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Controller1.com Focus Test 8- Little Big Planet

Three men play Little Big Planet with varying intentions. Clint wants to make levels, George wants to play levels and Cam wants the levels to design themselves

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Now Playing- Little Big Planet, GHWT

Little Big Planet is a 2D platformer with a level editor built in. We have recorded a focus test for this and the instant gratification factor in wanting to build a level is zero. You need to sit though tutorials before you can do anything which insta-fail.

Hoewver the singleplayer platforming is so delightful that its a lot of fun to play. Even though I loved All New Super Mario on DS (the last great new 2D platformer), it didn’t feel all that different to what had come previously. This feels boh new and familiar. I’ve heard complaints abut the jumping, but its fine, no worse than Braids and probably more forgiving than than XBLA game.

There is one thing about LBP. It can overload you with crap. You only have a few buttons (jump, grab and your menu- popit- buttons), but the amount of stuff you collect will get pretty daunting to manage. You need this stuff for making your own levels (or, as is more likely to be the case, just redoing someone else’s levels- oh look 1:1 again) but without the create a level- the SP is almost a collect-a-thon. Hey but its a good collect-a-thon.

I’ve been playing a bit of GHWT, mainly just guitars and occasionally busting out a hit on the drums. I’ve recently investigated what I would get if I picked up Rock Band 1 and 2 as well. All of the songs I like in GHWT are also in Rock Band 1 or 2 so that sucks. New songs unique to the RB 1 or 2 discs? Nothing I like much. The DLC is where there are a few choice morsels, particularly Still Alive from Portal. So I’ve decided to get the cheapest iteration of RB which is the AC/DC track pack and just use that (assuming I don’t also need a RB 1 or 2 disc).

The thing I love about DLC is that there might be songs I like, but aren’t the best for playing in these games. I got the Quantum of Solace song for GHWT the other day. I love the song but as GHWT fodder, its quite average. So the question must be asked. Why is Bohemian Rhapsody in Singstar but not in RB/GHWT?

NEWS ANALYSIS- 2008- Mergers and Not-So-Mergers

Today it’s been revealed that Square Enix have thrown their hat into the ring to take over Eidos. This has serious implications for many people including the cottage industry of UK models who portray Lara Croft in photoshoots and at trade shows. If Square Enix controlled Tomb Raider, would she look like this?

Over the years we’ve had Sega and Sammy, Namco and Bandai, Bioware and Pandemic. So far this year, EA has tried to buy Take Two interactive and failed. Activision and Vivendi merged and unleashed Kotickor The Barbarian. Warner Interactive seems to have a solid grip on Eidos and now other suitors have expressed interest in the publisher recently. Squre Enix also recently tried to merge with Tecmo, who said “we’re flattered but no thanks, we’re not that kind of publisher,” and who then subsequently started merger talks with Koei. Midway’s merger with the concept of bankruptcy has taken another step closer to fruition and Atari’s merger with success seems to be ever elusive.

Who’s next? THQ and EA make THEAQ? Would Crave and Capcom make Crap? Would Codemasters and Gamecock be Cockmasters?

Gears of War 2 review

On Xbox 360. Developed by Epic Games. Published by Microsoft Games Studio

Gears 2, so the saying goes, was bigger and more bad assier.

Gears II Men picks off where the story (such as it was) left off. Marcus Fenix, the hairiest bald space marine, still likes he’s hit the protein shakes a little too hard and now his friend Dom is looking for his wife. The Locust are trying to sink a Serran city called Jacinto and apparently there’s some internal squabbles back at the Locust homestead. Its all just an excuse for balls to the walls action.

So the first Gears game was good but i didn’t love it like I did Halo 3 and CoD games. I found the difficulty, even on the wimp mode Casual too much of an ass kicking to enjoy it much. Gears 2′s normal mode is far more forgiving than the first game so the more hardcore nuts out there should start on hard. Gears also manages to not recycle its unique code. You ride control certain beasts once, you drive a tank once, not over and over. The shooting has merely been refined but it was easily the best part of the original. The sequel, with its more sensible difficulty and extra polish takes the best parts of the first game and makes them blissfully enjoyable to play.

So If you’ve played the first one (or even uncharted, lol) you know how the shooting works with stop and pop  gunplay with its cover mechanic improved. But you don’t get the feeling that you’re playing the same thing over and over since everything is suitably mixed up. The game does kick your ass at times, but not always you’d expect it. Unlike the first game with its tough bosses, the sequel’s bosses aren’t an amazing challenge, but they are diverse and interesting. Yes, find out what to do and do it three times is in effect but I’d rather that than the final boss from Far Cry on Xbox 1 which just had 60 billion hit points. Hey, i prefer easy bosses. That said, I found the times when the game did kick my ass was in some of the firefights but It rarely got so frustrating that I wanted to quit. No Brutes and no Krillitane made me a happy gamer.

Removing the chaff from the first one, fixing the difficulty and adding so many new styles that aren’t constantly recycled over and over again, the game never gets boring. There’s never any area that feels like the Library from Halo CE that just goes on and on (unless you play Horde- more of that later). Multiplayer, never the best feature of the first game, despite its popularity, is vastly improved (with one caveat). The star here is a coop mode called Horde, which is basically Zap Brannigan sending wave after wave of his men at you. You have one life per round and its up to your team mates to heal you if you lose too much health, otherwise you have to wait till the next wave to respawn, so long as at least one member of your team survives. The other modes, all variations of more common MP games are there and they too are a lot of fun. Except the matchmaking (at the time of writing) was so amazingly broken that it could take 5 or 10 minutes to get into a match. Once you got into one, it was great but jeeze that wait for a match almost make me want to update firmware on my PS3 and see which finishes first. I’m not willing to bet money but it would be a photo finish.

This game has the best sorta realistic graphics on 360. Apart from the character designs of the Cogs, which are somewhat exaggerated looking, the things very pretty. It actually looks very ugly and dour, it just does it very well from an artistic and technical perspective. Framerate is a pretty constant 30 fps and never hitches and never suffers from badly timed texture loading. Halo 3 may still be the better game overall, but the graphics of Unreal 3 here are first rate. Its still the best advertisement for the Unreal 3 engine by far.

Sound is also top notch with excellent sound design helped by a cool and grand musical score. Voice work is top notch with the likes of Terry Tate as Cole Train and of course John Di Maggio as the voice of Marcus Fenix and a few others. Also here is Carolyn Seymour as the voice of the Locust Queen (she was in a really old BBC SF show Survivor but you’ve seen her in Trek, Quantum Leap and lots of other series)

So overall, I very much like Gears 2. Its a good value package with a single player that’s not over in 6 hours, a lots of coop and multiplayer options and will probably be installed on a lot of 360′s for a little while at least.

Controller1.com rating 3/3

NEWS ANALYSIS- Man buys Midway for 100k, wakes up with a hangover, a sore ass and a bill for 70 million

A drunken man wandered into the offices of Midway and apparently bought the company for $100, 000 and took over $70 million of the company’s debt. Former Owner Sumner Redstone could not be contacted. Well he could be, but he was laughing too hard to hear our questions.

Apparently Midway, with its plethora of valuable IP such as Smash TV, Spyhunter, Gauntlet, Joust, Paper Boy, Mortal Kombat, NBA Jam, Blitz, Toobin’, Blegger, Bogger, Booger, Bugger, LugeyHunter, Jay Leno’s You Don’t Know Shit: The Video Game, Castle of Crasstacular,

I’ve asked around for people’s favorite Midway property and here are the responses. The names have been changed to protect the innocent.

Bill: I always remembered Midway’s Gall Bladder Football. That was truly a classy game.

Heather: Didn’t they, like, make, like, a ton of games, like based on
old shit and stuff?

Kyle: Midway between what and what? Is that a nice way of saying their games score 5.0′s

Quint: I always preferred Coral Sea to Midway.

So how can someone make money out of this transaction? Well the easiest way is to not buy Midway but it’s a bit late for at least one hung over fella. I saw the movie Wall Street the other day so I am a financial expert and in my expert opinion, it seems to me that the IP that Midway controls, mainly arcade hits from the 80′s
are worth substantially less than the figures being reported. Sure Blitz football might be worth a mill or two. And you could get a mill for Spyhunter, a mill for some other crap. Mortal Kombat is their only really decent size franchise but seriously, is it worth 70 million dollars?

This should be interesting

Street Fighter Movie hate explained

There’s been a lot of hate and bile directed at the upcoming movie Street Fighter: Legend of Chun Li. Not being a big Street Fighter fan, I didn’t get why it was being called Street Failure. But with the latest pics released, I think it’s to do with the actors cast in the supporting roles (see picture)

Now Playing (NOT): Call of Duty World at War

Well, I would be telling you how awesome this game is (PC version tested). But I can only tell you how awesome the Single Player is. It is an excellent single player campaign so banish thoughts that Treyarch couldn’t deliver in the wake of the juggernaught that is Inifnity Ward’s CoD4.

Except the multiplayer (which is by all accounts, awesome for those who can play it) is busted. I cannot get as far as making an online profile so I can play. Instead the game continuously cycles between trying to connect and make an online profile and error messages. I patched the game but it made no difference. Googling found it was a common issue in the Beta and others have had problems with retail. I then stopped worrying and tried to continue the SP, but the patching meant I had to restart the level rather than continue where I had gotten up to (This should never happen in a retail release BTW). I even had my machine just shut down twice whilst playing.

So my first PC game that I’ve bought on ages that I wasn’t also planning on buying again for console or play on my iMac (Spore) is likely to be the last. I want to play the Multi so much and this is highly frustrating.

Treyarch. You nearly pulled it off. You almost laid to rest the spectre of Call of Duty 3 (which at least had great MP). Instead I will make a pinata in the shape of your logo. I will dip it in petrol and set it alight before I start beating it with a flaming baseball bat. I will then douse the flames of the Treyarch Logo Pinata by pouring a bucket of Horse Urine on it and then offering the smoking remains to some very large and cynical hogs.

Controller1.com Focus Test 7- PS3 Cheap Eats

Here are some fun games you should be able to get fairly cheap on the PS3.

Battlefield Bad Company, Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune and something a little different, Singstar ABBA

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