HeadWillCollapse

Ouch, iron bar.

Marvel: Ultimate Alliance on the X-box 360

Disclaimer: This ‘review’ was written after one session of M:UA and is therefore constructed from little more than initial impressions. There may also have been a beer-associated-increased-enjoyment factor so please adjust you reading of it accordingly (or simply play the game drunk). Thank you.

When CL! and I sat down to play Marvel: Ultimate Alliance for the first time it was, for me at least, a step into the unknown having never read or heard anything about the game before seeing it on the retailer’s shelf. Half expecting some sort of trite Tekken Clone, with the likes of Cyclops destroying all comers with some sort of cheap “blast you endlessly from the other side of the screen with my overpowered eye-laser” move, I took the controller in hand. However, what I found and what took with complete surprise, was the simplistic joy that the multiplayer game offers.

For those like me (perhaps with Retrogamer subscriptions keeping them abreast of all the gaming news that was hitting headlines two decades ago), who are not in the know, I’ll elaborate. The multiplayer game has you cooperating with the other players, choosing up to four characters from a large pool of Marvel superheroes (including the rubbish ones) and deploying them to fight off what seems like the entire Marvel universe of supervillans (including the rubbish ones). At its core it’s really a superhero themed, 3-d version of Final Fight. Lots of potential for smashing heads, lots of minion heads to smash. However, when played it’s more than just that, the effort that’s gone into it makes it just that little bit special.
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Sunday evening saw the most triumphant return of “VideoGaiden” to BBC Scotchland. Needless to say it’s far and away the best video-game show to date and has finally stopped us lonely, obese, Firefly-loving gamers pining for the days of GamesMaster.

Sure it lacks the sophistication and class of “Bits” (though they do have have the budget and the breasts) and the diction of the pair from “Gamezville”, but the show has more passion for the subject in a single review than most of its counterparts were able to muster in their entire run.

So go watch it, tell your friends about it, and collectively point and laugh at the large areas of Britain who aren’t party to it.

It’s true, they did and back then I thought it was pretty cool too. Of course, this lot have done it a whole lot better.

There should probably be a spoiler warning in here somewhere…

Lithium Flower

Last Dinosaur

Speedy Marie

Gold Lion

Four ships in a week. I’m aware that losing ships is all a part of Eve, but how frequently are you supposed to lose them?

The first, “Lithium Flower” lasted almost an hour from inception to destruction and could be essentially discounted as the result of naivety on behalf of the “n00b” player.

The second “Last Dinosaur” was seemingly on a roll, managing to rack up a few mission victories before being dispatched in no uncertain terms in a battle that resulted in the loss of a friend’s, rather more costly, battleship.

The third, “Speedy Marie” was a deviation away from the norm in that it was a different type of ship to the previous two, a faster, more agile version. Sadly, like it says in the opening lyric of the song for which it was named, it only “had a bit part”. A quick half hour before being blasted to dust by the same fiends that claimed the “Lithium Flower”.

The fourth, “Gold Lion”, modelled on the third, but with a new tactic in mind was entirely underwhelming, though it faired a little better than its predecessor. Far from being worth its weight in gold, it came out closer to being worth its weight in lions and indeed it burst in the vacuum of space with just about the same gusto as they would have.

I don’t understand how I’ve managed such dismal performances: Eve’s essentially a multiplayer, 3-d version of “Tyrian” and I was great at that…

Ah, Eve Online, how you make me wish that a. I could fly a real spaceship (not this kind of junk) and b. that space was really this pretty.

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…is another man’s treasure.

“Here’s our “must-have X-Box games list“, not of all time obviously, just the ten most “must-have” of the thirty we have in this sack. Did we mention that the sack also contains twenty copies of “Drake“?”

Thanks CNET!

Is it possible to write some code that outputs an exact copy of an image in the form of an enormous HTML table in under twenty lines? Why yes, yes it is.

And just how pointless is such an exercise? Make up your own mind.

Amigo!

Edit: Actually as it turns out, playing with the cellpadding and cellspacing values in that code actually creates some quite cool results, or alternatively go with specifiying the height and width of the cells in ems for a liquid layout that makes firefox cry

I bought this to replace the original discs that have gone walkabout somewhere or another. Buying it again made me all warm and fuzzy and just having it on the shelf will increase my overall happiness level by a factor of 1.6.

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Dear Rockstar North,

You made me drive around in the rain, evading capture by the police, in a car that didn’t handle very well. After that you forced to buy weaponry (in a distinctly shady part of town), asked me to turn traitor on the Mafia family who’d given me a home, demanded I assassinate my mentors and made me listen to “Kids in America” at least twice a day. You then expected me to live with the wrath of the mob, while still being at your beckoned call, and all for a measly £50K. Read the rest of this entry »

Fat Conan, while sitting at home contemplating the endless possibilities for the hair-restructuring he’s undergoing tomorrow and flicking through an old copy of “Games TM” came across a list of twenty must-have X-Box games, of which he currently owns eight. Besides wondering why he hadn’t refered to the list before going out and buying “Capcom Fighting Jam”, his attention was grabbed by one particular entrant. Alongside Jet Set Radio Future’s listing (which he was glad to see in the list) was a sentence giving a reason for the game’s appearance that read:

“Cel-shading at its very best and a soundtrack to die for”. Read the rest of this entry »