Going in, I knew this was going to be a difficult review to write. It’s more difficult to give over a pastoral idea like farming than, say, sawing someone’s head off. I feel this says something about the video game industry as a whole, but I’m not entirely sure what. Still, with the ridiculous popularity of such games as Farmville, there has to be something to be said about growing the grains or sowing the wild oats (Ed: Stop it).

So, Farming Simulator 2013—currently available only for PC and PS Vita, but soon for Xbox360, PS3, and 3DS—is a game that tasks you with expanding your plot of farmland by tilling the soil, sowing a number of grains, and harvesting and selling the grains in the local market. You can also raise several kinds of farm animal from cows to chickens to sheep. You can use the money you get from your sales to either buy up new land, buy farm more animals, or buy new vehicles, more about which later.

I was quite surprised to find that the game is often presented in the first person view, especially when trudging around the farm. You slip into the third person when driving around, but this is more to allow you to see what’s going on behind your vehicle as you go about the farming life. Since the game seems less about livestock farming and more grain farming, you’ll find few domestic animals around the homestead. There are cows and chickens, but not many of the other types of farmed animals. The livestock you do have allow you to perform animal husbandry, but I’ve yet to figure that part out.

So let’s get to the fun part of the game: the vehicles. I’m not big into farming vehicles, but this game takes the vehicles seriously, in the same way that motorsport games take their vehicles seriously. By default, some of the biggest name-branded farming contraptions are here: Krone, Deutz-Fahr, Lamborghini (Ed: Seriously?), Kuhn, Maxtron, and so forth. If these names mean nothing to you, you’ll be thoroughly familiar with them all by the time you’re done with this game. If that’s not enough for you, there are a hefty number of mod packs for the PC version, adding even more vehicles to the game. Farming Simulator 2013 allows you to grapple with just about every contraption you’ll need to run a successful farm, from tractors, combines, tillers, harvesters, balers, and so forth. It’s actually dizzying just how much there is here.

Obviously, crops take a while to grow, and you can’t feed cows, sheep, and chickens in perpetuity, so in the meantime—as a way of making money—you can also run errands for the townsfolk. The errands tend to be along the lines of “fetch this, carry it here” and so on. Funnily enough, there is no consequence for NOT performing the errand, beyond not getting the money for it. In fact, there’s no real lose condition to the game, either. You can happily let the crops live or die, and then just take a loan out to get more crops should you want. The main object of the game is to amass as many stonking piles of cash as you can.

Despite the attention to landscape and vehicular detail, there’s one aspect of the game that is so wonky it goes around the “breaks the game” circle to actually making it more entertaining than you’d ever suspect: physics. Saying that the vehicle physics are “wonky” is also like saying Hitler was a little naughty. We’re talking the kind of physics here that will—quite literally—allow you to send a tractor into the atmosphere. Or let a collection of trucks breakdance. I’m not even joking. Watching this video for the most brilliantly entertaining truck and tractor breakdancing you’ll ever see.

There are lots more like it on YouTube. Why farm when you can watch romantically entangled tractors dance? Or even better, fly?

Anyhow, back to the serious stuff. The game features a multiplayer segment, where up to ten other players can join together on a farm and help out with the crops and livestock. The only person to benefit is the person whose farm it is, but here’s where you learn a very important lesson about this game: it’s got one of the friendliest communities out there. No one does stuff because of any personal gain, but because they just want to, and for the love of farming. In a game this pastoral, it’s difficult to be a griefer.

I’m not sure how to rate this game, in the end. It’s absolutely not for everyone, and the learning curve is crazy-steep, even with the tutorials. In fact, the best way to learn about the game is to get involved in the community precisely because they’re so friendly. The kinds of people who play Sim City and similar games will find something to their liking here. It’s definitely the kind of game that everyone should at least try the demo of, just to get an idea. In fact, while the strange game physics and horrendous difficulty curve will obviously lower its score, there fact that there’s a kind of self-satisfaction in growing crops pushes it back above “average”. That and the really friendly community.

Final Score: 6.5 cotton-pickin’ prawns out of 10

Detailed Information
Developer: GIANTS Software
Distributor: Apex Interactive
Platforms: PC (reviewed, via Steam), PS3, Xbox360, PS Vita, 3DS
Website: http://www.farming-simulator.com/

The post We Review: Farming Simulator 2013 appeared first on Onelargeprawn.

Daft Punk’s lead single from their album Random Access Memories has received a lot of love from the Internet. The Daft Train got rolling, the late king of pop made an appearance on the track, and there was an incident with some chickens.

“Get Lucky” just got some 8-bit loving in this wonderful chiptune cover by YouTube user, Floating Point.

If you like it, you can download the MP3 from here.

[via @kristycarrot | High5 Daft Bros.]

The post Daft Punk’s “Get Lucky” Gets Some Chiptune Love appeared first on Onelargeprawn.

Carine Khalifé is a French visual artist and a dab hand at animation, painting, and photography. She uses those skills to create this amazing stop-motion music video for Canadian indie band, Young Galaxy.

Like sand artist Kseniya Simonova, Khalifé also uses a light box to bring her artwork to life. Working in a dark room, she paints with oils on the glass atop the light box while an overhead camera captures her paintings, frame by painstaking frame. The textures and brush movements in the resulting stop-motion music video are beautiful to behold. Check out Blown Minded below.

[via Neatorama]

The post Watch This Amazing Oil-Painted Music Video appeared first on Onelargeprawn.

When death is near and you’re about shuffle off this mortal coil, what do you think you final words would be? George Washington’s last words were an accepting “‘Tis well.” while American Civil War general John Sedgwick never saw it coming when he said, “They couldn’t hit an elephant at this distance.” And being his natural witty self, Oscar Wilde supposedly said, “My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One or the other of us has to go.”

If you’d like to get an early start on your final soliloquy and need some inspiration, have a look at this compilation of 50 famous last words courtesy of the vlogbrothers.

[thanks Emily!]

The post Famous Last Words appeared first on Onelargeprawn.

While the planet is set upon by a malevolent galactic nematode, the colour-coded pilots are fighting another war. Watch as the over-qualified geek, the jack-ass jock, and stoic leader-in-waiting wax lyrical on why they should be the one in charge.

Dyna-therms are connected and infra-cells are up in the animated music video for MC Frontalot’s I’ll Form The Head. Check it out below.

[via The Twiddler]

The post MC Frontalot: I’ll Form The Head appeared first on Onelargeprawn.

Reddit user darijakarta drew darling feline versions of the Lutece twins, Elizabeth, and our hero Booker DeWhiskers. See them after the jump.

[via Reddit]

The post BioShock Infinite Characters as Cats appeared first on Onelargeprawn.

For more, visit Thug Kitchen.

[thanks Emily!]

The post Thug Kitchen: Vegan Recipes With a Healthy Dose of Profanity appeared first on Onelargeprawn.

Injustice tells the tale of an alternate DC Universe where the Joker destroyed Metropolis, and in so doing, killed Lois Lane and Superman’s unborn son. This, understandably, makes Superman just a teensy bit ticked off. Things soon go to hell in a bucket from there, and several of the former heroes turn bad, dishing out a warped kind of justice. While all that is going on, cut to the regular DC Universe, where all the various heroes are fighting off all the various villains. Joker is about to plant and detonate a bomb, and is about to be stopped by Batman. Also on the way to assist are Green Arrow, Green Lantern, and Wonder Woman. Just before the bomb explodes, the five of them are transported to the alternate universe, and of course, it’s up to the heroes to fix the things that have gone screwy.

As far as plot goes, it’s one of the wonkiest I’ve ever come across, but it turns out that there’s actually a decent pretext for it: it’s so that within the game’s story mode, the game’s writers can justify battle pairings that wouldn’t otherwise make sense, for example, Green Lantern vs Green Lantern. However, the wonky plot actually doesn’t matter, because the game is just so much fun. Yep, this is one of the best superhero games I’ve played in a long time. As a brawler game, it takes just about every trope you can think of and then some. It’s strictly a two dimensional fighting game, so if you’re used to games such as Tekken, Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter, and Soul Calibur, this one will suit you like a pair of multi-coloured tights. There are destructible environments, counterattacks, super moves, and so on. Everything except a third dimension.

Injustice (it’s a pun, geddit? It features the Justice League, but up against a Justice League that doesn’t do them…well…justice) is also a fairly hefty game if you like to play solo. Aside from the single player story, there are also 240 S.T.A.R. Labs missions, wherein specific characters are given specific tasks to perform. If that weren’t enough, there is also a Battle Mode where you are pitted against a series of increasingly stronger foes, and then there is still all the multiplayer to dig into. In particular, the S.T.A.R. Labs missions are great fun, and actually serve as a great training ground outside of the actual Training Mode.

The game’s graphics are fairly astounding, and actually better than what I’d expected from current-gen games. Each character is beautifully and lovingly animated, and unlike some games where every character feels like a reskin of all of the others, Injustice’s characters actually feel different to each other. In fact, each character uses the interactive background elements differently, too, adding to the uniqueness factor. When you combine the look of the game with the game’s top-notch voices, it becomes a very pretty package, both visually and audibly. I do have one minor gripe, though: for some reason, I struggle to believe that the character of Superman is, well, Superman. To me he just looks like a young Jay Leno. This breaks the entire game, of course. I kid, I kid.

Honestly, there is little to fault with Injustice, Jay Leno aside. The game’s tutorial is a bit long-winded, and could probably have been done better, but once you start to grapple with the game, the tutorial starts to make more and more sense. Eventually. The S.T.A.R. Labs serve as a better tutorial than the tutorial does. Despite that, though, there’s a very strong fighting game here. The story mode is very forgiving, and it is fully voiced and animated, too, so it never feels tacked on. Initially I struggled to find multiplayer matches, but as the number of players increased, so did the ease with which I found other players.

If you love fighting games, you’ll be a Joker to pass over Injustice. Heck, if you’re a fan of comic superheroes, you could definitely do a lot worse than this game. Normally it wouldn’t mean much to say that it’s one of the best superhero games out there, but to say that it’s among the best fighting games out there, too: now there’s a compliment.

Final Score: 9 flying, fighting, swimming, running, lantern-wielding prawns out of 10

Detailed Information:
Developer: NetherRealm Studios
Publisher: WB Games
Distributor: Ster-Kinekor
Platforms: PS3, Xbox360 (reviewed), Wii U
Website: http://www.injustice.com/en

The post We Review: Injustice: Gods Among Us appeared first on Onelargeprawn.

Peregrine falcons are known to be the fastest animal in the kingdom, often reaching speeds in the excess of 300 km/h during their hunting dives. A camera mounted on the back of Dora captures such a high speed take down. In the beginning Dora calmly takes to the skies and explores the surroundings, but around the 2:45 mark there is an incredible burst of speed as Dora spots and makes contact with a duck. Check out the striking video below.

[via Kottke]

The post Falcon-mounted Camera Captures Stunning Kill appeared first on Onelargeprawn.

For science, ADHD over on YouTube created an opening sequence that reveals what the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles would look if they were real. Salmonella and giant penises are abound in this most amusing spoof. Check out Scientifically Accurate Ninja Turtles below.

[via @JoeyHiFi]

The post Scientifically Accurate Ninja Turtles appeared first on Onelargeprawn.

Normally, the realistic shooter genre requires you to have hair-trigger reflexes and the ability to shoot first, ask questions much much later. Very few of them require a crazy amount of patience. Welcome to the world of Sniper: Ghost Warrior 2, where itchy reflexes will more often than not end in your demise.

The basic storyline is this: you take the part of a sniper called Cole Anderson. At the start of the game, you’re deployed to the Philippines in search of an Al-Qaida operative who has been very naughty lately. The idea, of course, is to put him in the naughty corner—with a bullet. After that, things go wonky (this is no surprise, of course. Wonkiness is the only way that plot progresses) and Anderson meets an old enemy from his chequered past. The story is fairly generic and largely forgettable. If you want story, you’re better off playing a JRPG. Still, the characters and situations aren’t of the kind that leaves you wondering who’s been hammering on the fourth wall, and the immersion is fairly good. You feel the tension of the atmosphere when you’re in the thick of enemy territory.

What brings us to a game like Sniper: Ghost Warrior 2 is the whole sniping experience, and by the time you’re done with this game, you’re going to have had your fill. It’s fairly technical as far as video games go. You need to take a number of factors into consideration before taking your shot. Factors such as wind speed, gravity over distance, whether enemies can see each other as you’re dropping them, and even such things as your own heart rate and breathing. It’s a lot to take in initially, but you soon get used to the idea of compensating for all these things. What IS difficult to get used to is the idea of waiting, of holding fire until the moment is right. On the other hand, you can’t also hold your fire too long, or else you get noticed eventually.

In terms of graphics, the game seems to be lagging a little behind the curve of what’s currently out there. I played the Xbox360 version of the game, and even on this older console the environments look a little dated. It’s not terrible, mind, just a little less than what we’ve come to expect lately. Furthermore, for someone who is colour blind (like me), the palettes leave a bit to be desired. It’s an added level of difficulty that I imagine otherwise-normally sighted people don’t face. What I did enjoy, though, was the bullet-cam that kicks in every now and again, showing you some of your more impressive shots. It adds a level of “you see what I did there?” to the game.

If you’re going to be playing this game, I hope you enjoy replaying sections of game over and over again. The checkpoints in Sniper: Ghost Warrior 2 and few and far between, and if you’re the kind of person to make silly mistakes due to hastiness or impatience, you’re going to have a very long, hard lesson to learn.

For reasons I’m still unsure about, there’s a versus-mode multiplayer mode in Sniper: Ghost Warrior 2. It’s a bit of a strange one, too, since you’re all trying to outsnipe each other. It’s pretty much a game made for campers. You know, the player that everyone in every other FPS hates? Yep, there’s a game just for them now! I feel that what the game really needed was a co-op mode in the campaign, but I guess it’s pointless to weep for what was never going to be.

For all that it is, Sniper: Ghost Warrior 2 is not a bad game, and I found myself enjoying the campaign mode far more than I thought I would. If ever there was a game that was going to teach you to be patient, this is it. The action is fun and rewarding, but with the campaign wrapping up in less than 10 to 12 hours, it’s not going to be very long lived. Still, if you enjoy stealth-based games, you could do worse than give this one a go.

Final Score: 7 “Boom! Headshot!” prawns out 10

Detailed Information:
Developer: City Interactive
Publisher: City Interactive
Distributor: Apex Interactive
Platforms: PS3, Xbox 360 (Reviewed), Steam
Age Rating: 18
Website: http://www.sniperghostwarrior.com/

The post We Review: Sniper: Ghost Warrior 2 appeared first on Onelargeprawn.

Gecko eublepharis

Chinchilla

Long-eared owl

Raven

Flying possum

Kramer’s parrot

Hippo

Garden tree boa

Basiliscus lizard

Red eared turtle

See more of is extreme close-up photos from Animal Eyes 2 on Behance.

[via Twisted Sifter]

The post More Animal Eyes, Up Close appeared first on Onelargeprawn.

Today we got word of a new set of mouth-watering prints. Abe combines hand-drawn touches with digital manipulation to create colourful images of some rather ghoulish chops. Have a look at Bite Me after the jump.

I wonder what ghastly faces these mouths belong to?

If you’d like to purchase any of these prints on fine watercolour paper, head to The Given’s online store.

[thanks Abe!]

The post Bite Me! appeared first on Onelargeprawn.

The folks over at 1A4STUDIO have created an awesome, abridged version of the first film in the epic space opera that is Star Wars. It’s minimalist right down to the dialogue, colour palette, and running time of just 60 seconds. Check out the speedrun of Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope.

[via Live for Film]

The post Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope in 60 Seconds appeared first on Onelargeprawn.

Lego City Undercover is actually two games: Lego City Undercover, the Wii U version of the game, and Lego City Undercover: The Chase Begins, the Nintendo 3DS prequel. It’s a pun, geddit? The Chase begins—it’s about how Chase became a hero in the first place. Oh never mind. (Ed: Ba-dum tish.)

If you’ve ever played any of the Lego games before (and we’ve reviewed a fair number of them around here!), you’ll be thoroughly familiar with the way the various game mechanics work. You control a rookie cope named Chase McCain, and as a sandbox game, you have full access to the entirety of Lego City. If you feel like it, you’re free to either follow the story or go rampaging through the city willy-nilly. What’s fantastic is that the city FEELS alive, more so than other DS or 3DS games I’ve seen so far. There are vehicles rumbling up and down the roads, pedestrians strolling around, and animals in evidence all over the place.

It plays a lot like Lego Batman 2 in many respects. There’s the sandbox city to play around in, the various outfits that are linked to specific functions, and the many many vehicles to drive around in. It’s never left as too much of a puzzle for players to figure out which outfit to don for which function, though some experienced players will be making short work of unlocking and looting the entire city of bricks. That being said, like all Lego games, there is a LOT to do. You’ll be rounding up criminal one minute, getting involved in a high-speed chase the next, and then helping citizens of Lego City find their assorted lost things in between. Unlike prior Lego games, the story isn’t sequestered off from the rest of the game, but blends with the experience quite seamlessly. It’s pleasant knowing that I’m not stuck in incredibly linear areas that I’d have to play through multiple times!

Despite the familiarity of the gameplay, there are a couple of neat new mechanics in Lego City Undercover: The Chase Begins. My favourite one is the wiretapping, allowing you to listen in on criminals’ chit-chats. You use the 3DS’s motion functionality to zone in on the right frequencies and hear the conversation. You’ll need to do it as part of some of the story missions, so you’ll get ample use of it. There are many other mechanics tied to the touch screen and motion sensor, including safe-cracking and sight-seeing with binoculars dotted around the city. Bear in mind that this game is aimed at younger players, so experienced gamers will find very little struggle here.

Adding to the newness is the fact that, not only are you collecting studs and Red Bricks, you now also have new Super Bricks. These are part of just about every breakable in the game, and you’ll need a small fortune’s worth of them to build structures. Each time you build something, a funky little animation plays showing its construction. In a way, it makes you look forward to building the things. These structures are expensive enough that you’re going to take a lot of time just breaking enough things to amass a sufficient number of Super Bricks. Have at it, boyo! Good thing the Lego games are all about breaking the living blocks out of everything you can find to break.

On the downside, you’re going to have to put up with some silly loading times, especially when you’re first firing up the game. Despite the cop-focused story, the combat is the game’s weakest gameplay point. Most battles can be won off consecutive presses of a single button. The animations that play are fun, but there’s no feeling that you actually beat the stuffing out of any little yellow plastic criminals.

I’ve always enjoyed the Lego games, and they’ve just been getting better and better with each new game. Lego City Undercover: The Chase Begins is a bold new step away from established stories and characters and towards fleshing out and building on Lego’s own IP. I had a great time with this game; still am, in fact. After the story ends, there is still a lot to do: studs to collect, secrets to unearth, red bricks to uncover, buildings to…err…build. It’s actually impressive what TT Games managed to pack into a handheld game. It’s an entire city, for the love of Lego! I enjoyed getting to know Chase McCain and seeing Lego City come to life, especially since my two kids are absolute hounds for Lego City stuff. Yes, their generous grandparents have made sure our floors are a bare foot’s worst nightmare. With this game, my feet are safer. However, since I only have the one 3DS, I’m going to have to figure out how to get the two of them to stop fighting over it.

Final Score: 7.5 rookie cop prawns out of 10

Detailed Information:
Developer: TT Games
Publisher: Nintendo
Distributor: Nintendo South Africa
Age Rating: 3+
Platform: Nintendo 3DS
Website: http://www.nintendo.co.za/…/…The-Chase-Begins-745937.html

The post We Review: Lego City Undercover: The Chase Begins appeared first on Onelargeprawn.

[via @nxtrms]

The post This Cat Loves its Vacuum Cleaner appeared first on Onelargeprawn.

Like me, you’ll be glad to know that the latest block in the series, Dragon’s Maze, arrives in May. Most old players will know that Magic the Gathering stories occur over three sets of cards (called “blocks”), and Dragon’s Maze is the last chapter in the Return to Ravnica series (following Return to Ravnica and Gatecrash). Check out the trailer below.

To accompany Dragon’s Maze, closer to mid-July, we’ll have the Magic 2014 core set to look forward to—technically the 15^th edition of the core set. Magic 2014 updates both the paper cards and there will be an update the Duel of the Planeswalkers video game, so there are a lot of new things to look forward to. The video game will be adding ten new decks, and will also be seeing a launch on Android. What I like about Magic the Gathering is that the game is forever updating and changing, meaning that it’s a constant learning curve.

If I hear any details of launch tournaments happening in South Africa, I’ll be sure to let you know! Inversely, if you know of any launch tournaments, drop me a line.

The post Magic the Gathering Fans: Some Magic News! appeared first on Onelargeprawn.

[via Mashable]

The post Paint Explosions in Super Slow Motion appeared first on Onelargeprawn.

If you’ve ever wondered what Game of Thrones might be like if HBO made it in the mid-90s, then wonder now more. YouTube user hunterlsanders created these apt opening credits for the show complete with video tape effects, cheesy character introductions, and a stirring soundtrack by Queen. Check out Game of Thrones – 1995 Style in glorious 4:3 aspect ratio.

[via @snoddie]

The post Cheesy “Game of Thrones” Intro is so 1995 appeared first on Onelargeprawn.