Supermarkets Have The Power?

All these new releases; how ever will we afford them all!? No worries, just drop by your local supermarket – Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda – and you’re bound to pick up that brand new release for a fraction of the price.

With all these new games coming out I’ve had to carefully pick and choose which ones I wish to buy. I decided to buy Fifa 09 as I enjoy football games and wanted a Fifa title for my 360. Me and my girlfriend then brought Fable II together because we love RPG’s. I thought that would be enough for a month or so as I like to pace myself with games to get the full experience. However, I then fancied buying a new DS game and decided on Proffesor Layton, I was in Sainsbury’s at the time and thought I’d check their games. There I found Proffesor Layton for a mere £23.97. “Excellent” I thought! Yet then I saw Fallout 3 for £29 and I just could not resist.

Nobody loves a bargin quite like I do and I just could not believe how cheap it was. I work in Gamestation, which you probably would of heard of if you’re from England, and we do pretty good deals but £29 for a game that is barely a week old is amazing, even we couldn’t beat that. Our pre-owned would be more expensive!

At work we were all talking about this new found power supermarkets seem to have at the moment and how Sainsbury’s actually plan to offer the new release of the week for around the price tag of £29 each week. Apparently they make a loss on profits from it as it’s so cheap but it’s only every so slightly that it doesn’t matter. Plus, it’s getting people like you and me into their shop when we perhaps wouldn’t be there in the first place as we’d be in Gamestation, HMV or Game.

Is this good for the industry? Yes, in the eyes of the average consumer, as you’re getting the same game for a cheaper price. And with the economy at the moment we all need our extra pennies. But you’re not getting the added discussion at the tills about your purchase, are you? “Good choice, I’m playing through it myself at the moment.” and general discussion like this. Also, let’s face it, the people at Gamestation and Game have a passion for games, not sure about those at Sainsbury’s! And of course it’s not good for Gamestation/Game, as they lose out on potential customers.

I think it comes down to where’s cheapest though and if these supermarkets want to play a sneaky game and get us gamers in their stores by selling new releases for £29 a pop then they will succeed. I’ll just refuse to buy anything else while I’m there!

GTA:IV – 10/10?

 

Good graphics is a fraction of what GTA:IV offers.

When GTA:IV was unveiled everyone was very keen to get their hands on it and find out what had been changed, what was the same and ultimately, what was better. Months later there’s still people out there enjoying it and playing through the main story or on multiplayer. But did it really deserve the 10/10 mark that sites like Gamespot, IGN and Xbox 360 Official magazine gave it?

From the moment Niko Bellic, our main protagonist, steps off the boat onto the shores of Liberty City you know that Rockstaris offering something a little different this time round. Of course, it’s still the widespread sandbox game that it always was and you’ll probably spend time amusing yourself by going on a rampage but this time there’s a more immersive story, that’s a lot more deeper and darker then we are previously presented with. Niko, an illegal immigrant has arrived to the United States in search for the American Dream, yet quickly gets caught in a life of crime, gangs and violence. With his cousin Roman he endlessly searches for justice for those who have wronged him and happiness.

Being an installment in the ‘Grand Theft Auto’ series it plays similarly to it’s predecessors, as you still rely heavily on a use of a vechicle, ammo and armour but this time there’s the feeling that you have more freedom and although every person will play as Niko it’s up to you how you wish him to be. Whether he’s simply after money or if he has some morals and wishes revenge. Which is effective as it makes every player’s experience with the game different. Although there isn’t as much choice in GTA:IV than in Fable II or Fallout 3 for instance, there’s definitelya sense of being able to choose how you are and when you choose to progress. Which is shown in the ending of GTA:IV, with the two separate endings, titled ‘Revenge’ or ‘Deal’.

Something that strikes me about GTA:IV is the sheer level of detail in the game. It’s very clear that Rockstar wished to take GTA:IV up a notch and went for realistic graphics, from the way Niko moves to the rain falling, it feels like this is a real city. As well as the graphics, I found very slight detail all through the game that just simply made me smile because of how intuitive it was to include it. The way Niko pops on a helmet when he jumps on a motorbike or the ‘Sprunk’ adverts all around the city. You’re never short of finding something to be amazed by, that’s for sure.

A lot of people enjoy GTA:IV because it is a sandbox game and allows them to steal cars, go on a rampage and generally cause trouble. Which is fun, admittedly, but there’s a lot of people who simply only do this part of the game and I feel that Rockstarwanted to create something that would draw in those players and encourage them to play through the main story line. So yes, perhaps San Andreas offered more in the sense of simply causing trouble but GTA:IV has offered so much more in the way of a story line, which should be the most important part of a game.

No game is perfect, of course. And there’s one thing about the newest installment of Grand Theft Auto that can become very tedious and that is the mission/map structure. It’s called ‘Grand Theft Auto‘ so obviously we will be taking time to drive to each mission but because you can only save at one of your apartments and because the missions sometimes demand 30 minutes of your time to complete it, if you were to get killed it then leaves you with zero armour and hardly any ammo. Which means taking a trip to one of the three gun shops in the City and then making your way to the mission. Which can become very annoying as if you’ve failed a mission you want to jump right back in and give it another go. Yet most of the missions demand the use of armour and heavy artilitary. I had the patience, luckily, and although you can get used to it through the game it’s very annoying on the Finale mission as it is a long mission. But like I said, no game is perfect.

That is way I think GTA:IV was awarded a solid 10. People recongise it’s not a perfect game and by giving it a 10 it’s not saying it is. But it’s certainly the best in the series and very enjoyable and I think websites like Gamespot and IGN and merely meriting that and I tend to agree. Yes, it can become repetitive at times but if you let youself be immersed into the world of Liberty City then how could you not enjoy what it has to offer? From the delightfully funny radio stations to the genuinely likeable characters, everything it has to offer it offers in immense detail. And that’s creditable.

E3 Nintendo

Is the Wii simply not for the 'core' gamer?

After hearing recent E3 news Wii owners among us couldn’t help to be a little disappointed. With WiiMusic, WiiSports Resort and Rayman Raving Rabbids TV Party set to release in the future, how excited can we honestly get about titles like these? The E3 Nintendo press conference didn’t really offer that much for an average ‘core’ gamer to get excited about. Reggie was reported to claim,  “There’s gonna be a big game for the holiday that the gamers will want.” Yet after the 65 minutes of Nintendo announcements we all failed to realise what exactly was this ‘big game’ that us gamers so desperately wanted.

One has to assume that it was Animal Crossing: City Folk that he was referring to. Yes, I believe some of us were quite excited about it’s release but those who actually have access to internet were already informed of Animal Crossing for Wii. Perhaps WiiSpeak came as a surprise and there is still a lot of buzz around how the hardware will be marketed and if it will be bundled with WiiSpeak as it is optional. However, anyone who has watched the E3 conference will probably agree in thinking that it looks quite similar to Animal Crossing for DS. Of course with this franchise it’s important to keep it’s fundamentals the same but it is quite clear that Nintendo kept it ’safe’ with components they could have changed. Set to release in Europe on November 28th I guess all we can do is wait and see the final product.

Another announcement that caught the industry’s attention was Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars for the Nintendo DS. I think mainly because everyone is wondering just how Rockstar will decide to do the visuals on the handheld. GTA is known for it’s 3D landscaping and lets be honest, the DS simply won’t allow that. Therefore it’s likely we’ll see a top down style of GTA much like the older GTA titles in the franchise. However, for an announcement that caused a lot of attention you would have thought Nintendo would have somewhat teased us and showed us any kind of preview of the new GTA. But no, all we saw was it’s logo! So, there is a wide opening for discussion around GTA and exactly what it will bring.

There is one final announcement that I wish to talk about and that is the WiiMotion Plus. I see it’s function, I do, but something is somewhat redundant about it in my eyes. I accept that this little dongle will hopefully make the Wii experience more one-on-one but haven’t we got enough hardware sitting in our living rooms? The Wii is a console where it’s fun to participate in multi-player and thus we all have more than one Wii controller, and also we probably have Wii Wheels and Guitar Hero controllers sitting in there too. Okay, so the WiiMotion Plus won’t take up a lot of room but won’t we need multiple dongles to fit all of our controllers? Also, isn’t this new piece of hardware merely doing what the Wii controller should have done in the first place? Then that opens to discussion on just how this will be marketed, should it be included in bundles from now on? What’s a fair price? I understand that the Wii will benefit from it but I think it was a little bit of an odd announcement at this point in time. At the moment us gamers want to know about a new Zelda or Mario not a way in which Nintendo will try to snatch our money off of us for something that they as a company should have delivered in the first place.

Hopefully Nintendo still have a couple of surprises up their sleeves and merely deemed E3 not the place to announce them. I think all of us are hoping there to be a selection of titles to choose from this Christmas and won’t be happy if all we have is Animal Crossing: City Folk.