PixelJunk Monsters kills it. I bought it on the PS3 a few months ago and while I loved the first few levels, there’s a steep cliff where the difficulty curve should be, and I failed to climb it. For some reason during a hard month I revisited this game and I fucking LOVE it. It got me through some tough times. You have to embrace the cold hard truth that you will be playing the same levels over and over, you have to LOVE this. This is something old school, it is out of place with the low amounts of challenge we face in modern, casual-friendly games. However, the environment of the game is so pleasant:

You are moving back and forth, dancing, collecting gold and gems, building a system, and the replaying of levels is what is required to make the system PERFECT. Incidentally, this is surely by design; the game requires you to unlock harder areas by collecting rainbows, which you only get with a perfect score on a level, aka you didn’t let one monster through (you have 20 in your village, each monster you let through kills one, and normally you can win with only one villager remaining, BUT AT WHAT COST I ASK YOU? Save them all).

The environment is pleasant, the gameplay is well calibrated, with a few elements that perfectly compliment each other, and the levels and tower progression give you a great variety of play and strategy.

Incidentally, I balked for a while at buying the PSP version, which costs $20 compared to the $10 of the PS3 original. It is absolutely worth the money, however. The PSP version includes two add-on islands which represent a great deal of play time. The game is well-suited to the portable device and that’s where I’ve played the most of it.

Just assuming I won’t get around to writing up PixelJunk Shooter, the most recent release in the series, let me just add that it is awesome as well.

44 days, to be exact, when I was still evaluating the PS3. Since then it basically went Demon’s Souls – Uncharted 2 – Dragon Age – Little Big Planet (PSP). I didn’t finish Demon’s Souls, but hope to someday. I totally loved it, and would consider it one of the better games of the year. Many have said that of Uncharted 2, and I can see why, as it has great writing, excellent pacing, and plenty of gameplay variety. However, it seems a little old-fashioned. Perhaps it’s me personally rather than the industry as a whole, but I feel like we’ve moved on from linear story-based games that are trying to be like movies. The game does not allow you to make any choices other than which order to shoot the bad guys. I realize this was the case with Halo as well, and many other A-list games. But my tastes have gradually shifted.

Oh yeah, Halo ODST. Almost forgot about that one, as it was a bit of a flash in the pan. It’s interesting to note that said linear storytellers Bungie actually shifted to a non-linear, architectural model for the sections of ODST. It was certainly well-made, but short, and not really worth a full game price. Had a few epic sessions of firefight though – one game lasted two hours. Damn.

Not that it’s much different from what Bioware has been doing for years, but Dragon Age is more where I see the future of games, where every aspect of the game (gameplay, story, etc.) changes based on the player’s choices. It’s a party-based action RPG with excellent writing, mission design, and an extremely detailed world to explore. Sure, it’s elves and wizards which is a little played out, but despite that the material is strong. I’m nowhere near finished it, but still plugging away.

I rarely buy full-price PSP games, but I made an exception for Little Big Planet for some reason. I’ve never played more than the demo of the big boy PS3 version, so I don’t know how the portable game compares, but I’ve really enjoyed my few hours with this one. It’s generally a pleasant, relaxing experience playing through the story missions – I’m not a huge platformer fan but this is good stuff. I’ve played very few player-made levels, and haven’t tried to create them yet myself, but I aim to, and that’s all that counts, innit?

All the while I can never resist buying and barely playing iPhone games. The iPhone is an amazing games platform, blah blah. Great, your game uses all your batteries and then your phone is dead. A phone call interrupts your game and when you go back, it didn’t save. Or the game takes five minutes to load. Or the touch controls suck, again. Or it’s a dumbed-down version of what would be decent on another platform. I’ve definitely played some great iPhone games, but most of them I never spend more than half an hour with.

Not sure why I keep buying them.

The latest is Rogue Planet, gameloft’s attempt to rip off Advance Wars. Gameloft is like the iPhone’s Asylum studios, churning out cheap knockoffs of well-known franchises. Some of them are good in a workmanlike, the-gameplay-is-engaging sort of way, but they all feel soulless, with no originality or inspiration to be found.

It’s december – there are a million games out, and no time to play them. I’m hoping to try out the new Zelda, Assassin’s Creed 2, Borderlands and even Modern Warfare 2, but I probably can’t do everything I want to between now and the release of Mass Effect 2 and whatever the latest Final Fantasy is. But whatever – when it comes to video games, too much of a good thing is still a good thing.

Here are some semi-coherent thoughts from a month or so of PS3 ownership.

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Yeah, there’s this slim thing (pictured), and that’s great, but the important part: only now is the PS3 hitting the launch day price point of the PS2. Consoles traditionally launch at $300, but this time Sony and Microsoft went much higher ($399 for the Xbox 360 and $599 for the PS3), whereas Nintento went all the way down to $250. And just look what happened. Nintendo has sold more consoles than the other two put together.

The word is that Microsoft will now eliminate the Pro model and drop the price on the Elite to $299 to compete with the PS3. That puts it at the same list price, sure, but Microsoft still charges you an extra $50/year to play online, and the 360 can’t play Blu-Ray discs. For the first time, Sony offers the most value for the money. Take a look at the below chart, taken from PC World

I think those stats are a little hard on the 360 (not sure how many people care about the number of USB ports, or Sixaxis), but they speak some sort of truth, and that truth is not kind to the console with the 50% failure rate.

Do I sound eager? I do indeed plan to buy one. I’ve been holding off for this price cut. I’ve owned every console Sony has put out except the PS3, and I bought a PS2 at launch. If there are more people like me – and in this regard at least there may well be – I think these things will sell extremely well.

A word on downloads vs. Blu-Ray. I am perhaps snobbier about my HD signals than most. It comes with making TV for a living; you get very fussy about your picture quality. I think Rogers compresses the hell out of their HD feeds, and they suck. iTunes HD doesn’t look great either. If I can see compression artifacts, can we really call it “High Definition”, regardless of how many pixels there are? So suffice it to say that while many people are excited about HD downloads and think optical disc formats are already dead, I’m singularly excited about having Blu-Ray and its relatively guaranteed quality. Besides, with Canada’s so-called high speed internet being what it is (and what it is is oligarchitastic!), it took me longer than an hour to download an hour of crappyish iTunes HD Dollhouse. This new PS3 can’t come soon enough.

Everyone’s favourite games conference aka press release orgy is here! The most concise way to catch up on E3 press conference porn is to read three posts from Offworld:

• Sony
• Nintendo
• Microsoft

Sony and MS are both trying to catch up to the Wii’s motion-sensing Wiimote, and MS’ Project Natal seems most interesting, as it’s a controller-free system, relying entirely on cameras to sense your body position and even recognize faces. That said, until practical questions can be answered (how much? how many games will support it?), it’s best to consider it as a rhetorical salvo in the PR wars and not an actual, tangible thing. Sony and MS both trumpeted their lists of exclusive games, most vague and ages from shipping. Some of them no doubt will be good, but neither could get through their presentations without showcasing some cross-platform games as well.

Nintendo, meanwhile, renewed its license to print money. No, they tried to make nice with the hardcore by announcing a truckload of Mario games.

A few things caught my eye. On the Microsoft side, more details of Halo 3 ODST are welcome (sounds like The Killing with space marines), and I’m happy that Bungie is doing another game in Halo Reach, but I was kinda hoping they’d give the Halo thing a rest for a while and try something new. Alan Wake looked cool, and I really hope Natal works and doesn’t cost a mint, but judging from MS’ track record, that’s unlikely. How much for that 160 gig hard drive again….?!

Sony’s PSP Go! was of course no surprise. But it looks slick, and it sounds like Sony is doing all the right things (woo developers, improve media experience, ditch UMD) to keep the PSP alive. And boy are there a lot of games coming for it, including a new Metal Gear, Assassin’s Creed, and Little Big Planet. But I’m of two minds about Sony. They’re currently fighting two losing battles and I wonder if they shouldn’t just cut their losses on the PSP and concentrate on overtaking MS for 2nd place in the living room. They’ve got so many first party developers tied up with PSP projects, it’s hard to see the logic. I was also really hoping for a price cut on the PS3. Why, why, why, are they not doing that. It’s insanity. I say that selfishly, because I’m looking to get one of the damned things, but it also seems crazy that Sony is sitting in third place with a console almost twice as costly as the competition, and not slashing their price.

The big three’s announcements were a little underwhelming. The least underwhelming was Microsoft’s; besides the stream of sequels that were all the rage for all three, they had a couple worthwhile things to announce – the Netflix deal, the Final Fantasy coup.

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Sony! Sony! Sony! Announcing shit, dude!

Let’s see here: video rental and purchase coming to Playstation Network as of tonight (US only I presume), and the PSP will be supported (but will it require a PS3?); the low-end, $400 PS3 will have 80gigs as of September; God of War III announced, surprising noone; Little Big Planet will be released in October. SOCOM devs Zipper are making a game called MAG (Massive Action Game) that features 256-player battles.

Jeez, not much of a thrill ride.

So let’s see here. I didn’t get past “Vaseline” yet, but in my defense I haven’t played any solo tour since I last posted. I did do some band tour with Matt, who is a Guitar Hero guy and had never tried the Rock Band drums. He did really well. It’s actually much harder to play RB drums than guitar, I think, perhaps because even on easy you have to do a few things at once. But after a few songs he was all up in the 90%s.

We did one of those mystery sets, where you don’t know what the songs are going to be. At this point I was the drummer and was doing it on hard – our success would hinge on whether I had played the song before or not. The first two we nailed, the third – “Cherub Rock,” Smashing Pumpkins – kicked my ass. I failed about four times, and Matt’s patience was waning I’m sure, but on the fifth try I managed to hobble through and finish the song despite the angry crowd.

We also played some NHL 08, a game that had been gathering dust on my shelf since I got so pissed off at the failures of the Leafs that I tuned out of hockey altogether. It’s quite a good installment of the franchise – the stick control of shooting as well as movement is a nice touch. Matt would have murdered me and then made me cry if we had gone head-to-head, so we tried playing co-op. It’s fun, and challenging, and a bit frustrating. Part of it is that the game is simply not meant to be played this way, and it shows. If, say, I pass to a player that Matt isn’t controlling, it will put this player under his control – suddenly. If he was just pressing the button to change players but he gets switched before he hits it, the new player will wind up passing in a random direction, often icing the puck. This is annoying; the better behaviour would be to switch the pass recipient to my control, more like it plays in single player.

We lost a couple games in classic Leaf manner, so I suppose it was at least realistic.

Treat of the weekend: borrowing Nadine’s PS3 and firing up Metal Gear Solid 4. The PS3 is a magnificent piece of hardware (or this is what I was thinking until last night, when problems occurred). It’s packed to the gills with stuff that Microsoft will make you pay through the nose to get as an add-on, and hey did you know it plays Blu-Ray discs?

Oh, Metal Gear. The original Solid was one of those groundbreaking games on the original PlayStation – I loved that game, and I loved that machine. I mean I don’t even like stealth games at all; I got bored of Chaos Theory a few hours in. I think I actually love MGS games primarily because of the cutscenes, which transmit an auteur sensibility like few other games. That said, I wasn’t thrilled with MGS 2 and I don’t think I played 3. Anyway 4, so far, is a masterpiece. The gameplay is deep, fun and varied – there’s actually a lot more action in it this time around, which is excellent. And Old Snake is so exquisitely captured, both in voice by Mr. Hayter and in appearance by what have got to be the best animators in the business. This whole game is best understood as a methodical raising of the bar by which games will be judged. It’s a glove slap in the face of all other developers. In what other game could an 8-minute loading screen actually be a good thing? It’s rare that I disagree with what Tycho says, but this is one of those times.

Ars re-reviews the PS3, which they gave a 6/10 upon its original release. What with all the firmware they been revisin’, though, today’s PS3 earns a handsome 9.

From my position of ignorance – not owning a PS3 at present (although thoroughly convinced that Future D owns one) – I can hardly disagree. If people ask me for console advice, after asking them searing and insightful questions that reveal their darkest inner souls and gaming habits, I tend to advise a good hard look at Sony’s fatboy. Sure, the 360 has a great catalogue and online service, and the Wii is great if you like party games and plumbers. But if you’re at all thinking about HD over the next few years, which you probably should be, it’s hard to argue with that Ray of Blu. To say nothing of Sony’s excellent track record in hardware design, and all the games that you know, should come out at some point, hopefully.

And now I’ll shut up about Sony being so awesome already.

Haze, the latest release from Ubisoft and developer Free Radical Design and exclusive PS3 title, was a game I thought I would really enjoy since I’m such a sci-fi shooter lover. I played the demo, I decided to play more. Do I regret that decision? Read on, dear friends, read on…

Alright, I can’t fake it here, this was a major disappointment. The thing that really bothers me though is how easily this game could have been better, well, the story anyway. The premise is this: you’re a Mantel soldier born into a world where “things aren’t right…until you make them right.” Sigh. Moving on, so you are in a propaganda pumping organization that enhances their soldiers with “Nectar”, a super drug that gives you Far Cry: Instincts like powers. It’s fun hitting a button and getting all super vision, but seriously why not just use infrared goggles…Silly. So you and your team have to go into the jungles of “Boa” to retrieve a lost shipment of Nectar, and en route you get into weird philosophical arguments with your fellow sergeant about why you are in this country, why the natives don’t know what’s good for them, and why Nectar is so great. You pretty much feel weird about the whole Nectar thing, and if the shitty bad writing didn’t tell you, your character’s over-top-voice acting sure will.

After you lose the shipment and get all creeped that your reality is starting to get a bit less black and white than you had thought, your team is sent in to capture the leader of the resistance: Skin Coat. Yeah…he is said to wear the skins of his enemies…in coat form…buttons and all…Social commentary in science fiction is oh so much more effective when it’s not ridiculous. Skin Coat. Skin Coat. What kind of evil rebel leader name is that? Not much of one…

Anyway, you know where the game is headed before the game even really starts so I don’t even have to tell you what happens next but yes, you go over to the other side: The Promised Hand. Fighting against your crazy Nectar pumping buddies! And this time you can use what you know about them to your advantage, like overdosing them on Nectar and fun things like that. Well, they would be fun if the game wasn’t so boring that you wanted to stop playing it as soon as you possibly could.

Yeah, the dumbness (that’s not even a word) of the heavy-handed plot just smacks you in the face so much, you can’t enjoy yourself. Why did this game have to be so damn obvious? Why couldn’t they just pull it back a little, take their time, and really pace and place the story so that you didn’t know what side you were on, what good or bad was, and really frak with your perceptions! Because…the story/single player campaign is just a weak, brittle vehicle to get people on the multiplayer. Up to 4 player co-op, lots of online multiplayer action, but guess what, you either have to have an exceptional FPS experience that forces people on their hands and needs to play it online (Call of Duty 4) or you have a game that gives a great campaign experience and its multiplayer awesomeness is a delightful side effect (Halo 1). Not a half-assed Far Cry knock off with a shitty story that makes you so mad you don’t even want to play multiplayer! You want to spit on the disc for wasting your time. See how the anger just bubbles up when you have to play a game like this for too long?

Then there’s this beast:

When I saw it I was so excited, I thought “Oh joy, Warthogerry!” but…nay nay…nay nay…This thing sucks, not because it’s clunky, but because boarding the damn thing is so difficult! Press square it says, seemingly fifteen presses later I finally mount up. Maybe it was just my controller being laggy, wireless and all, but I doubt it. I says glitch! Also, the AI was so lame they wouldn’t drive it for me and took forever to get in the damned thing after I did. I was perturbed…

There were some weird load times too, and silly checkpoint dialogue that just made the whole experience so distorted, I mean I don’t mind knowing when I hit a checkpoint or two, but make it seamless, make it flow! Especially on a PS3!

Okay basic gameplay was fine, guns were fine, I really liked the grenades (my biggest gripe in shooters are when the ‘nades suck, I hate that) but with no story to really grip or drive me, what’s the point?

This game failed on the primary levels a game needs in order for me to adore it. I wasn’t thrust into awesome never-before-seen action immediately, I was given a sermon (a short one) with over-the top voice acting on all sides. I hated my character and wished I could punch his face. I just felt let down as soon as I heard the name Skin Coat. I mean really…Can developers read some Philip K. Dick or something? Can we get some subtle storytelling, some kick ass pacing, some gods damned unique energy here! So I stopped playing this game and I don’t want to play it again. It makes me tired thinking of playing this game.

Instead of Haze, I’m playing darkSector.

And that game, my dear friends, is a game that went above and beyond on every level to satisfy me and boy do I adore it. But I’ll save that for another day.

Til then…Don’t play Haze.

What do I think of Haze thus far from my limited exposure with the demo? I’m intrigued! I want to play more. Yeah, the story is totally obvious and everything, the whole big evil corporation makes a drug that enhances you in battle and a rebel force fights against it. Good times!

The reviews for Haze have been less than awesome with the major sites saying things like weak plot, stripped down multiplayer (which doesn’t matter to me because none of my friends own a PS3, I’m in it strictly for campaign), and meh graphics. I think that they’re being a wee bit picky. I guess when you have an exclusive title for the PS3 one would expect something truly awesome. And yeah, from the demo the graphics were nothing special, typical Ubisoft jungle, we’ve all been there before. But I hesitate to hate the game so quickly, I really do want to play the whole thing.

Seeing the bodies disappear after I shot some rebels down was nifty, and then walking through a bombed out site and hearing these strange sounds when my super drug “Nectar” flow was interrupted was also nifty. I liked feeling all “oooh I think I’m a good guy but really I’m a bad guy oooh”. It actually reminded me of Shadowrun for a bit…if Shadowrun had a campaign mode…Or maybe it was because rebels were speaking Spanish…I’m getting tired of hearing Spanish yelled at me while being pelted by bullets. Can we get a new language up-ins for shooters please?

So why am I being so lenient with this game? Well, I only played the demo for one, and I just don’t think every shooter has to be revolutionary. I think of first person shooters kinda like action movies. Some are Rambos, some are Alien vs Predators, all are full of crazy unrealistic action and events. Sometimes I like a good crappy movie, and sometimes I like a little crappy game.

The really odd thing though…While I was playing my hands really craved a 360 controller! My fingers were itching to play on familiar shooter controls…it was actually kinda freaky and disconcerting. I’m like programmed for 360 shooters now…

I’ll do a full test on this beast next week, but as it stands now I’m not hating it, which is nice.

Pretty much all my friends and family who are gamers are currently addicted to GTA IV. That’s super cool and all, but for me no dice. Instead, I’ve melted into the frustrating, confusing, and utterly beautiful world of echochrome and I could not be a more happy addict.

This game is super tits peeps. Super.

echochrome is, for me, a perfect game. It combines seemingly simple lines and imagery with profound spatial problems which can be solved in a variety of ways, you just have to think of them. When I played the demo I was entranced by the music, the gameplay, and the beauty. But all my going gaga over how it looks and feels means nothing without explaining the whole point of the game.

It’s connect the dots, well, connect the Avatar with the Echoes. In this world there are five laws of perspective. Perspective Traveling dictates that if you can line up one pathway with another than they are actually connected and your character can move between them. A slight rotation can change an entire pathway, even if one level is high above another. Perspective Absence, which means that if you can’t see something it does not exist. If there is a gap in the pathway simply move the field of vision to block the gap and then your Avatar will walk across no problem. Perspective Landing, which means that if there is a black hole in the ground your character will fall directly below the hole. Place the hole above where you want to fall and you will fall there. Perspective Jump is exactly what is says and means when the character walks across a white circle on the ground they jump directly above (I still haven’t mastered this one yet). And Perspective Existence, which means that if there is a jump pad or hole in the ground if you block it by changing the view than it does not exist.

The laws determine what you can do in each level. There are fifty-six levels ranging from A level to G level in difficulty. I’m still in the middle of the Bs myself but man they’re already getting hard. Of course, I say that not having exactly the most spatially organized mind in the world. For those of you who love spatial puzzles this game is like the Holy Grail.

If the difficulty range isn’t enough to satisfy you, then create your own level! A level creator usually means nothing to me. D and Toku are the Dungeon Masters in this crew, but I tried it out just playing around adding holes and jump pads, making irregular shapes that don’t make sense in reality and stringing them around one another in an asymmetrical pattern (which annoys me to no end since I love symmetry). Then I played my seemingly impossible and random dreamscape. Huzzah! Success! Within a short period of time I had reunited three Echoes and won my map. I actually didn’t believe it. What I had thought was nonsense became sense. The unreal solidified in clear cut lines of logic. Really the only word that can describe my surprise is “agog”. I was agog. I was delighted.

For the same reason I feel I can’t play chess, I don’t feel I’m very good at design or map making. This game proved my insecurity was without merit. I truly believe that a newbie like me or a master like Toku can create maps that will work because this game engine’s sole purpose is to make sense out of nonsense. The five laws of this world defy your own senses and understanding of physics and open your mind to another reality. That is excellent game play. That is excellent game design.

I’ve spent hours focused and concentrated on this game, some times getting frustrated and having to move on to another map before finally figuring out another. But that is amazing to me, that wonderful brain workout that you’re not even aware your mind is going through because you are so entangled with the play. I actually feel really good each time I finish a map. Like it’s almost like a rush of adrenaline. I get a rush figuring out a “simple” puzzle! Brilliant.

This game is one of my favourite games so far this year. While all my friends are off being Niko Bellic I’m perfectly happy to stay a faceless, nameless, colourless Avatar. The game is available on the PS3 and PSP, I have both versions for home and mobile play. The PlayStation Store recently realigned their prices as well, so now Canadian prices are an exact match with American ones. Awesome. Both versions retail at $9.99 and I have to say, at the price of two Venti Soy Chai Lattes, that’s a perfectly fair trade for me. I spent way more on Brain Age and I never play that anymore. Math can suck it when I have to actually do it.

Spatial problems with no multiplication necessary?

Brilliant.

This is my new fav game right now, and that’s just from playing the demo.

The simply beauty of the game makes me weep, the gentle tutorial swept me off my feet and I was hooked. I’m not really a puzzle game person but this one is so relaxing and yet challenging.

The point of the game is to move your character across the playing field to connect with its echo (a black version of the character). The playing field itself is a simple line drawing that can be rotated in various ways. For instance, the character may be headed for a gap in the pathway, but with a slight rotation you can cover the gap with another part of the map and the character will walk across because you’ve changed the perspective and it can no longer detect a gap. Amazing! I know it sounds simple and it is, but it can get tricky and there are also obstacles like holes and jump pads. Drop down a hole and you will end up directly below so you line up the map to reflect where you want your character to fall. Same with the jump pad only you go up instead of down. Fascinating!

The game uses the Object Locative Environment Coordinate System created by Jun Fujiki. The pathways/maps are all based on Oscar Reutersvärd’s “impossible constructions” which are mind tingling to look at on their own anyway. Once you add all that perspective manipulation, well, you can see why my brain is very happy at the moment.

The music is a violin melody that is very soothing and also motivating. It’s like your brain is gently swimming though maths…If that makes any sense. The loop is fairly short, only a few minutes long, but I can’t really tell, it’s all so seamless in my ears. The music makes me ache inside.

Check out the trailer and play this game as soon as you can!

The game is PS3 and PSP exclusive and I’m getting the full PSP version as soon as it’s out. Pretty much gonna be my PSP game for the foreseeable future I think…

I’ve been separated from my beloved PS3 for a few months, but finally we are as one again. This reunion happily fell just days before the PlayStation Network’s super sexy overhaul.

My first forray into the PlayStation Network was rife with discomfort. Oh, buying things was easy and I greatly appreciated seeing the actual cost of what I purchased and not a fancy free points system. The problem was the interface, which looked far too much like a computer screen and lacked the ease of Live. A pointer is not what I want to be using on my consoles, I wish to navigate simply with ups and downs and the like, not move the cursor over this way and that.

Yet, regardless of the look, I adore the PSN, I’m absolutely ga-ga over the thing! All the games I’ve downloaded are original, quirky, and so much fun! When I had to part with my PS3 I was so worried, what would happen to all my games? Would they suffer the same fate as my Live Arcade titles? Would I be able to download them and only be able to play them on the console they were originally downloaded on unless connected to the intertubes?

I fretted. I worried.

But it’s no worries! No frakking worries whatsoever!

My interface concerns are completely cured, the new store is sexy fine and so easy to navigate it’s like eating a cookie – you know just what to do! And downloading all my games again couldn’t be easier. Just go to Downloads, click on the titles, download again, and bam! All my games back with me again in the realsies. Ah, love it.

The rocky, epic cliff of a start the PS3 was cursed with is finally coming to an end on so many levels. The new store is great and when you depend so much on wee dowloadable games, like I do, having a solid center for that is a must. I’m very pleased with the changes.

And Haze will be coming out soon, May 20th (* cough * Captain Janeway’s birthday * cough *), with a single and multiplayer demo coming soon. Fresh off the Ubisoft press release:

Coming exclusively to the PLAYSTATION®Network in early May, this playable demo will give gamers a taste of not only the single-player campaign in Haze, but will also allow up to four-player, drop-in drop-out co-op play online.

Did you hear that? Drop-in drop-out co-op!!! Joy of joys! I’m looking forward to Haze because I love futuristic shooters and I love co-op shooters as well.

With all the talk about Mircosoft’s situation in bowing to Sony regarding the 360’s Blu-ray impotence I was reminded of the below…

At around :50 seconds is how Sony must feel right about now.

Just substitute Skeletor for Sony…

Toku, Nadine and D discuss the news of the day, including the February console sales figures, a potential ‘open platform’ console/gaming PC from Acer, and the pricing issues with downloadable content.

The music: the tracks “Dirty Cartridge” and “For the Meek” by NES musician SLiVeR, available here from the Pterodactyl Squad, a video game music netlabel. The album is awesome, and free, so go get it!

Angry Robot Sounds 12 (31MB mp3, 32mins)

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Winter is made for gaming. With the blizzards we’ve been having in my city, gaming has practically been hibernation for me, allowing me to fully enjoy the season’s hottest games while snow slowly tries to bury me alive. One of my favorites has been the recently released Devil May Cry 4.

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To double-dip in the ‘NPD group sales reports’ dip bowl: January sales reports are in, and the PS3 has outsold the 360, PSP and the DS for the month. And with 269,000 units to the Wii’s 274,000, damned near beat out the Wii, too, which would have taken a dump in everyone’s “casual games are the future” theories.

OK let me never again mention dump-taking and dip bowls in the same paragraph.

Why did this happen? Well, there’s that thing called Blu-Ray. Also, supplies of both other consoles may have been constrained. And I do think the 360’s hardware problems are catching up with it – more than once, people asking me for console-buying advice have voiced concern that the 360 would fall apart on them.

Adorable + Addictive + Quirky = Too Much Fun!

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Okay so I don’t know jack all about the Devil May Cry series, and right now I’ve been estranged from my PS3 (it’s temporary but already I feel this horrible ache to have her back, it’s horrible really) and I’m not going to be playing it on the 360. Anyway, these dudes at PS3 Fanboy made a retrospective of the series and if you are like me and want to play the next installment but have no idea what it’s about, then enjoy.

We recorded this yesterday after a nice Rock Band session; it’s Mags Nadine and D and we discuss that very same band-rocking game, party games, casual games, genre in games, and more about Playstation Network and Xbox Live Arcade games. Plus, many tangents! And a botched opening.

Angry Robot Sounds 10 (22MB mp3, 24mins)

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Hello Internets!

A thrilling new installment of the action-packed, high-octane Angry Robot podcast experience. Topicz: our favourite new headscratcher of a game Kingdom Under Fire: Circle of Doom, Xbox Live vs. The Playstation Store / network thing, Blu-Ray wins but will inevitably lose to the Flesh Drive aka synthetic fat man full of hard drives who follows you around.

This episode features the debut of the Technical Difficulties Theme, on account of – you guessed it! Technical difficulties. Awesome!

Hay, I just noticed that the acronym for our new crush is KUF: COD. Catchy!

Next week we’re totally doing the podcast again and I’m gonna try to put EVEN MORE exclamation points into the writeup!!!!!!!!!

Angry Robot Sounds 9 (22MB mp3, 24mins)

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So it’s over. Warner is dropping HD DVD support and going all Blu-Ray, all the time, and the rumour has it that Paramount, and Universal will follow when their contracts run out in a few months, completely ending studio support of the format. Warner’s reasoning is as follows (from the press release):

The window of opportunity for high-definition DVD could be missed if format confusion continues to linger. We believe that exclusively distributing in Blu-ray will further the potential for mass market success and ultimately benefit retailers, producers, and most importantly, consumers.

I.e. if we’re not careful, people will give up on HD discs altogether and stick with their DVDs. Clearly they have data indicating that HD disc player sales lag far behind HD monitor sales, which is scaring them.

Let’s skip the inevitable discussion of how downloads are the future and just concentrate on one point: Sony was right. About everything. After all the mockery about the ludicrously high price on the PS3 when it came out (because of its Blu-Ray drive), everyone points to the PS3’s Blu-Ray drive as the deciding factor in Blu-Ray’s victory. Yet to be seen is whether a focus on the HD optical drive (Sony) or a focus on games (Nintendo) is the more lucrative path. Yet, console and game sales aside, obviously Sony will clean up with Blu-Ray licensing fees and patent royalties. I just can’t find data on how much money this might make them.

Look! A List! Wow! Tis unique indeed! No seriously! For realsies!

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Everyone else is making lists… I just couldn’t help myself.

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Alright, so I’ve spent enough time with the lovely Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune to talk about it for a bit.

And Ye Be Warned: Here Be Dragons…in the form of PS3 love…

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Okay, so the price has dropped, there are more than a few good games now, and the PlayStation Network is finally starting to get some nifty, addictive titles. Yet given the torrid history of the PS3, does any of that really matter?

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In which we discuss crony capitalism in Baltimore zoning legislation. Nah, we talk about what we’re playing.

Mags – This week I channeled my inner fourth grader with Playground on the Wii. Sure, it’s about as deep as an illiterate cheerleader, but there’s something just so satisfying about whipping your wife’s butt at wallball and paper airplane racing.

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Is this the “Golden Age of Gaming”? Discuss. We did, with reference to Mass Effect, Assassin’s Creed, Zelda, GTA III, Oblivion and our usual share of griping about games media. Cast: Mags, Nadine, D.

Angry Robot Sounds 7 (17MB mp3, 37mins)

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Did I just say that?

You bet your Halo lovin a$$ I did.

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Wow, get a load of this AV Club review: “blunt, dumb, ridiculous, and almost never funny.” We totally didn’t play the same game. Sure, it could be a whole lot better; its shoddy camera nearly wrecked the thing for me. And I’ll admit that the first few levels are probably the weakest. That Lard Lad level is a little too early in the game, and a little too close to the intersection of hard and tedious. But later levels more than make up for it. The Overlord-style controls for Marge (who uses a megaphone to recruit angry mob members) were a great change-up, and who can argue with the boss fights towards the end: Matt Groening, Shakespeare, and God?

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So funny story, this past weekend I arbitrarily decided to go to Northern Digital Expo (NDEX or as we better know it, NAMBLA) and the first Canadian Open Major League Gaming Event (yippee.) I was greeted kindly by a young girl standing beside an enormous bin filled with IceBreakers breath mints and was promptly informed that I entered through the wrong door. Oh well…

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Okay, so playing the Eye of Judgment online is slightly annoying. It took a while for me to join the room my friend had created because while there was a personal invite to join the room (that’s what they call the private game) by the time I accepted it someone else (uninvited) had joined and the room was full. Balderdash to that! It took about six times for us to hook up in the same custom room and then the fun began!

Well, the fun tried to begin.

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Nadine was fired from the show and replaced by the much more Harvest Moon-friendly Mark. Kidding, Nadine will be back next time. In a perfect world, it will be all three of us!

Anyway, Mark and I do go on, about: first person shooters (incl. Halo of course), post-Oblivion RPGs, “you got your narrative chocolate in my nonlinear sandbox experience”, the lack of a good giant robot game, and retired pipefitters playing Wii games. And yes, Mark defends Harvest Moon’s honour.

Angry Robot Sounds 6 (16MB mp3, 49mins)

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Remember when I went on and on about how I thought Sony’s new visual aid video game Eye of Judgement was a bane to childrens’ imaginations? Well, I had some hands on with it…and it’s totally awesome.

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So says research group. We’ll see what happens with the PS3 price cut.

So I played about an hour and a half of this reportedly six hour game (I wanted to savor its delicious good looks) on the weekend and I have to say wow, sexy, wow.

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Wow, Gamespot was really harsh with Lair.

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Currently Playing: Guitar Hero II, “Thunderhorse” by Dethlok
Reasoning: Fulfilling my inner cartoon Metalhead’s desire to rock out.
Thinking About: Bioshock, Heavenly Sword, Yahtzee’s Reviews

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Topics: Heavenly Sword, PS3 vs. 360, the problem with talking about games before they come out, immersive games and film, Oblivion, hesitancy to commit to World of Warcraft.

Angry Robot Sounds #3 (13MB mp3, 29mins)

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