You’ve got £30-40 set aside to get your shooter fix; which one of these recent releases should you shell out for? This is the conundrum we face.

Join me, if you will, in drawing a mental Venn diagram comparing overlapping aspects of both games, and the aspects which make each game stand out.

Comparisons

• Production value; both games run on rock-solid engines and have been honed doubtless many times over.
• Intense, sweaty, edge-of-seat action. In a good way. Honest.
• Longevity; CoD: WaW’s levelling and perk/weapon unlock system will be similar to that of CoD 4, so will keep players returning again and again. L4D’s “AI Director” does an admirable job of ensuring that, even though you’re essentially replaying the same levels over and over, no experience is ever exactly the same. Plus, it’s Valve. They fooking love providing extra content as the months go by.
• Bloody good… ness; both titles are in the upper echelon of shooter releases this year, hence why we’re trying to decide which one to buy.

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Welcome to "What the F*CK is this sh*t?!", or WTFITS for short. This is a feature that will run once a week, and allow me to rant on things that have happened in the gaming world that week, that have just gotten my back up or has just annoyed me in general. So without further ado, let’s begin.

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You lay down your automatic weapons ready to cross-fire, deploy your artillery just behind them and move your assault troops forward to begin the attack outright. Along the way you’ll keep your boys moving from cover to cover and equip various weapons with which to fight off the hordes of baddies.

Company of Heroes, right? Wrong! Though you’d be forgiven for thinking that the following gameplay footage from Dawn of War 2 was in fact from a CoH mod.

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Wario Land: The Shake Dimension is the latest entry in the ever popular Wario Land series. It began on the original Game Boy as a fun 2d game with an original twist on the traditional platformer, requiring the player to manipulate Wario’s physical form in order to pass puzzles.

It’s great that the gameplay from the previous titles remains fully intact in the latest iteration. It’s not so great, however, that the graphics and production values have remained the same, despite the series’ big break into the current generation of home consoles.

What really makes me angry is the amount of praise this game is getting. While it may be a fairly decent game, it wouldn’t be out of place on the Nintendo DS or even the GBA (with the addition of the Wario Ware: Twisted peripheral of course) and yet they have the nerve to charge consumers thirty pounds for the pleasure of playing it, making it a full priced title retailing for the same as, say, Super Mario Galaxy…

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Being big fans of the Red Faction series since it’s beginning eight years ago, it’s latest installment for the next gen, Red Faction: Guerrilla, was some welcome news, albeit long overdue.

The beta consists of two maps and two game play modes, being the usual Team Death match and Territories.

Team Death match self explanatory, two teams, kill as many of the other team as possible etc. Territories however, has a new Red Faction spin on it, as you would expect there are various points on the map that can be controlled by either team, the more you control the more points you get, but, because it is Red Faction, these points must be constructed to be controlled, this is done by using a construction beam weapon carried by every member of the team, much like repairing vehicles in Unreal Tournament 3. Also if  the opposing team controls a point you want you must  smash it to little pieces using your trusty sledgehammer and then re-construct it.

Unfortunately, the weapons featured in the beta leave a lot of room for improvement, as they are unbalanced and feel very un-nessesary as everyone goes for the basic assault rifle or rocket launcher because they are the best for speed and damage while being effective at long range.

This is even more of an issue with the addition of power packs in the game, these are dotted around the map and are worn on the back of the players to enhance abilities and gain an advantage. These are great fun to use, especially the ”Rhino” which when activated will propel you forward and through any walls that are in your way, there are also packs to increase your speed and damage. The pack you see used the most though is the jet pack, with players often using it to reach high cliffs and ridges, which when carrying the assault rifle makes you near untouchable.

The biggest difference to the game is it’s look, being next gen it looks great as expected, but instead of being a FPS like the previous titles, it is now third person which looks like Mass Effect but plays like Lost Planet.

All in all, Red Faction: Guerrilla looks set to be another chart topper, bringing new and innovative ideas which the series was always known for, of course there are a few problems which need attention, but name a game that hasn’t got problems.

Check back for more news on this title as it happens in the coming months.

Firstly, watch this:

Now, some might say that Gears of War was just a generic shooter. Yes, it controlled well and yes, it looked nice and was tense enough to keep you going. But generic shooters don’t challenge for the top of the XBox Live playing charts for 8 billion years (until CoD comes along and topples it, that is). Generic shooters don’t have friends bringing their copy over to complete the co-op mode for what would be his tenth time. There has to be something else to it. And this is where Gears excels; in its details. So-effective-why-isn’t-this-in-every-game camerashake, for instance. Also, probably one of the best animations for a lumbering hulk of armour trying to sprint through a battlefield I’ve ever seen. Not to mention the most tactile-looking metal textures in video games. Ever.

These might not sound like massive issues, and certainly shouldn’t bring your game from a 7.0 to a 9.0. Or should they? I’ve been racking my brains for some of the games, off the top of my head, that have stuck with me - and what the first thing about that game is that flashes into my mind’s eye. I’m talking Resident Evil 4’s “Ello, stranga… whaddya buyin’?”; how Sony absolutely nailed the music track in Loco Roco - without which the game would’ve probably crashed faster than Allan’s Eee PC trying to record a podcast; all of the miniature challenges built in to Smash Bros Melee that become games within games.

Sure, set-pieces and massive boss fights will wow you on the first and maybe second run-through, or as Cliff puts it: “watercooler moments”, that keep you jabbering on to your non-gamer friends for weeks about how amazing this one scene was to the point of them shunning you from what little contact you had with society to begin with. But it’s the little character quirks and epic collective efforts to complete a game 100% that stick with most gamers, I’d wager.

These little pockets of developer-to-gamer love are all the more notable in their absence. Take Battlefield: Bad Company for instance. I’ve just been blasting my way through it at a frantically leisurely pace (we love our oxymorons), and while it’s undoubtedly a fantastic game - I’m not convinced that anyone will be scrambling to find a copy in ten years’ time, all giddy in the throes of a rose-tinted memory-specs haze. Little touches that may not seem like a big deal in beta, but make a massive difference to the longevity of a title’s reign, such as spawning 4 inches from the end of an enemy shotgun, make all the difference.

It’s for this reason that, although we’re initially disappointed, phrases like “it’s done when it’s done”, and “we’re scrapping the combat system and starting again. It’s not good enough”, from companies who can afford the luxury of perfectionism such as Valve and Blizzard, always make us smile just below the surface of our grumpy, pouting faces.

I guess what I’m trying to say is: “Look! When you shoot that dude, he actually moves like he’s injured and slows down. Sweeeeet…”

In a study based on <10 males aged 15-40, the GoYUK staff can officially announce that buying older games is now considered socially acceptable.

In an age where consoles cost more than an affordable car, it may be comforting to know that you’re not alone when you’re being tempted by Gamestation’s “4 for £20″ deals. There has been much discussion in the GameOnYou camp about, well, basically not being able to afford all the games we’d like to.

From gamer to gamer, we’d like to extend our unwashed, under-nourished hands to our beloved readers as we enter into a new age of cheapskatery, and being just that little bit more picky about which games to purchase.

Yes, there are some instances where we must have a game on release day (read: GTA IV, Boom Blox, Football Manager, Brothers in Arms). But titles such as Assassin’s Creed, Army of Two and the Battlefield: Bad Company saga have led us to rise and up say NO.

NO, we will not pay “full price” (whoever decided that all games should come out at £40 anyway?) for something that took 3 blokes and cat two months to shit out. NO, we will not fall for your pre-release hype and/or advertising and we would suggest that you should spend your money on titles that deserve it. Yes, Ubi, we’re talking to you. NO, we will not let games companies walk all over us and hold back content that should rightfully be in the game. And finally, NO we will not shell out our cash on games just because there’s “nothing good out for a few weeks”.

It’s not all doom and gloom though. The growth of the likes of Steam and XBLA mean that, more than ever, gamers have the ability to go looking for something outside the mainstream. What makes more sense; popping into town to pick up a 5-hour action game at £30, or paying less than a tenner to buy a puzzle game on Steam that will keep you entertained, off-and-on, for weeks to come?

We feel so strongly about this issue that we’ve somewhat changed our outlook. From this point on, we’ll throw a suitable price-tag on to each game review or quick playtest stating what we think the game is worth. That includes if we don’t think you should ever buy a game, regardless of the price.

As well as changing our review system (more details to come soon), we’re also starting a new feature, tentatively titled ‘Pocket Money’, where we’ll put together a monthly shopping basket worth £50 full of games that we think deserve your money. Old, new, “leet”, casual - we’ll throw together a mixed bag of quality at a suitable price.

To get us started, here’s something to whet your newly-born discerning appetite:

A recent article over on Kotaku has revealed deeply embedded opinions within Ubisoft HQ. The clumsy employee who dropped this comment is (possibly was by now) a moderator over at the Ubisoft forums - in sharp response to one member’s well-founded rant about how…

“[The Wii] gets no new Core-titles and when we get some like Shaun White Snowboarding it looks worse than SSX on the Cube. Doesn’t really look like Ubisoft is trying to put some effort in it.”

In response to this member’s thoughts, an angry Ubisoft moderator decided to bite back with the claim that…

“Parents who are buying a console for their children do not really care about Prince of Persia, Rainbow Six or Far Cry on the box, they want games that are going to be good for their children and not get them in the local newspaper”

This may be more accurately read as “You Wii owners aren’t mature enough to play the big boy’s games”. The rep then has the nerve to claim that “Amazing new AAA games” do not sell very well on the Wii. I’m guessing that means that the rubbish, old ZZZ games Ubisoft keep churning out go down a treat then.
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The GameOnYou staff, as critics, have impeccable tastes in computer games. As gamers, however, we betray our best interests in the name of shameless fun. There are a number of titles which can be classed as guilty pleasures. They may be imperfect but we love them.

To see my personal list of modern failures which still make my fingers twitch, hop over the post break…
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It seems to me, or to anyone with half an ounce of intelligence, that the computer games industry is still putting far too many sequels out on the market. Take the most recognised video game whore of them all. Mario (if we are to believe Wikipedia) has been flashing his portly Plumber money-maker in over 200 titles alone. Mario Kart on its own is soon to be on its 8th title. Are we really going to see anything that’s going to set it apart from racers before it? Well it’s a racing game, so no prizes for what the aim of the game is there, it’s got Mario who is sure to be followed by every Mario game character there has been and his/her mate, with lazy variations of new characters like baby peach, Skeletal Bowser, inside-out Luigi… yawn! It’s just the same shit, except you play against other suckers like you, who also shelled out loads of money for the privilege of being beaten by someone that’s not in the same room in the same predictable situation. But enough Mario bashing (even though if I could I’d strangle the fucker with the hymen of Princess Peach… come on as if she touched that fat fuck’s stubby torque wrench).

I really think, like in the films industry, that original ideas are far and few between these days. My taste in films has also gone back to a time when computer games had more original concepts.

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