I wouldn’t call this a review as such, reviews for the most part have to summarise the positives and negatives and display an opinion based on the game as a whole.

What I intend to do here is tell you “there are definite reasons as to why I won’t be purchasing this piece of software for personal consumption”.

This time, it’s Worms 2 Armageddon over Xbox LIVE Arcade!

Nostalgia is the reason I decided to queue up the demo for W2:A, and it’s possibly the biggest factor as to why I won’t be going anywhere near the final product.

The last Armageddon was released 10 years ago during the formative stages that would later set me up to be the terrible misanthrope I am now. It probably started my appreciation for absurdist humour and showed me that Monty python references are a huge deal in popular culture. I was a big fan.

However, traits that I once saw as cute are annoying in this iteration. The worm’s voices are overly high pitched and their catchphrases repeat over and over. It’s not even the catchphrases we remember; “Incoming!” had a certain charm to it, it was understated and displayed a childlike misunderstanding of the violence the creature was about to cause. It’s replaced by the worms reciting advertising slogans of the products they’re about to use. Team 17 have either forgotten, or never realised what made the speech so charming. I wouldn’t put either past the people behind Box Office Bust.

Previous ideas don’t hold up under today’s scrutiny. I’m fine with the idea of turn based games, but worms is significantly slower than most, you perform your turn, the action occurs, then the game takes a moment after everything is already done to process what just happened. I see no reason as to why a tally of this couldn’t have occurred on the fly. It’s a minor gripe but it seems like entirely wasted time. Time I could spend seeing to fly honies with a different worm, you know what I’m saying?

The “artillery” system of gameplay doesn’t work on consoles. Without mouse–support there’s a definate drop in controller fidelity. Aiming using a pad is laboured and having to scroll through a list of weapons icon by icon rather than just being able to hover over and click adds is overly frustrating.

This is 800 points better spent elsewhere, and if you’ve good memories of the last version, avoiding this will leave them untarnished.

In our 59th episode we discuss the poor performance of PS3 exclusives.  We also share a load of new tidbits about Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (including the upcoming movie!)  We also go over Capcom’s upcoming long list of PSOne games.  Pacman discusses his recent purchases of Fight Night Round 4 and Call of Juarez 2.  Frawlz attempts to tell us all about Extra Life 2009.  We couldn’t have an episode without another heaping helping of ROOMAHS™.

We appreciate you guys taking time out of your day every week to list to our show. For your convenience, you can simply download the MP3 by clicking HERE or if you’re one of those “set it and forget it” types, you can subscribe via iTunes, RSS, or Zune and stay in “real time.”

If you do use iTunes, we’d love to hear what you think about our show. A great way to show your support is by leaving us feedback on iTunes. Remember, you can also email us at any time by sending your text or audio comments to PlaystationPodcast@SarcasticGamer.com!

"Right, men. Confuse the...CAT!"

I still don’t have my gaming rigs set up in my new house yet, so when Atlus’ Knights in the Nightmare for my Nintendo DS came in the mail courtesy of my Gamefly subscription, I was happy to break my eight day video game withdrawal by locking myself in my bathroom while my wife kept fluffing her tea cozies and hanging drapes.

I had heard multiple gaming sites and podcasts dance around the room with this game, some hating it, some loving it, but all agreed that it was definitely one of the most unique games they’d seen come out in a long while.

Hit me after the jump for my thoughts.

Busy, busy wisp.

Published by Atlus, who has a track record of green lighting projects that most big studios would run screaming from, Knights is of a similar vein.  And that vein is a lot of big crazy, insane-asylum ideas all crammed into one game.  If you’ve ever heard of the insanity that was Odin Sphere for the PS2, you’ll know where this game is coming from.

And that’s what makes it unique and so bizarre that I had to give it a try.  I’m always trying to find break out games from the usual space-marine-bang-bang shooter that any kind of innovation is a welcome change of pace from the usual.

So let me try to break this mind-melting game down into it’s basics for someone who’s never seen it before. Look, it took me an hour to dig through the very detailed and very complex tutorial, so don’t expect me to be able to do it justice here.

The fantasy based story is a little convoluted as it jumps back and forth in time focused around a disaster at the Castle Aventheim, but it starts to come together as you go through the game.

The game’s foundation is a Final Fantasy Tactics style turn-based strategy game.  The trick here is that instead of moving separate units around, your character is a “wisp” that you control with your stylus.  When you move the wisp over a character on your team, your team member “activates” and you can then direct them to action.

Each “level” usually consists between five to ten rounds, with each round usually spawning 2-4 creatures at a time.  Your job is to direct the knights, who are generally stationary, to attack when the creatures cross into their line-of-sight, of which, every class of knight has a different attack radius.  The creatures, in their defense, shoot out a variety of attacks that zoom all over the screen, attacking your wisp.

Instead of basic turns, each turn, you are given 60 seconds to conduct actions.  While the characters you can control can’t be injured, your wisp can be, which takes time off of the clock.  Each move you make takes time, but the clock stops when you’re moving around the screen.  While you’ve got plenty of time to plan attacks, you find yourself under constant fire, so you’re never really sitting back and contemplating your next move.

At the bottom of the screen is a goal diagram called the enemy matrix, which shows which creatures you’ve killed and which ones are still active.  At the end of each round, a slot machine style selection starts where you can try to manipulate which creatures are coming up for the next round. To beat the level, you have to kill the creatures in tic-tac-toe style “breakthrough” before you run out of rounds.

Confused?  You should be.  This is not a pick-up-and-play casual game; this ain’t no Peggle here.  This doesn’t even take weapon selection, special attacks, elemental attacks, Law and Chaos phase cycles, character levelinorg  “transoul” sacrificing into account: the list goes on and on.  This game is deep, and even after going through the full tutorial, I’m still learning about things only through gameplay and trial and error.

I’ve only put about six hours into the game, although my wife has to be getting suspicious that I’m spending so much time in the bathroom while she’s putting the house together.  But this game has really grabbed me by the scruff of the neck.  I want to keep playing it, and fortunately for me, they have a leveling component where you can log into your save and go back to replay levels to keep leveling your characters and gaining equipment.  Much like the Disgaea series (again, published by Atlus), if you want to spend 200 hours playing, they are happy to oblige.

If you’re into complex strategic RPGs, then you’d be crazy to miss out on this little number.  Game developer Sting has done a great job here, and Atlus and has again bent the laws of gaming standards to put out another underground sleeper  hit. Highly recommended.

The videogame industry – like any industry – is more than capable of being a harsh mistress. Sometimes one mistake is all that is required to cause downfall.

Blue Omega, the dev team behind the less-than-stellar ‘Damnation’, have recently experienced this harsh truth first hand.

Mourn the loss of yet ANOTHER development team, after the jump.

Okay, so maybe you’re not necessarily going to “mourn” the loss of this particular team. After all, their most recent offering was – to be fair – an atrocity. Damnation was poorly made, almost to the point that you believed the dev team had something better to do during their work time, and its sales reflected that lack of effort.

That said, it’s difficult to justify that poor sales from one poor game is reason enough for what must have been an epic, company-wide speech of, “I’m afraid we have to let you go.”

These are difficult times, no matter what market you find yourself in. And losing your job due to a one-time offering of arguable incompetence is a severe price to pay.

I feel genuinely sorry for these guys, and I hope that they can somehow land on their feet after this life-shattering announcement. However, I can at least see where the execs are coming from. They paid for a game that would sell enough copies to produce a profit, and what they got was storm of slamming reviews and abysmal sales figures. But firing the entire team? That’s taking punishment to a whole new level of extreme.

Damnation was a poor game, but was it so bad that the whole dev team was canned as a result? I don’t know if any game is THAT bad. What do you guys think?

Oh great, Pillowfort found and wrote today’s GMWT, I bet you’re already asking yourself “how is this one tangentially related to Megaman?”.

I’m here to tell you, that it’s not tangentially related to Megaman at all.

It’s definitely related to Megaman.

If you like Megaman and find a decent video, Email it to me at Pillowfort@sarcasticgamer.com (I guess technically you can email me stuff that doesn’t have anything to do with Megaman also?)

Slowly ruining your gaming experience, one click at a time.

Figured that title would get your attention.

As an avid gamer, there is a pretty good chance you’ve at least spent a day or two with the online gaming sensation that is World of Warcraft.  There were some major announcements over the last few days in the World of Warcraft universe that will impact not only your life, but the entire Chinese economy!

Not sure where I’m going with this?  Raid with me into the jump!

In what originally began as a cracking down on internet pornography by the Chinese government, the Chinese Ministry of Culture and Chinese Ministry of Commerce released a press statement Friday claiming they were declaring war on the unregulated and underground virtual currency industry.  This declaration is cited to affect almost 300 million Chinese internet users, as well as those countries involved in gold selling.  While this was considered back in 2006-2007 by Korea, it proved itself an impossible task to actually enforce.

What is virtual currency? For those of you who have played the game, or any MMORPG for that matter, you may have heard that of individuals taking advantage of the selling of “virtual real estate”, where players would take characters or items from in game and then sell them on eBay for ludicrous amounts of money.  This virtual market has exploded onto the scene in Warcraft, where players would grind out kills then turn around and sell the gold in bulk.

According to a Univeristy of Manchester survey, 80-85% of these individuals selling Warcraft gold are based in China, hence the unflattering-but-well-known term “Chinese Gold Farmer”.  Laugh if you want, but these leeches are pulling down between 200 million and one billion dollars a year (that’s right, dollars).  That’s no chump change.

Of course, the real question is how can the Chinese Government effectively police and enforce such a ‘ban’ on an industry that is almost totally underground?  Western journalists were concerned about the Chinese governments bending of civil liberties during the Olympics last year when certain anti-Chinese sites mysteriously were blocked to Western journalists while they were in Beijing.  So what kind of hoops will the government have to jump through to go after these people?

Personally, I’m all for it.  Well, not the human rights abuse, torture and imprisonment, but I understand the arguments on both sides:

Pro gold farming: Gold farming helps those people who don’t have the time or energy to grind out hours of time to keep players caught up with their fellow guildmates.  Take a hypothetical jet setting business executive who travels around the world during the week, and likes to do nothing but kick back and play World of Warcraft on the weekend.  While his 23 year old unemployed guild leader who lives in his mother’s house may have 60 hours to devote “for the Horde”, he does not.  If an individual spends the time and energy doing something in game and wants to “trade” it to another person, it’s their prerogative.  Numbers indicate that almost 25% of all accounts are involved in this kind of activity, and Mythic’s Warhammer Online anti-gold farming measures are hurting its subscription base.

Anti gold farming: They’re driving up the prices of everything in game by dumping tons of purchased gold into the virtual economy, forcing honest players to work double time to keep up.  Blizzard passively frowns against the practice, and this is a violation of their terms of agreement.  Their god damn spam in my chat box is annoying.

China’s got the right of it, but without committing major civil rights abuses (which they have shown they are willing to do), they are going to find it very difficult to enforce.

It just goes back to the “everything in moderation” argument.  Back when email was still new and cute, every once and awhile, you would get an unsolicited email trying to sell you on a new porn site or a time share in the Bahamas.  Now a days, email is nearly unusable without heavy spam filtering…unless of course you’re into getting dozens of messages an hour talking about Viagra and Nigerian bank scams.  Gold farming is the same way, and we’re seeing this market grow nearly 20% every year if the report numbers are accurate.  Without some form of regulation, gold farming is the next major “spam” and without some kind of in-game filter, online MMORPGs are going to be in serious trouble.

Source

Death Race stars Jason Statham (the cool guy from Transporter) who plays some guy that has landed himself in prison and is faced with the options of either racing in a death race where there is a 62.5% chance of him dying, or staying in jail where there’s a 100% chance of someone taking him out. So instead of staying and dying he gets to cruise around in a fast car with a hot chick from the chick prison as his navigator. The vehicles are covered in so many layers of steel that I’m amazed they’re practical to race. Deadly tactical weapons are slapped onto the hoods, and the rears feature an array of defensive items such as smoke, oil, napalm, and these little spiky star things that fall out, pop tires, and cause really cool crashes.

Sounds just like Full Auto, doesn’t it? “What’s Full Auto?”, you ask. Only the most amazing racing game ever made for the Xbox 360. The first scene of Death Race plays out exactly like a multiplayer match of Full Auto on Xbox Live. The movie is based off the original Death Race 2000 that came out in 1975 and was followed by the video game in 1976. I didn’t even realize that making games out of movies went back that far. The game was very controversial back then for the shameless killing of gremlins. I can only imagine what trouble a game made from the newer version of the movie would stir up.

In the movie the vehicles cruise around a lap before the weapons engage. In order arm your weapons you have to be the first to drive over either a sword symbol, which engages your tactical weapons, or a shield symbol that will engage your defensive weapons. If you aren’t the first to get to the symbol, you’re out of luck and you cruise around until someone kills you. If you do happen to make it out of the fiery car crash alive, watch out, odd are someone will drive by, open their car door, and decapitate you while you’re cheering in victory. There’s also a neat symbol that launches spikes out of the ground and into the car behind you causing instant death. I had never seen blood spurt out of a car before, and I have to tell you, it was awesome!

The hot navigator chick that rides in the cars with the convict drivers serves as more than just eye candy too. She tells the guys when there is a shortcut up ahead, and also comes in handy when your weapons don’t engage. Just send her out of the window while you’re driving to bang away at the jammed weapons with a wrench. There’s a lot more, but if I go too far into detail it would spoil the whole movie for you. If that doesn’t sound like a video game you’d want to play I don’t know what would.

The only thing that could have made the movie better for me is if I could have played it. Other than that the movie is great, and if you like racing games at all, Death Race is definitely a must see.

Yes, it’s the Podcast Wedding of the year and Sarcastic Gamer is proud to bring you exclusive Sarcastic pictures of the event from yesterday. For most people it’s a happy occasion, but for some reason Dave always cries at weddings…

*** CLICK ON THE THUMBNAIL BELOW TO VIEW***

*** CLICK ON THE THUMBNAIL ABOVE TO VIEW***

Congratulations guys, hope you had a great day and a happy future together!

It’s the first of July! We’re now officially halfway through 2009. Gosh. That went by fast. It’s been a busy time though, helluva busy time. A lot’s been happening around these parts. But I’m digressing here. You don’t care. You just want a video to watch.

And that video – featuring a world leader and some curious avian-based ringtones – awaits over the jump.

Now then, stop watching videos and go do the stuff you have to do today. Pronto!

Oh, and Happy Canada Day. I totally knew this by the way.

Video to share? Send it to yamster [at] sarcasticgamer [dot] com. Please.

In this episode, you’re updated on Fight Night Round 4, The Microsoft Hulu Conspiracy with Don Marco, and much more. So listen up, and get updated.

IMPORTANT: Please note that the Humpday Update is on its OWN iTunes and RSS feed. Please be sure to subscribe to the new Humpday Update feed in iTunesor RSS. If you insist, you can always just download the mp3. If you are currently using a computer with iTunes on it, would you mind heading over there and leaving us some feedback? Thanks for the Diggs!

In this episode we talked about Prototype, Transformers 2, and we had some beef with a few people that we had to get off of our chests. All this and following Leigh Alexander’s twitter await you on SGR #9.

Enjoy.

Please stop by  iTunes and subscribe to Sarcastic Gamer Radio.  You can also click this little RSS feed andget the show through your choice of platform (including Zune).

Of course you could always do things manually and just get this handy-dandy mp3. (The part where it rocks too hard has been fixed)

I love a good conspiracy theory as much as the next guy and, as a natural born pessimist, I find myself thinking along the lines of a conspiracy theorist all the time, even if I don’t take the time and effort to make it known. I often suspect malicious plots, intentional sabotage, and corporate rivalry at the expense of the consumers’ best interest.  That said, after an email this morning from a Blu Show listener, I got to thinking… maybe it would be entertaining to toss some of these random ideas out there and discuss them as a series of articles every once in a while.  They’re all completely off the cuff and not based on any hard proof.  That said, you might actually end up agreeing with some of these theories (or better yet, convincing me otherwise!)  First up?  Hulu recently refusing to play some videos on the PS3…

Quite a while back now, Sony updated their web browser with updated (and somewhat selective) Flash 9 support.  When that happened, a lot of unexpected sites suddenly worked in the PS3’s browser.  Hulu.com was one of those sites.  I checked it out at the time and while it was a bit clunky using with a controller (and the keyboard add-on), it did work.  The frame rate was slightly off, but it was completely watchable.  I’ve watched at least a dozen shows from Hulu via the PS3 browser and if the show’s any good, you quickly forget that you’re watching via the PS3 browser (I always zoomed it to full screen via R2 as it worked better than telling Hulu to go full-screen… at least for me it did.)

Fast forward to this month, and BLAMO!  Hulu content isn’t working on the PS3, when it did just recently.  We just had a firmware update on the PS3 at approximately the same time period and Hulu updated their terms of service, but as of right now we’ve got no official word to let us know exactly what’s going on.  Are Hulu doing to the PS3 what they did to Boxee?  One thing that makes me scratch my pessimistic head is the fact that changing your browser’s user-string to match the PS3’s will get Hulu blocked from your PC as well.  I mean to me, this says Hulu is intentionally and explicitly blocking the PS3 browser.

Considering for a moment we accept that Hulu is in fact blocking the PS3 browser, what would be a valid reason for them doing that?  The PS3 browser is just a browser, so it’s not like the ads are being ripped out or the Hulu.com interface/ads aren’t being viewed.  For all intents and purposes, the PS3 browser should have every right to view the content as a Mac or PC running whatever OS and browser they want.  The PS3 browser isn’t misusing or abusing the system in any way.  This leaves me with two reasons that I can think of that would cause Hulu to intentionally block the PS3 browser.  We’ll start with the most conspiracy-inducing reason first (which, ironically, is the one I think holds the least water but is still entirely plausible.)

Hi, ho, Kermit the Frog here, amongst a pile of boxes, writing on a laptop stacked on a filing cabinet in my brand new basement.  What a mess.  Have I mentioned that moving is a pain in the ass?

Anyway, back on topic, I know this might be a little old, but I’ve been out of the scene for about a week and I’m just getting my claws into it.  A week ago, Rockstar Vancouver released screenshots for the upcoming Max Payne: 3, and I have to say, I’m not amused.

Bullet time with me over to the jump to find out why these screenshots piss me off!

Okay, what the hell.  Look at these screenshots. They look great, and they should!  However, the new Max Payne looks like it has absolutely nothing to do with Max Payne.

First, we’re told a few weeks ago that Max Payne’s original voice actor, James McCaffery, isn’t going to be voicing Max for Max Payne 3.  I ground my teeth a bit, but shrugged my shoulders and decided not to get too frustrated.  But now these screenshots?

Tell me if these screenshots don’t remind you of something else.  Certainly not Max Payne.  Not the Max Payne from Max Payne 1 or Max Payne 2.  Not the film noir motif havin’, trenchcoat wearin’, crazy overdramatic comic-book monologue spewin’ Max Payne I fell in love with almost a decade ago.  These screenshots are not set in Max Payne’s world.

And okay, I get it.  People change. Circumstances change.  Max has gotten older…and balder.  But would it have been that hard to keep the game in New York like the other two?  Where are the dark, rainy nights?

So we’ve determined the overuse of bullet time as a game mechanic and the name Max Payne are about the only thing that makes this a Max Payne title so far.  But what does it look more like than Max Payne?  Like “Generic Action Third Person Shooter with Giant Gruff Male Protagonist and Cover Mechanic: The Game”.

Just like Japanese role-playing games are guaranteed to have a 16-year old male protagonist with a spiky three-foot head of hair, western game developers have been on this disturbing trend of mirroring their main characters after popular video game characters for major brands. What we as the consumer are being treated to is a parade of heroes who are either over-amped steroid abusing brick walls or guys with shaved heads and Clint Eastwood-style gravelly voices, and these screenshots seems to be in sync with that trend.

Look, I’m sure that the game will be great fun, and I’m sure the storyline will back up the reason why Sam Fisher…I mean, Max Payne, will be slumming around in Mexico or Brazil mixing it up with drug dealers.  But it’s just not the same game. Rockstar Vancouver may as well have taken Max Payne out of the equation completely and started on a whole new franchise for as much as this game can possibly be like Max Payne.

I’ll just go at it with cautious optimism that comes from a Rockstar title and hope for the best.

Summer, particularly post E3, is generally a dead period for the games industry. Web sites continue to pump out articles, but with many companies preparing for the crowded, yet lucrative holiday season, notable new releases are few and far between. It’s certainly not an ideal situation for a core gamer, but at least it does provide some relief for one’s bank account. Plus, given that more games seem to get released each year, it’s not like gamers don’t have options. In fact, many probably need look no farther than their own entertainment centers.

I can’t tell you how many times I have heard someone comment that there are simply too many games to play, and not enough time or money to do so.

June, for instance, was a surprisingly solid month, thanks to the releases of Red Faction: Guerrilla, Prototype, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10, Ghostbusters: The Video Game, The Sims 3, The Conduit and Fight Night Round 4.

If you have exhausted the current crop of titles, then perhaps now is the time to sit down with some old friends. By friends I of course mean games. Everyone knows that gamers don’t have real friends, but merely Internet contacts who have cool names like SniperXtreme4Life, King Clenched Buttocks and TerribleUseOfPwn.

I, for instance, recently re-introduced myself to Warhawk, Incognito Entertainment’s third-person combat game from 2007. Resistance: Fall of Man was the game that busted my online cherry, but Warhawk stole my heart. Warhawk, in essence, opened me up to a whole new world. Granted, it’s a space populated by strangers who call you nasty names, but the online realm is still a pretty awesome gaming arena. The game consumed all of my free time. I certainly didn’t ignore Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction, Assassin’s Creed or Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, but when I was done with those adventures, I jumped back into Warhawk. It quickly became my go-to game.

Despite its age, Warhawk still has an avid community. This sustained enthusiasm can, at least partially, be attributed to Incognito’s excellent post-release support, which included three booster packs: Omega Dawn, Broken Mirror and Fallen Star. It seems that gamers have pretty much abandoned Collection mode, but you can find a good round of Hero or Zones without much difficulty. Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch and Capture the Flag remain the heavy favorites though. Some people bemoaned the absence of a single-player campaign, but the developers stuck to their guns and focused on creating a tremendous multiplayer experience. Far too many studios try to cram unnecessary modes into games, attempting to appease those gamers who believe that every title has to have multiplayer and solo offerings. Personally, I would rather have an excellent multiplayer game than a good multiplayer game saddled with a lackluster story.

Warhawk doesn’t need a story. In fact, the game is better off without one. I don’t even want to think about pre-round text walls, or inane, testosterone-fueled cutscenes. I would rather punch a great white shark in the teeth with my penis. When I play Warhawk, I want to get into a frantic battle as soon as possible. I do not care if the Eucadian general called the Chernovan general’s mother a whore, or if the latter put dog poop in the former’s coffee. I play Warhawk to have fun, not to escape to a mystical, magical world inside my television.

To this day, I still consider Warhawk to be my best PS3-related purchase. It is, in my opinion, one of the most underrated games of this generation. As of this writing, I have poured approximately 275 hours of my life into the multiplayer-only game — nearly triple the amount of time that I invested in Nintendo’s sophomore mascot mashup, Super Smash Bros. Melee.

Based on upcoming releases, that total is about to increase significantly.

Wii Sports Resort is the only notable release for July, and I probably won’t purchase another game until Batman: Arkham Asylum launches in late August. Titan Studios’ Fat Princess is also supposed to drop this summer, but Sony has yet to announce a specific date. Hopefully we get the downloadable darling sooner rather than later, but until then, I have Warhawk.

Have you ever kept yourself up at night, unable to sleep, wondering what American Football (yes, I DO require the “American” prefix), would be like if it were played by fantasy races in an inconceivably brutal manner?

Well wonder no more! As Cyanide Studios have been generous enough to create a video game based on that very principle.

There’s an SG Review coming your way, after the touchdown!

In 2004, Cyanide Studios (formed by 8 ex-Ubisoft employees in 2000), released a PC game by the name of Chaos League. The game was a fantasy sports sim, and it was generally well received by fans of another fantasy sport franchise, by the name of Blood Bowl. So much so in fact, that Games Workshop (owners of Blood Bowl), decided to file a lawsuit for copyright infringement. Details of the case aside, the result was that Games Workshop would grant Cyanide Studios license to create an official video game adaptation of Blood Bowl. The game was released this past Friday on PC (26th June 2009), and it’s hella fun.

Blood Bowl is a perfect adaptation of the Games Workshop miniatures game. Combining a turn-based sport sim with team management options. If you decide to undertake the epically lengthy campaign, you will receive a starting budget of one million gold (gp), with which to purchase your players as well as any cheerleaders, bonus re-rolls or apothecaries you may deem required.

First off, you’ll be choosing your team’s race. The races in the miniatures game are numerous, but Cyanide have seen fit to present you with 8 classic races to select from, each of which have their own strengths and weaknesses.

Humans - The all rounders of the game. Capable attackers and defenders, excelling or lacking in neither department and therefore capable of adapting to any situation.

Dwarves - Slow, but sturdy. The Dwarves can make their way down the field at a steady rate with next to no fear of being caught off-balance. When a Dwarf team establishes a defensive line, you should plan your attacks carefully.

Skaven - These “Rat-People” are the fastest movers in the game, capable of crossing half the field in one turn. Their extreme speed is traded off by their lack of strength, however, allowing for their virtually guaranteed defeat in any physical struggle. Of course, an opponent would have to catch one first.

Orcs – Brutish and less-than-intellectual, the Orc teams believe exclusively in attaining the ball, and touchdowns for that matter, via the means of violence. Orcs will tend to be very strong, but their agility is somewhat lacking. If you have the ball, be sure to stay out of their range, as they will break your neck in order to attain it.

Lizardmen – These guys serve as another balanced side, but unlike the humans, this is not defined on a player-by-player basis, but rather spread over the team. A single Lizardman may have either a high strength and armour stat, with movement trailing behind, or will have high movement, with low strength and mediocre armour. Each player has a specific role, and those roles vary considerably.

Goblins - They’re not quick, they’re not strong, they’re not agile, and they’re not tough. So what benefits do they have? They’re sneaky… Sneaky like Ninjas! A goblin can sneak through tackle zones, and if your team has a troll recruited, a goblin is light enough that it can be thrown around the field not unlike the ball. This is a particularly useful ability for setting up touchdown plays and evading enemy defenses. Also, they’re a little crazy, and have been known to sneak chainsaws into a match, but more on that later.

Wood Elves - The most agile of all the races in the game, Wood Elves are excellent at evading tackles. They rely on the long pass, using it effectively to get the ball from player to player reliably (a feat rarely succeeded amongst the other teams). If you see a Wood Elf in open space, you’ll be wanting to close him down, as he’s likely awaiting an unlikely pass. They’re not especially tough, but are able to recruit a single Treeman to their team to act as a brute force (think Ents from Lord Of The Rings, and just as powerful).

Chaos – Our final race is Chaos, and that name is extremely fitting. Although they’re capable of scoring touchdowns to win a game, a Chaos team would prefer to win by killing or at the very least, removing limbs from every player on the opposing team. A win by default is after all, still a win. And for Chaos, a pleasurable win at that.

Not long after this news post goes up, our very own PMS Harlequin of SG Pink is getting hitched! She and Peterocc of Gamertag Radio are getting married at 11am EST (4pm UK time and all the rest) and Godfree of GTR will be streaming the whole thing on GTR’s Livestream, so if watching an SG podcaster declare marriage vows is your sort of thing then you’re well catered for.

I might as well start the trend of congratulating Peterocc and Harlequin, and I hope you guys will follow suit in the comments below. Congratulations to the (soon to be) newlyweds!

Back by popular demand (seriously, I got two whole emails about this), here comes yet another Good Morning, Watch This.

Remember, you can send suggestions for GMWT to me at yamster [at] sarcasticgamer [dot] com. There’s bound to be a bunch of stuff that I can’t find that you already have!

Video over the jump.

Have a good day, y’all.

With motion control looming on the horizon (and already here in the case of the Wii!), I wanted to discuss the future of gaming control. Perhaps a scary subject for those of us that had come to love the humble joypad controller. With Nintendo having changed it almost beyond recognition and Sony, who already have motion sensitivity in their existing control pads, seeking to take it one step further with their answer to motion control, it truly looks like the end for the classic joypad. What’s more, Microsoft, with Project Natal, are looking to do away with them altogether! Are we losing control?

To discuss what I thought of the matter I found it was best to fully explain my position. It turned in to a personal journey through the history, present and future of controller design. It is not a list of dates and facts and figures about controllers. It is a lot of personal opinions about how I have interacted with various controllers over the years. I very much doubt you will agree with everything I have to say, and I will be keen to hear where your opinion differs to mine, just try to comment without losing control…

Thirteen. Unlucky for some. The number has been associated with doom and death ever since the days of the Last Supper. With the Natal World Order looming on the horizon, is the thirteen button controller used by both Sony and Microsoft seeing it’s end of days? Are gamers, who have put their faith in the humble control pad for generations, about to be left high and dry just because somebody crossed Judtendo’s palm with silver?

We knew it was coming. Unlockable clothes for your Xbox Avatar. There’s been speculation from a number of sources about it being paid content and others claiming it’s linked to achievements; regardless, we haven’t heard a word about if these will totally suck or not.

I, having some time on my hands now that the missus is off gallivanting in a foreign country (The ongoing saga of Gamer Girlfriend will continue in two weeks!) came up with some ideas for clothes that might not be terrible.

Take heed, developers. Read the article, everyone else.

The issue I’ve worried about when it comes to Xbox avatars is that computer nerds ain’t got no clue what looks good.

My closet contains innumerable gamer t-shirts, as well as unrelated and far less socially acceptable fallalery (crowning piece being a pair of neon yellow Chuck Taylors). This adverse attention to clothing has rectified itself,  I’ve now finally reached a point where if I walked down the street alongside you, you might try to distance yourself to make sure people didn’t think our lives were somehow entwined.

But if this type of Fashion Blindness can effect even the most aware of game-players, what hope do we have for people who spend 8 hours of their day programming?

Having personal experience of what to avoid, I feel that I’m best suited to make some suggestions. So I have. The following are these aforementioned suggestions:

• Work with Penny Arcade. Put out a Jonathan Gabriel and Tycho Brahe pack, or alternatively, make them unlocks in completion of the next episode of On The Rainslick Precipice of Darkness.
• Rock Band and Guitar Hero equipment. Props have already been discussed as an avatar feature, why not have a tie–in with Fender or Gibson? I’d pay to equip lil’ Pillowfort with a shiny new Jackson.
• Developer Logos or in–game brands. Umbrella? Ultor? Who wouldn’t want to side with evil?
• Batman. Arkham Asylum is upon us in August: an avatar tie–in, much like the one for GTA:Lost and Damned would make a lot of sense. I’m not necessarily talking full cowl regalia. I’d consider it enough to throw the bat symbol onto a black tee. This information is coming from someone who silk–screened his own shirt to wear to the Dark Knight premiere.
• Considering the idea of movie characters, why not link up with the video-marketplace? Kill Bill is ready to download? What? I can pay for The Bride’s motorcycle outfit? I will do this!
• Are you a lumberjack and are you okay? Do you sleep all night and work all day? Say you want people to know what you do for a living, your avatar could show it off. Say you’re a chef at a restaurant, buy the hat and overalls. Just wish you were a chef? Buy it anyway, people won’t know!
• Lederhosen.

Do you have any suggestions? I bet you do. Write a comment! I read them!

Brightly hued button pummeling news now, with Brian Hayes, a producer on Fight Night Round 4, teasing (via interview) that face button controls could be coming to the rollickingly realistic slugfest simulator. All the details can be found in a rather handy compartment, located after the jump.

“Is there an option for face button controls [in Fight Night Round 4]?” eagle-eyed IGN reader Joe_Jalbert probed. “No, there is no option for face button punching in the final version, but we are investigating providing the option via DLC”, the equally eagle-eyed producer, Brian Hayes, replied.

Providing the option via DLC, eh? That sounds like a fairly good idea. While it’s a trifle perplexing that the option isn’t already included (it’s been in past Fight Night games), at least the fine folks over at EA Canada are mulling it over. Of course, if this was added through the wonderful medium of downloadable add-on-ary, the question is raised as to whether it would be free. With the Xbox Live Marketplace and PSN Store littered with lots — nay, a veritable cornucopia — of micro-transactions and expensive 108 kb downloads that merely unlock existing content, it doesn’t take much to imagine EA charging for a new control scheme. But if, today, we’re paying for new controls, tomorrow we might be paying for improved graphics or online balancing or higher sound quality — which seems absurd. A rather jocular video was made about this actually, as part of our own Battlefield: Bad Company boycott, back in Spring 2008. Then, paying for things like improved controls was used as a joke, but nowadays it seems like an ever increasing possibility.

Now: navigate to Local Disk (Brain:)/Memories/Internet/SarcasticGamer/BadArticles/Eoco/FNR4DLC.txt, right click, then tap ‘Delete’. You see, this interview was published eons ago (well, June 12, 2009 if you must know), and some of this information is beginning to smell a bit…ripe, if you know what I mean (it probably wasn’t stored in a cool, dry place). Do not take this interview as a confirmation of face button controls or anything, and most definitely don’t get caught up in a speculative discussion of whether DLC that may or may not even be released should be charged for.

No, definitely don’t do that.

Source: IGN [Via Joystiq]

In our 58th episode we discuss Activision CEO Boby Kotick’s comments about Sony’s platforms.  We also discuss the awesomeness that is Ghostbusters on the PS3 (no, not that one, the other one!)  Our discussions then meander through Final Fantasy, the PS3 Prototype install issue, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves dominating at Game Critics Awards and Brütal Legend’s choice of metal.  For those geeks out there, we also discuss Free Realms and Afrika as well.  Frawlz also reserves his spot in hell by making fun of… oh, just wait… it’ll be better as a surprise!  We couldn’t have an episode without another heaping helping of ROOMAHS™ either and this time we decided to toss in a few user questions/comments afterwards!

We appreciate you guys taking time out of your day every week to list to our show. For your convenience, you can simply download the MP3 by clicking HERE or if you’re one of those “set it and forget it” types, you can subscribe via iTunes, RSS, or Zune and stay in “real time.”

If you do use iTunes, we’d love to hear what you think about our show. A great way to show your support is by leaving us feedback on iTunes. Remember, you can also email us at any time by sending your text or audio comments to PlaystationPodcast@SarcasticGamer.com!

Got that lodged in your brain? Understood? Brilliant. Let’s crack on with this then, the SG Review of Rock Band Unplugged.

Unplugged, of course, refers to the system on which you’ll be playing this rhythm action title: the decrepit old PSP, free from the ties of your mains-wired home console. I’ll get this out the way at the start: this is the first must-have PSP game I’ve seen in ages, and the first game to inspire me to take my PSP outside my house for the first time in months.

The game, developed by Harmonix in co-operation with handheld specialist Backbone Entertainment, can trace its roots back to Harmonix’s first rhythm games FreQuency and sequel Amplitude, which both appeared on the PS2.

Largely – and unfortunately – ignored by the gaming community, both games revolved around hitting jewels representing elements of a song – beats, vocal syllables, guitar plucks – on their representative “tracks”, building a song up element by element until you reached the end. It was brilliantly addictive and despite Amplitude’s mainstream soundtrack – which featured the likes of Run DMC, Pink and P.O.D. – both games were a commercial failure.

Blast from the past: Amplitude, Harmonix's second music game.

Since then Harmonix has gone on to create Guitar Hero and Rock Band, leaving their original baby to be confined to the vault of gaming history. Until now anyway, which is where Unplugged steps in.

Unplugged revolves around the same idea of hitting out beats across multiple track albeit within the Rock Band universe. This means the setlist is classic Rock Band, the visuals and layout are classic Rock Band and the game itself is essentially a portable Rock Band title.

But it’s not: this is just to give the concept some familiarity to the many who haven’t experienced FreQuency or Amplitude. There’s no playing with friends in a band here; you’re completely solo, and you have to hit out all of the elements – bass, drums, vocals and guitar – by yourself.

Alrighty, Harmonix 101 is over. Hop over the page to see how it plays.

The Midway bankruptcy proceedings just got a bit more complicated. According to a court document found by GamePolitics, Lawrence Kasanoff, who served as a producer for both of the live-action Mortal Kombat films, has filed suit against Midway in an attempt to prevent Warner Bros. from acquiring some of the company’s notable properties. Warner’s $33 million bid was reported in May, and if approved, would net the company numerous Midway assets, including the Mortal Kombat IP and the Chicago studio.

At the heart of the suit seems to be Kasanoff’s right to produce future films and television shows based on the franchise, a license he claims is both perpetual and exclusive. Kasanoff is currently listed as producer for the third Mortal Kombat film, which is scheduled for a 2010 release. The plaintiff in the case is Threshold Entertainment, of which Kasanoff is chairman and CEO.

If Kasanoff’s declarations are true, then he would seem to have a valid case. However, I find his assertion that Mortal Kombat would not be as popular sans his contributions to be ludicrous at best, and nursing-home insane at worst.

You see, I was under the impression that the mega-popular, violence-laden arcade and console releases put the series on the map. Even though Kasanoff claims that discussions of a feature film first arose in 1993, the first Mortal Kombat movie didn’t hit theaters until 1995, which was after the first two games had released for numerous home systems. So, as I see it, the franchise had plenty of time to amass a large following, prior to its appearance in cinemas.

Besides, it’s not like Midway would have stopped releasing Mortal Kombat games in the absence of the films. The empire would have continued to expand regardless.

Plus, what about all of the publicity that the IP got when parents and politicians flipped out over its violent content, particularly the blood and Fatalities? When Mortal Kombat debuted, there was no ESRB. That particular organization was formed in 1994, after it was decided that games needed to be rated for content. While not the lone reason for the group’s formation, Mortal Kombat undoubtedly played a pivotal role.

If anything, the films did more harm than good. Alright, so the first film wasn’t that bad, but Annihilation was atrocious. It was so bad that George Washington Carver, who had absolutely no association with the film, probably spun in his grave after its debut in theaters. If you are ever in need of a really good laugh, or an epic cry, I suggest you pick it up. It is actual proof that God does not exist.

Look, I am not saying that Kasanoff didn’t help bring the series to the masses. Both films, despite being panned by critics, were commercially successful. According to Kasanoff, the first theatrical release made $122 million on a $25 million budget, while the sequel’s domestic total of $51 million topped its $30 million budget. Unfortunately, I was one of the jackasses who actually paid to see the second film. Hindsight is 20/20. Threshold was also responsible for producing other Mortal Kombat-related projects, including mortalkombat.com, a TNT special titled Mortal Kombat: Behind the Dragon, and the movie soundtracks.

So, while I don’t refute the legitimacy of Kasanoff’s case, I do scoff at the notion that he was more important to the rise of Mortal Kombat than Ed Boon and John Tobias, the two gents who created the IP.

Source: U.S. Bankruptcy Court filing via GamePolitics

This week the ladies of SG talk about stripper lessons, back seat gamers, and WoW pride. All this and other off the wall topics await you in episode 34 of the Sarcastic Gamer Pink.

Why listen to just one episode of SG Pink when you can subscribe in iTunes and GET PINK automatically delivered to you each week.

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Hey kids, its time once again to feature an outstanding community post. While we don’t normally take our featured Community Content from the forums, this post stood out as being well-written and extremely entertaining. Please give a hearty welcome to a newer member of the Sarcastic Gamer community, Relentless, and have a read on his excellent forum post below and after the jump.

“Why am I gaming? Because television sucks.”

Yes. Guys, whenever your parents/significant others/hostages scream and bellow because you’ve spent all day mashing buttons and screaming about headshots and rocket launchers, you aren’t missing anything at all. Being the brave man that I am, I have sat in front of the television for the last few weeks to recon the outside world.

Now, to be fair, I do have a Red Ring of Death right now. And if you own an XBox 360, you’ll get one soon enough… It’s kinda like when your grandpa dies- you just accept that death is a part of life, sell everything that was left behind, and find something else to amuse yourself with… and you don’t regret unplugging it.

Real Housewives of Whatever. Please tell me who decided this was entertainment. If there is anything in this world that is NOT entertaining, it’s a bunch of spoiled rich bitches who do nothing all day but sit on their ass and buy fake boobs and expensive crap. These shriveled hags strive to accomplish something in their day-to-day lives, but they end up doing exactly what spoiled rich American women do best- screeching and nagging and causing drama. This is why I require my significant other to work. If you watch closely, you can see their husbands rubbing their heads… and you can almost hear their thoughts: “Please, God in heaven… send someone to drag me outside and shoot me in the head”.

What Not to Wear. At first I thought this was another good-spirited reality show that drags some poor slob out of the street and puts them in expensive clothes and convinces them that their obesity and face for radio aren’t an issue anymore. I was right. Apparently, someone is out there trying to convince fugly fat chicks that they should wear something other than a burlap tarp, and convince them to gussy-up and haunt the bars. Great. Exactly what bars need. More fat girls in expensive clothes trying to get some human contact from drunks.

Live-Action Shows on Cartoon Network/Adult Swim. Now, if you ask me, the entire idea behind this is the undoing of a network. Just ask anyone if they know what channel “Music Television” is. Personally, I don’t find any of these shows “funny” in the least bit. It’s like a bunch of Microsoft employees got turned loose in a television studio with a lot of drugs. It’s not funny, entertaining, or even worth making fun of. It fails enough on its own. I personally believe in starving these programs out by finding those who enjoy them, rounding them into cattle trucks, and burning them alive.

Ghost Adventures: This is the one on the Travel Channel, not the one on Sci-Fi (that’s Ghost Hunters). No, I really, really hate this show. I don’t know if ghosts are real, but I wish they were… because this guy is the Steve Irwin of paranormal research, and desperately needs to encounter the paranormal equivalent of the stingray. This prick rolls up into a “haunted” place, yells to the top of his lungs and demands “ghosts” shows themselves, randomly points in directions and claims to see something (to which his crew follows suit), and then points out random dust particles catching light as “proof” of his “Ghost Adventure”. And, you know, if I die… please do not send that moron to my house.

MTV. Back in the olden days, when the earth was young and we hunted the great hecatonchires that roamed the land as a rite of manhood, we used to be able to watch music videos all day on the MTV. Then someone decided that “reality television” starring brainless idiots living under one roof was worth tuning into, rather than just expecting the audience to drive down to the local frat house and watch the douchebaggery unfold. After all, there’s nothing that appeals to the curiosity of the pathetic like Hip-Hop videos and shows about spoiled little rich girls pretending to like each other then tearing each other apart the first chance they get. It was only a matter of time before “16 and pregnant” came along to convince the teenagers to get knocked up because it’s cool, so hopefully the next generation will be easily dominated under my rule.

Paris Hilton’s Dancing Monkey BFF I shouldn’t have to elaborate on this, but it goes to show you that some people think so highly of themselves that they end up having people compete for their friendship, and don’t come to the realization that “I might go to Hell for this”. Apparently, friendship is for sale these days, and so are the souls of those who compete for hers. I can name about 20 people that I’d rather be friends with that “Princess” Paris, and some of those people have names like “The Hun” or “Unibomber“. (Hey, Paris- the last Princess that got as much attention as you got scraped off a road inside a tunnel. I’m just sayin’.)

Thanks Relentless! Remember that we’re always on the lookout for creative, entertaining, well-written community blogs or posts to be featured content on the front page!

Original post SG Community members, join in and tell Relentless if you agree or disagree! Non-SG community members, why haven’t you signed up yet? “I have to go wash my hair” was last week’s excuse. It was lame then and it’s lame now. Sign up today!

But will it? Read some thoughts over the jump.

According to Edge, two large independent retailers – not quite in the realms of your GAMEs and GameStations and whatnot – have not received a single pre-order for the PSP Go since it was officially announced at E3 earlier this month. Ouch. One of the retailer’s heads expressed their worries at this, wondering if it’s even worth stocking the console if there isn’t even a single early adopter ready to put their money down the moment it is announced.

To be fair, the PSP Go hasn’t been officially priced in the UK yet (the closest price approximation being €249, or a shade under £215 by today’s going rates) and so people will be waiting to see what the official line is before they phone up their nearest gaming store. Heck, I didn’t even know I could pre-order a PSP Go until the price had been made clear by the folks at Sony.

Of course, it probably will be around £215, which is a lot of money. The original PSP retailed in the UK for £180 and currently sells for £130. With some cheap 16GB flash memory put in place of a UMD drive and a mass-produced M2 slot stuck in the side, I want to know where the extra cost is coming from as those aren’t hugely expensive components.

What’s really worrying the indie retailers is how they’re going to make any money from the PSP Go. Most retailers’ profiteering is based on the “razor/razor blade” model; little-to-no money is made from the sale of the console and most of it is made from selling stacks and stacks of games in the same way that razors are sold pretty cheap but the replacement blades are always expensive as heck.

Think about it: there’ll be a sliver of cash from selling PSP Go consoles (depending on how much Sony sell them to retailers for) and then there’ll be nothing else unless we see digital vouchers being sold in stores as we’ve seen already with Patapon 2. Hopefully Sony – and other publishers – will continue this sort of distribution service with more games as they’re released so that stores can continue to profit fairly from the PSP as they should be.

Of course, there are other channels of profit for stores to go down: Memory Sticks, carry cases and, should Sony ever see sense, PlayStation Network cards. PSN cards have been doing the rounds in the US for a long time and have just hit Canada too; how long until Europe sees them too?

At the moment, the PSP is looking a little like a retail disaster in the making for Sony. People aren’t interested and they won’t be if the price is too high and if they can’t just wander into a shop and pick up a code for a game at the very least. As for the retailers? It’s looking just as grim unless Sony get their act together and sort out a fair, equal business model for the people that actually sell their products.

Source: Edge Online

Yeah you read that right, The Humpday Update is back with an all new crew bringing you closer-to-up-to-the-minute discussion of the latest goings-on in gaming and the Sarcastic Gamer community.  Join your new Humpday Update hosts DogsDieInHotCars, Smelly Pirate, Don Marco, and Saint Mantooth for the maiden voyage of this show which hits its very own (original) feed each and every Wednesday.

This show is sort of like a blind date only more awkward.  Get to know the guys, and renew your subscription because whether this works or goes down in flames, this is going to be…. memorable.  Yeah.

IMPORTANT: Please note that the Humpday Update is on its OWN iTunes and RSS feed. Please be sure to subscribe to the new Humpday Update feed in iTunesor RSS. If you insist, you can always just download the mp3. If you are currently using a computer with iTunes on it, would you mind heading over there and leaving us some feedback? Thanks for the Diggs!

Jai92, ahtisharry and SamVII present the Red Button Podcast episode 3.

• What have we been playing this week?
• Noticeable remakes and reappearances of classic games
• Want to be a guest host? Listen up then!
• DJ Hero, is it good? Is it lame? Hear our opinions
• A sad moment 
• Why dont people play older games anymore?
• The End, not as good as the last 2! (seriously)

Subscribe to all of the great community shows via iTunes or RSS, or download this episode right here: mp3

As gamers, we all have one.  I’m talking about the “stack of shame”… those games we had every intention of beating (or sometimes even just playing) but for whatever reason, we never got around to it.  Frawlz is a good friend of mine; he’s not just a fellow podcast host, but a close friend.  I need you to help me… help him.

The SGC has proven many times we are a community that is willing to help someone in need.  Right now, I need you to help me…

…to prod the living crap out of Frawlz until he finishes a game!  I’ve picked four games that you can choose from.  Whichever game wins emerges as the winner will be the game we all get behind and badger Frawlz until he completes it.  He hosts a PlayStation podcast for Pete’s sake and he hasn’t completed: Uncharted, Killzone 2, Metal Gear Solid 4, or inFamous.  What’s up with that?!

Please take a moment of your time and visit the poll in the forum to place your vote.  After we’ve determined the winner, we will commence the peer pressure.  I’m not above email, private messaging, instant messaging, text messaging, PSN messages, heck… I’d even try Xbox Live messaging if I thought it’d work!  One way or another, we’re going to push Frawlz into completing one of those four games!

This is your chance folks, it’s early in the voting… Uncharted and Metal Gear Solid 4 are showing early signs of leading the votes, but if you think he needs to play Killzone 2 or inFamous (both, coincidentally, are just like Gears) then get in there and vote!  Once Frawlz has completed the game, you can look forward to a Frawlz-led discussion of said game on the Blu Show.

We need your support!

Sarcastic Gamer proudly announces that on October 17th, 2009, gamers from around the world will join together for Extra Life 2009!   Last year thousands of people played video games for 24 hours straight and raised over $120,000 to fund pediatric cancer research and treatment.  We can’t wait to see what this year has in store!  Keep reading to find out how to sign up!

It is simple to get involved and make a difference!  All you have to do is find four people to sponsor you at one dollar per hour for the duration!  Be hero!  In three simple steps, you can do something to help children battling cancer.

1.  Sign up at http://extralife.sarcasticgamer.com/

2.  Ask your friends and family to sponsor you  

3.  Play video games for 24 hours on October 17

Check out the Extra Life website for all the details!  You can sign up and join the Sarcastic Gamer team, or you can create your own team!  Get your gaming community involved and be featured on the front page!

All proceeds from Extra Life go directly to Texas Children’s Cancer Center at Texas Children’s Hospital.  They are one of the largest pediatric cancer and hematology centers in the world, and they treat kids from all 50 states and over 80 countries.  Every child gets the same ground-breaking treatment, regardless of their family’s financial situation.

Well, dudes and dudettes, I’m going to be going off the radar for a few days while my wife and I move into a new house.  So no new articles for me for a few days while I get my mancave command center up and running again.

Before I unplug, I figured that since the forum vote came back a resounding 12-3 for me in favor of me doing another reviewsical, I would crank one out prior to be going offline.

So without further ado, I hope you enjoy! Enjoy the reviewsical of Damnation over the jump.

Back in 1993, a Maths (yes, I’m British, we don’t remove the ‘S’) professor collaborated with Wizards Of The Coast to create a Collectible Card Game that would go on to be the most popular, and most complex card game ever thought up. That game was Magic: The Gathering. This past week, Duels Of The Planeswalkers was released on Xbox Live Arcade. The game is based on M:TG, and it’s had me hooked for three straight days. I’ve pulled myself away from my Xbox 360 long enough to write up this review, however. So cometh all ye Planeswalkers, and check out my literary ramblings of a card game with no cards, after the Planeswalk.

There’s no possible way for me to write up this review without acknowledging my history with M:TG. I played solidly, and semi-professionally for that matter, from the release of Tempest in 1997 to the release of Apocalypse in 2001. Since then I’ve attended a few pre-release tournaments here and there and have played sporadically with friends, but I no longer play ranking events.

In 1997, Microprose released a PC game based on M:TG called, “Duels Of The Planeswalkers.” When this XBLA game was first announced I assumed it would be a re-release of said PC game, but alas it is not. Instead, it ignores the fact that the original ever even existed and has established itself as an entirely different game… Just with the same name. This left me slightly confused, but being that it’s giving me the option to play Magic again, I’m going to allow it.

Congratulations to anyone who understood what I was rambling on about in those last two paragraphs, you clearly have knowledge of the M:TG game and will essentially be on the same page as me throughout this review. Anyone who has no idea what I’m talking about thus far will have to bare with me, for explanations will be attempted.

So I’ve now established that I came into this game as a seasoned player of the CCG (Collectible Card Game), and thus understand the rules and the strategies therein to a great extent. And I’m pleased to say that Duels Of The Planeswalkers (hereby referred to as DotP), stays true to the existing M:TG rule set… Mostly.

The SINGLE niggle I have with the rules thus far is that the computer seems to decide how your attacking damage gets distributed upon being blocked FOR you based on what IT thinks is the logical choice. This is not always in compliance with my own strategies, but it’s no big deal I suppose. As I said, it’s a niggle. That said, the rest of the game seems to perform in perfect harmony to the CCG.

So, what appeal does this game present to beginners? Well, if you’ve got the slightest interest in CCGs or even generic strategy games, this game will suit you down to the ground. M:TG has often been heralded for its strategic gameplay. The game presents you with two starter decks. One green, one red.

Okay everybody, back to your normal routines… apparently this was only a training drill.  As I wrote last week, Brütal Legend was nominated for an award from the Game Critics Awards in four different categories where (in my opinion) it was outclassed at every step.  The winners were announced today it appears I wasn’t off my rocker.  Okay, sure, I get it… this doesn’t prove I’m not off my rocker, but at least my scoffs at some of the nominations don’t seem so silly when you look at the actual winners.

Read on to find out why…In the category Best Original Game, Brütal Legend went up against Alan Wake, Bayonetta, Heavy Rain and Scribblenauts.  The winner was ultimately Scribblenauts.  How can you argue with a game that lets the players say “I F*CKING TRAVELED THROUGH TIME AND JUMPED ON A DINOSAUR AND USED IT TO KILL MOTHERF*CKING ROBOT ZOMBIES.” I mean really… you can’t argue with that, it’s pure win!

In the category Best Console Game, Brütal Legend was up against God of War 3, Mass Effect 2, Modern Warefare 2, and Uncharted 2: Among Thieves.  The winner was Uncharted 2: Among Thieves.  Who in God’s name looks at Uncharted 2 and Brütal Legend as being in the same class when comparing games?  Most games only have one (or two if they’re lucky) from: great design, great writing, or great gameplay.  Uncharted 2 rocks all three to the max!  Brütal Legend seems to have nailed the writing, but I’m not so sure on the design and gameplay.

In the category Best Action/Adventure game, Brütal Legend stood up against Bayonetta, God of War 3, Splinter Cell: Conviction, and Uncharted 2: Among Thieves.  The winner was Uncharted 2: Among Thieves.  Again, no disrespect intended, but Brütal Legend was so outclassed here it wasn’t even funny.  I’m actually wondering if Bayonetta made this list due to the booth babe’s incredible rubber/leather outfit.

Finally, in the category Best of Show, Brütal Legend was thrown up against Mass Effect 2, Modern Warefare 2, Splinter Cell: Conviction, and Uncharted 2: Among Thieves.  The winner was Uncharted 2: Among Thieves.  I could’ve easily seen this category just about any game on the list, but if one of those games had already won multiple other categories it would make sense to award it Best of Show.  For a game to only win Best of Show would be… odd.  Simply tallying the awards of the nominees in this category puts Uncharted 2: Among Thieves on top.  Brütal Legend never stood a chance.

It seems pretty clear to me that Brütal Legend was likely the victim of the dreaded “Pick your top 5 choices in each category” when most people only really had 3-4 good choices, adding a pinch of wishful thinking toward Tim Schafer getting some recognition due to past injustices.  To go in with the most nominations a single game garnered and to actually win none of those nominations… ouch!

One thing that was clear from where the awards were doled out is the Game Critics association expects Uncharted 2: Among Thieves to really deliver.  The only other game to receive more than one award was the Scribblenauts (winning Best Handheld Game and Best Original Game.)  As I mentioned on Episode 57 of the Blu Show, I’m really looking forward to playing Scribblenauts.

In this episode we talked about inFAMOUS, The Bigs 2 demo, the dry spell in game releases and much, much more. This is more news and less skits like last week — we were lazy. Thanks to our special guest Chris Paladino, formerly of the Gamerscoreblog and now with Promethium marketing.

Enjoy.

Please stop by  iTunes and subscribe to Sarcastic Gamer Radio.  You can also click this little RSS feed andget the show through your choice of platform (including Zune).

Of course you could always do things manually and just get this handy-dandy mp3.

Again, 8bit Bass did not assist with this episode, but he was the inspiration. Wordpress really wanted him to be attached to this post for some unknown reason.

When Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars was officially unveiled at Nintendo’s E3 2008 media briefing, many assumed that it was and would remain a DS exclusive. Even the official Chinatown Wars web site pegged it as such.

Though, as has become apparent, the word “exclusive” rarely means just that. Oftentimes, it means that a game – or piece of content – will be exclusive for a limited time only. Nowadays, companies are looking for bigger returns on their investments, and, as result, third-party exclusives are becoming increasingly rare.

It should come as no surprise then, that a PSP version of Chinatown Wars is currently in development at Rockstar Leeds, the same studio that handled the DS SKU. Rockstar North is also involved with the project.

Slated for a fall release in North America and Europe, the game will be offered as a disc-based retail release and as a digital download from the PlayStation Network. Current PSP models support both formats, but the PSP go – set to release on Oct. 1 – will be a download-only device.

Rockstar Leeds previously released Liberty City Stories and Vice City Stories for the PSP, both of which achieved great critical and commercial success.

Sales of the DS version were heavily scrutinized, as many viewed the game as an important indicator of the viability of Mature-rated titles on the family-friendly system. The cel-shaded title didn’t sell abysmally, but certainly disappointed, considering the pedigree of the franchise and the mammoth worldwide install base of the DS. According to NPD numbers obtained by Gamasutra, Chinatown Wars sold 163,000 copies during its first two months at retail. Keep in mind that, that total is for the U.S. only. The game failed to rank in the NPD top ten for DS software in May.

This is of course tremendous news for current and future PSP owners, who have yet another tremendous title to look forward to. Future PSP releases include MotorStorm: Arctic Edge, LittleBigPlanet, Assassin’s Creed: Bloodlines, Soulcalibur: Broken Destiny, PixelJunk Monsters Deluxe, Ghostbusters: The Video Game and Dante’s Inferno. Sweet lord that is a lot of games. Better start donating plasma now guys and gals.

Some might speculate that this move is a response to the disappointing sales of the DS version. However, I am not so sure. During Nintendo’s E3 2008 media briefing, Cammie Dunaway, Nintendo of America’s executive vice president of sales & marketing, referred to Chinatown Wars as a custom game for the DS, not an exclusive. So, perhaps Nintendo struck a timed-exclusivity deal that has since expired.

According to the press release provided by Take-Two Interactive, the PSP version is being developed specifically for the platform and “will take full advantage of the power of the PSP system.” Thus, I assume it won’t be a simple port of the DS game. Besides, would PSP owners be satisfied with a PSP GTA with DS graphics?

The official Chinatown Wars web site now acknowledges the existence of the PSP version, but it used to read “Out Now,” with “Exclusively for the DS” written under that. Now, you could interpret that message a couple of ways: 1) the game is a DS exclusive and will remain so, or 2) the game is currently only available for the DS. The latter interpretation suggests that another SKU could appear in the future.

If you ask me, this game has been in development for a while. At least longer than three months.

What do you think?

Sources: Take-Two Interactive, Gamasutra, Gamasutra

Many of you are probably aware that the much-anticipated Ghostbusers: The Video Game has finally been released, and today Sarcastic Gamer’s own Havok Saunders did a great review of the title.

What you may not realize is that I also consider myself to be an amateur “Ghostbuster,” or “Ghost Hunter” as the case may be. This inspired me to present to the community a look at “Games vs. Reality,” from the perspective of today’s most popular Ghost hunting group, TAPS (The Atlantic Paranormal Society) from TV’s “Ghost Hunters.” For those of you not in the know, they have a very popular weekly show on Sci-Fi channel, now with its own “International Ghost Hunters” spin-off.

If you find this remotely entertaining, let us know! I hope to make this a regular feature on SG, to help keep us gamers grounded in reality.

For more information:

• Havok’s review
• Ghost Hunters @ Sci-Fi channel
• Ghostbusters: TVG official site

Life is hard for a Ghostbuster. You get calls at all hours of the day, you are constantly getting slimed by spirits, and you have to deal with that pencil-necked clod, Walter Peck. Even worse, people complain when you accidentally rearrange their dining room during a job. Do they actually think that a phantasm will just jump into a trap?

At least we don’t have to compensate the city for the damage that we cause. It is all straight profit, which goes toward hookers and booze. Alright, in actuality, the money funds our operation and allows us to purchase upgrades for our existing weapons. It really is a shame. We could have one hell of a night in the red-light district.

So why do I do it? Why do I risk my sanity chasing ghouls and ghosts? I think you know the answer. Because busting makes me feel good.

When I first walked into the revamped firehouse, I really didn’t know what to expect. I had seen the television reports and read the newspaper stories, but surely no amount of media coverage could prepare me for such an odd job.

Right off the bat, I was greeted by a portrait of the villainous Vigo, the fiend who attempted to inhabit Dana Barrett’s infant son, Oscar. For some strange reason, the guys like to keep it in the lobby near Janine’s desk. It can actually speak. Uber creepy.

Since I was the new guy, I got dubbed the guinea pig. If there was a potentially harmful piece of equipment that needed to be tested, it got strapped to my back. Fair enough. I was the greenhorn. The “Rookie” name tag was a bit humbling though.

First thing on the agenda was orientation with the tech guys, Dr. Stantz and Dr. Spengler. They eat this paranormal stuff up. If there is a stray spook wreaking havoc, those two are probably at the scene, spouting off spectral jargon.

Dr. Venkman was also present, but he was too busy being a wise-ass to offer any helpful advice.

I didn’t meet Winston, the fourth ‘buster, until later in the evening. He has the least eccentric personality. Unlike the others, he is not a scientist, but simply a normal guy trying to make a living. Though, don’t underestimate the Zed man. He is as sharp as a tack.

Mere moments after I slipped on a Proton Pack, a blue energy pulse swept through the room. Come to find out, it emanated from the Gozer exhibit at the Museum of Natural History. Things were about to get crazy.

All of sudden, we heard glass shatter downstairs. Slimer had escaped his prison, and was loose in the station. Ray, Egon and myself rushed to the basement, while Peter stayed upstairs and played the Q*bert arcade cabinet. If you ask me, it was kind of a dick move, but I probably would have done the same in his position.

When we got downstairs, Slimer was fixated on the containment unit, which is where all of the captured ghosts are kept. A quick shot from my Proton Pack only exacerbated the predicament, as yet another, much fatter revenant escaped into the basement. Ray assuaged my concern, since he was the one who told me to take aim. I still maintain that my aim was impeccable. There must have been a slight breeze in the room, or something.

Not long after, we caught up to apparitions, which provided me the opportunity to set things straight. I readied my Proton Pack. I could feel the power surging through my muscular hands. Ahem.

The Proton Pack is used to wear ghosts down. Tip for future cadets: stay in shape. It is not easy to haul around a 100-pound pack. I am not saying that you have to bulk up on steroids, but be aware that you will have to carry some heavy equipment.

Once a spirit has been sufficiently weakened, we nab it with the capture stream and pull it toward an open trap. Even in this state, the ghost will continue to thrash about, so I usually just slam it against something to daze it. Ghosts don’t like being pent up and will struggle until the very end.

Initially, I had some trouble keeping targets in the trap beam. The problem was that I was applying too much counteractive force. With enough practice though, it became second nature. Now, I am a master wrangler. The guys even call me “Trap Star.” OK, so that is a total lie, but the name does have a nice ring to it. I doubt I could convince Ray to put it on a suit though.

We were able to capture the second ghost, but Slimer managed to escape to his old haunt, the Sedgewick Hotel.

Stephanie Meyer having a bad day writing "Twilight"

Hey, chumps and chumpettes, listen up.

You wanted more community projects with the upcoming SG 3.0 changes, so let’s give this a try.

You slave away on your uber forum posts listing six reasons why Rothbart should shave his beard.  You devote hour after hour, of what could be game time, writing on your Sarcastic Gamer blog about the evils of the WiiMotion Plus.  Bottom line: you enjoy writing and you’ve got something that you want the Sarcastic Gamer Community to know about.

Put your money where your mouth is and let’s see what you’ve got.

Here’s how we’re going to do this. Starting today, I will begin surfing the Sarcastic Gamer community blog posts to be highlighted on the front page!  Write your best piece and stick it on your blog.  Once a week, we will dip into the blogs and search for the best submissions we can find.  Based on content, proper grammar and spelling, they be put on the front page for the whole community to see.

Bad Example:

OMG WTF SOME GUY SAID HALO 3 SUCKZ AND I WAS ALL LIKE NOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!1111111111!

Good Example:

There was a chap over on the forum who made the preposterous statement that Halo 3 is in fact not the Second Coming.  I immediately challenged him to fisticuffs and make a derogatory comment about his mother and a donkey….[and so on]

Okay, maybe without the early 20th century foppery, but I think you get the idea.  Be compelling, be funny, be different, but remember to spell it RITE.  I mean, right.

New to the site, but want to figure out how to get your name in lights?  No fear, Padawan.  Follow these simple steps to get set up!

1. On the top of the front page, you’ll see a list of tabs under the Sarcastic Gamer banner, such as “Home” or “Podcasts”.  Click on the “Forums” button.
2. If you have not registered for an account, there’s  a link on the notice at the top of the forums to click in order to register.
3. Register yourself a new account by filling out your age and coming up with a login name and password.  Once you verify the account through an email address, you’re almost there.
4. From the “Forums” page, on the top bar you’ll see the tab “SGC Blogs”.  Click on that button under the head banner.
5. You’re now in the blog section.  On the left hand option bar, you’ll see a list of options for you to choose from.  Click “Post To Your Blog” to get started with your masterpiece.

The goal is that, once a week, someone’s post from their blog gets highlighted on the front page for the rest of the world to see!  You wanted more community events and Sarcastic Gamer delivers!

Viva la 3.0 revolution!

Shanghai Six hosts the Single Player Podcast Episode 4.

• special guest “Borat”
• game covered: ‘Wheelman” starring Vin Deasel

Subscribe to all of the great community shows via iTunes or RSS, or download this episode right here: mp3

Congratulations to Ciarán — the winner of our Red Faction competition. A copy of Red Faction Guerrilla for the Playstation 3, and a Red Faction figurine (pictured), are on their way to you!

If you didn’t win — do not fret! We have plenty more competitions on the way.

Last week we made our readers aware of a young hero named Amber, who’s courage in the face of Cystic Fibrosis is truly inspiring.  During my brief visit with Amber she mentioned how much she’d love to have a green wristband for the non-profit that she and her family started, Ambers-Angels.org.

With just two blog posts and a ton of retweets from our friends on Twitter, you’ve raised exactly $950 for Amber, meaning she’s getting more than a thousand green Ambers-Angels.org wristbands and a sweet check to help support her efforts to bring happiness to hospitalized children during the holidays.

While we enjoy covering video games and being general goofballs around here, it’s stuff like this that truly fulfill the team at Sarcastic Gamer, and we want to thank each and every one of you who donated or helped to spread the word on Amber’s behalf.

I spoke with Amber’s mom who was overwhelmed by this gesture.  Amber will be kept in the dark until the wristbands are delivered in a couple of weeks.  Oh, and those of you who donated?  You’re getting one of the wristbands you pitched in towards, autographed by our young hero herself.

Thank you, again and again SGC.

NOTE:  For those that would still like to donate, the link will remain active for several more days.  You too will get that autographed bracelet and your money will be added to the check for Ambers-Angels.org

Oh good, it's not a tie!

All across the world, people are celebrating a special holiday known as Father’s Day. It’s fairly self-explanatory — a day where we all celebrate the hard work and effort of our fathers and grandfathers.

In that tradition, we present to the community a Sarcastic Gamer list of “Games to play with Dad (or Grandpa) on Father’s Day.” See the list after the hop.

• EA Sports – Do I really need to explain this one? Most Dads love sports. Whether it’s basketball, football, baseball, hockey, curling, or boxing, EA’s got your fix. I don’t want to get into the debate about how Madden is the same game it was in 2002 with improved graphics and an updated roster, because Dad probably doesn’t care about all that. I recall during the Holiday season when there were many stories relayed through the community about great times spent with Dad and brothers around the TV playing their own Bowl games.
• Wii Sports – Nothing says “I love, Dad” like reminding him how old and out-of-shape he is. Boxing with your father on the television is a great way to relieve stress in your relationship without actually sending someone to the hospital. Well, hopefully. Use your wrist straps to make sure that the Wiimote doesn’t go through his brand-new HD TV he bought for Christmas, or the fisticuffs may come off the screen and into the living room.
• Motorstorm/Gran Turismo/Forza/Mario Kart – If your Dad is like mine and would rather be wheeling in the dirt than watching the Utah Jazz lose to the LA Lakers, a healthy dose of motorcycle-on-monster truck action may be up his alley. Or if he’s a complete gearhead, introduce him to the wonderful world of “sim racers.” Be sure to bring a book as I’m certain he’ll want to spend an hour tuning up the ‘69 Stingray he always wanted when he was in high school before you pound him on the track with your stock Impreza (mainly because driving any RWD in a racing game is next to impossible if you’re a beginner – oh yeah, and modern cars produce more WHP per cylinder than they did back then). If realism isn’t his thing or you’re a Wii-only gamer, Mario Kart is a great fun-for-the-clan game. My step-father-in-law (holy hyphens!) and brothers-in-law have a mini-tourney every Sunday night after dinner, and while its stiff competition, we manage to keep it fun and civil.
• Call of Duty: World at War – Few things will bring on the chuckles today like playing some “realistic” WWII action on the High-def screen. As you cruise through co-op mode on Easy with Dad, those screaming, suicidal Japanese warriors popping up out of holes like a trapdoor spider, running at you with bayonets in a murderous rage are likely to short-circuit grandpa temporarily and send him into shell shock. Be sure there are no items in the room that could be used as weapons, and you should be fine. Or, tell Grandpa that the plastic ficus in the other room wants to have a chat with him.
• Lego [Anything] – The Lego series of games are a fantastic standby for any family. I don’t believe I’ve met too many people, no matter what age, who didn’t love the Lego Star Wars series. Yes, I’m sure there are people out there. Now we have Indiana Jones and Batman. If your Dad doesn’t like Star Wars, Indiana Jones, or Batman (one or all of them), you may be adopted. Surprise! Plus, these games are a blast in co-op.
• Vampire Rain, Two Worlds – Let’s face it, not all fathers were stellar. If you’re in your volatile/formative teen years, you may feel your Dad is the meanest S.O.B. to ever walk this planet. I think most teens feel this way at one point or another in their lives. If your father is a legitimate bastard, however, now’s your chance to convince him that “you really want to bond” and then pull a fast one by sticking in one of these pile-of-feces “good concept, horrible execution/broken” games. Be warned, however, this probably won’t help you feel any better about yourself or your situation—in fact, it might just make things much worse between the two of you, but not everyone is looking for a warm fuzzy today.
• Hasbro Family Night pack – Hasbro has introduced a handful of classic games, including Connect Four, Scrabble, Battleship, Yahtzee, and Boggle, that your Dad may have even played when he was a kid, when he wasn’t walking twelve miles to school and back, uphill both ways through ten feet of snow with only socks to keep his feet warm and carrying an entire library on his back. Sure, you might even be able to scrounge through the storage closet/room and find some of those original games, but playing on the 360/PS3/Wii is far less of a hassle, less messy, and prevents Dad or anyone else from cheating.

There are plenty more games out there that your Dad might enjoy, but these are just some examples of how you can have some fun with the Old Man today while the women do the dishes and bake you some pie. Or whatever. The point is, have some fun with your father today. Introduce him to one of your hobbies. While its easy to lament how casual-core games are becoming, there are some benefits.

Have a great Father’s Day everyone, and be sure to thank the Dads in your life for putting up with you all those years!

Many thanks to forum member Venus Envy for her first Community Comic contribution, marking a momentous moment in Sarcastic Gamer video coverage! Read on to see a larger version of Venus Envy’s comic and to find out more details of how you make you own Community Comic contribution…

***CLICK ON THE THUMBNAIL BELOW TO VIEW***

***CLICK ON THE THUMBNAIL ABOVE TO VIEW***

mightymutt@sarcasticgamer. com

She doesn’t play games. That’s the first thing to know about her.

We’ve been dating since around March and have reached that awkward phase where there’s an obligation to try out each other’s hobbies. For me this has been simple, hanging out with her friends and getting drunk works retroactively. But for her it’s a bit more a of a journey. I’ve played games since the Megadrive (Genesis, for you colonials) and it’s an important part of my development and identification. She realises this, and without any pressuring decided that because it’s so key to better understanding me she’d start giving this stuff a try.

How did it go? Sir, madam, read on after the jump.

Her experience with games leads back to brief encounter with, in her words, “some Scooby Doo game on the PlayStation”. I realised at this point that there was a lot of chronology that she’s missed out on and in order to properly understand the medium, she’d need somewhat of a history lesson.

Not wanting to break out charts and graphs (out of a lack of preparation time, not out of a dislike for them, charts and graphs rule) and lacking a set of early consoles to-hand, we started our journey with Xbox LIVE release: Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix.

Obviously, not to put her off with such a convoluted name, I told her it was just an “Old Street Fighter”.

We jumped straight into Versus to allow me a chance to throw a few rounds to boost her confidence while I teach her the basics, I pick Ken and she ill-advisedly picks Cammy, rationalising that “she’s a girl”. I don’t debate her logic (how can you? She’s never seen the game before). At this point I don’t try and teach her any moves, just let her do what comes natural, I take a defensive stance, block a lot, jump around, throw a few punches so it doesn’t look too obvious that I’m taking a dive, she wins both rounds.

I suggest from there she tries out more starter friendly characters, she alternates between Chun-Li and Blanka as we play for a little longer. I keep a convincing stance as a jabronie going. Deciding that it would be interesting to take a leap from how SSF2THDR looks and plays, to the more modern Street Fighter 4. I get up to put in the disc…

It was recently noted by Frontier Developments head David Braben (developers of the WiiWare game Lost Winds) that the reason Wii Metacritic scores are usually so abysmally low compared to the rest of the pack is that these games are being reviewed by “core gamers” and that “family focused games tend to appeal less to them.”

Braben continued by saying, “It throws up a difficult dilemma for those reviewers … are they reviewing the game for those people likely to play it, or for those people who form the bulk of their readership?”

Does he have a point?  Hit me after the jump.

Okay, as I’m writing this, I’m realizing that Braben’s comments are not about Nintendo not caring about ratings, but more about the right people reviewing the games in the first place.  Damn, that’s not where I was going with this.

Well, I’m taking it my direction, and you all can piss off.

Dammit, all right, he makes sense, as much as I hate to admit it.  You wouldn’t send the guys from the TLC show American Chopper into review the latest in moped sales, or you’d get some pretty scathing reviews.  And let’s face it, the people who are dishing out 9.0-10.0 reviews on games like your Resident Evils and your Gods of War are not getting “wowed” over the same things that are going to get those same reviewers to wet their panties over the latest title in the Hannah Montana line.

The problem here is your Wii Sports and your casual games are obviously outselling your quality, artistic titles.  Wii games that explore genres, redefine boundaries, and push the limits of the norm like Madworld and No More Heroes are getting buried by the NPD numbers being put up by games like Mario Kart and Wii Play, which are safe, family friendly nerf-soft regurgitation.  So why take risk at all on something deep and artsy when you can crank out Mario Party 17 and sell a million copies guaranteed?

Ever see the movie “Idiocracy”?  Perfect example. It’s the reverse evolution, where instead of the best and the brightest being elevated through a survival-of-the-fittest style competition, it’s a matter of cranking out useless offspring after useless offspring and hoping that one of them turns grows up not to be a stripper or cranked out on black tar heroin, or both.

Back in the 1990s, when gaming was just starting its slow ascent into the phenomenon that it’s now becoming, it was uncool to be a gamer.  We were a niche market with very specific tastes where you could get away with an Altered Beast or some such nonsense.  There were very few games for kids or your grandparents that blew the doors off any system, because the market didn’t exist.  Playing your 8-bit Nintendo was still shunned by most as “playing games”.

Smash cut to today. Video games are a multi-billion dollar a year industry and reports indicate that more people are playing video games than going to movies; it is a great time to be a gamer.

But now Nintendo has tapped into the blue-hair wig market and the floodgates have opened.  Now the niche market is turning a niche market again, only this time in a negative way.  We’re slowly going from being the hip minority to being the uncatered-to minority as Sony and Microsoft race to play catch up try and take a piece of Nintendo’s casual game market.

It’s like the hip corner bar that you’ve been going to for twenty years that only you knew about has suddenly now been marked as a stop over by a weekly tour bus full of grannies on their way to a slot machine casino in Vancouver.  After awhile, it’s only a matter of time before the bar owner has to start putting in wheelchair accessible ramps and copies of AARP magazine on the bar.

That has to have been the strangest analogy I’ve ever used.

Eventually, games that are innovative and take risks are going to go the way of the dodo in lieu of games that can turn guaranteed profit.

So, just like any business, Nintendo is going to continue to prostitute themselves out to those consumers who are consuming the most, which are apparently nursing homes and ten-year-olds.  The fact that Nintendo just sold its twenty millionth Wii last month and that it continues to outpace both Sony and Xbox monthly sales two to one shows that it is doing something begrudgingly right.

I can just see the granny bus on the horizon, and I don’t like the adult diaper stink that it brings with it.

…6PM CST/12PM BST

It’s coming…

Seems like Sony can’t catch a break.  In a bullying move by Activision’s CEO Bobby Kotick, he told a UK Times reporter about Sony and the PS3:

“They have to cut the price, because if they don’t, the attach rates [the number of games each console owner buys] are likely to slow. If we are being realistic, we might have to stop supporting Sony…”

Why would he make such a claim? Follow me after the jump for the analysis.

Asked when Sony titles may be pulled, Kotick added:

“When we look at 2010 and 2011, we might want to consider if we support the console – and the PSP [portable] too.”

Kotick is mad at Sony because of it’s poor install base for the PS3, and wants to see the infamous price drop that everyone’s be ruminating over since the platform released.   He also went on to site that sales of Call of Duty 4 and 5 both sold more on the Xbox than were sold on the PS3.

So never mind that Sony announced a billion (that’s with a B) dollar loss this fiscal year, but if you could please slash prices, that’ll help pick things up! http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3174224

Sony commented on Kotick’s threat early this afternoon with a resounding “no comment”.  http://www.vg247.com/2009/06/19/sony-on-kotick-ps3-drop-threat-we-respect-third-party-opinion-but-no-comment/

While he does have a point that Sony’s failure to create a system with a reasonable price point for the average gamer to accept versus the Wii or the Xbox, the PS3 seems to finally be coming into it’s own.  It did only take the system three years to hit its stride, and it’s going to take quite a miracle to get it caught up with the other two systems, especially the breakaway Wii.  However, many people consider Sony’s press conference at E3 the clear winner this year, and their list of Sony exclusive titles are expanding to the point where even I had to concede and finally buy one.

Not that this is an industry standard, mind you.  I’m just saying.

Here’s the bottom line: the announcement that Activision would no longer be supporting Sony platforms is ridiculous.  It’s a dick move by the developer to kick Sony in the ass to come up with some more innovative ways to push more systems out the door.

Activision has no intention of stopping production on multi-platform titles.  Sony will have its feelings hurt, and it’s unlikely that they will take his words seriously, but they will stick in the back of their heads when they feel like keeping the PSP GO’s price at $250.  I mean, both Call of Duty games sold over a million copies on the PS3, so it’s not like they’re not performing.  Activision wants the PS3 to perform well;  Kotick claimed that Activision dropped $500 million in royalties on Sony.  Kotick’s words are the equivalent of a football dad yelling at his kid to go run more laps after a sandbagged workout; the dad wants his son to succeed, but people standing on the outside might misconstrue him as an ass.

I’m not saying Kotick is not being a greedy ass.  That may of course be the case, and he might care less about Sony.  Just like the football dad who dreams of his son joining the NFL so he can finally buy that double wide he’s always dreamed of.  As the head of the world largest third party developer, he’s  got the upper hand and he’s taking advantage of the situation to dictate terms to the struggling giant.

http://www.joystiq.com/2009/06/19/kotick-questions-continued-activision-support-of-sony-platforms/

Hear ye, hear ye!  In the first of what we at Sarcastic Gamer hope is a new weekly section, the writers and editors found Zvolen’s well thought out review of Terminator: Salvation and decided that it was worthy of front page material. Take it away, Zvolen!

Terminator Salvation is yet another movie tie-in game that was recently released on May 19, 2009 in conjunction with the movie of the same title. This action/shooter game was developed by Halcyon Games, a recently created subsidiary of Halcyon Company who bought the rights of the Terminator franchise, as well as Swedish developer Grin who just developed Bionic Commando and Wanted: Weapons of Fate. In Terminator Salvation players control John Conner in a story which takes place two years before the current movie, in a desolate and decimated Los Angeles. While trying to escape the area John gets a transmission of a resistance team that needs help and against strict orders decides to attempt a rescue mission.

Can this movie tie-in game escape the clichés that fall upon most titles, or should this simply be terminated? Read on to find out.

While the concept seems interesting it just appears as if the game was rushed into and out of development with little thought given to the final product just to make a release window. This showed in many areas of the game including the lack luster graphics as well as the voice acting. This was the first time that during a game I could feel the disconnect between the in-game characters and their voice. The lack of emotion and drama was felt throughout the entire game and became an overall re-occurring theme.

Although the setting seemed like an interesting world to explore the gameplay didn’t allow you to do so, instead leading you through a maze and in turn restricting any exploration. The game was very linear giving you basically only one way to proceed from combat area to combat area. The levels didn’t feel alive but simply transitioned you from one ruble riddled building to the next. The atmosphere was extremely bland making all of the areas look eerie similar. The levels were extensively broken up by distracting and bland load screens depicting the same image, again highlighting the lack of polish and detail put into the game.

As for the story, it was non-existent giving you no reason to care about the plot, but instead used just as an excuse to keep moving from point A to point B. The gameplay was frequently broken up with lots of cut scenes which unsuccessfully attempted to flush out the plot that should have been reflected through gameplay. The story was average at best and basically just felt like a typical dull plain shooter that was neither compelling nor deep. The entire plot is based around your attempt to rescue a resistance team and your battle against Skynet to reach them. That’s it. No plot twist or turns. As the game progressed it actually got easier as the supply of rocket launchers and ammunition was plentiful. It was as if the game was trying to hurriedly wrap itself up for an abrupt ending without giving much detail or closure at all. The lack of polish continued to show even after you died, often times making you sit through an entire cut scene, which you just saw, in order to replay that specific mission objective. This of course is after you had to sit through an excessive load screen in order to initially play that mission.

The one aspect I was hoping the game would deliver on was the combat. However, again I was left disappointed as the combat was lackluster and clunky. The weapons and explosives were uninspiring without much variation and were sloppy both is use and in sound. Despite the negatives the combat did have one shining moment, the cover system. This mechanic was very intuitive and moving between cover was seamless, however the dependence on it was frustrating. The combat forced you to be tactical in your approach by moving between cover and flanking your enemies to shoot their weak spots. The problem however is in the AI, or lack thereof, in both the enemies and in your partners. Upon flanking your enemies you were often spotted causing the enemies to continuously shoot at your position while your partners endlessly sprayed at other targets. Therefore you had to eternally wait behind cover, or foolishly expose yourself, until your partner provided cover fire thus alerting the enemy of their position and in turn giving you the opportunity to take them out. The problem is that rarely happened making all of the firefight tedious and longer then they should have been. If the combat is going to force you to be strategic the rest of the game needs to follow suit but instead a majority of the time the AI simply did nothing. Consequently my only option was to use unresponsive and cumbersome controls to continually attack the same four enemies throughout the entire game without any variation in tactics or presentation. All of this left me eagerly awaiting the conclusion of the game, luckily I didn’t have to wait too long since the game can be completed in less than five hours.

You know those stereotypes of movie tie-in games we talked about? Games like Terminator Salvation are why those stereotypes exist. The game was in production for less than 24 months and it shows. Because of the shorter timeline the game fell into the same fate that most other movie tie-in games also fall into, lack of polish.

Regrettably due to the above mentioned problems I have never been so excited to see the credits roll. The flaws of this game seriously outweigh the positives and I was literally anticipating the end of this game. This is unfortunate since this title had so much potential to be a quality game that would complimented the movie. All in all it is a really basic game with only local co-op and no multiplayer or any other reason to replay it but is still offered at full retail price. Even the trophies, which can be had in one play through as they are all story based are not a good enough reason to pick this game up. Overall this was a very hard review to write since if I usually dislike a game I will simply stop playing it. But because I was attempting a review I was inclined to finish this game while still remaining objective.

Therefore, I cannot recommend purchasing this title nor can I recommend even renting this title. With the amount of quality games that are out your time will be much better spent playing those, even though it would be a quick play through I absolutely dreading playing this game knowing I could be playing something else. I hope to save you from that same regret. Even for the fans of the franchise or trophy whores alike I still can’t recommend purchasing or even renting this title, it was such a bore to actually finish.

After the pure fun and enjoyment I had with Wolverine, this game just felt like a chore which is not what I want from my gaming sessions.

In our 57th episode we finish our E3 2009 discussion by going into more depth on the Metal Gear announcements (MGS Rising and MGS Peace Walker) and the Agent announcement.  Pacman schools everyone on the finer points of inFAMOUS and Prototype.  The crew also weighs in on the PSN game Zen Pinball.  We couldn’t end the episode without a heaping helping of ROOMAHS™ too.

We appreciate you guys taking time out of your day every week to list to our show. For your convenience, you can simply download the MP3 by clicking HERE or if you’re one of those “set it and forget it” types, you can subscribe via iTunes, RSS, or Zune and stay in “real time.”

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This week the ladies of SG talk about Oprah, Ghost Busters, and heat stroke for the kids. All this and other off the wall things await you in episode 33 of the Sarcastic Gamer Pink.

Why listen to just one episode of SG Pink when you can subscribe in iTunes and GET PINK automatically delivered to you each week.

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They say good things come in threes and Sarcastic Community Comics are no exception! Master Johnboy returns for the third time this week, with the concluding part of his Sarcastic Trek Trilogy. For those of you that have already  read Part 1 and Part 2, it’s time to find out how John’s Sarcastic Trek reaches it’s Sarcastic conclusion.

When times are hard and it seems the world is against you, the one good thing is you find out who your friends are…

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Need more Sarcastic Comics? See Master Johnboy’s earlier episodes on his blog, or in the SG Comics sectiona Also, check out Episode 1 & Episode 2 of UndeadDog’s Community Comic.

Think you could do better? Or just as good? Or even an acceptable amount worse? If you want more information on producing your own community comic please contact me on the forums or send an email to me:

mightymutt@sarcasticgamer. com

[Yamster's note: Havok originally wrote this up on his own Sarcastic Gamer Community Blog but we figured it'd be cool to share it on the front page too as it's a pretty good point of view. Of course, we encourage you to get in on the act and write up your own opinions in your own community blog too!]

I am generally supportive of the ESRB, as I believe the group provides a number of valuable services to the games industry and to parents. In addition to rating all retail releases in the U.S. and Canada, the non-profit organization works with public officials to promote its letter-based ratings. All this to ensure that kiddies, tweens and teens play games that are appropriate for their age. Though, as we all know, young ones still manage still get their mitts on violence-laden titles.

That said, there is a moment or two where they get right under my skin, like today. Read why over the jump.

Now, I rarely deride the ESRB because it’s comprised of hard-working individuals who, among other things, want to shield children from naughty things like boobs, booze and swear words. However, I am baffled as to why the organization would reject this Left 4 Dead 2 cover art, yet OK this one. The only difference between the two pics is that the banned art features a hand with three digits gnawed off, instead of just a thumb. The edit would seem to suggest that the ESRB found the original concept to be too grotesque. That, or the group harbors a sinister grudge against thumbs.

My question is, why was an edit mandated? The first cover was a bit gruesome, but nasty enough to get shot down? It wasn’t like the photo had blood squirting from the hand, or a bone jutting out from the palm. A bloody, gnarled hooker is one thing, but a hand? Really?

Besides, is the newer version really that much better? I mean, it still has a zombie-gnawed paw front and center. Perhaps I just have a steel stomach, but the whole situation seems a bit silly to me.

In the end, I doubt many gamers will care about the change. Box art is nice to look at, but really, it’s just box art. The game itself will be far more important.

For those planning to pick up the Louisiana-flavored sequel this November, Ars Technica writer Ben Kuchera has reported that the game’s code will not require any edits due to objectionable content. Splendid. I can already hear the chainsaws purring.

Source: Ars Technica

Question: What do inFAMOUS, Red Faction: Guerrilla, Wolverine and Prototype all have in common?

Answer: They’ve all been put on hold thanks to a certain PSN title that came out last week.

Follow the magical jump to find out which downloadable release has halted my progress on the biggest games of the last two months, and why that trend is set to continue.

I won’t lie to you all, I’m a busy guy. My job requires me to not only handle data for a certain UK mail company, but also to sit on a committee which oversees the budgets, expenses and purchases of my particular unit within said company. I also record my own music, and have very recently started work on my second album. I also have friends, who occasionally want to do stuff (a vague statement, I know, however it’s bizarrely fitting). Oh, and I’ve been known of late to contribute my literary works to this wonderful website.

I’m sure I’ve forgotten something here…

Oh yes! I also play video games! And here is where today’s story begins. Recently I rented Wolverine. It’s a fun game, not very innovative, but fun enough that it kept me interested. That is until inFAMOUS came out! Damn! That game rocked my proverbial socks! I couldn’t put the damn thing down, I mean I was meticulously scouring the map looking for side missions to do before even contemplating starting a story mission. Which is probably the reason I’d only made it to the end of the second island when Red Faction was released…

And there went any time I spent on inFAMOUS, suddenly Red Faction was absorbing all of my available gaming hours and, once again, I had no intention of doing anything story related until I’d done a crap-load of side missions and ran around blowing things up. I’ve lost count of the amount of times I’ve strapped mine after mine to a vehicle, jumped it off a ramp into the side of a building, bailed out of the door and blown it – along with the building – straight to Hades. Yeah, that game was great fun. As I write this I’m awaiting a delivery of my rental copy of Prototype, but I doubt I’ll be playing it anytime soon. Why? Because Hironobu Sakaguchi and Yoshinori Kitase were far too good at their jobs in 1997, that’s why!

It’s no secret to anyone that knows me, that Final Fantasy VII is without question, my favourite video game of all time. Hands down. No competition. You’re all entitled to your opinions, of course, but for me there has never been a greater game released. So when it was announced at E3 that it was coming to PSN within the week (in the UK), I was over the frikkin’ moon. I mean I was high on this, I was higher than Rick James at an awards ceremony. And thusly, FF7 has indeed devoured every spare second I have found since getting back from Download Festival on Monday evening.

I mentioned before that Prototype is on its way to me. The thing is, Ghostbusters will be soon as well! ANOTHER game that will soon be ignored in favour of a sodding 12 YEAR-OLD ANTIQUE!!! But what a glorious antique it is…

And the downloadable games that are preventing me from playing full-price discs don’t even end there. On their way to XBLA soon are another THREE releases that will blow my mind wide open with nostalgic dreamscapes of days gone by. Monkey Island is being released! MONKEY ISLAND! Those of you who once owned a Commodore Amiga will understand that excitement, and the fact that NEW episodic content is being planned for the franchise is the ickiest of the sticky icing on the scrumptious cake. Also announced is Magic: The Gathering – Duels Of The Planeswalkers… Okay XBLA, now you’re killing me. Do you not realise how much time I sank into that game as a youngling? It’s unfair to ask me to do it all again! And yet I know I will, for my will is weak and my mind a plaything.

*Crying now…*

This winter, Electronic Arts will be releasing the follow up to the “love it or hate it” third person shooter, Army of Two, called Army of Two: The 40^th Day.

One of the major complaints from the original game was that the protagonists, Rios and Salem, were in fact a generally unlikable pair of douchebags with little in the way or morals or conscience.

How is EA handing these two this time around?  Fist bump with me after the jump.

When the original Army of Two came out, I was all excited to hear about game fashioned after a pair of Army Rangers who were working for a private military contractor.  Go Rangers!

I figured, in my self delusional way that I do when I look forward to a game that depicts any kind of facet of military life, that they would pay someone to as an adviser to make the game more realistic.

Well, I’m not sure who they got as their adviser for the characters Salem and Rios, but Jesus, every time the immoral asshat Salem opened his mouth, I wanted to throw my Xbox controller at the television.  After going through the entire game, hating myself for my stupid inability to quit until I finished the damn thing, I felt like I needed to take a shower.  It felt like I was playing the equivalent of a jock fraternity bully, who made dick and fart jokes while blowing people’s heads off.

I had no intention of playing the sequel when it came out.  For those of you that follow my work, story line is big for me.  To sit through another ten hour campaign of the air guitaring, fist pounding jagoffs pimping their assault rifles and generally insulting my intelligence would be painful.  Especially if they haven’t fixed the atrocious partner AI and rather repetitive gameplay.

Apparently, however, enough reviewers blasted EA for the dipshit duo’s bromance antics that they apparently decided to listen and make some tweaks to the new franchise.  Given the big success and spamming of recent games, and their use of morality driven story choices, EA decided that Salem and Rios would be given the opportunity to make moral choices throughout the new game.

Taken directly from the USA Today article:

Instead, developers of Army of Two: The 40th Day, published by Electronic Arts, are toning down the duo’s antics, opting to focus on a more organic co-op experience.

Developers say The 40th Day will place more emphasis on co-op morality.  The game will be filled with key moral choices that they expect players to argue over during the experience.  One example shown was choosing whether to kill a scared security guard and take a stash of weapons or search for guns elsewhere.

That’s great and all — giving the players a choice between good and evil will help tone down their stupidity — but are the characters still inherent jackasses?  Has EA gone through and completely revamped both characters to be more serious and less like a pair of 15 year olds playing a game of paintball?  The problem was the voice acting was great during the game, and you could really hear it in their dialogue that these guys were hard to like.  It would take some serious revamping from EA to change these guys, and I don’t think that EA is going to allow that to happen.

For myself, I am and have always been a “good” player, in the sense that I will always play as the good guy in a given situation, so if I deign to force myself to play this game (which I undoubtedly will), I will be interested to see if these two human apes can act like responsible adults when given the choice.

For those of you out there who enjoy burning ants with a magnifying glass, I’m sure you’ll get to see the pair in all their douchebagy gloriousness, with Salem slurping beer from the skull of a decapitated nun while Rios headbangs to some power chords only he can hear.

Look, I’m not expecting them to hold any kind of prayer circle for the battalions of mercenaries they’ll undoubtedly have to mow down to complete their objectives, but a little spark of remorse or touch of humanity would be nice.

Source: USA Today

Disclaimer: This is an editorial piece guys — my opinion.  Everybody’s entitled to an opinion, I realize that, but I’m just FLOORED at this, so give me a moment to make a case and then you can sound off.

Apparently there’s an organization that gets together solely to give out various awards for things shown at E3.  Game critics from highly respected gaming sources like: USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Complex Magazine, Gannet News Service, Variety, and Wired Magazine… you know; the veritable who’s who of gaming coverage.  I kid, I kid… mostly.  I mean they might as well be giving out awards at a Home Show for Best Kitchen Appliance.

More after the jump…

Okay, sure, I’ll admit there are also some honest-to-God gaming journalists and bloggers in the mix too such as:  1UP, Game Informer, IGN, Joystiq, Play Magazine, Kotaku, PC Gamer, etc.  That said, I attended E3 and I just can’t believe that from the nearly 30 organizations represented by the “Game Critics” group, one of the top-nominated games was Brütal Legend; it got nominated for Best of Show.  They were at the real E3, right?  We’re not getting Punk’d are we?  Wait, maybe they got Punk’d!   I mean Brütal Legend may end up a decent enough game, but Best of Show is just that… the best damned thing at the show.  Brütal Legend?!?!  You’ve got to be kidding me!

What other games did they nominate for Best of Show?  Let’s see:  Mass Effect 2, Modern Warfare 2, Splinter Cell Conviction, and Uncharted 2: Among Thieves.  What I notice here is that while at E3, I heard several people talking gushingly about each and every one of those last four games but nobody said “OMG!  You have GOT to go see Brütal Legend!”  Nope, not once.  Is this going to be a repeat of Psychonauts where the press praises a Tim Shafer game that gamers don’t end up buying?  Only time will tell.

It doesn’t stop at Best of Show though, Brütal Legend was also nominated for Best Original Game, Best Console Game, and Best Action/Adventure Game.  I’m starting to wonder if these guys all got to see behind-closed-doors demos that the general media didn’t get to see because I sure wouldn’t have put Brütal Legend on those lists either.  Now if there was a Best Metal category… sure.  I’d even consider it if there was a Best Comedy Writing in a Game.

Make no mistake, this isn’t a Brütal Legend bashing article, I’m just wondering where these nominations came from and I’m curious if you, the gaming public that will ultimately be buying (or not buying) the upcoming games, are even remotely jazzed about Brütal Legend?  If so, tell me why.  If you’re not, tell me what game you’d replace Brütal Legend with in the coveted Best of Show category.

We at SG consider ourselves to be experts in what makes things British and decided that we could lend a hand in showing how things should change. We’ve listed how a few recent games could have netted themselves a few pounds.

Have a knees up at the chippy, after the jump. Pip pip.

Prototype:

Taking place in the 14th century, Prototype chronicles the outbreak of the Black Death in medieval England, you play as an amnesiac peasant, intent on bringing down the rule of overly taxation insistent Edward III.

inFAMOUS:

Jason Statham voices Barry Stockingtonshireworth, a postie from Shorditch in the 60’s who inadvertently causes a terrific explosion by tampering with one of his packages. Surviving the explosion he is granted with the power of electricity which he uses to power gigs by up and coming rock bands, The Beatles mention him in the sleeve notes of Help!

Red Faction Guerilla:

On planet Britannia 7, BNP members have disallowed all immigration, as someone seeking refuge from a war in another galaxy you have been shunned at the border. You claim that you have skills in a menial trade and have much to offer the society as a whole. People less intelligent than you constantly phone into radio station discussions and claim you’re causing planet-wide downfall.

50 Cent Blood on the Sand:

The reworked version of this game would have the title edited to better culturally translate, 25 Pence, Blood on the Pebbles would be a contemporary imagining of Shakespeare’s’ Hamlet, the Yorrick scene would be extended by 6 hours and very little else would be included.

The Sims 3:

Mostly kept the same, however the character creation slider for teeth would be locked at “Crooked“.

Monday, we asked the community to step up and help bring a smile to a heroic young lady in Austin.  This evening I am very pleased to report that Amber, who suffers from Cystic Fibrosis, will be getting those “green bracelets” de-embossed with her charity’s website, Ambers-Angels.org.

After just one blog post, and countless retweets from folks like you, we’ve passed the 500 dollar mark we needed to hit for the order.  While this is AWESOME, there’s still time to donate a couple of dollars towards this very special gift.  Please hit the jump, and please consider pitching in.

Several people asked if they could also buy one of Amber’s wristbands, to which I must say absolutely not.  Instead, when the wristbands are delivered to Amber, I’ll ask her to autograph a stack of them and Lesley and I will just mail you one, our treat.

While we’ve raised enough for the minimum order, the SGC has never been known for doing anything “a little bit”.  It would be awesome to double what we’ve raised thus far and really wow Amber and her mom (who have NO IDEA any of this is happening on their behalf) with an even bigger order, and perhaps even a nice little check for their foundation.

So, whether its 5 bucks or 50 bucks, please consider reading more about Amber and pitching in to give this young hero even more to smile about.

Thanks everyone.  There’s no community like this one…. anywhere.

Following on from yesterday’s Part 1, Master Johnboy makes a rapid return to bring you the second part of his Sarcastic Trek Trilogy. Having got himself in some trouble, John finds himself in court. When he hasn’t really done anything wrong he should have nothing to worry about – right? Well, it seems justice can be a cruel and Sarcastic mistress!

Read Part 2 after the jump…

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Need more Sarcastic Comics? See Master Johnboy’s earlier episodes on his blog, or in the SG Comics section;

Also, check out Episode 1 & Episode 2 of UndeadDog’s Community Comic.

Think you could do better? Or just as good? Or even an acceptable amount worse? If you want more information on producing your own community comic please contact me on the forums or send an email to me:

mightymutt@sarcasticgamer. com

So I got home from work last night and all I wanted to do was play some Call of Duty 4 and shoot someone (in the game). I turned on the old Xbox and couldn’t connect. Oops, I forgot that XBL was down for maintenance.

Now that XBL is back, lets see what changed.

Nothing! XBL looks exactly the same. No new blades, graphics, colors… NOTHING!

Xbox.com got a face lift that includes 3 of your friends plus their avatars and the game they are playing on on your main page. Your recent games played, and the latest achievements from the last game you played are at the bottom of the page in case you forgot. Umm yay. There are some other small changes like Games played now has it’s own button at  the top of the page and a few visual changes. Now my Internet isn’t screaming, but this made the pages load a lot slower. Check it out.

According to Microsoft, this was “regular maintenance” and preparation for Facebook and Twitter coming in the fall. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all about XBL getting better and faster. I could really care less about Facebook and Twitter on my Xbox. I barely use Facebook anymore and I won’t allow twitter to cut into my game time.

I deem this down time unacceptable. Not letting me play online due to updates and maintenance, makes me want play my PS3 more. What are your thoughts?

Jai92, ahtisharry and SamVII present the Red Button Podcast episode 2.

• A very English introduction, old chap!
• What have we been playing?
• Our E3 Highlights
• Project Natal and Milo
• Is Splinter Cell making a comeback?
• Harry and Jai are excited about Modern Warfare 2 demo, but someone doesn’t agree…
• Shout-outs and Outro – just as poor as last week, we apologize!

Subscribe to all of the great community shows via iTunes or RSS, or download this episode right here: mp3

Master Johnboy returns once again and this time he is not doing things by halves – he’s doing things in thirds! This is Part 1 of his Sarcastic Trek Trilogy! Trilogies are all the rage these days so Sarcastic Gamer is pleased to be jumping on the Trilogy bandwagon. The best news is that you won’t have to wait a whole week to see Part 2! Part 2 will be released tomorrow, with Part 3 on Thursday! Take note Valve – that’s how to do episodic content!

Sometimes all you want to do is concentrate on your work, but when your Sarcastic friends have other ideas, there may be trouble ahead…

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Left you wanting more? See Master Johnboy’s earlier episodes on his blog, or in the SG Comics section; also, check out Episode 1 & Episode 2 of UndeadDog’s Community Comic.

Think you could do better? Or just as good? Or even an acceptable amount worse? If you want more information on producing your own community comic please contact me on the forums or send an email to me:

mightymutt@sarcasticgamer. com

In what appears to be a continuation of our wait-a-second-we-actually-have-prizes-to-give-away contest series, we actually have prizes to give away! This time it’s a rather dashing Red Faction: Guerrilla figurine, accompanied by a copy of the game for Playstation 3 (which should be region free).

If you fancy winning this stuff, the details are after the jump.

To enter, simply tell us what you would do if you owned a giant mining robot (like the one so accurately depicted by the above figurine). Perhaps you would extract bauxite from the Earth’s crust, or maybe you’d smother it in cheese, attach rockets to it and fly it to the moon. There are so many possibilities!

Please email your submission to eoco [AT] sarcasticgamer [DOT] com, and make sure to put your subject title as ‘Red Faction’.

Good luck!

Proud Owner of the Wii Fit

In a speech to the American Medical Association in Chicago yesterday, he had the following dig:

The second step that we can all agree on is to invest more in preventive care so that we can avoid illness and disease in the first place. That starts with each of us taking more responsibility for our health and the health of our children. It means quitting smoking, going in for that mammogram or colon cancer screening. It means going for a run or hitting the gym, and raising our children to step away from the video games and spend more time playing outside.

OH NOEZ, HE’S ATTACKING TEH GAMZ!

Or is he? Follow me into the jump, if you can drag your fat ass over there.

I’m a big Obama supporter.  There, I said it.  McCain-inites can now commence the flame attacks.  The Obama family has a Wii at the White House, a refreshing change of pace from John McCain’s gramophone and newfangled black and white television (okay, last McCain attack, promise). Is this hypocritical of him?   Is he truly coming after video gamers? Should we be running out to Walmart and buying up every video game system to go lock ourselves away in a fallout-style bunker, or start a new Montana militia that lives and dies by the slogan “You’ll take my controller from my cold dead hands” or some such?

I’m thinking no.  During the election campaign, Obama ran on not so much an “anti-gaming” platform, per se, but more of a “put the controller down, tank ass, and play some kickball” campaign.  In other speeches, he linked video gaming to poor academics, and now with this speech which he is tying in with health care reform in America (see also: America’s obesity epidemic).  It’s not the first time, but I’m fairly certain it’s his first time since taking office.

Let’s face it, he’s not wrong.  I couldn’t tell you how many Monday mornings I found myself mysteriously too “sick” to go to school after a 72 hour gaming orgy with my boys on a long weekend.  And those gamefests would undoubtedly have loads of junk food, pizza, pop, etc associated with them.  I was not exactly a healthy kid.  Right there, I managed to fit into Obama’s stereotype of a lazy and poorly academically motivated child.  Guilty.

Just like everything, it needs to be done in moderation.  I don’t think we’ll ever have an American kid die at his keyboard from grinding out levels for six days straight without eating. I mean, come on.  Americans are never ten feet from a snack.  Hell, I remember my old Everquest days when you could type /pizza and bring up a browser to order a Pizza Hut pizza (which I thought was pretty whizzer at the time).

It comes down to Obama wanting to help us.  Again, this is my pro-Obama leanings talking, but it makes sense.  He wants Americans to be healthy and competitive with European and Asian countries.  How wrong is that?

And again, all of this is just rhetoric right now.  He can give as many speeches as he wants about how we need to get out and go running more, but until the government steps in and starts dictating how I can spend my free time, it’s really just hot air.  As a gamer and someone who values his spare time greatly, let’s hope it stays that way.

I’m well aware I could use some exercise, but the last thing I need is my gaming console shutting itself off after two hours of non-stop gaming due to government regulation, and then not be able to turn back on until I plug in my Nike/Run numbers into my iTunes and show that I went on at least a three mile run.

What an interesting concept…terrifying, but interesting.

After enduring all the hype and drama, Prototype is finally here. Some people love it, some people hate it, and a bunch just like to compare it to inFAMOUS on their way to the land of ignorance. Like almost every big name title, the web is chalk full of commentary from gamers (and quasi-reviewers) who have not even played the game, let alone actually finished it.

At present I am about half way through my second play-through, and I have my own take on Prototype.

Check out the full review after the jump!

Prototype is what most comic book based video games wish they were, period. Which is funny since Prototype became a comic because of the game.

You play as Alex Mercer – voiced by Barry Pepper of Knockaround Guys - who wakes up in the city morgue. Alex discovers he has strange new powers, that the city has been quarantined because of an infectious outbreak and that he has no memory. A pretty basic plot device, but it works.

The city of Manhattan has been basically cut in half. One the one side you have the military, backed up by evil Special Forces and heartless Merc units. On the other you have the infected, who vary in form from your general zombie-like infected citizenry, all the way up to massive car chucking Hydra’s.

Manhattan is totally open from the start and a simplistic but easy to understand top down map shows the location of campaign and side missions, as well as the current location of military and infected hives.

Prototype is an open-world title, allowing you to complete side missions and activities, as well as unleash mayhem upon the entire city, in between completing the main campaign missions. The main plot points are told through a small number of decent cinematic sequences, though Barry Pepper’s superior voice work sounds out of place when compared to the phoned in dialogue from the rest of the cast.

Sorry it’s taken so long for us to put out an episode. We’ve been recovering from our E3 adventures. 

In this episode we talked about E3, infamous, and Nintendo’s new demo play, among other things. We also had a few special announcements so you don’t want to miss those. This is more news and less skits, look for those to return in next weeks mighty 8th episode of SGR.

Enjoy.

Please stop by  iTunes and subscribe to Sarcastic Gamer Radio.  You can also click this little RSS feed andget the show through your choice of platform (including Zune).

Of course you could always do things manually and just get this handy-dandy mp3.

8bit Bass did not assist with this episode, but he was the inspiration. Actually wordpress really wanted him to be attached to this post for some unknown reason.

Update: An error existed in the original donate link. It has been corrected. Thanks to EVERYONE who brought this to our attention.

As many of you know, I recently left my full-time position in radio to work for Children’s Miracle Network.  Our organization helps raise money for children’s hospitals all over the US, UK, and Australia.  Because of this new job, I’ve had the opportunity to visit with quite a few CMN hospitals over the past few months.  While I’ve had the pleasure of meeting numerous kiddos and their families, none have had quite the effect on me as a young lady named Amberlyn who is currently awaiting a lung transplant in Austin at Dell Children’s Hospital.

Amberlyn suffers from Cystic Fibrosis, an incurable and dangerous disease that causes mucus to build up in the lungs, which keeps her from being able to get the air she needs when she breathes.  Because of this, she takes “meds” that she inhales as many as 4 times a day to try to keep things clear.

At last check Amberlyn is number 2 on the waiting list for a new lung.

As we chatted and goofed around, Amberlyn noticed my bracelets that I wear for Tori and Kaliegh.  I told her about both of these little heroes and asked if she, Amber, had a bracelet I could wear too.

She said she didn’t, but then she winked and said that if she DID have one, she would want it to be green.  She might as well have asked me outright,because there’s no telling such an incredible young lady “no”.

Here’s why I think Amber deserves to have her own bracelet, and why I’d like the SGC’s help to give them to her.

Not only is Amberlyn a brave young lady, taking on a deadly disease with a remarkable and infectious smile and attitude, but she’s also very generous.  Amberlyn and her mom started their own non-profit 501c(3) called Amber’s Angels.  Each Christmas, Amber puts her own pain and needs on hold to raise money for some incredible gifts for other children who are spending the holidays in the hospital.  She assembles these gift baskets herself, often from her own hospital bed.

I think Amber’s Angels deserves its own bracelet.  A green one.

So you’ve no doubt seen these rubbery bracelets which seemed to get their start with the LIVESTRONG campaign and have since been used for everything from charities to sneaker companies.

I’d like YOU to help us provide a TON of GREEN bracelets to Amberlyn by donating a couple of dollars towards having as many of these Ambers-Angels.org bracelets made as possible.  We’ll take donations for a week, and then place Amber’s order.

Once it comes in, we’ll head over to Austin and personally deliver these bracelets which will be quite a pleasant surprise for Amberlyn (so nobody better squeal)

Any remaining money after placing Amberlyn’s order will be donated directly to her charity.

Thanks in advance for ANY HELP you can provide, whether its a small donation or just helping to spread the word.

Last month, as part of a partnership with Sprint, Sony temporarily offered Rag Doll Kung Fu: Fists of Plastic as a free download from the U.S. PlayStation Store. Not one to shun a gift – unless it’s a chunk of Rothbart’s beard or a packet of mayonnaise – I scampered to my room like a good sheep and added the title to my digital library. Tarsier Studios’ goofy brawler received mixed marks from critics, but I figured that I could simply wipe it from my hard drive if it wasn’t up to snuff. It truly was a win-win situation. Sony notched another download, and I got a new game free of charge, without having to leave my man cave.

Fists of Plastic is very reminiscent of the Super Smash Bros. games. The battles take place on 2D planes, but the fighters and environments are rendered in 3D. The available combatants are pretty generic, but you can unlock additional duds to customize up to five characters. These garments range from traditional kung fu garb to absurd animal apparel, including a frog helmet and lobster claws.

The customization mode is pretty rudimentary, but there are enough options to ensure that each creation feels like a separate entity. Some of the reward requirements are pretty stiff, so you will have to work for a few of the more obscure articles. Unfortunately, the full bear suit continues to evade me, but at least I have something to strive for.

The eight battlegrounds are primarily of aesthetic value. There are a few horizontal platforms scattered throughout most arenas, but you don’t have to deal with environmental hazards, disappearing ledges or side-scrolling levels as in Nintendo’s mascot mashups. The levels are akin to Battlefield, a smaller, simpler stage from Melee and Brawl. Some of the Smash Bros. levels – namely Hyrule Temple and New Pork City – felt unnecessarily immense, so I definitely prefer more intimate arenas that facilitate confrontation.

The Whale Restaurant, my personal favorite setting, is a small eatery situated on a serene pier. Like all of the Fists of Plastic battlegrounds, it is basic, yet artistically elegant. Each stage features an impressive array of hues, which creates great contrast between lighter and darker shades. This color diversity helps create vibrant, distinct environments that really highlight the game’s Eastern flavor.

Fists of Plastic offers eight single-player challenges and a multiplayer mode. The challenges are generally straightforward tasks, but they do require some practice to master. For instance, in Sharpshooter, you simply have to toss shurikens at roving and stationary targets. Not a particularly difficult job, but the key is building and maintaining a score multiplier. Consecutive hits will increase your multiplier, while a miss will knock it back down to zero. So, it pays to practice patience and aim carefully. What’s more, targets will frequently crash into each other, which is particularly maddening if you just threw in that direction.

Additionally, there are online leaderboards if you want to vie for global Fists of Plastic supremacy.

Overall, the solo tasks are really fun, but it is disappointing that there are only eight of them. Seriously, where is the panda wrestling? How about a game where you catch insects with chopsticks?

Multiplayer is where Fists of Plastic really shines, allowing you to challenge up to three opponents – computer or human – in three game types: Deathmatch, King of the Hill and Dodgeball. Players can also be split into teams for some cooperative fun. Capture the Fish, the final option, doesn’t allow dummy AI.

The lack of online play is disappointing, but this is a game that should be played on a sofa with a group of friends. There is something special about a local multiplayer session fueled by friendly banter. I have no doubt that the multiplayer component would benefit from online play. It would definitely make the digital package more attractive. However, as is, the multiplayer mode is an extremely fun, chaotic experience, even if you have to rely on computer-controlled adversaries.

The combat system is rather simplistic. You have a handful of light combos, a block command, a throw and four chi power moves. Not really rocket science, but that seems to be a big selling point for the digital darling. It is a goofy, accessible game that can be played alone, with a friend, or at a party.

One thing that does baffle me is the mandate that players must use Sixaxis motion controls to execute chi power moves. For instance, to perform a slam, you have to hold the circle button and move the controller up once, then down again. Simple enough. However, in the heat of battle, I often find that these inputs delay my attacks. That is, it would be much faster and easier to press a few buttons. Even worse, some of my commands are completely ignored. Now, some of these problems can probably be attributed to human error. I get a little hasty sometimes, and probably don’t properly execute the established motions. However, I don’t think that I should be expected to closely monitor my movements during combat.

I am not one of those gamers who derides Sony’s Sixaxis motion technology. In certain situations, it can actually enrich gameplay. In particular, the Robo-Wings from Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction felt like a natural application for the tilt functionality.

However, I don’t like being forced to use the tech. As in Warhawk, allow me to select the input method.

Rag Doll Kung Fu: Fists of Plastic really surprised me. The game got mixed marks from critics, so I wasn’t expecting much. However, once I started playing it, I discovered a fun, hectic multiplayer experience that could be played in a friend’s basement or in a living room during a party. The combat system isn’t deep, and the combatants’ clumsy movements are a bit awkward, but combine the game with a few cases and some pals, and you have a formula for a great night. Just don’t be the first to fall “asleep.”

Oh, no kidding? I thought this was a toaster!

Last week, I wrote a blow-by-blow account of my taking my new birthday present out for a spin, a new, shiny PS3.  It was a minute to minute account of everything from setting up a new account to logging into Home for the first time, and I thought it was very comprehensive.

Of course, I got flak about the article only being a walkthrough of the first hour of set up and not actually covering any gameplay.  Well, I’m sorry, it took me quite awhile of downloading updates and installing new patches that my hour expired before I actually got to play anything.  I mean, the free game Pain that came with the system literally took at least a half hour of downloading and then further installing.

So how was my first foray as an Xbot into PS3 gaming?  Hit the jump to find out!

Oh, I did end up getting higher end HDMI cables, and wow.  What a difference.  I don’t know why they wouldn’t want to pimp out their system by including those in the box, but whatever.

Pain didn’t really do anything for me; I need storyline and a compelling reason to be doing something.  For those of you who have not tried it, it literally is a physics engine test that has a game built into it.  Your character is launched out of a giant crossbow into the air, and it’s your job to crash into things in the most painful and destructive methods possible.  To give you an idea, you get bonus points for completing a landing by whacking yourself in the balls.  I can’t make this stuff up.

If Pain had somehow been able to give me reason I was launching this moron into the air against a generally destructive environment, I might have stuck around past the tutorial.  But once it was all about getting a high score and that’s it, I felt my eyelids starting to get heavy about a half hour into it.

So I got rid of that and put in Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune. Wow, I was impressed.  It what I imagine the folks over at Eidos had in mind when they were cranking out Lara Croft sequels.  Third person platformer with a decent shooting/cover mechanic designed around Tomb Raider style puzzles, but a Hollywood class series of cutscenes and voice  overs really takes it from a mediocre cut and paste of a successful franchise to overtaking the tired Tomb Raider series and making it it’s own.

There were genuinely funny parts of the game where I couldn’t help but laugh out loud, and that’s always nice. I was honestly interested to see how the whole story was going to turn out, and ground through 18 of 22 of the game chapters in that first day alone.  I couldn’t get enough of it and had trouble forcing myself to turn off the console at the end of the night; I had given myself an Uncharted enema.

The next day, I wrapped up on the game in all its graphical deep jungle beauty and found myself in the unique position to having just been introduced to a game franchise that would soon be coming out with a sequel.  I mean, what the multiplayer demo is getting passed around right now, so Uncharted 2: Among Thieves should be out in short order.  I was pleasantly excited.

So I moved on to the next game on my list, Metal Gear Solid 4.  Again, I’m a big story driven guy, so I figured that this was about as good as it was going to get for me.  While the game is pretty and I’m enjoying trying to stealth my way through sections, god damn, the storyline is giving me a migraine.  I mean, Tom Clancy himself would have to sit down with a pad and paper to sketch out the storyline, not to mention the almost 20 Metal Gear titles that have come down the pike with all their respective stories.  All of it shoved down your throat pretty violently.  There were times I would watch cutscenes, and having been in the military and knowing about paramilitary contracting like Blackwater or Triple Canopy (real PMCs), I still would sit there and ask myself, “What did I just watch again?”

The load times were a bit silly.  At the end of each chapter, there’s a ten minute load time associated with each chapter, where you watch as Snake smokes a cigarette while helpful little hints pop up on the screen like, “Take a 15 minute break every hour” and “Make sure to play the game in a well lit room!”.  I think only after I got through to the second act was there any mention of “Smoking is unhealthy for you!” or some such public service notice nonsense.  Well, at least they mentioned it.

The gameplay is good fun, and I have slowly been grinding through that game as well.  The environmental camouflage is a nice touch; I enjoy being able to generally hide anywhere in plain site.  I still have yet to do a close combat kill or grab someone.  I just don’t see the point when you can safely snipe from the shadows. I’m sure I’m going to need the skill later, but I just haven’t gotten the CQC thing down yet.

Oh, and one thing about the MGS series that drives me insane.  The characters talk about “CQC” as if it is some ancient martial art that only six people in the world know how to do.  When Snake runs into other military special forces and he knocks one of them out with an elaborate “CQC” technique, i.e. a hip throw, the commander of the unit gets his panties in a bunch because Snake knows CQC.  That’s like getting excited about a boxer planting a guy on his ass with an uppercut.  Of course he knows close quarter combatives! Sheesh.

Which brings me to the Japanese writing style, which is a little teeth grinding at times.  Every now and again, you’re watching a cutscene and have the strangest sensation like you could take an episode of Migyht Morphin Power Rangers and put the dialogue over the action with little effect.  It’s a bit awkward for the Westerners out there at points.  If you’ve played the game, then the character of Akiba and the “Rat Squad”, and you should know what I’m talking about.

That’s not going to stop me from getting through the game and figuring out where in the hell this is all going.  Because again, I’m having a glorious time sneaking around in my cardboard box and happy that I’m now finally able to dip into the well of PS3 exclusives.

Bottom line: I’m enjoying my new toy, but I’m glad as hell that I waited until now to get it.  I wonder what the hell everyone who was a first day adopter did with their choice of six games and no PSN Store to download demos or games at.  No wonder people were complaining when it first came out.  Overall, these games have  been a lot of fun and have been taking advantage of the PS3’s hardware and really kicking out some high end graphics.   Visually pleasing.

After MGS4, on a piece of complete luck, my local rental store had copies of both Prototype and inFamous still available, so I grabbed both of them to stack up my trophy count.

And yeah, I’m still staying out of Home.

PETA will probably have something to say, but as usual, no one with a sense of humor will care.

I’ve often said that there’s no better way to wrap up my Sabbath day than with an expose into the evils of my own soul. After a day of humble piety, actually paying attention to my family, and reminding myself why I pray, few activities top things off like creating mayhem as the supremely dark anti-hero of the Overlord franchise.

Sure, a lot of games like Fable, Fallout, Mass Effect, and a whole slew of others have a general karma scale, a “good vs evil” aspect to add to the depth of the gameplay, as well as playability. It’s almost become the default way to get gamers to keep playing your game rather than turning it in at the used store. Overlord takes that idea, but tweaks it to “Kinda evil” and “Makes Dick Cheney’s stomach churn.”

Before I get too deep, for those of you who are a little slow, this is a first impression, my thoughts on the demo. Got it? Okay, proceed…

I’m a fan of the original Overlord title. I played through it on the 360 fairly soon after the release. In my opinion, it was one of the most overlooked games of 2007. Why did people not like? Brevity. The game was a tad short. For married gamers on the go such as myself, this isn’t a horrible thing. Being able to go through an entire storyline and have that sense of accomplishment that you’ve beaten another game is a good feeling, and the MS Points didn’t hurt either. Even so, once I had beaten it and turned it back into the store, I found myself wanting more.

Well, more has finally come along. Since this was the demo, I can’t comment on the overall length of the sequel, but if Triumph Studios learns from the last go-around, we can hope for more than 30 hours storyline. We’re promised that the environments will be more diverse from the English countryside-looking picturesque vistas that we saw in the first game.

The demo has the Overlord chasing a Yeti through icy terrain, trying to take the beast down with the help of brown minions. There really isn’t much to the demo—chase the Yeti, gather some life force so you can raise more minions, chase the Yeti some more—and yet it never ceased to get boring. The iced-out environment looked fantastic. I’m curious to see how the rest of the game looks, but the first game had great graphics as well (despite the similarities between areas).

Controls are very similar to the first game, which I found to be fairly intuitive. Not perfect, but once you’ve played with the game a little bit, it gets easier and you soon become very accustomed to the sweet, sweet chaos. I played through on the PS3, and it wasn’t much different than the 360 controls. One button calls your minions back to you, one casts spells, your R1/RB re-centers the camera—you get the picture.

The right stick controls your minions, so if you have a small handful at your command, you can stand back and guide them to their targets. Small numbers appear above an enemy’s head letting you know how many minions are currently attacking it, which allows you to push the minions towards a target, wait until you have several swarming it, and then push the rest on to other targets.

Where this game really shines is in the fun and humor. The introduction movie gets you laughing, and if you aren’t a complete mook, you’ll probably keep laughing all the way through the demo. The minions are a riot, and once they gain the ability to use rabid wolves as mounts, they become stronger and can leap small distances (such as from iceberg to iceberg, allowing you to take out enemies from a distance). Their cries of glee as they bring you back presents (”Treasure!”) will echo in your mind as you sleep. My wife and I still can’t drive past a small herd of sheep without making some sort of comment about “sheepies” in the voice of the head minion. You would think this would get tiring by now, since we live two blocks from a sheep farm, but curiously enough, its still funny.

Some of the enemies you’ll face in the frozen wasteland are traveling liberal wood elves who give a “stirring” speech about your nefarious activities of clubbing baby seals and chasing Yeti before attacking. Of course, three effeminate elves are no match for fifteen armed and crazy minions under your command, and that’s if you decide to take the relaxed road and not join in the fray. You don’t want your armor to get scratched up by some woodland pansy, do you?

Demo was awesome. What else can I say? It was a lot of fun. I had seen screenshots but didn’t realize this game was so close to coming out. The game hits shelves June 23rd in North America, June 26th in Europe, and July 9th in Australia. There will be separate versions for the Wii and DS as well that will be slightly different than the actual sequel, I’m guessing with toned-down gameplay for the family-friendly console and handheld.

For more Overlord-related humor, check out the official website.

You what? We can’t make that a show because it’s actually happening in real life in the UK parliament, starting this Monday June 15th? Get me goddamn Bill Shatner on the phone to cancel his screen test and follow me over the jump…. 

The UK parliament, after recently hearing in detail of how computer games will make us all fat and psychotic, has come together in rare harmony to work out how the country can make more computer games. Parliament has created a multi-party organisation called an ‘All Party Group’ for the Computer and Video Games Industry in order to ‘address issues in the gaming sector’.

In a website press statement games industry organisation Tiga said the Group’s purpose is to “provide a forum to discuss business issues affecting video games software developers, to develop policies to enhance the sector and to champion an industry that responsibly creates content for an audience ranging from children to adults.” Tiga has in fact been looking for a parliamentary body to convince that games developers should get better tax breaks and their products not be subject to the same age-rating system as movies, and have now succeeded in creating a pudgy governmental shoulder upon which to perch like Jabba’s little mate.

Exactly how much clout the Group will have over the games industry is yet to be made clear, but based on prior examples from other governments it  will range from between ‘None at All’ at best down to ‘WiiFit Now Compulsory in Pubs’. The cast of this Cabal have predictably spotty credentials, but at least have sufficiently diametrically opposing political views to nearly guarantee gridlocked ineffectuality.

The Group will have around 60 members under the lead of Bill Olner MP. The chief lieutenants include John Whittingdale MP (Chairman of the government’s Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport), Philip Davies MP, Nick Plamer MP, and I swear to God a man called Baron Puttnam of Queensgate.

Puttnam produced some fine films, including Midnight Express, Chariots of Fire, Local Hero, Memphis Belle, The Killing Fields, and The Mission. On the other hand he is by many accounts legendarily dismissive of what he considers low-brow entertainment, and as such is also credited with running Columbia Pictures into the ground. This bodes badly for…well, just about everything the games industry makes and I love.

Philip Davies has been part of a bunch of All Party Parliamentary Groups - unfortunately they’ve mostly been about Horses, Libraries and Cricket.  My personal favourite is sage luminary John Whittingdale, who has campaigned to get rid of sex education in schools and warned us all that downgrading the illegality of marijuana would be ‘giving control over cannabis to drug dealers’.

Politics is, in the words of Spider Jerusalem, all gibberish and horseshit. However, consider how much sweetness and light will ensue when Whittingdale and Davies who have a voting record of just above 0% for ‘Homosexual –Equal Rights’ issues and a 100% approval of iThe UK should not Ratify the Lisbon Treatyi a.k.a ‘Fuck Off, Johnny Foreigner’ whilst Chairman Olner has 80% and 0% respectively. I think we can be safe in the knowledge that it’s likely little will ever get done. Although it might be natural to assume all such government bodies are by default impotent, do not underestimate just how much damage they can cause when allowed, with case in point Brazils insane and prohibitive tax laws on imported games.

Together, the Group will be hosting the Play Together initiative on Monday 15th with special guest star Creative Director and CEO of Rebellion, Jason Kingsley. Expect hilarious consequences when Whittingdale mistakes a COD: World at War poster for an anarchist rallying cry and starts chasing Kingsley with a loaded musket.

Whilst it is unlikely that many members of the SG community will disagree with the idea of encouraging home-grown developers, it also seems clear that there is some help that you can do without. In the original sitcom we wrote the All Party Group for the Computer and Video Games as the well-meaning but dementia and syphilis riddled Uncle who is well meaning but generally just sits asleep in the corner.

Now your conniving brother Tiga has woken the old geezer up and convinced him to insist on helping you with your science project, because all along sneaky old Tiga is hoping to schmooze a bigger allowance from Daddy Government.  Clearly your working model volcano will suffer for this, and Debbie will never go to the prom with you. Admittedly, by now I have no idea who Debbie is in this analogy, but my point stands.

Whilst dedicated government bodies may be able to provide a step-up for a fledgling studio, they also provide exactly the platform for the public knee-jerk reaction to land squarely in the balls of creativity and independence rather than just letting it spasm out in tabloid grumbling.

Recently a Cabinet Minister actually called video games ‘an art form’ – should we snatch up this craven attempt to appeal to the young voter and milk it for all it’s worth for the homegrown and independent studios, or go back to ignoring Big Brother (both the governmentand the TV show) safely out of sight and out of mind from the creaky old ghouls ?

However, Sarcastic Gamer has secured an exclusive leak from a mole inside the newspaper (literally, he’s printed in it and everything sometimes) which reveals that music downloads are just the tip of the iceberg.

The exclusive revelations await over the jump!

The report published on Tuesday in The Guardian blamed the rising popularity of games for the decline in music sales more than illegal filesharers. In essence, it said that choosing a £40 game that would last for weeks was fast beginning to become preferable to buying a £10 album with “two great tracks and eight dud ones”. Said the report:

I think a lot of people are choosing the game – and downloading the two tracks. That’s real discretion in spending. It’s hurting the music industry…

This only appears to be the start. Sarcastic Gamer’s mole inside The Guardian was able to send us some excerpts of unpublished reports written by the staff of the liberal-agenda newspaper, some of which are published below:

• “It’s apparent that sales of computer games are to blame for the current popularity of right-wing-agenda political parties who recently found their way into the European Parliament. Releases such as Red Faction Guerrilla are full of right-wing undertones that are surely to blame for the decline of democracy and the recent spate of chaos in Europe.”
• “Over in America, the rise of computer games during the start of the decade is obviously to blame for the rise of the Republican government from 2000 to 2008. As their popularity increased, so did that of the President at the time; irrefutable evidence that computer games are to blame for the disasters in private healthcare and other sectors.”
• “As computer games have become more popular, the state of the environment has declined as console manufacturers such as Nontondo [sic] work overtime to produce more and more hazardous chemicals to create their Wee [sic] consoles for millions worldwide. It is plain to see that computer games are murdering the planet.”

Scandalous! Beware the liberal agenda.

The game features many different modes of play using many of the Wii accessories.

In career mode, you follow the career path of a stripper. You start out as every stripper does; you’re a young woman just needing enough money for a new car and college tuition. Watch as your character goes from innocent school girl, to a weathered thirtysomething with nothing left to lose.

Multi-player mode makes use of the Wii Vitality Sensor in whole new way. Invite a friend over and challenge them friend to a “Pants off Dance-off”. The Wii Vitality Sensor is strategically attached to two “spectators”, who sit in chairs and judge the competition. The other two players then battle it out on their Wii-Stripper Poles to see who can get the “spectators” up the fastest.*

You can also play multi-player on the Wii’s online service. Wii-Strip will be the first game to make use of the Wii-Cam. This could be great for meeting new people online or for entertaining your significant other who may be far away. Use your imagination.

The Wii-Strip bundle will include the Wii-Strip game, stripper pole, Wii-Cam, Wii-Speak, Wii Vitality Sensor, and a stack of play money.** Bundles will hit US stores this weekend, and in the UK and Australia two weeks later, just to piss them off.

*This game is not recommended for people with heart conditions.
** Stripper not included.

Achievement List

15G – Amateur Entertainer – Take first place in an amateur night
15G – Dolla Dolla Bill Ya’ll – Earn your first tip
15G – The Pasties Twirl – Successfully twirl **CENSORED**
25G – The Return Customer – That creepy guy came back! Good for you!
25G – VIP Room – Do your first private dance
25G – Bigger is Better – Get a boob job
25G – Earn $1000 in one night
50G – Make it Skeet Skeet Skeet like a water hose
50G – I’m not a hooker, I’m a dancer – Take a client into the bathroom and **CENSORED**
75G – Pants off Dance-off Champ – Win 20 multiplayer rounds
100G – The HEADliner – You’re the star of the strip club!100G – Retire – You just turned 32 and your career is over. Go directly to rehab and enjoy your retirement!

Due to the nature of the game, most of the achievements have been left out to protect our younger audience.

We recently got the opportunity to have some hands-on time with top notch shooter, Gears of War for the Xbox 360. Hit the jump for the full hands-on.

Yes, you saw that right. We did it. We just pulled off the old ‘hands-on’ gag. You know you love it! Eh? Eh? Hello?

Anyway, today’s video is a Natal parody handpicked by SGC member darkwonders, and awaits over the jump.

Have a good day, all!

Any videos to share? Send them here: yamster [at] sarcasticgamer [dot] com.

In our 56th episode we discuss the spectacle that was E3 2009.  We go into detail on our thoughts about the cinematic Uncharted 2: Among Thieves demonstration, the 256-player debut of live MAG gameplay, some debate over God of War 3, and a little bit about the upcoming customizable kart game ModNation Racers.  We also had a pretty detailed discussion of Sony’s new motion control tech demo, the whole PSP go debut and much more.

We appreciate you guys taking time out of your day every week to list to our show. For your convenience, you can simply download the MP3 by clicking HERE (and incrementing the episode number by 1 to time-travel to next week) or if you’re one of those “set it and forget it” types, you can subscribe via iTunes, RSS, or Zune and stay in “real time.”

If you do use iTunes, we’d love to hear what you think about our show. A great way to show your support is by leaving us feedback on iTunes. Remember, you can also email us at any time by sending your text or audio comments to PlaystationPodcast@SarcasticGamer.com!

I have seen quite a few bundles from Sony since the PS3’s release. Some of them have actually made me wish I had waited so I could get the one or two games like the MGS4 and Uncharted with my purchase. What is the point of the bundle? To sweeten the deal so you’ll buy the system and and get a great game at the same time for less than you would spend if you bought them separately.

Ready, set, fail.

Okay, 80gb PS3, yada, yada… holy crap! Terminator Salvation and T3: Rise of the Machines on BluRay! When I first read this, I though I was getting punked. Why in the wide world of sports would Sony make this a bundle?

I have both played and beaten Terminator Salvation and my wish is that none of you do anything more than rent it. They might as well have crapped in the box and slapped you in the face with proof of purchase. And T3? Should have bundled all 3 or none at all.

Watch out because next comes the Haze bundle that includes 27 Dresses on BluRay. Where’s the damn price drop?

Source: Electronic Theatre

While totally in love with the gameplay offered by inFamous for the PS3, the missions towards the end of what I assume to be the first act were really wearing on me. Essentially: kill all the reapers.

This game is fun but incredibly repetitive.  I mean the game repeats itself.  It’s the same thing over and over.  Jump and I’ll try not repeat myself again.  I won’t say the same thing over and over.  I won’t be repetitive.

The morality choices offered in the “Black Water” missions were just lame, and they carried virtually no consequences other than a few seconds of blurry vision.  The underground challenges to restore power were less than challenging and the actual missions seemed like 4 different names for the same thing.

The END of that first act, however, more than made up for the grind, as you hold off wave after wave of reapers who are hell bent on destroying a crate full of medical supplies.  The boss battle in the sewers, while not overtly difficult, was interesting.

As I emerged on the new section of the city, I couldn’t help but think: “here we go again”.

I’m starting to dread the rest of the game.  If the challenge doesn’t increase or the battles don’t diversify, I can see me getting bored with it, even if I CAN sorta fly now. Sorta.

PHave any of you finished the game yet?  Is there better stuff coming?