Should not come as a surprise to anyone who are followed the news recently but the new Alien vs. Predator game set to come out in Feb. 2010 has been refused Classification in Australia in it’s current form.
The Classification Board released their official ruling stating that the reason for barring the game from sale is the excessive violence depicted against human beings in the game.
“The game contains first-person perspective, close-up depictions of human characters being subjected to various types of violence, including explicit decapitation and dismemberment as well as locational damage such as stabbing through the chest, mouth, throat, or eyes,” the board report stated.
“Characters can be stabbed with a Predator’s wrist blade or an Alien’s tail in depictions reminiscent of impalement. The Predator collects ‘trophies’ by explicitly ripping off human heads, their spinal columns dangling from severed necks. Heads can be twisted completely around in order to break a character’s neck. Eyes can be stabbed through or gouged, leaving empty, bloodied eye sockets.
“It is noted that a player is able to combine manoeuvres together in quick succession, which further increases impact; for example, a Predator can stab a character through both eyes with its wrist blade and rip off their head, with spinal column still attached. Extensive post-mortem damage, including decapitation and dismemberment, is also possible.”
You can not but feel bad for all the avid 18+ gamers down below who can’t make a trip to the nearest game store to pick up a copy of their favorite M-rated because some politician thinks that an 18+ rating on games will turn people into mindless murderers and corrupt the children.
SEGA stated that they are going to look into all options available to them including an appeal.
Their other option would be to create a censored version for the Australian market much like Valve did with Left 4 Dead 2 however it is considered likely that Sega AU will not opted to do this because Sega’s European arm decided not to release in Germany rather then subject the game to “significant cuts that would harm the gameplay experience” to get them past the German sensor.
Which is a good thing considering that this is probably what the politician want the censored game to be like.
I wish the best of luck to Aussies on their search for the best import option!
Thought I‘d start this review series of mine where I Intend to review everything I own.
Where else to start but with the very first game I ever owned Super Mario Bros.
First the object of the game as pictured by my crappy phone camera.
So just your typical save princess from dragon scenario, only people are bricks and flowers scattered throughout….wait.
..Moving on.
At this point there isn‘t really anything that hasn‘t been said a million times before about this game. So doing a review for it is pointless besides I could sum it up in two words.
Kick ass!
I‘m rather going to talk about my experience with the game back when I first played it.
Summer 1988 my parents decided to buy a NES for me. They didn‘t have any special reason for doing so, they just decided to be nice to me (<3 my parents). I had already taken my steps into the gaming world before then. I don‘t think I was more then 3 years old when I first played a game on my mom‘s Sinclair Spectrum. At the local electronics store at the time they always had a NES running the demo for Super Mario Bros and every time I went by the store I ended up watching the demo loop over and over again and be very fascinated with all the pretty colors.
So you can just imagine how excited I was when my dad brought home the NES.
It‘s a 1987 model and it still works (though I‘ve had to make some repairs to the contacts) It came shipped with the NES, one controller, the zapper and of course a Super Mario Bros/Duck hunt cartridge.
I can‘t say I remember my first ever time playing Super Mario bros but I‘m sure it went something like this.
This game frustrated me so much back then that I went all Angry Videogame Nerd because of it, and I‘m sure I‘m not the only one who‘s done that. I have evidence of me snapping on my NES as can be seen on the picture below.
While I could breeze through this game these days with little effort when you were 4 years old, playing games was hard and so I must have seen that game over screen hundreds of times before I eventually managed to beat the game, though mostly with help from my mom, she might actually have played it more than me and I‘d just watch her struggle just as much with it.
When I finally managed to reach the first castle and beat it, and like so many gamers I was pissed that after all that hard work and frustration that that stupid Mushroom had to tell me that the princess was in another castle.
This is what I would have liked had happened. *evil laughter*
Rinse and repeat 7 more times and finally defeat Bowser was really frustrating and took forever but it was still satisfying to finally well lets face it, get the p*ssy.
So yeah while a lot of my memories about this game are just frustration and dying a lot it was still the first step that cemented my love of games and gaming until this day much like Super Mario Bros cemented that video games were here to stay.
I can say one thing about Super Mario Bros. It has aged surprisingly well, it doesn‘t just have nostalgia going for it, it‘s still a solid platformer in its own right being of course vastly outperformed by Super Mario Bros 3 which is understandable and normal. If I ever have kids I‘d much rather let them play these older NES games first then anything else. Because after all, what do graphics matter to kids? 8-bit games are a positive influence as far as I‘m concerned, they are simple yet unforgiving and since they require patience to beat they teach children to overcome difficulties instead of just doing things the easy way and most of all they are just a lot of fun.
If there is one thing I miss about growing up are the jumps gaming took each generation and being blown away which just doesn‘t happen anymore. Graphics aren‘t going to improve much more at this point and I don‘t think I‘d like them too either and there are some innovations in works like the motion controllers, I grew up with a controller in my hand and so I‘ll prefer that any day over jumping all around in front a camera.
Enough rambling lets get down to ratings.
Nostalgia factor – 10
Everyone owned and loved this game. It‘s nostalgia factor is beyond the scale but 10 is as high as I can give it.
Game play – 8
The basis for virtually every 2D platform game made after the crash, as such it‘s just a tad simplistic to get a 10.
Sound - 9
Even non gamers can hum the level 1-1 theme from start to finish from memory, the music is classic and the sound effects are 8-bit sweetness.
Vitality - 7
It‘s not a very long game even if you take into account the harder second quest after you finish the game the first time(without resetting the console)
Final Verdict – 8.5
This has been a GameAddictionBlog.com production. I recommend not going there, it‘s infested with zombie pirate monkeys.
This game looks pretty great and I’m interested to see how the interaction between EVE and this game will be like since according to what I’ve heard is that what happens in this game has effect on what happens in EVE and possibly viceversa.
So I am finally back home and feeling much better now. I still have some wounds but they are for the most part healed now.
Since I’ve been home I’ve catching up on some games, I finally finished Shadow complex the other day..well I say finished by which I mean I finished the story. I still have a large part of the map to explore and many many items to collect.
I dropped some money on Halo:ODST and..well I kinda regret it now. The game offers nothing interesting really. I’ve never been that much a fan of Halo multiplayer so I’ve only really messed around in singleplayer and so far the singleplayer has been pretty boring and in no way different or an improvement over any Halo before it. If you joined this game midway, you wouldn’t even know you aren’t master chief there is so little difference in the way the game is compared with Halo 3. Well, there is one slight difference. You don’t have a shield, however you have stamina which works the same way, you just need to find some shelter while you regain your stamina otherwise your health starts to go down when shot.
Who knows maybe it gets more interesting when I’m further in.
I also bought Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2. I haven’t played it for more then like 5 minutes so far just to check it out. I want to play this game all the way through in co-op so I need to wait until I can get some people who I can play it with.
What I saw bugged me though. For starters the graphics are pretty shitty. The first game was very pleasing to the eye, had a great musical score but what I have seen of MUA2 as of yet wasn’t impressing me much. The character models are the worst all blurry and such. Considering the power of the Xbox 360/PS3 they could have rendered this much better.
I’m sure that these minor annoyances are going to get overshadowed by some fun co-op though.
Oh and I also checked out the Brutal Legend demo.
It’s AWESOME! OMG OMG OMG! etc
I’ve been a huge fan of anything Tim Schafer puts out since..ever. It’s a shame that he hasn’t had the best of luck when it comes to success of games even if they are among the best ever made(Grim Fandango,Psychonauts) but I have a feeling that Brutal Legend is going to get the attention that is needed to get who never played the classic Lucasart Point and click games like Day of the Tentacle and Monkey Island, excited about any new products that Tim might be releasing. The man is a genius and you can thank him for making Monkey Island the way it is since originally it was supposed to be a serious adventure that got changed due to Tim’s writing for the game.
Anyway I’m gonna start doing regular updates in here now…It’s about time.
Hey there site. Been awhile hasn’t it? How you been? uhuh…okay..yeah that sucks…hey look I didn’t ask for your life story.
As for me I’ve spent the last week at the hospital with tubes in my veins and getting all kinds of crap injected most of which is a bunch of fungus that apparently can kill bacteria. I hear they call it penicillin, in an effort to stem of a severe skin infection on my leg. So yeah it’s obviously been a week of hell for me. I finally got out of the hospital last night but I still have some recovery time ahead of me. My leg is covered with damaged tissue that needs replacing so it’s all falling apart. Doctor said that I will have to remain lying on the bed with my leg raised as much as possible for at least two more weeks probably more.
If hadn’t gone to the doctors when I did I would eventually the bacteria would have gotten into my blood stream and I could have died. So I urge you to see the doctor if your leg gets bloated and has reddish areas covering it and you get a high fever.
Anyways illness aside.
I’ve been spending my time playing Shadow complex lately and I gotta say it is quite good. It feels like I’m playing a blend between Super Metroid and Bionic commando which is a very good combination. The area in this game is enormous. I’ve been playing for nearly four hours and I’ve only covered just over half of it so far. It has some very pretty graphics, especially for a downloadable game very much like Trine..but it’s totally different environment so they are pretty each in their own way.
I believe I will make an effort to try to get it over and done with today since I’ll be stuck lying on the bed anyways…At least some good comes of this.
I haven’t gotten my hands on Arkham asylum even though I really really really really want it. But alas it costs money and the drugs I had to buy yesterday were expensive.
But I will get it..I have to, I must, I need, I desire, MINE GIMMEEEE!
So earlier this week TMNT Turtles in Time Reshelled was released.
I of course jumped at the occasion since Turtles in Time is one of my favorite beat ‘em ups not to mention the TMNT being my favorite childhood heroes.
While it was a big arcade hit back in the day, I only played and owned the SNES port of it and boy was it good.
Now comes along a next gen version of the classic with 3D graphics, online co-op!
However, it turns out it’s boring, extremely repetitive and has some of the worst soundtrack,voice over and sound effects I’ve heard.
Why they didn’t just make a remixed version of the original soundtrack is beyond me. It would have sounded much better then whatever that is they play under in Re-shelled.
Seeing as how this is based on the orginal Arcade version rather then the SNES version, there were a lot of tweaks made in the SNES version missing and mini bosses, levels that I remember in the past which were far superior to what I saw in Re-shelled like the whole level in the Technodrome is missing and all in all you can finish the story mode in about an hour and..that’s it. There is quickplay mode where you can select levels and survival mode where you only have one live but that’s that. There is nothing more left to keep you interested in the game.
I hopped online and played with some random xbox live guys through the story and, boy did it get old fast. Not only are you just mashing the same button constantly but with so many footmen and four nearly identical turtles on the screen I had a really hard time keeping track of where I was. Now I know it’s a beat ‘em up and by nature they are pretty repetitive, but there was actually a combo the turtle did in the SNES/Arcade version. In this game, the turtles just jab the same move again and again.
The boss fights are the worst thing in this game. They are all pretty much the same, and due to awkward 3D plane, it’s hard to judge where you have to be to hit him. I didn’t have fun in any of the boss fights. It came down to running into him to get a few hits and then avoiding his counter.
Throwing enemies and slamming them against the ground were always great fun in the SNES version and they also had a mechanism to them. Depending on where you stood and what button you pressed you could decide whether to throw or slam them. In Re-shelled it just seems to happen at random and you have very little control over it.
The comical things in the original are just annoying in this game due to the voice over, like when they fall into a sewer shaft…It’s terrible. But the worst of all is the “My toe! My Toe!”. It’s really really annoying especially because you move so horribly fast in the sewer level, you are being attack from all directions and due to bad color template it’s hard to notice those pins sticking out. So you’ll be hearing My toe! a lot.
Shredder’s voice is meh, and krang is just annoying.
It also seems like every single enemy you encounter is made out of a sponge since they all make this *squish* sound when you hit them…Even the footmen that are robots, I don’t know what they were thinking.
So lets recap the pros and cons.
Re-shelled
Pro:
Widescreen HD 3D graphics
Online co-op
Cons:
Over before you know it
Missing vital tweaks and levels from SNES version
Bad music
Bad Voices
Bad sound effects
Repetitive combat
Hard time telling the turtles apart
No extra modes to keep people interested
Bottom line, if you have a craving for playing Turtles in Time for nostalgic reasons, don’t satisfy it with this game and play the original Arcade version or better yet the SNES version instead. They are much more worth your time then this game.
I am currently on vacation travelling with my parents. There is no internet here apart from on my cell which is why it has been quiet. It is nice to unplug from time to time. I expect I will be back mid next week so until then…. -X signing out
Been awhile but I’d just like to add stuff I’ve been doing.
First of all I’m back wasting my precious life moments on World of Warcraft, we’ll see how long I’ll keep that up this time around.
I’ve also been playing Trine, I think I am pretty close to the end of it now. While I was disappointed when I heard that the game does not have online co-op and only offline co-op it is still a wonderful game and some of the sexiest graphics in any game. Now don’t get me wrong, online co-op isn’t the most necessary thing ever and in fact I much prefer offline co-op over online co-op any day but as there are some people living far away from me that I would have liked to play with, I was disappointed. They have said there is a slight possibility that online co-op will be made available in the future for Trine. It’s still going to be like it was with Castle Crashers. By the time the patch that fixed the useless online mode that came with the game, I had already finished the game and moved on to others. Although I do get cravings to play Castle Crashers from time to time because of how awesome it is.
Now I also got entry into a beta earlier today. It’s a dota style game called Heroes of Newerth. Since I am under NDA I can’t write anything about it in here or anywhere, so I’ll have to wait until that is lifted before I can comment on it, plus I haven’t even played it yet so I can’t comment on anything anyways since the connection I am on currently sucks.
I was happy when I saw this. Lucasart bringing back some of their old adventure games is aokay in my book. I never got the chance to play Indiana Jones: Fate of Atlantis but I had always heard great things, so now I can actually do get my hands on it. What is really intriguing though is that they are looking like they have done with Monkey Island they are interested in making remakes of more of their classics or perhaps some new games in the franchises to which I Can say two things.
This is a 26 minute video of me playing the Trine singleplayer demo for anyone out there interested in seeing how the game looks like and works.
So my new love and guaranteed purchase would be this game called Trine.
Trine is a platformer set in a fantasy world where the dead have risen and threaten to take over the kingdom.
You play as The Thief, The Wizard and The Knight that through destiny have had their souls bound together by a magical artifact called the Trine and their struggle to fight off the undead and dark magic and to uncover the secrets of the Trine.
As you might expect each of the main characters have certain abilities that can help you in their own way.
The Knight(Pontius) is well..the strong fighter of the bunch, when there is fight to fought he serves well with his trusty sword and shield, though he isn’t very smart but trying his very best to proof his worth to the King.
The Thief(Zoya) is an expert artisan and can use her grappling hook to grab onto rocks and wood to swing between platforms and areas. She isn’t there by choice and is mainly concerned with getting her hands on treasure for herself.
The Wizard(Amadeus) has the ability to conjure up boxes to reach otherwise unreachable places as well as being able move objects around as he pleases. While his skills come in handy in certain situations, the wizard is a failure at being a wizard. Mainly due to him being much too concerned with getting lucky with girls he has yet to even master the fireball spell.
In the single player you can switch between the characters depending on the situations at will just by pushing a button, but the game also has a co-op mode where you can with two others work together to get through the game where each controls one of the three characters.
It’s the co-op mode that really makes this game seem interesting and I can’t wait to test that out since I’ve only had the pleasure of playing the single player demo.
I’d also like to add that this game has some of the prettiest visuals I have seen in a long time. It has a very sleek fantasy look and is bright and vibrant and perfectly executed. The music also fits perfectly with the fantasy theme of the game.
Now as for the gameplay, well in actuality it isn’t inventing the wheel or anything. It is after all a platformer. However there is a reason why platform games exist to this day, it’s because they are extremely fun and this game is no exception. Adding in co-op mode just makes it that much better then it would already have been without one which is why I don’t understand why so many games do come without the ability to play with others.
I’ve actually heard a lot of people talk about how this game is like Lost vikings by Blizzard, and I do see where they are getting at. That alone makes it well worth a purchase.
I think it’s schedule for a release on PSN and PC on July the 7th, I don’t think Xbox 360 is getting any love in this case which does suck..but who knows maybe it will eventually.
Yeah I’m jumping on the bandwagon with the millions of millions of people making comments and blogs about MJ dying.
Since this blog is all about videogames and movies I figured it’s best to link to AVGN’s review of Moonwalker on the Megadrive and Nostalgia Critics’s review for Moonwalker the movie.
He may have done some bad things but the guy sparked a whole new generation of music and was undisputed king of pop.
