Halo 3 NOT Natively HD

Oh dear, we thought we'd left this behind with Project Gotham 3...

Bungie have confirmed that, as some bloggers have pointed out, Halo 3 does NOT run natively at 720p. If we consider HD to be anything 720p and above, then it IS true that Halo 3, the most important Xbox 360 game so far, is not HD. Bugger.

Here's the quote, direct from Bungie's sexy mouth...

"Halo 3 uses not one, but two frame buffers - both of which render at 1152x640 pixels. The reason we chose this slightly unorthodox resolution and this very complex use of two buffers is simple enough to see - lighting. We wanted to preserve as much dynamic range as possible - so we use one for the high dynamic range and one for the low dynamic range values. Both are combined to create the finished on screen image."

So there you have it. Can't say I've noticed any loss of detail on my HD screen, but it's rubbish to think that the Xbox's flagship game isn't actually high-definition, despite Microsoft promising EVERY 360 game to be at least 720p. As I mentioned above, we've seen this before with Project Gotham 3, that also upscaled to preserve frame-rate. The difference is, PGR3 is jaggy hell, whereas Halo 3 is liquid sex.

Naughty Bungie.

Sin and Punishment FINALLY Gets UK Release But Can Fuck Off

Legendary N64 on-rails shooter, Sin and Punishment is FINALLY making it's way to PAL territories with it's release on the Virtual Console this week. Made by Treasure in 2000, the game was originally only made available in Japan. This is good news for Wii fans!

What ISN'T good news, is that Nintendo have bumped up the price to 1200 Wii points (between £8.50 and £12.00 depending on how much you pay for your Wii Points card) thus raping my wallet. This price is unheard of so far on the Virtual Console and is, to be fair, shit.

Argh.

Oh yeah, a reminder, too. Mario Bros. The Lost Levels is still available on the PAL Virtual Console until October 1st, when it'll be gone forever! This also never had a PAL release, so is pretty special. Again, it's over-priced, coming in at 100 points more than every other NES release, though, so I probably wouldn't bother.

YES Masterchief LOLcats

In response to my previous post about the Halo Legendary Edition helmets NOT fitting children/cats/me, I found this picture.

I think he's just holding it in front of the cat, merely creating the ILLUSION of a Catchief, but it's still hella great.

Go forth and LOLcat, minions.

Sega Rally Demo Now On PSN

I know it's kinda old news and the game's actually in the shops to buy now, but the demo for Sega Rally went up on PSN today for your PS3 rally needs.

It's fucking awesome. Get.

Clive Barker's Jericho Demo Impressions

Clive Barker's Jericho is a FPS. There's another FPS that's just been released on the Xbox 360 and it's the best game of the year, probably the best game on the Xbox 360 and possibly the best FPS ever made. So games like this are a bit unnecessary now. HOWEVER, if you're still looking for a new shooter to play, particularly a scary one, then Jericho MIGHT be what you're looking for.

If you haven't got The Darkness, stop reading this and go and buy it. If you've finished The Darkness and want more gruesome, horror shooting, you should know that Jericho plays very similarly to that game. It has a really similar feel and the title screen is exactly the same.

Apart from 'the feel', Jericho isn't as good as The Darkness. To be fair, not a lot is, but Jericho is so similar yet falls so far behind in a lot of ways.

But first, the positives, of course. It has a really cool QTE bit that requires you to hit buttons that flash up on screen to trigger certain events. If you miss them, you die. It's been done so many times before (see Dragon's Lair, Shen Mue, Resident Evil 4, etc...) but it's still refreshing when done properly. Jericho sees a BRILLIANT example of QTE at the end of the demo and it got my heart racing a little bit.

The game also looks really nice and creepy. There's a lot of detail in the environments and the lighting is gorgeous.

HOWEVER. The enemies are all the same, and boring. The level is really linear, with no option for exploration off the beaten track. And it's yet another FPS in the year of shooters. Give me a fucking PLATFORM game or something, please.

I'm Off To Buy Halo 3

See you in about four years when the next one comes out. Until then, I'll be on Xbox Live.

An Open Letter To Girls

Men will definitely be made 'very excitable' if you wear these!

Avid readers may notice I have made use of bloggers 'Large Image Upload' feature for the first time on this post.

I don't give a shit if it makes the sidebar go far away either!

I might get a pair of boxers made with a 'red ring of death' version, for when I wish to pretend I am null.

You can all go and buy them HERE and automatically become a 'definitely would'

PES2008 - First Demo Impressions

Ok, I've now spent a bit of time on the new Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 demo on XBLA and I've drawn my initial conclusions.

Fixes of things that were shit in PES6:

• Lobbing the goalie has now been demoted from it's previous position of 'Most Difficult Thing'
• Taking a 'quick free kick' isn't completely pointless as in PES6 the screen would still fade down and everyone would have recovered their woeful positions and be ready to immediately steal the ball off you. Play doesn't actually stop now and you can still catch your opponent unaware and lay your GOAL POWER upon them
• More kit options to avoid the PES6 effect where your best option would sometimes be both teams playing in exactly the same kit. Except one of you would have a stripe or different coloured socks
• Nicer graphics and menus and eye candy that isn't very important. Although I should point out that I can't see a huge difference between PES6 and PES2008. Maybe it's because I have only got a standard def telly, what with me not being a tsar or being able to print money
• At least my telly is massive though
  
• Goalies don't seem to be butter fingered twats quite so often

Things that worry/annoy me so far:

• Players still look 'a bit burns victim'
• The frame rate on the demo is AWFUL and there is quite a bit of glitching here and there. I can only assume this won't be the case in the final release but seriously, there was loading time aplenty when I was playing
• Wayne Rooney doesn't have any new weapons and has not been given 'plasmids'
• It doesn't seem to be very different from PES6, most of the character animations and celebration routines seem to be the same. The gameplay is slightly more fluid and fast paced but it's nowhere near the difference between PES6 and PES5
• There's no commentary on the demo which is really annoying because if there's one thing I need it's new phrases to get used to such as "He must be wondering what he has to do to beat this goalkeeper today" (The answer in PES6 was usually 'just wait' as he'll probably trip over his own defender soon)

Now it may seem like I'm a little underwhelmed. That's because I am. But that is also because the way I've played this demo is not how I play and love PES.

The thing that makes me love PES is getting all (both) of your mates over and playing for 5 hours solid because neither of you can let the game you just lost be the last. It's needing one last match. It's saving replays of goals scored from the halfway line after rebounding in off the keepers arse.

It's one of the most social games ever, and I know I'll be buying it. I know it probably isn't going to be a huge revelation or even a massive leap from the last version but I'll be happy just getting a slightly new twist on an old favourite. New players, new teams (Derby?) and a facelift is pretty much all I needed from PES2008, as long as they don't mess with the formula then I'll be happy.

I may not bang on about it the way I did over PES6, but I'll almost certainly play it as much.

Which is all that matters right?

IN OTHER NEWS: Matt has put up all our gamer cards on the right there. My gamerscore is pitiful and I feel the need to point out that I've only just renewed my Xbox Gold Membership and that I've only just bought a 360. I also need to change that stupid pirate twat for my picture.

No Masterchief LOLcats

When the Halo 3 Legendary Edition was announced, with the Masterchief helmet included, I dreamt of wearing it. How cool would that be? But we then heard that it was too small for that, but perhaps child-sized. I then imagined a future where LOLcats would be Halo-themed. Where YouTube would be filled with videos of freaky Halo children and Masterchief cats.

But it's not to be.

IGN has reported that, although the helmet is a PERFECT size for felines, it's not hollow, rendering it's clothing possibilities impossible.

Bugger. Still, I guess the game will be alright.

Rainy Woods

Now this is a game I am excited about!
I've always been a single player gamer, mainly because I like to get involved heavily with the story based element of the game. I think the last time a game got me so involved was Psychonauts or Bioshock.
There's nothing I enjoy more than getting to the point where you don't want to go to bed for fear that you may be missing out on what happens next, even if you know nothing will have changed between going bed and next picking up the game.

It's being heralded as a mix of Twin Peaks and Silent Hill which to me is a dream come true as the first two silent hill games are two of my favourite games ever, possibly due to the fact that adventure games are my favourite genre and survival horror games seem to borrow elements from these quite heavily.

The main thing that attracts me to this game is that it appears to be such an original story (you watch, I'll be eating my hat when it transpires that it's based on a guy passing through a town on his way somewhere else and he gets mystically trapped there). What more could you want? It has midgets, religious sacrifice and a guy in a wheel chair wearing a gas mask!
If you cast your minds back to the aborted genius that was Fahrenheit you'd understand, it showed not only a very original story but also an original way of playing the game (whatever choice you made during the game would affect how the next part played out, a bit like a more glamorous dragon's lair). The only thing that let it down was the disaster that was the last quarter of the game where it became more like the 4th part in the Matrix trilogy.

Anyway as far as I know, no release date has been set yet but I'm a patient person (I'm still waiting for Monkey Island 5!) and I'm sure Assassins Creed will tide me over until then.

*EDIT* I've changed my mind. This actually is Twin peaks!

Is This The Top10 2D Shooters Of All Time?

Screwattack

I ask because I STRONGLY DISAGREE. 2D shoot-em-ups are my all-time favourite type of game. I have spent far too much money and far too much time playing them. Screwattack's top10s are always great to watch online. They're fun, nostalgic, and just damn good entertainment. But this one is SO wrong that I just had to pick up on it and see if I'm the only one that feels this way! This is their's:



*****SPOILERS***** Watch the link if you want them slowly revealed to you.









01- UN Squadron
02- Ikaruga
03- Gradius
04- Super R-Type
05- Galaga
06- Axelay
07- Asteroids
08- 1943
09- Raptor
10- Xevious

Now THIS is mine:

01- R-Type Final
02- Axelay
03- Xenon II- Megablast
04- Parodius
05- Space Invaders
06- Pop N'Twinbee
07- Defender
08- Zero Wing
09- Raptor
10- Ikaruga


C'mon, they didn't even have Space Invaders in there, the daddy! OR Xenon II! But R-Type is clearly the best shooter of all time. It's just absolutely perfect in every way. I had UN Squadron, and it was damn good, but the best ever? Nah. Thoughts?

(by the way, I left out 2D platform shooters as they appeared to as well, otherwise Zombies Ate My Neighbours would be No.1)

Wii Woes

I sometimes feel like I write too many negative things about Nintendo these days... Since I got my first NES console I've LOVED Nintendo and their games. Duck Hunt, Mario Bros, Zelda, Punch Out, Mega Man and loads of other much-loved NES games introduced me to console gaming at a time when I was getting sick of waiting a half hour for my Commodore VIC-20 to load my tapes. The Super Nintendo is my favourite ever games console. I bought the N64 and Gamecube within a week of their release. I fucking IMPORTED a DS from America because I couldn't wait for the PAL release. I queued for THIRTEEN hours to get a Wii at midnight on release. See? I like Nintendo!

Certainly, the Wii has a fantastic line-up of releases before the end of the year. Metroid Prime 3, Super Mario Galaxy, Guitar Hero 3, LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga (with fucking lightsabre action), NiGHTS Journey of Dreams, Manhunt 2 and a few more all look great. Not to mention the new Zelda release on the DS. Nintendo seem to have all their important IPs covered for the holiday season.

But what about after that? Nobody seems to be questioning what happens when we've all got Mario Galaxy and finished Metroid Prime 3. What should we be looking forward to then? There's Mario Kart Wii, I suppose. And Super Smash Bros. But neither of these games grab me like they should. Neither of them support the innovative Wii remote in a way that will re-invent them and revolutionise the series. In fact, it seems to me that these games will do the opposite and just make people wish they had a normal controller and had more than four buttons to use on them. That's certainly the way I felt while playing Twilight Princess... From all the hype and pre-release images and videos, I only see Mario Kart Wii and Super Smash Bros Brawl as souped-up Gamecube games. They may have online-play, but Nintendo's online service is famously flaky.

Of course, the Xbox will have a similar problem after the launch of Halo 3. It's all people have wanted since launch and I do worry what will happen when there's not that on the horizon. But Microsoft have such strong third party support, as do Sony, and seem to have a never-ending supply of new releases. Something that the Wii certainly misses out on.

But until then, it's going to be a fucking good end to the year. :-D