Yes I know that most of you are watching the Super Bowl XLV at the moment but there’s always a little time to enter a competition to win something cool.
Tell us who you think is going to win this years Super Bowl and win yourself a video game. (Could be on XBOX, PS3, Wii or PC)
Who’s got what it takes .. The Green Bay Packers or the Pittsburgh Steelers !!
Leave a comment below .. we’ll pick the best comment and award that person a prize.
Of all places to stop for a smoke, teetering on the edge of a cliff face has to be the most daring. This is where players of Modern Warfare 2 first saw the audacious Captain Soap MacTavish, the man they played in the first Modern Warfare. He has now risen to the rank of Captain and is the commanding officer of the elite Task Force 141.
Like many before him, MacTavish has earned a fan following. Gamers are recreating his infamous Mohawk and personifying his cunning, bad arse attitude. But despite his male fan base, there is something sexy and raw about this Scot. It’s not daring to say that Soap has a sex symbol status that will probably keep his legacy alive years after the Modern Warfare series have been shelved.
Since the conception of video games, there have been no shortages of handsome protagonists and their crew. Why? Would males who are indefinitely targeted for combat and war games prefer a good looking main character or someone who have looked to have stepped out from a Brothers Grimm tale? It seems a large majority of Call of Duty characters have some good looks which have been earning a few stares from female gamers (this writer included).
With the newest Call of Duty release, Black Ops, the men in the game are reinforced to look like movie stars. Playable character Alex Mason has a face like Matt Damon and his commanding officer Frank Woods is a replica of Ben Stiller’s Tropic Thunder character Tugg Speedman.
Soap personifies everything a gamer might seek in a character. He’s a bad ass, loyal, dedicated and a hard core military man. What made him this way and can he only grow from here?
Like his predecessor, Captain John Price, a legend in his own right, MacTavish has the opportunity to rival the likes of Dante, Jack Carver, John Marston and even his own second in command, Ghost who has become a soldier after my heart appearing in comic books, YouTube tribute videos and websites.
There is no doubt that a mention of the Call of Duty series can cause the biggest of men to flounder around the floor like a fish. It has become one of the most well known and critically acclaimed franchises in history and it seems the characters that dwell within it become almost as famous as the games.
It took years for the likes of Mario, Lara Croft and Marcus Fenix to reach cult status but can a Scot with a funny hairdo make his mark? Many argue that it was the Captain Price that made the man the way he is. The similarities between both men are noteable: If you look closely at the mission Cliffhanger in Modern Warfare 2, Soap still owns the pistol Price infamously slid to him in the bridge massacre in Call of Duty 4 , he adopts the ‘muppet’ phrase and even enjoys his cigars, all mannerisms made famous by Price.
There has been no confirmation if Soap or his team will appear in the new Modern Warfare 3 when it’s released later this year. But fans can only imagine the trials Soap will find himself in and how much we will enjoy to go along with him.
Mass Effect 2
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Developer: Bioware
Platform: PlayStation 3 (Reviewed), Xbox 360, PC
Release Date: January 18th 2011
Price: $59.99 US, £49.99 UK, $109.99 AUS
Overview:
Over a year ago Mass Effect 2 released on the Xbox 360 and the PC and it was welcomed with open arms as an amazing space epic that took the Mass Effect trilogy and developed it into an amazing story that people can’t wait to finish. Now with Mass Effect 3 just recently announced; what better way to get more people excited than to finally bring Mass Effect 2 to the PlayStation 3. Now there has been over a year since ME2 was released and all of the DLC has been included into the PS3 version of Mass Effect 2, does it still stand as the polished gem that we saw last year or shine brighter than before?
Story:
Now one immediate thing that gamers will realize when they turn on Mass Effect 2 for the PS3 is the fact that it is impossible for them to take and bring any changes to the story over from Mass Effect 1. Also if players had never even tried Mass Effect 1, then wouldn’t they be partially lost when they jump into the story? Not at all.
Mass Effect 2 begins with the loss of the Normandy after it was attacked by an unknown ship, causing the crew to scatter and Commander Shepard to be killed in action. Now while killing your main character off right at the start of the game isn’t your standard storyline setting but it does bring about the reason that Shepard starts from scratch in ME2. Now those familiar with the choice system and it’s effects on the storyline will immediately realize that there are going to be certain choices that can’t be made due to the fact that Mass Effect 1 is not available on the PS3, but this is negated due to an interactive comic called Mass Effect: Genesis.
This comic is very useful for those who never played the first game as it introduces some of the main plot lines that drove Mass Effect along. But one thing that is essential to this experience is the fact that during the comic flashback you will be able to make choices which impact parts of ME2 as if you had actually ported your save file from ME1. Now this comic book obviously doesn’t portray the most in-depth parts of the storyline and may leave players wanting more structure, but it does its job well enough to establish the backstory for what you will be experiencing in ME2.
The storyline itself is amazing to experience and the amount of different choices that you can make, while not always game changing, are countless. There are a number of choices that make you feel like you are truly the hero of the galaxy, or the tyrant of the galaxy depending on your Paragon and Renegade choices respectively. As soon as you are brought back to life by Cerberus you may be chained to the will of the Illusive man, but your life is still your own and so is your free will.
The highlight of the entire game however is the fact that your crew members all have different pasts and stories. Sure you will see some old faces to fight on your side, but even they are expanded upon and fleshed out so that by the end of your journey you will truly grow attached to each of your crew members, especially if you completed their Loyalty missions which delve deep into their history.
The inclusion of the extra storylines from the DLC such as Overlord, Kasumi’s Stolen Memory and Lair of the Shadow Broker works flawlessly when integrated into the game. Back when these DLCs were released individually many players had already beaten the game and finished the main storyline. The fact of the matter was that anyone who bought the DLC would have to go back from what they experienced and finish it up then. With these DLCs being available during the normal storyline without any backtracking it truly feels like you are playing a much grander space opera than you would have minus this content.
Graphics:
Now Mass Effect 2 may be a game from a year past, but judging from what you will see and experience there will not be much to show that age. The PlayStation 3 version provides perhaps the best use of lighting I’ve seen in a video game perhaps ever. The neon lights of the Afterlife Nightclub are absolutely amazing and are a great example of what lighting can do for a game.
Beyond that the character models and designs are as impressive as they previously were with not much of a difference in appearance. Supposedly BioWare used the Mass Effect 3 engine to animate the characters but I noticed nothing different. This isn’t a bad thing however as the animation and faces of the characters are very impressive and can be said to be some of the best you will find for an RPG of this magnitude. Also it is worth mentioning that Mass Effect: Genesis was illustrated by Dark Horse comics whom produced top quality drawings and an interesting take on the characters when drawn by hand.
Now there are minor graphical hiccups here and there. There are slowdowns during heavy action sequences with minor drops in frame rate when loading up a populated area. Despite the fact that there is slowdown in some areas the game usually runs quite flawlessly, especially after the long install on the hard drive of the PS3. The game froze suddenly twice during my playthrough with little reason, as one of these freezes happened during mining a planet.
Audio:
One thing you will notice is that the ME2 features a lot of talking. Everything in ME2 is fully voiced by top of the line voice actors and there are plenty to hear as you play through the game. The storyline and the characters would not feel as alive as they do when they are combined with the presence of great voicework. To top that off the musical score is simply amazing. The award winning music and background noise is very impressive and is what one would expect from a space opera. There was one instance where the audio cut out temporarily during Jack’s loyalty mission which had me reading lips and subtitles but it fixed itself immediately when I left the area.
Gameplay:
Mass Effect 2 can be seen as a streamlined experience as far as an RPG standpoint is concerned. There is no need to micromanage your characters anymore and even leveling up and equipping your crew has been made very simple. Of course this means that nothing has changed structurally from the 360 and PC version, but this is for the better considering ME2 has been considered one of the best games in the past few years.
Battles in ME2 still occur in real time and feature your usual shooting elements which we have grown accustomed to over the years. The cover based system is used extensively which means that Shepard will be hiding quite often to either let his Biotic powers recharge or to recover health because health automatically regenerates along with your shield. Guns will need to be reloaded as they use ammo and no longer simply overheat. As before every time that you kill an enemy you then level up.
However leveling up isn’t quite as complicated as it was before. Rather than having multiple skills to level up and power up, your Shepard will only have four abilities to worry about which you can choose depending on your class at the beginning of the game. Also you have the option to allow the game itself to auto-level your skills for those who aren’t heavily concerned with character building. There is also a station where you can perform upgrades to your ship which, trust me, you will want to do.
It is worth mentioning that besides getting all of the different storyline DLC, you will also get every weapon, armor, visor, etc. that has ever been released so far for Mass Effect 2. This means that you will have access to the Blood Dragon armor immediately along with a number of different weapons that would have required either a pre-order before or a download of a DLC pack for weaponry alone.
Besides the battling and shooting of course there is the way the stories develop through talking and exploring the world around you. The conversations you have with various NPCs are directed by a dialogue wheel where you are able to select your responses. While most of these responses are not universe changing and are simply there to find out more information, there are those that will change your Paragon and Renegade points.
Paragon and Renegade are basically your good and evil spectrum, but rather than become a scale of what your player is, they are two separate bars which fill up depending on the choices you make. Besides the Paragon and Renegade choices in the dialogue trees you also occasionally are presented with actions you can perform immediately during a scene which will perform an action depending on your Paragon or Renegade choice. These options aren’t very well hidden however as Paragon responses will always be on top, while Renegade will be on the bottom. Building your Paragon and Renegade meters unlocks different conversation options which affect the world and your crew members even more than standard choices.
One part still remains quite annoying however, resource gathering. The resources, which are required to upgrade your ship, build new weapons, etc. are all mined from planets which is a very arduous process regardless of your upgraded probe size and ability to scan slightly faster when you upgrade it. This mini-game is unfortunately very time consuming and it is very hard to enjoy or have fun, even when you find a planet rich in minerals.
Overall:
Mass Effect 2 has never been better than it is right now. The integration of the DLC missions into the storyline seem flawless now that they have been pre-loaded into the game and having all of the special weaponry is an added plus. For the most part a lot of things will appear just as you will remember them if you had access to the Xbox 360 copy, but much better. Despite the fact that there is the occasional slowdown and possible freeze the game has never had as good of graphics as it does on the PlayStation 3. There shouldn’t even be an option to not pick up Mass Effect 2, and if you haven’t picked it up yet, now is the time.
I give Mass Effect 2 for the PlayStation 3
530 Eco Shooter
Platform: Nintendo WiiWare (Reviewed)
Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Intelligent Systems
Genre: Rail Shooter
Release Date: December 21, 2009
Price: 1000 Nintendo Points
The wii console actually has a nice variety of rail shooter games for the platform, but out of all of them, 530 Eco Shooter is probably the most bizarre. Your not shooting terroists, your not shooting zombies and your not just shooting targets in a shooting rage. Nope. Your shooting evil, animated cans that are trying to take over the world that also wish to kill you. Yeah, you heard right-cans! From tin cans to oil drums, your shoot killer cans. But it’s not completely lame, because their possessed by bad guy aliens called ‘cannoids’ or something. Before your completely turned off the game however, its developed by Intelligent Systems, who do the Fire Emblem and Advanced Wars Series, and 530 Eco Shooter actually includes a few rather unique and interesting features that saves the game from being just silly, and makes it actually pretty good for a Wiiware title.
Can it, Tin Man!
530 Eco Shooter is a little similar in a zombie shooter like House of the Dead, with enemies coming towards you or throwing projectiles and if they get within a certain range, they will attack cause you to loose energy, and if your energy is depleted, it’s game over. The interesting twist to this title however is its theme of recycling with the protagonist’s recycling gun. Firing of the weapon causes energy to drain, so a strategy is needed to decide between taking single shots or using rapid fire, as firing aimlessly could literally kill you. At first it may seem a little annoying, but really its encourages and rewards you for your accuracy rather than be randomly and aimlessly firing at random. So this doesn’t kill you though, you have the interesting idea of recycling opponents. After defeating someone, energy is left behind and can be sucked by your weapon to re-fill your energy. However, it can overheat so players must keep this in mind. This depth of gameplay in a rail shooter is really seldom seen and its really nice to see. A few negative points really bring the game down. Firstly your targets don’t stand out so your never really sure who, what or where your looking for and on some rare occasions it can be be an issue. Also, while the system is slightly deep and the ideas are original, your still just shooting cans. For the exception of bosses and a few select enemies, your never really feel threatened so even in hard situations there isn’t much of a thrill from shooting your enemies. Level design is also very basic and uncreative, which is a shame. Boss battles though are a bright highlight, filled with intensity and challenges, just the way they should be. Players can play with the Wiimote as well as the Wii Zapper, but it makes very little difference to the gameplay. Sadly, there’s no inclusion of a multiplayer or time trial modes which could’ve easily been added which could’ve made the game much more interesting.
530 Eco Shooter has a nice recycling theme to it. Unfortunately there is no vegan punk rock sound track or Captain Planet cameos, or anything cool about the enviroment involved other than a gun. Oh wait sorry, it’s a Recycling Gun.
One of the highlights about 530 Eco Shooter is its done with 3D graphics, which arn’t commonly seen in Wiiware titles. The graphics are actually not too bad, and are on par with some average Gamecube and PS2 games. The textures arn’t the most impressive, but they do their job. The protagonist is nicely presented too. Its a shame however he is not seen in cut scenes to tie a story together which would’ve been nice, but its understandable as its just a Wiiware title. As previously mentioned, a big downer of the graphics is how your targets don’t stand out as much as they should, so your never really know what to shoot at. Audio is decent but nothing outstanding. Sound effects are ok and the music is fine, other than the theme song in the the main menu which I personally found very irritating, sounding like a jingle from a terrible detergent or fabric softener commercial, however some may enjoy it, it just seems out of place for a rail shooter title.
Remember kids: Recycle! Or your rubbish may or may not kill you!
530 Eco Shooter is not a bad game, its just not a great one. It’s nice to see decent 3D graphics in a Wii game, and it includes some interesting ideas into the gameplay which are very unique. Intelligent Systems took a risk with this game which is admirable, not everybody is going to choose to shoot flying pepsi cans over zombies and terrorists which is admirable, it just sadly didn’t pull through as an epic win for the Wiiware. Worth picking up for hardcore tigger-happy rail shooter fans, but I wouldn’t recommend killing for it.
530 Eco Shooter for the Wiiware gets a decent:
Talented artist and youtuber Harry Partridge is pretty excited about Skyrim (as are most of us). Known for his funny videos and parodies, he decided to create a little buzz for Skyrim by making this awesome song and video. Check it out, it’s sure to make you chuckle.
Bionic Commando Rearmed 2
Platform: PSN & XBLA
Publisher: Capcom
Developer: Fatshark
Release Date: Feb 1, 2011 (XBLA) Feb 2, 2011 (PSN)
Price: 1200 MS points/$15
Bionic Commando Rearmed 2 (not to be confused with Bionic Commando 2, the failed franchise reboot that released in 2009) is a sequel to the retro remake of the original Bionic Commando that was released on the NES. Keeping in line with Capcoms “living in the past” attitude, the game is made to mimic the restricted development of titles from the 90’s, much like its predecessor. However, in this latest installment the developers decided to be a little risky and add in the ability to jump (gasp!). Let’s see if this modern addition, among a few others, is enough to ruin the game or help
Story
Alright, I’m just going to say this now, there isn’t much story. You are 90’s era badass Nathan Spencer sporting the good ol’e spiky hair and manly mustache he was known for (also his big, bionic arm). You are part of a special team of bionic commandos (hey! That’s the title!) on a mission to rescue your former captain and confront Fidel Castro…errr…I mean General Vicente Sabio, dictator of the “Papagayan Islands” (totally not Cuba, nope)
The story is little more than an explanation as to why you are doing the things you are doing. You can get through the game without ever paying attention to the story and nothing will be different. A handful of cutscenes or dialogue contain tongue-firmly-planted-in-cheek jokes and one-liners that would only make your grandma laugh. The name of the game here is corny, pure 90’s style.
Gameplay
So this is where I’m going to do the most talking since much needs to be explained. I preface this section with the sentence, “Remember this is a RETRO game.”. However, just because it is made to feel like it was made in the 90’s does not mean it WAS made in the 90’s. Technology has allowed us to make a FEW improvements in the creation and development of games and so you should keep that in mind throughout this review.
First and foremost, the grapple. The grapple is essentially what made this franchise initially successful, without it it was just another piece of shovelware at the time. You use your grapple to deflect attacks, grab objects and latch onto ceilings and overhangs to traverse the level. Traditionally this was the ONLY way you were able to get airborne, even in the first remake, Bionic Commando Rearmed (1). In Rearmed 2, thankfully (and much to the chagrin of the hardcore retro fanatic) there is a jump button. The jump isn’t like Masterchief’s or Samus’s moon jump, but it will at least aid in your travels. For all of you diehard Bionic Commando fans (if these even exist), the game rewards you with an achievement/trophy for never jumping, so at least you have that to look forward to since each and every level has been designed to be beaten WITHOUT the use of jumping, jumping just helps (a lot).
Second is the difficulty, which is to say moderate. This isn’t Mega Man challenging, but to the average gamer it will provide a challenge. On the “normal” difficulty setting you lose about 1/3 to 1/4 of your health from taking a bullet from an enemy. Luckily, enemies only shoot one bullet every 5 or 10 seconds (even though they have a machine gun, more retro inspired backpeddling). They also take about 10 shots to die, but you can mash the shoot button to dole out the damage relatively quickly, not to mention you get a handful of weapons that prove much more efficient.
Lumped into this difficulty is also the controls. Much of the game surrounds the use of the bionic arm (grapple). You use it to pick up barrels, flip switches and swing around, swinging being it’s most needed function. As you progress the game will require you to make more and more precise maneuvers with the grapple while swinging, which to some will seem downright impossible if not only because of the way the grapple is implemented. You can only shoot the grapple in 3 directions, Up, Diagonal Up and to the side. When I say 3 I MEAN only three, none of this “wherever the analog stick is pointing” nonsense like gamers have come to expect. This becomes an issue when pressing the grapple button will have it shoot diagonally by default unless you are holding up for up (duh) or…get this, down for to the side. I really can’t explain to you how frustrating it is to try and manage with that while swinging around trying to grapple JUST the right spot to make up into a secret area. Having “shoot to the side” mapped to down is completely counterintuitive and will likely serve as nothing more than a thorn in the players side.
Movement is very “clunky” (again made to feel like a retro title, not an improvement). While the game does look very good, graphically, it’s better to just imagine it as an assortment of blocks. By that I mean don’t think you can “cheat” the game by timing a jump just right and managing to get to an area that would have required more work. The jump is only one “block” (or half-block, it seems) high and only 1 block long, so it won’t get you very far. Due to your grapples poorly developed directional issues, if you make a wrong jump or grapple and find yourself quickly falling into a pit, there isn’t much you can do. You can ONLY latch onto ceilings and overhangs, not walls so you will need to hope there is an overhang on your way down or you aren’t making it back alive.
Enough complaining, I’ll explain a typical level. You mainly go from point A to point B, left to right (with some vertical travel thrown in) while taking down a few guards along the way. As you progress you find new items and abilities such as a grenade, health regen (never use anything else but this) electric arm, etc.. These are all used to get through the level in a sort of metroidvania fashion. I mention metroidvania because you will come across obstacles or secrets that you can’t access until you have an ability or item that you find later in the game, requiring some backtracking. Some don’t like that, but honestly I love that mechanic, it rewards exploration and experimentation, two things that video games are based on so kudos to you Rearmed 2. At several points you are told to hold the right trigger to enter “biovision” to essentially pause the game and began scanning the screen for marked set pieces and objects. Once found, hover over them and press a button to find out more info, be it tips on how to play, what to do or what an enemies weak spot is. Toted as a new and innovative feature, it’s pretty forgettable. Useful for when you are just starting out and finding out what a bosses weak spot is but it is by no means a core mechanic that will change the way you play. At the end of some levels are “bosses”. I use quotes because at the start these are nothing, one is a soldier with a helmet that you need to grapple to weaken, another is a tiny R2D2-like robot that you need to grapple to weaken, etc.. They generally don’t pose much of a threat, though later on you fight some pretty monstrous bosses like a giant robotic monkey. Nice sense of progression, but the beginning is a bit too rinky-dinky if you ask me.
Presentation
Aside from the poor, retro mechanics that plague the title, the game actually looks quite good. Sporting that pseudo 2d-3d style that is gaining popularity (much to the thanks of Shadow Complex), graphically the game hits the mark. Unlike Shadow Complex, however, Rearmed 2 doesn’t make much use of the background or foreground. It’s more just a visual style than it is part of the experience. Basically what I’m saying is, they could have done without it and the game would be no different, it just looks nice. Upgrades and collectables visually appear and change on Nathan which is a nice touch as some games simply refuse to do that (cough cough FINAL FANTASY cough cough). Animations look smooth even if they act clunky, set pieces are somewhat interactable at times such as a truck backing into playable space to unload a soldier, pulling on a support beam to cause a ceiling to collapse, etc.. The audio is VERY retro, which some may like. It’s not my cup of tea but that is a matter of preference, so to each his own. One thing I will say, however, is that in a handful of the levels, part of the music involves a repetitive chime or jingle which might trick you into thinking something you are doing is affecting the game. It’s just part of the music so don’t panic. Also to be noted is the game’s length, which is actually pretty substantial. The game will take you 10-15 hours to beat and collect everything which honestly is pretty good for a digital game. Some full-priced retail games last shorter than that.
Final Thoughts
Bionic Commando Rearmed 2 isn’t bad (you know a game is great when the reviewer needs to emphasize that) but it isn’t great. If you are REALLY itching for some hardcore retro action with an updated look, I would suggest you look for something else like the Mega Man games, Castlevania or Shadow Complex. Heck even Metroid Other M might work. But with a $15 price tag and restrictive DRM (it REQUIRES that you be online while you play, if you aren’t online then you CANNOT play it) I really can’t recommend this game to anybody with all honesty. If there is ever a sale that brings it down to $10 (preferable 7 or 8, half of the original price) or a change of heart from Capcom with the ridiculous DRM then I would feel better recommending this, but at the current price point with it’s restrictive DRM and handful of problems this title really isn’t worth picking up.
As it currently stands, Bionic Commando Rearmed 2 gets…
A few days ago, THQ revealed their Fiscal 2011 Third Quarter Results and it had a bit of news on the latest Company of Heroes title & WWE Online which were both slated to release in the future. Unfortunately, it appears that both titles have now been officially canceled. THQ had this statement in their report:
In the fiscal third quarter, the company reevaluated its strategy of adapting certain Western content for free-to-play online games in Asian markets. As a result, the company’s fiscal third quarter non-GAAP results exclude a charge of $9.9 million related to the cancellation of Company of Heroes Online and WWE Online.
Company of Heroes has quite a following, so I am sure Relic will find a new publisher or continue on just fine. What strikes me as odd though is that WWE Online has been scrapped when WWE Smackdown vs Raw 2011 was being boasted earlier in the results as shipping 2.7 million units so far. I can understand cost-cutting procedures, but WWE titles sell like wildfire for THQ and to see a title with great potential cut so soon is rather disappointing. Then again, with the other upcoming THQ titles such as Homefront, WWE All Stars, and de Blob 2, 2011 just may be a fantastic year for the company. I think only time will tell if we see WWE Online ever surface again, but for now wrestling fans will have to get their online fix with e-feds and SvR 2011’s online features.
Crazy Spammer
Developer/Publisher: Undercoders
Platform: iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad
Genre: Action/Puzzle
Released: 3 February
Price: (US)$0.99
BUY NOW
Chances are if you’ve got an email address, then you have experienced spam at one time or other. Some email services manage to filter it out and either mark it as spam or send it the junk inbox, but would you be happy to do this if you knew spam was actually a cute little guy on a mission to visit everyone’s computers whilst being on the run from the Internet Police. This is the situation Crazy Spammer puts you in: you play as Little Spammy as he traipzes across the internet on his journey to deliver as many spam messages as possible without being snuffed by interferences like the Internet Police, internet security and firewalls, and spam filters.
The gameplay is puzzle-orientated, although unlike a lot of puzzle games, this game can easily come under an ‘action’ heading as well, with frequent frantic encounters with different types of obstacles for you to overcome on your journey to guide Little Spammy through the pipelines of the internet. Little Spammy moves of his own accord but you must shape the world around him and organise the various routes of the internet to guide him to his destinations by sliding the tiles. This may sound simple, but when you take into account that there are the Internet Police roaming through the circuit on some tiles, and computers put up firewalls and spam filters after visits which then need to be dealt with before visiting again, it quickly becomes very tricky indeed.
It offers an easy to learn but difficult to master style of play. When you first play it the simplicity of it makes it seem easy: it looks slow paced and relatively basic. But the introduction of just one Netcop or a firewall can take the game to a whole new level. With these hurdles in the way, you have to focus not only on organising the puzzle, but evading the Internet Police and picking up a power-up to remove the firewall blocking access to one of the docking stations. It is also difficult to master because of the sheer range of advanced techniques the simple mechanics open up. Soon you learn to move the tile Little Spammy is on, on top of the ones around him, to open up a whole new play-style.
And this is just the easy mode. You may find yourself getting in a tangle in this mode once all the games features are put into use, but the game comes in three difficulty modes, Easy, Normal and Hard, meaning anyone looking for a challenge needn’t look any further. What may at first look as shallow as a puddle turns out to be as endless as an ocean – it is completely mind-boggling at times and one small lapse in concentration usually spells disaster.
However, this isn’t to say it is inacessible. Because it is basic at heart, anyone can play it and enjoy it – the range of difficulty levels futher cement this point. The cutesy art-style brings a life to spam that almost creates a feeling of empathy, and the game has a sense of humour that will keep you on your toes and ensure that it isn’t bog-standard grinding to get a high score, as there is certainly some laughs to be had at Undercoders imagining of the Internet.
Overall, Undercoders have created a nice blend of action and puzzle, which when combined with the charming concept and presentation, produces a fast-paced and somewhat addictive game. Features such as highlighting your character’s trajectory are thoughtful inclusions which help the game to run smoothly and caters for younger players too, but a steep difficulty curve could prove too much for some. Crazy Spammer, quite literally, provides a bang for your buck. The presentation is good, it offers a range of difficulty and it is a fairly original too. The sound effects are a bit naff and aren’t really up to scratch, but considering it is only $0.99, you can hardly complain.
The verdict: A cheap thrill that’s not for everyone but definitely worth a blast at that price.
Pros
Cons
Remember back when you were younger and Power Rangers were great sources of watching teenage kids beating the snot out of monsters in completely unbelievable costumes and combine-able robot animals to form the Megazord? Well they are actually still around even though there have been so many iterations now that Zordon is nothing but a distant memory.
Regardless of that fact however, Namco Bandai has just partnered up with Saban Brands which owns the rights to Power Rangers Samurai. The samurai Power Rangers will master the ancient Samurai Symbols of Power and control the elements of nature like Fire, Water, Sky, Forest and Earth. There master (not Zordon) will be called Ji and their Zords will be a lion, dragon, ape, turtle and bear.
Carlson Choi who is the VP of Marketing at Namco Bandai had this to say about their new partnership with Saban Brands:
“As we kick off the year as the new NAMCO BANDAI Games, strategic partnerships are a key focus for us. Under this new partnership, I look forward to leveraging our strengths and capabilities with Saban Brands to increase our mutual reach with high quality game content. We are definitely excited to bring the Power Rangers series under our roster of titles.”
What type of game would you want them to make, considering its been years since a Power Rangers game was even made? Apparently the first game will feature the Power Rangers Samurai, which mark the 19th season of Power Rangers.
Never say that a used game company hasn’t done anything for you, at least not if you are living in the UK that is. GAME, the UK retailer, has listed up an edition of Yakuza 4 that is called the Kuro Edition. Kuro means black in Japanese, such as kuroneko meaning black cat. Now this Kuro Edition will include a steel casing to help protect your usual flimsy plastic game case.
Despite the fact that the steel case is nice already, there are additional in-game contests which include new costumes for all of the in game characters, such as the wrestling outfits and suits seen above. Also given out is a survival mode where you must battle against bosses from the game, a underground fighting arena, and a racing mode apparently. Perhaps the most interesting feature for this package is the fact that it costs the exact same amount as your standard edition game, which is listed at £49.99. There is no sign of this edition going international at this point in time.
