THE LAST OF US: VGA announcement trailer

in a word WOW, so this is how good console games can do plants and water when they actually try? thats impressive if its all actually in game like it says. Coming from naughty dog i would not be surprised.
So what is it?
Its the road meets i am legend meets those japanese survival games that never get popular over here. Starring Ellen Paige. Fighting fungal zombies in a ruined new york.

Personally i am very excited for this, i wondered why nobody tried to use the real world zombifying cordycepts fungi as a plot device before.

heres hoping its very tough makes survival more important than fighting and going one man army on it.

just a tidbit.

So whilst busy with a lot of boring junk i did manage to poi'chus' playstation move and heavy rain move edition for the playstation 3.

After spending quite a while with it i will say that it is lighter and much more comfortable than the wiimote, the battery lasts longer and it is much more responsive than the wii mote. Though i can complain that the camera doesn't track it as consistently as the wii sensor bar and the buttons are still poorly arranged.

I think a motion controller with a hand held interface should not be a long remote, it should be something ergonomic and hand fitting- hell i'll conjure the powergloves vile name for this.
In games that have you open locks, sword fighting or aiming and shooting a pistol you want to grip it in the curvature of your hand, not have something you hold at an odd end of middle point like move or the wiimote.

Dont get me wrong, in terms of controller design the move is a step up from the wii's controller, but they could have continued the curve motif and make it curve slightly to fit a hand more ergonomically, and add the start and select next to each other and not on equidistant on either side of the tubular surface of the thing.

Of course im sure they wanted to get around the 'why would i purchase a family member a black button covered dildo?' but honestly at least it doesnt vibrate...


Honestly its worth the cash, particularly when you consider the line up which is why im posting this here.

2011 is looking to be the year for the ps3 in terms of what most games enthusiasts want. the wii's kinda slowing to a crawl, microsoft is really focussing on kinect, a novel interface but not a list of titles i know most folks whove played games for more than 15 years now don't really care about as the focus point to there console experience, but the ps3 is releasing a lot of new games, a lot of big name sequels included and many of them are being made move compatible as a bonus.

The big seller for me is dead space 2, which i still cannot find any concrete evidence that the full game is move compatible or just the hd port of the wii railshooter dead space extraction. However i have heard it mentioned here and there, honestly the idea of standing in a dark room fighting of necromorphs with a motion controller is scary, exciting and potentially embarassing in equal measure. Judging from the out and out resi 4 control style mimicry im hoping it is, since resi 4 on the wii was a hoot and im tempted to get resident evil 5 on the ps3 for move, even with boulder punch wagglan.

There are also rumours that siren blood curse is getting a patch to make it move compatible and its not just these 3 horror games on the list.

all in all if you are a horror games fan and dig immersion or new ways to play- especially if you tried shattered memories or fatal frame 4 on the wii the next 2 years are going to be quite exciting for horror motion gaming. So if you have £45 laying around and own a ps3 grab a move, yes it is a wii knockoff, but its the price of one game to play games in an entirely new way and while that may be odd if you werent around for the mass peripheral whoring of the NES days thats well worth it lemme tell you.

Something neat for PS3 owners in the uk

So i took one of my bi-yearly trips into playstation home to have a nosey and wouldn't you know it but they've added-in summer for some reason, the haunted house hospital,'the ward of despair' from siren blood curse that was released on halloween in '09.

I don't know why we have it now, maybe its been hidden in the mess of files home was till the last interface update but its there, its free and im about to give it a shot. Two sec's.

.....Okay, tried it. Its a little janky, but its got a few genuine jump scares. you and 5 other people are meant to work together to escape.
You really dont work together, you basically set off alarms and stuff to get keys and stuff to escape the hospital from siren. Its a little creepy and i jumped once. it even attempts to use resident evil set camera angles.
Don't get me wrong its not that great but ive seen worse in retail games and this was just a neat freebie so give it a try!

Valve put up left 4 dead "movie" posters in online store.

So have a gander's, gentle horror loving folken, at the latest addition to the valve store. For those yet to play it each of the 4 stories in left 4 deads campaign mode has a fake movie poster for its loading screen at the start, listing each gamertag in the credits as each respective character they are playing. Now you can grab these from valves online store to go with your companion cube t shirt and lifesize headcrab. at 15 bucks for all 4 im very tempted, but for all i know ordering 4 pieces of paper form the states could cost an additional 10 to 35 bucks in postage costs.

Still, cool thing to frame and put in the studio at least.

-Oh, and rather than get all fanboy...ey and rave about it right after release im holding off on my left 4 dead review till ive played every mode to death.

EDIT- that would have been a good intentional pun to end on wouldn't it?, just a fluke i assure you.

Dead Space: The Review

Developer: EA redwood studios

Publisher: EA

Platforms: Xbox 360, Playstation 3, PC

Released: October 24th 2008

Genre: 3rd person sci-fi shooter/ survival horror

So its 3:24am and ive JUST finished dead space. i was really excited about this, which was confusing because ea hasn't made a good game since oddworld strangers wrath in my opinion. so after  couple-a-hour stints is it the next big thing in survival horror?

Honestly? no.

and for once I'm disappointed to admit it. 

I read the comics, did all the puzzles on the site, read all this lore voraciously, i had to know what the plot and back story was. All of that i loved, and don't get me wrong, i love dead space too. but its just a clone of resident evil 4.

So if you don't know already (and if you don't your mother and i are very disappointed in you young man), you play Issac Clarke. An engineer on a small ship investigating a distress signal coming from a dead, silent, drifting hulk of a mining ship the usg ishimura. unfortunately they get trapped there and they find out that, whilst the crews dead, the atmosphere certainly isn't.

cheesy i know but it works.

anyway i cant say much, but what i can say is the story can be wrapped up in 5 minutes, theres a good minute long interesting scene every few hours but all in all i finished the game wanting to know more, not in a sequel, but in back story. i needed it to be explained to me in a more concise and plain way.

Though this is a successful new ip so you know ea is gonna bleed it dry so i expect ill read a novel about it some time in 2009.

-Plus there is an animated feature film that tells the prequel story, so i guess youve gotta buy that to get the full experience. 

bad e.a.

Game play wise its pretty much resident evil 4. remember playing silent hill or resident evil first and then the other and going "hang on, the controls are exactly the same". this is just like that nostalgic 1998 feeling, whether its good or bad i don't know but there we are.

The merchant is replaced by a machine, but you still get loot and ammo from enemies, which you can then use to buy new guns and upgrade them and stuff. but like resi 4 you cant upgrade it all in one play through. theres logs, over the right shoulder aiming. in fact its pretty much resident evil 4 with a new skin.

though thankfully they've got none of those damn quicktime events. everything, including being dragged by a tentacle across a room and having to shoot its week points to escape is real time relying on you, not pressing a a lot. 

unfortunately i was drawn in with comparisons to bioshock. lets be clear. - THIS IS NOT BIOSHOCK. this is resident evil 4 by a mile between the two games. the problem with that is that the ishimura has no character, if you go in expecting rapture type world that's full of character you in for a disappointment. instead you get something more akin to the mars base from doom 3. 

-anyway I'm going off on a tangent here, but the point is, rapture felt like it had a history, like you'd joined a game halfway through the worlds narrative. but in dead space all you've got is a blue line leading you in form an airlock to set pieces which seem to have been waiting for you.

Which neat leads me to the fact that this is not open ended, its funneling you down a path half life 2 style. only with back tracking for the final 3rd. it lacks character, you go here, do something, get told to go to the next point and follow the path. Which is lame but how its done is neat. issac uses , when clicking the right thumbstick, a hologram that beams along the ground to your next destination. in theory its really disappointing but its cool and different.

Speaking of which. theres no hud, well there is, but it not in your face. issacs spine is his hp bar, he gets a holographic inventory and display above weapons for ammo. its real time and immersive but unlike alone in the dark its not adding to the fear its just a neat factor. 

overall i got used to the hud instantly, you can still pause, but it just feels like an interactive movie at some points.

only trouble is its less aliens and more jason x.

to sum up the controls its responsive and easy to use, but its overcomplicated by combos. left trigger plus x is stasis freeze, x alone is health packs, which is a poor choice when you might need to freeze a fast enemy, and use your last health pack by mistake and then get badly hurt because you didn't freeze it in time and have no health pack.

However, i can ignore most faults because of the dismemberment system, i got used to so much shooting out legs and arms off that i tried another game in the same vein and kept missing headshots because i aimed for the joints.

its fun, but its never implemented any more than you see in the first fight and it had more potential i think.

You can also upgrade weapons with a system reminiscent of the sphere grid from final fantasy x. you gain power cores across grids to upgrade the powers of your suits and weapons. its a nice touch but unlike resi 4 you may have to level up two blank spaces before you can gain any actual power ups.

Graphics wise space is beautiful. an orange ether permeates the sky and rainstorms of meteors flow past like a stream. However inside its, well, like i said, its doom 3 all over again. its not very easy on the eyes, theres jagged edges were there should be smooth surfaces, edges are grainy and cloudy and the colour pallet was uninspired. Again I'm going to compare it to rapture, but also the starting areas of resident evil 4, either Spanish woodlands or the art deco of fort frolic and its just bland in comparison to either. the game lacks character. the hero is iconic, but the levels and creatures leave a lot to be desired. it never detracts from the gameplay though, i had a blast. but in retrospect i think "yeah, at the time i didnt notice it but-", and im getting this a lot as i write this review. i enjoyed myself, but i can pick so many nits with this game. though possibly i am just being biased due to my poor previous experiences with ea?

Sound wise i was really disappointed, its poor and buggy and all in all annoying at times. there can be a creature in the next room but its so close to the door that tension building music is playing. but i would just be browsing the wares in the store and i noticed that after 30 seconds it stops instantly and then restarts. i cant think of that many items but i can say that its barely even ambiance, they couldn't feasibly release a soundtrack to this like obscure or alone in the dark.

i could go on about the factors that bugged me, but these faults, though they number in the good dozen or so, never mess with the experience, because honestly its the scariest game Ive played in a long  long time. which surprised me. though like many games this does lessen as the game goes on but all in all i enjoyed it, it inst very good in the grand scheme of things but for 10 hours of horror gameplay id say its worth a rental but a full purchase buy?..... maybe, for once I'm indecisive, some of you will love it and disagree with me, saying I'm too harsh, others will hate it and say I'm too lenient but id say give it a try.

on one hand you will have a great time, on the other you will not care about it at all 1 year from now.

so i give it a loose-

SCORE: [6/10]

SCARE FACTOR: [8/10]

Bioshock 2: Sea of dreams PS3 easter egg trailer

A little late on the uptake i know, but i think ive got it.

So theres a lot of speculation on this, and my first thought was rapture rising from the sea, but i think ive got it now.

The girl is one of the little sisters, now in her teens, that jack saved from rapture in the good ending. only instead of living normal lives like the others she went all "carrie" and has similar plasmid abilities to jack and the splicers. maybe jack made the big daddy doll to give her something familiar to attach to when she was little and now its bringing back these long blacked out memories or rapture and she is unconsciously shaping the sand behind her to the images in her head as she looks out at the sea.

Perhaps it doesn't even take place on rapture, and this is just the catalyst for it, im definitley getting a carrie/ring vibe of the girl, but only time will tell. aside from a terrible endgame boss bioshock was almost perfect, maybe it could have used some more period music but the art deco style just captured my imagination. So needless to say i cant wait for this.

But seriously folks, the trailer, whats your speculation about it?

On the topic of homcoming

Now since pj doody was kind enough to give me an interview for the site ive gotten about 200 emails if i knew when it would come out in Europe. also comments on here, pms to my xbox account, i was once even asked in a game of lone wolves in halo 3!

well i asked pj because a lot of people are getting different dates , most commonly october 30th and november 13th, he was a great guy and asked about it and its still sketchy but apprently no we in the uk and europe cant expect it this month, im guessing novembers 2nd or 3rd week. so it doesn't have fable or dead space or the like to compete with. but that just a guess on my part.

not to exact i know, but please, enough wit ze emailzzzzz!!!

Hasn't this guy died twice already?, at least twice?

The picture speaks for itself.

Yes, thats the one, the only, Ultimate B-movie bastard/ once leader of S.T.A.R.S for raccoon city mr Albert Wesker. Finally something of note worth posting, see a lot of stuff i hold off on since other more high profile sites focus on the same thing, but ive gotta give my five cents on this.

Ive always liked wesker, he was a double agent, so the "twist" was actually logical since he turned on chris and jill in resident evil. most games in this genre would have him turn out to be a secret relative or something like that yknow? hes never been blown up the way, say, sephiroth has been in the gaming community, yet hes easily more dangerous than he tyrants or possibly the nemesis.  no matter how many times you kill him he keeps coming back, and given resident evils b movie inspired origins thats why hes such a great bad guy.

Just one more reason to look foreward to this game, though it kinda solves the mystery of how las plagas parasites turned up in arica huh?

DAMN YOUSE ADA WONG!!!