Not too long ago I entered an elite club. No, not the Stone Cutters or the Illuminati, I joined the few people who love the Sega Master System. Like many people, I was brought up on the Nintendo consoles, ignoring all other consoles as unwashed heathens who know not the magic that is Mario. However, in recent years I have learned the error of my ways and I’m catching up on lost time. As such, I am really coming to love Sega.

It is impossible to talk about Sega without mentioning their biggest and best known mascot; not Alex Kidd but Sonic the Hedgehog. Everyone who has played games for a decent amount of time must be familiar with this blue hedgehog, most likely in his 16-bit iterations from the Mega Drive. But there are more sonic games than many people realise. One of these lesser known games is the version of Sonic that came out on the Master System; Sega’s often ignored 8-bit powerhouse.

Sonic the Hedgehog for the Master System is a very different game than its Mega Drive counterpart. The original Mega Drive version was basically a tech demo to show off what they referred to as ‘Blast Processing’ (which in reality was nothing more than marketing) to show off how much quicker the Mega Drive was than the NES. This resulted in the Sonic we all know; the one who runs at super fast speeds through levels in less than a minute. However, as the Master System was an 8-bit machine and was not a great deal quicker than the NES, the result is a much slower Sonic.

As with many other people, my initial reaction to this different, more sluggish Sonic can basically be summed up by the phrase ‘what the hell is this crap?’ before swiftly shutting off the console in disgust. Obviously the game doesn’t put its best foot forward. Being the loving and forgiving person I am, I decided to give it another go.

Sadly the game does not put it’s best foot forward trying to cater to the fans of the Mega Drive game with an 8-bit version of the Green Hill Zone seen in Sonic 1 for the Mega Drive. Now this is a really odd choice for the first level as the Green Hill Zone is basically designed to allow you to go as fast as possible but in a game that is not about speed it makes for really boring level design.

So this is why the game is bad right? Well this article wouldn’t be claiming 8-bit Sonic to be secretly one of the best if this was true. I get the impression that the first zone was put there basically to shut up anyone who wouldn’t stop talking about how Sonic is all about speed. I say this because the rest of the levels are excellently crafted, and do not focus on barreling through them as fast as possible; instead challenging the player with engaging platforming action.

The Master System version of Sonic has some of the best levels ever put onto a cartridge, and it’s the lack of speed that allows this. The levels require you to really look and think about what you’re doing, which would simply not be possible at high speeds. This, alongside some pretty impressive graphics for an 8-bit system as well as a fantastic rendition of the ever familiar Sonic music; downscaled to make some pretty awesome chiptune goodness, makes for a fantastic game.

Playing this version of Sonic has showed me that Sonic the Hedgehog does not need to be all about speed. In fact, Sonic can be at his best when he’s just walking, so long as the levels are crafted to test the player’s skill and reaction. Unfortunately some of the other, faster Sonic games do not. Most Sonic games are based around memorisation, as you are going way too fast to ever react to anything on screen. People have got too hung-up about how fast Sonic moves, to the extent where they think that’s all Sonic should be; running through levels as fast as possible. If you think back to those heady days in the early 90s; playing Sonic the Hedgehog on Mega Drive, you’ll look back and remember; yes, Sonic was fast, but that speed was coupled with some great level design that got lost through the years as fans kept shouting ‘More speed!’ This resulted in the kind of Sonic the Hedgehog games we have today.

So Sega, please with Sonic the Hedgehog 4 remember this. All the speed in the world will never make up for bad level design and the extremely weird furry fetish you have seem to have developed over the years. My best piece of advice is something that Sonic for the Master System has taught me; a slow Sonic game can be really good, as long as the rest of the game is built well. So, when making Sonic 4 remember to make it good before you make it fast.

One last thing, where is our new 3D rendered HD remake of Alex Kidd? Surely it’s about time for some 1080p Janken matches?

– Alan Parrish

New Xbox redesign!

More than you ever wanted to know about Kinetic

and apparently there are games at E3?

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With E3 fast approaching, The Newb Review has taken the opportunity to look back over the years to see the kind of excitement to come out of E3′s past, to predict what we could be seeing in the near future.

This year marks E3s 15th anniversary as well as the 15 year anniversary of a much maligned and often forgotten console, the Sega Saturn. Luckily enough for you, our devoted readers, our very own Alan Parish is quite a fan of the Sega Saturn.

Thus, he has decided to put together an article to explain exactly why he feels the Sega Saturn does not deserve the derision it so wrongfully receives, and attempt to explain exactly why it failed oh-so spectacularly.

SO WHAT WENT WRONG?

One of Sonic Teams more interesting 3D games

WHAT’S SO GREAT ABOUT SATURN?

Dragon Force had an unprecedented number of characters on screen at once

As well as these unique and interesting games, the Saturn was easily the best console for arcade conversions such as Street Fighter Alpha 2, Metal Slug and all of Sega’s own arcade games.

I think the one thing I really like about the Sega Saturn is that it wasn’t afraid to be different. Whilst it does have it’s fair share of PlayStation ports, the best and most interesting games were only available for the Saturn.

Given how safe the industry has become in recent years; churning out shooter after shooter and constantly rehashing old ideas, it’s nice to go back to the Saturn and play something that was daring and risky. This is the reason I love the Saturn and at the same time possibly the reason it failed. Daring adventurous games don’t always sell. It’s also worth noting that Shenmue started life on the Sega Saturn.

The kit itself is essentially a standard Rock Band drum kit without the plastic and metal stand. So the pads and kick pedal can move freely, which can cause a few problems. I was actually quite surprised by the overall quality of the hardware itself; for the price I was expecting something very cheap and incredibly flimsy. The pads and kick pedal have a good weight to them, which would suggest they can actually withstand the abuse your drumsticks will assault it with. The kick pedal has a good solid feel to it and the drums actually seem a little quieter than the original Rock Band kit.

As mentioned before there is no stand with this package, and this can cause problems with finding a good place to put the pads. The instructions provided suggest a flat surface like a table, however I find the pads much easier to hit if they are slightly tilted towards you (like they are on the official kit) which lead me to set up an elaborate system of pulleys and levers to find the best playing setup. Also, the pads do have a tendency to move about during play and you are likely to find yourself chasing the kick pedal across the floor.

All of the parts of the controller are wired separately to the navigation panel which has its own USB cable to plug into your console. This means you end up with a lot of wires that are just dying to get tangled up, but these are only minor issues.

Be prepared for wires

In all I found this hardware to be a good cheap alternative to the official kit, which can set you back anywhere upto £60. The small issues it has can start to annoy as you have to constantly rearrange the pads into a comfortable position after every song. The kit does all pack away neatly into a much smaller space than official drums, so if you are living somewhere with limited space then maybe this product is a good idea. For anyone else, if you have the room and the money, by all means opt for the official drums. But if for some reason you can’t get them, perhaps you’re averse to spending so much on plastic peripherals or are just too cheap to pay for it then this is a pretty good package.

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EA’s 2010/11 lineup,

Sonic 4 and

Microsoft dropping Original Xbox Live support.

All this as well as all the new releases, site updates and e-mails as well as the stunning conclusion to the Bayonetta competition.

If you want to get in touch with us please e-mail podcast@newbreview.com

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the iPad,

Exclusive GTA IV DLC no longer exclusive

and the popularity of naked blue aliens.

We also bring you this weeks new releases and site updates as well as giving you the chance to win a fabuous prize in our Bayonetta competition.

If you want to send us a question, comment or suggestion e-mail podcast@newbreview.com

This is the game which kicks off the 2010 January to March rush of games. Cast your minds back to near the end of last year; with Modern Warfare 2 looming on the horizon, many game publishers took the decision to push their games into 2010 to ‘avoid the busy holiday season’. Now we are in the beginning of 2010 and it feels much more like a November normally would in terms of game releases. So can Bayontta stand out in this ‘busy non-holiday season’?

I’m sure by now you have seen at least some of the promotional material for the game and are fairly familiar with the character of Bayonetta. I won’t lie, I was worried when I saw the heavily sexualisation of the character of Bayonetta. It seemed to pander to an audience of spotty teenagers who have never seen a real woman in their life. But the sexing up actually fits in with the general mood of the game; both retarded and awesome in equal measure.

The game in no way takes itself seriously. It knows it is ridiculous and runs with it, and the character of Bayonetta is a reflection of that tongue-in-cheek attitude. The graphics look really good, with a great sense of style; reflected throughout the entire game. All the animations are smooth and the whole game has a very unique visual style to fit it’s overall over-the-top nature.

Bayonetta is a 3rd person action game with a heavy combat focus. You play the part of one of the last Umbra Witches, an order who are locked in combat with the Lumen Sages, but you have no memory of who you are or your past. Throughout the course of the game you attempt to regain your memories as you battle through the realms of Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso, killing plenty of Angels called down by the Lumen Sages.

The story is a bit convoluted and thin, however you can look past this as the story is just a mechanism to show off really awesome set pieces. This is where Bayonetta really excels. What this game does is constantly show you really cool stuff happening on the screen. Whilst it’s generally unclear why what is happening is happening, but you can see that everything that is going on is amazing. Without wanting to go down spoiler territory, among all the fights on motorcycles, insane attacks using your hair and throwing cars at enemies, the game still finds time to out do what Assassin’s Creed 2 has done before and give you a fantastically twisted ending.

As this is a combat focused game, you’ll be happy to hear the combat is excellent. There is a great speed and fluidity to all of Bayonetta’s moves: when you press the button she does the move pretty much instantly and, for the most part, almost seamlessly in a beautiful looking combo. Many other games in this genre put too much importance on how the moves look; slowing down the action and not letting you interrupt with dodges, letting you see the stylish moves at the expense of playability. Bayonetta however, whilst having awesome looking moves, allows you to interrupt most moves by pulling the right trigger; an essential move to allow awesome combos and make the game a lot more playable.

The idea of playability is something the developers really wanted to bring to Bayonetta. Previous games such as Devil May Cry have been pretty brutal in terms of difficulty. Not only were enemies really tough, but the timing required to pull off a good combo was so incredibly strict, it pretty much became inaccessible to any newcomers to the series or genre. Bayonetta has tried to rectify this by offering five different difficulty settings. In theory, you can find one that suits you as well as making the moves easy to pull off.

However, offering more difficulty settings doesn’t completely remove all issues of accessibility. The Easy and Very Easy difficulties basically play the game for you, whereas normal mode can get really hard in some spots. It would have been nice if perhaps there was a new setting to bridge the pretty wide gap between the easy and normal difficulties.

Bayonetta does also share some of the issues that most other 3rd person action games do; namely the camera. In tight areas the camera copes poorly, often obscuring your view a great deal and leaving you unable to see where enemies are attacking from, though these situations are few and far between.

For this review, the game was played on the Xbox 360, with it fully installed to the Hard Drive. There are many reports as well as compelling evidence to suggest that the PS3 version of this game is significantly worse, has vastly increased load times and regularly choppy animation which detracts severely from the game. If you have the option, definitely get this on 360 as opposed to PS3.

Overall the game is truly amazing. The characters are likeable and fun, the story, whilst a little hard to follow at times, is very tongue-in-cheek and enjoyable. The graphics are good, animations fluid, though the screen can certainly get a bit busy in the later levels, obscuring the action. The controls are excellent and if you can get through a couple of spikes in the difficulty then you will fall in love with this game.

There is a lot of content in this package, so if you want to unlock every move, buy every costume and fully complete this game it will last you many many hours. It’s just such a shame the PS3 version isn’t up to snuff. Oh, and please put more than 3 songs in the soundtrack, as after 30+ hours you get pretty bored of the ones included.

Review Round-Up

Graphics: 4/5 – The game is smooth the entire way through, graphics are good and art style interesting, though it does end up repeating areas a little bit.

Sound: 4/5 – Has good voice acting and a cheery upbeat soundtrack that works with the mood of the game, however it would be nice to have more variety in the soundtrack as listening to the same 3 songs throughout can get tiring after a while.

Gameplay: 5/5 – The controls and different control options are absolutely spot on. It is easily accessible to newcomers and provides enough options for veteran players to really get stuck into the combo system. This, along with plenty of difficulty options, makes it a game that is really easy to get into.

Longevity 5/5 – If you are the kind of person who wants to collect and unlock everything, you will have a lot to do here. If you only want to play it through once then it still holds up as a pretty lengthy game, though it is designed for numerous play throughs.

Overall 4/5 – I spent a lot of time wrestling between 4 or 5 stars. Whilst this is a truly brilliant game, it is aggressively Japanese in style and mentality which I know can be a huge turn off for some people. If you love these kinds of games or even just Eastern videogame design, it could well become one of your favourite games.

[starreview tpl=16]

Borderlands and Assassin’s Creed DLC,

Tony Hawk prepping to ride again

and Nintendo renewing it’s licence to print money thanks to New Super Mario Bros. Wii.

As usual we also have the new releases, site updates and (sadly) some amazing voice acting as well as your e-mails. And details on how you can win a fabulous prize.

If you want to leave us any questions, comments and suggestions as well as enter our competition please e-mail; podcast@newbreview.com

Check back each week for your newb flash update.

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Final Fantasy XIII going gold

Are rythmn games killing the games industry?

and SonyMotion Controller delayed to Autumn.

We also have all your e-mails, our terrible pokemon impressions and the debut of Dialogue Hard with a Vengeance.

If you want to get in touch with the podcast please e-mail; podcast@newbreview.com

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Check back each week for the run-down of each weeks video gaming news.

It’s our first (released) podcast of 2010 with Braindead_Hero, Crofterz and Tom01255 as we talk about all things gaming… including;

Things not looking so great for EA

Modern Warfare 3 not being developed by Infinity Ward

Natal confirmed for Holiday 2010

All this as well as all the site updates, new releases and terrible terrible Pokemon impressions.

If you want to throw down a challenge, send us a question or even some hate mail, e-mail: podcast@newbreview.com

If you want to watch these videos in their full 720p glory click on them to go to the youtube page and feel the bromance in HD.

Pre-Order this game from Amazon by clicking these links and you’ll help support this site:

XBox 360: £39.70

PS3: £39.70

Check back each week for the run-down of each weeks video gaming news.

Okay so maybe that was 17 years ago and it wasn’t really the future of gaming. What I’m trying to put across here is that motion sensing controllers are absolutely nothing new. The popularity of the Wii has thrown motion sensing controllers into the limelight once again. Perhaps now it is time to look back at the previous attempts to see where they went wrong. Ultimately, what hope is there for this new crop from Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft?

POWER GLOVE… NOW YOU’RE PLAYING WITH POWER!

First of all we have the most well known and popular early motion controller, the power glove. Released in 1989 for the NES, the power glove allowed players to use the movements of their arm and hand to control game movements instead of a gamepad. Players would have to attach sensors to their television which allowed the NES to calculate the location of the power glove along the X, Y and Z axis (not unlike the Wii Remote and its sensor bar, which does pretty much the same thing) as well as sensors in the fingers of the glove to tell when players are flexing their fingers. This can also translate to in game actions (for example to fire simply flex your trigger finger).

You know a glove is awesome when it emits lightning

The problem this had was with accuracy. To play Super Mario, you move your hand to the left or right to move left or right and move your hand up to jump. Sounds easy and intuitive right? OK, so where do you put your hand to make Mario stand still? How do you jump to the right and quickly pull back to stop yourself from jumping right over a platform? These are the questions many (around 100,000) gamers were asking themselves as they slowly realised that general movements are nowhere near as accurate as a button. Anyone who has played Punch-Out!, Mario Kart Wii or Super Smash Bros. Brawl on the Wii will tell you.

U-FORCE? U-LIE

It seems that 1989 was a really good year for motion sensing game controllers (or a really bad year depending upon how you look at it). Not only did the power glove come out, but so did the U-Force. The U-Force was a rather large thing that looked a bit like a futuristic laptop and it used infra-red sensors to track hand movement. Unlike the Power Glove, you didn’t have to wear anything and it could track motions from both hands.

In reality the controller, which claimed to track motion, didn’t track any sort of motion what-so-ever. The marketing guys were either thinking of a different product whilst making the advertisements, or they were heavily manipulating the truth. What the U-Force did was simply map buttons from a standard NES controller to each infra-red sensor, so when you covered the sensor it would press a button. It sensed your motions in the same way a standard controller senses where your thumbs are by which button is being pressed down. So it didn’t… at all.

SEGA ACTIVATOR… YOU ARE THE CONTROLLER

4 Years later it seemed people still hadn’t learned. Sega came out with their admirable attempt, the Sega Activator. This was most certainly the most ambitious of the motion controllers developed thus far. Previous attempts had been limited to hand motion. Now with the Sega Activator, your whole body was involved in the process, or as the promotional material (and the promotional material for Project Natal) have said, YOU ARE THE CONTROLLER.

The Sega Activator employed an octagonal ring for standing, using invisible light beams which could then be broken to send a signal to the MegaDrive. Which beam was broken and how high the beam was broken changed which button was pressed. So why aren’t we still talking about this amazing technology that revolutionised gaming? Well, I’m sure given the previous tech in this article you can see a theme emerging… motion sensing gaming technology has never worked.

Playing a game with the Sega Activator was a cross between a game of twister and interpretive dance. Each one of the eight floor panels was mapped to a button, games with complicated button combinations or simply pressing more than one button at once was very, very difficult. People found rather quickly that you can press a button much quicker than you can move your body, so using the Sega Activator put you at a disadvantage when playing competitive games.

For the first time ever, you are the controller. (Oh wait wrong picture)

CAN MOTION CONTROLLERS BE DONE WELL?

From what we’ve seen in the past there are lessons that can be learned. First of all: don’t be so quick to ditch the button. The only redeeming feature of the power glove was that it had it’s own separate standard NES controller attached which made all motion controls entirely optional.

Take the Wii for example, the biggest selling feature for that game is the motion controller. However, some of the biggest games not only support gamecube/classic controls but are much easier and more accurate with them. There are so many games and movements that can be done quicker and more reliably with a button press than an abstract and inaccurate body motion.

This ties in neatly with my next point: don’t simply map actions to button presses; this just makes the action a whole lot slower. How can swinging your arm in a certain way be a good substitute for an ‘A’ button when you can press that ‘A’ button and get the same on screen reaction at least three times faster than swinging your arm.

Hopefully the advances in technology over the past 17 years will allow this new crop of motion sensing technology to actually work and revolutionize gaming. Failing that they will be good to laugh at on YouTube in a few years and talk about how amazingly dumb they all were. Also, lets look on the bright side, these were all pretty dumb and didn’t work but at least no one ever tried controlling a game using just their eyebrows… Did they Atari?

If you want to send us any questions, comments or suggestions please email podcast@newbreview.com

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Few games this year seem to have been more contentious than Left 4 Dead 2, announced at E3 2009 to what seemed to be a reaction of joy from one section of the crowd, and calls for boycott from another. The key concern from those who were not happy about the announcement was over the short time between the original game, released last year, and this title. The worry was that it would essentially be a full price expansion pack as opposed to a proper sequel (Even though the distinction between the two is hazy at best). So how does Left 4 Dead 2 compare to the original? Is it a full sequel or just an expensive expansion pack?

So what has Valve done to make Left 4 Dead 2 stand on it’s own a proper game in it’s own right? Quite a lot actually, true there is no drastic overhaul of the Left 4 Dead formula but Valve have thrown a huge amount of new content to make the new title worth it. For the benefit of those who are unfamiliar with the original game you play as a survivor in a zombie apocalypse and you have to shoot your way through the zombie horde and escape with your life. Whilst the original had plenty to do Left 4 Dead 2 packs in so much more content.

First of all it features 5 completely new full campaigns that can be played bothsingle player and co-operatively with 4 other people online. Each campaign takes around 1 hour to play through, which may make the game sound very short, but don’t be fooled. Valve are quite possibly the champions of level design, each map in the campaigns is very well thought out and visually interesting so you won’t get bored seeing them numerous times, also like the previous game it features an AI director, which customises each play-through based upon how well your team is doing to ensure that each time you play the game is unique. Also the AI director has been updates to alter lighting and weather affects, whilst the first game only took place at night time this game has some campaigns in the day and one in particular, Hard Rain, has a brilliant weather system which changes rainfall and visibility based upon how well you are doing in order to make it harder to fit your play style.

Of course as well as having new maps there are also new zombies. Each of the campaigns have their own ‘uncommon common’ infected, these appear more often than the special infected and do different things but are, for the most part, as vulnerable as a standard zombie. To go down the list there are clown zombies, who attract all nearby zombies, Mudmen who hide under the swamp water to ambush you, CEDA agents who wear bio-hazard suits and carry around jars of boomer bile and Security guard zombies who are armored and can only be hurt from behind. Also there are three new special infected, all of which seemed to be designed to split your team up. First is the Charger who runs through the survivors and knocks them aside whilst picking up and running away with one survivor to take them away from the others and does severe damage bashing them into the ground. Then we have the Spitter who, funnily enough, spits a hazardous pool or acid at the survivors causing them to scatter to not get damaged. Finally there is the Jockey who leaps on a survivor and can guide them away from the team and into harms way. All these things put together shows that even in just the offline component, which is only one of four modes has a lot more to offer than before.

To add even more to people who have spent a lot of time playing the original Left 4 Dead and have managed to get very good at it a realism mode has been added. This is a new selectable difficulty which changes many things. First of all the only way to kill a zombie is with a head-shot so you’re going to have to learn to be much more accurate, also there are no messages on screen or any outlines so it can get hard to tell where things like weapons and ammo are as well as telling friend from foe when the zombie horde descend upon you. These changed at first appear slight but drastically change the game into what can be at times frustrating but an incredibly fun mode especially for the more masochistic among us.

Making a return from the last title is the Survival mode, this is very much the same as it was before. It uses the new maps and the new zombies of course but still retains the same basic game-play from the previous game. For those who have not played Left 4 Dead survival mode you are placed in a map where there is no way out and no end what you have to do is survive for as long as possible as wave after wave of enemies come at you. Strategy is key in this mode and it is just as fun as before. Also versus mode is carried across and handles much like it did in the first game. This four vs four competitive multi-player mode pits a team of survivors against other players who play as the infected. It is a lot of fun to play as the infected and creates a whole new style of play as you have much less health as a special infected but can re-spawn so you do have to work together to win the round. Of course you can play as one of the three new special infected as well as any of the original special infected. This mode is still as fun as before.

One of the main differences in Left 4 Dead 2 is that the game takes place during daylight hours

Valve have added an entirely new competitive multi-player mode into the mix, scavenge mode. This mode is prefaced in the first campaign finale where the survivors have to collect fuel tanks to fill up a car to escape. This is the premise of scavenge mode but uses the same multi-player setup with two teams of players, one survivors, one infected, against each other in a short and fun multi-player mode. One problem that the traditional versus mode runs into is that it takes place over the course of a campaign and so does require players to be involved for around an hour or possibly up to two hours, which shuts out people who just want to kill ten minutes or so in a quick multi-player game. Scavenge resolves as it is a time based game where the players take it in turns between survivors and infected and initially have ninety seconds to gather fuel cans with thirty seconds added to the timer for each fuel tank added. This makes it perfect for those who just want to jump in for a quick game to just play a few rounds in scavenge mode.

So is Left 4 Dead 2 worthy of being considered a full sequel in it’s own right? Of course it is. Valve have added so much to the game all the changes that are made are excellently done and add so much to the game in terms of game-play. If you’ve never played Left 4 Dead before there is so many different modes and each difficulty plays differently and the AI director ensures you never have the same experience twice. If you are a Left 4 Dead veteran there is easily enough new content to justify the upgrade.

REVIEW ROUND-UP

GRAPHICS: 5/5 – Top notch not only are the levels all detailed and really interesting the game also manages to put literally thousands of zombies on screen as well.

SOUND: 5/5 – Also top notch a lot of the sound is very subtle but absolutely incredible, the sounds of the zombies as well as the Louisiana-inspired music complement this game perfectly.

GAMEPLAY: 4/5 – You point your cross-hair at a zombie, you shoot the zombie. The game controls as you’d expect and does it very well nothing groundbreaking but if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.

LONGEVITY: 5/5 – The game is designed to be played online, there are loads of different modes, plenty of maps and so much time to be spent, each play-through is different but if you are not connected to the Internet, you will only get 1/5th of the game.

OVERALL: 5/5 – Amazing, takes one of the best games of last year and improves on it, I will be playing this game for the next few years (until Left 4 Dead 3 comes out) just about everything in the game is perfectly designed and perfectly balanced. It is worth noting that if you do not have online access you will only have access to 1/5thof the total content. It is designed to be played online with friends so if you have internet access and have friends then you need this game.

[starreview tpl=16]

Every year the Child’s Play charity seeks donations to aid children’s hospitals throughout the world and this is done with help from the gaming community. Child’s Play is a charity set up by the guys at Penny Arcade to show that the video games community is a loving and caring community and of course to support children’s hospitals by donating money, video games and toys to make a child’s stay in hospital more bearable.

Also, every year in aid of this charity the guys from Loading Ready Run play, what could possibly be the worst video game ever made, Desert Bus in aid of this charity for an obscene amount of time. So far they have been playing continuously for 3days 19hours and raised over $64,000 and the more people donate the longer they will play (and suffer) in aid of charity.

Please check out desertbus.org for the Desert Bus website where you can donate and watch online, and www.childsplaycharity.org for more info on the Child’s Play Charity.

The sequel to one of my favorite games of last year is just about to come out, so being the valve fanboy that I am I couldn’t wait to hand over my money pre-purchasing Left 4 Dead 2 on PC. As the demo has just come out on both PC and Xbox 360 I thought I’d go in and take a look to see what is new and report back what I found.

Left 4 Dead 2 is available for pre-order now for Xbox 360 and PC and will be released on Nov. 17 (Steam) and Nov. 20 (Retail)

Forza Motorsport and Gran Turismo, the two heavyweights of the racing genre seem to be gearing up to a big old brawl. With Gran Turismo set for a an early 2010 release Microsoft have their own hardcore racing sim to go and compete directly with it and it’s much bigger than ever before. According to Turn 10 the game features over 400 cars, 50 manufacturers and over 100 tracks, which I feel I should point out how they count those tracks, for example Nurburgring has 5 tracks as each stage is counted as a separate track alongside the full circuit. However this still does create a very sizable package.

Microsoft have spent a lot of time positioning Forza Motorsport as a hardcore racing sim and that is very much the focus of this title, however this doesn’t mean that more casual racing fans will not find enjoy this. Turn 10 have really gone out of their way to make it a much more accessible game than the previous games in the franchise. There are a lot of difficulty options to allow the game to suit a lot of different skill levels, for example you can have a racing line which shows you where to start turning and when to brake as well as having traction control and anti-lock brakes to make the car easier to handle.This allow people to easily get into the game and given that the higher the difficulty the greater your rewards it is balanced well by the game to get you to really push yourself. Also some of the other features have been refined to make them more accessible, if you are not really into tuning your cars and you don’t really know what all the upgrades do you can use the quick upgrade feature which optimises your car automatically given you have enough credits to do so.

One of the main new features that has been added to make the game easier is the rollback feature, if you mess up a corner you can press one button to rewind time and so have another go at the corner. This is a strange feature to add to what is very much a hardcore focus game but there are legitimate reasons for using it, for example in a 2 hour endurance race you could be 1hr 55mins into the race an then get knocked off the track by the AI and completely waste the last 2 hours of your life, now you can rewind the game and give it another go.

The main game is a beast, pure and simple, there is a huge amount of events laid before you and you can choose to take on whichever you desire or you can follow the season mode, which counts virtual years and suggests events for you to take based upon the cars you own. Given the huge amount of content and the way the game drip feeds you rewards and given how it changes based upon how you personalise your car it means that each person will have a very different career mode compared to other people. There is a good progression and whenever you finish an event you are asked to choose your next event given what content you want to see. The three choices, which are dependant upon the car you are currently in and gives you the option to either stick with your current car, see new tracks or see completely diffent cars. If however, you really don’t want to dive into the deep end of the extensive career mode there is a free play option which simply allows you to pick a car and pick a track and just drive and there is certainly a full games worth of content just doing that, so you can easily get plenty of hours of gameplay without ever touching the career.

In fact you don’t need to spend the entire time racing, there is loads to do on the side for any car enthusiast. The upgrading and customization are so in depth and coupled with the online storefront you can make plenty of in-game money and spend a lot of time just selling designs and tuning setups online. I guess the main thing I’m trying to put across is the sheer amount of content so if you have even a passing interest in cars you will be able to find something you enjoy about this game, and there is plenty to do for all the people who are really into cars as well and the game does well to give players who want to ultimate control over every aspect of their car whilst at the same time allowing the people who don’t want to go in that deep plenty of options and features to allow them to compete of a fairly level playing field.

I can’t stress enough how good this game is, it looks fantastic it’s smooth as hell, the cars all look accurate and very nice. It also has a huge amount of online features, as well as multiplayer racing there is a storefront feature which allows players to upload their designs, photos or videos online so other people can download them or view them. At any point during racing you can pause it to take a photo which is a nice option, as a point to how well this works, every screenshot used in this review was taken by me in game on the photo option. I can’t recommend this game enough, there is so much to do no matter what skill level you are or how much you are into cars.

GRAPHICS: 5/5 – The game is so beautiful everything is well detailed and looks great running at both high speeds and low speeds, all the environments and cars look right and look fantastic, you can just enjoy driving about looking at the scenery.

SOUND: 5/5 – All the sounds are very clear, they took their time to make all the cars sound like the real life versions and any upgrades you apply to the car do also change the sound in a way you’d expect. I do feel like there needs to be a few more songs on the background music but that is fixed by using custom soundtracks.

GAMEPLAY: 5/5 – It controls perfectly and you can configure the difficulty much further than easy, medium and hard to optimise it for you and your playing style.

LONGEVITY: 5/5 – OK, I’m going to say it up front, THIS GAME IS ON 2 DISCS! That’s how much content this game has, I have played for somewhere between 30 and 4o hours and I’m about at 15% career completion. That plus multiplayer is a whole load of time.

OVERALL 5/5 – Thinking I need to rename this review ‘A love letter to Turn 10′ I love this game and I will be playing it probably for the rest of time. If you have even a passing interest in cars then you will love this game.

[starreview tpl=16]

Name

Sacrifice is a Real Time Strategy game released for the PC back in 2000. Generally overlooked and forgotten this great title has influence in games even today. With the release of Tim Schafer’s Brutal Legend and given how reminiscent that game is of Sacrifice I decided to go back and shine some light on this sorely forgotten game.

Sacrifice is available from Steam for £6.99 and is great for anyone who likes RTS games.

FORMAT(S): PC, Xbox 360

DEVELOPER: Valve

PUBLISHER: Valve

Valve have just released a new DLC pack for Left 4 Dead called Crash Course. This adds a new campaign designed for versus mode (but fully playable in campaign mode) and 2 associated survival maps based off the new campaign. Being quite a big fan of Left 4 Dead myself I took a look at the DLC to give my own honest impressions. The new campaign is about half the length of the standard campaigns that shipped with the game, however it is split into 2 sections each of which seems longer than a single section from a standard campaign.

As the campaign is about half the length of the campaigns that shipped with the game but it does seem to pack in just about the same amount of zombies, causing this to be a bit faster paced than what you may be used to. In around half an hour of gameplay my team encountered roughly the same amount of enemies I would expect to encounter during a ‘full’ one hour campaign. Also, the longer sections can cause some frustration as there is much farther to travel following a bad encounter with a tank so if you play on the higher difficulties you might find yourself repeating sections many times.

This quicker pace and generally more frantic atmosphere does have an effect on the feel of the game. For example whilst playing a standard campaign the quieter moments in a campaign are the moments when you really take in the atmosphere of the game but I feel that having a much quicker pace stops you from taking in the atmosphere as you’re simply too busy dealing with the many enemies who are undoubtedly charging towards you. Also there is the AI, which struggles at the best of times, it really has a hard time coping with the new campaign given that the areas are more closed in and the frequency of special infected such as witches and tanks you can see your AI teammates making some really dumb descisions and getting killed for it much more than they would in a standard campaign.

Having said all that I do enjoy this campaign, so long as you get four good people together you will really enjoy the faster pace as you don’t have to worry about what the AI is doing. The 2 new survival maps are taken straight from the campaign and are as good as any of the other maps, and if you’re into versus mode this campaign was made with that in mind and will quickly become a goto map for any dedicated versus mode player. So if you enjoy Left 4 Dead you should probably give this a go, it doesn’t do anything drastically different and if you want a more action oriented campaign then this has you covered.

Crash Course is avaliable now on PC and Xbox 360, If you own the PC version steam downloads and installs this automatically so you already have it and for Xbox 360 owners it is avaliable on Marketplace for 560 Microsoft points.

FORMAT: PC

DEVELOPER: Nadeo

PUBLISHER: Valve

Recently at an event in France developer Nadeo confirmed that they were planning on releasing Trackmania 2 in 2010. I went back to look at an earlier title in the Trackmania series to see exactly what was we could look forward to.

Trackmania Nations Forever is a free game released by Nadeo in 2007 and is a smaller version of their retail product Trackmania United Forever and whilst it does have a much smaller feature set it does still stand by itself as a full game.

LINK

Name: Super Metroid
Format(s): SNES, Wii
Developer: Nintendo
Publisher: Nintendo

Xbox Live’s summer of arcade has recently finished and one of its key highlights was the incredible Shadow Complex, regularly described as a ‘Metroidvania’ style game and if you’re one of the many people who look at the word Metroidvania and have no idea what the hell they are on about then we are here to help.

In short metroidvania is a term used for a 2D action game with a heavy emphasis on exploring. They usually don’t follow a strictly linear and sometimes don’t always point to specific objectives allowing the player to find upgrades and content for themselves. One of the best examples is Super Metroid, which unsurprisingly has given it’s name to the term metroidvania itself. Whilst Super Metroid is most definately not the first (It is in fact the 3rd game in the Metroid series) it is easily one of the best.

Super Metroid was released in 1994 on the SNES and at the time was one of the largest, best looking and all round best games of its time. It follows the adventures of Samus Aran, a kickass bounty hunter, in her mission to track down and eliminate all the metroid (An energy sucking killing machine) from the galaxy. This is pretty much the same story as most other Metroid games, Nintendo do seem to have a knack for releasing games with very very similar storylines to previous iterations but it still manages to keep you interested. However, the story, whilst being a decent story, is not the one thing that made Super Metroid the best in the series and one of my favorite games in history.

At the time Super Metroid was a big step forwards in the series and in gaming, it had incredibly detailed graphics and featured possibly the largest world for players to explore. Whilst not a srticly open world the sheer size of the world and the ability to go pretty much anywhere at will. This is something that now we all take for granted with games such as Grand Theft Auto popularising the concept of an open world, whilst Super Metroid does not have an open world in the Grand Theft Auto sense it could be argued that the exploratory nature of the Super Metroid is very much a precursor to open world environments.

It is worth noting that as this is an older game it does get very hard, it is from an age where developers could only increase the length of their game by making it hard as possible. This means if you’re up for the challenge then you will spend many hours playing Super Metroid and since the internet became popular many groups appeared who compete in completing Super Metroid (along with other games) in the quickest possible times by playing the game in a different way than the developers intended in order to skip areas and post seemingly super human times.

So if you enjoyed Shadow Complex and want some retro awesomeness then you should definately check out Super Metroid as it is pretty much the starting point to that style of game. Yes Metroid and Castlevania 2 were out before this but no game did it as well before or really as well since. An essential game for anyone to have in their collection.

Super Metroid is avaliable on the Wii’s Virtual Console for 800 Nintendo Points.
Or if you’re awesome you might be able to find a cart for the Super NES.

Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood is a western themed first person shooter, which is something that we don’t get all too often in the gaming world. Sure there are plenty of movies and books based off the wild west but there have only been a couple of video games dedicated to this concept whereas World War II and Sci-fi Aliens have been driven into the ground by developers. You play as two brothers, both badass desperadoes as you would expect from the genre, who desert from the confederate army in order to protect their home and get caught up in a quest for Aztec treasure. Throughout the course of the game you go around checking many things off the western checklist, such as; breaking people out of jail, showdowns, fighting Mexican bandits and escorting wagons through Indian territory.

Bound in Blood on the whole is a very nice looking game, the developers have spent a lot of time making sure the game has some very nice and interesting effects. For example the heat and smoke effects are some of the best I’ve seen in any game, this sounds like a weird thing to pick up on but seems as they are both so well done and used quite a lot I thought they were worth mentioning. The game takes place in North America around the time of the American Civil War so the environments are made up of lush forests, dusty wooden towns and high up mountains and in the valleys between, all of which are beautifully detailed and just all round gorgeous. Also, in case your wondering the game runs smoothly and consistently so there are no weird graphical problems which detract from your enjoyment of the game, all of the lighting and water and animations are all incredibly realised and all look fantastic. However, the game tries to put over a cinematic feel by flourishes such as blurring and shaking around explosions, and seems as there are a lot of explosions this happens a lot, so if you’re a fan of actually being able to see what you are doing then you may get a bit frustrated at the games eagerness to obscure your view by constant blurring and shaking of the screen, which is also not fun if you are prone to motion sickness from games.

It has a typical western story, so much so that I expect that the writers for this game went down to the local HMV and picked up several box sets of western DVDs as well as a few notepads and by the end of the weekend Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood was written. By this is mean it is quite a generic story, this can kind of be excused when compared to other games which are also retreading heavily used storyline and in it’s defense the western storyline, whilst relying heavily upon cliches, have not been seen a great deal in video games westerns are usually the realm of movies. So you play as one of two brothers (there is also a 3rd brother named William, however the characters insist on calling him Wee’um for some unknown reason, but he’s not playable presumably because he’s useless) and whilst being western angry badasses they learn of some hidden aztec treasure so being the tough action types that they are decide they want a piece of that. On the way they meet up with some Mexican bandits, a lady who is rubbish at not being kidnapped and a group of Native Americans who have knowledge of the ancient mystical ways. I don’t want to give away any spoilers however if you’ve ever watched a western movie you can kind of see where the game is going, also if you’ve ever enjoyed the western storyline then you will most likely find this an enjoyable experience. It may be a bit generic and derivative but it is well held together and fairly well written.

So Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood is a first person shooter so that leaves some key questions as to how well it fares as a first person shooter. First of all how good and fun is the actual shooting in the game. So as already mentioned the game is set in the wild west and one thing to note is that old guns are not very good which can make the game really frustrating when you’ve used the six shots you get in just about every revolver and then have to spend an absolute age reloading as the enemies are happily filling you full of holes. At the beginning at each level the game gives you the choice of which character you wish to play as and this does have an effect on the gameplay, Thomas takes slightly less damage but his health regenerates incredibly fast so that doesn’t really matter, he also is a crack shot with a rifle and uses a lasso to reach areas Ray cannot. Ray, on the other hand, can dual wield hand guns so you have twice the ammo (and twice the reload time) and can take a bit more damage than Thomas and seems to move a bit slower as well as having the option to use dynamite as grenades. There is pretty much no real reason to ever use Ray if you have the option of Thomas open to you, the rifles are easily the best weapon in the game and as Ray is really inaccurate due to heavy reliance on dual handguns and the health regeneration of Thomas is so ridiculously fast you do not need the health boost of Ray. This reeks of poor game design when you find that the best way to play a game is with only one particular character using one particular gun then something has gone wrong somewhere along the line. One last thing I’m going to throw out there is the fact that movement feels really slow, compared to games such as Call of Duty where movement is nice and quick whereas in comparison Call of Juarez feels like all the characters are moving through treacle.

Like all modern games it contains the standard obligatory multiplayer modes. Mostly team based it uses a class system not entirely unlike Team Fortress 2. You pick a class at the beginning of the match and you can level up your particular class within the match, however this does not carry into other matches so any levels you gain only apply to the match you are playing. Quite possibly the most interesting mode is the Wild West Legends mode in which one team is given an objective, for example rob a bank, and the opposing team has to stop them from carrying out the objective within the time limit. This is a pretty standard mode that you can find in other games, albeit in a different setting, and that coupled with the general slowness of the whole game which does carry over into multiplayer means that a much more fun multiplayer game can be found in other places. One multiplayer mode that’s absence is very apparent is the omission of a co-operative mode, almost the entire campaign features 2 characters fighting side by side, so it makes no sense that there is no co-operative play.

There are good things and bad things with Call of Juarez, like many games. The graphics are gorgeous and so are the many effects that help suck you into the game, the story whilst a bit cliched holds together well and conveys a coherent and entertaining story. On the other hand as a first person shooter there are some serious problems, movement is too slow the guns are terrible and take ages to reload and one of the two characters feels a bit redundant. Also, for a game which has two main characters who are almost always together throughout the game to not have co-operative play is criminal. The game is fun but has it’s issues, worth playing and worth finishing I would recommend it to people who live westerns and are looking for a really good western game, but I would not really recommend it to people who want a good first person shooter. Oh, and as a last note NEVER play the first game simply called Call of Juarez as that game is terrible.

REVIEW ROUND UP:

Graphics: 5/5 – This is a very pretty game, it doesn’t use the same gun metal grey or dirty brown that many other shooters use and this gives it it’s own fresh feel.

Sound: 4/5 – Sound work is good but fairly unremarkable, voice actors are good and convey the right emotion into their lines and explosions sound fine but nothing really stands out.

Gameplay: 3/5 – For a first person shooter the entire game is far too slow, reloading takes an absolute age and characters feel like they move through treacle, not exactly bad gameplay but the entire game is just a bit sluggish

Longevity: 3/5 – Solid single player but once it’s done, it’s done. You could play the mulitplayer but that’s just the usual generic multiplayer you could find anywhere else, so with Team Fortress 2 still being a top contender for multiplayer, why bother with this one?

Overall: 3/5 – It is pretty fun and if you are a fan of westerns you can probably get a lot from this.  For the general first person shooter fan then the speed of this game will frustrate you and apart from the setting and the visuals this game does not do anything that hasn’t been done better somewhere else.

[starreview tpl=16]

Price guide (prices correct as of 08-Sep-09)

• Zavvi: £14.95
• The Hut: £22.73
• Sendit: £22.89
• Amazon: £22.96
• Play: £24.99
• Game: £24.99