Video Games without all the boring bits

ULTRA QUIZ 37 - What Sort of Gamer Are You?

17/12/2014

Hello, boys and girls. I am BW, the whimsical quizmaster. Have you ever stopped to wonder who you are and what you are to me? I know I haven't, but that hasn't stopped me making snap judgements about other people.

Also, have you ever heard the phrase "Don't judge a book by its cover"? I can't have done, because it's something I do all the time. And not only to books - but to magazines, pamphlets and people as well. I'm history's greatest monster. Please - won't somebody stop me? Let me start again.

I have mental scarring.

Hello.

I have taken it upon myself to help myself judge who you are based upon the following personality quiz. Pick one answer from each of the four sections, and refer to the guide at the bottom to find out which type of gamer you are. If you don't do this I shall judge you harshly and swiftly. Attention: I am in terrible emotional turmoil, and I keep wetting myself.

Q1. What are you most likely to do in your nearest games shop?

a)    Buy a copy of Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare
b)    Buy some Nintendo Amiibo figures.
c)   Shiver in the corner while manically eating a glove.
d)   Deliberately fall limply against the second-hand games, and slide slowly down to the floor as you keep eye contact with a small child (...I don't like to whinge, but I've had a really, really terrible year - in all honesty, I should probably be seeking help instead of doing this quiz).

Q2. What are you most likely to do in your second nearest games shop?

a) Wonder aloud why you haven't gone to your nearest games shop.
b)   Buy some Nintendo Amiibo figures.
c) Make a loud, discordant sound, before running behind the cash desk to serve customers, while sharply clicking your fingers at them, and making rapid, bird-like jerking motions with your head.
d) Spill a bowl of wet mung beans (...I mean, this whole thing is basically all just a long-winded cry for help - I'm hoping that if one of my stupid relations read this they'll realise how far it's gone, and that I wasn't being an attention-seeker when I got up behind the DJ console at Stevie B's engagement party and announced that I'm chronically unwell, and had wet myself twice - by which I mean, I got up there twice, not that I'd wet myself twice... although I had done that as well).

Q3. What are you most likely to do in your third nearest games shop?

a) Ask another customer why he thinks you have again shunned the two nearer games shops.
b) Buy some Nintendo Amiibo figures.
c) Pretend to choke to death on a petal.
d) Phone the shop you're in and demand to speak to yourself (...I don't suppose any of you feel like having me over for lunch this Sunday? Only, I used to go regularly round to my dad's, but after all that happened at Stevie B's engagement party - I also punched my grandmother in error, by lashing out at the dry ice "party smoke" - nobody wants anything to do with me, and I kind of don't want to be left alone with my thoughts and bladder. Sorry if that's a bit depressing, but what can I do? I never asked to feel this way - I promise I'll bring my own plastic sheeting).

Q4. What are you most likely to do in your not-quite-furthest-from-you-but-nearly games shop?

a) Ponder loudly whether you'll ever bother going to your nearest game shop again.
b) Buy some Nintendo Amiibo figures.
c) Tell everyone in the shop that you've invented a new dance called The F-46 Flapdoodle, and force someone to perform it, while peering at them passively through an empty glass bottle.
e) Seethe (...Look, anyway, sorry again - I don't wish to be a burden. You've probably got enough going on in your life without me adding to it all. I know what I can be like. I mean, you just finish off this quiz, and then you won't ever have to deal with me again. And in the meantime I'm going through Facebook and unlike every single thing on my friends' timelines that I ever bothered wasting the time pretending to have enjoyed. I mean, excuse me if my problems are too much for your perfect little lives, with your holidays to Spain and your dry underwear. I'll just stay in my disgusting little hovel and kill myself shall I? Shall I? Hello...? Please can I come over for lunch? I'll bring a starter: salted crisps).

RESULTS - What Sort of Gamer Are You?

Mostly As - Powerful Victorian Dandy.
Mostly Bs - Futuristic Hatemonger.
Mostly Cs - Social Justice Warrior.
Mostly Ds - Theatrical Ghost.

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THE MAN'S DADDY - Hilarious Political Jokes

17/12/2014

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Good evening (unless you’re in Australia, in which case: a belated good evening). I’m a popular comedian called The Man’s Daddy. I recently attended the funeral of Schrödinger's Cat. What a waste of everyone's time that was.

When I've not been attending potential funerals of paradoxical felines, it’s my job to make jokes, which I shall endeavor to do shortly.

This time I haven’t been writing some really excellent political jokes. Except – the joke is on you here, because that is in fact what I have been writing.

And the time of the political joking begins… now.

QUESTION: Why didn’t David Cameron take any photos on holiday?
ANSWER: He forgot to switch his “camera on”.

QUESTION: And where does David Cameron go on holiday anyway?
ANSWER: Cameroon.

QUESTION: On which format does an urban version of David Cameron like to watch movies?
ANSWER: He watches them on “da vid’”.

I’ve had enough of political humour now. It's too controversial. Let’s have some other jokes instead.

QUESTION: Why did the person refuse to put up any Christmas decorations?
ANSWER: He was a Muslim.

QUESTION: Why did his friend put up decorations in spite of this?
ANSWER: His friend was a Christian man (going by the name of Murray C. Wignall).

QUESTION: What's the funniest thing in the world?
ANSWER: Putting a snake on a roulette wheel, and spinning it around really fast.

QUESTION: Why is it a bad idea to invest in a cloud business?
ANSWER: Too many overheads (clouds).

QUESTION: What were Henry V's favourite TV shows?
ANSWER: "V" and Man "V" Food.

QUESTION: What's the worst thing to eat in a sandwich?
ANSWER: Your mother's brain.

QUESTION: What is the second worst thing to eat in a sandwich?
ANSWER: Your mother's drain.

QUESTION: Why is Sonic the Hedgehog blue?
ANSWER: He suffers from bipolar disorder, and that isn't even a joke.

QUESTION: Why was Ebeneezer Scrooge so mean?
ANSWER: Poor life choices.

QUESTION: Why do dromedaries have humps?
ANSWER: Some little guy must've got up under their skin.

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REVIEW: Call of Duty - Advanced Warfare (various)

17/12/2014

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What will the future of warfare be like?

From the 50s to the 90s everyone thought it would be a brief, final, nuclear confrontation that would send us all back to the Stone Age (except for the spiked cars we'd be driving around doing cool stunts in).

Now that we actually live in the future, it seems that major conflicts are fought through the medium of Seth Rogen movies, and retaliatory cyber attacks designed to embarrass Angelina Jolie and Scott Rudin. Oh well. No post-apocalyptic excitement for us today, dear. It's off.

Advance Warfare takes the Call of Duty franchise further into the future than ever before; exoskeletons, smart grenades, white noise generators, magnetic gloves, and Titanfall-style jump boosters. Sounds exciting doesn't it? And it is exciting - especially if you like to have your excitement rationed out by a strict disciplinarian who will strike your hand with a paddle whenever you try to take the excitement for yourself.

You see, Advanced Warfare chooses when to let you have access to many of your gadgets – keeping you funneled along the usual strictly linear narrative. Try as you might, there's no breaking beyond the narrow boundaries of where the game insists you go, and where it wants you to be. We'd say it's the gaming equivalent of S&M, except we don't know what that is.

TALES OF THE EXPECTED

But has it not always been thus? In pretty much every respect. Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare is exactly what you expect it to be; this is profoundly familiar territory. As far as the single player game goes, it’s once again like being in the most OTT action movie you can imagine. Indeed, that’s what the CoD franchise has become – it’s a series of interactive movies, with a multiplayer game attached.

Like the Police Academy films, which could be distilled down into “The one with the balloon”, or “The one with the zoo”, this is “The one with Kevin Spacey” – represented here by some remarkable motion capture in the cutscenes, as he portrays yet another stock megalomaniac waging a one-man war on America.

The graphics in the cutscenes are so good that we were left pondering whether his avatar dyes his hair or not. Unfortunately, it’s complemented by some less well-realised in-game scripted sequences, during which Spacey appears to be wearing a toupee made from a melted Easter egg.

Never mind…

THE TWIST!

…Except: do mind.

Because this visual disparity appears throughout Advanced Warfare. At points this is a spectacular looking game, and at other times the textures are so basic as to be barely a step up from Minecraft. And sorry to repeatedly bang the same drum, like we're an excited toddler with a saucepan and a wooden spoon, but if you’re playing this on a next gen system it’s hard not to feel a bit cheated.

Talking of feeling ripped off… The single player game here, as exhilarating as it is, seems to end very abruptly. There are some 15 missions, but it felt like the shortest CoD game in recent memory – barely ten hours worth of gameplay. If that. And this is coming from the most cack-handed gamers on earth.

Of course, the single player game, and your Kevin Spaceys and that, are just a delivery method for the real meat: the multiplayer options. Mercifully, this is when the “Advanced” bit of “Advanced Warfare” sort of starts to justify itself.

With players equipped with their boosters, maps have grown upwards, meaning that old, well-honed strategies must be thrown out in favour of new ones. It doesn’t feel exactly like Titanfall – Call of Duty is much more confined and focused – but it is a bit of an unfortunate coincidence that both games should be released this relatively close to one another.

Beyond that, there are tweaks to the usual rewards and progression system - but nothing revolutionary. In short, if you like the way Call of Duty multiplayer and co-op feels - they haven't messed it up.

ULTIMATELY

Ultimately, then… it’s another Call of Duty game, and you’ve probably already bought this or you never will. You could argue that the series has fallen into a rut, and it would be just as valid as suggesting it has settled into a comfortable routine; unchallenging, but utterly playable in a very popcorn-y way, with a ton of multiplayer value.

It's just a question of whether it's completely superfluous given that it's not sufficiently different to the last half a dozen CoD titles. Probably not superfluous to Activision's profits, mind. Oh, aren't WE cynical.

SUMMARY: Glossy, big budget, interactive movie and online deathmatch. With K.Spacey.
SCORE: 78.34%

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CELEBRATE THIS: GOOD TIMES (COME ON)

16/12/2014

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Oh! Yesterday was Digitiser2000’s one month anniversary apparently, and thus cause for this: a fat-faced celebration.

Who can forget all those great times we shared? All those whimsical characters – Frantle the Mantle, Jamiroquoit, Razzle the Crow… And how about all those games we thoroughly failed to review, and news stories we never broke?

And get this: we had some 46,830 page views in our first month. We'd love to tell you how many regular individual readers that is but, well, poxy Weebly's statistics aren't working today, so we can't. It's probably not exactly what we used to get on Teletext, but it's more than five.

Whatever the case... we may have a long way to go to spreading the word far and wide, but it seems to us like a healthy start for a blog that just came out of nowhere, like some murderous, manic-eyed unicyclist.

CH-CH-C-C-CH-CHEEEERS

And we just wanted to say this, really: thank you. Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to plug us on Twitter, or wrote something about the site, or invited Biffo onto their podcast or radio show. Thank you for continuing to do that. We're trying to keep atop all the comments and contact form emails; sorry if we've missed anyone, or not gotten back to you yet. We will.

People have been almost unanimously lovely about us being back, and every single comment to that effect – and even those that have given us “constructive feedback” – is sincerely appreciated. Frankly, it has all been a bit humbling, and not at all what we were braced for. We’re still trying to make sense of it. But! And! Thus! It's what we needed to spur us ever forwards. Shucks.

So, in short… This outpouring of – and there’s no less a word for it than this – love has taken us somewhat by surprise. And now we want to know what more you want from us.

Are we getting the balance right between all-out stupid stuff, slightly more factual articles, and more serious pieces? Realistically, what do you want to see us do going forwards? Is the site looking ok for you? More feedback, please.

AIRPLANS

Just to update you on the current plans…

We’ve still got an eye on doing the full on Kickstarter book in the new year, though it might be preceded by something a bit less ambitious: a Man’s Daddy joke book, as a sort of print-on-demand thing.

Is that something that appeals, if we promise it’ll include lots of new content, and make it look really nice? Or shall we not bother?

We're not unaware that you're becoming ever more vocal about Digitiser2000 becoming something more permanent and ongoing, and offering to lob money at us to make that happen. In short: having found this past month an utter, utter joy, we’d love to be able to make this an enduring concern – and turn Digitiser2000 into something more all-singing and dancing, with up-to-date news and reviews and videos and that.

To that end, unless some swollen-walleted entrepreneur or whomever wants to invest in us, we're probably going to swallow our inherent distaste, and give Patreon a go, if only to invest it back into the development of the site, and justify the time this takes to do. Please tell us if this is a horrible idea.

And that? That is the latest update. And again - thank you. So much.

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GOSSI THE DOG - Gaming CEO gossip

16/12/2014

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Oh, father! Father, please – do not burn my bed in the furnace. My wife is asleep in there! Father, please! My beloved is aflame with the fires of burning!

I’m Gossi the Dog – the foremost proponent of games industry gossip. Once again this week I’ve kept my patella (ear) to the ground to see what I can pick up on the vine of the "grapes".

Hold onto your patella (flanks), everyone – this zestful dirty linen is going to ruin your patella (day)! Bark!

SATORU IWATA

My spies tell me that a certain Satoru Iwata – CEO of Nintendo – has been spending a little too much time away from the office in recent months.

Word at Nintendo HQ (a dormant volcano, decorated in a style I believe is called "boho chic") is that Satoru – or “Sats” as friends like to call him – has been busy in the back garden of his Kyoto mansion, building a large nest from old car parts, mittens, and the pungent biofluids of his personal puffin.

People fear that Iwata has become obsessed with the notion that he’s gravid, and – as soon as he reaches a viable gestational age – will lay between eighty eight and one thousand eggs.

His colleagues have tried everything to dissuade him of the notion, but that hasn’t stopped Iwata from preparing for what he believes will soon be a bounteous litter containing potentially hundreds upon hundreds of pulsating maggot babies, each one sporting a different part of his face, the 3DS XL logo, and a thick crop of ginger hair.

Iwata is reported to have told a colleague: "I can't wait to suckle them, and for them to be old enough to play air hockey with me, their papa."

Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time Iwata believed he was going to be a father – on three previous occasions he spent six months trying to incubate a pillow, under the mistaken conclusion that he must have laid it during his sleep. He even chose names for his assumed offspring: Tony, Tony-Bellingham, and Old Zealand.

KAZ HIRAI

Sony president and CEO Kaz Hirai is currently causing concern at Sony HQ (a giant ceramic lozenge on stilts, built atop an old Indian burial ground with the specific intention of invoking a curse), as he struggles to deal with the recent hack attack on Sony's servers.

Eyewitness have told me he's taken to slithering around the building on his stomach, gnashing his teeth, and lashing out at passing subordinates with a disposable razor.

One employee told me that she attempted to use a photocopier last week, but when she lifted the lid of the machine Hirai was lurking inside, his wheezing, pallid face pressed against the glass. Another alleges that he was approached in the men's toilets by Hirai - who was naked from the waist down, covered in talcum powder, and taking alternate, angry bites from a couple of chicken Kievs.

Workers are doing their best to ignore his behaviour and adopt a business-as-usual approach, but the CEO is making it increasingly difficult. His latest display of erratic motion saw him summon all staff to a meeting, whereupon he threatened them to make them all lick an old blank CD he'd found in the park that morning.

GABE NEWELL

Gabe Newell, boss of Valve, is trying to put the recent Steam game-pulling controversy behind him, but the stress of it all is starting to take its toll, so I'm told.

Colleagues at Valve HQ (a big, brown tent hidden in a cave behind a magic waterfall that only appears once every 300 years) recently witnessed their boss running barefoot around the staff carpark at high speed.

When asked if everything was ok, Newell attempted to vault over a nearby hedge, but only succeeded in tumbling headfirst into a floral edging.

Onlookers tell me that he lay there weeping loudly for almost half an hour. They eventually encouraged him to return to the office, with the promise that there was a friendly bear waiting for him.

When Newell ultimately realised this was nothing but a deception, and that a bear wasn't waiting for him, he started punching his desk, threatening to fire everyone in the company before later hunting them down and filling their holes with muffin crumbs. Eventually, the company's chief medical officer, a robotic surgeon called Kal-Klak, had to sedate him.

Insiders assure me that Newell slept soundly that night, dreaming of friendly bears, and a world where he is the all-powerful descendent of The Beggeters - the slender, peaceful progenitors of our species. In his dreams, Newell reportedly brought enduring peace to our planet, before his life was cruelly ended when his parent species' nemesis, The Harbinger of Dissolution, choked him on a fistful of dirty wool.

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REVIEW – Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor (Various)

16/12/2014

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By the power of Ormos! This review's so late it should be an obituary!

Get used to it.

See those Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings/Hobbit movies, right. Thing is, we sort of think we should like them, to the extent that we went to see every one of them in the cinema up to and including Hobbit 1. Last year - the year of Hobbit 2 - was the year we finally admitted to ourselves that we did in fact not like the Lord of the Rings movies, because we simply couldn’t bring ourselves to care about characters who don’t speak like real people, and who live in a world so saturated with CGI it’s probably polluting the rivers.

Why do these films all have to look the same? Can't we have some characters - just to mix it up - who don't wear natural fabrics, wave swords around, and go on quests? What about introducing a sci-fi cowboy called Honk Williams, who just stands in the back of scenes, waving and farting?

Anyway. It's a shame, because as terrible teenagers we were - for our sins - Dungeons & Dragons fans, and we don’t mind the occasional cod-Tolkein fantasy gaming universe. That said, we do struggle to maintain interest with characters called things like Keldroth Brannockspur and Merrioc Funtsplatter, who wander around saying stuff like “’Tis the season of The Changing Season. My people – The Ancient Elder Old Ones – call this time The Time of the Awakening Time. We must find the Sceptre of Tranquoth before Grellis the Angry invokes The Incantation of Prrrrrrth”.

FRENCH AND SAUNTERS

So, we sauntered towards Shadow of Mordor with not inconsiderable trepidation, expecting more of the above. Suffice to say, it didn’t exactly buck expectations: there’s a ton of potentous guff in here. You'll find yourself playing a half-ghost/half-ranger guy, seeking his revenge on fire-eyed monoclops Sauron for some boring indiscretion, by running around a corner of Middle Earth, slaughtering orcs.

There's a lot of cod-historical detail and backstory, but - mercifully - it's pretty optional. If you just want to play this as a fantasy hack 'em up - you can do that.

On the ground, we're in Arkham Asylum, or Assassin's Creed, or GTA or Far Cry territory. You can upgrade your dude – armed with sword, bow and dagger - as you play through the usual mix of campaign missions, side-quests, and collectibles that seem to be a part of every open world game. It's all well and good, but - please, sir - can we find a new way to overstuff our games now? At first it was surprising and felt like value for money, but like someone filling Christmas crackers with boiled mince every year, it's starting to lose its appeal.

MORDOR GEAR SOLID

The action is solid - you can get into a pleasing rhythm (the original rhythm of the night - oh yeah!) as you chop off orc heads and limbs, or puncture them with arrows.

Or if being a filthy sneak is more your sort of thing, you can stealth it up, or utilise various methods to induce terror in your cockney foes, from gutting them in front of their friends, to dropping some wasps on their face. So far so seen-it-all-before.

However, the thing Mordor does which is completely original is that you play through your own unique storyline, using its so-called Nemesis System. Sort of. Ish.

I mean, you still get the portentous, but mercifully brief, cutscenes, which we struggled to stay engaged with, but beyond that… senior orcs have their own names and ranks; if they kill you, they not only rise through the ranks, but they remember you when you return to life and face them again. You can build up rivalries, and develop your own personal grudges. Just like in real life!

Better still, midway through the game you can sort of possess orcs, and get them to fight by your side, or send them off to engage in battle with their superiors – causing instability in the ranks. This subtle strategy system works brilliantly, so it’s a bit of a shame that it arrives relatively late in the game. It's the one element that really makes this stand out from being yet another mostly pretty, if not outstanding, "sword and sorcery" quest-type thing.

PERVERSE

Perversely, something which arrives too quickly is your character’s near-omnipotence. You seem to get very, very powerful very quickly – and all challenge disappears. Thankfully, the game mechanics remain enjoyable enough to persevere with – even if the early stealth option seems rendered obsolete by your all-consuming ability to take down an entire army without breaking a sweat.

Still… for all that, it says something about Nemesis that we’re curious to see a follow-up. There's lots that Shadow of Mordor does right - far more right than wrong. But probably the most right thing it does right is that it absolutely defies expectations. Well done, Shadow of Mordor. Well done. You are that rare thing in the world of Middle Earth: something we never had to pretend we didn't hate.

SUMMARY: Looks uninspired, but - oh! - somehow succeeds in being anything but. We want more - especially more challenge next time, please.
SCORE: 87.34%

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THE TOP 5 CHRISTMAS GAMES - With The Flaccid Tramp

15/12/2014

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Season's greetings. My name is The Flaccid Tramp. That is my actual name. You could get away with that sort of thing, once upon a time. Unfortunately, by a cruel quirk of fate I also happen to be a flaccid tramp.

Do we find that funny? Do we find it amuuusing that I’m a tramp who’s flaccid? What if I wasn’t called The Flaccid Tramp, eh? What if I was called The Homelessman With Erectile Dysfunction? Not so funny now, is it – the thought of a homelessman, living on the streets, with a cheeky portion that refuses to inflate?

According to some figures I found, almost two and a half thousand people are sleeping rough in England at any one time, 90,000+ households are classified as homeless, and one in ten of all men suffer from erectile dysfunction.

Unfortunately, I couldn't find any figures on how many of those men are also homelessmen – for all I know, I might be the only one. If so, why does that make me potentially funnier than the rest of the folk who are sleeping on the streets? Why am I the one who gets laughed at, just because of what I happen to be called?

I mean, when you look at the statistics – it’s barely funny at all that I’m a flaccid tramp. In fact, it’s just pretty depressing, especially at this time of year (Ash Wednesday, judging from all the decorations). So, I hope you feel ashamed to be laughing at my legal, given name (which I assume you have done), however ironic it might be.

Anyway. I trust the thought of all that has ruined your day, and made you feel ashamed for ever using the epithet 'tramp'. But that’s not really what I’m here to talk about (though if you’d like to make a donation to the homeless charity Shelter, you can do so here). I'm actually here to talk about the importance of Ash Wednesday to I, and others like me (if there are any)...

...Although I've now just heard that I got that wrong, and it's not Ash Wednesday at all: it's Christmas apparently. So instead I shall run down my top five Christmas-themed video games. I hope you think of me - on the streets, with my lacklustre sausage - when you're playing these excellent, and all entirely current and topical, Christmas products.

Please give what you can.

DUKE: NUCLEAR WINTER - PC
Few franchises have gone off the rails quite as spectacularly as Duke Nukem. Why, now that I think about it, the only thing worse than Duke Nukem Forever is accidentally inhaling some hair from around a friend's bottom.

And yet, once upon a time, Duke Nukem 3D was considered to be as good as first-person shooters get. What's more, let us not forget that it was also the game which popularised the flushing toilet (in video games). Truly, 3D Realms is the Thomas Crapper of gaming.

Nuclear Winter was an expansion pack which had the titular Duke tracking down a brainwashed Santa, and his Feminist Elven Militia. In addition to visits to a toy factory, and Santa's headquarters, the add-on revisited areas seen in the original game. Inevitably, these were given a festive overhaul - and what's more Christmassy than a snowy red light district?

Really, when you read all that, it does rather feel like a product from a different era. Were it not for the fact Grand Theft Auto V exists today.

CHRISTMAS NIGHTS - Saturn
Most people seemed to like Sega's Nights Into Dream, a game in which you played a prancing, swirling harlequin - the sort of primped-up dandy who you would in other circumstances punch in the back of the head - as he swooped through surreal landscapes

Personally, I always thought it was a bit on the overrated side, but each to his own. What do I know? I'm just The Flaccid Tramp - a flaccid tramp.

Christmas Nights was a two-level giveaway, which spruced up a couple of the original levels with snow, and a festive soundtrack. Neatly, different content was unlocked throughout the year, depending on when the Saturn's internal clock told the game it was. My favourite was the Ash Wednesday theme, which became available on - you guessed it - Ash Wednesday.

It was free, so if you liked the original thing, it was hard to complain about. That didn't stop me, though. Nothing can stop me. I'm all-powerful, I think.

HOME ALONE - Various
This really was an ingot of rubbish, but the film it was based on is one of the best Christmas films of all time. Who doesn't want to see that boy maiming a couple of thieves?

Personally, I don't think that boy went far enough. I don't want to give the impression that all flaccid tramps are violent, but if I'd been that small boy I would have sliced their faces off with a broken bottle.

The game was available on various formats, but all featured you in the role of that boy, protecting your house (and - in the Megadrive version - your entire neighbourhood) from The Wet Bandits. Gathering gear to build weapons and sledging around the streets should be fun. Unfortunately, as was the tendency for cash-in games back then, it was not fun.

JAMES POND 2: ROBOCOD - Various
Probably the best of all the standalone Christmas titles, Robocod bucked the general tendency of publishers to shy away from realising full, overtly-themed, Christmas games (presumably, because the shelf life is limited... or maybe they just hate Christmas and Christians).

It was a full-on festive jamboree, as the titular piscine infiltrates Santa's workshop. Utterly playable, and - for the time - rather gorgeous, it was the perfect Christmas package.

Best of all, the UK version was sponsored by Penguin biscuits, and was bedecked with the sort of product placement we can all enjoy at this time of year.

ANIMAL CROSSING - Various
You'd expect Animal Crossing to do something special at Christmas (or "Toy Day" as the game would have it) - and the series doesn't disappoint.

Whichever version you play, your village takes on a shamelessly festive vibe throughout December. Best of all, Christmas Eve is the only time of the year you'll get to meet Jingle; a star-eyed reindeer with delusions of gift-giving grandeur.

Other Toy Day treats include being able to dress your character up in festive clothing, give presents to other villagers, build snowmen, and making your finger wet by putting it down a robin's throat. That doesn't happen in the game - it's just something I really enjoy doing.

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Xbox Kinect 2.0: Requiem for a Dream

15/12/2014

5 Comments

Get a load of this, fatso: there was once an old ZX Spectrum game called Surf Champ, which came bundled with a miniature surfboard.

It was a little plastic thing that sat atop the keys, and you used your fingers to mimic the art of surfing – sort of like those little finger skateboards stupid young boys seem to like.

It was a neat idea – one intended to launch a series of sporting games that used similarly quirky inputs - but in practice it didn’t really work.

Why, in some respects Surf Champ was a bit like Microsoft’s Kinect 2.0. Oh-hoh!

However you look at it, Microsoft’s Kinect has been a terrible and embarrassing failure. Within a year, the company went from saying that its magic camera was integral to the Xbox One, to doing a sort of embarrassed, twitching shuffle in the opposite direction, while frantically scratching its face, and shouting “H… huh… hey…!”.

GIMMICK

This isn’t just hindsight to say it was always a weird decision to bundle the thing with the Xbox One. Aside from anything else, it never really took flight on the 360, and in the run up to launch, people were sort of waving their hands in front of Microsoft telling it to slow down before it drove into a cow. But on it ploughed – on and on, ignoring the warnings, before the inevitable, messy, slow-motion, bovine impact. Oh, how that farmer wailed…

Maybe if Microsoft had managed to come up with a game that really sold its hardware, things would’ve been different. But it didn’t do that. Shouting orders in Ryse: Son of Rome, or leaning your way through Kinect Sports, is a waste of everyone’s time.

Regrettably, using the device has never felt instinctive enough for it to be considered as anything more than a gimmick.

WII ART THOU?

Whereas the Wii launched with the ultimate proof-of-concept – Wii Sports – the Kinect has yet to offer a single compelling reason to own one.

Apart from, I dunno, being able to Skype on it, and play some dance games;
unfortunately, there appeared to be few teenage girls among the Xbox One’s early adopters, due to Microsoft seemingly hedging its bets in terms of which demographic it should be appealing to.

What's more, you need space to use the Kinect properly, which forces it out of bedrooms and into living rooms. Do you really want to leap and sway like that, only to be judged and laughed at by your awful family?

Looking back now, it’s weird how the Kinect debacle ever happened. Microsoft must’ve known that it’s quicker and easier to navigate the One’s front-end using a joypad than their much-vaunted barking and flailing of arms. They must’ve known they never had a justifiable system-shifter of a game like Wii Sports. And surely – surely - someone somewhere along the line must’ve warned them that it was sheer madness to launch the machine at such a high price, compared to the PS4?

OVER/NOT OVER

For all that, any console launch is a long game, and it’s not over yet. The One has just managed to outsell the PS4 and Wii U for the first time (though it’s a long way behind in terms of overall sales), and it doesn’t exactly deserve to fail, because it’s a perfectly fine machine.

And yet, ironically, without the Kinect it’s difficult to really make a case for it. It doesn’t stand out. Though for that matter, nor does the PS4, such is the charmless homogenisation of our console industry (you have to wonder if that’s why the Wii U is suddenly looking healthier – what’s on offer there actually draws attention to itself).

Who knows? Maybe Microsoft were aware things were going that way, and that’s why it took the gamble with Kinect? Maybe it was an attempt at peacocking – like some ghastly tart of a man at a masquerade party, trying to stand out by windmilling his arms and spinning around while squawking like a knackered bassoon.

But anyway. Whatevs, guy. Kinect didn’t work. Microsoft probably knows that. And it’s fair to say that it would take an act of sheer insanity for the company to pursue that line again. Join us now in singing the traditional Kinect farewell song:

Kinect cch-chh,
Kinect chh-chh,
Comes out your bum,
Like a bullet from a gun,
Kinect chh-chh,
Kinect.

Ha ha. Bum.

5 Comments

REVIEW - Alien: Isolation (PS4 version tested)

15/12/2014

2 Comments

It’s kind of spectacular how badly wrong-faced the Alien franchise has become in the years since Aliens.

On the cinema screen we’ve ricocheted from disappointing movie sequels, to the utterly wrong-headed Aliens vs Predator, to Ridley Scott’s inexplicably dumb Prometheus. There have been some half-decent stabs at Alien games, but that run ended last year with the half-baked, and ill-finished, Aliens: Colonial Marines. It was the gaming equivalent of opening up a Big Mac to find just a couple of burgers with no baps, and a note saying "Sorry - we ran out of buns".

Admittedly, with the running and the shooting and the testosterone army boys and the phallic hardware and that, Aliens certainly lends itself more naturally to video games than its predecessor.

Now Alien Isolation has been out a while, and everyone's sort of gone "Oooh", it’s easy to forget that it’s actually quite a brave game (although not brave in the same way as, say, someone who drags a drowning/sizzling nurse out of a burning duck pond).

ALIEN: I-SO-LATE-ONE

This review is so late that there seems little point in recapping everything you probably already know. Except... Oh! We simply must!

In short: Alien Isolation plays as a pre-Aliens sequel to the original Alien movie. You fulfill the role of Ripley’s daughter, looking for clues to her mother’s disappearance (spoiler: she's floating in deep space, dummy). You end up stuck on some space station along with a handful of nefarious sorts, a bunch of unpleasant androids, and one deeply unpleasant alien. And so on and so forth.

It’s first-person, but it’s not a shoot ‘em up – it’s about surviving while trying to draw the minimum amount of attention to yourself. Which seems like a reasonable philosophy for life. You have to go through the usual video game nonsense of doing Thing A to unlock Door B, and while there are weapons they're not terribly useful. Ammo is in short supply, and enemies - especially the androids - are hardy, to say the least.

MY NAME IS CHUNKY RETRO

Heed these words: this is about as authentic a representation of the Alien universe as you’re going to get. There are none of your flat screen holographic tellies littering the setting – it’s all chunky, retro hardware.

What’s more, it gets what Alien was about - the slow build, the sudden bursts of noise, the lighting, the hisses of steam – more successfully than any game ever has done before. Character models could be better, but when there's not another human on screen it's close to perfect.

But as you probably know, Isolation’s main selling point is its alien – a creature that is driven by AI rather than pre-programmed set-pieces. it means that no two games will ever be exactly the same. Unfortunately, if world building is Isolation’s greatest strength, its titular creature - and this is a deal-breaker - might be its weakest.

The alien is smart and unstoppable – literally. You might be able to scare it off for a bit, with some flames, or distract it by making noise, but the thing is relentless. For large swathes of the playing time you’ll literally be going over the same section again and again – in part because save points are well-spaced, and in part because it just. Keeps. Killing. You.

Over and over and over and over.

HARD BREW

We appreciate that there’s a brewing trend to make games harder. Be it Dark Souls or Hotline Miami, we’re becoming used to replaying the same bits. And that's fine. Somehow it matters less when you die in battle, and are able to enjoy the game mechanics of the repeated play-throughs.

Unfortunately, when it comes to Isolation you’ll mostly die from tip-toeing down corridors, hiding in lockers, or under hospital gurneys, praying that the damn thing doesn’t see or hear you. We hesitate only briefly before saying this: it’s boring. Boring and bit unfair.

Somehow, Alien Isolation – for all its atmosphere and - becomes an exercise in endurance, and a test of your capacity to stomach repetition. Like being force-marched over Welsh hills for a week, you might look back on it with a sense of achievement and relief, but you probably won’t be able to say you had a lot of fun. And weren't games supposed to be fun? Isn't that the whole point?

SUMMARY: Imagine hiding in a succession of different cupboards for weeks on end while being hunted by a monster. It's as much fun as that.
SCORE: 61.42%

2 Comments

THE MAN'S DADDY - And his phabulous phunnies

12/12/2014

7 Comments

Hello. I'm a popular comedian called The Man's Daddy. Among the many things I do is another thing: writing really excellent jokes for my amazing comedy routine.

Some of those jokes will be arriving here soon. Oh look - they're here already.

Knock knock.
Who’s there?
Doctor.
Doctor Who?
No - Doctor Harold Shipman. Just let me in.

PATIENT: Doctor, doctor – my foot is all swollen.
DOCTOR: I’m Harold Shipman.

QUESTION: Why did the chicken cross the road?
ANSWER: He was trying to avoid Harold Shipman.

QUESTION: What vessel did Harold Shipman go on holiday in?
ANSWER: A ship, man.

QUESTION: What does Harold Shipman put in the ground to make plants grow?
ANSWER: Seeds and bulbs.

QUESTION: What is Harold Shipman's favourite food?
ANSWER: Beard (bread).

QUESTION: Why did Harold Shipman wear glasses?
ANSWER: So he could see the things he was doing.

QUESTION: Did Harold Shipman ever own a dog?
ANSWER: I'd have to ask someone.

QUESTION: What's worse than Harold Shipman biting into an apple and finding a worm?
ANSWER: Harold Shipman himself.

Those were all excellent, tasteful jokes.

7 Comments

FAT SOW - Who Needs a Video Game Movie?

12/12/2014

9 Comments

Well sellotape my shoulders together and call me a stickleback. I'm so angry this week I could burst all over a crone.

In case you've missed the news over the last couple of days, Sony has been hacked big stylee, by a North Korea-sympathising group of (I assume) super-heros going by the name The Guardians of Peace. The hack - which led to gigabytes of confidential emails pulsing out online - was apparently in retaliation for the upcoming Seth Rogen and James Franco comedy The Interview, which revolves around the imagined assassination of pouting bad hair man-baby Kim Jong Un (please don't hack me, North Korea - it's just a joke... plus he really does look like a pouting bad hair man-baby).

If this is the future of warfare - striking at the Western capitalist dogs by embarrassing their beloved celebrities and powerful Hollywood types - then this pig is all for it. It's got to be better than, y'know, dropping drones on wedding parties and that.

Anyway, tucked away in among the stuff was the revelation that Sony is working on a Super Mario movie, produced by Avi Arad. Negotiations with Nintendo were reportedly completed in late October. And it just got me thinking, in the part of my brain that isn't clouded by raw bacon: does anybody need that? Who cares about where Mario came from, or what he thinks: he's just meant to be a funny little Italian jumping guy who eats mushrooms. He's not remotely engaging as a character, but as a corporate icon and an avatar he's perfect.

More to the point though, does anybody need any movie based upon a video game? Of course we don't - but that doesn't stop bloated Hollywood idiots trying anyway.

WHY DO THIS?

There are dozens of video game movies in development. They've been trying to get a Halo movie off the ground for years (now it's becoming an Xbox Live series), and Hitman (retitled 'Agent 47' for the large screen) is out next Spring. But also brewing their thighs in the sweatbox are - among others - films based around Angry Birds, Assassin's Creed, Far Cry, Heavy Rain, and most absurdly of all, Tetris.

I get why movie studios do it - there's a built-in brand awareness with an existing property, so you're guaranteed a certain number of buttocks on seats. But it just seems to cut against the entire idea of games - all the more so now that games are sometimes bettering the storytelling available at the so-called "cin-e-ma".

A game like Uncharted (also in the works as a movie) is already a brilliant, cinematic work of fiction - with the added bonus of also being a game. I honestly don't know how interested I'm going to be in watching that as a linear, non-interactive experience.

Worse still, it makes me weep and shake like a goon to hear they're planning a movie based upon The Last of Us, because The Last of Us has better characterisation, acting, and storytelling than a huge majority of the guff Hollywood regurgitates into our faces. It's been years since I gasped at a film, because I was so involved with the characters: I did that twice in The Last of Us. Twice!

I repeat for unnecessary emphasis: How can a movie of The Last of Us possibly be better than the game, or add anything to what is already on offer? It can't - that is the answer to your (my) question.

SERIOUSLY - WHY DO THIS?

Of course, all of this is somewhat moot given that - as a pig (and not even a real one at that) - I'm not allowed in the cinema, and can't remember the last time I watched any movie based upon a game. Oh wait - yes I can: I watched Battleship. Admittedly, that was based upon a board game, but completely justified my point nonetheless.

It was like someone had made a movie by stitching together bits from the corpses of Michael Bay movies. Unfortunately, the body parts they harvested were all from the lower digestive tract.

In saying all this, it's also completely pointless; what does it really matter what they make a movie of? I'm not going to lose any sleep over it. Churning out populist, identikit, guaranteed theatre-fillers is what helps fund stuff that can be more experimental and interesting.

Yet I suppose it just slightly grates that cinema is seen as the pinnacle of entertainment - its messed-up actors and creators unjustly positioned as the gods of our modern era - when it's becoming increasingly clear that games can now make a legitimate claim to that crown.

Now get your faces out of my sty, you ghastly voyeurs: It is time for Fat Sow to make sweet, sweet romance with herself.

THE VIEWS OF FAT SOW DO NOT NECESSARILY COINCIDE WITH DIGITISER'S OWN.

9 Comments

HAPPY DOOMS(BIRTH)DAY

12/12/2014

0 Comments

The PlayStation just done turned 20, and it’s already time for another meaningless gaming anniversary; it’s 21 actual years since Doom was released – that’s just one year to go until it’s 22 years since Doom was released, and barely a year since it was 20 years since Doom was released. Whupppp-pppp-ppuppiesss!

This week, Doom co-creator Jon “Jubb-jubb” Romero took to a graceless social media platform called “Twitter” to share a selection of previously unseen behind-the-scenes artwork and photos from the making of Doom. You can see some of them with your eyes and mind here.

It’s difficult now to remember the impact Doom made at the time. If you imagine a moose falling off a tall building onto a tramp you'll only be partway to grasping how big an impact it had. Even if you multiply the number of mooses, increase the height of the building, and reduce the health of the tramp, you're still not going to get it.

Graphics and technology have reached a level where it’s doubtful there’ll ever be such a quantum jump for games again. In part, we think that because we can't really recall one that's happened in the decades since. At the risk of forcing you to sniff our clichés, after Doom nothing was ever the same.

We could harp on about it setting the template for first-person shooters – building as it did on the foundations laid down by Wolfenstein 3D – but you're smart. You already know that. What Doom really got right, as all the great, epoch-shaking games have, was coupling era-defining, iconic graphics with sublime gameplay, and an utterly unique atmosphere. It was close to perfect.

MOOD FOR DOOM

Doom was also one of the first games to be motored by the Internet – newsgroup buzz got people talking, before a shareware version was uploaded to FTP servers.

Cue a global phenomenon, and reduced productivity throughout the Illuminate-controlled world.

It’s a rarely remembered fact that it wasn’t until 1995 that the game was properly released commercially, as The Ultimate Doom.

We recall playing it for the first time on Teletext’s terribly poor PCs – having to reduce it down to a postage stamp-sized window to make the frame rate bearable. This may shock you, but we don't think we ever properly played a full-screen version until the Atari Jaguar. That's how rubbish we were.

And despite that handicap, it still gave us the "willies" (ha ha). For all the alleged survival “horror” games that have followed in its wake, we honestly can’t think of a game since that’s freaked us out quite as much as Doom did. The sharp, sudden rasp of a cacodemon’s roar. The pools of darkness. The flickering lights. And so on and so forth.

A FINAL PARAGRAPH

So. There you go. Another week, another gaming birthday. Well done, Doom, for existing and being good, and for somehow enduring across the years.

Next year we'll be seeing Doom 4, maybe. Hopefully. Let us all join hands, roll our eyes into their sockets, and sing a sinister and threatening song about hoping it will be better than rubbish.

0 Comments

CHRISTMAS BUYER'S GUIDE - With The Living Bum

11/12/2014

12 Comments

Sponsored by XENOXXXtm

Thrpp-thrp. Greetings, beings of the Planet Earth. Contrary to appearances I am not the lower part of a dog's face. I am The Living Bum, the inevitable consequence of mankind’s inability to stop meddling in things which it does not fully understand.

I was born in a petri dish, grown from the rectal cells of the actor Digimon Houston, which were acquired in permissive circumstances. Before I was nought but a mindless beast, bubbling and chirping wordlessly. And then my master and creator - Xenoxxx Industries - forced a large, genetically-modified, duck's brain into my hairy anus. I am now become the first fully-sentient, autonomous bum in history.

Thrrrrprssssppppp. Thrp.

My great and sophisticated intellect makes me perfectly placed to advise on consumer matters; I have gazed ‘pon mankind’s rampant capitalism with my all-seeing brown-eye and deemed it something you probably want more of. Especially as the pagan festival of Christmas approaches. Spend. Spend.

SPEND BEYOND YOUR MEANS!!!!

These are The Living Bum’s Top 5 gifts for the gadget-loving gamer in your lifethrrrrrrrrp. THRRRP!

XENOXXXtm COOL GAMING CHAIR
If you know someone who likes playing games AND sitting down, the Xenoxxx Cool Gaming Chair is the gift for you (them). Simply strap a recently-anaesthetised, games-loving friend or relative into the chair, hook them up to the intravenous drip - containing Xenoxxx's 'special gaming cocktail' - and watch as they twitch and jerk in time to the game's soundtrack.

Feel free to laugh, clap and stamp your feet along with their unnecessary fitting, whilst flinging small shells at them.

XENOXXXtm COOL GAMING HAT
If you know someone who likes playing games AND wearing hats, the Xenoxxx Cool Gaming Hat is the ideal headwear. Just put the hat on their head - it's covered with images of their favourite games characters (Marius, Dunkuss Kong, Lara Cruftusss, Sanity the Hedgehuss etc) - and stand back as fierce metal clamps grip the sides of their skull, refusing to surrender their restraint, no matter how much the wearer struggles and complains.

And just when it looks as if their pain is getting unbearable, the hat inserts a hot cone into their mouth.

XENOXXXtm COOL GAMING ENERGY DRINK
If you know someone who likes playing games AND having lots of energy, the Xenoxxx Cool Gaming Energy Drink is just the drink for them! One sip of this coal-flavoured sparkling beverage and your friend or relative will suffer the most profound sleep deprivation of their lives.

By the fifth day they'll be hallucinating and foaming at the mouth, giving you ample opportunity to ransack their house, soil their bed, and roll them hard into a wall or table.

XENOXXXtm COOL ONLINE GAMING SHAWL
If you know someone who likes playing games AND wearing shawls then why not give them the Xenoxxx Cool Gaming Shawl? Looking just like the sort of shawl someone might wear while playing an online deathmatch - it's covered with the sort of homophobic, racist, misogynistic epithets that make any online gaming session an absolute hoot. However, it conceals a secret network of plumbing within its knitted lining.

As soon as your friend or relative dons the shawl, the plumbing network shatters, covering them in scalding Bovril. They'll be in such profound agony, you'll be able to elbow them repeatedly in the sternum with the minimum of resistance.

XENOXXtm COOL GAMING DOG-STRADDLER
If you know someone who likes playing games AND straddling their dog, why not get them the Xenoxxx Cool Gaming Dog-Straddler? It's a custom pig-leather saddle which is mounted to the back of your friend or relative's dog, distributing their weight throughout the dog's entire torso. But wait! The leather has been impregnated with a powerful laxative and hallucinogen.

Just when your friend or relative believes they're in for a quiet session straddling their dog, while thinking about or playing games or something, the dog will start defecating and behaving strangely. With any luck, the poor creature will begin snapping and snarling at invisible assailants. Your friend or relative will be so transfixed by this spectacle, that you will have free reign to charge them from behind, knocking them to the floor, before laying atop them in the nude.

Thrrrrrrrrrpsssss!

12 Comments

MAN DIARY - Vlogging

11/12/2014

3 Comments

DECEMBER 09

I have been fired from my job as a garden centre Father Christmas for eating and regurgitating one of the gifts, and punching a child who got scared when she saw me retching into my hat (I was trying to calm her down). Consequently, I have decided to strike out on my own and become a YouTube vlogger.

I’m not entirely sure what it is I’m meant to be doing, so I’m just filming everything I do, and hoping something sticks. So far, I have filmed myself doing the following things:

Going to Costa.
Coming back from Costa.
Drinking the nutmeg and almond latte I bought in Costa.
Thinking about buying a dog.
Looking out of the window at the neighbour’s dog and thinking about stealing it.
Looking out of the window at the neighbour.
Deciding not to steal the neighbour’s dog.
Googling ways to grow my online audience.
Buying a book on Kindle about vlogging.
Realising I've bought a book about 'flogging' in error.
Giving make-up tips.
Trying to write a post-modern listicle blog post entitled Ten Good Topics For Your Next Listicle, but not being able to think of anything else as clever as that.
Obsessively checking my vlog stats.
Watching TV (Bargain Hunt).
Not watching TV
Trying to do a Let’s Play on Jetpack Joyride on my iPhone, but not really understanding what that is, or what I have to do to make it entertaining.
Tweeting famous people with whatever I can think of in the hope they'll tweet me back.
Going to bed.
Getting out of bed and looking out of the window to see if the neighbour’s dog was still outside (it wasn’t).
Sighing.

DECEMBER 10

Somehow, my vlog has become a massive hit, and I’ve been offered a deal to write my first book. I’ve decided to loosely base it on my experiences of being an online vlogger over the past 24 hours.

The book begins with the main character – who is called The Character – going to Costa, buying a nutmeg and almond latte, and then coming back from Costa and drinking the nutmeg and almond latte, before thinking about buying a dog.

The Character then considers stealing his neighbour’s dog, before thinking better of it. The Character’s vlog becomes a massive hit after he gives make-up tips, tries to write a listicle, watches Cash In The Attic (don’t want to make it too similar to my own life!), doesn’t watch Cash In The Attic, plays Jetpack Joyride, goes to bed, wakes up, looks out of the window, sighs – before finally being offered a book deal.

The book examines life in the spotlight, and tackles powerful themes of what it’s like to be a man who imagines what it's like to be a teenage girl online. My publisher has suggested that we hire a ghostwriter to pen the book for me, as my handwriting is terrible, and peppered with unnecessary profanity and death threats. The ghostwriter they’ve suggested is the late Ernest Hemingway.

DECEMBER 11

Regrettably, after a whirlwind couple of days, I have found myself embroiled in a media scandal. Following the release of my debut novel, 'Man Onlive', I attended my dizzyingly star-studded launch party (attendees included such notaries as Yancer, Prancer, Foynt, O'Sullivan and Tot) at which I signed copies and basked in the glow of how clever I'd been to get the late Ernest Hemingway to write it for me without telling anyone.

I was also invited by Bob Gandalf to pretend to sing on the new Ban AIDS single (I hired a ghostsinger - the late Ella Fitzgerald - to do the singing for me, as my own singing is peppered with unnecessary profanity and death threats). It was amazing; I got to hang out with such rock and pop greats as Tully, Mully, Jenson-9, Hunt, McNiven and Prang.

However, since then I've been hit with a backlash. Apparently, it is in some way considered dishonest to claim to have written a book, when in actual fact it was written by a ghost. Nevertheless, it's the late Ernest Hemingway who I feel the most sorry for; he's become so distraught by being in the spotlight that he's committed reverse suicide.

3 Comments

REVIEW - Sunset Overdrive (Xbox One)

10/12/2014

7 Comments

Game trailers are a mixed blessing. They're good for this: telling people about your game.

But they also do this: raise expectations that your game then has to live up to.

The first time we saw the Sunset Overdrive trailer - the one that starts out like a Call of Duty game, before turning into a garish, excitable mess, like a glittered puppy thrashing around in a trough of spaghetti bolognese - we were genuinely enthused.

So enthused, in fact, that we removed our trousers and went out in the street to engage with people about it. That didn't work out so well, so we came back inside. In short: it was a game we really wanted to play.

Perhaps we were expecting too much, but - and this give us paining in the coccyx to say - but Sunset Overdrive fails to be the really good thing we were hoping for.

Frankly, that's a bigger shame than a couple of dead opticians, because the time feels overripe for a game that goes out of its way to slice into the endless parade of overly macho, sepia-hued, knucklehead, military shooters and sub-Tolkein whimsy that makes up so much of the gaming landscape.

Somehow, while well-intentioned, Sunset Overdrive misses its mark in terms of humour and attitude.

JET SET WILLY

If you ever played Sega's sublime Jet Set Radio, this is Jet Set Radio, only not as successful. If you’ve not played Jet Set Radio, this is a weird hybrid of shoot ‘em up and skating – your city has been overrun with dayglo, fizzy drink-fuelled zombies, and you must bring them down using a mix of ludicrous guns, traps, and skating around on the scenery.

En route, you’ll encounter a succession of broadly-drawn characters, who you’ll either find absolutely hilarious or utterly grating, depending on whether or not you're a drunk fratboy at his first sorority hazing.

It’s busy, relatively unique, and never takes itself too seriously, but it’s just trying too hard. It's imbued with a sort of cod-early MTV ethic, that just comes across as a bit too desperate to please air-headed surfies or skaterboiz. Imagine your dad doing a jive to Skrillex at a family wedding, while whooping "Yeah, kids!". Now imagine that in game form. References to Reddit, or whatever, seem like a failed an attempt at relevance.

Normally we wouldn't spend so much time whinging about the script, but Sunset Radio - or whatever it's called - set itself up for that by saying it was a funny game. More problematically, when you strip away all the attempts to poke fun at other games and genres, you’re left with a game that’s never quite as playable as we wished it would’ve been.

SKATE AND CHIPS

The skating – leaping from rail to rail, and running along the sides of buildings - is somehow just that little bit too clunky to be entirely instinctive. Like someone with a urinary tract infection, it just doesn't flow. Likewise, the shooting never feels as satisfying as it could. And god forbid you ever accidentally fall off a rail and have to run around - the gameplay practically collapses in on itself.

There's little denying that plenty is on offer here. The missions deliver a fair breadth of variety, and your character is eminently customisable and upgradable in the way that games characters are (you can probably fill in the blanks yourself - we can't be bothered).

Graphically, we like the general aesthetic, but – yet again – the main concession to this being a next gen game is the sheer number of enemies on screen at any one time. The city setting is hollow and lacking life, and the character design is shockingly rough for what should’ve been a graphical showcase for the Xbox One. It’s barely one step up from Saints Row (at least Saints Row makes a virtue of it).

THERE YOU GO

No - there we go. Sorry to be the bringing of yet further disappointed tidings, but what can you do?

Sunset Overdrive isn't a disaster, and it had the best of intentions, but fails to achieve its objectives.

If you're after something that steps outside of the (X)box a bit, this might light up your fancy. Just don't expect the system-shifter that Microsoft was obviously aiming for this to be. Stupid Microsoft.

SUMMARY: Frat-set Radio.
SCORE: 71.03%

Don't tell anyone this, but I just ate a seagull. I didn't even chew it.
I'm off my head (on drugs) I am.
/

7 Comments

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