GameOnYou UK

Many questions arise from these gameplay shorts: Will there be any wacky super-powers this time around? Who’s this lady-type? Who keeps leaving that sand lying around in slopy areas?

One thing we’re sure of though is that Prince of Persia looks ruddy gorgeous - and it takes a lot for us to say ‘ruddy’.

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Got a full day in which to sit and absorb the main events from E3? Well guess what, you can do so right here. With thanks to Gamespot, who actually live in America, rendering it much easier for them to actually be there. Obviously.

Ahem, the videos!

Mini-review: Watch the last 2 minutes, it’s the only bit of decent news in the whole show…

Mini-review: Nintendo in self-indulgent stories about their own families shocker!

All in all, not particularly exciting, strangely. We’ll be bringing you any videos from the show floor that catch our eye as we dig through the flood of content hitting the intertubes right now.

Have a fun day with that! I’ll just be here in the corner if you need me.

Like any self-respecting British male who resists the nipple-toting allure of the red-tops and opts for The Guardian or Telegraph instead, we class ourselves as highly intelligent beings here at GoY Towers. Except that we read Ultimate X-Men.

To this end, we like to think we’re clever enough to outsmart even the wiliest of AI foe, and take great satisfaction in doing so. All GoYers have almost certainly set themselves personal targets whilst scouring the interwebs for E3 goodness, and I’m no different. My aim is to bring any games that look like they might command just as brain as brawn to your attention.

Enter Far Cry 2, galloping gloriously into our gaze like the proverbial gazelle which we’ll undoubtedly be able to shoot throughout the game:

I’ll be adding more to this post throughout the conference, and using my weblord powers to drag it kicking and screaming to your attention, should any updates occur. Not that I’m guaranteeing they will - maybe FC2 is the only decent thinking man’s game coming out in the foreseeable future? Hopefully Operation Flashpoint 2 might have something to say about that… we eagerly await Codemasters…

I refuse to write its full name. Some might say that’s because I can’t remember the full title and can’t be bothered Googling it. Those people would be correct, but I’d still have to put a hit out on them.

If you’re into your Final Fantasy-esque battle systems, and like the sound of a bit of nerdy comedy thrown into the mix, get theeself on Steam, son. They’re doing it for $9.99 this weekend (roughly three pints).

Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-s- Ah forget it, you’ve stopped reading anyway

GoY would pay: £8.00

Best Price: approx. £7.00 after tax

-£1

I’ve been clinging on to my precious 1600 MS Points like they’ll save me from some sort of gaming nuclear winter, but yesterday I finally broke and splashed out.

Let me start by saying I’ve played a good bulk of the trials (probably about 25% of them, which is quite a few) on XBLA, so have a fairly good idea of the quality that can be expected. It might also help you to know that, when shopping for the ‘perfect’ games for me, I was looking for certain aspects; I wanted the game to playable for five minutes or five hours and still be fun, I wanted a co-op mode, and I also wanted that co-op mode to be playable over Live (ever since I started playing online games, the thing that has interested me most is working together with a fellow human being to get the win. Co-op everything is the future - you heard it here first!).

With this in mind, you won’t be surprised to hear that new release Schizoid’s tagline, “The most co-op game ever.” grabbed my attention somewhat. After watching a couple of videos (after the post break), I was instantly sold.

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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…”

Many gamers who own a DS are entirely satisfied with the game catalogue and what Ninty’s pocket handheld has to offer. Many people though, on the other hand may have been looking for something more action-oriented and First Person Shootery (despite the critically acclaimed Metroid Prime: Hunters).

Well, unfortunately for you folks, you’re going to have to keep looking as this first-time effort from obscure developer, No Way Studios looks just like a segue between the original Quake and Star Wars: Dark Forces (with a sprinkling of Duke Nukem).

Brilliant news if you live in the 90s and hardly worthy of everyone else’s attention.

Unless you live in the 80s, or 70s, or 60s, or…

Sean’s currently in the throes of a Sonygasm, otherwise he would’ve posted this himself. Instead of not-so-subtly jabbing him in his fanboy ribs amidst details of the 2.40 update, I’ll just let this lovely young gentleman tell what the craic is:

While this news may not apply to every DS owner, there is a homebrew out there which effectively plays like the 2D flash game, only with its own cartoony stylings.

We’re off to download it and pass around our solitary original DS in the GoY dungeons, like the crackpipe that it is.

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Sneak a slice from DS Fanboy for the original story and a quick guide to possibly getting your DS playing homebrew, and tell us what you think of the game!

It’s free. It’s made by Dice. We want it.

Here are some videos of it in action. Look how fun!

IGN also have a hands-on preview of the game, so get over there and read you some words!