Gaming news 3/4/09 and madworld

Hey guys, last night i bit the bullet and bought Mad world on Nintendo WII for what i thought was a fairly modest price of £25.So i rock on back home with my purchase not knowing weather it was a big waste of time and money. dont get me wrong i always knew the idea on the game would appeal to me but i have always been sceptical of its control system, i thought it was going to be complex and spoil the game. However as strange as it does feel at first after the opening level control do become more intuitive anyway i will review this at a later date, and for those who are interested a game trailer is below.

Screenshots for Barsh entertainment/Konami's  forth coming Saw:the video game have been released. For those who don't know Saw: the video game was some what skecthy after Brash entertainments untimely death but has now been picked up by the kind guys at Konami. 

Rumors coming from around the source, suggest that Lionsgate have struck a deal with Konami (the rights reverted back to lionsgate when brash breached its contract,as lionsgate hold the rights to the films.)

The game is still rumored to be on schedule for its October 2009 release date, this is to coincide with the realise of Saw VI film, although nothing has been said if it is a worldwide release or region specific.

You will therefore not be surprised to here that the whoisjigsaw.com website is no longer running as it was part of the old "brash" regime.

the screenshot (all 3 of them) can be found HERE

Funcom announced yesterday, that its bloody MMO The age of conan: hyborian adventures will be offer some new free game trials through fileplanet and Ausgamers the free trial will vary from 7-14 days depending on where you download it from.

Morten Larssen, Vice President of Sales and Marketing at funcom. told gamespy "The game has matured tremendously since launch, and we feel confident that this is the time to launch a trial. 'Age of Conan' is simply bigger and better than it ever was, and we want both new and previous players alike to experience that!"

As an added bonus new players to the game, through various website offers, can pick up rare virtual items to help them in their online quests, there have not, however been any mention of the rumors of an xbox live/360 version of the title.

New to the playstation store this week is the Dynasty warriors: strikeforce demo, for your gaming pleasures. Labeled as "Heart pounding action" by PlayStation.com this surely must be the pick of this weeks Ps store items, with a pain and every body's golf game packs really being the only other items of note.

theres not much noise coming out of Xbox live other than the mansions game/experience that they are working on with popcap.

Where as lastly, but by no means least, nintendo.com's news is all about the release of several titles on there virtual console service, with The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask the strange and quirky but supposedly fun and enjoyable sequel to the N64's The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time Nintendo describe it as "Link must wield the power of several magical masks to save the land from destruction – and he has only 72 hours to do it! Majora's Mask is an epic, gripping race against time that should belong in every fan's collection"

Sony "big" announcement??

Much hype has been gathering recently of a "big" announcement to be made by Sony. Yesterday, we got our announcement. Many predictions and guesses were made as to what the announcement would be a price cut to the PS3 was amongst the favourites. But we at the gaming blog blog can tell you  as predicted by IGN the announcement was nothing more than a price cut to the PlayStation 2 which in America will now cost you a tidy $99, so if you missed it the first time our just plain love the past, then this could be good for you.

those eagerly awaiting Metal gear 5 could be forgiven for being a little excited this morning, as on the stroke of mid night a new trailer for Metal Gear was posted to Konami's japan website. 

Konami have recently been teasing at developers conference about the new addition to the series.

Some may remember other such titles like Assassin's solid or metal gear creed, this time they have come up with THIS enjoy.

People who love online FPS's will be please to know that Quake live a free to play browser based FPS based on the much loved quake series, is in its official Beta stage, and is accepting new members to play right now. The developers I.D. software are still working on a number of issues, but its good to see them trying this. so would be quaker's should register HERE.

News and updates

Figured, i would write a bit again seen's as i have been asked alot about games recently.So coming up very soon (over the next week or so) will be some more reviews (killzone 2, resident evil 5, street fighter IV and X Blades just for starters.)

The Rat pack clan have our first clan match on Friday April 3rd, of which I'm gutted i will be missing due to family birthdays and meals, some best of luck guys, and anyone from the U.K. or any commonwealth country with a playfire account should sign up HERE.

Next up is a nice little gaming site called ps play girl  although

the banner on the right has nothing to do with DjDarkstars website (will change the banner once permission is obtained) it is a fun, creative site with the starts of a fun community, so for those of you with a Ps3 say hi and join up here.

As soon as onlive was announcing its self as the future of gaming, and boasting Hot new games with out large downloads or high end hardware requirements, some amongst the gaming community have been a buzz with excitement and praise. IGN U.K. reported yesterday that Sony Entertainment Japan have recently registered PS Cloud as a trademark, as a "a product or service expected to be Sony's venture into cloud-based gaming."  Where as it is still unclear if Sony intends to develop a system of this type or just simply wants to leave options open and worry sites like OnLive the full story HERE

 Square Enix's have released more screenshots for their much anticipated Final fantasy XIII. CVG magazine reports that this time they have release screenies of the battle system and i agree with them that if these screenshots have not been touch up and represent actual gameplay graphics then the game will look nothing short of breath taking. Full list of screenshot are HERE.

World of warcraft: wrath of the litch king - P.C.

World of warcraft: wotlk - P.C. - blizzard

So here we have the 2nd expansion pack from blizzards ever popular MMO. First up an apology for my screen shots some messed up and i will fix them at a later date.

Wotlk, offers players a new Continent to explore taking you from around the level 68 mark right up to the games new level cap of 80, giving you some new style quests,some old ones and vast new area's to explore.

As you might have guess the battle system itself has not changed a great deal, although the talent tree's for all classes have under gone a major overhaul to allow for the extra 10 points, and further balancing has been added to classes.

Blizzard have once again created a fantastic, visual world for players to enjoy, with each region of the new area offering different terrain to explore,enjoy,team up with your friends and basically forget the real world for a few hours.

I must say WOW sceptic's will not be won over with this latest addition, as it is very much, more of the same as both the original game and the burning crusade expansion, however fans and former players have alot to be excited about with the new challenges set.




Also in this new expansion is the inclusion of a new class, i suppose the 1st of the "Epic" classes, the death knight, Which as the name suggests a cross of a warrior and a warlock, although it does have a large necromancer feel towards it too as you would expect.

For me this was the class of character is was wanting for and play at every opportunity on RPG's
Blizzard seem to have put some thought into the mechanics and really have created a new way off playing, with the death knight needing rune's and runic power to use abilities.


This does however make the class a little tricky for the gamer who dives in with out reading how to play, but again for players like me that have played since the original was released a welcome change from mana/energy or rage based classes and gives a different and enjoyable twist.





On the whole WOTLK scores highly for me but unless you are a fan of MMO's and/or World of

warcraft, you might find it confusing and annoying .
scores on the doors:

visuals 3 1/2 of 5

sound 3 1/2 of 5

game play 4 1/2 of 5

overall 4 of 5

good addition to the series.










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Battlefield: Bad comapny - PS3

Battlefield: Bad Company - PS3- E.A.

BF:BC in my eyes had so so much potential, and by that i mean a fps with cover, that can be blown away to reveal the person behind (presuming they survived the blast) and what you get is a fairly competent FPS with a compelling story mode and some good idea's, that unfortunately falls short of what it could have, and what most wanted it to have been.

Really in truth as with most FPS games there is two different sides to this game story mode and online multi player which i will review separately i guess.

So firstly story mode, is a mediocre attempt at a FPS they range of weapons and vehicles are extensive and brilliant the disappearing cover is great, for example fire your RPG at the wall and the wall disappears leave whoever is hid behind exposed and running for cover, genius and quite surprising that it hasn't been done this good before now. As with most shooters this is well made, standard control and interface game that on the whole is an enjoyment to play.

I did how ever have the following annoyance's with it. The auto injector feature, is a selectable health pack the with one hit of the fire button replenishes your health too 100%, great or not in my opinion. If you are new to the genre or just not good at these types of games then maybe you should disregard my next comments, the auto injector seems to have such a short recharge time that, i found it almost made you god like, you are able to run in to a building full of bad guys

and destroy 3 - 4 men in a close gun fight survive the ordeal and the auto inject your way to 100% health to zerg another room or building.

This for me made the game very easy because you had no worries at all about dying easily.

The other niggle i have is that vast area's of the map are shaded red, enter these zones and your inside enemy artillery range and after 5 seconds you auto die. Not the worst idea conceived i will admit but what you get is almost a holding of your hand slowly but surely leading you to the next objective and added to the lack of challenge the game has.

So now on to the good things, there are a massive array of vehicles from choppers to tanks even down to golf carts these are all easy to control (yes even the chopper to my surprise) and finally a challenge these vehicles do not seem to take as much of a pasting as what you can but they are defiantly the high point of the story mode, throw in a fairly good plot and lost of humor and that's BF:BC's story.



Online mode, this is where i got excited, no enemy artillery boundary's, no auto injector, but what you do have here is, 5 or so class of solider each with specific abilities, such as a medic (dispenses medi packs), recon (sniper to you and I) demolitions (big booms) and assault (auto weapons). Finally a challenge, which it is Gold rush where one team defends the gold and one team has to blow it up, great attack vs defence mode that is with vehicles and tactics require to win. A few games of that and i think so how about something different like team death match, no team death match hmmmm capture the flag? no? so just one online mode then thanks alot. The lack of online modes is a real down point for this other wise brilliant online section.

BF:BC then scores the following

Visuals 4 of 5 (both online/offline)

Sound 3 1/2 of 5 (both online/offline)

game play 3 of 5 (offline)
3 1/2 0f 5 (online)

overall 3 of 5

a game with so much potential but unfortunately does not deliver.

Dead space - PS3

Dead Space -PS3-E.A. Games

Dead space really defines the genre "survival horror" fantastic atmospherics which put your nerves on edge and give you that "what was that noise" paranoia that truthfully is hard to recreate in a gaming environment. For example your enemies rarely start in the room with you but more emerge for some where as you enter or get further in to a room. Constant "foot steps" ringing through the Air vents put you nerves on edge giving a wonderful fear of constant attack even though the enemies emergence is repetitive, this atmosphere created through sound effects, makes it very difficult to predict exactly when you'll be drawn in to a fight.

Between the bigger rooms on the large mining ship the USG Ishimura are very small thin corridors giving a sense of claustrophobia really make you feel cut off from your allies and alone on the ship. One of the features of the game is that enemies really can come out of any where and from any direction this makes for one hell of a jumpy game.

Graphically the visuals are stunning nice character modelling really pleases the eye, low level/flashing or flickering lighting adds to the dramatic effect that you are in trouble. Some in the gaming community feel that some of the necromorphs look silly and unfrightning, but in my opinion when being chased down by something covered in blood and decay waving pointy limbs etc at you, then the desired effect of fear is comfortably achieve.

The game play and control system itself is pretty tight, standard 3rd person controls with left stick movement, right stick look/camera, L1 aim/R1 shoot combo, which had served so many games well over the years.

You do however fond yourself running into objects and walls at first, but i would suggest this is more down to the panic of escaping death rather than a tricky control system as by chapter 3 or so you find yourself more experience in the art of avoidance.

It is however the inclusion of the Zero G feature where the game play stands out for me. In certain areas you enter zero gravity. this allow Issac to jump on to areas like the ceiling or the walls which is both disorientating and fin at the same time.

I didn't anticipate start this gaming blog off with such a high scoring game but you have to give credit where credit is due.

so the scores:

Visuals 4 1/2 of 5, due to the environment this game may not exactly push the ps3 to breaking point

Sounds 5 of 5, fantastic SFX and choice of music

Game play 5 of 5, very playable, with pretty standard controls

Overall 5 of 5, Fantastic game a must own game for anyone over 18, must be said though if your a parent you might want to skip letting under 18's play.