IGN: not all bad
For this week’s Saturday round up, I’d like to salute IGN UK writer Rob Burman, and his contribution to the art of headline writing. » Livingstone Singapores His Heart Out Ian Livingstone said something in Singapore, so what more could you ask for in a headline? Bonus marks for the word “opined” in the article …
EA Replay
Why EA hadn’t jumped on the retro compilation bandwagon before now is a bit of a mystery. Maybe it’s down to format choice: when the Saturn and PSone were in their prime, the Mega Drive and SNES were still a recent memory. PlayStation 2 and Xbox were probably a contender at one point, but EA …
Relax – we’ve found it
Lost Planet: Extreme Condition, then. It’s Capcom’s second 360-exclusive and apparently a solid – if predictible – shooter. If you’ve still got some extra cash left after the festive season then you might want to get the limited edition version. It comes in a metal case with an art book and a disk containing soundtracks, …
Fare play
One of our predictions for 2007 has become a reality already: the PSP will receive some games that people actually want to play. Crazy Taxi: Fare Wars is a remix of the arcade/Dreamcast original and the ever-so-lacking sequel. The graphics have had a buff and polish, you can now save replays onto a memory card …
Everything Changes But The Chart
“There are new and exciting games available and more and more family orientated and mentally stimulating titles to grasp and hold the interest of all ages.” That’s what ELSPA’s Paul Jackson said about the record breaking software sales of 2006. So where are those “new and exciting” games in the chart of the year? Nowhere. …
Proper education
One moment people – Boris Johnson, specifically – are claiming that videogames are turning children into “blinking, twitching lizards”, the next they’re receiving backing from the Department for Education and Skills. Well, one game is – Buzz: The Schools Quiz. It’s being developed by Brighton-based Relentless Software and will feature 5,000 questions from the Key …
Bully for you (Rockstar)
There’s a small shake up in the top 5 this week, the most noteworthy going on being Canis Canem Edit moving up from #8 to #5. In mid-December it was right down at #23, so it’s good to see it spring back into the top 5. Of course, this is down to it being discounted …
Dreamcast – A New Hope
Although the last PAL Dreamcast titles were released in mid-2002, over in Japan the system keeps on going. In fact, nearly nine years after it was launched in Japan, the start of 2007 will see no less than three new titles reach the hands of hardened Sega fans. Do we need to mention that all …
The name game
Eidos have picked up Spike’s Wii survival romp Necro-Nesia for a western release. They won’t be calling it that over here though. Nope, we get treated to the teeth-grindingly awful Escape from Bug Island. Necro-Nesia might not have meant anything, but at least it didn’t make the game sound like some cheesy 1960s B-movie. When …
Analyse this
There’s nothing like an analyst’s report to pad out a site’s news coverage. It’s been a vintage week. » Gamespot have information from In-Stat that, since there are now more consoles and handhelds with online capabilities, there will be more and more people playing online on console and handhelds in the future. Excellent work, analysts. …
Sega Genesis Collection
Whereas Midway Arcade Treasures 3 stuck to racing games and Taito Legends 2 brought us plenty of previously import-only curios, this thirty-strong collection from Sega is pleasingly wide-ranging. Content spans from 1988’s Super Thunder Blade right up to 1996’s 2D version of Virtua Fighter II. That wasn’t the last game for the Mega Drive – …
Hamsterz
It may have a hateful ‘z’ in the title, but this wasn’t originally anything to do with Ubisoft’s dire Catz and Dogz games. Love Love Hamster is the name it went by in Japan, and it has simply been rebranded to fit into the French publisher’s pet pampering portfolio. Over in the US it has …
Poor Boris
It’s Internet law for us to mention Boris Johnson’s Telegraph column decrying that computer games rot the brain. It’s all too easy to criticise the piece, but there are a couple of genuinely intriguing points. For one thing, Boris clearly thinks that he’s making an original, outrageous point – “it is time someone had the …
Halo and goodbye
A few years back there were rumours of Halo appearing on Game Boy Advance. Certain websites laughed at the idea, but not us: an isometric shooter set in the Halo universe would have worked just fine on the handheld. Plus, when the rumours emerged, Mircosoft were readying a Game Boy Advance version of Xbox launch …
