Pure Genius

Nintendo are one of the few companies that just know what pleases people and how to make them smile with their games. At the moment I just can't stop playing Metroid on the Wii. Apart from the game itself being brilliant its bonus content that you can purchase using vouchers earned during play and also special ones sent to you from friends works extremely well due to the thought that's gone into it. One great thing is that you don't have to register another friend code to do this. If a friend is added to your Wii address book and they have Metroid save data they'll appear in bold and you can send them these special friend vouchers. Receiving these is the only way to buy some of the bonus items.

So far I've bought a Mii Bobblehead and some bumper stickers for my ship. The bumper stickers you get are based on what other game saves you have on your Wii and the bobblehead stands proudly atop your dashboard in its Samus uniform. You can even prod the head to make it wobble and I've wasted minutes doing just that! Utterly pointless but I can't remember the last time I smiled so much in a game. That was even before I took off in my ship the following day and the engines made it wobble all by itself!

Sometimes I wonder if it's normal for something like this to give me so much pleasure, but I don't think I should be questioning it. I could easily write pages on things I don't enjoy in games and no doubt in future I'll be doing exactly that on this blog. For now though the only thing that matters is that I do enjoy it and I let it please me. As much as you can moan about certain decisions Nintendo make, you have to admit they are geniuses at what they do and at the top of their game nobody does it better.

Let us know on the GAMEOV3R Forum what gives you pleasure... keep it clean though eh

Prime Time

Nintendo rock! They have confirmed, as if we really needed it confirming, that they are numero uno in the video game industry. Not only have Nintendo given us unique and fabulous consoles in the Wii and DS but they are backing all this up with awesome software.

Metroid Prime is now amongst us and it is as good as you always wished it would be. If you’re a gamer you owe it to yourself to play this. The critical and public acclaim lavished on Samus’ final outing in the Prime trilogy is evidence already of this game’s destiny to be an all time classic.

16th November sees Mario back on UK shores for an out of this world epic. I suffered through all of the Game Cube hype and rumours that surrounded the alleged Mario 128. We waited and waited and, as we all know, it never arrived. The disappointment was tangible as Nintendo failed their fans and Maz only had eyes for Sunshine and GBA re-releases. Galaxy looks set to blitz every game that has gone before it and everyone will forgive Nintendo.

They’ll more than forgive though. With Prime, Mario and more on the shelves this Christmas Nintendo is going to own the festive period. The game buying public worship at the alter of Nintendo.

Is demand for the Wii going to out strip supply again this Christmas? Can Sony or Microsoft stop them? Get on the Gameov3r FORUM now to praise or slate as you see fit. Just don't bother talking about anything Christmassy or wishing anyone a Merry Christmas just yet. Gameov3r’s orders because “IT’S STILL OCTOBER!!*”

* I can’t actually quote all of the words Gameov3r used. We’d probably be shut down if I did! He did mention the name Stuart a few times amongst all the expletives though.

Vick's Monday Blues (Crystal Maze)

Gaming trivia time kids...
In December 1992, video game publishers Codemasters released "Crystal Kingdom Dizzy", one of the last installments in their successful series. In the final level of the game, Dizzy had to return the lost treasure to its rightful place, but before he could do that he had to take on an obstacle course of moving platforms beneath water, and collect a crystal and make his way out, in a parody of the programme itself. During this course a Richard O' Brien lookalike says in a caption Quick!, quick!, get the crystal! One of his most well-known phrases on the TV show.

Like gaming? Sense of humour? The GAMEOV3R Forum awaits

:) Vick :)

HOPE

SLAM! You're making steady progress through a game when suddenly you come face to face with a brick wall and it's a large brick wall with a very bricky kind of texture. No matter what you try you can't find a way around it or over it. You get frustrated and backtrack for hours thinking you must have missed something but eventually you give in, hit 'save' and put it to one side.

Coming back to a game fresh after even just a few hours can work wonders. The solution stares straight at you like your opponent in a staring contest and it seems so obvious that you can't believe you didn't think of it before.

This has happened to me quite frequently recently and other than tiredness it's often that I tend to look for something far more complicated than I need to. What prompted me to write all this down was a Gears of War co-op game with Matt that pointed this out to me clearer than anything. Nearing the end of our game we were just chatting and from where we were standing you could just make out the top half of a sculpture in the middle of a large garden... H... O. What could it mean? Head Office? Hand's Off? Height Obstacle? Hippocratic Oath? We got a bit nearer to see if it would reveal any further clues. It did. There were more letters below... P... E. PE? Well there's the obvious one, Physical Education? Or maybe Playboy Enterprises? Polycromatic Erythroblast? Prostate Enlargement?

A shot rang out, as shots often do, and something registered.
HOPE! It's HOPE!

It had taken us a good couple of minutes to reach this conclusion. Minds like steel traps but rusted shut having been left out so long. It was time to get some sleep!

We hope to see you on the GAMEOV3R Forum

More censorship.....just don't mention the war

If you read Greek Tragedy and Seal of Censorship then you might be feeling a bit sorry for yourself and disappointed by the game censorship in this country. So, to brighten your evening, this might be necessary if you’re a Spurs fan because Gatafe have equalised and Gardener just injured himself....again, lets have a look at a few other countries and their censorship issues starting with Germany. Here the authorities don’t worry about Aliens being killed but if a game has bleeding humans in it then censors are ready with their scissors. They don’t like the mention of WWI & WWII in games either. Not for political reasons, but because they lost them both. They don’t much like to see the Swastika either. I can’t think why. But, while the Germans may flap about seeing a bit of tomato sauce in games, something that most other Europeans and Americans accept without thinking, they quite like a bit of beastiality, which every other country baulks at. It’s true. Stick a dog in a game having sex and it’s on the shelf faster than you can say Eine kliene Nachtmusik. Or something.

American censors frown upon references to smoking, to pills or any drug abuse while the Aussies don’t mind if their game characters get pissed. No surprise there really. American censors do like to see any game showing US military might. This hits the patriotic mark perfectly. Indeed the military might thing is actively encouraged. Just look at MOH Rising Sun. The Japanese censors on the other hand won’t allow any game to market that delves into their murky past and potential misdemeanours.

The Chinese don’t allow any non-state religious symbols while it seems in Britain that any religious symbols at all are a bone of contention. NES Duck Tales didn’t escape the beady eye of one censor who spotted crosses on some coffins. The developer was instructed to remove them so that the Jews didn’t get pissed off. The final game had RIP instead crosses on the coffins.

Feeling sorry yet? Cry on GAMEOV3R’S broad shoulders on the FORUM You can talk about censorship and war too if you like.

Wild World of Warcraft?

Lets face it, Nintendo have been pretty slow in making the most of the Wii's online functionality. We've had bits and pieces like the weather channel, news, voting and the Opera browser but very little in the way of actual games. So are Nintendo just not really focusing on this part of gaming or do they have something up their sleeves they aren't telling us about?

According to the latest EDGE magazine that could be exactly what they are doing. We've not heard much about the Wii version of Animal Crossing but a Japanese source has confirmed that the title is set to be a social networking MMO!

Nintendo of course are remaining tight lipped on this one with the customary 'no comment' but having seen the way they went with the DS version I can see this actually happening.

GAMEOV3R is ready to discuss this with you now over on the Forum

Seal of Censorship

Nintendo are famous for being touchy about game content and have become renowned for being family friendly and innocent, or soft and cuddly depending on your point of view. Buying a Nintendo game meant that you were buying a fun game that was suitable for everyone to play and that's an image that Nintendo are struggling to shake to this day.

The Nintendo Seal of Quality was created to uphold this innocent aura and it was applied to all NES and SNES games during the 80’s and 90’s guaranteeing that Nintendo had vetted the games before they hit the shelves and that all content they thought inappropriate had been removed. With the quality of a lot of games being substandard calling the Seal "The Seal of Censorship" would certainly have been a more appropriate. Wouldn't have sold as many games though. Or would it...

Probably the most famous of Nintendo censorship was the removal of all the blood from Mortal Kombat replacing it with grey sweat. This mad decision cost Nintendo a lot of revenue as their fans defected to the gore filled Mega Drive version.

A few years earlier and it was a NES game that caused Nintendo to get all hot and bothered. The fabulous Lucas Arts adventure Maniac Mansion had been converted from the Amiga and was submitted to be stamped with the Seal by Jaleco. Nintendo however didn’t like quite a few things, no sense of humour, and made demands that changes be made. One thing that had to go was the ability for Dave, the main character, to put a hamster in the microwave and watch it explode. Ok, so that’s a bit cruel but it’s funny!

When the cartoon boxing game Punch Out was converted from arcade to NES there were race issues that caused Nintendo to sweat. The Russian boxer known as Vodka Drunkenski in the arcades had to be renamed, they chose Soda Popinski, in an effort to avoid racial stereotyping. Again Nintendo fail to spot the humour.

Tell GAMEOV3R what you think of censorship on his FORUM He promises not to edit or delete what you write. Honestly.

Vick's Monday Blues (Darth Vader)

Even Darth Vader has a sense of humour.



Like gaming? Sense of humour? The GAMEOV3R Forum awaits

:) Vick :)

Guitar Hero III Demo Leaked

The Guitar Hero III demo that I'm told comes with Tony Hawk's Proving Ground and the latest issue of OXM seems to have made it onto download sites before becoming available on the Xbox LIVE Marketplace. Nothing too unusual in itself I guess but apparently if you burn it to a regular blank CD or DVD it will work on any Xbox 360 (accessed from the demos list), no dodgy firmware hacks or chips required. I haven't tested this and I have no idea whether it'll get Microsoft's knickers in a twist so GAMEOV3R in no way recommends doing this but will you resist?

The track list is below:

• "Hit me with your best shot" - Pat Benetar
• "Lay down" - Priestess
• "Even flow" - Pearl Jam
• "Rock you like a hurricane" - Scorpions
• "The metal" - Tenacious D

The GAMEOV3R Forum rocks so what are you still doing reading this? Click the link and prove me wrong

Greek Tragedy

Sophocles, Euripides and Aeschylus, often cited as the founding father of Tragedy, are three of the greatest writers of Greek Tragedy. These tragedies were usually performed as a contest, one playwright against another, as a trilogy played over three days, at an annual state religious festival in honour of Dionysus.

Aristotle got in on the tragedy act a hundred years or so later commenting that, "Tragedy is an imitation of an action that is admirable, complete (composed of an introduction, a middle part and an ending), and possesses magnitude; in language made pleasurable, each of its species separated in different parts; performed by actors, not through narration; effecting through pity and fear the purification of such emotions." I couldn't have put it better myself.

This was all a long time ago, around 500/400 BC, and although there was a renaissance in the 17th century Greek Tragedy has never again been as popular.

Until 2002 that is, because in 2002 the Greek government created a tragedy that would make Aeschylus himself, had he owned a games console, envious and outraged. This tragedy was called, "A blanket ban on all video games". I jest not. The legislation was introduced after a government official was found playing a gambling game, something the government wanted to eradicate, but the wording of the new law meant that all electronic games were included in the crackdown. Residents and tourists alike were facing fines of up to 150,000 euro (£95,000) and a 12 month prison sentence just for firing up Grandmaster Chess on a Game Boy. Thankfully the ban has since been lifted, it lasted for over a year, but even before it was lifted judges had begun throwing out these cases labelling the mad law as being unconstitutional. This change of heart might also have had something to do with a campaign encouraging people to stop eating kebabs as a rebellious protest.

With Manhunt 2 hogging the censorship limelight I thought this story needed an airing. It's also gotten me in the mood for more censorship fun of the same ilk so I think I'll write a part 2. And perhaps a part 3. Stay tuned.

Until then, come and be a Drama Queen on the GAMEOV3R forum and share your tragedies. Or just share your opinions on videogame censorship. But make sure your language is made pleasurable.

Your Adventure Awaits

>LOOK

Oval Office
You are standing inside a White House, having just been elected to the presidency of the United States.

There is a large desk here, along with a few chairs and couches. The presidential seal is in the middle of the room and there is a full-length mirror upon the wall.
What do you want to do now?

> INVADE IRAQ
You are not able to do that, yet.

> LOOK MIRROR
Self-reflection is not your strong suit.

> EXAMINE CHAIRS
There are several chairs arranged around the center of the room, along with two couches. Under one couch you find Clinton's shoes.

> FILL SHOES
You are unable to fill Clinton's shoes.

> INVADE IRAQ
You are not able to do that, yet.

> INVADE IRAQ
You are not able to do that, yet.

Whatever happened to adventure games? Before consoles ruled the roost they were everywhere. I remember probably my first introduction to the genre on my little rubber keyed friend the Sinclair Spectrum 48k. It was The Hobbit (way back in 1982!), and I hated it with a passion. For its time the parser was pretty advanced, as rather than merely understanding the usual "get ring" type commands you could type sentences such as "follow tiny little man to Mordor to throw ring into volcano" and it just might happen, if you were lucky.
At one point in the game, it was possible to drink wine, getting the player (temporarily) drunk. The game would then substitute "sh" for "s" in its responses (e.g. "You drink shome wine"). This caused extra amusement if the player entered the command "sit".

Even with all this 'advanced' stuff I still found early adventure games frustrating, and like many people resorted to typing in swear words just to occupy myself. This would often result in amusing responses and filled my juvenile mind with much joy and happiness.

Ah the good old days of gaming! So back to my question, whatever happened to adventure games? Well, they evolved into point-and-click titles such as Monkey Island and Sam & Max completely avoiding the need for the games to understand text entered by the player, and they were good and often very humorous. But they just don't make em like that anymore... or do they?

There seems to be a whole underground realm of these kind of games now available on the Internet, some of them previously commercial games and others created from scratch and available as freeware. If you miss a good adventure you could do worse than start here.

Were you an adventurer? Are you a Hobbit? Do you have any large gold rings you need to dispose of? Maybe someone can help on the GAMEOV3R Forum

First Pay to Play

HMV's Flagship store on Princes Street Edinburgh is pioneering a new concept called THE GAMING ZONE.

It will span an area of 2,000 square feet and will house 27 360's and HD TV's all linked up to allow gamers to play MMO stylie. Well, almost.

Interestingly enough, this isn't all for free and gamers will have to pay a fiver for three hours' play. Is this to disuade the school kids, that usually hog the consoles in GAME and Gamestation, from playing truant I wonder?

If you're in Edinburgh on Friday this week check it out but there could be "lengthy queues" according to the branch McManager.

Does THE GAMING ZONE make you want to bunk off school or work for that matter? Would paying a fiver stop you?? GAMEOV3R has some spare change.

Vick's Monday Blues (rent money)

Exploitation at it's best :)



Roll up roll up join the GAMEOV3R Forum, come on now don't be shy

:) Vick :)

Bring The Noise

I've read a few articles in the gaming news lately about a couple of motherboard revisions that the Xbox 360 will receive to reduce costs, combat the ring of death problem and I hope, reduce the noise level a little!

When you first experience a 360 and power it up it's one of the very first things you'll notice I guarantee. Now I'm no console designer but if I created something that made as much noise as the 360 just trying to keep cool I think alarm bells would have started ringing fairly quickly. Is it really any wonder the ring of death has been such a huge problem for Microsoft?

For anyone that hasn't had the pleasure I'll try to describe it. The 360 sounds like playing while someone vacuums around you, only without the annoying bit where you get asked to lift your feet up while they obscure your view of the screen. I haven't heard something make so much noise trying to cool down since I had that vindaloo!

Here's a highly scientific experiment I thought I'd share with you to prove my point...


Join the GAMEOV3R Forum but please don't make too much noise, I think I'm getting a headache

Saw’ vinga?

No, I’m not at the Chinese take away. Can I say that? Anyway, I recently discovered, rather painfully, that I’ve developed a physical problem. A video game related physical problem. Now before you go off thinking that you’ve heard it all before and this will just be another Wii Remote related incident.. STOP.. because it isn’t. I’ve started getting sore fingers. Specifically I think this has to be Xbox 360 related and for the purpose of this Blog I’m going to call the injury “Xbox Eagle Claw Kung Forza Fist”.

The pain is in my right hand and appears to be limited to the knuckles. It's only really painful whenever I make a fist or more specifically when I make a hand shape similar to the shape shown by the rubbery chap above. It’s really, really sore too! The good thing is that I don’t seem to feel any ill effects while I’m playing so it hasn’t stopped me gaming, yet. Weird thing is though that the pain is there whenever I bend my fingers even if I’ve not played for a few days and I often have a strange desire to check if i my knuckles are still sore by making my hand make that shape.

I blame the 360 because I’ve only been feeling the injury since I bought it so it stands to reason that it’s the 360 controller that’s to blame. The Sony and Nintendo fanboys reading this can just stop that snickering right now! I’m also thinking that Forza, or possibly Flatout or even PGR but we’ll go with Forza, is to blame because when I play Forza my right hand grips the controller quite tightly, again in a shape not dissimilar to bendy boy, so I can squeeze RT to accelerate. LT is for braking and braking is for wusses so my left hand is ok.

Have I developed some kind of Gamer RSI I wonder or is it more sinister? Am I just getting old and arthritic? I’ve been waggling joysticks and joypads for a long time after all. Perhaps I should retire from gaming and give my hands a rest altogether. Hey, I wonder if I could sue big ol’ Bill? I must phone one of these no win no fee agencies to see if I could make enough cash to set me up for life, er I mean, to see if I could get a satisfactory amount of compensation.

Do you suffer from an Xbox Eagle Claw Kung Forza Fist? Maybe you have other gaming ailments? Perhaps you just feel like suing someone. GAMEOV3R wants to know.

Rock My World!

If you'd like something to cringe at today then you've come to the right place!

Anyone remember the name Infogrames? They were the people behind such games as Alone in the Dark and Test Drive. A while back they bought Atari and now release games under that name. I think I've discovered the reason for that because if I was associated with what you're about to hear I'd probably do the same. Don't be fooled by the gentle start, stick with it for a rousing chorus with some of the greatest lyrics since Razorlight wrote the classic 'Somewhere Else'...

And I met a girl,
she asked me my name,
I told her what it was.

Makes me weep every time I hear it...



If the player doesn't work here's the link

With thanks to GayGamer.net, you rock my world.

Come and join the GAMEOV3R Forum you know you want to!

Insecurities

Nintendo want video games to be accepted and played by everybody. Is this really possible? Developers and publishers think so looking at the variety of games available. But what do the public think? I’ve a couple of experiences in the last week that says games are not and never will be accepted as mainstream entertainment for everyone.

A work colleague of mine, she’s perhaps early 40’s and she won’t thank me for saying that, expressed utter surprise to learn that I play video games. She couldn’t get her head around why an adult would want to play games and why I didn’t have a “proper” hobby. She said, “I thought those things were just for children?” I didn’t even try to explain.

While on flights to and from Bergamo last week I read a book. Mr Biffo’s Confessions of a Chatroom Freak. A highly entertaining book which is as funny as it is weird. Strange things go on in chatrooms it seems. My wife also read some of the book on the return flight and her reactions to what she was reading drew some strange looks from our fellow passengers and the flight crew. But not as funny as the looks I got when I got my DS out. I’m serious! This guy in the row opposite to me, that just happened to be watching a movie on a device with what looked like a 4” screen, perhaps he was compensating for what he lacked in other areas, caught my eye and proceeded to raise an eyebrow, shake his head and go back to his film. This happened a few times during the flight, perhaps he was envious but I got the feeling he thought the DS was beneath him in some way.

I was playing Yoshi’s Island so I suppose for the uninitiated it looks like a kids game. For those that know the game they'll also know that it’s an extremely challenging platformer but does have typically Nintendo cutesy graphics. I changed games switching to Dr Kawashima’s Brain Training but I got the impression that it wouldn’t have mattered what game I played. I even decided to play some Atari classics on my GBA Micro just to see what would happen. The Micro certainly received stares but I think it was more disbelief. I think I was imagining that his eyebrows really were able to touch his hairline but I couldn’t be sure.

Perhaps it’s my own self-consciousness that is the problem when gaming in public. I’ll always remember feeling conspicuous when getting my old Atari Lynx out in public. Not so much when playing my original Game Boy but the Game Boy has a certain cool factor attached to it.

Questions, questions. Was Mr 4” Screen, who incidentally had to be the first one out of his seat when we landed and couldn’t resist checking his mobile phone while the plane taxied even though there had just been an announcement saying, “don’t switch on mobile telephones until you are outside of the aircraft”, a closet gamer that couldn’t bring himself to play in public or was he really scoffing because his was bigger and for grown ups? Was I experiencing a mild form of Air Rage? Am I paranoid gamer, that played too much Goldeneye back in the day and now avoids all CCTV cameras at any cost, or have you been in a similar situation? Will video games ever be mainstream entertainment and be recognised as a fulfilling and honourable pastime?

It’s GAMEOV3R Forum time!

Vick's Monday Blues

With the upcoming release of Zelda: The Phantom Hourglass and sailing the seas I thought this video might be quite topical.



If ye`d like t' meet a seafarin' hearty come on o'er t' th' GAMEOV3R Forum or if ye dasn't, leave a comment here instead ya horn swogglin' scurvy cur!

When is Talk Like a Pirate Day? I think I missed it. Vick :)

Video Game Character of the Month

GO: State your name.
AH: Alien Hominid

GO: Where did you make your first game appearance?
AH: A Flash game named after me on Newgrounds.com

GO: Where are you from?
AH: A galaxy far, far away and I'm going back there soon too.

GO: What are you good at?
AH: Violence. Particularly biting off the heads of FBI and KGB agents.

GO: What are you least likely to do?
AH: Go on vacation with my family to Area 51

GO: Tell us something we don't know.
AH: Erm.. I'm the first small yellow alien responsible for the creation of a game developer while on the run from the US Government.

GO: Thank you Alien. Fancy a pint and a game of Space Invaders on my cocktail table?

Got a favourite video game character? Tell us who on the Forum

Tetris Splash Out

This Wednesday a game called Tetris Splash made it onto the XBLA. You guessed it, it's Tetris with a fishy theme. A little bit on the pricey side at 800 points (£6.80) considering the formula hasn't changed, but then if you don't have Tetris it's a decent enough version with upto 6 players in its online mode, but I have a problem...

On the day of release a whopping 14 additional chunks of content was also made available none of which extends the gameplay in any way. Want to add a fish of your choice that will swim around in the background? You gotta shell out for it. Choice of backgrounds while you play? You guessed it, pay for it. If you want the lot it'll cost you an extra 1200 points (£10.20)! For fish and backgrounds?! Now fair enough very few will probably want to download the whole lot, at least not at that price but surely this kind of stuff should be in the game? As a matter of interest the game itself is one of the smallest downloads from the XBLA I've seen at around 24Mb. Hmmm something smells fishy. Are you thinking what I'm thinking?

I love the XBLA just like I love the Nintendo VC but I really hope once the Wiiware channel starts that it doesn't set off down this route and I hope we don't start to see more of it on the XBLA. I'm very disappointed in you Microsoft, anyone would think you were just out to make as much money from us as you can!... What's that Bill? Oh, you are.

What's the difference between a fish and a piano? You can't tuna fish! Find more childish humour on the GAMEOV3R Forum

My Sonic Adventures

G'day sport! I've mentioned the difficulty I have in appreciating the Sonic games before but having read so many positive reviews for Sonic Rush Adventure on the DS I had to give him another try.

I almost gave up before I even got to play anything due to the never ending dialogue featuring an annoying woodland Australian creature. I mean strewth! It just goes on and on and on and it's such inane drivel. Stick with it I did though and I did read it all only because I thought I might miss something I actually needed to know. For the benefit of anyone thinking the same, there isn't.

Once I finally started playing I remembered all the other reasons I don't get on with Sonic. I know his whole character is based around speed but playing this feels more like pinball than a platform game. I'm looping the loop, bouncing off... bouncy things and desperately trying to feel like I'm in control but I rarely do. Fair dinkum I guess in time the levels get more familiar but I can't find the motivation to learn them. I actually had more fun playing the little jet ski mini game. Maybe my creaking 34 year old brain just isn't quick enough anymore or maybe I've just got a few kangaroos loose in the top paddock?

Something makes me keep giving Sonic games a burl though and I think it's because I feel I must be missing something. So many people enjoy them, so many reviews keep telling me how ripper they are but I just can't get into them.

If you can help me with my Sonic troubles come on over to the GAMEOV3R Forum and throw us another shrimp on the barbie while you're at it. Bonzer!

Not free but only a tenner

With so much information available about games it’s hard to know how good or bad a game is going to be. There is information and opinion everywhere and it’s difficult to know who to trust especially when publishers would have you believe that all their games are the best you’ll ever play.

Take Jeff Minter’s latest game Space Giraffe on XBLA. I’ve played Llamasoft games since the days of the Commodore 64 so I was already tempted but on the game’s release I read some hugely varied responses. One reviewer gave it 2/10, incidentally Jeff’s response was classic, where others were much more favourable. Gameov3r’s very own host, Lee, reviewed Space Giraffe and gave it a score of and, knowing that we tend to agree, more often than not, that was enough for me to make my decision and download the game. I’m happy to say that I still agree with his evaluation of the game.

Over a month ago now Lee recommended the 360 game Kameo to me. He also told me that Asda had it for a tenner on their website. Not only that but he said that if I didn’t like it he would personally send me a tenner out of his own piggy bank. Bargain! I thought to myself. I can’t lose! So I hastily placed my order.

Well Lee the wait is over. Last Thursday night was my first opportunity to play the game and you’ll be glad to hear that your tenner is safe. I thoroughly enjoyed the 2 and half hours I spent playing. I’ve now spent in excess of 6 hours playing and I’d recommend it to anyone that has enjoyed a RARE game in the past or anyone that enjoys huge games with epic storylines.

So that’s 2 games I’ve had recommended to me, in different ways, and both times the recommendation has been right. I make a lot of decisions based on what I read and what a few people tell me and it’s not often these days that I buy a stinker. I’m pleased to say that the Gameov3r forum has a lot of likeminded members, granted we have some strange members but they’re likeminded nonetheless, and all are passionate about video games and perhaps there is a reason in there somewhere why there’s always someone playing the same games as you. Perhaps unusually for a gamer forum we have an average age of around 30 and I think this is one reason why there is a lot of agreement on the games we play and discuss.

Of course, none of us agree all of the time and we still need as much information as we can get from reliable sources to help us to decide what to play next.

So who’re your trusted sources and where do you arm yourself with the information you need to make your next purchase? Tell us on the Gameov3r FORUM

The September Surprise?

Give your Wii remote an afro free of charge! Just log on to the NoE site and order your free protection (Up to 4 per console).

Well it looks like Nintendo have been keeping an eye on our blog and have decided to supply their own protection. Nintendo will include the Wii Remote Jacket with all Wii™ hardware systems and with all Wii Remotes sold separately or packaged with Wii Play™.

"We're always looking for ways to improve our products and make sure everyone has a safe and fun experience," says George Harrison, Nintendo of America's senior vice president before adding that the ribbed section was specially chosen for your comfort and pleasure and you still get to keep the vibrate option too.

I have to say I'm curious enough to go and order some for nowt...

Will you be trying one out? Tell us on the GAMEOV3R Forum

Vick's Monday Blues

Even Stormtroopers have it bad. Bless.



If you need a helpline try the GAMEOV3R Forum or if you don't, leave a comment here instead

:) Vick :)