If you cast your mind back to last year, and how much I was impressed by Milo, the annoying CGI child that Microsoft and Lion Head showed off when Natal was announced, you may remember me being pretty excited about that particular game/piece of software.
Continue reading ‘Milo: The Boy Who Was Never Born’
The name project Natal has been floating round the gaming universe for some time now. Back at E3 last year Project Natal was shown as the Xbox 360’s new 3D camera which would take gaming to a whole new level. A bit like the Wii Project Natal brought the idea o getting physical with Video games, basically jumping around the room like a look while playing your new favorite video game. But Natal was different, it didn’t require a controller to operate, it simply picked up every movement the player was doing and in putted it into the game, basically like a PS2 eye toy but ten fold. You could play the likes of burnout paradise just by pretending you had a steering wheel. It was defiantly something to behold.
Now E3 2010 is here a year later and Microsoft have now revealed the full name of Project Natal and then some. We now have a definitive list of what games will come out with it and what to expect from Microsoft’s new creation.
Continue reading ‘E3 2010: Kinect Is Unveiled To The World’
I have been a bit deprived of Xbox LIVE recently. This week saw me once again logging onto LIVE to see what things I have missed.
So after downloading several gigs worth of demos onto my hard drive, I came across Halo Waypoint. Now me being the journalist I am, I personally have not heard much about this new addition to LIVE. Which is quite surprising really, seeing as I live and breath all things Halo pretty much. You could probably imagine my excitement when I saw the words, Halo, Download and Free pop up on the screen, so without hesitation I proceeded to download this interesting little gadget.
Now I approach games in two different ways. The casual way, which is for things like beautiful Katamari and Guitar Hero, these games I am not fussed about getting 100 percent completion, I am there to enjoy the game and what it has to offer. Then there is the completionists way, where I approach a game and want to milk it for every little thing it has to offer me. Halo for me is a completionists game, I have owned Halo 3 for years now and still have not got all the achievements.
This is when Halo Waypoint steps in and gives me a helping hand. For those of you out there who have no idea of what this little gem is I will fill you in. This is a Halo dashboard that links all your Halo games together in a nice neat little package as well as updating you on all things Halo.
So how does it go about wrapping all you halo games up? Well what it does is it calculates your overall achievement score on Halo 3, Halo Wars and Halo 3 ODST. It then takes that number and applies it to its own unique scoring system giving you an overall Halo Career score and set of awards. It even shows you how many achievement points you have gained over the corse of your Halo gaming career.
Before I get to carried away with my excitement let me give you some examples. Waypoint says I have an overall Halo achievement score of 1405G. That is all my gamer points added up from Halo 3, Halo Wars and Halo 3 ODST. It then takes that number and applies it to Halo Career Milestones. At the moment I am on Milestone 25, for hitting the 1400 gamer point mark. I can progress through these milestones by unlocking more achievements from any of the three games. But thats not all, you are also granted Waypoint Awards. These are medals given to you based on elements of gameplay thought the Halo 360 series. For example I have 8 out of the 15 awards which include: Special Weapons, Explorer, Halo 3 A.C.E, Halo 3: ODST A.C.E and so on. These awards are given to you depending on how many achievements you have unlocked in that particular bracket. So if I were to go into Explorer, it will show me the achievements needed to unlock that award, like finding all the skulls in Halo 3 or finding the audio tapes in ODST. The more achievements you unlock for that award, the higher your award tier. So I have a Tier 4 Explorer award because I went out my way to find the skulls in Halo 3 and stuff like that.
This is a fantastic tool for completionists, and general Halo braggers out there to really show off their achievements. But it doesn’t stop there, oh no. Waypoint gives you avatar unlockables. These unlockables are tied into Halo achievements, so If you say unlock a certain achievement on ODST the Orbital Drop Shock Trooper armour will be unlocked for your avatar. It’s little things like this that get geeks like us all riled up and wanting to unlock all Halo achievements, I mean c’mon, dress your avatar up like an ODST with guilty spark flying round your head? … Awesome!
Aside from the Halo career path, Waypoint updates you with the latest Video, images and news from all corners of the gaming globe. Wanna catch up on Red Vs Blue? or take a look at IGN’s Halo features? Or maybe you want to know the latest on Reach or the new Halo DLC? Well it is all here, plus it will be updating all Halo fans with the Halo anime series as well.
Halo Waypoint is, in a word, Huge and awesome (ok that was two words) but it does bring the games into a nice neat little package, packed full with its own achievements and awards, with a side order of news, videos and images on all things halo. This is a must download for anyone who has been bitten by the Halo bug.
This is what I asked myself this morning, when I woke up and found the leaked news/rumor of the new gaming hands-free kit. Project Natal is supposedly gonna hit shelves November 2010, for the impressively low price of £50. On launch it is also rumored that the device will have a bundle of 14 games. Well if this is true then I will be looking forward to November/Christmas next year.
But as I sat back and thought about it, will this be another gaming fad that won’t last the honeymoon period? Or will it actually take off, and bring a new element to gaming as we know it?
Now I am one of these picky gamers who feels right at home with a controller in my hands, the traditional but effective way of gaming has always appealed to me and if any of you out there know me, you will know I have this ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it attitude’ to life. The Wii for me is kind of on the border line with it, true it still has the controller but instead of traditionally pressing buttons, you are waving it around like some sort of crazy base-ball player, oh the stories I have heard about Wii remotes going through TV screens still make me chuckle.
For those of you out there who aren’t familiar with Project Natal, let me give you a brief explanation. Project Natal is a device that will plug into your Xbox 360, comprising of a black box with a camera, and a special motion sensor which in turn scans your body, letting you play games totally hands free, just by moving your body. Not only that, but the device also promises a new level of customisation to your gaming, say you have a really cool skateboard deck at home and you want touse it in Tony Hawk, apparently you can scan in your deck and hey presto, it is there on the game for you to use. Also, it will make clothes shopping easier as well, where you can, in some way, virtually try on the clothes that have caught your eye.
To me this sounds too huge for a November 2010 release date, I mean has our technology advanced that much? If so, then why aren’t PC’s and Mac’s doing it now with their webcams? I mean c’mon, Apple would have jumped on that shiny technology band wagon ages ago. Do Microsoft have exclusive rights to this technology? Or are they just going to bring out a half-arsed thing which is just akin to a glorified PlayStation EyeToy?
Take Milo as a shining example. Lion Head have come up with a game for Natal which centers around a boy called Milo and basically he talks to you, and you can fully interact with him. He is pretty much a friend you can buy from a store. Peter Molyneux and the Lion Head team have promised that you can pretty much interact with this character in almost anyway possible, you can give him objects which Natal will scan in, and he can read your emotions and basically get to know you inside out.I don’t know about you, but I think this type of technology would take years to make, maybe ten at least, you have to programme every single outcome, emotion and interaction and to be honest I’m dreading that most of the time Milo is not going to understand you and get bored. It was confirmed at this years E3 extravaganza in LA, and true, it won’t be coming out with Natal at its supposed launch, but if it was announced at E3 then it has to come out in a year or two…right?
The only thing that gives Natal a glint of hope is Playstation 3’s EyePet. This relatively new game that has hit the market uses the PS3 eye camera to film the gamer while the EyePet is on the screen, meaning that what you see in the screen is your living room with the monkey/dog thing inside it. Pretty cool in my opinion. After looking at the potential of this game and doing a little bit of reasearch, I can say I have a little bit more hope about Natal. Even though EyePet is basically a glorified EyeToy like I said earlier, it does mean Natal can up its game.
So for me I am very much sitting on the fence for this project. A part of me is hoping that Natal has the capability of blowing its competition out of the water, but then again I like my games with controllers, being physically able to push buttons is a thing that I enjoy because, without a doubt a button command 99.999999 times out of a hundred will do what you want, whereas hands-free gaming can be less reliable in my opinion.
Garv
With every generation comes a battle of consoles – the clash between Sega and Nintendo with the Mega Drive and the SNES, later with the Sony taking the mantle as Nintendo’s N64 rival with the Playstation. Then the Playstation 2 dominated the gaming world, as Nintendo remained steady with the GameCube, and Microsoft entered the ring with the Xbox. But where are we now?
It’s a constant discussion, between friends and ‘fanboys’ – which, ultimately, is the best console? Microsoft’s Xbox 360? Sony’s Playstation 3? Or Nintendo’s Wii?
Well, today I thought I’d throw my thoughts into the ring – being a proud owner of all three consoles I’ll do my best to give a fair and justified view of the three titans of the current gaming generation.
CANDIDATE #1: THE XBOX 360
Released: December 2005
Costs: Around £200
Exclusive titles/series’: Fable, Gears of War, Halo, Lost Odyssey
The Xbox is perhaps the most popular console for serious gamers of this generation, after Microsoft crept into the game market last generation they’ve taken the world by storm – released first of the three, offering the console at an affordable price, people have really gotten to see the Xbox 360 as a fully-fledged competitor on the gaming market. With many developers moving to multi-platform sales, the Xbox 360 has access to the majority of major releases. With online play becoming standard in this generation, we now have access to online socialising, online gaming, DLC and more. There’s not much the 360 can’t do for a gamer, so it’s a good sturdy choice.
However, the Xbox has been known to have a high amount of breakages, due to a problem with the initial design – causing the dreaded RROD (Red Ring of Death). Although consoles have been improved, it’s still not unheard of – so it’s a shame Microsoft didn’t sort this out to a better standard. Still, they offered a free service for fixing this problem with a decent length of time, so they’ve tried well to make up for it.
Pros:
+ Well priced
+ Good online capabilities
+ Large choice of titles
+ Selective backward compatibility with Xbox titles
Cons:
- Prone to breakages (although improving)
- Online gaming costs money (around £40 a year)
- Loud console due to fans
- Some Xbox games not backward compatible
- Must buy an adaptor for wireless internet connectivity
Next we have…
CANDIDATE #2: THE PLAYSTATION 3
Released: March 2007
Costs: Around £250 for a Slim, or £300 for the original
Exclusive titles/series’: Final Fantasy Versus XIII (upcoming), God of War III (Upcoming), LittleBigPlanet, Metal Gear Solid 4, Ninja Gaiden Sigma, Uncharted
The Playstation 2 was an excellent console, winning the console battle by a mile last generation (in my eyes). So, naturally, I looked forward to the PS3. However, a lot went wrong concerning it’s release. Firstly, it got delayed quite badly – already due for release after the Xbox 360, it was put back even further until it was eventually released in March 2007 – over a year after Microsoft’s release. Not only that, though – the console was priced at over a whopping £400. The pricing was largely due to the consoles Blu-Ray capability and expensive hardware. This meant that the PS3 was highly slated, and many gamers opted for the more affordable Xbox 360.
However, I did get hold of one eventually, due to my love of God of War and Final Fantasy, both of which have exclusive titles lined up in the future. A couple of years later on from it’s initial release, I could finally appreciate the console for what it was. Sharing many of the titles with the Xbox 360 in the multi platform market, and with a host of exclusive titles of it’s own, the PS3 is a mighty piece of hardware. Along with titles such as LittleBigPlanet and Uncharted, and it’s exciting line up of future titles, the PS3 also offered Blu-Ray capability, a powerful engine, and free online play. However, Sony removed PS2 backward compatibility to the newer consoles to make it cheaper – sadly meaning it’s unable to play the large library the PS2 has to offer. It’s rumored that this will be fixed in a future update, but I’m not too sure.
The PS3 has a lot of pros and cons, but this year has seen the release of the more affordable PS3 Slim, which may just tip the scales for the PS3’s future.
Pros:
+ Totally free online functionality
+ Large choice of titles
+ Backward compatible with PS1, allowing game saving to HDD
+ Large hard disk comes as standard
+ Less prone to breakages than the Xbox
+ Quiet console
+ Doubles as Blu-Ray player
+ Built in Wi-fi
Cons:
- The most expensive console of the three (although the Slim is cheaper)
- Online socialising not as user friendly as the Xbox
- Currently no PS2 backward compatibility (apart from select early models)
- More people often have Xbox 360’s than PS3’s for online play
- Games often have initial installation requirements that are simple, yet may cause a wait when booting a new game for the first time
Lastly we have:
CANDIDATE #3: THE NINTENDO WII
Released: December 8th 2006
Costs: Around £180
Exclusive titles/series’: Fire Emblem, Metroid, Red Steel, Super Mario, Super Smash Bros, Zelda. Also specific ‘Wii’ titles such as Wii Fit and Wii Sports
Nintendo made an unusual move in their latest console, moving away from traditional gaming by inventing a motion controller for use with a new style of game. The console is a much more family oriented design, created in a way to mimic real movements with on-screen cursors and images. Nintendo have also taken their biggest franchises to the Wii with some fantastic additions to the Mario, Zelda, Metroid and Smash Bros series’, among others, implementing the motion controls in well alongside the regular gameplay – enhancing them with fun, precise controls.
However, the move to motion controls has introduced a line-up of badly ported games with motion controls ‘tacked on’ to the games’ button based engines, and far too many party games, many of which are of low quality – selling on the ‘innovation’ factor of the motion controls, and the easy target market of parents and the entire age spectrum – which is a shame, since Nintendo have proved that the console can work wonderfully if used well.
Pros:
+ Cheapest of the consoles, costing less than £200
+ Nintendo’s main titles are fantastically well designed
+ Controls can be fun for many people
+ Completely backward compatible with GameCube titles and controllers
+ Completely free online play, although not many games support it
+ Quiet console
+ In built wireless
Cons:
- Buying all of the controllers and accessories (Nunchuks, Wii MotionPlus) is expensive, raising the total cost to as much as the PS3 if you buy enough for 4 players, and are mandatory for many titles
- The weakest hardware of the three consoles, with graphics similar to the GameCube
- Overly child-protective online making communication and online play difficult
- Controllers require batteries, with no wired alternative
- Good games are rare, low quality games are plenty
- Some games require wide movement space, so aren’t very good unless in a living room or equally open area.
- No ethernet port for wired internet
- Small hard disk (although expandable via SD card)
- No DVD or CD play capability like the other consoles
RESULT
As I said initially, there’s not really a clear winner, its very much up to the individual. But here’s my view – if you want a solid console at a good price, go with the PS3 Slim. A little while ago, I would say the Xbox 360, since the price difference was rather large. However, with the Slim being more affordable, the little extra cost goes a long way – giving you a quieter console, with free online play and lots of extras. However, the Xbox 360 is still very much the popular choice, meaning its often more likely to know other people to game with – but be warned, the constant cost of Xbox Live builds up more than you may realise – making it actually more expensive than the PS3 in the long run. If you’re not bothered about online play, its really up to you if you want to save the cash by going with the 360.
However, if you’re looking for something more casual, the Wii may be the way to go. It’s got some fun family games, but beware that they are often short-lived, and the costs of the accessories raise the console’s overall price. However, there are some real gems amidst the legions of casual games, making the Wii worthwhile; Nintendo always put the hard work in with their main titles.
All in all, I believe the PS3 is the dark (albeit late) horse this generation, but only time will tell. It really could go any way.
-Leon
For me a good chunk of my past weekend has been devoted to one of my favorite sports, Grifball. The sport where you brandish destructive melee weapons and plant bombs in goals, then watch them explode as they take out the opposing team with them.
No I am not some crazy masochist, this is a glorious sport that has been created for Halo 3, and today I am gonnafill you in on what this sport is and tell you what I love about it. Maybe stick some top tips in as well to help you on the sports/battle field.
Grifball Rules And How To Play.
As this sport is pretty much filled with carnage and no holds barred game play, there isn’t much in the way of rules, but as for game play, the idea is you have two teams of four players. You also have one bomb which is placed in the middle of the arena, on member from your team pics up the bomb (doesnt matter who) and places it in the opposing teams goal to score. The first team to five goals wins.
Utter mayhem and flying bodies take place in this game, while you try yo score, every player is armed with energy swords and gravity hammers, making for some pretty epic deaths. The bomb carrier can easily be identified as he/she changes into a nice gold colour when holding the bomb and gets a oversheild too, but they don’t usually last long around gravity hammers.
The History Of Grifball
So how did this sport come about? Well according to the Officail Grifball Site it all started with the ever popular Halo Video series Red Vs Blue. The creators were doing a one off special episode to introduce the Heroic map pack and what it could do.
As you can see the video was done pretty well, but they didn’t use all the footage. There is a deleted scene where Grif has made his own game, where he would take a flag from the flag spot and only move it about 2 meters in front of him, thus him winning his game. That wasn’t very funny so didn’t make the final cut, but the Red Vs Blue guys had the game variant made for the sketch, so while the DIY video was uploading they tweaked a few things, they changed things like turning the game into an assault varient as apposed to the original single capture the flag and went through various weapon types etc, and before you know it they had created Grifball.
The game has now become so popular that Red Vs Blue run their own Grifball league, where hopeful teams of four from all over the world join in for some carnage and fun. But I could imagine Playing Grifball on that type of playing field is a whole lot different from the amateur double XP weekends I am used to.
Garvaos’ Top Tips
As I say I am no pro to this game, but I love playing it, so maybe these tips will help you out if you are new to the game, or just have a nasty habit of running around like a headless chicken and dying every five seconds, don’t worry it happens to the best of us.
So thats about it for My in site into Grifball. I am personally not much of a sports fan but his game is absolutely genius. All you Halo 3 players out there, next time you see Grifball on a Double XP weekend be sure to play a few games, you won’t regret it.
Garv
Well September is now upon us and we have approximately *looks at watch* 19 days till the launch of Halo 3: ODST.
Back in my ODST Fire Fight article I mentioned that I will be taking a trip down the Master Chief’s past, and give you reviews on the previous titles in the Halo saga. So now I present to you:
Being the keen FPS player that I am, the 2nd game I ever got for my Xbox was Halo (the first being the RAW Wrestling game that came with it). In all honesty before I played Halo, the last FPS game I really got into was Duke Nukem 3D on the PC. That seemed like an age away, so I had lost some of my FPS skill. That aside, Halo, for me was the rebirth of my love for FPS.
You start the game as the last Spartan, Spartans are super Marines that were wiped out by the Covenant a good few years ago. You have been revived as mankinds new hope in the war against the Covenant.
You are known as Master Chief, you wake up from your frozen sleep and suddenly the ship you are on is taken over by the pesky space aliens. So you start the game weaponless running through the ship getting to grips with jump, duck and so on, until low and behold the captain gives you a gun. Yay! You shoot your way through aliens, but eventually the ship goes down and you have evacuate. As you do so you crash land on a mysterious ring-world. Not going to spoil too much here but lets say the rest of the story is aimed at you discovering what it is, and doing something about it.
Halo goes back to FPS basics while throwing in some nice little new additions to keep the game feeling like a fresh new title but still keeping the core FPS gaming we all love. Shooting the living crap out of space aliens is always the best route to go down, and Halo does it beautifully, you have your Right Trigger for shoot, Left Trigger for grenade, B for melee attack, X to reload/interact and Y to change weapon. What I thought was quite odd to start off with, is that Master Chief can only carry two weapons at a time, pretty unusual seeing as I was used to FPS games that can carry at least 10 weapons on your person. Even though this was a little strange I got used to it eventually.
You have a great variety of weapons to find around each level. Anything from poxy little pistols to great huge Rocket Launchers, that’s not all though, you also can wield some of the Covenant weapons too, such as a plasma rifle, or my particular favorite, the Needler, this baby shoots flurry of pink needles that home into your target andmake them explode in a cloud of pink mist. If used correctly enemies don’t stand a chance.
The same goes for grenades, you have 2 types of grenade in the game, the plasma grenade which is the Covenant sticky grenade, which surprisingly sticks to enemies and kills them in an instant. Then there are your bog-standard frag grenades which just go boom.
One thing I do love about this game is the nice amount of enemy variety. You have your standard grunts, but in this game they are more of a novelty, they are small, pathetic, and are easy to scare, they mean well in battle but once the bigger enemies around them are dead, they just run for their lives. You then have the Jackals, again a bit feeble, but they have a shield they hide behind and have better accuracy, in large numbers they can be a bugger. Then there are the elites, these are big and ruthless, they don’t back down from a fight. They come in two varieties; the invisible variety or the overshield variety. Each as annoying as each other but pose a great challenge. Then there are the tanks, the huge aliens known as Hunters, they have shields massive green projectile guns and take a lot to kill. Great fun though.
Earlier I mentioned that this game brings something relatively new to the FPS genre, and that is the use of vehicles. In some levels of the game you are supplied with a Warthog. This is a 4 wheel drive beast with a mounted mini gun for a gunner to use, great to get around in and run aliens over, but my favorite is the Ghost. This is a Covenant vehicle which has 2 guns for the driver to use and is pretty nippy. With those two vehicles, you also get to control a scorpion tank, with a mini gun and the mortar launcher you cannot go for wrong with this war machine.
Graphically the game looks really good for an Original Xbox title, the outside environments look lush and living, the use of colour is well thought out, and nothing looks out of place. One of the great things about this game is the skyline in some of the outside levels. If you look towards the heavens you can see the rest of the ring world go over your head, and it looks amazing.
Halo for me hits all the buttons, great game play, a good story, a nice variety of enemies and the vehicles are a great addition to an FPS. If you haven’t played Halo: Combat Evolved, or indeed any other game in the series. I suggest you do so right now.
Garv!
Well a lot has been going on news wise at GC today. With Microsoft having a large press conference would it rival son’sPS3 Slim announcement? Lets find out!
This press conference only had one franchise in sight, and that was the Fable franchise, with Mr Lionhead himself Peter Molyneux taking center stage with a wealth on information.
He started the conference with more Info on fable2. Interestingly enough fable 2 will be on games on demand but, it has been described as episodic. Molyneux said that the first download which comes out on the 29th will be a free one. So if you haven’t had the chance to pick up fable 2 this is a great opportunity for you!
Now here comes the big announcement. Molyneux announced Fable III will be hitting the Xbox 360. pretty big news for gamers out there and myself because I love the games.
Mr Lion head said that choice and consequences will feature. Too flipping right it’s what the Fable franchise is about! Having said that Molyneux then went onto say that Fable III will do something “bold” with its game mechanic and story, and of course lion head beg lion head love to tease and kept there lips shut after saying that there is something fundamentally wrong with RPGs and has been since day one…Riiiite, maybe that post I did about fable III a while back still stands.
Then Molyneux reminds us that in Fable you were a apart of a group of hero’s, Fable II saw us as the sole hero, so Fable III apparently will have the idea of you felling all powerful. Sounds quite tasty! Well you better get the tissues to wipe your salivating mouth because in Fable III you will become the ruler of Albion!
With this crown you will have loads at your disposal, such as dealing with poverty and tyranny. Plus you can access the Royal treasury, set tax rates and decide upon your attitude as the ruler of Albion.
Just to add, Molyneux has announced that i the game you will be playing the son or daughter of your hero in Fable II, Meaning all the save data you had from Fable II will help you in Fable III……Awesome!
That’s just some of the key features, other things mentioned were, bowerstone now having an industrial sector, every single thing you think a king can do you ca pretty much do in this game, you will fight, lead armies, all sorts. Molyneux then went onto explain the two new game mechanics in Fable III.
Judgement Mechanic
As a king, on your throne you have the opportunity to listen to NPC’ that come before you, listen to their stories and judge them accordingly, this will involve investigating the characters involved in the aid story and working out if its truthful or not. To me this sounds like a side quest option but sounds quite fun.
Touch Mechanic
Out with the old expressions in fable 2 and in with the new touch mechanic. As much as you would love to See a king beltch as loud as he can, it doesn’t look like its going to happen.
The mechanic works on what I like to call a progression system. Say you ae courting someone, first off you would give them a hand shake, then later it can progress to a hug, then an embrace, then a full on passionate snog. Nice.
Sounds simple enough but it doesn’t stop there, apparently it is ion a much higher level. Molyneux’s example was, if you heard a child screaming from a house, in games now a days it would be something simple as press A to save, but ts system lets you control pretty much each movement, such as you may choose to guide the child and cuddle it to reassure it. So this mechanic has something that other games don’t, the actual freedom of choice.
Well to me it looks like Fable III will defiantly be one to look out for. Late 2010. Watch this space for more info.
