The Obligatory Game of the Year Thread

It had to happen, eventually.

It's been such a strong year for videogames. Let's have a little reminisce about the best parts, and then a nomination for GotY at the end of your post.

I remember when....

Came across this interesting piece about some of the games released in 1998.

http://www.bingegamer.net/2008/top-ten-games-of-1998/

Its amazing to think Ocarina of Time and Half life are now 10 years old, and that Fallout 3 was 10 years in the making...

Next! (?)

The scheduled next date for Fi Club is 26th December, Boxing Day. I'm guessing most of us will be busy with guests, or travelling away. We're out early on the 27th so I'd rather not do it then, personally.

Week after that is the 2nd January. Does anyone want to do that night? Skip it until the 9th?

Whichever way this will either be the last Fi at the current betaHouse, or the first ever Fi at the new betaHouse. It's unlikely there'll be broadband up there at first, or heating, but I think we'll at least have electricity.

Come, join in the Band!

Oh, do you mean me?
Sorry, was I supposed to post?
(clears throat)

Ok, My place, Fi'Day 12th December for a pre-christmas rock-out!
Well, I say 'Rock'.
GHWT...hmmm....unfortunately, with each new release, GH gets less and less about 'Guitar Heroes'!
Several of the bands featured in the main game I haven't even heard of!
At least there's a couple of Jimmy's tracks on there.
Not that I'm a particular fan of him, but it's a start!

Anyway, I don't want to put you off before you've even agreed to come!

Come, it'll be fun!
It should work with RB as well (not tried it out yet, maybe this 'savo).
The drums, I feel, are slightly better.
But there's no saving whilst in a song...one fails, all fail...no get-out or 'no-fail' option (as in RB2).

(Stop it cookie, your doing it again!)

The Things I Hate About You

Edge has a piece about EA LA Lead Designer Randy Smith's least favourite video game features.

Fighting is the only way we can think to get the player involved: Violence is bad. World leaders are blinded by bloodlust. Watch this half-hour movie about nuclear proliferation. OK, now strangle and knife a bunch of goons from behind. Shoot everybody. You’re saving the world.

Randy no likey.

I no likey EA's sweatshop-bred sausage factory games, or their horrendously flakey game servers, but Edge hasn't published my bit yet.

Sony Killing LBP Levels Without Warning

From Wired Blog

LittleBigPlanet lets gamers create their own worlds, but some say that its developer is cracking down much too harshly on potentially infringing content.

Amateur level designers say that the developer of Sony's recently-released PlayStation 3 game has been yanking their creations from the servers if the levels contain references to existing television shows or videogames. And once the levels are gone, users aren't given the opportunity to remove the offending content and republish -- they've got to start from scratch.

Sounds about right for Sony.

Ain't Nothing Going On But The Rent

British Gaming Blog are reporting that GAME are to start a rental system.

GAME Rentals allows you to borrow up to 2 games at a time for a small monthly subscription. There are no late fees - when you want to try a new game just return one of the ones you’ve already played.

The service offers two subscription levels. The first allows for one game at a time for £9.99 a month, while the second allows two games at a time for £14.99 a month.

Here's a link to GAME's rental page where they're offering a 10-day free trial period if you sign up now.

I need to Do The Maths (natch) to see if it's worth it for me, but on the face of things you get to have a premium title for £20 for two months which is easily long enough for a single-player game like Fable 2, or to ride the initial wave of interest in a multiplayer like Gears 2 or L4D.

Looking at it another way. Who of us spend more than £120 a month, or even £180 for the 2-game deal? I know I do, but then I also sell on used titles which allows me to recoup. Hmmm.... where's that calculator.

Wonder if they'll send me the Rock Band II band in a box?

New Blog: Taisei Shikake

Munchk and I were chatting today about iPhones, apps and gadgets and we talked about how we should post some of this stuff, but not here.

To this end, I have created Taisei Shikake, the 'Fi Club gadget wing, and I invite you to join in with posts, comments or just feed lurking. Up to you.

Blogger's dashboard obfuscates your email addresses, and I have multiples for most of you, so let me know the addy you use for blogger and I'll get it to email out an invite.

Taisei Shikake

Nintendo's Wii Speak - Apparently ok to sell on....

In the interests of fairness (common sense and some web related outrage), Nintendo has back tracked on the Wii Speak code system that effectively ties it to one Wii.

Granted this solution requires a one phone call to Nintendo to obtain a new key, but hey, better than nothing eh? EH? :)

A good example of a company not too proud to admit a mistake, and here is hoping that others follow suit.

Linky

Fi Club at Ruuts!

I am Kaiser Soze.

Bike Hero!

Link to article asplaining it.

Deadly Sins

From Cracked.com
The Seven Deadly Sins of Online Gaming

#5.
Humpophilia (Lust)

Imagine It:

The worst possible thing that can happen to anyone has just happened to you. You’ve been killed. In a game.

You were manning the rear gun of a Warthog when the driver pulled hard right to avoid a group of Covenant Hunters and slammed your head right into errant sniper fire. Your whole life—all ninety seconds of it—flashes instantly before your visor. Then your head is snapped cleanly off like a breaking celery stalk, and tumbles down a grassy hillside.

Yet, you live. For a few precious moments, your consciousness remains, and through fading vision, you watch the Warthog driver stop, leap from the vehicle, and run to your body, which has fallen belly-down over a rocky outcropping. What’s he doing? Is he trying to help you? Can’t he see it’s too late?

Gingerly, delicately, the driver steps up to the rear of your body, then backs up a few inches, steps forward again. And again. He mutters “heh…awesome.” Yanking your eyes from the image of your body being defiled, you are affronted by two armor-plated testicles descending from above. The man crouching repeatedly over your head pauses only to take several screen caps.

Your brain finally ceases activity, and you log off to take the longest, hottest shower of your life.

Why It’s Seriously Not Cool:

No one likes to get raped, and it’s even less pleasant when you’re dead. Humping someone’s dead body isn’t just nasty, it’s downright insulting. You’ve killed him; you won. Chill out with the aggressive homoeroticism already.

There’s a reason that in all of human history, there’s never been a civilization that showed dominion over their opponents by humping their freshly killed corpses on the battlefield. Except the Sumerians, but everyone thought they were dicks.

Appropriate Punishment:

In-game, real-time ritual castration to be performed by the respawned victim.
The 7 Deadly Sins of Online Gaming

Shoot It Up

This Fi Club looks to be gun-toting-split-screen-tastic. We should have a couple of boxes running with some split screen L4D and Gears 2. We should be able to get both co-op campaign and 2v2 for Gears which will be ace.

So, Munchk is to bring his spare box, and possibly a TV, although I do have a monitor and speakers, but I need you to bring an RGB cable if we're doing that.

k 0 0 k 1 e please can you bring your copy of Gears 2?

Ruut, please can you bring your everlasting Pizza Hut coupon?

And we need a couple more controllers. Don't mind who brings them.

We can also have a look at Fallout 3 on a spare account (so I get a clean run and no free achievements.)

Nintendo Can Fuck Off Too

Nintendo can join Epic's Mike Capps in kissing my ass. Destructoid.com report that Nintendo are using single-use activation codes to tie their largely pointless Wii Speak peripheral to a single console. The code allows you to download the channel software that the Speak uses - a driver if you like.

This is the latest incidence of publishers striking back at used game sales, which is an epidemic crushing profits and putting the entire industry at a near standstill. The situation is reminiscent of the film industry and its dreadful collapse after rental stores opened their collective doors and killed consumer motivation to purchase or travel to the theatre to watch movies.

I cannot believe that Nintendo lose a lot of money through second hand peripheral sales. To me this shows a complete lack of faith in consumer attachment to this device, they just want to make sure everyone has to buy it first-hand before they decide it's shit.

NXE: Games on your HDD

Here's a couple of quick links to some interesting information about installing and playing games from your HDD, courtesy of the NXE due on the 19th November.

First, from Eurogamer is a fairly detailed look at how fast games load and stream from your HDD compared to the DVD.

The methodology for the tests was remarkably straightforward - my workhorse Xbox 360 Elite ran a carefully selected range of ten top games, first from DVD, then from hard disk. Video captures of both gameplay run-throughs allowed us to get frame-accurate loading times (rounded up to the nearest half-second) and the comparison of the selected footage could also be used to judge any differences in game performance.

Second is a video from IGN showing how much quieter you can expect your Xbox 360 to be when streaming from HDD instead of DVD.

Sloppy Seconds

I haven't had time to read the entire article but the synopsis on Slashdot for this article at gamesindustry.biz made me mad.

Q: How do you see downloadable content evolving over the next few years?

Michael Capps: I'm not sure how big it is here [in Europe], but the secondary market is a huge issue in the United States. Our primary retailer makes the majority of its money off of secondary sales, and so you're starting to see games taking proactive steps toward that by... if you buy the retail version you get the unlock code.

I've talked to some developers who are saying "If you want to fight the final boss you go online and pay USD 20, but if you bought the retail version you got it for free". We don't make any money when someone rents it, and we don't make any money when someone buys it used - way more than twice as many people played Gears than bought it...

This sucks as bad as the rumoured (and nixed) PS3-burns-a-sector-on-your-disks-so-you-can't-sell-them 'feature.'

The fuckwad then goes on to imply that second-hand gamers are stealing:

Q: Do you see an enemy in this equation? Is it the retailer, or the purchaser of second-hand games?

Michael Capps: I'd hate to say my players are my enemies - that doesn't make any sense! But we certainly have a rule at Epic that we don't buy any used games - sure as hell you're not going to be recognised as an Epic artist going in and buying used videogames - because this is how we make our money and how all our friends in the industry make money.

I think a little bit of it is education so people realise that the reason there's no PC market right now is piracy. I mean, Crytek just put out some numbers saying the ratio was 20:1 on Crysis, for pirated to non-pirated use. So guess what? That's why there's no Gears of War 2 on PC, because there's no market, because copying killed it - and that's gruesome to a company like ours that's been in the PC market for so long.

We're trying to fix it, there's a new alliance of companies trying to make PC gaming work again. But if people are playing games without buying them, then the games aren't going to keep coming.

What a wanker.

Left 4 Dead Demo Today

The Left 4 Dead demo is released on XBL today. I hope to get a bit of a play in tonight, and with luck we'll be able to room-up and play as a team (and you need to play as a team, believe me.)

BritishGaming have a useful Survival guide with tips on how best to face each type of zombie and some general hints.

If you’re at the safe house and one team member is lagging behind, or pinned down, don’t hesitate to kill your team mate and shut the door. They’ll respawn next round.

So much for 'No man left behind.'

If you are vomited on by a Boomer, run for the nearest closet, cupboard or small room such as a bathroom. Shut the door and hold your cross hair on the door. While the upcoming rush of Zombies will be able to break the door eventually, your Boomer-vomit headache will have worn off and you’ll be ready to fight. On the other side of the door, the entirely ignored survivors can pick off the undead with ease. Even on the hardest difficulty, a cupboard can ensure you lose absolutely no health to a Boomer attack.

MMmm... Boomer vomit.

If you’re at the front of the group - please, for the love of god, duck.

Zombie ducks? Quack!

Little Big Petersfield

so last friday didn't pan out, and the Fi before was lacking a little something to keep us interested. So this friday, Petersfield will host an extraordinary Fi where we can pull apart Little Big Planet.

Maybe we will finally be able to answer questions such as, does the PS3 have a decent title? Did Matt really buy it for the DVD/BR player?

Now, get your sack on :)

Demos Up

Just a really quick heads-up that there are XBL demos for Mirrors Edge, Tomb Raider - Underworld and Banjo Kazooie up right now. They're all exactly what you saw at EGExpo if you were there, but well worth a play in the comfort of your own home without half a dozen people snorting at your ineptitude behind your back.

All three are very very playable, and ME and TR have made my Kaboodle Xmas list. Still not 100% sold on BK, but it's very reminisicent of the N64 classic so it might well get added at some point.

Falling Out

I have just spent a weekend in the company of Fallout 3. I had intended to finish the body of either Oblivion, or Fallout on the PC, before I attacked it, but my will was weak and my wallet was padded with £50 I unexpectedly received in uncollected loans.

What a game.

I was enjoying Oblivion very much - it has a wide open world, and it was easy to get distracted by the many, many side-quests on your way around Cyrodil. If you've played it, then you will have a pretty good understanding of the basic mechanics of the game. What you won't appreciate is the sheer atmosphere that drips from Fallout 3.

It is as rich in realisation as Bioshock, with the added bonuses of being able to wander freely around the whole game world, having loads of locations to visit, being imbibed with genuinely smile-inducing post-apocalyptic humour delivered through the mediums of NPCs and the nuked-desolate remnants of the retro-1950s flying car future society.

The world you encounter once you are launched from the character-creating safety of The Vault is a scary place, the early weakness of your character and the kind-of scarcity of ammunition forcing you to rely on sneak attacks, running away and the occasional application of a variety of rusted, jury-rigged weapons and armour that need to be maintained as you navigate from one colony of desperate survivors to the next, the bleak wasteland offering a subdued and often grim backdrop to your adventures.

The one advantage you have in combat is the Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System (VATS), which freezes time and allows you to spend a finite pool of Action Points targeting a particular enemy body part or protruberence. Once these Action Points are used up, they need time or the injection of a drug to replenish, meaning that you'll be seeking cover or engaging in the frantically innacurate realtime combat while the stock of APs creeps back up.

If you have a rental outlet near you that stocks this, and you aren't engaged in Fable II, you'd do yourself no harm in spending some time with what has likely overtaken Burnout Paradise, CoD4, GTA4 and everything else I have played this year to rank as my personal Game Of The Year.

And that is on an SDTV, in a game where I am only scratching around the first dozen locations, occasionally pondering whether to be an out-and-out paragon of virtue, or take the mercenary route of demanding recompense for my services, or just blasting through the place at will, looting, killing and adding to the misery already seeping out of every blasted bridge section, each boarded-up house and the vaguely hopeful faces of the defeated populace of a blasted world.

Some Genius has gone into this, and a lot of proper game-making Love in the creation of something that already feels like a masterpiece.

Fi-ear Factory

It's Halloween Fi Club at Beta towers!

There'll be petrifying pizza, deathly doughnuts and ghostly games galore!

Expect some treats, although not necessarily any tricks.

If anyone's got any new titles from this latest glut of delights, bring your HDD and the game and we'll have a look. I'll showcase a bit of Fable 2 for your delectation.

Rolando updates

NgMoco have updated their Rolando website with a new trailer and some screenies.

I think this game really has potential to fire the iPhone / Touch into the mainstream as a gaming platform.

Along with Peggle this is my Most Wanted for my iPhone.

When is 'Holiday 2008?'

Too. Many. Games!!!

So as the year enters its final phase with the run up to Christmas, more great games than ever are about to be released to the gaming public...

With something for everyone this year, what are people most excited about and looking forward to? Gears2, Fallout3, Dead Space? Sure I am missing a few here....

17/10: The next Fi'....

Time for the Fi fellowship to travel to the pink towers, to experience the return of the munchk...

Hope all you adventurers can make it!

andybeta, yesterday.

5 Day Challenge - No MONKEYS!

A five day gamerpoint challenge is now open for entry. If you're not in too much trouble with the missus, or you feel that you can continue to live on 4 hours sleep a night, then join us and sign up.

I'm hoping to launch this challenge on Saturday morning.

And please - no monkeys! ;-P


Current entrants:
Andybeta
Misterbleepy
JalSaviour
webbledez

Welcome Misterbleepy

Misterbleepy is a friend of mine that I know through work and my other hobby. (Ssssh)! He's read the blog for a while and comments occasionally. He's a keen gamer and owns several generations of consoles.

The recent price drops got the better of him and he's finally crumbled and bought a 360, so I added him to the sidebar. He got Halo 3 and Burnout Paradise with the box, so hopefully we'll see him on the next BoP friday.

Feel free to add him to your friends list.

F14 - The Results

Well done to Munchk for his 254... I mean 1,254 gamerpoint gain over the two weeks of the F14 challenge.

I'm sure it's a well deserved victory...

I think the dynamic of a 14 day challenge was very different again. Considerably less stressful and I didn't feel like I had to get points every night in the way you do on the shorter ones.

Who's up for another? I think I will wait until Saturday morning to launch.

BAGGSIED !

I thought I'd get in early with this baggsie.

Fi'Day 3rd October.
Usual place, usual time (i.e.: about 9pm).
Please bring '360 pads and DS's.

Maybe more to be decided sooner the time.

Be there...or be somewhere else.

F14!

It's the Fi-14 or F14 for short.

A full-on fortnight of fun. Hopefully a little bit more relaxed and chilled with none of the cut-throat business of the seven and three day events.

Here's the sign-up link.

Feel free to invite others to this one.

Short 'n' Sweet - 3 Day Challenge

And so we're straight into another challenge!

"Short 'n' Sweet" the 3 Day gamerpoint challenge starts at 8am tomorrow morning, Thursday 25th September, and it will finish at 8am on Sunday morning, if I'm able to count fingers correctly.

I won't blog every day, but probably just comment in here about it.

Welcome to CUTNO who is a workmate of Jal's. He's on my friends list too and I think we might've played Halo 3 with him at some point.

7 Days of Fi - The Results

And now the end is near, and so we face the final curtain.

Congratulations to Jal who, even though he was almost assured of victory at the end of day six managed to put in a few more hours to suck out a further 140 points out of Dirt to plant him firmly at the top of the list come 8am this morning. 50 challenge points to you!

Second place goes to a well-deserving Simplicitly who was so close at times and fully deserves his 12.5 challenge points. He spent a couple of days with a very good lead but just couldn't match his earlier gains later in the week.

Third is perhaps a surprise candidate in k 0 0 k 1 e. Given his hectic family life I don't know how he managed to put in the time to get 520 points, but he did. After a slow start he pulled an almighty mid-week surge which saw him in good stead until he faded a bit at the end.

Fourth goes to Munchk who showed steady gains throughout the week but it just wasn't quite enough. His 'alternative title' technique failed where Jal's shot him to stardom.

And bringing up the rear, the wooden spoon etc. is me, Andybeta. Perhaps the day one victory made me complacent, but only showing gains on three out of seven days just isn't going to get me anywhere. Epic fail.



360voice.com says

Well, it is over. The Gamerscore Challenge formerly known as 7 Days of Fi ended with jalsaviour on top after a total gain of 885 points in 7 days!

All 5 participants combined on the final day, they put up a total gain of 345 points. jalsaviour added 140, Simplicitly added 120, k 0 0 k 1 e added 55, and munchk added 30. There can be only one first place... but thanks goes out to the other 4 for being good rivals.

I must say I really enjoyed this challenge. It brought yet another dimension to the wonder of Xbox 360 gaming.

The votes for the next round(s) are in and the majority have spoken. Those of you left to vote, sorry, but that's democracy in action.

What we're going to do is a three day challenge followed by a 14 day challenge. If you want a rest, then sit out of the 3-day and join in with what should be a more chilled out fortnight.

I'll post details of the next event when it's ready (soon,) so keep 'em peeled.

7 Days of Fi - Day Six

And so onto the penultimate day in our epic challenge and it's all change once more as JalSaviour rockets up the chart with a phenomenal 450 point increase, matching Simplicitly's previously unassailable day 4 increase.

Other challengers put in some good work, with Simps adding a respectable 150 to his score, but noone was able to stop Jal heading to the number one position. Munchk's 65 point increase moved him from last position leaving me to bring up the rear. The whole groups is now like a Saviour sandwich.

Now we've all had a go on top it's time to sprint to the finish. Who will be able to knock Jal from the top spot? Who's going to pull a desperate all-nighter just to eke out those final few GP? Some of us are looking to the stars, while others just struggle not to finish in the gutter.

Remember - the final count is at 8am tomorrow... Good luck all!

7 Days of Fi - Day Five

After what was obviously an exhausting Saturday for k 0 0 k 1 e and Simplicitly we saw no gains from the leaders on Day five of the challenge. However it was all-change at the bottom as Andybeta skipped into third place with a gain of 100 gamerpoints.

360voice.com says

Another day, another long list of achievement points. Let's add it all up! Simplicitly swung the whooping stick and took the lead and is confident enough to turn in zero new points. Overall, the 5 total challengers put up a total of 155 points, so at least people are competing! andybeta added 100, munchk added 40, and jalsaviour added 15. So in the 'Biggest gain' category, andybeta is obviously the winner... I would be looking over your shoulder if I was Simplicitly...

There are 2 days left, so... yeah... plenty of time. That is all for today, check back tomorrow for more challenge action!

Despite the large gains of the weekend there's still everything to play for as we enter the last two days with only a 210 point spread from first to last.

7 Days of Fi - Day 4

cJust when you thought it couldn't get any more exciting... here comes Simplicitly with a simply staggering 455 points in one single day. Thanks to Too Human, he's managed to leapfrog the entire field knocking even k 0 0 k 1 e's amazing second 200+ gain in a row into a cocked hat.

Jal got a pretty good 210 point increase, Munchk 115 and myself a lowly 100. 100 points on any other day would be a good day for me.

That's 1100 points between us in a single 24 hour period! Overall we've netted 1790 for the week so far.

The points are still adding on today, and with only 70 points separating our two big players k 0 0 k 1 e and Simps, I wouldn't be surprised to see the positions changing again tomorrow morning.

Guess The Game!

Today's GTG comes fresh from the tubes and is brought to you in part by WTF Savings and Loan.

Click for more, uhh, clues.

Check the tags to see if your guess was right.

When you figure it out you'll shit, is all I can say on the matter. This rates heavily on the WTF-o-meter.

7 Days of Fi - Day 3

At the halfway point the competition is hotting up as it's all change once again!

k 0 0 k 1 e shows an almighty 215 point increase in one day to storm into the lead over Munchk and andybeta neither of who get any points at all. Not even crafty hard drive swapping at Ruut's Fi Club can net Munchk a single bean for Friday. Jal and Simplicitly continue with steady gains to bring up the rear.

360voice.com says:

Let's break it down! The competition is heating up as k 0 0 k 1 e jumped in front of munchk by putting up 215 points. All 5 participants combined, they put up a total gain of 290 points. k 0 0 k 1 e added 215, Simplicitly added 50, and jalsaviour added 25. Everyone can take comfort in the fact that there are 4 days left to compete. It ain't over till it's over! Check back tomorrow for some hard-hitting challenge action!

Looking at the current Livescore sneak peak I can safely say that this challenge is a long way from over, and also that I have some work to do tonight to get back on course.

Bagsies Need To Be Earlier Than This...

... if we're going to get anything organised. Especially if said bagsie is for an out of town event.

So, it's a late one, but I'll happily host now I have more than one place to sit. Usual yadda yadda 'Fi Club stuff applies, and being as I didn't get my sh* together on the 7 days signup I'm happy for the most ruthless of you to swap out my HDD for your own.

Bring your own suppage as well as cash for as much pizza as you think you'll want to eat. I'll do the crisps and things for while we are getting comfy and I'll see if I can find anything worthy for dessert.

Apologies for the lack of wordsmithing in this bagsie, it's not up to my usual woo woo I know but this is the maddest mentalist time of year at work in a year that has been pretty fkn mental.

7 Days of Fi - Day Two

And so on to day two!

The second day of our mighty challenge saw a third entrant into the fray, as JalSaviour eked a few measly points out of Call of Duty 3, while Munchk took advantage of the distraction of the BoP bikes to push into the lead with a 40 point gain exclusively from Mercs 2.

I fall to second place with no gain.

360voice.com says

Here is the news... The competition is heating up as munchk jumped in front of andybeta by putting up 40 points. When you count it up, all 5 challengers gained 85 points. jalsaviour added 45, and munchk added 40. The obvious superstar from yesterday is jalsaviour. With that big of a gain, who knows what could happen next.

Don't freak out... plenty of time left! 5 whole days! That is all for today, check back tomorrow for more challenge action!

But what's this? Looks like k0ckle has been busy this morning. Tomorrow's results could see a complete reshuffle!

7 Days of Fi - Day One

Day one drew to a close at 8am BST with some impressive point gains by two challengers, namely Munchk and myself. All points were drawn from Mercenaries 2, which frankly bleeds GP like a cut hog. If it hadn't been for the amazingly generous 50GP just for playing co-op then Munchk would've taken the lead.

360voice.com says:

Challenge update - 9/18/2008

Here is a recap... andybeta gave up the social life to get the lead by tacking on 165 points. When you count it up, all 5 challengers gained 315 points. andybeta added 165, and munchk added 150. There are 6 days left, so... yeah... plenty of time. The excitement continues tomorrow!

Indeed it does. Or rather today.

Personally I'm going to be biking around Paradise tonight, so probably no points for me. I can't see me holding this lead tomorrow.

I Want To Ride My Bicycle

Burnout Friday is looking to become Burnout Thursday this week due to the release of the Bike Pack for Burnout Paradise on the 18th.

This handily leaves Friday open for a proper hosted Fi Club courtesy of [[TBA]] (go on, you know you want to.)

The Bike pack includes:

• Pick from 2 motorcycles featuring male or female characters and start on a whole new progression to earn your Bike License.

• 38 new against-the-clock race events – Burning Ride and Midnight Ride.

• A brand new in-game 24 hr day / night cycle that impacts traffic density and available events. (It's fully customisable – you can make it day/night/change the clock speed – it's up to you.)

• Dynamic weather brings an all-new look to Paradise City

• And if that's not enough, we've got 70 more Freeburn Challenges too

Luvverly... There's likely to be at least two teams going on from the Eurogamer lot.

7 Days of Fi - The Challenge

As you all know, if you check your email, I have set up a challenge on 360voice.com to see who can gain the most Gamerpoints in a week.

I had intended to launch today at midday, regardless of who has joined. When I went to launch, slightly disappointed that we were still missing three major players, a full 50% of the invited challengers, it informed me that play would start as of midnight PST. This equates to 8am BST.

Therefore I declined the launch in order to give you latecomers a chance to sign up and register for the challenge. Don't make me name names.

I will launch tonight at Midnight BST regardless.

Castle Crashers

Is anyone thinking of grabbing the full game? I played the single player demo and it seems well made and quite playable. Multiplayer coop is supposed to be a complete riot.

Comic Genius - ComicRack

absolutely nothing to do with games... As avid comic and eComic readers, I have come across an iTunes-esq application for cbr and cbz's. Coupled with an export to pdf, library, network sharing and smart playlist functionality, this is a fantastic little open source application.

linky

Edit: apologies, windows only at the moment.

For When It Has To Be 'Fi

After a hard week, a man like you needs to relax, unwind and forget about the grind of work and family. You're out all hours bringing home the bacon, so a night in front of the TV just won't cut it. You're Starsky, Kirk and Steve Austin all rolled into one, and god dammit the planet will suffer if you can't chill the fuck out big style on a Friday night.

At Club 'Fi, we know how a man likes to kick back and get his groove on. We have nearly three years worth of manly-man multiplayer n munchie mayhem, so join us at Ruut's Gaff to hit on some of that good time goodness.

Bring joypads. And Rock Band.

Burnout Friday

Right chaps, don't know what your plans are for friday night, but I would like to heartily recommend taking advantage of the Cagney patch for Burnout Paradise, and inviting you all to a Burnout Friday.

Those of you who made it last week will have a pretty good indication of what is involved - a mix of the new Marked Man and Road Rage modes with some timed challenges, some Freeburn Challenges for those people who want to tick any off their lists, and occasionally a bit of racing, too.

A relaxed, entertaining tour of Paradise City with events and challenges done on request or sprung upon you unexpectedly

As the player limit for these games is sadly only Eight, let me know if you think you are going to be on, and I will fire you an invite from an invite-only game. I'm not usually on until late - around 2230 - 2300 normally, so you'll have plenty of time for other gaming first.

If you are doing other stuff, that is cool too, but nothing, as munchk and kook1e can testify, is quite as funny as OCD induced World Record breaking in the new Timed Challenges. Especially when somebody takes photos of the results.

G-g-g-g-glitches!

Braid

There's a lot of noise going on about Braid. Dubbed one of the finest XBLA games out so far, it's currently pulling a meta-score of 91 placing it at the all-time number 10, just above Mass Effect, garnering 100% scores from such internet luminaries as Eurogamer and 1up.

The demo grants you a good half a dozen levels spread over the first three (well, four really, you'll see) worlds. Each world exhibits a unique gameplay mechanic, usually based around time manipulation, wrapped around a platformer which gives it a very individual puzzle-game feel. Veterans of Portal will immediately feel at home with the kind of thinking (if not the play) required to get along in the game.

Traversing levels and worlds to rescue your 'Princess' is relatively easy. However once you start attempting to collect the jigsaw pieces from the levels it all ramps up a degree of difficulty. Some screens will have you gazing bovine-like at the TV wondering what you've missed, in order to let you get to that platform up there, or how to pick up that key to unlock that door. Then just when it's all too much, you'll see what you've been looking for, and your jaw will hit your chest as your brain leaks slowly out of your ears and you laugh and cry simultaneously.

At 1200 points, it's a pricey little prospect but once I completed the demo I knew I had to have it.

Do yourself a favour, set aside an hour this weekend, download the demo and make yourself complete Cloud Bridge and The Hunt. It's worth it. (And please, no gameFAQs.)

Dad - Please!

Don't you hate it when your Dad shows you up in front of visitors?

Cagney Released

A quicky to let y'all know that the Cagney expansion for Burnout Paradise has been released today. After loading the game and confirming I wanted the update I had to drop back to the dash to begin the download, otherwise it just sat on Pending.

Should be on later to ch-ch-check it out.

Oh.. imagine a pic of some cars crashing here->.

Host With The Most.......

....Children!

Hi all, gaming fun, chat and snacks at my cookie jar palace!

This Fiday 1st August, usual time.

Bring DS's (you never know, we might use them again one day!), a '360 controller and whatever else takes your fancy.
@ andybeta, could you bring your nunchucks and games for wii please.

Anything else?

see you there (hopefully).

E3

there is alot of noise in the blogosphere about E3 being a let down... Seeing as this is mainly a gaming blog, I cant let it slip by!

The round up linky is here... Who came out on top, what are people looking forward to, if anything?

On the scrounge

With two sets of Rock Band within the Club, I was wondering if this meant there was a spare version of GH3 and a guitar (or two, wired is ok) I might borrow at some point? It might get me through the RB withdrawal period.

Friday 18 July

An actual meatspace Fi Club, at my place, as Mrs Beta is off out for a bit that night.

Bit of Boom Blox, bit of Wii Ski, and some Rock Band, hopefully. If you got anything to suggest, then suggest away.

HA!

Not sure how long this will be miss-priced - me, I just brought 2...... 120 gig 360 drive for £32.99!

Virgil.

As the Musical Youth once sang: "give me music make me jump and prance" you fellows. After the olde timey sing song of last Fi, all gathered together in a male bonding session of manly crooning to each other we fall upon a Fi that is up against it.

The wives have double booked, in some cases even triple booked their own stuff and have left many of us looking after Ickleruut, Li'lcookies and Betabetas I vote that we 'mote in this 'Fiday and hit the mean streets of LibCit, whatsay?

I scream, you scream, we all scream for AppStore

Well looky here, Pappeh, we dun got us a racin' game!

It's getting close to the wonderful festive family firmware update for the iPhone and iPod Touch and the first trickle of proper real deal games are showing up on the cloud.

I'm fo sho deffo wantsing Monkey Ball and Spore, but now my Jonesing for a good racing game looks to be sated by Crash Bandicoot Nitro Racing. Aw haw yessindeedee!

Gimme that Appstore now you Apple types, I'm blocking out huge chunks of my life in real world for when this shit hits.

been away - back......

Gents, due to hols and a new role at work sapping my spare time, I've only just got back on XBL recently - so look forward to Friday.

OK - my first post, so heres something for you:
Halo 3 Legendary Edition

I just got this and it is pucker - it does say 'not for distribution in the UK' on the packaging and the disc boxes, but it is PAL and worked fine on my 360. Now all say 'nice helmet'.

Cagney not Lacey

With less than 10 days to go to "Cagney", the release of third update, and first pack of DLC for Burnout Paradise it's time to take a look at some of the new stuff coming up.

Online players seem to be rewarded richly in this package which includes online Stunt Run, Marked Man and Road Rage and a bunch of new Freeburn Challenges and Timed Challenges.

There is loads of detail at the Criterion website, including tons of ganeplay videos with dev commentary.

And how much is this going to cost I hear you all ask?

NOTHING!

It's at Cookie's

Loathe as I am to spoil a good surprise, the suspense was killing me.

Cookie texted me last night to say he was bagsying this, so I'm posting so y'all have some heads-up.

I'll let the Cookie Monster post the deets.

Top of the BoPs

Looks like Munchk has pulled Burnout Paradise out of the box and racked up the few extra points needed to put him back on top of the gamerpoint league. Well played Munchk! Nice to see some competition up there in l337-land.

Wii Fitter day 2

As Mrs beta had Davina's workout DVD on tonight I decided to join in for a 30 minute body pump session. There's precious little room in front of the telly, but we managed to avoid colliding with each other or the furniture. The DVD is much much harder than anything on Wii Fit.

Chuck in another 40 minutes on Wii Fit, including the long jog and super hula and I'm pretty knackered.

I'm not sure whether it's advantageous to do the body test at the beginning or end of a session. The advantages of doing it at the end are that you've probably sweated a good few pounds onto the floor and board (add wipes to shopping list), the disadvantage is that you don't know what sort of test you're going to get and if you get a balance test, like I did tonight, at the end of 50 minutes of Aerobic exercise and 20 minutes of muscle and balance training and you're going to be a bit wobbly as your muscles twitch in objection to the unexpected abuse.

Anyway... today's results:

Weight 15st 4lb (-3 lb)
BMI 28.99 (-0.42)
Wii Fit Age 39 (-9 years, +3 on my actual age)

Two days isn't enough to say if this is a trend or just body fluctuations... I mean surely a good piss is worth a pound or two?

Here's the updated graph

Wii Fitter

I got Wii Fit for Father's Day which was a bit of a surprise as I didn't think they were available in this country.

Had a good bit of a play this evening and despite my initial thoughts that it was a bit 'soft' my calves and thighs are actually burning following some of the more gruelling muscle strengthening sessions.

You add your Mii to the mix and define your basic stats... height, age etc. It then weighs you and gives you your calculated BMI. It then asks you to do your daily Body Test which gives you a calculated Wii Fit age. The initial test is based solely on a balance test - wobble left and right on the surprisingly sensitive board to keep a pair of blue bars within a larger red bar.

You then get access to a set of four sections - Yoga, Muscle Building, Aerobic and Balance Building. Each section has a handful of unlocked exercises and a bunch more that you unlock through improved performance and time spent exercising.

Muscle building comprises repetitive exercises such as lunges, press-ups, waist twists and so on. As your weight shifts on the board so it displays to you how much power you are exerting into the board.

Yoga has your virtual trainer demonstrating some basic yoga positions and it nominally measures your position and posture using the board.

The Aerobic section has step exercises (although the board is far too low for effective aerobic step exercising it still has value improving your coordination in a DDR kind of way,) jogging (measured using the wiimote,) and hula hooping.

The balance section is where the board really shines as you slalom, tightrope walk, ski-jump and table-tilt your way to enhanced coordination and posture.

Throw this all in the mix with a Brain-Training-esque encouragement and measurement system, and charted competition against your fellow trainees and it's a pretty motivational and effective system. The board itself is pleasingly heavy and sits reassuringly still even on wood laminate even as I thump my XX stone body (see later) up and down in the step class (displayed with you on stage with ten or so Miis from the Mii channel and an audience comprised entirely of the other Miis.)

Sure, you could cheat at almost any of these exercises. But what's the point of that? It trusts you to do what it tells you and if you're not going to do it properly you might as well chuck the thing in a cupboard and watch Big Brother instead. Another objection I've heard raised about Wii Fit runs along the lines of "Why don't you just go out and do some real exercise?" The answer to that, for me, is motivation. I'm a gamer - I like to see a target and set out to achieve it. This turns exercise into a neat little game that I do believe could have positive effects, if used properly.

So... in the interests of science, let's track my success over the next few weeks. I've taken my vitals, logged them and set a target and a time within which to achieve it. Let's see how I do over the next few weeks and months.

I am 6 foot exactly, and weigh 15st 7lb. My calculated BMI is therefore 29.41 which puts me borderline obese and very overweight. My Wii Fit age on day one (15 June) is 48. I've undertaken to lose a stone in 2 months, but even this doesn't bring my BMI down into acceptable levels.

I know BMI isn't the most accurate of measurements, but I'm hardly an athlete so I imagine my bone-mass and muscle-mass is fairly average, so I'm assuming BMI is a pretty fair measurement for me to use.

So here's the chart, day 1...

Anatomy of a RROD

As many of you know, I purchased my 360 the best part of a year into the products lifespan - back in August 2007 - the 26th to be precise. That was just over 9 months ago, and I bought it in what was then the Virgin Megastore in Southampton, for a cool £250 with a copy of Bioshock. I was made up - there was already talk of the 3 year warranty extension and I figured if anything went wrong with it in the first year, I'd just take it back to the shop and get it swapped out. Right?

Well I finally got proper RROD last week - Friday 6th June, and thought I'd just stroll into Zavvi, as it is now called, and get it replaced. Oh no. No way. I was firstly quothe a line about how they only cover faults in the first 28 days, and that after that the console would have to go back to the manufacturer. I gave them my understanding about the Sale of Goods act 1979, which, summed up, says the buyer has a right to expect things to last a certain time and be of a certain quality based on their price. I was then referred, by the Zavvi manager, to the online 'contact us' procedure on the zavvi website. I sent a large missive to them last week, outlining the details of my complaint, and such gems as the manager telling me that 'there's a really large problem with the 360', something that I mentioned might have been nice to be informed of when it was sold to me.

He also told me I'd have to give back the whole thing - 360, hard drive, all accessories, if I wanted to return it to the store. I could probably live without my gamesaves, and my profile is all on Live anyway, but I don't see why I should go through this.

The end result of my wranglings with Zavvi are that I really feel the onus has been left, wrongly, on me to get my faulty goods sorted out, something I have been able to do painlessly via the very kind loan of munchk's spare 360 (I have your HDD, too, I meant to say!) UPS came to collect my packed-up 360 yesterday, Wednesday 11th June, and you can track its' progress here, using the tracking number 1z5w33f99163119786

I was told zavvi's complaints department aimed to reply within two working days, and so far I have heard nothing at all, four working days having already passed since my complaint was lodged. I'm, frankly, never shopping there again, but that is by the by.

I know, "get a blog".

From the Files of....

Cheered me up no end on a Monday morning.

Kickin' it ol skool

yea yea, so GTA is fun n all, but we haven't gotten together in ages. We can remote in any night! This Friday.... is a Fi-day! All are welcome to munchk towers.

On the off chance we run out of things to do, bring your 360's, we can always lan/remote play :)

GTA Stunt Montage

You'll never guess...

...what's for Fi Club tonight?

Yep, more multiplayer mayhem.

This week over at the Eurogamer Burnout Paradise forum we've been brainstorming a few Free Roam based game concepts including:

- Bus Jousting in Star Junction
- Anything to do with Ice Cream Trucks
- Maverick Helictoper battles, with passengers only allowed to fire pistols, and not to shoot at occupants.
- Police Cruiser Demolition Derby, in the park with those ufo-like-towers
- Power Boat 'Long Jump' - as all players attempt to simultaneously get as far up the beach, and onto the runway, in a boat as possible.
- Liberty City IVathlon - running, driving, swimming and flying around a pre-set race route
- Running Man - One man (Arnie) attempts to get from the prison to the airport while everyon else hunts him down. No RPGs allowed.
- Helicopter Drop - Teams of two (one pilot, one jumper) attempt to jump from Helicopters into a car park full of colour coded cars. A judge on the ground scores the competition based on a pre-determined list of scores for the different colours / cars.
- Pizza Delivery - Everyone except the 'customer' finds a Faggio and races to find the customer who has driven to a remote location and then announced where he is over the channel.
- Windscreen Launcher - Take it in turns to drive at a low wall with the intent of launching yourself through the windscreen. Furthest launch wins.
- Top Gear Challenge - Bike vs Car vs Bus etc along a pre-set route. Unfortunately the trains don't run in Free Roam.
- Relay race - Teams of two... one person races to grab a chopper, the other races to a pre-set high point. The chopper pilot then rendezvous with the ground man and together they fly to a third point for the finish. We tried this with the pickup on top of the tower in Meadows, but it was practically impossible with just two of us and no interference. Alternative suggestions for rendezvous points welcome.

In addition, chuck in a sprinkling of Team Mafiya and some GTA Racing and the Eurogamer mob and I think we have the makings of a good night.

See y'all in Liberty.

Meanwhile...

I like to stalk people in GTA IV...

So remote these days

Anyone up for some more remote GTAnigans? (That's like shenanigans, worked better in my head...)

I'll be around from 9ish and happy to jump into whatever's going on... The Eurogamer BoP guys seem to start around 11 and I like playing with them as it makes a larger, friendly crowd beyond what we can muster between us.

Sightseeing in Liberty City

Flickr User Matthew Johnstone has compiled a selection of shots from Liberty City alongside their corresponding real life locations in NY.

I admit I initially felt underwhelmed by the much vaunted detail in IV, but as the game goes on I'm appreciating it more and more. It'd be great to be a New Yorker playing this game - at times the connections must be amazing.

GTA Google Maps

Google maps rocks, right? GTA4 rocks, right? Put em together... Well, see for yourself. If you havent unlocked all the islands, major spoilers await, unless you have SERIOUS willpower !!!

http://grandtheftauto.ign.com/maps/1/Liberty-City-Map

Tax Breaks For UK Games

Just thought I'd mention this...

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/ukgames/

An online petition to provide tax breaks or other incentives for British Game Developers.

GTA 4

So its here, reviews have started to roll in (metacritic link). Is it what you want, or more than expected? How is the gameplay, sound and graphics...

No spoilers please, but for the biggest release of the game this year, thoughts, praises and rants here please!!!

The Pre GTA Fi...

All are welcome to the munchk towers this friday... Suggestions for games and fun are more than welcome!

Burnout Paradise getting motorcycles, night driving this August

I predict a riot.

Johnny Chung Lee -- Super Genius.

I knew that the Wii Remote had some cool applications when hooked up to a PC through Bluetooth, but Johnny has dome some amazing work with it, and has come up with some very very exciting demos.

He has a page with three videos: Cool Wiimote demos and I'm already very close to buying my own Wii Remote.

Six days to go

**Possible spoilers depending on your take: not plot spoilers, but this article talks in depth of the level of detail in GTAIV.**

Simply staggering. This makes it so hard to wait.

Doeo: bonkers Flash game

This is a very nicely done flash game -- just touch your cursor on the Doeo before the timer runs out. Really nice music and graphics. I played it on my slate and destroyed the high scores. [Doeo]

Rockstar Games Social Club Launches

In case you didn't know, Rockstar are running a service to keep track of your online statistics in its forthcoming games, most notably GTA IV, at their new website, the Rockstar Social Club

Register before 29th April, and you are in with a chance of winning some proper prizes. After that date, when the game is up and running, the service will keep track of all the mayhem you cause in a probably-not-as-comprehensive-as-Bungie stylee.

Another 10k

Congratulations to the second Fi Clubber to crack 10k.

The speed that Simplicitly has knocked up 10,000 Gomerpoints makes me feel, frankly, unworthy of the tag 'gamer' and he's hardly had to whore the easy ones out of crap games at all!

I'm still aiming for 10k in '08.

Watch out Munchk, he's gunning for you!

Fi - Night Fun

FiDay 11th April.

Fancy some multi-player fun?

Together in one room?

Like the "old" days?

Wii's Super Smash Bros. and (hopefully) Mario Kart?

Well, whether you do or not, let me know, post your comment.

You know where and when.

Top 100 Selling Games of The Last 12 Months

Now I am a sucker for articles like this...  Here are the Top 100 Selling Games of The Last 12 Months.  Surprised by some of the results... you will be!  

It's About Time!

Finally we have a confirmed release date for Rock Band in Europe.

Eurogamer report that the game will ship on May 23rd, for 360 only.

Keeping it short here, click the link for EG's post, and a look at exclusive UK tracks.

Furthermore, as you were wondering about it, the prices will be as follows:

you will have to fork out for on an Instrument Edition at GBP 129.99 / EUR 169 - comprised of the drum kit, guitar and microphone - then buy the game separately for GBP 49.99 / EUR 69.99.

Why don't we just bend over right now?

Battle of the Bands preview

Five years ago none of us would have dreamed of playing Guitar Hero at home. Now it's practically ubiquitous, placing bemani games firmly in the living room . While it's all very new for most of us Westerners I don't suppose multiplayer bemani games are really anything new, so Nintendo have kinda gone full circle with their new offering for the Wii Battle of the Bands, eschewing the bulky and expensive peripherals and getting back to basics using the standard wiimote.

Destructoid.com got a preview of the game.

Battle of the Bands plays out as a musical tug of war, and has two bands vying for control of a song and the right to play it in their genre of choice. The game will feature seven bands, each representing one of five distinct musical styles – rock, country, hip-hop, Latin, and marching band. Planet Moon have struck gold with this one, folks, and actually brought cover bands into the studio to record genre-bending versions of 30 recognizable songs, ranging from the Gorillaz’s “Feel Good Inc.” to The Soggy Bottom Boy’s “Man of Constant Sorrow.” Do the math, people -- that’s 150 different musical tracks

If it sounds ridiculous, it’s because it is, and the results are unsurprisingly hilarious. Tempos are matched for all of the songs, so you’ll seamlessly hear songs blend from one genre to another. You haven’t lived until you’ve heard Cypress Hill’s “Insane in the Brain” performed as a country song.

Meanwhile the on-screen avatars battle it out with rocket-launching guitars.

Sounds like a Fi Club classic if you ask me.

Choking the Wookie

An interview with Haden Black, the games project lead on Force Unleashed, complete with some in-game footage showing what has always been the best part of the Star Wars games - flinging things around with the force.

In Force Unleashed you play Vader's secret apprentice and from the footage he looks pretty handy. The clincher is you play the first level as Vader on Kashyyyk. Time to give those walking carpets what-for.

WoW: The Molten Core

Blizzard are finally making a console version of their mighty MMORPG World of Warcraft: Molten Core.

Particularly check out the trailer.




OK OK I know... at least these are good ones. There's a lot of crap out there today.

Legend Of Zelda: The Movie

Can't seem to embed it... click me!

Ok, ok, so it's April 1, but fuck me, that's one well made wind-up. Kudos to IGN for that one.

iPhone Video Gaming

I'm very excited about the promised wealth of games heading iPhoneward this summer and beyond. Roughly Drafted have a good long article about the power of the DS, PSP and iPhone, and look at what's coming and who's onboard games wise. Read the article, then jump back here for my take on my iPhone if you're interested.

WB.

For me, I can't recommend the iPhone highly enough. I'm happier with this phone than with any other device I've had before (and you knows I've had a few).

As a PDA it's very powerful, with a wealth of free apps and loads of onboard memory.

As a phone it's pretty bomb proof, no more reboots or lock ups, and no lag. It does the phone side of things really well.

The build is stunning, the glass on mine has no scratches at all and the only wear after nearly five months is a limited to a few hairline scratches on the chrome near the port.

It locks onto a wifi signal beautifully, and I watch BBCiPlayer shows before sleep instead of reading books. As I doze off I squeeze the mic on the headphone lead, let the video pause and drop my headphone buds onto the floor. The iPhone shuts off and that's it.

I SSH books and files in and out of it, and I have a huge library on there.

I recently upgraded it from firmware 1.1.2 to 1.1.4 and ran the GUI 1 button click ZiPhone hack on it from my MacBook and it took four minutes to activate the phone, unlock the network and SIM and jailbreak it for all apps. A quick sync with my Mac and all my contacts, music, photos and calendars are on there. Stunning.

I'm still on O2, but with a PAYG SIM installed. I now have bolted on an unlimited Web package and that costs me £7.50 a month with an option to unsubscribe by text up to 48 hours before the next payment. I can resub at any time. All I have to do is make sure I have at least £7.50 on there on my payment day. They give me 300 texts everytime I hit it with a tenner. My BT Broadband gives me hotspot wifi all over the place.

It takes recorded TV from the Mac Mini, I stuff it full of podcast video and my Zinio magazine subscriptions and PDFs work on it.

Add decent games to the mix -- remembering that it has a faster CPU than the PSP as well as custom 3D hardware and Several GB of storage and it's an exciting toy to have in your pocket.

Sitar Hero

'Fi(lm) club 14th March.

Anyone interested? Dont bring wiimotes or 360 controllers or anything like that. Cos I aint got a Wii or a 360. So there.

Online on Friday?

Anyone up for some Burnout online tomorrow night? Either that or Saturday, while (some of) the girlies are out, but I believe Munchk is busy.

Happy XBOX Birthday!

TO ME!

12 months to the day since I first got my 360 (or should that read I got my first 360). With my gamerscore sitting at a spookily appropriate 3600, that's nearly 10 points a day on average.

By the way, that's not a cake in the picture.

The cake is a lie.

Aw.

Shit.

Gary Gygax is dead.

What do we think about Friday?

I am torn between bagsying and having y'all round, or suggesting another online BoPfest.

If we get together we can have another box on the monitor (or two if someone wants to bring their own) and I may well buy N+ which has, by all accounts, some darned good offline multiplayer. We also have some unlooked at Wii stuff to try.

On the other hand, online BoP is great fun with the lot of us on remotely, and I have many challenges in the 4+ categories I'd love to look at completing. We can also set up some marathon race sessions, try and 'rotate' for the 30 point Burnout Skills achievement (In 8 Player online Freeburn lead 6 of the Today's Best Scores,) or compete for Road Rules.

Can we have a show of hands from the usual suspects? No wishy-washy I don't mind, or abstentions. My place, or remotely... the choice is yours.

Being mean

In Burnout Paradise I've played 60 hours and driven 1720 miles. Pretty impressive, until you divide one by the other and realise that's an average speed of 29 mph. So much for all that rushing around.

So. just for fun, what's your average speed, fellow Burninouters?

Wii 3D

Yet another cool Wii hack from Johnny Chung Lee (he of the waggling reflector fingers). This time he's putting the wiimote back by the telly and we're wearing the sensor bar on our head (or with cool Orbital-style LED glasses if you're handy with a soldering iron) in order to enjoy a clever 3D illusion.



I can see this becoming a cheap and effective hardware accessory that Nintendo (who aren't exactly shy about chucking out new hardware gimmicks) could use to really good effect in some FPS or on-rail shooters. I'd love to see a Rez-style game worked around this.

The best thing about this is I was able to duplicate the effect at home, and now I've got the wiimote talking to my laptop I'm going to have a go at his other hacks too.

I don't mind .....

As Mrs Cookie is going to be working late this FiDay, I'm quite prepared to host this week.
But, it's no problem if someone else wants it.
I could make it after she's back, about 10pm, or over Live.

Your thoughts, gentlemen.

Gutted

The Ruut family just got back from my Mom's house in Northampton and we unloaded the car and called my Mom to let her know we made it back in one piece.

As we spoke, Mom told me what I had left there (even though we all checked and double checked) and I made a face. Mrs Ruut started trying to guess what it was based on the "ah shit" look I made.

When I hung up she said "We left your iPhone?"
"No, worse"
"Worse than leaving your iPhone?"
"My guitar."
"Bummer."

I'm *makes pinch with finger and thumb* 'this' close to driving back.

GTA IV makes itself harder to wait for.

Lots of new content at

http://www.rockstargames.com/IV/

Including the disturbingly hilarious 'love-meet' dating service for liberty city.

The cake is a lie.

See you in hell, cube.

That time again

Hi all.
I'm putting my bagsie down for this FiDay 1st Feb.

Anyone interested?
Usual details.

There's 4 GH's to choose from, DS's and a plethora of Wii games.

OR

We could join up over live for some multi-player fun from the comfort of our own homes.

Halo3, Gears or maybe something else (if there's anything else that we've all got)?

Your thoughts and opinions please.

Ch-Ch-Changes

Pretty sure I'm going to be changing my gamertag soon. I noticed that I'm much more inclined to talk to specific people if they have a recogniseable, uncomplicated name, or obvious shortening. Most of yours are all cool, but I think mine causes confusion and I don't really like it that much any more either.

I'm not going to post it here until I've done it (in some kind of Verizon domain stealing paranoia) so just watch this space / XBL for an update.


Ok here you go... the new me! Just like the old me!

Ender's Game Game

Joystiq report that Chair Entertainment, the team behind XBLA semi-freebie Undertow, are to produce a game based on Orson Scott Card's novel Ender's Game.

It's said to revolve around Ender's experiences in the Battle Room and run on the Unreal Engine.

I can't see it working however. This section of the story is all about engineering clever wins against stacked odds. I can't see it being any more organised than a Halo 3 team match, even given how organised some of those teams are the general experience is going to lose so much of the point of these matches that it might as well have nothing to do with the book.

I'm not saying it will be a bad game per-se, just that the tie-in with the OSC books isn't going to work.

Burnout Paradise

s u d 0 says...

Nothing too deep, just some first impressions of Burnout Paradise. We've all seen the demo to one extent or another. Personally I didn't play it much and more or less bought the game on a whim.

It's real drop-in-and-drive stuff, once you get past the more or less enforced hand-holding period. There is an option to turn the assistance off, but it does offer a few valuable tips and DJ Atomica (or Atomickitten as my brain's auto-complete suggests every time he says his name) quietens down quickly.

You start off with one wreck available to you in the Junk Yard but your 'car-senal' quickly expands as you gain new wrecks either through prizes, upgrades (Burning Routes furnish you with a pimped version of your current model), or by attacking and Taking Down the curious visitors who come to Paradise to check you out. The latter method is an interesting and novel unlock mechanism that often turns a casual cruise into a balls-out, foot-down careen around town.

Offline you're working to upgrade your license category through winning various types of events: Stunt Runs, Races, Burning Routes, Marked Man, etc. All these events take place in the fully populated cityscape or it's surrounding environs and each event corresponds to an intersection. Each license class requires so many wins for an upgrade.

In addition to the set events you are free to simply cruise around, set Road Rules or take some time out with the incongruous but fun Showtime mode which is like an ultra-steerable crash mode: as long as you have Boost you can roll up and down the road crashing into vehicles to replenish boost and earn points and multipliers. Boost can also be used for a Ground Break which sees your wreck flying up in the air in a most unlikely fashion.

Car types fall into three categories - Race, Stunt and Aggression, but I haven't really found any barrier to entering races in my favourite stunter, either built into the code or performance-wise, but that might change as you work up through the license classes.

Criticism of the offline game seems to center around the fact that there is no restart race or replay race, but in my experience this hasn't yet proven a problem as there is so much to do that you just drive to the nearest intersection and do something else. I can see how it might become frustrating if, for example, you were attempting a specific Burning Route for a car upgrade, or you have completed almost all the events in your class and have to drive miles to return to the start.


Simplicitly says...

The online mode for the game is a world in itself. I never really got into Test Drive Unlimited, so don't know much about it other than what I experienced at s u d 0's - and that was an experience where the other players didn't seem to show up on my screen despite being on top of their GPS signal, so I was a bit apprehensive about the BP persistent world. Happily, it is rock-solid.

You can join other players' online sessions or create your own - setting limits like player count - a maximum of 8 drivers can share Paradise City at any one time, with 'Open' games allowing people to drop in and out at will, or Invite-only limiting it to drivers of your choice.

Your choice of cars online is limited to those you have unlocked in single player, so it is worth winning a couple of offline awards prior to going online if you are planning to do any actual racing. The startup motor is actually pretty good for getting to know your way around, though.

There are fundamentally four major things you can do once online. The first is just to tool around in the freeburn mode - you can take this as seriously or light-heartedly as you choose, with ongoing records for things like drifting, jump distance, airtime, burnouts performed and oncoming traffic distances, which you can attempt to beat in any part of the City. There is an achievement for concurrently having the best scores in 6 of the categories available, and you'll find some players aiming for this. In freeburn you can also pursue online rivalries by taking down your fellow city-dwellers.

Secondly there are the challenges - 350 challenges designed to be completed by teams of players co-operatively - they are broken down into team-size groups, so some are designed for 2 players, and there are categories of challenges to be completed by 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 players. These can vary from things like 'everyone use 10 seconds of boost' to 'Team must get a total of 160 jumps on the ramps on the big bridge' (This one was for 8 players). These can be fun and rewarding, and a good way of getting to know your online compatriots, who seem a pretty chilled bunch of players, for the most part.

Thirdly you can engage in online races - either start-to-finish or checkpoint-controlled races. Here you will discover that even with a fairly paltry selection of cars from single player, you can still compete with the monster cars with a little skill and care. Every race is preceded with a few stat-facts about some of your rivals - things like 'bullmaster2182 has 72 online takedowns', or 'ringrimmer360 has won 11 online races'. Which is a nice touch. As s u d 0 mentioned, the cars tend to have strengths and weaknesses rather than out-and-out speed differences, and this makes for much closer, much more nail-biting racing, but the sense of fun is still apparent as you can use all the knowledge of shortcuts you have acquired, and apply the occasional judicious takedown for good measure.

Fourthly there are 'Road Rules', split into 2 categories of 'Time Rules' which are 'fastest person to drive along this road' rules, and then 'Showtime Rules' - Showtime is a form of crash mode that lets you katamari-bounce your car over the traffic of Paradise City, hitting buses for multipliers and attempting to rack up the highest 'showtime score'. These 'Rules' are then saved, and you can attempt to come back and try and beat everyone on your friends list, or even in the whole world, by driving faster or crashing harder than they do.

As a quick example of the freeform nature of the lunacy, s u d 0, BigUpStu and Simplicitly were happily out cracking through the list of 3 player challenges when one challenge directed us to perform a certain amount of drift at the airport. Foot to the floor, Simplicitly came upon a 'barrel roll' ramp at the top of a high ramp section, and the next 15 minutes were spent with the team attempting to get a double-barrel roll - a task made much harder by the aerial proximity of a crane, some ill-placed scenery and the fact that three cars won't go into one ramp.

s u d 0 says...

I'd like to finish by pushing a button marked Roof Wars... It's not that it's overly similar to Midtown Madness, but there's something about the online challenge mode that makes me want to shout "To the roof!" and donut madly.