Something for all you blood lusting Wii owners, it’s MadWorld by Platinum Games. With the drought of something worthwhile, MadWorld will delight all out there who owns a Wii. Carefully crafted by Platinum Games, the former developers of Clover Studio, you know it’s going to bring own the bacon.

MadWorld is stylized game, consisting of mainly three colors – if you haven’t guessed already. Taking the look from Sin City, MadWorld does it extremely well. The graphical presentation is nice, smooth and creamy; or rather, nice to look at as the spectrum is actually really fitting for the game. The game does a good job making the world, well Mad, as it seems to a broken down trash heap of no humanity left. The level design sports good variety as no two levels looks the same, giving out nice atmosphere to the bloodshed that is all around you. (continue reading…)

A few days ago the demo for Yakuza 3 (Ryu Ga Gotoku 3 in Japan) came out on Japanese PSN. By cheating the system I downloaded the Japanese demo due to being a big fan of the Yakuza series. The demo has some flaws.

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More rumor-mongering coming from IGN, and this time the word on the vine concerns that of SEGA of America. It seems that the current economic crunch is affecting even the American branch of SEGA, with the company rumored to have laid off at least 30 employees to cut costs. What particular department in SOA that’s getting their resources slashed is something we don’t know yet, what with the company keeping mum on this issue – but yeah. They might be laying off people as we speak.

IGN cites an unnamed source inside SEGA itself.

Rumors are rumors, and sometimes they’re nothing but. However, we wouldn’t really be surprised if this particular bit of news turns out to be true, what with Free Radical going under, Sony and Microsoft doing the same workforce-demoralizing tactics and so on. We just hope that the crew making up SONIC Team (bless their hearts) gets their offices locked down and all their shit boxed up nice and tight in the company parking lot.

As with everything you don’t want anyone else to know about, it will eventually end up on the internet whether you like it or not. From those few corny nude pictures you took for your beloved Sandy to the truth about your poor hedgehog mascot who just kept on truckin’ till he could truck no more.

Allow me to fill you in. Around 2006 a blogger came along with the name jpeg appeared, making wild claims about the inner workings of SEGA and the turblant relationship they had with Sonic Team. But as with anything on the internet, jpeg was largely ignored and passed off as a fraud who just wanted some attention.

In 2007 however, shit got real and he talked about NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams (You know, that piss awful sequel to the game we all loved.) stating he had little-to-no faith in the game although he knew Sonic Team were giving it their darndest. He even claimed to know and work with Sonic Team on a personal/professional level. He even said that NIGHTS 2 was planned to be released on the Xbox 360 and the PS3 as they were the only consoles that could realise Iizuka-san’s vision. A month later however, jpeg decided it was for the best to delete all of his blog posts and never return. Unfortunately for him, the internet has a memory larger than every elephant ever concieved. A forum user by the name of FlashTHD recovered an archived entry by jpeg, telling the harrowed journey Sonic Team have had to take, and how they became trapped within their own brand. It is a truly interesting tale that sheds a little bit more light on the real inner workings of the game industry, and shows us that things don’t actually run on fairy-dust and rainbows. (I at least thought they did.) (continue reading…)

I’m going to start off by saying that scaring people is hard, do you want to know what is harder? Making a video game that is scary. Condemned: Criminal Origins is nothing short of terrifying and knocks the socks off any first person shooter out there. Now before I go on about how amazing it is, first I’ll talk about the story for those who haven’t had a taste of the cake.

The story begins with your average FBI agent named Ethan Thomas who has been after a mass serial killer known as “The Match Maker”. While on duty, Ethan encounters The Match Maker, who throws Ethan out of a three-story window. Later that night Ethan wakes up at his apartment not knowing what has happened. Still weak from the fall, Ethan is told, by a man named “Vanhorn” that he has been framed for the death of his partner. He also gives Ethan information about his past and how it connects with the total chaos within the city.

The has you running from the cops and abandoning all connections with the FBI while retracing your steps in a corrupt city filled with cracked out civilians. When I said that this game is scary, I meant scary as in the levels are based off of real buildings and environments.  Condemned has a little bit of every thing from investigating crime scenes, crisp next gen graphics that are stunning, and acquiring new weapons like the stun gun; which adds a cool feature that I’m calling the crack and stack system, where you are able to finish off the enemy but preforming lethal blows that will have your stomach turning. One of the main highlights of Condemned is the stare and tear engine which will leave you asking yourself, “Did i really see that?”

Another major pro to the game is that almost every item can be used as a weapon, such as a 2×4 on the ground with nails protruding from it. You’ll also find other useful weapons such as a sledge hammer, crowbar, and fire axe. Now don’t get me wrong there are ranged weapons – I mean, you can’t be an ex-cop and not own a gun or five. Now that we are on the subject of gun play, I must start off by saying that it’s almost flawless. In combat it is very important to have the melee and ranged fighting flow together smoothly and that’s exactly what Sega has done with this game. At one point in the game you are searching a rundown mannequin store. As if that wasn’t creepy enough during the level you will catch tiny glimpses of the mannequins moving, I know right? Farther through the level you reach a part where the mannequins appear behind you every time you turn away!

Condemned was more or less pushed to the side as the 360 got older, mostly because of the releases of Halo 3 and Gears of War. However, Condemned has garnered a cult following by gamers everywhere.

Ok so in all fairness Condemned didn’t really do anything that we haven’t seen before, but not saying that that’s a bad thing. Bringing back the basics for a good solid first person shooter is just what needed to be done, and Sega hit it right on the money. All in all I’ll leave with this: if you are looking for an affordable game of great qualities, then go to your game store and join the horde of fans that have been hypnotized by the intriguing and heart stopping story of Ethan Thomas.