God watches anime while playing games…

Play.com have been selling their Sega Megadrive Handheld Console for a while now. At only £27.99 this device has been quite a hit, but the downfall is that it doesn’t support any additional games to the 20 it comes with.

This has sparked the launch of the Retro-gen (from Innex), which will be released by the end of July. The Retro-gen comes with a special cartride allowing gamers to insert an SD card with more Sega Megadrive games. Selling at $50 (around £35) the pre-orders are already selling out. The device features a USB charger and TV-out, for a more retro gaming session.

I finally managed to get on to the PTR late last week, it was plagued with bugs directed at battle.net accounts that could not login to the PTR servers.
This video shows off the new night elf druid forms and all their different skins, as mentioned in a previous post the different colour skins are selected by changing hair colour which is why the video takes place in the Ironforge barber shop. I can imagine some druids will be running around with questionable hair colour just so their cat/bear has the right look.

It’s that great time of year folks! The Bulmers cider adverts are in full flow, the BBQ’s are on and the evenings just seem to be endless. It’s Midsummer and with it comes the in-game world event called the Midsummer Fire Festival.

My memories of the festival from last year are fond ones, I really enjoyed the festival as it had a great mixture of fun things to do. The daily quests were unique and a little challenging at first, the quest to honour fires of your own faction and burn those of the opposing faction was a great way to re-visit the old world and also a good way to earn some gold with each fire giving 13 gold. Ahune the frost lord was another great addition. He was added to the slave pens, offered a unique boss experience and epic quality loot. The fire festival was an all round good world event.

Game: Grand Slam Tennis (with Wii MotionPlus)

Developer: EA Canada

Publisher: EA Sports

Available on: Wii

GAMEPLAY: It might not seem like it but this is a rather big release for EA and Nintendo as this is the first game to use the new Wii MotionPlus attachment. The attachment comes bundled with the game and, to be honest, it is the best way to play Grand Slam Tennis. The game will work fine without MotionPlus but it is so much better with it. To deny your self a play of this game without MotionPlus is a crime against gaming and I will not stand for it! Yeah ok that was a bit over the top, but you get what I mean right?!

Today the UK government has announced that the PEGI ratings system is to become the standard form of classification for computer games. The Video Standards Council (VSC) will oversee the implementation of the system for all titles released in the region. The BBFC, who had control of the previous ratings system, will no longer be involved in the classification of games but will continue rating content such as DVD and Blu-ray releases.

This is what Siôn Simon (Creative Industries Minister) had to say on the matter:

“Protecting children and giving parents a clear and robust new system has always been our starting point. The new system of classification follows the essential criteria set out by Professor Tanya Byron, who recommended a trustworthy, uniform and clear set of symbols that is flexible and future proof. We will now work with PEGI and the VSC to agree exactly what the new symbols will look like and how they will work in the UK market, to ensure they provide the clarity and safeguards that are needed. The UK already has a robust system of classification for films and DVDs run by the BBFC. The new system of games classification will match those high standards as this important market continues to evolve.”

Now the implementation of this new rating sounds fine in theory but speaking from personal experience (don’t ask!) I don’t see it working as well as the UK government thinks it will. Parents hardly pay attention to the current ratings system as it is, they just end up buying the game for their children no matter what the rating is. These are the same parents who then blame the staff at the shop for not telling them the content of the game, even though they probably did! There are a minority of parents out there who actively pay attention to the games they buy their children but it is not enough really. You can plaster “18 ADULT CONTENT” over the front of a box all you want but the fact is the majority of consumers won’t even notice it or care about it when they end up buying the game for themselves or their children.

It’s very much the norm to see a publisher promoting their new game but yesterday THQ took it to the extreme, literally. To promote the release of Red Faction: Guerrilla in London, the marketing folks at THQ got a car, filled it up with a 100 copies of the game and chained a sledgehammer to it. The idea being that people passing by the car could smash it up using the sledgehammer and then walk home with a free copy of the game. Simon Watts, THQ PR manager, has a go at explaining this madness:

“Because Red Faction Guerrilla features the world’s most realistic destruction engine, we thought that it would make for an interesting experiment to find out how many people, going about their everyday business, would stop in a busy city street to work out some stress by smashing their way into a car to earn a copy of the brand new game.”

Ah so this was all just an “experiment”, fantastic. So did any of you Londoners out there happen to smash a random car with a sledghammer yesterday?! Not that we condone that type of behaviour, well unless it is THQ supervised of course

Source: Kotaku.com

Last week at E3 we were given the first “official” look at Team Ico and Fumito Ueda’s new game called The Last Guardian. Earlier today a few new screenshots of the game were released and they look really impressive. The trailer shown at E3 gave us all a taste of what to expect gameplay wise and also revealed the games two main characters. It seems like the game will revolve the relationship between a boy (who you will take control of) and a rather large feathered animal (cat-eagle?!) as they embark on a epic adventure. Not really much else is known about the game but we can probably say it will follow the style of Ueda’s two previous games, Ico and Shadow of the Colossus. Both these games are critically acclaimed and regarded as two best games of the ever made. Both games blurred the boundaries between interactive media and art, they were just so beautifully crafted. No pressure for this new game to be good then eh?!

Anyway have a look at the lovely screenshots below and just incase you missed the E3 trailer we have that for you too. Aren’t we nice?!

The Last Guardian is due to be released exclusively for the PS3 sometime in 2010

Game: Red Faction: Guerrilla

Developer: Volition Inc

Publisher: THQ

Available on: Xbox 360 and PS3 (Reviewed on PS3)

STORY: Red Faction: Guerrilla takes place on Mars in the year 2128, where an organisation called the Earth Defense Force (EDF) are the bad guys. They have started taking people against their own will and forcing them to work in mining camps, all for their gain. You take the role of Alec Mason, a former miner, who rebels against the EDF and joins the newly formed Red Faction. His reason for joining the faction is one I won’t reveal here but needless to say it is rather cliche. In fact, the entire story is rather forgettable, it tries to be epic but fails in every aspect. The major plot points are all weak and fail to get any sort of positive reaction. There are some minor references to the previous games, so if you’re a fan of the series I guess you have something to look forward to there!

Blizzard has released the final pictures of the new druid bear and cat models for both Horde and Alliance. I have to say the new models look really nice and are a great way for druids to further customise themselves. The new forms will be part of the 3.2 major content patch. Even though the new forms are a few months away from release, this has not stopped fans getting excited by the news and questioning how to customise their feral forms. Zarhym posted in the WoW forums explaining that the new druid forms will correlate to the characters hair and skin colour which can be changed using the in-game barber shop.

I for one am excited about these cool looking new models, it’s the boost I need to start playing my level 70 druid again. Stay tuned to see if the rumoured moonkin and tree forms are also updated.

Game: Infamous

Developer: Sucker Punch

Publisher: Sony

Available on: PS3 only

STORY: Infamous tells the story of Cole McGrath, a messenger who while on his way to deliver a package gets caught in the middle of a massive explosion. When he awakens he come to the realisation that he has mysteriously ended up with super powers, which are all electricity based. Anyway the government quarantines the entire city and basically all hell breaks lose. Each of the three boroughs that make up the city have been “taken over” by different gangs and it is down to Cole to bring them down whilst finding out what has happened to him.

The main parts of the story are told via some brilliant comic book style cut-scenes, they are superb and really add a layer of slickness to the proceedings and suck you into the story. The rest of the story is told through the in-game narrative and it is executed really well as it keeps the game flowing without any major interruptions. Infamous is very much a story driven game and what a story it is, fantastic.