CONTEST CURRENTLY ON HOLD. WILL RESUME IF WE EVER GET SOME ARTICLES GOING AGAIN.

It’s become clear to me that this site needs a serious kick in the ribs to get it going again. We’re pretty much we are out of articles, so drastic action is needed to keep this place from going belly up.  So, to cut right to the point, I’ve decided to have another contest.  Nothing lame this time though, I’m giving away one of these:

No, not a jpeg. An Xbox 360 Pro.

Yep, a brand new XBox 360 Pro.  Don’t look at me like that, I know I haven’t gone out and bought it yet (you’ll get a real picture when I do).  I want to make sure that people actually participate this time before buying the prize.  Also, I’m afraid this contest will be limited to participants in the US and Canada only (sorry guys, it’s expensive to ship overseas).

If you already own a 360 and you end up winning the contest, you can choose to receive a Wii instead (if I can actually find one, that is).  I honestly don’t know why anybody would want one though (that’s coming from someone who owns one).

So, how do you go about winning?  Here are the rules:

• Contest will run all throughout the month of March.
• Winner will be determined by a raffle ticket system.
• Create a new topic on a forum plugging this contest, get one ticket (please leave a comment on this post with a link to the post).  Limit one ticket per forum.
• Create a 100+ word blog post linking to this contest, get one ticket (please leave a comment on this post with a link to the post).  Limit one ticket per blog.
• Get an article published in March, get five tickets per article (that’s published, not submitted).
• I will contact the winner sometime in early April.  You have 5 days to answer me, or I will pick a new winner.  Once I’ve gotten things squared away with the winner, I will send them the prize.

So yeah, get the word out about the contest and write me some articles.  You may end up with a new console.

Once upon a time, I saw a friend playing F.E.A.R. on the Xbox, and I remember thinking “This is kind of creepy”, of course I was a couple years younger at that time. Here comes F.E.A.R. 2, and I decide to go out and get the first one so I can play the second one right after it. So after playing the game fully through, here’s what I have to say about it.

F.E.A.R. is in fact not a horror game, but a first person shooter with paranormal and horrific undertones, you’ll run into the occasional freaky occurrence here and there but it’s more shooter than anything else. That being said, the game is still pretty creepy with random occurrences of ghosts or demons popping up and voices being heard. However you don’t feel this creepiness throughout the game, actually when you are in combat, you feel none of it, the paranoia becomes fun for a while.

The scariest or creepiest parts of F.E.A.R. lie completely in the sounds, and the lighting. Even when you are not in combat there is intensive music playing, and often you’ll find yourself jumping at bit at sounds of yourself moving and sounds of the environment. There were many times throughout F.E.A.R. when I jumped because of my own shadow, it’s unnerving. (continue reading…)

Won’t somebody please think of the CHILDREN?

That’s essentially the rallying cry of the watchdog group Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, or CCFC. The name may ring a bell to those who follow the gaming news; those who don’t, well, really didn’t miss much. 

Once again the CCFC’s antics don’t fail to deliver on the entertainment value, and this time the object of their (pointless) ire is Lego Batman: The Videogame. Why, you ask? I don’t know either. 

Let’s try to rationalize the two basic components of Lego Batman: The Videogame:

• Lego = good, educational, mindless fun.
• Batman = awesome story revolving around the concept of justice and about how crime doesn’t pay. 

I certainly don’t see any problem with it; it looks like a winning formula when looked at from any angle. But of course, CCFC being a watchdog group that dedicates itself to the unneeded, unwanted, and unnecessary cause of taking commercialism away from childhood, they condemned Lego Batman as a virtual spawn of commercial Satan, including it in their list of Toys Oppressive and Destructive to Young Children. Check out their write-up:
(continue reading…)

Okay, I discovered this by accident. It’s how to play the full Banjo game from the trial.

Step 1: Get into Spiral Mountain
Step 2: Go to the giant Ape and make him hit all 3 orange tiles. Make sure the one furtherest away from the tree stub with the monkey is hit LAST. DON’T GET THIS JIGGY YET.
Step 3: Get the orange from Ape’s tree, and give it to the monkey on the tree stub. GET THIS JIGGY.
Step 4: Go to the mole hill above the tree stump, learn how to egg attack, and beat the Ape. A Jiggy will fall.
Step 5: If done correctly, the 2 Jiggys will be right next to each other. Jump right in the middle of them. You should collect 2 Jiggys at the same time, extending the trial.

TRY IT OUT. The only thing you can’t do is save.

Gears of War 2, "breaking news: skulls look awesome"

So you powered through Gears of War in a day or two with your friends on co-op (or by yourself, you poor lonely soul) on an energy drink rave with spare time on your hands. What next, an old question with an old answer, the sequel.

Gears of War Two, oh boy! Who doesn’t love the great Marcus Fenix, war hero or Augustus Cole the loveable and muscular ebony soldier of brute force….and Dominic Santiago their Hispanic friend. Oh yeah and Baird that really smart white guy, that almost every FPS has, like half-life and Gordon Freeman, or Call of Duty 4 and the entire British army SAS (Special Air Service) team. For all you Halo fans thinking about Master Chief, remember, he MAY be a black guy under that Spartan helmet.

(continue reading…)

I have a very strange love for the Fable series. I didn’t own an Xbox when Fable 1 was released, I had never read any of the hype, and I had never seen anything on the game besides a single tiny thumbnail in an Electronics gaming monthly. So, when I came home from school, and received a phone call from a friend, who told me that Fable was here, my only response was, so what?

I should probably explain that my friend is like one of those dogs that when you say it’s name too many times, it shits itself. So, when I showed a complete lack of interest in a game I had never heard of, I was then treated, in a shrieking pre-pubescent voice, why I was wrong.
(continue reading…)

Most people have played a Star Wars game in their gaming career, and most people have been disappointed by one. Some people have been surprised or delighted by a Star wars game. Where does The Force Unleashed fit? Neither, to be honest, it’s far from a total disappointment but it’s also far from being anything better than “good”.

The core gameplay centers around using force powers to great effect, upgrading them and mastering them. While gripping enemies is exciting for the first few levels or so, you feel slashing an enemy gets it over with quicker, which raises the main problem. Force powers are interesting, but not deep enough to evolve into interesting mechanics; which make them feel more like gimmicks than intelligent design.

The presentation is done well overall. Though the visuals aren’t A+ material, they provide some excellent distractions throughout, and with the gameplay never becoming intricate enough to truly grab you, it’s needed. The feel of playing a part in the Star wars universe is captured well and the story is enough to keep you pushing through; though a needless love sub-plot is introduced which made me cringe as it seemed so forced. The music is a boon to the whole experience, being Star Wars, it’s got to be excellent. Mixing old tunes and some new interesting ones strikes a perfect balance between familiarity and excitement.

It’s best played for the spectacle, as it feels like a poor man’s God of War with more (God forbid) quick time events. The feel is captured brilliantly but everything else fails to match the epic scale.

The short length is also a problem, coming in at around 7-8 hours, but any longer would’ve made the game terribly boring.

Overall, I’d say this is a title to rent, experience and then forget. It’s nothing special, by any means, but it’ll provide a burst of entertainment.

6/10

Hardcore and casual games. Hardcore and casual gamers. I’ve spent to much time on the Internet to be surprised when I hear it, but almost once in every argument, it get’s dropped.

“It’s a CASUAL game”

A casual game. A game, that is casual in it’s design? In it’s use? In it’s plot or art? What does that mean? What do you THINK you’re saying?

Video games are NOT casual. Nor are they Hardcore. Video games are video games. There is no such thing as a hardcore game and a casual game. There are obscure games, there are popular games, there are simple games, there are complex games, there are pretty games and there are ugly games. But there is no hardcore game, and not a single casual game. They don’t exist. A game cannot be hardcore or casual. A video game can have a target audience, an art style, a plot, no plot, it can have complex controls, it could use a motion sensor, it might even require you to type words to progress, as opposed to ever controlling anything, but none of these choices will ever make it casual or hardcore.

Katamari Damacy is obscure. It’s also colourful, and it’s simple. It’s kooky and straightforward in design. It’s intention is not to appeal any one demographic. It’s intention is to take a risk in game design. Would Katamari Damacy be a hardcore game or a casual game? Both, and neither. It qualifies for either. So how can we even begin to categorize it with a straight face, knowing full well that it would hypocritical and idiotic to do so?

The same goes for all video games. Another example? Grand Theft Auto. Difficult, traditional, risk taking, and immensely popular. How could this seemingly hardcore game still be hardcore if non-gamers play it casually everyday? GTAIV received endless criticism due to it’s popularity, calling it casual and mainstream when in fact it was ONLY mainstream. I am an avid gamer. I own a slew of consoles, I play them all. I own 2 copies of GTAIV, and will be getting the PC version in December. Now, I do not play it that often. I never play it for more then an hour. I play it, casually, you could say. BUT, it is not a casual game and I am not a casual gamer. It is also not a hardcore game. It is an action adventure open world sandbox game. I am a hardcore gamer, or as I like to say, “gaming enthusiast”. My brother is a casual gamer, he doesn’t spend long on a game, except for GTAIV. He plays the game hardcore, because he payed for it and read into it, and invested himself into it.

Catz and Dogz and Horsez are not casual, they are not hardcore, they are shovelware. Katamari is a puzzle game. Super Smash Bros. Brawl is a party game and Halo is a first person shooter. I own and play all these (with the exception of the shovelware). Famously, on the internet at least, Halo is casual, Katamari is hardcore and casual and Smash Bros. is the epitome of casual. But I’ve played SSBB for at least 100 hours now. How could that be casual playing?

It can’t be, and it’s not. I am a hardcore gamer. People who own Wii’s and play for 40 minutes at most in a day are casual gamers. My friend is a casual gamer, he owns an Xbox 360. My other friend is a hardcore gamer, he only owns a Wii. My brother is a casual gamer, he owns a $1200 gaming PC. How a game could be casual boggles me. Games are not designed like that. Games cannot be casual. It is the GAMER that is casual or hardcore. The gamer plays it their way, invests in it their way, spends as much time in it as they like. There has never been a casual or hardcore game. Only a casual and hardcore gamer. It’s really that simple.