Resident Evil 5, PC - £18.99 delivered
Your guess as to when it will come out, and whether it will be any good is as good as mine.
Resident Evil 5, PC - £18.99
50 Cent: Blood on the Sand, Xbox 360 - Review
50 Cent: Blood on the Sand - PS3: £25, Xbox 360: £26.75
Review by Will Templeton
This is a 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand review, and so you're probably expecting to hear all about how, oh, it's quite a good game actually. That it's sort of a mix of Gears of War and The Club, and it's very aware of its audience and what it is, and doesn't take itself too seriously.
All of those things hold weight.
But that summary also points out everything that's wrong with Blood on the Sand. It's derivative of other experiences. Yes, it's surprising when you boot it up that it's quite solid, playable, and quite a departure from the abhorrent Bulletproof. But the same thing could be said about the Fantastic Four movie. "Oh, this isn't as bad as I thought it was going to be." And you enjoy it for what it is, but that doesn't make it good. It makes it competent.
At its worst, that's Blood on the Sand. Competent. Swordfish have taken the solid cover shooter mechanics that Unreal Engine 3 provides and built a solid game, that while better than everyone expected, is still nowhere near other similar experiences.
If you are expecting something close to either Gears of War or The Club, you'll probably be disappointed. The cover mechanics of Gears are present, but less elegant. You'll often find yourself popping out of cover the wrong way, or being hit when you feel you should be covered. You'll also miss the ease of Gears, as in BotS you're tethered to specific portions of a piece of cover and will find yourself ineffectively rolling at a wall just a little too often.
While The Club is a close comparison to the scoring system that many have drawn, it's really a little misleading. At a base level, you get points for kills, which is multiplied by more kills in quick succession. As you progress closer to five-in-a-row the timer speed up dramatically, necessitating the fifth kill to be almost instantaneous. However, that's where the similarities end. Where Blood on the Sand really comes into its own, though, is the Scenario system.
Without the Scenario system, Blood on the Sand would be just another shooter. A boring 50 Cent game. Scenarios, however, add pressure. At set moments in the game a pop-up will appear: take out two grenadiers in eight seconds. Collect $30,000 in one minute. Kill all the enemies that have just arrived in a van within twenty seconds. The game's full of these, and if you do them, you get points. You also get an in-game reward, such as more grenades, or explosive and incendiary rounds for your pistol. If you're good enough, you could go through the entire game only completing scenarios and using these bullets. And the payoff from using them is so rewarding, you'll want to go for them. And so, you'll take risks.
Without these risks, the underlying game shows some serious holes. There's no run option, the cover mechanic occasionally has to be fought to work properly, and the AI leaves a lot to be desired. With them, though, the game just works. Each of them is a mini crescendo event that gives you just enough reward to want more without making the game too easy. It's an extremely-well balanced mechanic.
The irritating thing, though, is that as an enthusiast, this mechanic only worked on the hardest difficulty. Even without being the most skilled gamer, I had to step it up to get any sort of challenge, as it's obvious that Blood on the Sand is very aware of that portion of its audience that just want to pick it up and kill people over and over.
And yes, that's what this game excels at - giving you an opportunity to cap some fools without being super serious about it. But there's a deeper level in there that can be really rewarding if you're looking for it.
Just don't look too hard.
50 Cent: Blood on the Sand - PS3: £25, Xbox 360: £26.75
Weekend Special Roundup 13/3
Steam:
Red Orchestra: Ostfront 41-45 - £2.99
There has just been an update to it too, adding achievements and a new map.
GamersGate:
Mount & Blade - £7.40
Impulse:
Safecracker - £7.13
Dungeon Lords [Collectors Edition] - £7.13
Genesis Rising - £7.13
MotoGP 08 - £21.41
Cellblock Squadrons - £3.53
Good old Games:
Patrician 3 and Port Royale 2 - $15.99
Just add both games to your basket to receive the discount.
The Magic Toy Chest - Review
The Magic Toy Chest, PC - $19.95
Review by Bobby
The Magic Toy Chest is one of those games that if it were a flash based web game would be the talk of the internet. One of those meme like popular games posted on message boards the world over. Because it is one of those games. This game however costs $19.95, the question is, is it worth it?
Developed by Graduate Games, MTC is a physics based puzzle game similar to the Incredible Machine, which if you haven't played, you should. The aim of each level is to get a certain amount of a toy into the eponymous chest, in an attempt to tidy the various rooms of your house, and boy do I wish I had been able to get away with tidying my room like this, because this is fun.
Most levels start with the relatively simple task of locating all the keys to open your Magic Toy Chest, from here though things get a little tougher. The aim is to relocate a certain toy from where it currently reside to the MTC. Easier said than done. The idea is to set up the toys you have access to and use them to move the desired toy into the chest. There is a good number of different toys to choose from, each with individual actions to help you with your chores, the rocket can be set up and shot into the air, the ball, err, rolls, and the jumping dog, well, jumps. A clever aspect of this is if you happen to get any of the extra toys in the level into the box, not only do you get bonus points, but you get to use these to solve the puzzle.
One area where MTC varies from similar games is the real time set up, a lot of these games require you to set everything and then press go and see if it works, MTC does not, so you can see if you reactions are faster than gravity. Fortunately, so this doesn’t get frustrating, a simple tap of the space bar pauses the game time so you can set up and then un-pause, if required. This aspect makes for a bit more variation in the solving of puzzles.
Sadly there are few rather obvious bugs. Some levels start and pieces of the puzzles simply fall away as they aren't attached properly. Other times objects pass straight through others, or the object shape doesn't match the collision edge. Frustrating as these are, they aren't really gamebreakers, but possibly the most fundamental issue with this game is that a number of the laws of physics simply aren't obeyed. Friction has no place in this game, gravity is only loosely adhered to, and momentum ignored in place of an objects preset placement ability.
Even better than this though is when the toy truck causes a warp in the space time continuum and makes gravity fluctuate. Fun as this is, it is a pretty large flaw in a game billing itself as a physics based game.
Unfortunately, it is this which leaves the lasting impression not the puzzles, the frustration which comes with a puzzle not working because a piece floats through another, or won’t stop moving is greater than the fun aspect of the game, and this is a shame, as MTC is actually fun, but so are a lot of free games out there.
The fact there is a skip function shows that a lot of thought has been put into the game, it is the output which is flawed, not the concept, I look forward to seeing more from Graduate Games in the future.
MTC is a fun but flawed physics based game which is wholly suitable for children and may appeal to parents who want to limit children’s access to the internet for similar games.
The Magic Toy Chest, PC - $19.95
Project Gotham Racing 4, Xbox 360 - £6.99
Project Gotham Racing 4, Xbox 360 - £6.99 delivered
Bundle Copy.
Important news for Wii/DS owners and potential owners
Nintendo have announced that they are going to increase the price that they charge retailers for Wii consoles and Wii/DS software.
Speaking to MCV they had this to say:
“Due to the severe and continuing depreciation of the pound, we are, unfortunately, having to raise our trade price to UK retailers of Wii hardware,” a Nintendo UK spokesperson told MCV. The price that they then offer to consumers is, of course, up to the retailers. We are only – reluctantly – raising our trade price now to retailers due to unprecedented and sustained depreciation of the pound. This is a problem brought about by extreme currency fluctuations that are a symptom of the global economic situation.”
MCV say that the increase will be "£19 including VAT".
Nintendo also spoke to Gamesindustry.biz about increasing the price retailers are charged for new Software:
"The final price in the shops is always up to retailers but we will not be increasing the trade price of existing Wii or DS software. However, the trade prices for new titles yet to be released may rise as a result of the depreciation of the pound."
It's hard to know exactly how to feel about this. On the one hand, it certainly is true that the GBP has had a pretty rough time recently. But historically, any time that Nintendo has had the opportunity to charge us Brits more, it has done, regardless of what global currency markets have been doing.
I guess I'll be doing what I always do, try to keep track of the best deals. Since the RRP is not changing, I imagine it will be possible to buy the console for £180 still pretty regularly. Shopping around can get you one for £166.37 right now, but it's hard to imagine they will be readily available for much less than £180 in the future if Nintendo are raising the price by £19. It's pretty crazy to say this, but maybe if you plan to get a Wii any time in the next 6 months, you will probably not be able to do better than £166.37, so maybe think about buying one sooner, rather than later.
As for the DSi, I think it's pretty overpriced already, but at least they aren't increasing the price any further. Amazon are taking pre-orders for £144.97, in both black and white flavor, which is the best price so far. I imagine there will be some good deals on the DS lite when the DSi does come out next month.
And software - How do people feel about imported software. I occasionally link good deals on imported region free software on the DS or 360, but I might consider doing so for the Wii too if there was interest. The thing is, if Nintendo does charge more for software, it is unlikely that the RRP will go up, retailers will more likely just discount less frequently. Less discounts means less bargains.
If I were to post a guide for how to make Wii consoles region free, would people be interested in me widening the net to imported Wii software from reliable import retailers?
Nintendo Wii Console - £166.37 delivered
Nintendo DSi [Black] - £144.97 delivered
Nintendo DSi [White] - £144.97 delivered
Update:
gamesindustry.biz has spoke to two retailers about this news:
Igor Cipolletta (ShopTo.net)
"It's very bad. If it's true that they want to increase it by £18 then there is no margin for us at all. It's very disappointing because we believed that after two years the Wii machine would get cheaper rather than more expensive - I've heard that this is the first time in history that the price has gone up for a machine after two years.
If you look at the history, the pound was higher [against the Euro] and they've been making quite a percentage more of money, so now they can take the loss rather than increase the price. Plus it goes against the economy, in England we have job losses and all this, which makes it increasingly difficult to afford a machine - this doesn't help them. I'm concerned about the software, maybe the software could go up. I don't think it should."
Don McCabe (Chips)
"It's a first. I can't remember any other console that has been launched, been on the market for a couple of years and then gone up in price. It's an absolute first. I half expected it, I can see their reasons why and there are reasons which are perfectly valid in today's market place - the Pound has been dropping against the Euro for a while now and it shows no sign of bouncing back.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but I think Nintendo could have sold all the machines that they have done at the GBP 199 price point, because we've effectively had shortages from day one, pretty much all the way through. There's never ever been quite enough stock in the market place, each Christmas we come to there's always stock shortages.
It will have a negative effect on the sales... I think we'll still end up with shortages come Christmas again, but through the summer it's going to have an effect. It wouldn't be unrealistic to expect similar price rises across the whole Nintendo range. I don't think any retailer has got the ability to soak up that sort of margin change, I think I saw one story that said the supermarkets wouldn't be passing the price point on but I think they will. I don't think any retailer can take that sort of squeeze."
Xbox 360 Play & Charge kit - £9.17
Xbox 360 Play & Charge kit - £9.17
It's £9.67 delivered at Currys, and £14.67 at PC World, so PC World Price Match brings it to £9.17.
Unreal Tournament 3, Xbox 360 - £8.95
Unreal Tournament 3, Xbox 360 - £8.95 delivered
"New but unsealed"
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