Episode 31

Sorry again for being late this week.

Direct Download Link!

Anouncements:

Update from listener Chad – Rapala Trophies is a fishing game. The create a character for the second lego game is present.

DS – Onyx (black) and Coral Pink go on sale September 13 in North America.
Mini Reviews:

Madden 07 – Hall of Fame Edition (PS2) – The only NFL licensed game – A solid football game that is packed with tons of features. There is some much to this game that I dont think I can cover them all. Franchise mode for up to 30 season’s – each week has major break downs and practices – hall of fame mode – play now – online – mini camps –
The games overall feel is almost the same as the 2005 offering. The play books are basically the same from 2004. I have now purchased 2 collector editions in the past 2 years. This game is fantastic but to vetrans of the Madden franchise it will feel very familiar.
Infected (PSP) – Action 3rd person shooter. Fast paced action witha focus on combo kills. You are dual wielding a weapon and a viral gun. YOu need to take down the infecteds heallth iwth the weapon then cause them to explode with the viral gun. You can chain multiple zombie explosions together. The multi-player is unique, the winner infects the losers system with their avatar. Th loser can be cured of infection by either spreading the infection to 3 other systems or beating the last 3 stages of the game on a super hard mode (where all zombies are the winners avatar).
Download:

*Fear combat- just chugs on my machine, pretty high specs needed* If anything is better go with that instead

Release:

DS –

Star Fox Command – 3d space shooter – Fox is back

Harlem Globetrotters: World Tour – Hopefully more opponants the n just the Washington Generals

GBA –

Harlem Globetrotters: World Tour – Hopefully more opponants the n just the Washington Generals

Game Cube –

One Piece: Grand Adventure – based on anime – A VS. battle game with an adventure mode and mini games –

PC –

Hoyle Card Games 2007

Hoyle Casino 2007

Hoyle Puzzle and Board Games 2007

American McGee Presents: Bad Day L.A. –

Birth of America – another board game lookin streategy game taking place in the late 1700’s

PS2 –

Brave: The Search for Spirit Dancer – 3d Platformer based on Native Ameriacn Mythology.
Dance Factory – a DDR clone

Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories – Sequel to good and odd RPG.

One Piece: Grand Adventure – based on anime – A VS. battle game with an adventure mode and mini games –

ProStroke Golf – World Tour 2007 – A golf game.

The Fast and the Furious – Inspired by the “Tokyo Drift” movie. Racing / custimizatoin game.

Xenosaga Episode III: Also Sprach Zarathustra – Third par of the xenosaga series –

PSP –

50 Cent: Bulletproof G Unit Edition – didn’t the original suck enough. This guy has about 10 seconds of his 15 minutes left.

Mercury Meltdown – sequel to puzzle game for the PSP. direct flowing mercury.

Ultimate Ghosts ‘n Goblins – OH YEAH – Re-inventing of original classic. The game looks amazing.

Xbox –

ProStroke Golf – World Tour 2007 – A golf game.
Xbox 360 –

Bomberman: Act Zero – re-thinking of Bomberman – gives a Fisrt Person View – full 3d environments.

Enchanted Arms – The Xbox 360’s first Japnese RPG –

Saints Row – GTA clone – Does have a multi-player mode. SOmething that GTA would benefit from

News –

Conventions – LGC – Leipzip Game Convention – Many, many new screen for a lot of upcoming titles, Vice City Stories (PSP), Half Life Ep.2 (PC), Mario Striker (Wii), Assasin’s Creed (PS3)

Penny Arcade Expa – Penny Arcade keeps giving – first Child’s Play Charity now a $10 000 College fund for video game developent.

Tokyo Games Show – PS3 to have 27 playable demos –

Episode 30

We are back after a brief week off. This week Bryan has a Star Wars week, again, and Pete plays an awsome RPG,

The INVISIBLE SHIELD by Shield Zone . http://www.shieldzone.com . Our first product review gets a great review for being a great product.
Madden dominates the releases and a little bit of the news,

Direct Download Link!

Announcements:

Last week I was at the August CGP (Canadian Game Pro) series hosted by the Dork army. This month was a lively event that was Dominated by Tru, who won the Free for all event and with his partner Tosix, forming team ART ( All Real Talent) took the top prize in the 2 on 2 tournament.

Mini Reviews:

Valkyrie Profile:Lenneth – Remake of PS1 title. Awsome RPG. This RPG has a time limit till the end of the world. But many do. You play as a Valkyrie or Battle Maiden recruting soldiers for an eternal war of the gods. You take the recently departed into your party level them up and send them to fight in the great war. Sounds simple but the game is extremely deep.

Releases:

DS –

Tenchu: Dark Secret – The Tenchu series comes to the DS. The touch screen appears to be map / inventory.

Madden NFL 07 – The annual EA offering –

GBA –

Madden NFL 07 – The annual EA offering –

Game Cube –

Madden NFL 07 – The annual EA offering –

Pac-Man World Rally – racing game- not quite up to Mario though

PC –

F.E.A.R. Combat – Free download multi-player – Take F.E.A.R. to the online arena.

Victoria: Revolutions – expansion to Victoria – A game I have never heard of. Looks like mix of Axis and Allies and Risk.

Coffee Tycoon (Retail) – Originall released April 05 – now available in stores – business strategy game.

First Battalion – A future sci-fi – NOT – WWII – tankaction game.

Ship Simulator 2006 – yup SHIP Simulator!

UFO: Extraterrestrials – Tacticle RPG – nice change ofpace from fantasy style

Madden NFL 07 – The annual EA offering –

Pac-Man World Rally – racing game- not quite up to Mario though.

Sword of the Stars – Space RTS with 4 playable races.

PS 2 –

Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII – really looking forward to this game – still want to mention

Madden NFL 07 – The annual EA offering – 17th Year.

Madden NFL 07 – Hall of Fame Edition – A collector’s edition that I am gonna buy.

PSP –

Madden NFL 07 – The annual EA offering –

Pac-Man World Rally – racing game- not quite up to Mario though.

Rapala Trophies – I got nothin on this one.

Xbox –

Madden NFL 07 – The annual EA offering – 17th Year.

Xbox 360 –

Madden NFL 07 – The annual EA offering – 17th Year.

Madden NFL 07 – Hall of Fame Edition – A collector’s edition just a little different from the PS2 version.

News –

Sega Genesis Collection announced for PS2 and PSP – 30 game mega collection – http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3152778

A peek into the XBL marketplace – Demo’s to be released before the game. Add-ons will come between 60 – 90 days from launch. Also implementing “consumables”,the example given was of purchasing 100 gold when needed. Gold Farms get your systems warmed up. http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3152856

The phantom is making news again. The physical box of the phantom has been dropped in favor of software that will live on PC’s. The “system” will launch in November with “consoles” that are Windows XP machines that can play games on demand via a broadband connection. http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3646&Itemid=2

Madden Challenge is coming to Canada. In Toronto on January 13 – location TBD. http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3152896

Episode 30 postponed.

We are taking a brief pause before episode 30. Due to a business trip we are unable to record this week, we will be back next week with a new episode. A video update should be coming later this week.

The Dork Army held their Halo 2 gaming league and Aboot Games was there. I hope to post a video update later this week.

Episode 29 – E3’s Demise!

Well I am late posting for another week. Today is a civic holiday in Ontario and I am took advantage of sleeping in.

This week we discuss the fall of E3. A great deal for an Xbox 360. We played a couple of good games, and a couple of train wrecks,

Direct Download Link

Announcements:

Death of E3

Future shop mega deal for xbox 360 – http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/proddetail.asp?sku_id=0665000FS10077602&catid=23363&logon=&langid=EN&test%5Fcookie=1

Mini Reviews:

Resident Evil 4 (PS2) – The best resident evil yet. I just wish I ahd the chainsaw controller. The bad camera angles are gone replaced with a constant over the shoulder camera and some control with the right analog stick. A lots of unlockables – extra costumes, playabale characters, different game modes.

Kao the Kangaroo: Round 2 – The second in the series there is very little new in this game. It’s pretty much a standard 3D platformer the combines free roaming and on rails levels. To tell you the truth during this game I couldn’t help thinking it was more or less a rip off of Crash Bandicoot…the original; which isn’t that bad a thing considering that that was a great game…10 years ago. It does improve upon it’s eerily similar counterpart, most of the boards are linear free roaming levels; which means that you can go just aboot anywhere there is only one way to go. There are puzzles built into gameplay which I found obvious, but I’m considerably older than the intend audience. The plot is the soft sort of plot we’ve sen in everything from Sonic to Spyro…save the animals from the hunter/wizard thingy. Graphically it’s uninspired but that doesn’t matter because it’s obviously designed for kids. The humour is very inoccent; although one farmer does ask you to go out and protect his ‘shrooms from a badger family… The sound is where the game starts to hurt. Specifically the voice work. Every species of animal has the same voice. On the first level you run around in Beaver’s forest and everytime you meet a beaver they have the same voice. That being said it is a GC games and it has full voices so I guess it’s a start. Buy it for your kids if your looking for I nice platformer that won’t offend any sensibilities and provide a decent challenge level. DO NOT bu it for yourself, don’t rent it.
Dot Hack part 1 – infection – A interesting little RPG that simulates an MMORPG. You play as a person playing a game. Your main interface is a desktop with various “programs”, email / news reader / The World. This is the first in a 4 part series, each play pretty much the same, and each come with a DVD movie disk that adds to the story.

Jaws Unleashed – I’m sure this is going to be an unpopular review but here goes. This was one of those oh my god I can’t keep playing this games. It’s only fair to say that I’m not a big fan of the movies this based on or playing the bad guy in games. Ok so you play the shark. You swim around surprisingly closed underwater levels trying to eat and not be eaten/shot/blowed up real good. I had to retry the tutorial about 10 times to get the hang of this thing and in fact when I did pass the tutorial it was because I skipped a bunch of small shark infested things. To sum up my entire experience with this game: I started the tutorial, learned to swim, eat, bash things with my head, smack things with my tail, and use my shark vision (sort of a matixy kinda thing), I ate some divers, I ate some beach bathers, I ate some boats, Idestroyed some peers by eating them, just when I thought this kinda sucks the game ovffered me the chance to level up my shark???, and then the game froze! If playing the big shark swimming around the ocean eating various things is appealingto you you will like this game. If not you won’t.

Download: SF2: HF
Releases:

DS – GBA – Game cube – nothin

PC –

Glow Worm – puzzle game – free demo download

PS2 – PSP – nothin

Xbox – nothin

Xbox 360 –

Dead Rising – interesting zombie game – very open ended –

News:

E3 is no more as we know it. Moved to July. Renamed “E3 Media Festival”. Smaller event http://biz.gamedaily.com/industry/feature/?id=13376

Minnesato violent game bill deamed unconstitutional. http://biz.gamedaily.com/industry/feature/?id=13382