twmac

http://www.gamespot.com/ps2/action/reservoirdogs/index.html?q=reservoir%20dogs and almost anything on this: http://www.gamespot.com/reviews.html?type=reviews&platform=1024&mode=all&sort=post_date&dlx_type=all&sortdir=asc

Has anyone actually played Jaws: Unleashed? The In-game cutscenes are terrible the story lacklustre, but when it comes down to the basic fact that you roam the seas ripping everyone and everything apart, I got a kick out of it. The reporters also failed to mention that it was released at the end of the the PS2's and Xbox's life spans when clingers on will buy anything. Majesco smartly released it at around 30$ cdn. And for that people will pretty much buy any old shit. Good point made about Psychonauts though , and I will continue to applaud journalists pointing out where it all went wrong in the hope that a few more people might go out and buy that game. But Jaws: Unleashed, worst game? How about starting with Marvel: Ultimate Alliance? Overpriced, easy, and boring.

Well the real question is are you attractive? Because if you are then I'd leave this thread now. However, if you are bit fugly then you might want to hold on to it for a bit longer, you know just in case you can't find another. Sorry, couldn't resist.

Shop Smart, shop S-mart.

I hadn't thought of it like that. I was referring more to the 'Holy shit I've got a crappy gun and they are firing bloody lasers at me' feel of the level I saw.

My favourite part of that was the fact that all anyone had to do was not lose 1.7 billion and they would already be dong better than Sony's gaming division by the end of the financial year. I feel like I rule also. I hadn't thought about this, until Intrepid mentioned it, but aren't there a bunch of third party guys who are really going to be a little pissed off that a large portion of their games are going to look like after thoughts in Europe? By this I'm referring to games like Activision's COD3, Ubisoft's Assasin's Creed and SC: Double Agent. Some of these games will have been out for some time for Xbox 360 and maybe even the Wii, and will need some serious "Two thumbs fresh" rivitalisation in the 'continent' to garner interest on the PS3.

Those last three posts made me lose track of what I was going to say... I think some of the problems that game development has is that it is kind of like a painting. A painting that has a frame and canvass made out of the most brittle fiber known to man. The vulnerability of these get worse with the prettier and more complex the painting gets... Another random thought that was cohesive: The industry is looking towards outsourcing more and more, as they realise that keeping a work force all year round just isn't feasible. This is definitely embracing the film set formula and in many ways could be very effective.

I heard that Psychonauts had been removed, for shame. What a bizarre selection of backwards compatible games. I mean, has Evil dead: Regeneration already been made backward compatible? It supports 720p and is a better game than 'Fistful of boomstick'.

I had the joy of seeing Resistance: Fall of man in all its glory... The concept is actually sort of cool, the AI is good and the stills I had seen didn't do it justice. But seriously the first 'must have' is an FPS? Is it me, or did Sony and Microsoft change marketing plans? Not to worry though PS3 has three different versions of Final fantasy 13, all is safe. On a slightly related note, this a little Xbox 360 fanboyish but it conveys the same old 'Sony are lying to you and don't care!' sentiment that pervaded the PS2 release. The problem for Sony this time, is that there are actually realistic options for both hardcore and casual gamers. {edit} Actually, the CVG page finally loaded. The original report actually mentions that Sony denied these claims. The eurogamer report just puts more emphasis on it. This guy is verging on idiot savant: http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=sony_bullshit

Ah, EA hockey, still has the same exploits today as the original release, gawd bless EA. Nick, every time someone plays World cup italia 90, baby jesus cries. That game is an abomination and an insult to the two bedfellows on that compilation.

Ben, Canada, and more spcifically Quebec, is gagging for people with QA, programming and anything games-related experience. If you get your foot in at any cmpany over here, it is ridiculously easy to get a work Visa for around 2-3 years (the trick is to make your CV sound like you are indispensable to the company and that you will help create more jobs, even if you are just going to be senior Tea-boy). The thing is, the winters and sumers can be brutal. It was -28 degrees celsius last year (which was a mild one) and it was a tropically humid 34 degrees celsius in the summer. The beer's good though.

Okay... It is starting to freak me out... When did Bob get so goddamn thin? Hoping for a smoke and mirrors scenario that explains it all. Ginge - Just thank god that you never have to test WWE Aftershock from 6PM-2AM with a bunch of sweaty testers, you don't have to be a favourite as well.

But I was having a drunken conversation about this while me and a friend walked around a Future shop (a bit like gamley's but with more electronics and no real kids toys unless you count DVD cleaners). He pointed out somehting I'd never really thought about. In laymen's terms 'HD-DVD' sounds a lot like 'DVD' only longer, and possibly cooler. I don't know if this is true, but the buzz-word 'backwards compatible' came up. And I was given the impression that people would be able to watch their DVDs on one of these drives. So, unlike the VHS-to-DVD transition, people would be more inclined to jump on the boat of this hardware upgrade (even without the 500 pound TV). Blue ray sounds retarded, about as good as a mini-disc (Whoops), and the Beta max... Which, failed massively because: A) Companies had to pay to release stuff on it. Because of reason A), Porn companies and low budget horror franchises embraced VHS. You can already get HD-DVD versions of Pirates. So I've heard

Okay if someone is going to mention the film template as an example, I would like to believe we have had our 70's in terms of games: Where directors were allowed to have their reign over what was happening, ignoring their financial backers, without letting the fact that their product was going flop despite its aesthetic appeal. I would like to think that we are just starting to emerge from our 80's version of the games industry, where puerile shit or block buster crap was the only stuff that got any kind of recognition. All the while, people who will become our Sam Raimis (Spiderman isn't a favourite of mine, but he's good at it ) and Peter Jacksons (see previous bracket about Spiderman and replace it with 'Lord of the Rings'), are making games like 'Alien Homnid', 'Future Tactics' and 'Psychonauts'. In future (the equivalent of the nineties, not necessarily a good thing), hopefully these people will be able to influence potential blockbuster IPs with the same wit and vision.... Idealistically. With the homogenisation of games, it is difficult to be entuasitic about console gaming until they find that sweet spot where developers can release shit, that is shit, but still cheap, and has a few inspirational moments that doesn't competely destroy the publisher in the process.

Thanks for reminding me! Skitchin should have been a cheesy Xtreme version of road rash, but that was also hilarious and actually might rival my love for RRII. It isn't any where as good as the arcade version (it misses out the best boss and two of the levels) but Sunset Riders is a great game still, it is also easy to find for about 5 quid on ebay.

Hotel work is great, I friend of mine worked in one and spent most of his times aviding the gossipy old ladies he worked with in between doing too much paper work and disposing of a sofa that some guy shot himself on while staying in the building... Hang on, I might have been mistaken about the 'Hotel work is great' part. Mind you, beats working in a car park. Spaff, I'm very disappointed, ex-babelites are reknowned for their thumbwar skills. Sometimes I feel like a wandering Ronin thumb guy when I walk the streets, worried that some Toshiro Mifune type is going take me on using his right opposable (it is my stonger side, but marginaly shorter than my left).

Both World of Illusion and Toejam and Earl are excellent choices. But I think T&J is a little hard to find. If you have to get one, get streets of Rage 2, but Streets of rage 1 is easier to find and has been released on several Megadrive compilations, so it is dirt cheap. If you after some versus, Micro machines is great and pretty much any version is good although the 96 tournament version is the best. Also Speedball 2 rocks. If you can find it, I remember playing a lot of Rolling thunder 2 in co-op mode as well.

Brighton testers = shit. Ouch. That is fair criticism of CoM. For it to be in the front end is completely unforgivable. In other cases, I remember one Localisation tester joking with me how the term 'Fire in the hole' had been directly translated to 'Grenade!' in Spanish. The situation was a character firing a rocket launcher into a tunnel. He changed the subtitle to the appropriate term. The game, unfortuantely had had the audio localised, which there are going to be quite a few bemused spanish players out there. gfoot, you may well disagree but I believe that to implement localisation QA earlier becomes a chicken/egg situation. Audio and text are often not put into games or even fully decided on until a late stage in game development. A problem in itself, but to address this issue means money. Hiring voice actors to re-record audio is unlikely to happen in anything but AAA titles. Re-writes of scripts is simply not possible due to the fallout it will cause to the rest of the develpment team (re-rendering of FMVs, restaging of certain set pieces, etc). So, certainly, some games could be tighter and more cohesive. But the occasional sloppy loc is forgivable when you face cancellation or limited release (generally Japan only). What I wouldn't give for a shittily translated version of Biomotor Unitron 2, a proper (but scratchy) NA or EU version of Shikigami no Shiro on the Xbox or an almst non-coherent version of the two shinning force sections on the Saturn so that I could fully enjoy that saga in some form or another.

Not that I would recommend you play it, but try Just Cause on the PS2, then try it on the 360, if you don't notice that the 360 is more than slightly better, I recommend you go buy yourself a Dreamcast and play some truly great games.

Just read this thread and all seem to be valid opinions. A bit disappointed that the captions didn't have the option: "It's a bloody golf game, who gives a shit?" underneath.

Finally purchased Driller Spirits, and it is great, the music, the colours. Totally classic. Sadly, don't know anyone who owns a copy for the multi-player option.

[quote name=DanJ I'm sorry to say, that after some of the excellent sci-fi I've seen from the US over the past couple of years or so (BSG and Firefly at the top) I've lost faith that British TV can do sci-fi well. It's not just the FX budgets, it's the writing and the understanding of the genre (although the show does have some good gags in the black humour vein). US screen scifi right now seems to be catching up fast to the written format, which itself is much more accepted as "serious" over there. Over here the whole thing still seems to be treated in a kind of amateur kid-in-his-bedroom kind of way. Bah.[/quote] Funny you should say this as I just re-watched Ultraviolet, the British vampire TV series. I remembered really liking it, this time round it was still good, but it is like the Brits just can't take themselves seriously when it comes to anything that isn't a period piece. That said American Sci-fi might rule, but English comedy still lords over most of the stuff over here (Mr. Show excluded). I can't believe they are trying to make a version of Peepshow for NA... So wrong.

Heh-heh, the only reason I have an ipod is because my MP3 players kept breaking after 3 months, and I've been promised a 3 year 'no questions asked' warranty on the little blighter. It also means that I have sufficient back up space if I ever format my laptop. Personally, part of the MS hate comes from being screwed over by that company so many times. Good to keep them on their toes and away from dominating markets. That way they might make sure their products actually work, unlike some other OS's.

Yufs, localisation QA aren't arseholes. In many cases the person required to check or translate the words is presented with an excel spread sheet, with no context of what is actually happening in the game. To blame the translators is short sighted, and maybe the companies fault for not giving them more of an idea of what was going on. It would be like having an animated film where the voice actors don't have a clue about the plot or characters. Another problem that games have. I used to despise localisation, but after only 2 years in the business, I don't know anymore.

Do not play Gladius with anyone else until you have figured what the fig pieces is going on. I really want to recommend this game but there were too many moments where I just didn't care what happened in terms of the story. The interface is a bizarre but often fun combination of turn based strategy and golf sims. Sorry that is the only way I can describe it. If you enjoy Baldur's Gate, and don't mind going geekier, AD&D Heroes on the Xbox is an easy hack and slash that doesn't have much story but makes up for it with some gameplay that encourages team work. Otherwise, on any console "Hunter: The reckoning" series is pretty good (depending what kind of story you are looking for) although the balancing has some issues and the camera can often be your enemy. This might sound a little retarded, but for some sit-down-for-30-minutes-need-stress-relief the Dynasty Warriors series has always been okay on any platform that supports it. Plus most of the story line is tied into the 'Romance of the three kingdoms' stuff. Also Spaff is right Neo Contra is great, but it really depends on who you are playing it with, the game is unforgiving and in some moments downright brutal (running on helicopter blades for the win). Great intro and soundtrack, mind.