they lip sync, out of cut scenes, their lips don't move at all) and use one of their hilarious catch phrases, along the lines of "This'll be like taking candy from a baby", which wasn't that funny the first time, and gets no funnier with repetition. Each character has around 3/4 phrases. There will be hundreds of battles in any given playthrough. The battles themselves are basically all some variation on the same strategy - attack enemies until they die, but heal yourself before you die. Things are mixed up a bit, like how all JRPGs have slightly different battle systems, but the core gameplay is essentially identical to what you would expect from the genre.
Speaking of battles. They are random. The enemies jump, seemingly out of no where, and attack you in groups. They are pretty frequent. At first, I thought "Yes! They are going to have require interactive input", you have to hold down RT and let go at the right time to power up attacks. But that's it, there is no additional complexity to it, or different inputs for different moves/characters. Just one button.
I also encountered at least one boss where I had to grind to beat it.
The overworld is horrific. It's just a menu, not an overworld. Just a picture of a map, and a menu.
Also, for some odd reason, your party members other than you are not visible apart from in battles, and in selected areas. This is bad.
Despite (with the exception of the fantastic opening battle) the graphics only being acceptable, and the area's being tiny, and frequent loading times, the game still manages to have pretty bad framerate issues.
It also wants me to read. Now, I am happy to read, I love reading. But I don't want to spend this much time reading when I should be playing. Braid got away with having a large proportion of it's story told in text, because it did it well. It was quick, short, and didn't get in the way of the game, it enhanced it. Lost Odyssey throws a huge amount of text at you, and it just feels like they couldn't come up with a decent way of combining the narrative and the gameplay.
Also, "oh no, I have lost my memory" is not a plot device that you can get away if you are going to be that heavy handed with it.
The main characters are pretty one dimensional. Maybe that's not fair, but I certainly don't have any emotional attachment to any of the characters.
Without veering into spoiler territory, one of the main plot points is that the protagonist is an "Immortal". This means that no matter what, he cannot die.
Except he can die...if his health metre reaches zero in a battle. This disconnect between the 'gameplay' and the narrative is typical of not just Lost Odyssey, but the JRPG genre as a whole.
What I am getting at here is that Lost Odyssey probably ticks all of the boxes that it would require to be classified as a decent JRPG. The music is OK (although they could have done something other than the Final Fantasy Fanfare mixed up a bit for the battle victory theme) it has cut scenes in it, the characters all fit somewhere within the JRPG archetypes, as does the society, architecture, environment and fashion, and it relies on the same bullshit crutches that every JRPG in recent years has.
Now, I look at my long shopping list of complaints, and try to think of a JRPG I like. No, love.
I have to go back pretty far.
Let's say, back to Chrono Trigger.
Chrono Trigger has the following qualities:
Basically no load times,
Consistent overworld/battle scene,
Charming animation,
Few cut scenes (and all done with in game assets, from in game perspective),
Little redundant or repetitive dialogue,
No random encounters,
Little/no grinding needed
Great overworld,
All party members visible,
No framerate issues,
Characters I connected with
The plot and the gameplay were really well intertwined.
Now, I don't know if that's a fair comparison to make, and probably more than likely I am either looking back with a heavy twang of nostalgia, or at least I was a dumb kid when I first played it, and put up with all of its flaws.
But in my gut, it just feels plain wrong that we have moved so far backwards. With all the money, and all the hardware we have today, how can a game attempting the same thing do such a worse job of it.
It's not just Chrono Trigger either. A bunch of games from that era too. Earthbound, Final Fantasy III and to a lesser degree Pokémon are all good JRPGs and highly playable games.
Tell me, am I right here? Are new games broken and has the world gone shit?
Lost Odyssey has almost certainly got some good ideas in it, but they are lost in the bad design and blind following of the trend. I've not even completed the first disc of Lost Odyssey, but I am not hugely compelled to carry on. Why should I give my time to a game that shows me such little respect.
There is no reason that JRPGs should be excused of their failings just because they "come with the territory". I would love to see a wave of new, progressive, games, which push the genre forwards, instead of pandering to the audience.
Gamers are probably as much to blame as developers. We should demand more from our games, and more from our developers. If Lost Odyssey is the best the genre has to offer, then the genre is stale stale stale stale stale.
And yes, I have played TWEWY and that is exactly the type of progressive game I am talking about. Hats off S-E. Now lets continue to push things forward.
Elite Beat Agents, DS - £9.99
Elite Beat Agents, DS - £9.99 delivered
One of my favourite DS games. I would say a it's a must own for anyone with a DS.
FIFA 09, PS3 - £24.99
FIFA 09, PS3 - £24.99 in store at Morrisons.
I've heard from several people that Morrisons are selling FIFA 09 on the PS3 for £25. Might be on the 360 too. Let me know if you have any luck.
SNK Arcade Classics - Vol 1, Wii - £17.99
SNK Arcade Classics - Vol 1, Wii - £17.99 delivered
Includes:
Art of Fighting
Baseball Stars 2
Burning Fight
Fatal Fury
King of Fighters '94
King of the Monsters
Last Resort
Magician Lord
Metal Slug
Neo Turf Masters
Samurai Shodown
Sengoku
Shock Troopers
Super Sidekicks 3
Top Hunter
World Heroes
Scene It? Box Office Smash Bundle, Xbox 360 - £29.99
Scene It? Box Office Smash Bundle, Xbox 360 - £29.99 delivered
Viva Piñata: Trouble in Paradise, Xbox 360 - £19.99
Viva Piñata: Trouble in Paradise, Xbox 360 - £19.99 delivered
Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter, Xbox 360 - £4.99
Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter, Xbox 360 - £4.99 delivered
SOCOM - Confrontation, PS3 - £29.99
SOCOM - Confrontation, PS3 - £29.99 delivered
Includes a wireless headset
FaceBreaker K.O. Party, Wii - £14.99
FaceBreaker K.O. Party, Wii - £14.99 delivered
Almost certainly going to be even worse than the 360 version, but it is also even cheaper.
The SavyGamer Podcast, Episode 7
Lucky number seven - the SavyGamer Podcast is getting closer and closer to being available when advertised. This week has pretty much been Nintendo Week and so we address that pretty thoroughly. Also this week - games that annoy us! I'm also toying with a new style of shownotes for this week - let me know what you think.
Show notes (Highlight to view):
00:00 Opening
00:37 Welcome
01:04 NEW PODCAST RSS FEED. Please update your feeds according to the details in this post.
02:40 Actually talking about games!
54:10 What we've we've been playing
1:07:35 Bargain of the Week
The Red Star, Burnout Paradise
1:12:14 Contest winners!
1:16:31 Meet the SavyGamers in London this month!
1:08:27 Close
1:18:36 Bonus: Excerpt from Two Drink Mike, by comedian Mike Birbiglia
Contest winners:
Congratulations to Caroline, who won entry into the LittleBigPlanet beta. Her entry really captured what a Sackboy(girl?) is all about and the detail was extraordinary.
Click to view full version
And congratulations to Alex, who has won a copy of the Collector's Edition for Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, Episode 1. Here is his comic entry:
Click to view full version (NSFW, expletives)
Entry based on this comic (also NSFW, expletives)
Link dump:
Joystiq's coverage of Nintendo's Media Summit
DSi in Europe Spring 2009?
Clarification: Wii games can be saved to SD, but not read from.
Experience issue in Halo is now fixed
Screenshots from our Annual run
The Pandora
Total Runtime: 1:18:44
Total Filesize: 73.8MB
Got feedback on the show? Post a comment, or email us:
LewieP - lewiep@savygamer.co.uk
Will - willeth@gmail.com
Pirates vs. Ninjas Dodgeball, XBLA - Review
Whose side are you on? It's one or the other. It's a debate that's raged for centuries. But do you care?
Gamecock and Blazing Lizard certainly hope that you do, with their release of Pirates vs. Ninjas Dodgeball on Xbox Live Arcade. 800 points (just over a fiver, depending on where you source your points) will net you a game that, while fun, will probably only last the life of the meme.
There's nothing deeply wrong with PvN Dodgeball. There's a cute story behind it with some genuinely funny moments. It's a fairly solid mechanic and I can see it being fun to play with other people once everyone fully understands it. But it's the little things that let it down.
For example, throwing the ball at the apex of a jump will result in a powerful throw that can't be caught or parried. However, I've found that it's extremely difficult to do this consistently, whereas the AI seems to be able to do it with almost every throw. Coupled with that, blocking requires extreme precision, and you have to be facing in the direction the ball is coming from, something that the game does not tell you directly. This can be very frustrating and leads to all too many cries of "Dammit, I pressed X!"
The ball can be difficult to distinguish from the stage on some occasions. As in some game modes the opponents can cross the centre line, this means that the AI can simply continually throw the ball at you and retrieve it while you're still wondering where it bounced. A simple glow would have fixed this but it not present.
I'd consider all this a little too critical except that if these were fixed then I can see a great little game underneath. Within a few minutes you could have learned all the controls and can been battling the other teams with your friends (there's Pirates, Ninjas, Robots, Zombies, and a 'secret' unlockable character team), except with the way it is now there are too many moments that feel cheap. When a game is this simple it needs to be balanced well, and it's too unforgiving.
I've never been a fan of the argument that 'you need to spend a little time with it and learn the game before you start to enjoy it.' Simple games like this - hell, most games that are designed for Xbox Live Arcade and similar services - are designed with ease of use in mind. But once you have spent a little time with PvN, it does show its true colours and I some of the battles are very entertaining. However, it still feels a little hollow. I shouldn't have to fight through that layer of frustration to find the gem underneath.
If you're paying 800 moon pounds for this game it feels like it should be a little meatier. It's not that this game isn't worth five quid or so, but the fact that for the same amount of money you could get an experience like Geometry Wars or N+ brings down the value. As of right now, it feels like a minigame that you would look forward to in a game like Mario Party. You wouldn't necessarily go out of your way to play it, but when it pops up, everyone enjoys it.
New Podcast RSS
If you use RSS to get the podcast then please note there is a new feed. This feed only contains the podcast and not the rest of the SavyGamer content. It is not a replacement for the main site feed - that will continue to exist - but if you only want the podcast, then there is a now a separate feed for that.
This is because some podcatchers read feeds in a way that expects only rich media files, and if there are a significant amount of posts in between podcast posts the podcatcher will only see the most recent episode. As SavyGamer sees a ton of posts per week this means that this was happening with our podcast, and so if anyone wanted to listen to an old episode they couldn't do it through RSS or iTunes.
So there you have it - choose which feed is more appropriate for you. If you want to see all the site content, then continue to use this feed. If you only want the podcast through RSS, then use this one.
If you use iTunes then you do not need to change your feed subscription at this time, but will need to once iTunes lists our new feed in order to retrieve the older episodes.
Thanks!
LittleBigPlanet, PS3 - £34.89
LittleBigPlanet, PS3 - £34.89 delivered
Preorder, released on October 24th.
Sainsbury console price drop
According to mcvuk.com, Sainsburies are going to be dropping the price of the Xbox 360 and the Wii in store as of tomorrow.
The Wii will be £149.97
The 360 Arcade will be £99.97
and the 360 premium (60gb) will be £139.97.
Cracking deal. Now is the time to pick up whichever of there you are interested in.
Nintendo Conference DS Montage
Nintendo's stream was getting hammered, so I have rehosted this:
It shows footage of the following DS games:
Self-indulgent Fashion: Girls' Mode
Know by Walking: Life Rhythm DS
Kirby Super Star Ultra
Cooking Guide
MLB Power Pros 11
Mega Man Star Force 3: Black Ace/Red Joker
Valkyrie Profile DS
Chrono Trigger DS
Chocobo and the Magical Picture Book: The Witch, the Girl, and the 5 Warriors
Mysterious Dungeon: Fuuren no Shiren 2
Let's Make a Soccer Team DS: Touch and Direct
Phantasy Star Zero
Wind of Nostalgeo
DS Nishimura Kyotarou Suspense Detective Series 2
Tamagotchi's Sparkling Shop
Tales of Hearts: Anime Movie Edition
Harvest Moon: Welcome to the Wind's Bazaar
Avalon Code
Prof. Layton and the Last Time Travel
DS Fortune-Telling Life
Friend Collection
Mario & Luigi 3
Made in Me (Wario Ware)
Solid Body Picross
Gyakuten Kenji
FFCC: Echoes of Time
Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days
Shining Force Feather
Seventh Dragon
Infinite Space
Nintendo Conference Wii Montage
Nintendo's stream was getting hammered, so I have rehosted this:
It shows footage of the following Wii games:
Wii Music
Animal Crossing: City Folk
The Melancholy of Haruhi (Kadokawa Shoten)
Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Cross Generation of Heroes
428
Samba de Amigo
Let's Tap
Cooking Mama 2
Rygar
Guitar Hero: Aerosmith
Karaoke Joysound
Sky Crawlers
Happy Dance Collection
Family Ski: World Ski & Snowboard
Klonoa: Door to Phantomile
Taiko Drum Master Wii
Tenchu 4
Harvest Moon
Rune Factory - Frontier
Shape Boxing
Wii Sports - Resort
Start w/ 100 Conversations! English Conversation
Punch-Out Wii
Another Code Wii
Kensax
Cosmic Walker
Spawn Smasher
Dynamic Slash
Takt of Magic
Sin & Punishment 2
Forever Blue 2: Beautiful Ocean
Everyone's the Star on the NHK Red-and-White Quiz Battle
Line Attack Heroes
Castlevania: Judgment
Dead Rising: Chop Till you Drop
Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time
Sonic and the Black Knight
Fragile
Arcrise Fantasia
Oboro Muramasa
Burnout Paradise, PS3 - £17.99
Burnout Paradise, PS3 - £17.99 delivered
Willeth likes this game a lot.
The Red Star, PS2 - £2.49
The Red Star, PS2 - £2.49 delivered
I'm just going to copy and paste what I have said about this game in the past.
Buy this game.
It is a Shmup/Beat 'em up. With RPG-light elements.
It is set in civil war torn Neo-Russia
It has magic, and guns, and explosions.
It has references to Zoolander, The Office and Contra.
It is superb.
According to reports, you may get a factory sealed version, despite it being sold as 'preowned'.
Sonic Chronicles - The Dark Brotherhood, DS - £17.83
Sonic Chronicles - The Dark Brotherhood, DS - £17.83 delivered
Sid Meier's Civilisation IV - Complete, PC - £9.93
Sid Meier's Civilisation IV - Complete, PC - £9.93 delivered
Gears Of War / Blue Dragon / Crackdown, Xbox 360 - £19.99
Gears Of War / Blue Dragon / Crackdown, Xbox 360 - £19.99 delivered
Fantastic deal.
Facebreaker: KO Party, Wii - £17.99
Facebreaker: KO Party, Wii - £17.99 delivered
If the demo of the 360 version is anything to go by, Facebreaker isn't particularly good. In fact, I would say pretty terrible.
I guess it is cheap though...
Kudos 2, PC - £11.99
Kudos 2, PC - £11.99 download.
You may remember Cliff Harris as the PC developer who talked to pirates. We interviewed him on Episode 2 of The SavyGamer Podcast.
This is his first game release since his dialogue with pirates, and he's made some great changes to how he releases software. He has reduced the price by a third, increased the length of the demo and removed any and all DRM.
The game itself is a 'life-simulation strategy game'. Check it out.
Contests: LittleBigPlanet and Penny Arcade
Just a quick reminder of the contests we're running right now:
To win a copy of the Penny Arcade game, grab a Penny Arcade comic and remix it. Replace the word balloons, mix and match panels from different comics; whatever you like. Send the result as an attachment to willeth -at- gmail -dot- com with the subject PRECIPICE CONTEST. You won't be judged on the image quality, so feel free to use Paint if you want, but make it good. The final date for entry to this contest is Thursday October 2nd at noon GMT.
To win entry into the LittleBigPlanet beta, fire an email to willeth -at- gmail -dot- com with your SackBoy design and the subject LBP CONTEST. You can find Media Molecule's template here or you can create your own. Entry for this contest closes on Thursday October 2nd at noon GMT.
Both of these contests are only available to UK residents.
Multiwinia, PC - Review
Multiwinia, PC - £12.83 on Steam, or £15 direct from Introversion (with various other options too), or a boxed retail copy for £15.99 from the 3rd of October.
Review by LewieP
Multiwinia is a damn pretty game.
That's probably the first thing you'll notice about it. Introversion have a real flair for visual design, and Multiwinia is no different. I described it as "TRON: Total War" in the podcast, and I think that's a pretty fair assessment. The digital skies and vector mountains are really stunning to behold, and you can zoom right in, or pan right out to see whatever detail or scale you want. The humble system requirements mean that pretty any PC will be able to play it (2.0GHz/512MB RAM/GeForce 6200 or Radeon 9600), and the Mac and Linux versions are on the way shortly. It runs great on my PC, with a really solid framerate.
In an industry where the overwhelming trend in games it to strive for a gritty, realistic, aesthetic, Multiwinia serves as both a breath of fresh air, and a reminder that whatever tech games may have under the bonnet, good art direction will always trump megaflops and bump mapping.
That's not to say Multiwinia is just a pretty face, it's as clever as it is beautiful.
I'm not even going to attempt to place it within the boundaries of a genre. It has elements of an RTS, to be sure, but it disregards as many of the conventions of the genre as it follows. Essentially, you have a bunch of guys and you have to battle over resources, territory and control points.
There are various gametypes, each with different objectives and conditions for victory, but it always boils down to testing your micromanagement skills, strategic skills, observation and spacial awareness. When all of your spawn points are in order, suddenly your opponent will get a power up that tips things in their favour. Once you've dealt with that, a power up crate will land near one of your guys. Once you've got that, you'll loose a spawn point, and so on. There is a fantastic flow to the games. They are not so fast paced that it's hard to keep up, but there is always just a little bit more going on that you can ever completely keep up with. There is never time to sit back and watch the battle unfold. The matches are always time limited, and more often than not an early lead can be very quickly eroded.
The power-ups are pretty crazy, some of them border on being over-powered, and the right one at the right time can really sway a battle. They tap into similar feeling as the equivalent mechanic in the worms games, and are just as inventive as the weapons and power-ups in worms. Planting an ant's nest near your opponents spawn point never gets old, and the nuclear launch is appropriately epic.
The various gun turrets feel fantastic, you can leave the to be automated, or for precision aiming, you can take direct control of them. You get a fantastic sense of the scale of the battles from this position, and can take out specific targets (although you have to be careful of friendly fire).
It's billed as a straight up multiplayer game, but about a third of the time I've spent with it has been offline, and even against bots it is engaging.
Multiwinia is to 'serious' RTS games what Smash Brothers is to Virtua Fighter. There are definitely big elements of chance in there, and it is certainly less technical than it's peers, but it is often a hell of a lot more fun.
Multiwinia is tight, fluid and really does march to it's own beat. There is a lot to love here, every match is different, and it's an experience you will not find anywhere else.
Discuss it in the forums
Multiwinia, PC - £12.83 on Steam, or £15 direct from Introversion (with various other options too), or a boxed retail copy for £15.99 from the 3rd of October.
The SavyGamer Podcast, Episode 6
It's Episode 6 of the SavyGamer Podcast, on the web and in your ears! This week we interview Dorian Kieken of BioWare on designing a Sonic RPG and the future of BioWare games on DS. We're now listed on iTunes, too!
Show notes (Highlight to view):
00:00 Pre-show
00:10 Opening
00:47 Welcome
01:07 I don't actually have a pinky finger.
01:21 More contests!
05:03 Halo Mythic
13:15 Vidmaster challenge - help me!
[NOTE - I've actually completed this now, thanks to those that helped!]
14:46 End of Halo talk! Live's going down on Monday.
15:25 Is the NXE due in November?
17:20 CheapAssGamer Xbox Pure rumour (Hi Cheapy!)
20:53 Sony's video controversy and DRM
27:13 The Weekly Burnout Update
29:25 The EA Download Manager
33:15 Digital Distributiionxdnugfnjdnrog - Peggle XBLA
35:26 Interview with Dorian Kieken, Associate Producer for Sonic Chronicles
50:10 End of interview, discussion about Sonic's story
52:50 We're both awful at maths
54:00 Bargains of the week
De Blob, Dark Sector
56:17 Microsoft Points deal no more...
57:50 What we've been playing - Rock Band, Multiwinia, Mass Effect, and more!
1:11:15 Close
Link dump:
KEEP IT CLEAN
I Love Bees archive
Sonic the Comic
Cree Summer - Voice Actress from everything including Mass Effect
Total Runtime: 1:11:23
Total Filesize: 67MB
Contest:
To win a copy of the Penny Arcade game, grab a Penny Arcade comic and remix it. Replace the word balloons, mix and match panels from different comics; whatever you like. Send the result as an attachment to willeth -at- gmail -dot- com with the subject PRECIPICE CONTEST. You won't be judged on the image quality, so feel free to use Paint if you want, but make it good. The final date for entry to this contest is Thursday October 2nd at noon GMT.
To win entry into the LittleBigPlanet beta, fire an email to willeth -at- gmail -dot- com with your SackBoy design and the subject LBP CONTEST. You can find Media Molecule's template here or you can create your own. Entry for this contest closes on Thursday October 2nd at noon GMT.
Got feedback on the show? Post a comment, or email us:
LewieP - lewiep@savygamer.co.uk
Will - willeth@gmail.com
NoE Announces cross promotion with EMI Backstage
Nintendo of Europe have just launched a partnership with EMI Backstage to exchange Nintendo Stars for music downloads.
If, like me and anyone else who had a Gamecube, you have got stacks of Nintendo Stars for use in the stars catalogue, but are sick of it never haveing anything worthwhile in stock, there may finally something decent to use it on.
Nintendo will be letting you exchange your Stars for downloads from EMI Backstage, EMI's music download service. The pricing will be 350 Stars for a track, or 3,000 stars for an album.
Which on the basis of 4,000 stars = 1,000 Wii points, and 1,000 Wii points = £7.00, means it's £5.25 an Album, or 62p a track. Not bad pricing at all.
I've never used EMI Backstage, has anyone else? What's it like as a service.
Let's hope they don't manage to "Sell out" of digital goods, like they somehow manage to do with the Wii Points...
Head to the Music Voucher Shop to check it out.
Xbox 360 Price Drop Round up
Microsoft just recently dropped the RRP for the Xbox 360 range, now the range breaks down like this:
£129.99 for the Arcade
£169.99 for the Premium (60gb)
£229.99 for the Elite
Fantastic value.
But even better prices can be had, retailers have discounted beyond the RRP, and put some pretty attractive bundles together. Here is a breakdown of the offers on the table.
Arcade
The Arcade system comes with a wireless controller, a 256 MB Memory Unit and an Xbox Live Arcade compilation disc featuring: Boom Boom Rocket, Feeding Frenzy, Luxor 2, Pac-Man Championship Edition, and Uno.
In my opinion, it is definitely worth paying the extra to get a hard drive, but if you are on a tight budget, the Arcade is still a great buy.
The console on it's own is £119.98.
Here are some of the bundles on offer:
Xbox 360 Arcade + Dead or Alive 4/Halo 3/Forza 2/Lost Odyssey/Mass Effect/Too Human - £129.89 delivered
Xbox 360 Arcade + Gears of War - £129.98 delivered (Apply code "XBXGAMEZ")
Xbox 360 Arcade + Battlefield Bad Company - £129.99 delivered
Xbox 360 Arcade + Viva Piñata: Trouble in Paradise - £129.99 delivered
Xbox 360 Arcade + Tiger Woods 09 - £129.99 delivered
Xbox 360 Arcade + Star Wars The Force Unleashed - £129.99 delivered
Xbox 360 Arcade + Mercenaries 2: World in Flames - £139.98 delivered (Apply code "XBXGAMEZ")
Xbox 360 Arcade + Call of Duty 4: Game of the Year Edition - £139.98 delivered (Apply code "XBXGAMEZ")
Xbox 360 Arcade + Extra Controller + Forza Motorsport 2 + Viva Piñata + Xbox Live Arcade Unplugged Vol 1 - £150 delivered
Xbox 360 Arcade + Extra Controller + Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter + Gears of War + Mass Effect - £188.45 delivered (Apply code WDISC001BCP)
Premium
Since the premium has both had a hardware improvement (20gb to 60gb hard drive increase) and a price drop, it's easilly the best buy out of the range in my opinion.
The console on it's own is £159.98.
Here are some of the bundles on offer:
Xbox 360 Premium (60gb) + 2 Selected games (Dead or Alive 4/Halo 3/Forza 2/Lost Odyssey/Mass Effect/Too Human) - £169.89 delivered
Xbox 360 Premium (60gb) + Gears of War - £169.98 delivered
Xbox 360 Premium (60gb) + Battlefield Bad Company - £169.99 delivered
Xbox 360 Premium (60gb) + Viva Piñata: Trouble in Paradise - £169.99 delivered
Xbox 360 Premium (60gb) + Tiger Woods 09 - £169.99 delivered
Xbox 360 Premium (60gb) + Star Wars The Force Unleashed - £169.99 delivered
Xbox 360 Premium (60gb) + Mercenaries 2: World in Flames - £179.98 delivered (Apply code "XBXGAMEZ")
Xbox 360 Premium (60gb) + Call of Duty 4: Game of the Year Edition - £179.98 delivered (Apply code "XBXGAMEZ")
Xbox 360 Premium (60gb) + Lego Indiana Jones - £184.99 delivered
Elite
Up until recently, I would have said the 120gb drive on the Elite was pretty pointless, I couldn't imagine filling a 20gb drive. But with the coming dashboard update which will let you rip games to the hard drive, the space will definitely go to use.
The console on it's own is £219.98.
Here are some of the bundles on offer:
Xbox 360 Elite + 3 Selected games (Dead or Alive 4/Halo 3/Forza 2/Lost Odyssey/Mass Effect/Too Human) - £229.89 delivered
Xbox 360 Elite + Battlefield Bad Company - £229.99 delivered
Xbox 360 Elite + Viva Piñata: Trouble in Paradise - £229.99 delivered
Xbox 360 Elite + Tiger Woods 09 - £229.99 delivered
Xbox 360 Elite + Star Wars The Force Unleashed - £229.99 delivered
Xbox 360 Elite + Gears of War + Medal of Honor Airborne - £229.99 delivered
Xbox 360 Elite + Gears of War + Skate - £229.99 delivered
Xbox 360 Elite + Ninja Gaiden II - £239.99 delivered
Xbox 360 Elite + Mercenaries 2: World in Flames - £239.98 delivered (Apply code "XBXGAMEZ")
Xbox 360 Elite + Call of Duty 4: Game of the Year Edition - £239.98 delivered (Apply code "XBXGAMEZ")
If you have any requests for any specific games, or see any bundles I might have missed, either let me know in the comments, or send an email to lewiep@savygamer.co.uk.
2100 Microsoft Points, £15
2100 Microsoft Points - £15.00 delivered
Rock Branded but can be used for anything. Cheapest price around so far with the demise of the Tesco deal.
Nintendo Wii - £159.99
Nintendo Wii - £159.99 delivered
Get 'em in for Christmas now if you'll be wanting one come December.
I need someone to coop Half-Life decay with
Wow, I've been wanting to play this for ages.
Half-Life: Decay was originally the coop addition to the PS2 release of Half-Life. No PC version existed.
Well, a team of modders have made a HL1 mod of it. All I know about it is that it's made by gearbox, you play 2 female scientists, and I was never going to play it on the PS2.
I don't know how to set up a game, but if you do, please do so, and either email (lewiep@savygamer.co.uk) me, or add me on steam (LewieP) and we can set a game up.
Official Xbox 360 120GB Hard Drive
Official Xbox 360 120GB Hard Drive - £79.99 delivered
Still stupidly expensive, you can get a 320gb laptop drive for under £60. One of my biggest complaints with the 360 hardware is that you have to use MS hard drives. Never mind...
Spider-Man 3, PC - £2.99
Spider-Man 3, PC - £2.99 delivered
Ignore the font down the side, this is indeed for the PC, not the PS3.
From memory, this version is pretty badly optimised, but I guess if you have a beast of a machine you should be fine.
Samurai Shodown Anthology, Wii - £16.65
Samurai Shodown Anthology, Wii - £16.65 delivered
Includes Samurai Shodown I, II, III, IV, V, V Special and VI
King of Fighters Anthology, Wii - £16.65
King of Fighters Anthology, Wii - £16.65 delivered
Includes King of Fighters '94, '95, '96, '97, and '98.
Banjo-Kazooie Nuts & Bolts, Xbox 360 - £27.47
Banjo-Kazooie Nuts & Bolts, Xbox 360 - £27.47 delivered
Not confirmed to include the code for Banjo Kazooie XBLA.
Viva Piñata/Forza 2 Double Pack, Xbox 360 - £13.05
Viva Piñata/Forza 2 Double Pack, Xbox 360 - £13.05 delivered
NXE - Zune integration?
Sorry if you came here looking for bargains, but I thought I'd just post this very quickly.
I noticed today that the Zune Marketplace (and the Social and Forums) are going down for maintenance tomorrow starting 12:01, the same time that Xbox LIVE and all of those services are being brought down for maintenance. Of course, I don't really know how these services work - maybe they're intrinsically linked - but as far as I'm aware, these services have never gone down at the same time before.
Now, Zune software 3.0 was just released. Maybe it's down for that and maybe it's just a crazy coincidence. But given that this will bring Texas Hold-em and Hexic to the player, there's a lot of cross-talk between the two systems. J Allard runs the thing, even, and Larry Hryb compared the Zune Marketplace and LIVE Marketplace to each other in his most recent podcast.
It makes so much business sense for Microsoft to have the Zune Marketplace available on the 360. The overhead is so small that even if a tiny percentage of LIVE users buy a song, they'll be profiting from it. They already have all that infrastructure in place - the only thing standing in the way is linking the two and designing an interface for it. And there's a new interface coming in a month or so.
I have to consider that they want to link everything at some point. Your Zune tag is the same as your Gamertag, Microsoft Points are interchangeable between the two, and there's precendent with how the Windows Live ID is interwoven into everything. Last year was Windows Messenger integration - is this year Zune's turn?
Update: More coincidences and speculation here, thanks ace.
Crysis Warhead - Review
Crysis Warhead, PC - £14.74 delivered
Review by Rook
Last time I fought these aliens it marked something of a downturn in the game. This time, there's a group of nano-suited Koreans on the ridge to the right and a plethora of aliens snaking through icy channels cut out of the surroundings. Cloak mode is on and I'm letting the North Koreans deal with the threat. It's tempting to grab the high ground lay down fire, but I'd be sandwiched between two sides. A brief moment hauled up to recharge and take stock is where it all goes a bit wrong. The first alien is taken down by a Gauss Rifle shot but two more have taken up predatory stances and are about to pounce, speed mode kicks in and leaves them behind. Underneath the Korean squad now, the new machine pistols are perfect for this. Leaping up behind, strength mode kills the recoil as I rip them apart, grinning. Nomad is gone, and in comes the Psycho.
Warhead really doesn't want to let up on this action, the rules have changed. Ammo caches lie everywhere, soldiers fall in one or two hits, and things explode in a shower of physics propelled debris. Everything from mortar fire pounding the land to the screaming jet fighters overhead dropping their payload leaves camera shaking and flecked with dirt. There's a comic hint that it's perhaps gone a bit to far in that every ambush that seemed to require at least one explosive barrel to be used as cover. It's a minor gripe, but keeps the action flowing. The stealthy isolation has now become a constant barrage of events, radio chatter keys you in on your objectives, air support provides covering fire and AI squad mates beckon you on. Here, you're a part of something bigger rather than just being that lonely soldier.
Every section comes and goes in short bursts, if you're not to keen on one part, then the mix-up with the next section will be sure to put you back in the game. It touches upon many gameplay staples; hold this area until support arrives, fight aboard this train, escort this vehicle. Yet it often comes up with it's own slight twist, the train will continue without you aboard. Take a step off, come at the ambush from a different angle, then cut the corner and hop back on. Fire fights are now often as much about who you avoid as who you take on, the aliens present more as a third faction tangling with enemy soldiers. Prioritise threats, engage or move on as you pursue your objective.
And of course it goes without saying that the game is beautiful, although will still probably make you wish you'd spent a bit more on your graphics card. The audio stands out a bit more this time around, the score mixing in with the echoes of water falling down the corridors in the quieter moments, or the guttural thumps as something else goes up in flames . It's still not as convincing as it needs to be to match up with the visuals but it's moving in the right direction. As is the story, Psycho may play out as a caricature, but a likeable one and the banter keeps the narrative moving along. The game isn't long maybe 5 hours, and even on the hardest difficulties won't offer anything too challenging, but for those wanting more Warhead includes the multiplayer experience from original with a few enhancements. The simplicity of the new team death match as well as the rebalancing helps to bring the suit back as the focus of the online play. Rather than just shoot or be shot, the multitude of choices always lets you try something different, do you close in with speed or take to high vantage points with strength? And once there do you cloak to remain hidden, or let armour soak up the enemy fire. It's these choices that make every encounter different and a well timed suit combinations always leaves a smile on your face.
It'd be hard not to recommend Warhead, for those that loved the original it's a chance to revisit the story and setting from a different angle. Those that struggled may just find that Psycho is the right embodiment for their style of game, and both should take a new look at the online offerings.
Rating - Strawberry (http://xkcd.com/388/)
Discuss it in the forums
Crysis Warhead, PC - £14.74 delivered
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