Ah my beloved Fallout, finally back where it belong; back East in Nevada and Mojave Desert, but not, of course in its original isometric style. But that’s the old school fan in me talking. So what do we have to look forward in this latest standalone incarnation in this post-apocalyptic series?

In this incarnation you don’t start playing as a Vault Dweller, but are instead identified as ‘The Courier’ carrying important information to the New California Republic, a faction that old fans will recognise from Fallout 2 who has now come to dominate the whole of California and is spreading beyond.

However you get off to a bad start. You wake up half buried in the sand, after being shot in the head. Luckily you are then rescued by a robot named Victor with a TV for a head. Amazingly enough, you are not plagued by horrible brain damage and get fixed up by the very helpful Doc Mitchell, who then quizzes you starting character creation, before he suits you up with a vault 21 suit, a old pistol and..Of course…your pipboy 3000!

Your mission after slipping into your new slacks is to find the item you were carrying and explore the environment you find yourself in. Starting with your first town, Goodsprings which will be introducing you to the game, giving you your first missions hunting geckos (back from fallout 2!) and like Megaton, you’ll have the chance to destroy it later on and also chose to ally or fight against a local gang. So far so standard, but what else is there to intrigue and entertain new players?

Well, there are a slew of new enemies, including a few old faces from Fallout 2, such as the Nightkin Supermutants, combat ready badass mutherfuckers who will have access to stealth boys to sneak up on you and twist your head off like pulling a grape from the vine.

There’s also a load of new weapons, including a grenade launcher, throwing spear, a Nine Iron and a nice stick of dynamite for when you want to blow stuff oldskool style.

A nice change from F3 is that you can repair your items up to 100 per cent straight away without needing a high repair skill, and you can also customize them with larger clips, scopes and different ammo types. You’ll also be coming up against creatures and people wearing armour that has to be worn down before you can start to damage them, making it feel more realistic and challenging rather than just having blanket protection.

Now at a glance, you’ll notice that there is very little difference in how New Vegas looks in relation to F3. Obsidian is using the same engine to create and populate New Vegas as in F3, but with a few tweaks.   So it looks like we’re still going to be looking at a mass of grey, brown and yellow, but hey, it’s a post apocalyptic RPG, that’s kinda the scenery.

Reputation replaces Karma as your moral compass, which makes a bit more sense. It’ll better reflect your standing with the various factions in the desert, from the old established brotherhood of steel, the growing New California Republic, and the evil slavers, Creasers Legion. Not to mention throwbacks to the original Fallout with minor factions like the Gun Runners, Followers of the Apocalypse and the Crimson Caravan.

You can now control your various companions by using a new ‘companion reel’ allowing you to issue commands and better control those who’ll be fighting alongside you.  This should make for a much more fluid combat scenarios and relive the traipsing through menus to get what you want done.

Now being Las Vegas, there is also the needed addition of gambling, and possibly cheating to up your caps. You have poker, Black Jack, slots, anything that a self respecting casino would provide. I wonder if you’ll have the chance to beg for extra caps when the chips are down…

But perhaps the bests fauture, in my eyes, is the new Hardcore mode. Why? because it makes teh game more challenging without just giving your enemys a lot more health. Now you’ve got to deal with the weight of ammo, keeeping yourself hydrated, fed and rested. Those stimpacks are no longer magical insta healing potions, and those crippled limbs need a doctor or a doctors bag to patch yourself up.

It looks like we’re in for a very solid game. While some people have compared New Vegas to the DLC to F3, but I think that’s being unkind. Yes it is going to be very similar, but with some good changes in terms of the interface. I’m hoping for a much stronger storyline, but I’m confident Obsidian will deliver.

-That Bloke In The Beanie

I’ll be honest – a couple of months ago, I barely knew of Scott Pilgrim. While I’d heard whispers of the book’s greatness (mainly from Garv), I’d never read them myself. However, when the movie was released last week, the gamer side of me felt obligated to go and see it, given that it was supposed to be an homage to all things gaming. Two hours later, I walked out of the cinema grinning like a chimpanzee that just spotted a banana buffet – I loved it, and would happily say it’s the best gaming-related movie I’ve ever seen.

The first thing I did when I got home was download Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game on PSN. While I generally avoid movie related games like the plague, there were two reasons for this - firstly, the game appeared to be based more on the original texts rather than a movie-to-game adaptation. Secondly, the game looked to be a retro beat-em up filled with gaming references and in-jokes. For the decent cost of £7.99, I downloaded it and got ready for some old-school gaming.

With 1-4 players locally, you can choose from four of the Scott Pilgrim cast – Scott, Kim, Stills or Ramona. Assuming you’re familiar with older titles such as Streets of Rage, Golden Axe or Knights of the Round, you’ll feel right at home with Scott Pilgrim – the game plays as a side-scrolling beat-em-up, taking town groups of enemies as you go – finally leading up to the stage’s boss. Naturally, the game’s main bosses include all seven of Ramona’s evil exes, each with their own stage with its own environments and music.

The game’s graphical style looks very retro with its pixel sprites and it’s animation style – and it looks great. The game is really colourful, and the areas are vibrant and are oozing with artistic detail. Having only seen the movie (so far), there are plenty of locations that I recognise – including Scott’s lair, the park, the Toronto film set and the Chaos Theatre. There are plenty of other locations, however – ranging from on a train, to a graveyard, a forest, a party and more. The game’s music also shines – offering a retro-style arcade soundtrack that would sound very at home with the classic titles, and being enjoyable enough to get stuck in your head.

Although the game has a very retro style – it’s been a bit updated. As with the awesome Castle Crashers on Xbox Live, characters are able to level up and gain new abilities. While you start off with a couple of basic moves and a block ability, defeating enemies earns you experience – and each time you gain a level up (with a maximum of 16 levels) you unlock a new ability. These include low attacks, down strikes, throws, evades and signature skills, and they really do offer a good mix of abilities – with each character having their own set of combos and moves to learn. On top of this, you have “guts” points under your HP, which can be used in a few ways. Firstly, they can be used to perform each character’s “guts” attack – usually a crowd clearing special move, such as Scott’s spin-kick. Secondly, you can spend them to call in Knives to do an assist attack – which varies depending on which character you are, and lastly, they can be used to restore some of your HP if you hit zero, which can be a life-saver at times (literally). There’s also a special ‘hyper mode’ that you enter if you defeat five enemies without taking a hit – which allows you to move faster and do more damage for a limited amount of time.

Although gaining levels earns you new abilities – they don’t actually make your stats stronger. Instead, you must collect coins dropped by enemies, with which you can purchase various items. During most levels, there are often doors in the background that you can enter (some of them hidden) where you can spend your coins on food, CDs, books and other items. Some of them boost your different stats, making you stronger or faster, others heal you. Snacks can be taken with you “to go”, so that if you hit zero HP, they will be used to heal you a little, similar to how guts points can.

While you’ll obviously be battling the evil exes, the game has a variety of opponents to battle you on your way. The enemies are quite varied – ranging from your average thugs, to men in dinosaur costumes, ninjas and robots. The game can be quite tough at times – especially if you don’t boost your stats much – and you’ll find yourself getting punched, bundled, set on fire, stabbed and shot – but it’s all good fun! There’s usually a trick to defeating them, and once you get a bit stronger you’ll be taking them down in no time.

The bosses are perhaps my favourite part of the game – each one instantly recognisable from the film, and all with their own fighting style and special attacks – such as Matthew’s fireballs and demon-girl attacks, and Todd’s psychic-vegetable based abilities. They can be quite challenging, each offering a different experience – and it’s incredibly satisfying to hear the “K.O.!” once you land the final blow.

As you get the knack of things and grow stronger things become easier – but it can be quite challenging. Whilst many beat-em-ups would work as coin-op style games with a lot of lives and continues, you are limited to 3 lives per level – and if you lose all of them you’ll have to start the stage from the beginning. Most of the stages are quite long – which is good in gameplay terms - but be warned if you hate having to replay stages! That said, if you want it’s fairly easy to grind a little earlier on and buy lots of stat boosters, so you can progress through the game a lot more easily. If you want a real challenge, you could even try beating the game with no stat-boosts at all!

Of course, one of the best things about SPvsTW:TG are all of the gaming references – and there are loads of them. You’ll see triforces on crates, Mario blocks in the sub-space highway stages, special moves reminiscent of Street Fighter and Streets of Rage, Megaman E-Tank items available to buy, Castlevania style Medusa heads - you even get to play Guitar Hero with Todd before your battle to the death. There are so many references – no matter where you are you’ll probably be able to see something.

You don’t need to have read the books or seen the film to enjoy the game  - it’s a really solid arcade-style beat-em-up that just shows how retro style games can stand the test of time. For less than a tenner I think Scott Pilgrim is a very worthy addition to any gamer’s library. And oh, if you haven’t seen the movie – you probably should.

- Leon (Rating: Scott Pilgrim Fan)

If zombie games have taught me anything, there are two ways to survive in a zombie apocalypse. 1) keep to the shadows, don’t let the zombies see you and get to the safe house in one piece. Or 2) run through the zombie ridden enviroment taking out every single zombie with a whole array or weapons and blunt objects till you finally plough your way through to the safe house. As you can probably guess the latter is my favorite, games like Left 4 Dead and Dead Rising to rank highly in my books. So am I excited for the next installment in the Dead Rising zombie apocalypse?

To be honest I didn’t play much of the first game, this is because I had the smallest standard definition TV ever. Meaning I had no idea what time it was when I looked at my watch and I couldn’t see half the text. The first Dead Rising game was built for HD and I am hoping the next outing will cater more to the skint gamers out there who can only use standard def TV’s.

Now that’s all my complaining out the way let’s get down to what Dead Rising is all about. For those of you who don’t know, Dead Rising is about surviving a zombie apocalypse and within a certain time limit. In the first game you played Frank West and you were dropped off on the roof of a mall during a zombie break out, to find survivors and save them. The choppers would be back in two hours to pick you up, if you weren’t back on the roof in the allotted time you would fail the game. This was a different way of playing the game, luckily game hours weren’t the same a human hours which gave the game a sence of urgency but not enough to completely stress you out.

Anyone for a spot of shopping at the mall?

Dead Rising 2 is set in Capcom and Blue Castle Game’s answer to Las Vegas. You play a biker called Chuck Greene and you have been framed for unleashing the zombie horde on the glamorous city and it is up to you to find survivors and clear your name. Much like Dead Rising 1 you are against the clock to fulfill your objectives, if you miss your objectives or die, you lose the game. Mind you this time round you have save slots, which can be a relief for some gamers out there or utterly blasphemous for some hardcore Dead Rising players. But then again you do have the choice not to save and just play the game old school Dead Rising 1 style (and I bet there will be an achievement with that)

The biggest change is the weapon combos. Now I don’t mean fighting combinations,. I mean sticking 2 things together to make an uber weapon. For example, the pitch folk shot-gun, or the knife blade boxing gloves. These things can be constructed in the maintenance room. Once created these then unlock combo cards which give you the recipe for these awesome weapons, so if you need to construct them again you can simply look at your cards. This also goes for concocting health tonics and all sorts of manner of things, the game also supports vehicles as well, which again you can strap weapons too making for all sorts of carnage.

Anyone for boxing?

Dead Rising 2 is shaping up to be one hell of a Zombie slayer. With the inclusion of custom weapons and vehicles as well this game is set to separate the true zombie slayers from the bunch.

Dead Rising 2 comes out in the UK on the 24th of September, till then, you better get the practise in on Dead Rising 1.

Garv

So here it is. The final part to the latest season of Telltale Games’ Sam and Max. In this season alone the duo have stopped an alien invasion, quelled the rising of an Elder God, dethroned an Egyptian Pharaoh and fought off an army of clones. Now Max is possessed by an Elder God and is rampaging and destroying the city while armies of his flaming head feed off the dreams of the sleeping. Sam only has a short amount of time to assemble a team and get inside him and stop the madness before Acting-President Agent Superball has him and New York City nuked. Taking place two weeks after Beyond the Alley of the Dolls, the ride stops here as the story reaches its brilliant conclusion in the best Sam and Max Finale yet!

The final chapter starts as Sam is charged with the task of assembling a team go get inside Max, who is now a giant monster attacking the city. The fact that Sam is mostly operating on his own again like in parts of They Stole Max’s Brain! is solved by the Max spores flying around the city trying to force the citizens to sleep to feed off their dreams. Their presence throughout the episode prevents a large absence of max, and thus helps prevent a potential pitfall in a better way than They Stole Max’s Brain! attempted to. This means there’s still the humour generated by the back-and-forthing of the titular characters which helps keep the episode hilarious, and even provides some insanely funny moments that couldn’t happen if Max was there with you.

The episode for some reason feels more limited than other episodes in terms of areas you can access, especially at the beginning, but much less so at the end. In the beginning, you’re only allowed access to inside and outside the labs, and nowhere else. While this works with the episode, for some reason it feels limited and gives an impression of little room for experimentation. These fears are all absolved when you realise how well the puzzles work, and how hilariously well previous characters in the Sam and Max series show up for short cameos and puzzles. For the most part, these cameos are hilarious and work in well with the episode, rather than feeling like they’re forced in for the sake of it because it’s a Season finale. The only cameo that doesn’t feel well fit in is Lincoln, who appears twice in the episode, gets one line, and no mention is given as to why he has a body again or why, meaning the whole cameo feels really forced and almost pointless. Still, the opening of the game does well to tie in the other characters and still make you laugh while providing some clever puzzles. Of course, this all acts as a warm up to the other acts in the episode, and after the mysterious Narrator teases you to guess who the true mastermind behind the events of the season is, you’ll be raring to go to find out who and discover the chilling conclusion.

Another thing that needs to be applauded in this episode is the brilliant characterisation that gets provided for some of the characters. Sam himself gets a subtly deep look at his character and his friendship with Max on top of the usual jokes and the story, and Max is looked at in-depth brilliantly and makes you care about the characters even more than you would have before. Some of the returning cameos tease it as well, and open up some more potential if there’s a future season. I’ll admit though, I was disappointed with the conclusion of the Stinky storyline that’s been running throughout the season. It didn’t feel adequately explained in this episode, and even when this is pointed out for humour and a twist is given the whole thing felt like it left a lot of questions unanswered with no future opportunity to expand on it, almost giving the episode a weak point.

In terms of puzzles, while there are some difficult puzzles, most of them are amazingly well thought out and shouldn’t take too long to figure out, with several eureka moments and nothing that’ll frustrate the player as while some are difficult, none are obscure or pointless, as everything has a purpose and works well. They all help to tie into the story somehow and fit in amazingly with the rest of the episode, helping to pace it better than the previous season finales. You’ll have a lot of fun with this episode, even without the psychic powers, which exist in this episode in a well thought-out way and don’t feel forced, and help to give the episode a good challenge without being too easy or too demanding.

The balance of humour and story is there yet again, and provides some of the most hilarious moments of the season despite the massive ramping up of story, especially near the end. You’ll be constantly laughing throughout the episode, especially with a little experimentation, and the storyline manages to expertly tie up a lot of the previous events of the season with a great twist. There’s however not much else to add on the humour front. If you found the other episodes funny, you will this too, with several moments in this episode being highlights of the season. The story and its twists are also brilliant, but I won’t elaborate on them to avoid the risk of spoiling anything. It’s not all hilarity in the story though, as TellTale Games manage to pull at the heartstrings in several moments that show how much they learnt from their time working on the Tales of Monkey Island story. However, Tales of Monkey Island potentially has the edge on this, but The City That Dares Not Sleep does an amazing job at this when it tries.

Me, after holding this all in until the embargo lifted proved too much...

There’s so much I want to say about the ending, how it ties everything up well and almost teases the player, but there’s nothing I can say that wouldn’t spoil the ending for you. But, I loved the ending. It was nearly heartbreaking at points, and the music was so well done at this point that it almost bought a tear to my eye. The ending is spectacular, but part of me wishes it would have ended a tiny bit earlier and teased the player that little bit more. You’ll know what I mean when it happens, but even when it does, the ending is still fantastic, and a brilliant way of seeing out the season.

So that’s it. The end of Sam and Max: The Devil’s Playhouse. How was it? It was the best season of Sam and Max without a doubt. You can tell that TellTale Games learnt a lot from Tales of Monkey Island and helped apply it to the Devil’s Playhouse to give the players potentially their finest work to date. With the Back to the Future and Jurassic Park seasons coming out later this year and next, the next season of Sam and Max might be a long time coming, but this season is basically a can’t miss. The Devil’s Playhouse as a whole is a fantastic product that proves that point-and-clicks aren’t dead, and prove humour in games can be done amazingly. It improves on all of the previous seasons and other series TellTale have made and gives you a fantastic adventure in a constantly hilarious, clever and spellbinding season with few overall weak points and a lot going for it. An amazing conclusion to a sensational season, and one you’d be a fool to miss out on.

-Jokesound

Sam and Max: The Devils Play House – The City That Dares Not Sleep was supplied for review by Telltale Games.

It is very simple to compare a game like Nintey Nine Nights to the Dynasty Warriors  games both the games have the same sort of game play and mission based system. The idea behind these games is to take down armies of soldiers and complete objectives to win a war against your foes.

So as you can imagine with these type of games you get a stupid amount of soldiers coming towards you and you have to fight them all off,  it is pretty much a whole army vs you. Now in all honesty when I first played these type of games, the whole game and concept didn’t capture my imagination, it didn’t draw me in. You think it would as I do love my hack and slash games but there was something about the Warriors games and indeed the first Ninety Nine Nights (which we will now label N3) .

So I thought I would give N3 2 a go, after playing Fist Of The North Star at MCM expo (which I love by the way) I thought I would give this a go as it was in the same kind of vain. To be honest, I liked it.

The demo itself is quite short. You can only select one character and do one mission of the overall game so it is just a little taster of what N3 2 has to offer but the graphics and the overall gameplay itself was quite engrossing. You have special moves assigned to each character which actually look special. I think that is one of the things that got me about the warriors games was that the special moves werent that uber or shiny looking (I like a lot of magic and shiny awesomeness to go with my special moves) and in this game the specials look pretty apocalyptic and look as though they are doing some serious damage as well.

One thing I do like about N3 2 from the demo I played was that the enemies seemed less static. In previous warriors games I played I though most of the enemies didn’t attack you as much and just stood there. True if a real horde of soldier attacked you out numbering you 500 to 1 you probably wouldn’t have a chance if they were all attacking you at the same time. But have just enemies run up to you and stand there I didn’t like much in the warriors games.  N3 2 on the other hand-made me feel I was actually fighting in a war. Less of the enemies were just standing there they actually felt like they wanted to kill me. Not just crowding round me to get my autograph.

The mission it self was simple but good. The aim was to destroy 3 spawn ponts on the map while fighting through hordes of enemies with your giant swords. I really did feel powerful. The challenge came with the mini boss fight at the end. This guy didn’t take no for an answer and I took a pretty heavy beating. But I managed to finish the mission in one.

Ninty Nine Nights 2 is a game that I would really love to play more of, and a step in the right direction with war based hack and slash games.

Garv

Turns out Mario has a new favorite website, check out the video it see what it is

Looks like Plus XP has a pretty stable fan base now.

Garv

While gaming is a hugely successful industry, and has been growing rapidly over the last couple of decades – for some reason there really seems to be a lack of coverage on television. While there are many shows related to film reviews and the like, gaming just doesn’t seem to be able to find a real place on TV screens – aside from the odd advert or two that have been becoming a little more common nowadays.

Strangely, the biggest gaming TV I can recall was GamesMaster, which was actually quite successful, shown on Channel 4 from 1992 up until 1998. While the games industry was only getting stronger at that point, the senior staff at Channel 4 were responsible for it’s removal – just when the show was getting more serious, aimed at real gamers and delivering the kind of stuff that was interesting to watch. But it was not to be – and the show was never to be seen again. Since then, there have been a few attempts at gaming shows – all of which have failed to grasp any real attention. I remember an old gaming channel on Sky, Game Network (which was actually where I first heard about Devil May Cry – which grew to become one of my favourite games), which used to be run by people from Holland (or somewhere in that region) – however amongst some of the genuine info, it was full of phone-in competitions and repeated sections, general rubbish to try and fill space and bring in a bit of extra cash – it’s late night hours filled with condescending “Babestation” stuff that cheapened the channel furthermore. The overall experience was a little like trying to read a game article crammed in the corner of a page full of ads, but it was better than nothing. 

We need more shows like this

Since then, however, it’s all been fairly quiet. No-one quite seems willing to cash out and produce a decent quality gaming show – leaving us with mediocre attempts that have failed and given little hope for others who might wish to try something similar. However, more recently I discovered two new shows on Bravo – GameFace, and Ginx Files, which were two half-hour, back to back gaming shows that actually seemed to be produced by the exact same people. The only real difference seemed to be that GameFace featured Julia Hardy as it’s main presenter (+50 points), while Ginx Files was simply done via voiceovers over game footage. Although the show wasn’t the most amazing production ever - and did start off showing fairly old news – I found that the shows got better as the weeks passed, finding new info that I hadn’t seen before, and they were by far the best (if only) gaming programmes on TV. Sure, it was a presented in a bit of a cheesy way, but it was nice to see a decently produced show that focused solely on gaming news and reviews.

But it seems that the producers have bigger ideas – the team behind the shows plan to open a new TV channel this November. While they are currently planning general game reviews and information (which sounds like the sort of content their shows already do), they are hoping to expand in the future into other gaming related shows – such as documentaries, and topics such as celebrities gaming habits. While they do seem to be aiming the channel at a mass market – which is understandable – it’s good to hear that there are already plans to expand upon the channel and improve it’s overall quality. According to Ginx’s CEO, there are concepts of perhaps expanding into HD and 3D gaming reports in the future as well.

This was probably the last decent games program we had. Retro.

Of course, it’s far too early to say whether or not Ginx will sink or swim. However – before you decide, consider that there’s far too little gaming coverage on TV at the moment. I for one will be showing my full support for the new station – as the deciding factor of it’s success will ultimately be whether or not the channel gets enough viewers. I think it’s about time we got some quality coverage out there – and I’d much rather stick on a gaming channel when I’m bored rather than MTV.

-Leon

Ok before anyone asks, no, we are not starting to do film reviews. This is just a one-off film review because lets face it, if you can get anymore video game references into Scott Pilgrim Vs The World then you would pretty much be observing someone playing a video game, and its with that opening statement I give you my Scott Pilgrim Vs The World film review.

From the get go the film doesn’t hesitate to pay tribute to the original comic book series by Brian Lee O’malley. Even though this is a film that is supposed to be based on the books, there are a lot of differences from the original comic book series, namely the end has changed and some of the middle bits have been cut out, that’s probably due to the fact that the film was being made while the comic were still being written. With that said it is a very good movie that no gaming geek should miss out on.

The story of the film revolves around a 22 year old called Scott Pilgrim. He has a basic life living with his gay roommate Wallace Wells, He is the bass player in his band call sex bob-bomb, (yes it is a gaming reference to the bob-bomb enemies in Mario) and he has just started dating a 17 year old chinese girl called Knives Chau. So all is going well for him untill he sees another girl in hs dreams. Not knowing who this girl is he just goes on with his life untill he sees her in real life, the literal girl  of his dreams. He dumps Knives and starts dating this dream girl called Ramona Flowers. There is a snag with dating Ramona, Scott now has to defeat Ramona’s seven evil Ex’s in order to date her. Then the story escalates into some pretty cool fights and a true story of epic proportions.

What I love about this movie is the serious amount of game references that are in it. True the original comic book series was crammed full of gaming references, but seeing it translated to the silver screen did really put a smile on my face. Each battle against the Evil Ex’s pretty much starts with a Street Fighter Vs screen face off then they break into battle. Each Ex has their own special ability, without giving too much away my favorite battle has to be against Evil Ex number 3, Todd Ingram, as the fight does end up in a Bass guitar battle. The one movie that makes Bass Guitars awesome and I love it.

As for the cast of the movie, they pretty much have got it down to the tee. I hate to say this but Michael Cera does a mediocre job as Scott Pilgrim as Cera is pretty much Michael Cera in everything he is in, but that said he doesn’t spoil the overall movie. The other cast members do an awesome job though, not many famous faces but Chris Evans (Fantastic 4, Push) does an awesome job as the 2nd Evil Ex Lucas Lee who is a movie star/professional skate boarder. Also Kieran Culkin (Brother of Macaulay Culkin) does a brilliant job as Wallace, Scott’s gay house mate.

The style of the overall film pays homage to a lot of video games like I said earlier, but what I do like is that you can tell that this film was written and directed by a Geek. Edgar Wright, they guy behind Shaun Of The Dead and Hot Fuzz truly has paid homage to gaming geeks around the world. With every single person Scott defeats exploding into a cloud of coins and a point bonus appearing you can tell that the creators of this film really do love their video games and you also get some awesome things like Extra Lives and hit combos. It’s little things like this that truly make the film for me.

Even though this Film differs a lot from the original comic book series, as a stand alone film it was worth the wait, personally I think this is defiantly one of the films of the year. Sure Michael Cera is not the greatest guy to play Scott Pilgrim but what he lacks, the rest of the cast and the overall movie make up for.

defiantly one to catch.

- Garv

Jokesound

Having read only a tiny bit of Volume 2 when at Garvaos’, I didn’t really know what to expect from Scott Pilgrim. What I got from it was one of the most amazing cinematic experiences I have seen in a while, and this is in a year where I’ve already seen Inception, Toy Story 3, and Get Him To The Greek. A lot about Scott Pilgrim caught me by surprise; the amazing casting, the brilliantly wacky story and humour, and the incredible direction that helped make the film a definitive experience. However, there’s one major aspect of the film that I loved the most, and that’s the fact that it allows itself to be the greatest videogame-film I’ve ever seen, despite not being based off a videogame at all.

The references permeate throughout the film and become an essential part to it, from Zelda tunes being played to fight games being referenced, to the fantastic ending. It truly becomes a film that allows you to fully enjoy and embrace the videogame trappings. The trick that works most effectively though is that apart from Zelda, no other games are specifically mentioned or referenced, but tropes of games and aspects of them are integral to the film. You don’t especially need to have played any specific games to particularly enjoy Scott Pilgrim, but having a knowledge of them will help you immensely.

Otherwise, Scott Pilgrim is balls-to-the-wall action with humour at every turn. Personally, I was never bored. I didn’t find any flaws with the film at all and I loved everything about it, even without a deep knowledge of the books. If you’re a comedy fan, go see this film. If you’re an action fan, go see this film. If you want to find the best adaptation of videogames to cinema you may possibly ever see, this is the film for you.

-Jokesound

Johnny Cadge Is Back - Image From IGN.com

Then there was Mortal Kombat Vs DC Universe and to be honest to this day I have still not brought myself to even play that game. For me Midway had truly killed what was once a pretty cool game back on the Mega-Drive.

The past few months though my ears have pricked up. The announcement of a new Mortal Kombat game simply called ‘Mortal Kombat’ had been mentioned here and there. To be honest at first glance I thought it would be another Midway fail but it turns out that the creators got a new development company in called NetherRealm Studios. Also that Warner Bros will be publishing the title and that this is a much-needed reboot for the series and indeed the franchise.

Image From IGN.com

The story is simple. Raiden has finally been defeated by Shao Kahn and Earth Realm now faces extinction. The only plan Raiden has up his sleeve now is to relay a message to his past self to finish this before it all kicks off - this then spans the story lines of MK1. 2 and 3 in a re-envisioning of the once great fighting game. This in turn makes the first games valid but also gives the first game a much deserved re-boot which I have been waiting for, for a long time.

So what has this new Mortal Kombat got in store for us? Well, besides a new graphical spin, new in-depth story line (the most in-depth story line ever to be used in a Mortal Kombat game) and even gorier details. The game has had a reboot when it comes to fighting. Ed Boon, the co-creator of Mortal Kombat stated that the games combat will be based on custom combinations the player will come up with. Also there is the new Tag-Team system which again will mix things up for the player, so you can really play this game how you want to. There are even three types of special move in this game, special moves, enhanced special moves and X-Ray moves which let you observe the inner damage you are doing to you opponent. God knows what it’s going to be like for button bashers though. It could be button basher heaven or hell.

You can see the damage inflicted as the fights goes on - Image From IGN.com

So as this is a flash back to the past of course you are going to get some of the original roster back. Watch me jump for joy as Johnny Cage returns to the Mortal Kombat scene. As this is a sort of travel back to the past as opposed to an MK1, 2 and 3 remake. Things are going to happen differently. People are going to change into cyborgs who didn’t before, that type of thing. So this is a must have title for any hardcore Mortal Kombat fan, and indeed any newbie to the MK scene.

Mortal Kombat is due for release some time next year. Ed Boon is hoping sometime Q1 or Q2 2011. Untill then I will just drool over the extra brutal Fatalities and get my love back for Mortal Kombat.

Garv.

Over the last couple of weeks teaser trailers and artwork has begun to appear giving us a small glimpse of the next installment in the highly popular Bioshock series.

Set in 1912 before the events of Bioshock one and two it could be assumed that this game is a prequel to the other Bioshock titles. Don’t let this fool you though, oh no it would appear that this game is quite different. Firstly Bioshock Infinite abandons the familiar underwater city of Rapture and takes to the skies in an entirely new floating city called Columbia. This gives the game a very different feeling from previous Bioshock titles, one not of claustrophobia but of light, space and fresh air. In Bioshock infinite you play as agent Booker DeWitt. Booker has been sent to the floating city to rescue a character called Elizabeth who for reasons unknown has been imprisoned and is unable to escape. As with the original Bioshock games Booker and Elizabeth have multiple special abilities which when used alone or combined with each other can be used to fight their way out of columbia. This is just a fist glimpse of what appears to be a surprisingly simple storyline. Break in, get the girl, fight the bad guys, escape before the city falls out of the sky. Still, I really don’t expect that it will be this simple, do you?

Aside from the obvious fact it is not underwater, it appears that there is much more this first glimpse of Columbia can tell us. Firstly it is easy to notice the large amount of propaganda plastered around the floating city. Though this propaganda is a traditional feature of the Bioshock series, interestingly this time it has taken on a much more patriotic theme. Though this could be read as simply patriotism gone mad, a later screen shot shows us that this game may have some links to the 4th of July Independence day celebrations. As we know in Bioshock one things all began to go wrong at a new years celebration begging the question could this be drawing comparison with the original Bioshock game?

In addition to this the propaganda shown also gives us a small, if not a little unclear insight into further themes within this game. The screen shot below clearly shows us a poster emblazoned with the slogun “Do not burden Columbia with your Chaff”. Though at this stage I am merely speculating the true meaning of this message if you liken it to the phrase “separating the Wheat from the Chaff” this poster takes on quite a sinister meaning. My guess is that once again we will be presented with theme of a failed attempt to create a utopian society possibly with the further use of specially selected children for some dire purpose. Its all just speculation for now, but I for one am guessing that as with Rapture, Columbia is not all that it seems.

From this first look at Bioshock Infinite is it clear to see that in dragging the city up from the depths of the sea certain changes to the mood and art style of the game have had to have been made. Differing greatly from the dark and damp art deco world of Rapture Columbia is instead airy and open with much more of a mad inventor vibe. In the opening seconds of the teaser trailer we are shown an ornament depicting the Chicago world trade fair of 1893. With worlds trade fairs having a distinctly retro feeling of invention and innovation it is soon apparent that this choice of ornament is not just coincidence. The city is powered by a strange mixture of metal fans and hot air balloons giving it a strangely retro and yet obviously scientific vibe. Looking further at the floating city the new aerial setting does give Columbia a definite wow factor, I cannot help but feel the lack of the claustrophobic feeling created by the knowledge that the weight of an ocean could fall in and crush you at any moment does definitely take away from the all important Bioshock fear factor. Then again I am not afraid of heights… perhaps Booker is…

As attached to Rapture as I am this new city both excites and intrigues me. I am however slightly worried about certain other aspects of the game. For example in the first two bioshock games we rarely got a close up look at actual human characters, well not ones who weren’t spliced beyond recognition anyway. The trailer for bioshock Infinite clearly shows us both of the main protagonists as well as multiple other characters, all of which to me look look, well, too child-friendly. Part of the fear factor of Bioshock was in the fear of what lurked in the shadows, and having everything is bright sunlight is to me detracting from the grim mystery of the game.

On a positive note we are also shown what appears to be a new type of big daddy character. Though part biological this new menace seems to be much more in keeping with the steam punk trend than his deep sea cousins adding exciting new aesthetic possibilities to this game. I am truly looking forward to seeing what other surprises Columbia has to offer.

One final note. Really, did no one just think to bring a parachute?

Until next time,

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