Games
Tech Gamer: Belief and Betrayal
July 24, 2008
Belief and Betrayal is a ‘Point and Click Adventure game’ – something you see a lot less of these days in the age of photo-realistic graphics and free-roaming open-ended game worlds. The ‘Point and Click Adventure’ was a type of game which saw real success back in the 90s - those were the days of great games like Monkey Island, Grim Fandango, Broken Sword – unfortunately here’s where the likeness ends!
Belief and Betrayal states on the box “Unveil dark secrets that could destroy humanity” and “Become enthralled in a secretive and mysterious world of power and intrigue; truth and conspiracy” – which I initially thought, “this sounds an awful lot like the Da Vinci Code, but it might be good all the same”, I think it’s fair to say the developers have taken some inspiration from it!
I installed the game – it took a while, so I went away and make a hot beverage, came back to find it was still installing – it eventually finished, I took this to be a good sign - there must be lots of high quality graphics and audio to make for a really polished game experience. Unfortunately once I loaded the game up I found that this certainly wasn’t the case!
Continue reading »Family Gamer: E3 Matters
July 21, 2008
Zath: “The Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) was one of those annual events that as a gamer I always wanted to attend - it was basically the largest conference of the gaming industry with hundreds of stands at the LA conference centre, if you liked games then this was the place to be. However, last year saw the whole event scaled back and moved to several smaller venues as it was starting to cost the industry exhibitors huge amounts of money which it couldn’t justify.
I can understand why it’s had to happen, but in a way it’s a still a shame that E3 as an event on that scale no longer happens, I kind of liked the idea that the gaming industry could command such an event….well perhaps in actual fact it couldn’t!
So with a smaller E3 venue and the number of visitors having been scaled back, has E3 lost some of it’s shine? Are the big companies still using this event to make their big announcements of what we can expect in the coming year? - It would seem there’s still plenty going on though as the Family Gamer, Paul Govan now explains in his syndicated article below…”
Continue reading »New PS3 80GB
July 20, 2008
Sony are set to release a new model of the Playstation 3. Instead of the cheap Playstation 3 40GB model now available, there will now be an 80GB model which will sell at the same price of £299.99.
Apparently the memory card slots and PS2 emulation will not be making a return on this new model, which is a shame. But I would have thought that this model will feature the new Dualshock Sixaxis controller that was released only a few weeks ago.
Continue reading »Resistance: Fall of Man (PS3 Platinum)
July 18, 2008
Normally launch titles are the biggest waste of space and end up being a waste of money. The storylines are weak, the graphics are average and they’re just downright crap.
This is completely the opposite for Resistance: Fall of Man!
Resistance is due to be re-released as one of the forthcoming Platinum titles on the PS3 for the normal Platinum bargain price of £20 in stores or you can buy it for just £14.98 online!
Without warning, the Chimera attacked from the east, and in just two months, Europe fell.
And as the Chimera hunted down the remaining survivors, the last resistance fighters rose up from the ruins of Great Britain…
Never underestimate humanity’s will to survive.”
PS3 Platinum Games Cometh!
July 18, 2008
Sony have announced that the ever popular platinum games series are on there way to PS3. This means that it’s now your chance to own some quality Playstation 3 games at cheap bargain prices!
The titles that are being lined up to be Platinum games are:
- Resistance: Fall of Man - Buy for £14.98
- Motorstorm - Buy for £16.99
- Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune - Buy for £17.98
- Heavenly Sword - Buy for £14.98
- Ratchet and Clank: Tool of Destruction - Buy for £14.98
Trauma Center: Under the Knife
July 17, 2008
I generally like games that are not classed as “normal”, hence I have a Nintendo DS and a Nintendo Wii. So when I saw Trauma Center: Under the Knife at a knock down price I had to pick myself up a copy.
The angle the game comes from is that you are a young doctor fresh out of med school starting work in his first hospital. You then proceed to go to work on progressively more difficult surgical operations. These start easy, clean wound A, drain lump B, remove huge piece of glass imbedded in man’s pumping heart and sew the gaping bloody wound it leaves before he dies from blood loss C.
You know, fairly routine every day stuff. The learning curve is slow to start with and there’s an almost step-by-step walkthrough on how not to kill a man with a piece of surgical equipment. But don’t worry, you will!
Continue reading »Family Gamer: Rough Guides
July 16, 2008
Zath: I’m somebody who really likes playing games, but doesn’t get anywhere near the time to devote to them as I did while I was growing up. This means I don’t want to have to ‘waste’ my precious time and money on games which I only find out are not my kind of game after having bought and spent several hours of gameplay on them. Obviously you could do lots of research, reading a variety of reviews, but again that’s cutting into your busy life - the answer is that you need a “rough guide” that outlines the type of game it is and what it generally involves!
Family Gamer UK had a surprising boost in traffic last week. Adding my parent’s rough guides was a small step but one that proved to connect with mums, dads, kids and even aunties.
I’ve been playing games for a long time, so when I got married and had kids I wanted to share my hobby. However, grabbed a game from a store shelf that reported to be suitable for my family often resulted in an ill fitting experience. Sometime the games were too difficult to control for the kids, or addressed issues they weren’t interested in, or failed to engage the other adults in our brood - namely my other half.
Continue reading »Big Beach Sports (Wii)
July 14, 2008
I thought this game was going to be fun and it might even challenge Wii Sports, but sadly, it doesn’t even come close.
There are 6 games to play in Big Beach Sports, which include Volleyball, Disc Golf, Cricket, Boules, Football, and American Football.
The controls are very simple and basic. For most of the games, all you need to do is swing the Wii Remote and then let your characters take over automatically to do the main functions. There are a couple of controls for the games where you can throw things differently by pressing A or B and then swinging. This is good for the younger audience as they’ll be able to get straight into the games and not find it confusing. I think that the older gamers might find it a little too simple, and not much of a challenge.
Continue reading »Family Gamer: Caption Competitions
July 9, 2008
Zath: The Family Gamer section is having a caption competition! If you’re anything like me you’ll like the chance to walk away a winner with some gaming freebies, so take a look at and see if you can come up with an clever and funny captions - now is the time to prove you should be on the ‘Have I Got News For You’ TV show!
Family Gamer section on Game People have just set up this caption competitions page:
Continue reading »Play-Asia.com $5 Discount Voucher?
July 8, 2008
Could anyone here make use of a Play-Asia $5 off discount voucher? The reason I ask is that similarly to my recent post about having a voucher for a free episode of Sam & Max, I now have a free Play-Asia voucher for one lucky reader that needs to be used before July 2008!
Play-Asia sent this voucher because I hadn’t logged into my account for a while - but right now I don’t have the time for any new games, so thought somebody else might find it useful.
Continue reading »
