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VIDEO: DUH TREK: HE’S DEAD JIM

Dr Pwns and an unnamed security guard wearing a red uniform investigate beam over from the Nintenterprise to investigate the mysterious SpaceStation 3

The Best of Angry-Gamer Podcast Volume 3

We will need Jules Verne and Brendan Fraser to get to the bottom of this barrel. More skits, sketches vignettes, spoofs, parodies and satiric looks at the world of video-gaming circa 2006/2007.

We’re three quarters of the way through this trip down memory lane. Thank fuck!

contents may have settled

We Buy Atari **

T-shirt **

Pre-order Loan *

Reviewed **

Retroman and Fanb0i (pt 1) *

MGS4 Voice over sessions **

Spore Keynote **

Reggie at GDC **

Retroman and Fanb0i (pt 2) *

Movie Reviews **

Liquor Tycoon (AKA the funniest A-G sketch ever) ****

Jade Raymond Interview ***

Gerstmann-Gate **

Gamestradamus **

Retroman and Fanb0i (pt 3) *

Former Careers 1 **

Blizzard’s History of Video Games *

World Cup *

Shell Interviews Kaz and Ken after the PS3 launch *

Shell Interviews Reggie after the Wii launch **

Phil Harrison talks PS3 at GDC **

Former Careers 2 (Peter Molyneux) **

Angry-Gamer End Theme (electro funk version)

A-G Meme farm

 

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Review: Uncharted 2

Reviewed on PS3. Developed by Naughty Dog. Published by SCEA/SCEE

So I can be one of the cool kids, I too am playing Naughty Dog’s latest. A bit over half way through the single player and what do I think? It’s excellent. It’s the game that sells the PS3 in a way the first game could only dream of and only Metal Gear IV came close to doing. It makes the PS3 sing in every way possible and is a rollicking good time to boot.
So why the hell is Elena’s voice so irritating to listen to in this? I don’t know. Maybe Nolan North’s sexy Drake voice just makes everyone wet (whether he’s in this, Shadow Complex or ODST). The Farscape chick has a way sexier voice when Chloe speaks. This is the game that makes animators cry look little girls and engine programmers weep into their Starcraft pajamas. It’s prettier than a prom date after the third whiskey and sounds better than Elvis and Michael Jackson releasing an album of Beatles covers.

How did we get here? Years ago, these guys made the first four Crash Bandicoot games. Then they made Jak and Daxter on the PS2. Then everyone who knew how to make a game died and they released Jak II. Obviously they’ve learned some sort of sorcery in order to resurrect the talent and produce this masterpiece.
At the start of the game you play as Drake after he’s been involved in a serious accident. Recovering his wits as best he can we quickly get start to see how Drake got to this point. Suckered in by friends and ex lovers, Drake ends up in jail, yada, yada, blah. So he climbs a lot more and there’s less ordinary Gears clone sequences. That’s what people who played the first game wanted to know. The first game was a lot of fun, a sleeper hit for PS3 but the second game ratchets up everything that matters. More climbing and more action sequences rather than static hide behind cover and shoot all the enemies in the area. The game almost does away with constant repetition. Almost.
One minute you’ll be having a gun battle, then climbing along the side of a moving train, then attempting to shoot down a helicopter with an RPG, then have a serious conversation with a chick with eyes glassier than an Apple store. It constantly changes so that you get a feeling the developers really took the criticism of the first game to heart and just worked their guts out to avoid the same complaints the second time around. On a train, being chased by a truck, in cars, on foot, climb this- It’s all there and it’s done in a way that doesn’t scream “Hey! They just copy and pasted that bit!”

The story is classic Indiana Jones without having to pay a rich old man royalties. You have Drake, his most recent flame, plus an old flame. It’s as if the Marion showed up in Last Crusade. Go here, do this, go here grab this. It all flows together well and you don’t think “well, here’s the sewer level. Here’s the Ice level. Here’s the desert level,” like you did in the Resistance games. It doesn’t matter if you don’t like a particular scene since it’s likely going to change in five minutes to something different anyway. The awesome sense of humour is intact and funny as ever. When you hit the Nepalese levels and reach the top of the hotel, jump in the pool.

The visuals are just draw dropping. Killzone 2 doesn’t look this good. It’s not perfect but it does what you expect of it. It’s bright and colourful in away that PS3/360 games aren’t known for yet feels real. Maybe Crysis on Max has better graphics but I’ll stick with Uncharted for my own benchmark. Sound is very good but really the voice artistes are the stars of this game almost as much as the gameplay and the visuals. The acting is perfect. It sure beats the silly voices in Killzone 2 and over the top theatrics of Kojima’s last epic. Yes, Elena’s voice is whiny but she’s whiny. You need that contrast with Chloe’s deeper voice. Drake may well be the best character to headline a game since Masterchief. Despite every lead character looking the same, you won’t be mixing him up with Sam Fisher, Ezio or that Shadow Complex guy. Well maybe that Shadow Complex guy.

The game even tweets for you much to the consternation of your followers. Funnily enough- I don’t think it actually works since I’ve set mine up and my twitter doesn’t actually have any of the auto-tweets there.
Uncharted 2 manages what Killzone 2 didn’t. It was actually more than a basic shooter that didn’t try to do anything new, just solidly. Uncharted manages to meet expectations and delivers on the hype and buzz surrounding its release. It deserves to sell far more than Gran Turismo 5 or Assassin’s Creed 2. Don’t have a PS3? Well now you have a reason to get that second job (though with the price now, it’s more like overtime on your first job)

Controller1.com rating 3/3

Best of Angry-Gamer.net Podcast Vol 2

In lieu of a new controller1.com focus test here are some more best bits from the 2006 series of the now-defunct Angry-Gamer.net podcast.

CONTENTS
Happy Gamer Radio ***
SFII Anthology Anthology **
Other Podcast Machine **
Lego Call of Duty *
Vegetarian Gamer **
Our First PS3 *
Nintendo Board Meeting **
Animal Shelter **
Bono Visits Pandemic (topical, huh?) *
UMD **
Lionhead Press Conference **
Clint Freaks Out ****
Reggie **
AG Sells Out ****
Out-Take Special **
Murder Mystery **
Courtroom Drama ***
The Angry-Gamer Theme (acoustic version)
E3 Tragedy **

*= laughs on the George Scale

legal note: the management of Controller1.com is not the same as the management of the now-defunct angry-gamer.net website or its parent company Demi Heavy Industries (now 51% owned by the US Government) or its indicted CEO Demi Demforth IV. Reproduced with the permission of the content’s creators.

 

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Now Not Playing: Brutal Legend, Uncharted 2

So, the two hottest games of October are Brutal Legend by Psychonaut’s Double Fine and Naughty Dog’s Uncharted 2. I’m not currently playing either of these high quality games.
The question is why?
Well taking Brutal Legend first. I played the demo and I read the reviews. So it looks and sounds amazing and I would kill to play that game just to experience the story. Thing is the gameplay on the demo didn’t excite me very much. I have gotten very bored with brawlers having worked on a couple in my day. The music and visuals are great but the hack and the slash gameplay in the demo didn’t give me any sort of warm gooey, pant-changing feeling. Then in the reviews it apparently becomes a strategy game with units and resource management. Even if it is simple, I think I will pass. Maybe later when it is cheaper and I can justify breezing through it on easy just for the experience, but for now… Next!

Which would mean Uncharted 2. I liked Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune when it came out in 2007. I felt it was the best PS3 title available at that point and until now I still think it, MGS4 and the new Uncharted are the three best reasons to own a PS3 if you like to play games. I have bought Uncharted 2, I still haven’t played it. Mainly because I haven’t had time to play it with work commitments recently, and the other sticking point is I started to replay the original game earlier in the week. Part of me is berating myself for getting Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood, a game which disappoints in more ways than a Nintendo Press conference. If I hadn’t have bought that (despite the good word of mouth and the fun I had with the original), I would have finished it time to play the sequel. Part of me still hopes I can blast through the original before sticking part two in.
The trouble with that is, I’m still fairly on through the first game, when it was still a Tomb Raider Clone. I’m only just now reaching the point where the game becomes a Gears of War clone. Maybe I should just put it aside and play the new game. Maybe I will.

Of course, I’ve been playing CoD4 for the last few months on PC. This is a game I have put aside and come back to on many, many occasions. For some reason I get completely frustrated with it and quite for a while. Then I come back to it. There are several silly reasons why I am playing this over WaW on PC right now.

1- The only gaming PC I have available is my work’s PC, a HP quadcore machine with a decent video card (a 260 something something). I typically play for around 30-40 mins after work each night before I go home
2- I have finally managed to get a profile high enough to unlock weapons like the Barret 50.cal sniper rifle. I have had to restart at level 1 without ever restiging several times over the last 2 years (new PC, playing PC and 360, etc)
3- Only a few games are set up to work within my Work’s firewall. CoD 4, L4D, TF2 and WoW are set up since they are popular. WaW needs an online profile to work and there are enough people wanting to play it to bother
4-MW2 is out in a few weeks. I’d love to reach level 55 at least once.

So I’m playing against random kids on the net some days and at others with my colleagues. It’s clear the colleagues are very bored with CoD4. They love the gameplay but the lack of new maps has really added to the fatigue. That said, I expect each of them to have MW2 within a week and hopefully, it will be at least 3 hours before they start complaining about hax.

My plans for the next few month in terms of picking up games looks quite slim. Modern Warfare 2 on PC and 360, Ratchet and Clank Future: A Crack in Time. Maybe Borderlands and of course All New Super Mario Brothers on Wii. Fuck Assassin’s Creed 2, Forza 3, Need for Speed and the rest.

Review: Call of Juarez Bound in Blood

Reviewed on Xbox 360. Also on PS3 and PC. Developed by Techland. Published by Ubisoft.

I’ll keep this short and sweet. As a fan of  the original game, I’ve found this prequel to be highly disappointing.  The original filled a gap in gaming- the well done western FPS. The sequel seems half-hearted in many ways while being more assured in execution. It’s rather lacking in something that for the sake of being descriptive I shall call soul.

In BiB you play as Confederate Brothers Ray or Thomas. In the aftermath of the South’s loss, these two become a pale parody of a spaghetti western protagonist. You usually choose which of the two you’ll play as at the start of a level with the other tagging along as a computer controlled ally. Ray (who becomes Reverend Ray, star of the first game) is the stronger of the two, able to dual wield pistols and be generally Cardassian. Thomas replaces Billy and is the more agile of the two, able to jump higher and use a lasso to scale some obstacles. Both characters have concentration mode, which is a fancy bullet-time mode that works differently for each of the brothers.

There are story missions and some optional side missions in this game but to be honest they aren’t particularly compelling to play compared to the original. Seemingly, most end in a one on one duel mechanic that is painful in the extreme to beat. Even though there is a save point just before it you have to move your guy so that your opponent is in a specific point (more or less the centre of the screen) . It’s shittier than a constipated ox that has eaten curry for a week and suddenly been exposed to very cold air.

So apart from the fights, the rest of the game is put together well but it’s just missing that hunger to do stuff that was in the first game. This is too by-the-numbers to be more than a time-waster while you wait for better games to be released. You go somewhere, and basically kill everyone who attacks you. But you don’t do in it an interesting way. The first game had a mix of stealth, climbing, Ray going off his nut and quoting the bible while he killed baddies. Here you just kill everything. In between chapters you are able to go off and do some side missions but these are more of the same- go and kill everyone and often ending in another annoying duel.

The multiplayer is not too bad and with more of a community, could have been a fun diversion for a while. It’s definitely better than the MP portion of Wolfenstein (a wasted opportunity if ever there was one) with multiple modes. I played a few rounds of a mode where you played as either the outlaws or the law. I was an outlaw, sticking it to the man as I blew up various safes and vaults in a delightful western town circa 1890-ish. Of course, know where the next objectives are are just an invitation to the Law -abiding team to just camp with rifles but it was fun while it lasted. Probably the most fun part of the game since it doesn’t rely on Techland’s half-hearted design.

So while the original was a breath of fresh air, the sequel is as stale as a box of donuts left in the back seat for a month. Looks brand new but probably best left unopened

Controller1.com rating 1/3

The Best of Angry-Gamer.net Podcast Vol 1

So. A-G has been dead for a year now. Here, in an easy to digest podcast form, is a compilation of some of the best moments of the sketch-laden 2006 series featuring

Cameron, Clint, George and Shell. Free of-charge, an hour of comedy gold with topical references to $600 PS3’s, GRAW and Lionhead being bought by Microsoft; ready to burn to a CD if that’s what you want to do.

It ain’t coming back, but you can at least go back for an hour.

legal note: the management of Controller1.com is not the same as the management of the now-defunct angry-gamer.net website or its parent company Demi Heavy Industries or its CEO Demi Demforth IV. Reproduced with the permission of the content’s creators.

Contents
Virtual Boy/ Angry Gamer Theme **
Professor Manfred *
GDC Wow Protest *
Movies from Games ***
Games Retailer *
Professor Tower **
Videogame Violence *
Setting the PS3 Price ***
PS3 Price aftermath *
1st Day in Maxis QA **
Buying a Gamecube *
Sid Meier and American McGee do Lunch **
Molyneux Briefing ***
Immersion *
Carmack at E3 ***
C64 **
Cheetofingers **
Clint’s Plumber ***
Snake between Games ***
EA Emperor *
Hardcore Gamer **
The Gamefather **
The Mario Party *
Itegaki Interview *
EA Telethon **
Gaijin at Nintendo **
WoWidow **
Awards ***

*= laughs on the George Scale

 

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Controller1.com Focus Test: iPhone Games again

Small and bite sized snacks for when you’re on the go, on the plane, on the lamb or on the can.

 

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REVIEW: HALO 3 ODST

Reviewed on Xbox 360. Developed by Bungie. Published by Microsoft Games Studio

So Halo 3 ODST is here. Here are the facts.

1. It’s an expansion pack to Halo 3, using its tech but telling a side story that occurs between the events of Halo 2 and Halo 3

2. The Multiplayer is basically all of Halo 3’s multiplayer maps, plus all of the Halo 3 DLC maps plus three new maps. It even comes on a separate disc.

3. There is a new Firefight mode which is much the same as Horde mode in Gears 2 or the Zombies in CoD WaW

4. Though the multiplayer is mostly recycled, the main campaign is rather short and it was conceived as a cheap expansion, it is full price

5. The game is excellent

6. No Flood. No Cortana (the level). No Library.

So you play as ‘Rookie,’ seemingly  the only survivor of an ODST squad who’ve landed in New Mombasa shortly after the Covenant attacked the city. Your squad is no where to be seen and your job is to traverse the enemy-infested streets of New Mombasa searching for clues as to your team’s whereabouts. Once you’ve found an item belonging to one of them, you’ll experience a flashback to what happened to that trooper. Then you’ll be playing as that trooper for a mission.

So there are two parts to the game. The first part: Rookie search for clues across town  at night and having encounters with Covenant troops along the way starts off to be slow, confusing and not all that much fun. You need to use your scanner (pressing X) which lightens dark areas and draws colourful outlines around everything (and looks like a GRAW game). You also quickly learn that the health system has gone back to a similar style to that of Halo 1. You don’t have a shield now, just stamina that will renew itself if you can stop taking damage for a bit. Once your stamina is depleted, your health will start to suffer and will only regenerate if you can find a health pack. Thing is, they don’t obviously look like a health back so by the time you have memorised what they look like, you will be finished the game. Did I mention the game is short? The distances you will cover on foot start to irritate until you start finding Covenant ghost’s lying about the place (you can’t use any of the other vehicles strewn throughout New Mombasa). Once you do start using them, they time you spend travelling in New Mombasa decreases dramatically as does the amount of time you’ll spend fighting the small groups of Covenant on the city streets. A collectible in the game are the segments of audio diaries hidden in the city documenting one woman’s story as she auditions for The Archers (I guarantee no one who reads this blog will get that one so move on). They are similar to the info drops in Infamous. They give the game some character but are ultimately just something you look for if you absolutely have to do everything in a game. Keep looking and you’ll find a clue to the whereabouts of a crew member and then that’s when the game resumes being awesome.

Once you’ve found the clue, you’ll then play a mission as one of the ODST team members and these are uniformly excellent and proof that Bungie still know how to put together a really tight game. You will also get a chance to drive warthogs, Scorpion tanks and Banshees in some of these missions as well as use some of the bigger guns the Haloverse has to offer. Apart from the differences in ODST troops’ abilities from a Spartan such as Masterchief, these play like the more epic battles in any Halo game.

Also on disc one of this 2-disc set is Firefight mode. Here, you and/or some friends (and they need to be friends due to the lack of matchmaking offered for this mode), you take on successive waves of Covenant in a very similar way to Horde mode in Gears of War 2, Zombie mode in Call of Duty World at War and of course, Left 4 Dead. This was also the subject of our most recent podcast if you’re at all interested.

Disc 2 is known as the Mythic Disc although it shows up as Halo 3 on your Xbox dashboard. Unlike the actual Halo 3 disc, this disc will load faster if you install it on your hard drive. It includes all of the original Halo 3 multiplayer maps plus all of the DLC maps (of which there were quite a few) and 3 new maps. These still hold up well and as not every fan of Halo 3 picked up the DLC, at least here you can be sure of a sizeable population of players with all the maps.

Presentation is pure Halo 3. The same tech, prettied up in places with its maligned sub HD resolution and rock-steady frame rate. There are some ugly textures visible here and there but overall the look is colorfully appealing- though the poor face of Buck seems out of place on such a polished package. Maybe it’s better if Bungie stick to guys wearing masks. The user interface is a little slicker than previous Halo games since it’s now 3D in places and the cinematics in general are nicer. There’s even a nice little tag scene after the credits which is well worth watching. Sound is phenomenal as usual, and we have a voice cast including three guys from Firefly, Caprica 6 and Uncharted guy.

Have you heard the game is short? The package on it’s own is actually great value. A great single player campaign, plus a ton of multiplayer maps and a great coop mode in Firefight.I already had all of the multiplayer maps and I could complain about that but then I also felt that way when I bought Orange Box and ended up with another copy of both TF2 and HL2. There’s no Crackdown 2 multiplayer beta (that would be ironic) included but there is a Halo Reach beta invite included so there’s that as well.

So yes it is worth it but not essential. If you like shooters and own a 360- you should get this if you haven’t already. Would I buy a 360 just to play ODST? No- Halo 3 is still a grander experience. This just gives you more of what you want, which does me fine.

Controller1.com rating 2/3

Controller1.com Focus Test: HALO 3 ODSTSDTSTDTST

We have a quick look at Halo 3 ODST. Warning- audio quality is a bit off for the first few minutes, but it improves. Unfortunately, the quality of conversation throughout is consistent.

 

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