Jackreyes' Gaming Blog

So, I’m really looking forward to this game. The first Uncharted was a very good game and had superb graphics. The sequel has nothing to do with the first game, its a whole new story. But the greatest thing to look forward to is probably the multiplayer. There’s not much released yet, but we know that it’ll have a capture the flag and team deathmatch modus. The game will also contain a co-op modus up to four players. If you look at the screens you can see they implemented the climbing into the multiplayer, this could be something awesome!

Check back for more news! (upcoming post: review of SOCOM: Confrontation)

-Svenn

So, this weekend I (re)discovered a great game: Frets On Fire. It’s a game based on Guitar Hero, Rock Band and other games like that. It let’s you play guitar with your keyboard, so no expensive guitar controller needed!

FoFix using the Rock Band 2 theme

Gameplay + controls: It’s a real guitar hero clone: You have 5 colored frets and one ‘pick’ or strum bar. You hold the frets (F1-5) and hit the’ strum bar’ (enter) at the rhythm of the music. Yes, just like in Guitar Hero. The original Frets On fire doesn’t have a career option, you can  play a song and try to beat your highscore and that’s pretty much it. However in FoFix (Frets On Fire X) you DO have a career option with different songs and objectives to unlock different tiers. The only downside is: you have to set up the career yourself by adding some code to certain files. It’s not hard, but the casual gamer wont be bothered to do this. The controls work very well except if you have a keyboard with certain key combo’s turned off. Some manufacturers do this, but I have really no idea why…

When  the Rock Band theme is used with FoFix you can also play the drums and bass. I’m not sure if you can sing, because I haven’t tested it myself.

FoF has 3 songs installed. On the frets on fire fan forum you have a HUGE database with songs, even the original guitar hero and rock band songs. You download them and copy them to your songs folder and you’re ready to rock! Note: These songs are all created by fans of the game, normal gamers like you and I, so these are not official. Yes, some are real crap.

The original Frets On Fire

Graphics: The graphics in FoF aren’t pretty good as you see above. In the mods however they’re awesome. The graphics look exactly the same as in the original games. There’s only one thing to mention: you can’t have movable backgrounds, so it’s just a picture. It doesn’t irritate me but it takes away a bit of the ‘Guitar hero atmosphere’.

Frets On Fire X with the Guitar Hero Theme

Music and sound: Can’t be better… It’s a music game after all.

My conclusion: don’t try FoF. Just immediatly download the modded version (FoFix) and install the guitar hero or rock band theme. Your expierence will be ten times better and you get better graphics and a career option. I know, there are still minor bugs in those versions but the coders update it once in a while. It’s all done by the community so they really care about what you think and what you like to have added.

Gameplay: 9/10 (depends on which song you play)

Controls: 7/10 (Drum is hard with a keyboard, some combo’s dont work, but that’s probably my keyboard)

Graphics: 9/10 (For the modded version, obviously)

Music and Sound: 10/10 (It’s a music game after all)

Overall: 90%

-Svenn

I found some information about Assassin’s Creed 2 on a dutch gaming website http://www.psfocus.nl.

• There will be a lot of new weapons: an axe, a hammer, a javelin, two types of swords and two types of small swords.
• You’ll be able to swim.
• The Da Vinci workshop will be in the game.
• The game will offer you different locations: Saint Marks Basilica, The Grand Canal, The Little Canal and the Rialto Bridge.
• The game will start in 1476.
• The Landscape of Tuscany will be one of the settings.
• You take control over Ezio Auditore de Firenze.
• The game will feature Machiavelli, Caterina Sofrza and Lorenzo de Medici.
• You’ll be able to steal enemies’ weapons and use them against them.
• There will be 16 types of missions, unlike in the first game where there were only five or six.
• Collecting special items like flags will now unlock special things in-game that are worth it. (so says Ubisoft)
• There will be a day and night cycle.
• There are 240 people working on this project.

Rumours are spreading on the internet saying you’ll be able to fly (some sort of gliding) but this is not yet confirmed by Ubisoft!

-Svenn

You may or may not have heard of the upcoming game Stalin vs Martians. If not, then it is described as an action RTS, involving Russian dictator  Stalin and… Martians. Sounds weird enough to be brilliant, doesn’t it? Here is the trailer:

and after seeing that you can safely say… It also looks weird, whether that is a good thing or not, I’m not sure yet.
Well, Sven and I had the idea to ask the people behind it a few questions. Here is how it went:

1. What inspired you to make Stalin vs Martians?

Hundreds of identical World War II strategy games, pseudo-Russian stereotypical stuff popular in the “Western countries” (as we call them), like faux cyrillic and bear’n'vodka shit. And, most of all, the fact that we had the opportunity and resources to actually produce the game THAT weird. We just couldn’t miss the chance.

2. Is your game as humorous as the title would have us believe?

With a title like that, who really cares?

3. Would you compare your game to any other on the market?

I think that Stalin looks a little bit like Mario. So we can compare the game to Super Mario Galaxy.

By the way, our game sometimes plays almost like a platformer, so it makes some sense!

4. What sort of gameplay modes will there be? (i.e. Multiplayer? Skirmish? Campaign?)

Campaign only. No one needs multiplayer in a game named, well, Stalin vs. Martians. Just think for a moment. Stalin. Versus. Martians. Multiplayer? Boy, you must be kidding!

5. If it has a campaign mode, would it revolve around a storyline?

Sure. Very stupid storyline. Interrupted by insane music videos.

6. Are there any interesting or unique gameplay features you’d like to tell us about?

The last game to implement REALLY unique gameplay features was, i believe, killer7. We don’t want to play the usual bad PR games anymore, so the answer is no, nothing unique. You’ve seen it all before. Action-packed RTS? Not really unique. Power-ups, bright shiny coins? Check out any Mario/Sonic game. Same old shit.

7. And finally, when can we expect to see your game released?

April 20, digital download for North America and Europe. Available through the main digital distributors like Steam and GamersGate. Published by the Mezmer Games label of Paradox Interactive.

So, there you have it. It could be very good, or it could be not so good.

You can probably expect a review sometime after the 20th of April, assuming the price isn’t too high.

~ Jack and Svenn

With Rock Band 2 being released EA saw a good opportunity to launch a couple of new instruments. The question is: are they really worth buying? I’ve did some research and came up with this..

Stratocaster-guitar

There’s nothing new to the guitar except for the faceplate and a stronger ’strum-bar’. The Guitar Hero-model is still the best guitar, and also compatible with Rock Band 2.
Price: €70~ $95~ £65

Drum-kit

This is something worth to buy. It’s a brand new kit with a stronger pedal due to the metal, it’s finally wireless and the new drumpads make it possible to hear the track you’re playing  (Now you don’t need to put towels on the drumpads to reduce the noise). You can also expand your kit with extra cymbals.
Price:  €90~ $120~ £80  Cymbals: €40~ $55~ £35

Ion Premium Drum-kit

This kit is for the real music lovers. It’s compatible with a PC and you can use it as a standalone electrical drum-kit. Another strength is that every drumpad and cymbal can be adjusted in height to your liking.
Price: €300~ $400~ £270 (without shipping fees)

-Svenn

When Jack came up with this I was pretty excited. You can’t reject a free downloadable game, even if it’s old. After downloading the game and reading the 15 page manual (the game itself is +/- 70MB) I was ready to play.

When you start up the game, you see a comic-book stylish ‘cut scene’ explaining the story. Surprisingly, the story seems strong and revolutionary (especially for a game that’s released in ‘94). It goes like this: you’re Robert Foster and as a young boy you were discovered and raised by a weird tribe in Australia. The old wise man from your tribe predicts evil is coming towards their village. As you can guess, the wise man was right and you get kidnapped by some special organisation. You manage to escape but you’re stuck in some kind of super controlled and supervised city, Union City, and you want to get to ground level. And the worst thing is.. you’re on the highest point in the city. (Nobody could’ve guessed that.)

The whole game is about getting to ground level. Only people with high LINC statuses (a system that controls access to buildings, bank transfers, ..)  can get to ground level. If you have a low status, your stuck on the highest levels in the city and have to do the dirtiest jobs.

Gameplay: It’s like every point-and click adventure game. You click on items, combine items and talk to a lot of people for finding that special piece of information. The dialogues are filled with humour (well, it probably was funny back then) and not boring at all. You can skip every dialogue by clicking and the best thing of all, you don’t have to read everything. Yes, there’s voice-acting in the game, and I think it’s great! The lip-sync doesn’t look that good, but we can’t be too critical, the game’s 15 years old. So the whole game is clicking and being logic. If someone wants to go on a holiday, you buy tickets at a travel agency and trade it for some valuable information. You can die at certain points in the game but you’ll never expierence a dead end. You just get stuck until you find the right items or talk with the right people.

Controls: Just click it! The cursor switches between different icons for actions or walking. With right clicking you can combine items or use something.

Graphics: With every next-gen console having a resolution of 720p or higher the graphics are a bit disappointing, they’re not even good for their time. Because the game was very big the programmers had to reduce the animations and graphics and that’s a pitty. The game is built on the same ‘engine’ as Jack’s game (Lure of Temptress) but is four times as big, that’s the reason why the graphics are blurry and the animations are choppy.

Music and sound: The music is horrible in my opinion. On the other hand the voice acting is great. A dialogue with sound is way more interesting than just reading some text.

Overall: Everyone who likes old school gaming should try this. It’s a great game to play when you’re bored or when you have 20 minutes spare time and you don’t know what to do. The biggest weaknesses are the graphics and the bad animations.

Graphics :  5/10

Music and sound:  7/10 (due to the voice acting)

Gameplay:  8/10

Controls:  6/10 (I don’t like clicking, but the controls do their thing)

Overall: 70%

-Svenn

Earlier, well… just now, I found this: http://www.gog.com/en/search/sort/price/000

You can’t really say no to free games, sure they’re old, but the site is ‘Good Old Games’ so, it was to be expected. Anyway, firstly, I’d like to thank the site for offering free games -which are admittedly freeware games, but still-, and I hope they sell a lot of other classic games.

So Sven and I decided to take the challenge of playing, and reviewing – in 200 words or more – one of the three games each. Sven chose ‘Beneath a Steel Sky’ and I chose ‘Lure of the Temptress’. It should be interesting to see how the games turn out, and we welcome your comments on the third game, or any other game for that matter.

~Jackreyes

I’m back on this blog to provide you with news, reviews, and other stuff that has to do with the PS3. I left this blog more than a year ago because I just couldn’t make time to write decent stuff. Now that I’ve found more time, I just can’t wait to write, so here I go.

• The PS3 has a lot of WWII FPS-games to offer, so many that we’ve played every battle, every great mission and even every failure (Brothers in arms). The boys of Delirious thought: “There aren’t enough Third Person Shooters on this theme.”  and here they are presenting a brand new game based on the second season of the television war series Band of Brothers. The game is set at the Pacific Ocean and will try to ‘put the player in the life of an ordinary soldier’. The Developers hope to produce a strong and emotional story.

• SEGA Superstar Tennis was a nice game but not what I expected from them. I didn’t buy the game because it could only entertain me an hour before I stumbled back to my machine to put in the old (and sadly enough, damaged) blu-ray disc of COD: Modern Warfare. Now SEGA is back on the tennis-court with Virtua Tennis 2009. It will be bigger and better: more players, more courts and the official Davis Cup license. I’m looking forward to this.. The game will be released this Spring.

I’ll keep my eyes open for any interesting updates.

Svennie93

It’s been a while since I posted. Don’t blame me, it’s my teachers fault, piles of homework to do. Furthermore I’ve been ill for a week. But now I’m back with some news.

The gameworld is only saying one thing: DELAYS.

-EA’s Rock band is coming to europe in april, may or june. The fans have to wait a litlle longer, meanwhile you can keep you busy with guitar hero 2. MGS4 is postponed to the second quarter of 2008 and Mercenaries 2: World in Flames is delayed to the third quarter

-Report your school or work that you’re gonna be sick on April 29. Hurry to your local gamestore and buy the most discussed game of the year: GTA IV.

- Mad Catz releases a new Ps3-toy. The wireless thumbpad will be principally used for Home. The price is €29,99 Btw: The designers ‘redrawed’ Home. The big changes are the lobby’s, it are big places outside.

-THQ has some moneyproblems and they decided to cancel Frontlines fuel of war for Ps3. They’ve also decided to quit making Stuntman games.

These were the most important things I found over the internet.

-Svenn

Motorstorm is a really nice offroad racing game for ps3. The races take place in Monument Valley, which is a beautiful setting. You can choose out of 7 types of vehicles: trucks, motorcycles, quads, jeeps, sportscars, etc. There are 8 tracks, all with there own pros and cons. There’s only one racetype, the simplicity: WIN. That’s why motorstorm isn’t perfect. It gets really repetitive after a while. Don’t expect a simulator, the game is very arcade because of the boost. You have unlimited boost but there’s a small meter that fills. When it’s at the maximum, your car explodes. This shows the great graphics and physics of the game. The controls are a bit different from other games, you use R2 and L2 to excellerate and brake. The X button is for boost. Steering is with the left analoge stick, or you can use the tilt function, but that’s mission imposible. The offline mode can keep you busy for a week (Maybe two if you’re a hardcore racing fan.).

Online:

The multiplayer mode is the same as the offline mode. You set up your own game, you choose your map and vehicles and the number of players (maximum 12). The servers work really good.. The only drawback is the waiting time. Sometimes it’s like people just don’t want to join your game..

Motorstorm is a very good game but it misses something. I hope that they will add some racingmodes in the second game. Buy this game after you’ve finished resistance and call of duty.

Graphics: 9.5/10

Gameplay: 8/10 (‘low’ score because it’s repetitive)

Overall: 83%

+ Arcade racing, graphics, physics

-Repetitive,long loading times when selecting vehicle

Svenn.