This Week’s Games

The summer is here! Or at least, it is if this week’s rather slim looking release list is to go by.

If you can stomach the clichéd sci-fi setting then The Conduit on Wii might be up your alley. Reviews have been around the 7 mark. Unless you read EDGE, who gave it a 4. There’s a special edition doing the rounds, with a tips guide and various unlockable extras.

On Xbox 360 there’s the Oblivion and Bioshock Double Pack. £24.99 gets you both games, but not the Oblivion expansion packs that were included in the GOTY edition it would seem.

Then on PSP there’s Pro Cycling Manager 2009 which is bound to sell literary dozens of copies. And that’s your lot for this week.

Next week: Hysteria Hospital: Emergency Ward, Line Rider: Freestyle, The Bigs 2 and Calvin Tucker’s Redneck Jamboree. Eh?

Essentially an unofficial third movie of sorts - which cleverly uses characters and locations from the two films - you’re cast not into the slime covered boots of Ray, Peter, Egon or Winston but rather a nameless rookie. Egon doesn’t let the poor chap say his name with his reason being that as soon as you name something you’ll get attached to it. Becoming a Ghostbuster may not be safe career to take, but if this game is to anything to go by then it’s certainly a fun one.

The tutorial is nicely done, giving you a chance to learn the controls and explore the Ghostbuster HQ at your own leisure. Hint: slide down the fireman pole and you’ll earn yourself a few easy gamerpoints. You’re soon then whisked off to sort out a monstrous problem with the fellow Ghostbusters acting as AI controlled team-mates. They’re actually quite helpful, not only able to give you a hand off the floor but capable of busting ghosts on their own accord.

UK Charts

Nintendo’s Punch Out failed the set the charts ablaze (it didn’t even make it into the top 40, believe it or not) but EA’s Fight Night Round 4 is doing nicely at #1 for its second week. Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10 goes in at #2 with the PlayStation 3 version shifting the most copies.

The top 10 new entries don’t end there. Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood shoots in at #6 while Harry Potter & The Half Blood Prince at #10. I wasn’t expecting Harry to chart so high with the movie release still a week away.

Prototype drops from #2 to #8, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen rises from #6 to 3.

The only other new entry is the duly titled Fallout 3: Game Add on Pack at #27. I might even get round to playing my copy of Fallout 3 some when this year.

If you have an occasional look around the Wii’s Virtual Console section then the Hanabi Festival may ring a bell with you. Nintendo have held a few of these in the past, during which a handful of games that were never released outside of certain countries spring up to download.

They’re at it again this month and it’s a right old mixed bag with highlights including Orge Battle (SNES), Pulseman (Mega Drive), Detana Twin Bee (Turbografx) and Star Tropics II (NES). The other four are Bomberman ’94 (Turbografx), Kirby Dream Land 3 (SNES), Smash Table Tennis (NES) and shoot’em up MUSHA (Mega Drive).

No Nintendo 64 games this time round it would seem, but seeing that Sin & Punishment cost an absurd 1200 Wii Points (200 more than Nintendo 64 games usually cost) it’s not an entirely bad thing.

This Week’s Games

Two games out this week scream big sales at me: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10.

There aren’t many reviews of EA’s latest Potter efforts yet, but the pattern seems to be: console versions reasonable, handheld versions not. Needless to say, it looks like yet another quality outing for that man Tiger Woods.

A vibrant blue PSP is a curious release, given the relative imminence of the UMD-less version. Plus it looks foul.

Back on the software: there’s the well-received wild-west-athon Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360; intriguing astronaut trainer Space Camp for Wii and DS; the apparently rather good DS FPS Moon.

This week’s presumably pointless DS releases are Astrology, Drama Queens and Classic Word Games.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder. That’s not news. Of course it isn’t. But what effect does absence have on games? Now that’s a question, Daniel.

A long haul flight was an excuse to revisit some PSP games of a 2005 vintage. How have they aged?

Wipeout Pure has formed a crusty shell. There’s nothing wrong with it, but after so long without attention, it’s virtually impossible to get in to. I’d really forgotten quite how harsh and unforgiving it is; it’s almost unbelievable that I was once half decent at it.

Conversely, Ridge Racer has retained it’s smooth characteristics. It’s an arcade game, so that’s hardly a surprise. Can we have a new one sometime please? It’s reminded me that racing games don’t have to be all serious and complicated.

Then there’s Lumines, which I still find rather complex and intimidating. It didn’t gel with me at the time, for reasons unknown, but on my first attempt I beat my previous best score. Which is intriguing. Maybe I should give it one final concerted effort. It’s supposed to be good, after all.

UK Chart

Better late than never? Let’s find out!

Fight Night Round 4 - four of them already? - is new, and straight in at #1. Smashing the competition in the face, if you like. Below that, last week’s top four all shuffle down a place, so it’s Prototype - or [PROTOTYPE] as Chart Track prefer - is #2. I’m sure you can do the rest.

The new Transformers tie-in is in at #6, but could rise as more people go to see the film. It might also drop. Or stay where it is. Find out next week!

No sign yet of Ice Age 3, but surely that’ll surface next week.

Let’s polish off the other new entries: Overlord II at #17, yet another Guitar Hero (Greatest Hits in this case) at #18, Monster Hunter Freedom Unite for PSP at #25, Dynasty Warriors 6: Empires - another, really? - at #31, add-on Spore: Galactic Adventures at #37, and Tales of Vesperia at at #38. Plus MySims Racing, in its second week, at #28.

Wii budget jobber Resident Evil Archives takes #8 in the prestigious Wii budget chart; Another Code: R is probably #18 in the full price Wii chart, but it’s down as Another Code: Two Memories, which by my reckoning is the DS game. Which makes my head hurt in this hot weather.

Just a quick one: Microsoft have put a free download of the ‘Thriller’ music video on Xbox Live in tribute to Michael Jackson. Usually it would cost 200 Microsoft points. It’s only going to available for a few days though.

How cool would it be if Sega put the Mega Drive classic Michael Jackson: Moonwalker on Xbox Live Arcade for free? Very, that’s how.

The Conduit on Wii provoked mixed reactions when it was first announced. US videogame sites wet their pants over it while UK sites (not to mention NGamer Magazine, who compared the level design to Doom 64) were less than enthusiastic. Early reviews have been around the 70% mark though, which isn’t too bad.

Where’s this all leading to? Well, a pre-order deal on Play.com caught my eye. For £29.99 you get the game in a special case, a tips guide, three unlockable items and a ball-shaped MP3 player speaker. You can view the offer here.

If The Conduit’s sci-fi setting looks a bit too clichéd for your taste then try Deadly Creatures. I’ve been playing it recently and it’s pleasingly different.

This Week’s Games

Is it Christmas already? With the amount of new games out today you’d think so - there are 12 new Wii games alone. The big multi-format ones though are Overlord 2, Fight Night Round 4, Transformers 2 and Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs. The Wii gets Another Code: R and the budget-priced Resident Evil Archives.

Reviews of Transformers 2 haven’t been too bad. At least the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions, which have online play, haven’t been. Apparently the Wii and PlayStation 2 versions can be finished in around four hours. That’s the same length of the film, isn’t it?

Codemaster’s Overlord 2 should be worth a look - the first was very underrated. Wii and DS owners also get to order evil minions around with Overlord Dark Legend and Overlord Minions. NGamer Magazine liked it on Wii but didn’t think much of the DS romp.

If you’re an Xbox 360 RPG fan and have finished Star Ocean already then you might like Tales of Vesperia. Superstar V8 Racing is also out - Blackbean’s racing games have always been good in the past. I’m going to give Octomania on Wii a mention too - it’s a cheapy puzzle game from Midas Interactive. Now there’s a name you can associate with quality.

Next week: Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, Ready, Steady, Cook: The Game, Rygar: The Battle of Argus and Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2010

Whether you’re a tramp having to make the change from Special Brew to Tesco value lager or an MP having to wipe your arse on £10 notes instead of £20 notes, the credit crunch has affected us all. Here are some tips to get more poorly rendered explosions for your bucks.

Import! The PlayStation 3, PSP and DS are region free while certain Xbox 360 games are too. Not only does the US get some games before us but when the dollar is weak against the pound they can be cheaper. Finding brand new DS releases for under £20 is not uncommon on sites like VideoGamesPlus, Play Asia, DVDBoxOffice and Tronix. Just be aware that you might get stung for customs charges. The sneaky sods.

Pre-order! Get your orders in quick on some websites and you may find yourself saving a few quid. Take Argos as an example - last week they had Halo 3: ODST for £26.99 but quickly upped the price as word spread. High street stores like GameStation and GAME offer extra reward points and occasionally free gifts such as t-shirts or downloadable content if you pre-order.

Bulk buy! No, not multiple copies of the same game, you silly sausage. Both GameStation and Blockbusters have 4 for £20 and 2 for £20 offers on pre-owned games. If lady luck is smiling you could walk away with four decent games for half the price of a new one. Recently I’ve spotted Eternal Sonta, Overlord, Gears of War and Oblivion in a Blockbusters 4 for £20 deal. It all depends though on what your local stores has in stock on the day you visit. Rows upon rows of sports games aren’t uncommon.

Price Match! If you only take one thing away from this feature, then let it be this. CeX is the only retailer that shows their cash and trade in prices on their website. This is ideal to use as a guide as to what your old games are worth, even if you don’t have a CeX near you. Now here’s the good part - GameStation will match their prices and beat them by £1 as long as you take a print out as proof. PC World also has a price match policy - find something cheaper within 30 miles of a PC World store they’ll reduce it by 10%.

Surf! Sites like HotUKDeals let members share their bargains with the World while Amazon Marketplace is far more efficient to buy second-hand games from than eBay. One top tip for Amazon is to change the search results to “Price: Low to High” - by doing so you can find stuff people have put on for literally pence. Another website I like to use now and then is US site SecondSpin that sells second-hand games for jolly nice prices and they re-shrink wrap them. They have free postage deals every couple of months but as mentioned earlier, be wary of customs.

If you shop regularly online then you may want to join Quidco too, and get cashback on some of your purchases. A lot of people swear by it. But not in a foul-mouthed way.

A few weeks back I pre-ordered Transformers 2 (on Xbox 360, if you’re wondering) from GAME for a nice £29.99. On Monday I got an e-mail saying that the order was being processed. Today (Wednesday) I get an e-mail from them saying that the order “cannot be fulfilled on this occasion” and that I’d have to re-order.

My knee-jerk reaction was that they couldn’t take payment from my card, so I called my bank - GAME hadn’t even tried to take a payment. I then phoned GAME, who after putting me on hold for ages, tell me that it was cancelled due the order failing a “security check”. I pointed out that the Transformers 2 is now showing at £39.99 on their site and asked if re-ordered could I get it for the original £29.99 asking price. Their answer? A rather abrupt “no”.

Screw that. GAME can kiss my arse if they think they’re going to get an extra tenner out of me just because of some failed “security check”. The lady on the phone couldn’t even tell me any more information on what this check entails. I reckon they just didn’t want it to go through at the cheaper price.

HMV or Blockbusters can have my money instead. Or maybe Morrisons, who seem to have some decent prices on games now and then.