Archive for the ‘Games’ Category

20 Jun

The Other Ones

Posted by vagrantesque in Games, Lists. Tagged: , , .

This is the second of my two E3 articles for the year. Then on to some more reviews!

The press conferences of the Electronic Entertainment Expo are usually the most hyped part of the show, and for good reason, but they’re only half the story. The show floor invariably reveals a few uncelebrated diamonds in the rough every year and E3 2012 was no different. A great many games that were absent from the five press conferences showed up on the floor and tried their best to impress.

Here are five of my favourite non-conference games from this year’s show, in no particular order:
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Project P-100
Completely absent from any of the Nintendo press conferences, this incredibly quirky trans-genre… thing looks surprisingly fun to play on the Wii U. Best described as a cross between Pikmin and a drawing-based superhero game, it came as no surprise to me that the sheer hectic pace of the cartoony action was engineered by none other than Platinum Games, developers of the excellent MadWorld, Bayonetta and Vanquish. Bring it. Continue reading →

18 Jun

Conference Call

Posted by vagrantesque in Games, Lists. Tagged: , , , , , , .

My internet connection has been giving me real problems of late, which has made this piece a little later than I would have wanted. Alas.

That magic week in worldwide gaming news has already come and gone for another year. The Electronic Entertainment Expo, or E3 for the affectionate/professional/lazy, delivered less surprises than in past years, but there was still plenty to talk about. The aftermath has been dissected a million ways already. Chief among the topics of conversation, as always, were the five big press conferences. Here I throw in my 2c on them by ranking them in terms of how strong I thought they were, from least to most.

Continue reading →

17 May

Ten Cubed is…

Posted by vagrantesque in Gamecube, Games, Lists. Tagged: , , , , .

In some ways it’s hard to believe this day has come. Today is May 17th and that means it is exactly ten years since the launch of the Nintendo Gamecube in Australia.

On May 17th, 2002, ten years ago to the day, my school had a Staff Development Day, so we didn’t have to go to class. It was clearly put on so the teachers could all go grab themselves a shiny new Nintendo Gamecube.

Featuring one of the most comfortable controllers ever designed.

That day represented the first time I had ever purchased a video game console with my own hard-saved pocket money. That little black box was also the first console I had ever taken home on launch day. Its graphical power, quite impressive at the time, blew me away after years playing Nintendo 64 games, but more importantly the Gamecube provided just as many wonderful gaming memories as its predecessor. Its handle and small size meant it never stayed in one place for too long, making temporary homes at friends’ places, where the good times rolled on.

What follows is a list of my top ten favourite Nintendo Gamecube games of all time. Continue reading →

11 May

Capture Testin’, Phase Three

Posted by vagrantesque in Games, PS3. Tagged: , .

Though it was a hassle to set up in standard definition (I had to have it on my normal HDMI connection and then set the AV settings and switch over), I was glad to discover that I was able to take some decent PS3 screenshots using the Kaiser Baas Series 8 Game Recorder. See my Xbox 360 test shots here.

PS3_1

The icons are so massive!

PS3_2

The PSN home screen

Continue reading →

9 May

Capture Testin’, Phase Two

Posted by vagrantesque in Games, Xbox 360. Tagged: , .

Continuing to test my new Kaiser Baas Series 8 Game Recorder (see Phase One here). Moving on to some standard definition shots from a high definition console. These Xbox 360 screen captures came out surpringly well, all things considered.

360_1

Standard definition, stadard sight.

360_2

Xbox Home – topical centrepiece there.

Continue reading →

7 May

Capture Testin’, Phase One

Posted by vagrantesque in Games, Wii. Tagged: , .

I recently acquired some basic game capture hardware, namely a Kaiser Baas Series 8 Game Recorder. It runs in standard definition through AV cables and I have misplaced said cables for my Xbox 360 and my PS3 (who knew I would ever need them?). Luckily I have a Wii with which to test the screenshot features. Here I do just that.

I’m running The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword. You can read my review of the game here.

SS Map

Faron Woods Map, sick auto-border.

'Shrooms

Dang them ‘shrooms.

Continue reading →

26 Apr

First World Problems

Posted by vagrantesque in Games, Lists.

This is serious business, people.

The life of someone who finds enjoyment in so many things, meaningless or otherwise, is both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, it’s hard to get bored, ever. On the other, it’s so easy to get distracted by shiny new things when they come along that perfectly good forms of entertainment are often left in the cold after a laughably short amount of time. Sometimes it doesn’t even matter how “good” the product is; something in our capitalist-educated minds compels us to desire what is fresh. As time goes on and the “pile of shame” grows, it gets steadily harder to find the time to get to the things we leave at the bottom.

This can be a problem for just about anyone (though, let’s be honest, a fairly insignificant one in the scheme of things), but when you’re like me and you place value in your ability to form a complete and educated opinion on every material product you experience, it can get a tad frustrating.

Continue reading →

4 Apr

64-Bit Memories…

Posted by vagrantesque in Games, Lists, N64. Tagged: , .

It has recently come to my attention that last month marked the 15th anniversary of the Nintendo 64’s release in Australia. Shame on me for letting that go unmarked. Here’s something to try and make up for that error.

On Christmas Day, 1999, a year and a half after migrating to the sunburnt country from South Africa, I received my first home gaming console. My life would never be the same again.

Under a generous amount of wrapping paper, the Nintendo 64 greeted me in a glorious swirl of black, grey and “atomic purple“. As a wide-eyed child I had sampled some of what the console had to offer at friend’s houses, but this one was mine. Plugging it into the largest CRT television in the house and then pushing that oversized switch on the console’s curved shell resulted in a singular moment of awe that seemed impossible to match. I had my ticket to the school playground war of words; I was lodged firmly in Nintendo’s corner.

The limited edition pack I received on December 25, 1999. Words cannot express the nostalgia.

The next three years, long as they seemed to a pre-pubescent boy, were filled to the brim with some of my fondest gaming memories ever. This is the list of my top eleven favourite Nintendo 64 games of all time.

Continue reading →

30 Mar

Updated Vita Impressions

Posted by vagrantesque in Console, Games, PS Vita. Tagged: , .

To be honest, I just wanted an excuse to test the Vita’s in-built screenshot features. Many pictures coming up…

It has been just over a month since the worldwide launch of the Playstation Vita (You can see my first impressions of it here) and now that I’ve had some more time with the console, I can add a thing or two to my earlier article about it.

*Sigh* So green...

My main home screen, bubbles and all.

One of the things that has most impressed me in the last month about the Vita is its battery life. It’s a little refreshing to know that I have between four and a half to five hours to play around with on every charge (that’s while playing a Vita game with brightness and sound a decent way up) rather than the barely three hours the Nintendo 3DS yields at full stretch. Continue reading →

5 Mar

IDO: Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3

Posted by vagrantesque in Games, IDO. Tagged: , , .

Here starts a new series of articles called “In Defense Of”, which will attempt to address some of the negative accusations leveled at a host of popular things. Modern Warfare 3 (released on November 8th last year) seems like as good a place to start as any, because there are millions of people playing it even right now.
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I N   D E F E N S E   O F

–==Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3==–

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The Case Against:
The Call of Duty franchise is growing stale and Modern Warfare 3 is a glaring example of this. Every year the series repackages the same game and calls it a new one, expecting everyone to buy it anyway. Putting the disc into your console or PC will give you exactly the same experience as you got from Modern Warfare 2. The game is terrible and no-one should play it. Battlefield 3 is better in every way.
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Keanu muses

Indeed.

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The Defense:
It’s amazing how little time can elapse before a popular videogame franchise becomes ‘cool’ to hate on. But it’s simply astounding that such a franchise can attract as much bashing as Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 does and still sell so ridiculously well as to become the highest selling entertainment media property of all time. That’s ultimately the bottom line when it comes to the latest COD: Its sheer sales numbers tell the best story of its enduring quality. No extra argument needed.

But extra argument I will give. Continue reading →

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