Video Games without all the boring bits

WEEKEND ROUND-UP: THE FORTNIGHTLY ONE

30/5/2015

It has been a couple of weeks since we gone and done a round-up, due to last week being, well, an atypically slight one, due to having A Day Job.

Still... when you wrap your greasy "peepers" around the lot below, even we have to admit it's quite a remarkable amount of words/work, given that Digi2000 is still, by and large, the product of 1.5 wholly anonymous people who should really be doing other stuff.

If you're enjoying yourself on here, and would like to show your support - please feel obliged to visit our Patreon page, or donate via the PayPal button on the sidebar. Benefits of supporting Digitiser2000 include e-books, video updates, digital portraits, and random assorted bonuses (our supporters recently got treated to a 16,000-word extract of a book lazy Mr Biffo never finished).

Anyhow... here's what you've recently been getting for your buck (or for free, if you're Hitler):

REVIEW: THE WITCHER 3 (PS4/Xbox One/PC - PS4 version tested) - With bonus ranting!
REVIEW: NOT A HERO (PC) - Hotline Miami meets Bonanza Bros.
EXCITING GAME NEWS! With comments by Chip Shop Man - Rounding-up the latest developments.
10 VINTAGE VIDEO GAME BOARD GAMES - from MB GAMES - From A to Zaxxon.
10 VIDEO GAME CONTROVERSIES - Nazis, epilepsy and sexxus.
10 BIZARRE LICENSED VIDEO GAMES - Neighbours, Burger King, and Dirty Dancing.
10 FURTHER TERRIBLE VIDEO GAME COVERS - Even worse than you imagine.
MAD MAX: SAVAGE ROAD - TRAILER ANALYSIS - A second-by-second breakdown of the stuff.
RING SIR! Online Support Pranks with Phoning Honey - More whimsical transcripts.
WHERE DID ALL THE FRESH ONES GO? by Mr Biffo - Moaning about originality in games.
MAN DIARY: EUROVISION - The Man represents Lithuania.
THE MAN'S DADDY'S HILARIOUS CHICKEN JOKES - Here come "The Hen Ones".
MARIO KART: FURY ROAD - A video of a funny thing.

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THE MAN'S DADDY'S HILARIOUS CHICKEN JOKES

29/5/2015

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Hello. I'm a popular comedian called The Man's Daddy. You probably don't know this about me, but I really like collecting photographs of beams. You know: iron beams, sunbeams, nautical beams (ie; the most extreme width/breadth of a nautical vessel, or a point alongside the ship at the midpoint of its length), Heinz Baked Beams, the first part of a sticker that reads "Be Amazing"...

I don't know why I told you that. I suppose it doesn't matter. On a separate topic, here are some jokes I've written about hens, chickens, poultry and so on. I hope they're ok. Well, anyway. I'll say bye now. I'm probably going soon. So, yeah - bye then.

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MAD MAX: SAVAGE ROAD - TRAILER ANALYSIS

29/5/2015

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As we ascertained the other day, you've probably all seen Mad Max: Fury Road - as is only proper for a film of such significant absurdity. Next comes Mad Max: Savage Road, the similarly-named, but not-the-same story, video game, due later this year.

A new trailer has just been released. We've watched it and analysed the imagery so that you don't have to. Read on for our breakdown.

0.05 - The Man With No Razor (But He Does Know A Decent Barber, Apparently)

There he is, look - Nathan Drake, standing there looking smouldering amid the debris of a great galactic battle. You can just see the wreckage of a Star Destroyer in the background... No. Wait. We may have that wrong - perhaps that's meant to be Mad Max (it's short for "I'm Bloody Mad I Am - To The Maximums"), and that's Australia, or Zanzibar, or wherever those films are meant to be set.

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10 BIZARRE LICENSED VIDEO GAMES

28/5/2015

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Of course, slapping a known brand onto something is likely to result in at least a few additional sales, because being a big fan of something is a essentially a form of mental illness, and being mentally ill makes you do real stupid things.

Sometimes licensing can inspire the makers of games. Other times - Cool Spot, MC Kids, Darkened Skye (a Skittles-based RPG) - the license is so weak and unsuitable as to profoundly confuse those tasked with making a game based upon it. Here are ten bizarre and obscure licensed video games along those lines what we have just mentioned.

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10 FURTHER TERRIBLE VIDEO GAME COVERS

28/5/2015

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Batman here. Sorry if I appear to be in a bit of a mood, but I'm getting a little weary of Robin filming everything for his YouTube channel. Last night he woke me up at 4am by sneaking into my batroom (not to be confused with my bathroom), hammering a badminton racquet on a saucepan, and throwing a handful of glass marbles at my head.

It wouldn't be so bad, but Jackass did this sort of thing years ago, and at least they did it with a modicum of wit. Still, he's growing up, I suppose. I should enjoy it while it lasts! Here's another one of those lists of terrible video game cover artwork.

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MARIO KART: FURY ROAD

28/5/2015

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Have you watched Mad Max: Fury Road yet? You really should. It's probably the most absurd, and absurdly enjoyable, car movie since Herbie Rides Again. There's not much more to say.

Except... Here's a funny and subtle video that mashes up Mad Max with Mario Kart. It's probably the sort of thing that you like.

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EXCITING GAME NEWS! With comments by Chip Shop Man

27/5/2015

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A ROCKSTAR NAMED SUE
Rockstar Games is attempting to sue the BBC, over its upcoming, 90-minute Grand Theft Auto drama, starring Daniel Radcliffe and Bill Paxton.

Fearing misuse of its copyrighted trademarks, a statement from Rockstar read: "While holders of the trademarks are referenced in the film title and its promotion, Rockstar Games has had no involvement with this project.

"Our goal is to ensure that our trademarks are not misused in the BBC's pursuit of an unofficial depiction of purported events related to Rockstar Games. We have attempted multiple times to resolve this matter with the BBC without any meaningful resolution. It is our obligation to protect our intellectual property and unfortunately in this case litigation was necessary."

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REVIEW: NOT A HERO (PC)

25/5/2015

52 Comments

Something that has become lost as video games have become ever bigger business is a sense of authorship. It would be hard to deny that today's biggest-selling franchises are driven by corporate box-ticking rather than individual visions.

We understand why - something like Destiny cost in the region of $140 million, and to the best of our knowledge there's no such creature as a wolf who lives in a games publisher's office magically disgorging unlimited cash through a fleshy nozzle in its back. We get why there has to be an element of playing safe, of trying to please as many potential customers as possible.

Unfortunately, it means that games are - generalising wildly here - taking less risks, and becoming designed by committee (although, ironically, we'd argue that, like it or loathe it, GTA V - pretty much the biggest game ever - absolutely feels authored, and apologises to nobody... while the all-consuming Minecraft started out very much as one man's cube-headed baby).

We get that the big, annual, blockbuster franchises - Assassin's Creed, Call of Duty, FIFA et al - are the tendons that power the industry, designed for maximum sales, keeping publishers and developers afloat on a dinghy made from dollar signs. But as polished and playable as they might be, they're also faceless, bland, corporate tadpoles (by which we mean "tentpoles") - formulaic entries on a ledger sheet; ever prettier, always delivering more of the same...

They're the Malibu Stacy - now with a new hat! - of games.

52 Comments

MAN DIARY: EUROVISION

23/5/2015

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MAY 21st
I've been selected to provide the Lithuanian entry for this year's Eurovision Song Contest.

I'm not entirely sure how this has come about, as I'm not Lithuanian, didn't put myself forward for the contest, and don't know how to write or perform music. Nevertheless, the letter arrived yesterday, informing me that they'd like me to step up after their original act, Salvard Simmo & Blitzo the Clow-Clow, froze to death in a cattle trough.

I'm going to give it my best shot. Alas, my original idea was to write a song celebrating all that's great about Lithuania, but then I realised that I know virtually nothing about Lithuania. Plus I can't get online to find out more, because my Internet's been down since last Tuesday (a neighbour's grandparent dropped a jar of apricots on the router).

Instead, I've written a song about what I think Lithuania is probably like. I call it "Oh, Lithuania:

3 Comments

REVIEW: THE WITCHER 3 (PS4/Xbox One/PC - PS4 version tested)

22/5/2015

28 Comments

As Mr Biffo said in his article the other day, we were going to hold this review back for next week, until we'd played a little more of The Witcher 3.

However, we've played enough now to feel we have a sense of the game, and decided we needed to step in to provide something of a firebreak from the raging onslaught of unanimously positive reviews.

Reviews, we're assuming, by people who've never played an RPG before, and have never heard of Lord of the Rings, or Game of Thrones, or Xena: Warrior Princess. People who inexplicably grew up without ever once realising that there was a genre of fiction called "fantasy", and believe The Witcher 3 to be the greatest, most original, most epic story ever told.

Frankly, The Witcher 3 angered us so much that we couldn't hold anything back - not least our immense and all-consuming fury. So... is this going to be a review that damns The Witcher 3 outright? Actualy, it's not quite as simple as that. You see... well... just read on, sweet nuggets. Read on!

28 Comments

10 VIDEO GAME CONTROVERSIES

21/5/2015

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From the violence of Mortal Kombat's infamous Fatalities - which nowadays barely raise an eyebrow - to the obvious scatological influence of Pokemon's revolting Dug Trio, video games and controversy have always gone hand in hand, like a pair of codependent lovers skipping gaily towards a burning whoopee cushion factory.

Apropos nothing in particular - beyond the routine controversy that arises on any particular day in the games industry - here are ten notable shock moments drawn from the boiling lavatory water of gaming hysteria.

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WHERE DID ALL THE FRESH ONES GO? by Mr Biffo

20/5/2015

19 Comments

Hello, Fatfather. Did you buy The Witcher 3? You probably did.

It's quite a large pudding to dissect, but Digi2000 will hopefully bring you some sort of a work-in-progress review next week. For now, the things you need to know are as follows: it is a good game, it is a big game, and it is an extremely good-looking game.

Indeed, all the reviews or first impressions thus far seem to be talking about it in terms of a sort of classic. Which, within its genre, it may well turn out to be... that genre being the genre of Tolkein-Infused Fantasy Role-Playing Games That Aren't Very Original.

Because haven't we been to this place before - like, about a billion times? The medieval villages? The snarling, werewolf-y things, and the dragon-y things, and the castles, and forests. Why do we seem to be stuck on an endless journey to regurgitate the same fantasy tropes, only in ever prettier ways? Frankly, where have all the original ideas gone?

19 Comments

RING SIR! Online Support Pranks with Phoning Honey

18/5/2015

6 Comments

Hello and goodbye. I'm Phoning Honey, the epoxy-coated prankster who just loves showing you around his online helpline prank transcripts. When I'm not doing that, I'm playing the bassoon in a Van Halen/Def Leppard tribute band. We're called 'Vas Deferens'.

But enough about that - here's my latest thing. And as we sing in Vas Deferens - Yummy yummy I've put ants on my mummy... and they're crawling all around her mouth - yeah!

All names have been changed irreversibly.

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10 VINTAGE VIDEO GAME BOARD GAMES - from MB GAMES

18/5/2015

12 Comments

Do you remember Crysis? You probably do a bit - it was a decent enough, and undeniably beautiful, FPS that came out a few years ago.

It might not have set the world aflame, but it had its fans. Indeed, some of these fans are also fans of board games - as evidenced by a new Kickstarter campaign to get a Crysis board game off the ground.

Of course, any half-nude idiot will tell you that video games have a long history of being translated into board games - and the pioneer in that market was Milton "MB" Bradley. Here's a quick rundown of the company's more notable titles in an ideal listicle format - the journalistic equivalent of coughing on a piece of bread and trying to pass it off as a parma ham sandwich. Twang!!!

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WEEKEND ROUND - Featuring Batman

16/5/2015

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Honk honk! I'm Batman. Yes, that's right - honk honk. That's what I say now, when I'm fighting crime. Also, when I'm not fighting crime. I just sit there in my study honking at Alfred and Robin, and the walls and bookcases.

We were watching Poldark the other night, and my honking somewhat spiralled out of control - it was so loud and constant that we couldn't even hear what was going on. I was honking so hard and vigorously that I ended up bruising my thorax. Honk honk! Here's this week's - honk honk - Digitiser2000 round-up:

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