It emerged this week that as of November the price of an Xbox Live Gold subscription is going to be creeping up, rising by $10 a year in the States. On this side of the pond, the UK arguably comes off slightly better (surely a first in any international pricing comparison), with only the month-to-month subscriptions being hit, although these will be going up by £1 a month.

Predictably, internet rage ensued, as glancing at the comments section of any blog or site covering the increase will reveal. This I can understand. I’m not thrilled myself at the prospect of a further lightening of the pocket region, even if it is to the tune of less than the cost of two Mars Bars per month.

What’s more interesting to me is the tone of that rage. There was a sense of betrayal, of broken trust. “Microsoft owe me an online service,” the comments seemed to cry “at a constant, unchanging price forever. Unless they make it free. Which they should!”

Sorry to break it to you chaps and chapesses, but Microsoft don’t owe you nuffin’.

There’s a colossal sense of entitlement in the gaming community, or at least those parts of it that frequent comments boards. If a service (such as an online gaming service) exists, it should be free. If content for a game exists at the time of launch, it should damn well be on the disk. Game prices should remain fixed and inviolate, for all time. These are held, by many, not just to be principles, but the actual rights of gamers, to the extent that the most common justification for piracy, trotted out entirely without irony, is “games are too expensive, thus I have the right to get them for free”.

Those sentiments get taken to ludicrous extremes. Go take a look at the Bioware forums, for example, and see just how long it takes to find someone saying something like “We made you big by buying Baldur’s Gate in the 90’s, now you owe us more games like that!”. Or all those companies that get berated for betraying their loyal PC audience by selling out to those uncouth console types (bonus points for claiming the existence of some bizarre conspiracy among game developers to destroy PC gaming).

“There are a whole host of business practises which publishers and platform holders indulge in which I think are unfair, unpleasant and sometimes just downright evil.”

At the heart of all of these claims is a fundamental misunderstanding of the relationship between the consumer and the vendor. When you buy a game, you’re not doing the developer a favour. You fork over your cash, you get a game in return, and you go your separate ways. You weren’t buying a claim on their future development plans. If you don’t like what they produce, don’t buy it. If enough people agree with you, maybe they’ll go back to making those games you loved. If a service changes price and you don’t think it’s worth it any more, then cancel your sub. Sure, it sucks that you don’t have that cool service any more, but we all make those sort of judgements every day, and sometimes we have to give up cool things because they’re too expensive. The company isn’t obliged to pitch them for your price range, or we’d all be driving Ferraris.

I realise that most readers will have me pegged as a soulless corporate shill at this point. That’s really not the case. There are a whole host of business practises which publishers and platform holders indulge in which I think are unfair, unpleasant and sometimes just downright evil. I hate the fact we’re constantly being told that we don’t properly own the games we buy, but rather have a licence to use the software, and I’m deeply uncomfortable with where the ultimate expression of this, ‘games as a service’, might end up leading. I resent a trend towards clever use of micro-transactions to wring huge amounts of money out of unwary customers. I think the increasingly absurd contortions of DRM, which hamper the legitimate customer while providing no impediment at all to someone playing a pirated version of the software, are as deeply stupid as it is possible to be.

The point, though, is that taking steps to change these things requires first that you understand the basic relationship between you and the companies involved. It is, at its core, adversarial; they’ve got the platforms, the services and the games, we’ve got the cash, and each side wants to get as much as possible of what the other has while giving away as little as possible. Neither side goes in owing the other anything. If you want things to change, stop paying money to companies with practices you disagree with, even if that means you miss the next blockbuster title. Even better, find some with business practices you love, and give your money to them instead. Your bargaining power lies entirely with how you dispose of the contents of your wallet, not with calling in some obscure favour you think a faceless corporation owes you for past loyalty.

With John Wayne’s death, it is finally safe to play as a character with the name ‘Pilgrim’ in it. You are Scott Pilgrim. Scott is in love with Ramona Flowers, a blue-haired girl who likes gallivanting about in her underwear; fortunately, Scott’s love is reciprocated and their relationship is at the idyllic, not the do I want to wake up to this every morning for the rest of my life, phase. However, there is one slight problem: Ramona has seven evil ex-boyfriends and they are all badass and all calling you out and Scott has to defeat all seven.

“By far and away, the best part of this game is the music”

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is a side-scrolling beat-em up: a homage to the sprite 8-bit beat-em ups of the early 90s like the Streets of Rage series and includes various references to other games (Scott Pilgrim’s move-set seems inspired by Street Fighter’s Ryu: Scott’s super attack reminiscent of Ryu’s Tatsumaki-Senpū kyaku). The game is based upon the Scott Pilgrim comic book by Bryan Lee O’Malley, and a tie-in for the silver-screen film of the same name. You have the choice of playing one of four characters, Scott Pilgrim the protagonist, Ramona Flowers the girlfriend, Kim Pine the ex-girlfriend or Stephen Stills the friend, with one unlockable character.

The game has the option of four-player co-op, but it is restricted. There is no option for online co-op: a tenuous development decision for a game of this type. There is also no drop in and out feature, which is a slight, but nonetheless irritating inconvenience. If you have three friends, you will find that the co-op is standard fare. There are nice touches in your ability to revive a knocked out friend and to juggle enemies between each other with successive hits.

“The boss fights change-up the experience a little but not a lot”

You have six basic moves: fast, strong and super attack, jump, block and a knives which calls a girl named Knives to perform an attack. Each character has his/her own unique attacks and specials. Players earn experience to level-up and gain extra moves. Players can buy items which increase their attributes, and is essential to increase these to beat the game; though, the unresponsiveness of the item menu and the need to travel to the shops bogs the game down with a needless chore.

The limitations of the gameplay consign play to a search for exploits and infinite combos to defeat opponents and repeating the combo ad nauseam. There is one combo where the player can trap and hit the enemy against the edge of the screen and juggle infinitely; the difficulty of the execution is easy. Another combo enables the player to slide attack and throw the enemy and repeat the loop infinitely.  That said, juggling enemies with a variety of moves is satisfying and it is disappointing that it is easier to play through the game with the more repetitive combos. The monotony of fighting is rarely broken up with a platforming section, but these sections, particularly the robot hand chase, are frustrating. The boss fights add further variety to the experience a little but not a lot.

“Scott is in love with Ramona Flowers, a blue-haired girl who likes gallivanting about in her underwear”

By far and away, the best part of this game is the music. In tune with the homage to earlier games, Anamanaguchi provided the soundtrack for the game. A chiptune punk band from New York City who, according to their site, make loud, fast music with a hacked Nintendo Entertainment System from 1985. The tracks complement the feel of the subject matter. In particular, the music to the first level is amazing and memorable and once you are half-way through the level, the level of sound kicks up a gear and that somehow causes to increase the enjoyment of the game.

A competent, decent, forgettable game with an unforgettable Anamanaguchi soundtrack.

The publisher provided us with an Xbox 360 copy of this game for review purposes.

Having received a press review unit from Sony, as well as went hands-on with a mix of titles slated for various release dates before Christmas, we have a much better idea of what the new PlayStation Move system is like, what it promises for gameplay, and indeed the quality of games we can expect from it in the near future. As a supplement to the two launch title reviews we’ve published so far (Sports Champions and Start The Party!) , here are a few observations on the hardware , the launch window titles, and a couple of thoughts on how Sony has handled the release.

1) The hardware is solid and the technology works reliably.

Upon its full unveiling at E3 last, what really struck us about Move was Sony’s decision to eschew the company’s normal strategy of employing the expensive, high-tech option (instead, Microsoft took up this role with aplomb) and go with something more conservative- simpler, less financially risky, but also more likely to work. Our first week with PlayStation Move suggests that this is precisely what the controller has turned out to be. It may be more of an incremental upgrade to existing motion control systems than we might have expected, but this cautiousness, coupled with some smart design choices, could well mean that Move is not only the most reliable and precise of the three competing systems but also by some margin the most flexible.

The hardware itself doesn’t hold many surprises, although the glowing orb atop the controller is a strikingly unusual feature. The button placement on the unit is straightforward and mostly sensible- the main ‘Move’ button and T trigger on the reverse fulfil the same function as the A and B buttons on the Wii Remote, although the Move’s trigger is analogue. The placement of the rest of the buttons is more bewildering, with the four traditional shape buttons arranged in a less than easily accessible square pattern around the Move button. The Start and Select buttons, located on the side of the unit, are unreachable without awkwardly adjusting your grip. Just as well that they’re not likely to be used often.

“…the undoubted winners are gamers and developers, who- as long as the former group’s pockets are deep enough- can look forward to a long overdue evolution in how we physically interact with videogames.”

The lack of directional control on the main controller is a major omission, and given that Sony are making the secondary navigation controller a very much optional add-on, this is limits the capabilities of the controller somewhat, and reduces the scope for more traditional gameplay styles.

Like the Wii MotionPlus, Move requires regular calibration to keep the internal gyroscopes happy, although the procedure is more onerous this time around. The flagship launch title, Sports Champions, requires you to reorient the device before beginning each sport, using a three-part procedure that requires you to align the controller with various parts of your body.

The reliance on the PlayStation Eye camera rather than on a sensor bar for depth positioning means that Move has a considerably wider range of recognisable movement than MotionPlus. The camera-augmented system also irons out of the key problems associated with MotionPlus, which due to a quirk inherent in gyroscopes, ‘forgets’ its precise location after just a few seconds of movement. All in all, there is a solidity and reliability to the motion tracking that is pleasing to see, and that bodes well for the future of the device.

The ability to use the controller as a proxy for a standard DualShock in navigating the console’s XMB is also a welcome touch.

2) Like with the Wii, it’s going to take some time for developers to get to grips with the game design challenges associated with motion control.

Both the Wii and DS had difficult early days in terms of how developers utilised the new control methods of those platforms. Both consoles were victims of a deluge of ports with shoehorned motion and touch controls, as well as a host of gimmicky tech demos. These were signs not just of lazy development but of game designers having to adapt to the new possibilities afforded by the new controllers. Notwithstanding Sony’s greater emphasis on quality control compared to Nintendo’s famously lax attitude to third-party shovelware in recent years, it will also take time for developers to adjust to Move, and to build ground-up titles that use the controllers to the fullest.

As well as the reviews of two retail Move games that we’ve just published, I also got the chance to play with much of the first party pre-Christmas Move lineup in Sony’s Dublin offices recently. The initial wave of titles very much bears out the above analysis, with the likes of Kung Fu Rider failing to deliver any kind of compelling experience beyond the sheer weirdness of a game based around driving a character around streetscapes in trolleys and other unconventional vehicles. The Shoot looked to be a straightforward Time Crisis clone using the controller as a light gun, although here, too, the novelty quickly wears thin. The Fight aims to offer a fully motion-controlled brawler utilising two Move wands, and although the version I played was evidently early, it showed some promise- although your arms may hate you for it. TV Superstars at least tried to offer something new, with the game placing you- yes, even going so far as to scan and animate your face in-game- at the centre of a series of TV reality shows, including Total Wipeout and Ready Steady Cook-inspired sequences. It’s all just window-dressing for what plays like a standard mini-game collection, but at least it demonstrates a hundred times more invention than the offensively brief Start The Party!, also reviewed by us today.

3) Failing to task a big-name developer with producing a launch game was a missed opportunity

Nintendo put some of their best internal studios to work on titles like Wii Sports and its tropical-themed sequel, Resort. Similarly, Microsoft have put teams (like Rare) with proven track records in charge of their casual charge for the upcoming Kinect launch. Sony have a wealth of internal talent at their disposal, but they havn’t given any of their top-tier teams the chance to launch Move to the world, instead giving the plum Sports Champions project to the newly-f0rmed Zindagi Studios and their San Diego team- and although the result is solid, it’s not particularly exciting.

The result is something of a ’soft’ launch for the device, and Sony have admitted as much. Given the long lead-in time for the device, one might have expected a better launch line-up. I suspect it will be titles like LittleBigPlanet 2 and custom-designed PlayStation Network downloadable titles like the gorgeous-looking echochrome ii that will start to endear the controller to sceptical gamers.

Indeed, it’s the versatility of the Move controller combo that most excites- and given that patching Move compatibility into already-released titles is a technical possibility, it means that you won’t have to wait until the next Tiger Woods, Resident Evil or Heavy Rain to get your motion-control fix.

The degree to which Move, and indeed Kinect, will affect the trajectories of  their respective consoles is uncertain, but the undoubted winners are gamers and developers, who- as long as the former group’s pockets are deep enough- can look forward to a long overdue evolution in how we physically interact with videogames.

And, while the Move launch line-up largely ticks the predictable boxes, it is clear that-to paraphrase a Sony marketing conceit- these games are just the start.

The first thing you notice about Start The Party! is that everything about it is LOUD. Clearly designed for children with attention deficit disorders, the bouncy visuals and in-your-face presentation never let up from the minute you slip in the disc.

Start The Party! bears all the worst hallmarks of a launch title for new hardware- it’s basic, it’s irredeemably short and content-light.

This assault on the senses is compounded by the ever-present wisecracking commentator who quite literally never shuts up as long as the game is running. Fortunately, although it doesn’t take long for Start The Party! to outlive its welcome, it won’t trouble you for much longer than that, for this is one of the most fleeting gaming experiences I’ve had in some time. Bereft of any kind of structured experience á la Mario Party or any of the other mini-game fests out there, Start The Party! offers a selection of mini-games which can be played sequentially or on a standalone basis. Each lasts less than a minute, involves a bit of pointing or a bit of waggling, and within just a few minutes, you’ve seen all the game has to offer. It really is impossible to see this holding the attention of any kind of gamer beyond a few minutes, ADHD sufferer or not.

It’s easy to argue that Start The Party does something of a disservice to the new controller- the naked simplicity and superficiality of the game will fuel suggestions that Move is just another EyeToy. While that’s not a fair conclusion to make, it is one that Start The Party! utterly brings upon itself.

Start The Party does have one clever party trick, though- the glowing orb atop the Move motion controller is used by the software to transform the controller into a variety of implements, from tennis racquets to hair clippers- and the effect is very convincing, and by far the most promising implementation of augmented reality I’ve seen in a videogame. It bodes well for the future of the motion controller- but as far as this game is concerned, each of the twenty or so included minigames are variations on the same theme, asking players to point and waggle at whatever happens to appear on screen.

“It really is impossible to see this holding the attention of any kind of gamer beyond a few minutes, ADHD sufferer or not.”

Like Wii Play, Start The Party is a sparse collection of simplistic minigames. At least Wii Play came with a controller bundled- and in the absence of any secondary reason to purchase it, Start The Party should have either been expanded into a full-scale party game or remained a tech demo, and to release it in this form as a standalone piece of software is bordering on the audacious. Avoid.

The publisher provided us with a copy of this game for review purposes.

Nintendo has a lot to answer for.

Following the axiom that every new motion controller must launch with a collection of sports-themed mini-games, Sony’s flagship PlayStation Move launch title adheres closely to the template laid out by Nintendo’s mega-selling Wii Sports series. A little too closely, as it happens, because although this workmanlike package undoubtedly achieves what it sets out to do, its aspirations extend little further than repackaging (in glorious high definition, mind) that trend-setting series.

With gameplay spread over six sporting events, the new Move motion controller performs well, enabling an impressive degree of fine control in the swordfighting and table tennis events in particular- and although it’s hardly a quantum leap over the precision of the Wii MotionPlus, the camera and controller combo shows a great deal of promise, and its nice to see the game actively encouraging (but never compelling) use of two Move wands for a more true-to-life experience. The dual-controller set-up works particularly well when lining up a shot in the archery mode or allowing independent control of your sword and shield in the gladiatorial arena.

Those of us who haven’t had the pleasure of throwing discs around golf courses in the Wii version of Tiger Woods or mastered the archery of Wii Sports Resort will undoubtedly appreciate the novelty of 1:1 motion control more than the rest of us- and perhaps, it is for this Wii-averse audience that Sports Champions is aimed.

Yet, for all the bombast about the arrival of cutting-edge motion controls on a powerful console, the game fails to impress visually, with the focus on photo-realism lending the game a sterile, charmless feel. More offensive still are the instantly unlikeable, all-American characters that will have you wishing for the cutesy Miis of old- and that’s not a sentence this correspondent thought he would ever write.

The inclusion of bocce and beach volleyball (really?) in the six-game package raises a few eyebrows, but what kind of mini-game collection would this be if there weren’t a few duds?

“…the new Move motion controller performs well, enabling an impressive degree of fine control…”

Ultimately, Sports Champions fulfils its purpose, but its satisfaction to retread old ground rather than boldly set out a new path for the genre is testament to a lack of ambition on the part of co-developers Zindagi and Sony San Diego. Mission accomplished, then, but we’ve seen most of this before. Still, it’s infinitely better than this.

The publisher provided us with a copy of this game for review purposes.

And Yet It Moves, Broken Rules’ belated Wii conversion of the PC original, is another in the burgeoning category of 2D indie darlings.

It isn’t particularly charming or beguiling. It has no plot to speak of, nor are there any characters whatsoever beyond the bland avatar you control. There are no emotional resonances or no implied depth or meaning. And Yet It Moves just is.

Tasked with getting from point A to point B, AYIM is about as structurally straightforward as platformers get- there are no points, no lives, no items, and no real enemies to speak of. So far, so Limbo.

But AYIM’s ace in the hole is a good one, and it’s central conceit- the ability to twist the game world 360 degrees by holding down a button on the Wii Remote and tilting the controller- is an innovation every bit as mind-bending, game-defining and memorable as Braid’s time-reverse mechanic or Mario’s gravity-defying platforming in the Galaxy series.

The gravitational manuipulation at the heart of the gameplay has its own clever risk/reward mechanic. While you’re free to twist and turn the world as much as you wish, the fact that your character builds up speed and momentum, coming to a sticky end if you land at too high a speed, means that you’ve got to be thoughtful in how you use the mechanic. And this is the crux of AYIM’s brilliance- the level design consists of increasingly difficult platforming challenges that demand you to carefully calculate just how far you can fall without breaking your slender body into smithereens.

“…the sheer weirdness of it all for once feels genuine rather than an affectation of quirkiness.”

The savage economics of WiiWare development- as well as the array of limitations of the platform, not least the 40MB size limit on software- may make achieving commercial success a distinct challenge, but the primary improvement to the title over the original PC version is one that necessitates the use of a motion controller. Having smooth, sensitive 360 degree control over the game world does wonders for the play experience, and fully justifies- from a gameplay perspective at least- the port to Nintendo’s system.

The lo-fi presentation definitely won’t be everyone’s taste- the distinctive cardboard cut-out visual style  found favour with this reviewer, as did the equally unique beat-boxed soundtrack, although it’s likely that some players will take an instant dislike to both. Similarly, the spartan menus and general minimalism won’t help to endear the game to many.

Fortunately, the source of AYIM’s likeability is the startling purity of the gameplay on offer. Experienced gamers will find a genuine test of platforming skill that is decidedly different from anything they’ve previously experienced- and although the game doesn’t do itself many favours with its initial environment of a muddy brown cave, the further you delve into And Yet It Moves‘ papery world, the weirder and more fantastical it all becomes. Descending the seven circles of AYIM’s hell isn’t always a pleasant experience- some of the later levels might induce nausea, as the game world quite literally spins around you. As you progress deeper, the challenges get tougher, the walls close in, and death is only ever one mis-timed jump away.

And yet, you must play on- because even as you curse another death, you know that it’s your impatience to blame. And the tempation to see what comes next is an overpowering one, as the level design rapidly switches from the claustrophobic to the pyschadelic and back again as narrow tunnels give way to caverns full of shimmering platforms that wax and wane to the beat of pulsating electronic music. The stylistic inconsistency and randomness that pervades AYIM may be as much a consequence of scattergun development as it is by design, but somehow it works- and the sheer weirdness of it all for once feels genuine rather than an affectation of quirkiness.

By the time you crack the last puzzle and slide down the abyss that marks the end of AYIM’s labyrinthine world, you’ll be simultaneously relieved its all over and sorry that you exhausted its riches so quickly. It’s just that kind of game.

For many, AYIM will be a brief experience- to be breezed through in a weekend or less. For those looking for a little more meat, the developers have been generous enough to include some extra incentives to play, including speed-runs, time trials, achievements, and a few unlockable modifiers such as increased gameplay speed. Small additions, sure, but welcome all the same. And whilst the game supports an array of different controller configurations, most players won’t ever feel the need to experiment beyond the default horizontal Remote option.

And Yet It Moves is still more confirmation of the vibrancy of the indie development scene, and it shows yet again, for many developers, the second dimension remains the final- and the most exciting- frontier.

The App Store is awash with clones of the ever popular Doodle Jump, but The Incident at least brings some fresh ideas to the table. The structure you climb is formed of objects that fall from the sky, be they cars, pianos, arcade cabinets, comedy weights or who knows what else. The graphics are pleasingly retro, and the trophies are a nice touch (Death by Soda Machine at 549M!), but what still stands out is the tricky inaccuracy of tilt controls. Big on-screen buttons (or even a D-Pad add on, please Apple?) would make a world of difference.

The logic is sound: offer a full Call of Duty style multiplayer game, with a plethora of weapon choices and numerous game modes, at a fraction of the cost of a boxed retail title. However, Blacklight fails to learn any lessons from last year’s excellent Battlefield 1943 and its ‘less is more’ approach. Menus are unnecessarily cluttered and the overwhelming number of weapon augmentations are poorly explained. There are some successes however- in particular, the unfortunately-named ‘Hyper Reality Visor’ which overlays essential information onto the players HUD. Likewise, the guns have punch, although there is little reason to experiment beyond the assault rifle. Blacklight: Tango Down shows promise, but ultimately its reach exceeds its grasp.

Raven Software somehow put a cold war thriller into a blender with Bioshock and Wolfenstein when making Singularity. Nevertheless, they made a game that is somehow more than the sum of its parts. A strong setting supports this action game with a time manipulation twist. The time gadget, powered by a mysterious element called Plotdeviceium, causes gory ageing of enemies and allows unusual puzzle solving, including a unique slow motion bubble power. Singularity is a walking cliché with a transparent plot, but the whole package is fun and stylish, rooted in the arcade console end of the FPS spectrum.

A good example of a simple idea that excels in execution, Spelunky is, at its heart, a roguelike platformer. The game’s charm, spearheaded by a red nosed Indiana Jones-alike, belies a crippling difficulty level with most unlikely to make it past the opening stages. Power-ups and weapons, alongside differing map conditions including maps where the player must carry flares to light the way, keep the game fresh, even on repeated attempts. Spelunky may prove too challenging for some, but randomised maps keep the frustration at bay and inquisitive players will be rewarded; just don’t try to steal from the shopkeeper.

Spelunky can be downloaded for free right here