Category Archives: Xbox

Games, PlayStation, Xbox

A Sense of Entitlement

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Seriously, I went out of my way to question whether or not the Sony hating is justified but for fuck’s sake. According to Dan Hsu on EGM Live, the official EGM podcast, PS3 titles will offer awards for fulfilling certain objectives within them. This fantastic innovation will be called…Entitlements.

Can anyone even defend this if it’s true? I saw them unveil the motion sensitive controller with a PS3 guide button but this is just ridiculously fucking brazen. Stories abound of people becoming addicted to Xbox 360 Achievements to the point where they’ll play shite for easy points so it’s a proven concept but please Sony, just come up with some of your own ideas to at least try to make it look like you’re not ripping off everyone. Even Stuff magazine, who have a hard-on for anything shiny and brandishing a Sony logo, called the PS3 “me too, through and through” in their latest issue.

I’m tempted to rescind my comments from a couple of days ago that we should give them the benefit of the doubt if they’re going to keep doing this. Is there an original idea in that place?

Games, Life, Nintendo, PlayStation, Sega, Xbox

Nothing To Post About…

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My hatred of the summer is reaching fever pitch what with the influx of tourists down here and weather than ranges from tropical heat to tropical storm (last Saturday was nuts), but also because there’s nothing to play. There are a few games out in August but I’m going all antipodean for most of that month and then, as I complain about every…single…year there’s a torrent of games due towards the end of the year. It’s even worse when there are two new consoles out and another just hitting its stride.

So in the meantime I’ve been playing some older stuff that I’ve either not played for a while or never got around to finishing. My Dreamcast has been restored to my desk (it’s gone all yellow like an old SNES which is annoying) and I’ve been hammering on Shenmue, Jet Set Radio, Crazy Taxi, Soul Calibur, and Marvel vs Capcom 2. Still an amazing system.

I bought LocoRoco after I liked the demo but have been fairly disappointed in it because it gets very repetitive and isn’t exactly challenging. On the PS2 I’m still enjoying SFA Anthology and I’ve got preview code of King of Fighters 2006 which is OK as far as 3D fighting adaptations go. Call of Duty 2 and Battlefield 2 multiplayer are where I’m at on the 360.

The Game Boy Micro has been getting a lot of playtime over the last few days, especially when it comes to the SNES ports – I finally finished Zelda: Link to the Past (only took me 15 years) and now I’m working on completing Super Mario World. Final Fantasy IV is on the to-do list.

So I guess I should be thankful that I buy far too many games to actually play properly. It makes these long summer days easier to bear.

In other news I passed my second year of uni! Now only another year before I can get a real job! Yay!

Games, Xbox

Better Than Wipeout

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So in addition to your standard accessories you can now get Xbox 360-branded ecstasy. Presumably 20g of the stuff costs as much as 200g of its third party rivals and only comes with 13g usable.

Of course MDMA with logos on them are nothing new and I can remember thinking how cool the Simpsons ones were in drug education, but could it be that despite their denials this is a deliberate marketing ploy by Microsoft? The use of PlayStation demo pods in nightclubs is often cited as a reason for the cool image that Sony rode to the front of this industry (games, not narcotics) and you have to suspect that this stuff is way more fun than Wipeout.

This is also a lot less likely to get you beaten up for being a nerd than spending your time in a nightclub playing a PSX. See? All part of their plan.

Games, PlayStation, Xbox

Democracy In Action

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This made me laugh. The nominations for the 24th annual Golden Joystick awards are open and us gamers can show how democratic we are by voting for our favourite games of the year. The esteemed UK Resistance (militant Sega fanboys who still resent Sony – see here and here – for murdering the Dreamcast, for those who aren’t in the know) are calling for everyone to vote for 50 Cent: Bulletproof so that the developers have to go and collect their award and get publicly humiliated on TV.

Naturally this will also lead to nobody making any more stupid urban “gangsta” games, so we all win. Do it now.

Games, Impressions, Xbox

Rockstar Table Tennis

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Wow, this game is fun. I was as surprised and dismissive as everyone else when Rockstar announced that their big 360 exclusive was going to be a no-frills budget (for a 360 game, at least) table tennis game, but despite trying to be the Dogme 95 of video games, albeit a very good looking one for what it does, it’s a highly competitive and fast paced game that I think is well worth the asking price.

Rockstar Games Presents Table Tennis

All you get in Table Tennis is exhibition, tournament, training, and Xbox Live modes. That’s it. The training mode shows you the ropes and the surprising depth that this game has (and gives you an achievement for completing it – hooray!), and then the meat of the single player is found in the tourneys which range from mildly challenging to pitting you against some kind of prescient table tennis ninja. Online is where the time will be spent because this game is very competitive and although the best player will usually win, large rallies are not unusual and it’s always fast.

It’s the presentation that I like. While there’s not a lot going on, the character models look great with flowing clothes that get visibly sweaty as the match gets intense and fluid animations. The sound also deserves mention – everybody loves the sound of a ping-pong ball which you’ll hear all the time, but the music is an understated techno track which only starts to kick in as a rally picks up and slowly increases with the rally counter. It fits in with the maxim of the game: that less is more and that the simple and addictive gameplay can stand alone.

What remains to be seen is how much lifespan the game has. While it’s great fun there’s not a lot to it, and it’s probably going to depend on cultivating an obsessive (and no doubt inhumanly skilled) online community during the lean summer period. Still, it’s worth getting for £30.

Games, Impressions, Tech, Xbox

Tronix Rules

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I wanted a Quick Charge Kit for my 360 because the Play & Charge kind of defeats the object of the wireless controller and was getting on my nerves, but since it’s not out here I decided to jump online and import one from the US. I’d heard of Tronix as a great resource for US imports way back when I used to read EGM circa 1998 but had never used them so I gave them a shot.

Now how’s this for service? I placed my order at 8pm on Wednesday, and on Friday morning I got a knock at the door where the FedEx man was waiting to hand me a package containing my Quick Charge Kit. A turnaround of 40 hours or so for an order from the States is bloody impressive, especially since there are UK retailers that wouldn’t get it to me that fast.

What’s more, they’d marked it as a promotional product without me having to ask which meant no import duty (it was probably within the allowance anyway, but you can never be too careful), and it cost me £20.21 for the thing plus FedEx shipping. When it eventually gets released here we’re probably talking £19.99 or £24.99 anyway. Kudos to them, and they have my hearty recommendation for anyone looking to import a US game. Unless you’re already in the US, in which case that would be silly.

As a side note, the Quick Charge is much better than the Play & Charge, even if you’ve already bought the old kit. I now don’t need to ever wire my controller and always have a fresh battery ready to go. Joy!