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Whatever happened to Gamerscore obsession?
2008-06-04 13:43:00
During the Xbox 360's next generation exclusivity window (made possible by rushing extraordinarily unreliable hardware to market) Achievements, Gamerscore and Gamercards seemed like a revolution. We talked of the way we play games begin changed forever, and firmly expected Sony and Nintendo to emulate this peer-observable skill tracking system in the yet-to-be-released PlayStation 3 and Wii. Two and a half years on though (and three failed Xbox 360s later) there is now little noise made about 'the highest Gamerscore in the world' or 'the easiest way to 10,000 GS'. Sony's half-hearted and patchy implementation of their vague and essentially unbranded version of an Achievement-like system is an irrelevance until Home's Trophy Room arrives, and unsurprisingly, Nintendo have ignored the concept completely. The volume of Xbox 360 games now available means that Gamerscore's significance and value as a measure of skill is all but eroded. Enduring King Kong, Fuzion Frenzy ...
More About: Obsession

Powers of Spore
2008-06-03 18:25:00
This short film is brilliant, and not unsurprisingly has inspired many tributes and spoofs over the years - Men in Black, Contact and The Simpsons have all borrowed the concept. Most significant to us gamers though is that (beyond the IBM sponsorship and cool '70s CGI) Will Wright cites it as inspiration for Spore . The Spore Creature Creator is out on June 17th, with a cut down demo also being made available for free via spore.com. The full game is due in Europe on 5th September and 7th in the US for Mac and PC.. Game of the year? I don't see why not.
More About: Powers

Whachoo been playing?
2008-06-02 16:18:00
Whether you're a regular visitor to this blog, or just popping by via Google image search (you know who you are) let us know what you're playing at the moment in the comments section below. And if we should try it out, too. Also, how far through GTA IV is everyone?

New Resident Evil 5 trailer: more than an HD African RE4?
2008-05-31 22:01:00
This brand new trailer for Resident Evil 5 shows plenty of tantalising new gameplay footage, a new partner for Chris Redfield and a previously unseen selection of parasite-powered locals. Bon appetit. with the exception of a new zombie-busting uppercut though, the game mechanics look strikingly similar to Resident Evil 4. That's no bad thing, but hopefully Capcom will have more than HD visuals and an inadvertently controversial location to ensure this game is a worthy successor to its brilliant predecessor.
More About: Trailer , African

Capcom announce all-time sales figures: gaming memories activated
2008-05-30 12:59:00
Finding Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts in a grubby local game shop days after it came out in Japan, playing as Zangief on Worthing Pier and still seeing off bigger boys' challenges, being blown away by the Mode 7 runway in Area 88, falling off my chair after hearing the infamous 'Jill sandwich' line for the first time - Capcom games tend to play significant parts in most people's gaming history. Capcom have released some interesting and satisfyingly comprehensive (essentially promotional) stats detailing their best selling franchises, and one message is clear: their comittment to milking their IPs is extraordinary (Fifty Resident Evil games?) but they do it so well (let's pretend not to notice Dino Crisis) that it's hard to begrudge their success. Resident Evil Series (50 titles, 34,500,000 units) Mega Man Series (120 titles, 28,000,000 units) Street Fighter Series (59 titles, 25,000,000 units) Disney Series (33 titles, 13,200,000 units) Devil May Cry Series (10 titles, 9,500,0...
More About: Gaming , Sales , Time , Memories , Figures

Star Solider R (WiiWare) reviewed!
2008-05-28 16:55:00
Star Soldier R is one of the first batch of WiiWare games, and as a traditional vertically scrolling shoot 'em up, is welcome. But there's a catch: it only has two (very short) levels and is the price of a fully featured game. The theory is that the online global leaderboard will motivate you to replay the tiny amount of game provided to perfect your technique and continuously improve your score. Problem is, the game is average in every way and lacks the depth, style and character of other score-based shooters like Ikaruga, Geometry Wars and Space Giraffe - games that inspire the desire to master them rather than enforce it. As a curiosity Star Soldier R has merit, and it seems right to support Irem as they try to modernise and make relevant this classic game type, but the lack of content and experimental structure means this is for hardcore fans only. 5/10
More About: Star

The Digital Gamer turns into Tech Model Gaming Club
2008-05-28 11:08:00
This blog has been around for nearly two years (so many memories) but the title was beginning to bug me. So, bam, it's gone. It's outta here. thedigitalgamer.com URL will still point here for a while but techmodelgamingclub.com is the best way to navigate here. Or, better still, you might like to subscribe to the site's RSS feed.
More About: Gaming , Gamer , Tech , Model , Club

Welcome to WiiWare, plus the crazy retail pricing of Boom Blox
2008-05-21 16:29:00
WiiWare is up and running, meaning that all three current gen consoles can now be used to download original, online-exclusive content, more or less, worldwide. Despite various DRM and storage issues, this is an amazing thing. Hunting around for the best price for a disc in a box now seems increasingly mad. On a not-unrelated note, I've been looking round for a copy of Boom Blox on Wii. I've found it in just a couple of shops, but for an extraordinary £39.99. I'm not imagining an unspoken precedent for puzzle games usually being a good bit cheaper than 'regular' games am I? If Boom Blox was made available online, and sold for the equivalent of £39.99 in Wii Points (5800ish) or Microsoft Points (4800ish) there would be mass (well, forum-based) outrage. And no sales. With the exception of a few EA microtransaction scams ( and not forgetting horse armour) the world of DLC on consoles is a pretty reasonably priced place, with charges realistically reflecting the value an...
More About: Retail , Crazy

Living in Liberty
2008-05-17 14:11:00
I'm really in the GTA zone at the moment. A game hasn't held my attention like this since I don't know when. It's far from perfect - the world is full of continuity issues and the missions can be arbitrarily difficult and awkward - but I just don't care. Spending time in the city is appealing enough to get it loaded up and once you're in and being tempted by so many activities, only repeated mission failures and tediously long drives to try again make me switch off. Beautiful Katamari is working as a fun way to wind down afterwards too, now it's finally come down to a reasonable £19.99.
More About: Living , Liberty

Gears of War 2 - I want in
2008-05-15 15:46:00
Gears of War is brilliant - the Resident Evil 4 influence, the perfect control, the lovingly-tuned blood splatter and gun recoil - it's my favourite shooter on the Xbox 360 by a long way. Gears of War 2 is due in November, and from the first gameplay trailer below, more of the same but on a much larger scale is on the way. The enhancements made to the Unreal Engine since the last instalment mean lots more enemies on-screen, better physics, destructible environments and little touches like interactive water effects. Two years between games isn't long enough for a full re-imagining, but that wasn't needed. Cranking up everything that was great in the original and adding massive set piece battles, chainsaw duels and who knows what else is plenty for me.
More About: Gears of War , Gears

AOL to O2 broadband switchover - success!
2008-03-05 22:50:00
I'd been with AOL for five years or so, but a combination of super high prices (£19.99 per month) and their extraordinarily frustrating customer service centre (outsourcing just doesn't work) meant that it was time to move on. BT's O2 now offer a broadband service (which is heavily discounted if your mobile is with them) and their option of 15Mb speed for £9.99 per month, plus a free wireless router, sealed the deal. I'm writing this essentially because the process has been impressively smooth, money-saving and has resulted in me getting a connection that's five times faster, for half the price. Once I'd extracted a MAC number from AOL (this took around forty minutes on the phone and several days wait for an email) I was able to sign up. O2 send emails and text messages that serve well the paranoid need of the web-addicted to know exactly when and how the service will be switched over - everything happened when they said it would, too. And fast! Just a few days after ap...
More About: Broadband , Success

The usual stuff isn't working
2008-02-27 18:53:00
I suck bad at blogging right now. Laziness, non-gaming distractions, limited supplies of Dr Pepper - all have caused the dust to settle on this once busy site. Things are gonna change. Starting now. I'm re-tooling with an iMac (typing on a MacBook hurts my wrists, and the screen is all busted after too-vigorous-a-buffing, a few weeks back), an all-new look will soon hit like a hammerdown on that no-good Cloverfield monster, and Digital Gamer Radio will go live and (possibly) electrify the podcasting airwaves in the very near future. The blogosphere needs detail, more homebrew fancy dress sites selling saucy versions of Ghostbuster outfits, and less RSS-powered regurge waffle. I'll be doing what I can to assist on all of these fronts. Check the fridge, good call.
More About: Stuff , Working

HD-DVD - dead format walking
2008-02-20 01:26:00
Sony's decision to use PlayStation 3 as a Trojan horse for their Blu-ray format has dragged us gamers into a war that we had no business being a part of in the first place. Yes, HD-DVD and Blu-ray can offer developers increased storage capacity, but given that Oblivion and Dragon Quest VIII can each fit on one disc, and shipping games on (gasp) two discs isn't exactly the end of the world, it's kind of strange why the now-inevitable demise of HD-DVD (following Toshiba's announcement to abandon the format) is making so many waves in the games industry. And Microsoft seem to feel the same, too, despite their previously-strong affiliation to HD-DVD. If, like me, you now find yourself with a moribund Xbox 360 HD-DVD add-on (or standalone player) that will now forever mock your HD format selection skills, what should you do? As I see it, there are three options: 1. Destroy the drive, and all of those overpriced films you bought to show off your next-gen home cinema set-...
More About: Walking , Dead , Format

Videogames aren't just for Christmas
2008-01-16 09:12:00
Nothing inspires confidence in a retailer (and the industry it thrives in) than a poster that essentially says ‘you know all that stuff you bought from us just before Christmas ? Now you’ve realised that quite a lot of it is rubbish, would you like to sell it back to us for around a third of the price?’. A strange message to give, certainly – but is it also an official admittance of the essentially non-existent quality control that has always plagued videogames? Now that DS and Wii have bought hundreds of thousands, millions of uninformed new gamers in to the market, the volumes of garbage lining store shelves seems to be increasing exponentially. And the online world is not immune either. See Screwjumper on XBLA. Maybe the massively variable quality of videogames adds that extra little spice to the life of a gamer, as well as keeping so many journalists in work, and thankfully, for every Totem Ball there is a Space Giraffe. Well, the ratio isn’t 1:1, but the gre...
More About: Videogames

Sock Puppet Gaming - Episode 10
2008-01-10 22:56:00
Over at sister site, Sock Puppet Gaming ... By looking into the future using an old tube of Pringles, we bring news of what 2008 has in store for us gamers.
More About: Episode

Nintendo launches crippled, data-gathering Wii Points 'giveaway'
2007-12-14 22:26:00
It has never been easy being a Nintendo fan living in Europe – launch delays, inflated prices, stock shortages, dodgy PAL conversions – but despite all these things, the Nintendo brand still inspires massive amounts of goodwill. That may be about to change, though. When the GameCube launched in Europe on May 3rd 2002, Nintendo also launched the Star Points programme. A product registration card has been put in with all Nintendo hardware and Nintendo-published games ever since. Each card has a scratch panel with a unique code that can be registered at the Nintendo Europe site. Typically, the consumer is then be given access to a handful of digital assets like wallpaper, screensavers, and very occasionally, tiny volumes of actual real world goodies. Also, the card would have an amount of ‘Star Points’ assigned to it, typically 250. So, for the last five years, I have been registering all the Nintendo products I’ve bought, a GameCube, a GameCube GBA Player, DS, DS Lite...
More About: Data , Gathering

Too old for Mario?
2007-11-26 20:05:00
I picked up a copy of Super Mario Galaxy last week, and I was pretty excited about it all. As excited as when a Japanese copy of Super Mario World dropped through my letterbox sixteen years ago? Or when I hooked up my Nintendo 64 for the first time and popped out of that warp pipe in the castle grounds? Not so much, sadly. And it's nothing to do with the quality of the software - Super Mario Galaxy is the most inventive, polished and playful game I've bought in years. I guess I'm just getting old and world-weary, but new first party Nintendo games are becoming less special as the years go by. Sniff. They are still the building blocks of videogame history, but as gamers who grew up with the NES, Mega Drive, and SNES hit their 30s, responsibilities accumulate, spare time disappears, and escaping to the treasured, colourful virtual worlds of our youth becomes increasingly harder to justify. Reality encroaches, and for me, it's becoming increasingly difficult to disregard the...

Sock Puppet Gaming - Episode 3 now available
2007-11-26 19:30:00
Over at my other blog, Sock Puppet Gaming , we've just put up our latest episode. The YouTube version below:
More About: Episode , Episode 3

Microsoft celebrate five years of Xbox LIVE, make some announcements
2007-11-14 17:04:00
November 15th marks the five year anniversary of Xbox LIVE. To celebrate, Microsoft are going to allow LIVE users to download the very obscure but very good Carcassonne for free between 08:00 GMT on November 15th to 08:00, November 16th. A welcome gesture, as following the failure of my old 360 and transferring to an Elite, I could only play Carcassonne (and every other XBLA game I'd bought) if I was online, thanks to the Xbox 360's flawed DLC policy. Now, if I re-download Carcassonne on another profile, it should work offline, and once again, be available to all profiles on my console. Bearing this in mind, it's difficult to get too excited about Microsoft's second announcement. The Fall Update (coming December 4th) will feature a new service, Xbox Originals. Users will be able to download previously disc-only Xbox games for 1200 Microsoft Points each. Initial titles will include the brilliant Psychonauts, Halo (yawn), Fable and Crimson Skies. Will they feature Achievem...
More About: Xbox Live , Celebrate , Live

Sock Puppet Gaming - Episode One, all about Mutant Storm Empire
2007-11-09 00:15:00
Sock Puppet Gaming review (sort of) Mutant Storm Empire .
More About: Episode

The British Academy Video Game Awards - a TV train wreck
2007-11-05 17:45:00
Presented by a disinterested, confused and unrehearsed Vic Reeves, this year’s  televised British Academy Video Games Awards demonstrated just how misunderstood videogames still are, and how mainstream TV just doesn’t know how to talk about them. Most categories were presented by various, invariably uninformed teenage d-list celebrities (including Lil' Chris, McFly and Gareth Gates) who had all been forced to film inevitably terrible skits that were shown before the winners were announced. But, no winners were there to receive their awards. Except Will Wright. Channel 4’s coverage was incompetent at best. Mismatched footage was shown throughout and the desperately bad T4 presenter struggled to get any sense from the hired award givers after the event. Quite why he wasn’t speaking with anyone related in any way to the industry wasn’t clear. So, apart from continuing TV’s long running misrepresentation of videogames, the show did little for the industry, confi...
More About: Train

A year on (nearly), what do you think of Wii’s Virtual Console?
2007-11-02 17:46:00
Its selection of super-obscure titles is welcome and unexpected (never thought I’d see Legend of Hero Tonma again) and from the individual game title screens on the Wii menu to the coin-bumping download countdown, the service is slick, pure Nintendo and happily low-key. Its vision is at odds with the general Wii proposition though – would someone interested in Treasure’s Nintendo 64 Sin and Punishment or a Neo Geo 2D fighter also entertain the idea of buying any of the Wii’s often quality-agnostic retail titles? With precious few significant distractions available on disc, the Nintendo hardcore are now forced to look to the Virtual Console . Where, fortunately though, a persistent flurry of often-notable titles have been accumulating like nerdy, over-priced snowflakes, each and every week for the last eleven months. The service is not without hitches though: No Xbox LIVE Arcade-style free previews Dodgy PAL conversions still being supplied to PAL territor...
More About: Year , Sole

This week's Xbox LIVE Arcade game is: Mutant Storm Empire
2007-10-29 20:04:00
Mutant Storm Empire from PomPom games will be available from 09:00 GMT this Wednesday, for 800 Microsoft Points. The game features load-free level transitions, themed worlds as well as off and online co-op play. The downloadable sci-fi shooter craze happily goes from strength to strength.
More About: Xbox , Arcade , Xbox Live , Xbox Live Arcade

Microsoft gets family-friendly (again) with new Xbox 360 Arcade SKU and car
2007-10-23 14:52:00
Microsoft announced today the Xbox 360 Arcade system along with new video and game content from Warner Bros. and Nickelodeon. The new Xbox 360 hardware iteration (the fifth to date) comes with five Xbox LIVE Arcade titles pre-loaded (Pac-Man CE, Uno, Feeding Frenzy, Luxor 2 and Boom Boom Rocket – a mixed bag), a 256MB memory card and HDMI output. The most interesting of today's video DLC announcements was 50+ HD episodes of classic Looney Tunes cartoons being made available from today on the still USA-only Video Marketplace. In addition, Shrek-n-Roll and SpongeBob SquarePants: Underpants Slam were confirmed for XBLA, and look set to spearhead a slew of over-branded, under-developed software heading to the online service. Last winter, Microsoft attempted to court The Casuals with Viva Piñata, a game that was too cutesy for adults, but too complex for kids and anyone else new to videogames. As a result, and despite being really good, Viva Piñata failed to generate any...
More About: Family , Microsoft

This week's Xbox LIVE Arcade titles are... Every Extend Extra Extreme &
2007-10-15 20:24:00
Both will be available for 800 Microsoft Points each from Wednesday. Speedball 2: Brutal Deluxe includes both an Amiga-style 2D version, as well as a 3D re-imagining (below). Every Extend Extra Extreme will add to XBLA's growing collection of abstract shooters nicely, and will also pave the way for Mizuguchi's Rez HD next year.
More About: Xbox , Arcade , Xbox Live , Xbox Live Arcade

Super Mario Galaxy incoming
2007-10-08 19:56:00
The official Japanese website for Super Mario Galaxy is now live, and includes a section showing some all new gameplay videos. Click one of the eight blue boxes, then click the blue button below the clip to play it. Proper iterations of Nintendo's main IPs look likely to become rarer, so we best make the most of them when they do come along. And what ever happened to Pilotwings? Super Mario Galaxy is penciled in for a November 16th European release.
More About: Super Mario

Tomorrow's Xbox LIVE game is Tetris Splash
2007-10-02 10:57:00
Tetris is coming to Xbox LIVE Arcade, in the form of Tetris Splash. An aquatic-themed, online enabled version of everyone's favourite puzzle game. Available from 09:00 GMT, Wednesday 3rd October.
More About: Xbox Live , Tetris , Live , Game

Major retailer promotes Halo 3 using PlayStation 3 demo unit
2007-10-01 20:25:00
Gamestation in Brighton (UK) have had one of those fancy, 42" Bravia-powered PlayStation 3 promotional pods installed for months, usually using it to show rolling video of PS3 games, and occasionally, the latest Harry Potter title. On Halo 3 launch night though, the Sony Bravia screen was used to host multiplayer matches of Microsoft's game of the year, while the gathered crowd patiently waited for midnight. Gamestation staff have now dismantled the long-standing PlayStation 3 demo pod though, and hijacked it with Halo 3 promotional material, allegedly because Sony enraged the workers by chastising them for using their hardware to promote Xbox 360, more specifically, Halo 3. The plastic-encased PlayStation 3 hardware is now completely obscured by a Halo 3 pre-order poster. The Sony Bravia LCD screen has been removed (it is now in a separate display cabinet, running Halo 3 from an Xbox 360 Halo 3 Special Edition console) and the space left by the screen has been filled ...
More About: Playstation , Playstation 3 , Demo

Halo 3's 2.0 content sharing impresses
2007-09-26 23:00:00
I wish I could go back in time and show my twelve year old Super Mario Bros.-playing self this screenshot. Then explain that I took it myself, from a fully controllable video replay of a game session that took place hours before, that I played through via 'The Internet' with three other friends at the same time. Edge, I think the future finally is here. At last!
More About: Halo , Content , Halo 3 , Sharing , Impress

Halo 3 arrives in the UK
2007-09-26 02:28:00
Scenes of British-grade midnight hysteria (polite queuing) at GAME in Brighton: More photos on Flickr too.
More About: Halo , Halo 3