Will return… Sometime soon.

I think it’s safe to say that The World Ends With You is that break. It’s a very quirky and so far unique JRPG, about a somewhat arrogant and selfish jerk of a kid who wakes up, confused in the middle of Tokyo’s Shibuya district with a pin badge, and a countdown timer burned onto his palm. As you team up and form a ‘pact’ with another ‘player’ in what appears to be some demented game, almost like some sort of cross between Gantz and Battle Royale, you begin to uncover mysteries.

The combat in the game is definatelyh very unique, and it might take a while to wrapt your head around but it certainly works very well. You control Neku, your character on the bottom screen, moving around and using special pin badge powers with the stylus, while your partner occupies the top screen, and can either be controlled by the computer, or by using the d-pad (buttons if your a lefty) to execute combo moves. While the enemies appear simultaneously on both screens, meaning if you defeat an enemy, it is removed from both screens at once. An interesting take on stale “stylus slashing” or turn based RPG gameplay, one I certainly did not expect from Square Enix, and i’m certainly more than pleasently surprised.

This game looks set to become a quirky favorite, and has already received very high reviews from a number of sources. And what’s even better than that? That’s right, you digest food to give yourself stat boosts. In addition to partaking in an exercise in being ‘cool’, certain brand names of clothes/items your characters can use give you bonuses, but must be combined in a certain manner. Some brands of equipment cannot be used in conjunction with others, and so you can’t just throw on the best shirt, etc at the same time. You are forced to make sure your equipment has some sort of overall strategy.

I’m very excited about this game, especially given how it has changed my opinion on Square Enix’s ability to create new franchises these days. Anybody who hasn’t checked it out.

Top 10 Games I Never Played – Part 2 coming soon.

The following list consists of games i’ve been interested in for a long time, but due to one lame excuse or another, never actually got around to playing. Presented in order of my personal interest in playing them, I present to you The Top 10 Game I Never Played.

 #10 – Tokobot (PSP/PS2)

I really liked the premise for Tokobot, after enjoying games like Chibi Robo and Pikmin immensely, Tokobot felt like a dream combination. However through no fault of it’s own, everytime I tried to play it something else sparkly jumped into my field of vision and distracted me. Unlike some of the others on this list though, it has a good chance of being played in the future given I have a sealed PSP copy sat on my shelf. The fact that I havn’t played this game is probably a great shame, but then how would I know? I havn’t played it…

#9 – Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door (Gamecube)

I really enjoyed Mario RPG, and the original Paper Mario, they were absolute gems. Big shiney sparkly ones. And with that in mind, I figured this would be a great addition to my collection, that is to say, I thought I would actually be able to find a copy to be able to add to my collection. The phrase “Rarer than rocking horse shit” comes to mind when describing The Thousand Year Door, i’ve seen more copies of the original floating about that I have this. One day I will find a copy, at a price that doesn’t make me want to chew my own face off.

#8 – Baldurs Gate 2: Throne of Bhaal (PC)

The highly praised expansion pack to one of the greatest games of all time. Baldurs Gate 2: Shadows of Amn, in which you endeavor to confront your destiny and heritage as the son of a god. I own it, and I have indeed played Baldurs Gate 2, many times in fact. Had I owned it during the time I was actually playing Baldurs Gate, it probably wouldn’t be on this list. So i have to put it down to sheer laziness on my part, I simply can’t be bothered to play through BG2 again in order to see the expansion pack. I keep telling myself that one day I will again play Baldurs Gate 2, but then I also keep telling myself i’m not addicted to achievement points, doesn’t make it true.

#7 – Day of the Tentacle (PC)

Never has a game been so highly recommended to me, and never has one intrigued me as much as Day of the Tentacle. However fears of being completely unable to play it, even if I could find a copy has led me to stop searching for it before I even started. Games from last year struggle to run on Vista, let alone games from 1993. Oh sure, there are a multitude of other ways of playing it, but I stopped putting that much effort into old PC games the moment my last PC blew up and ended the PC Fanboy phase of my life.

#6 – Bet on Soldier: Blood Sport (PC)

This is a classic example of how a game can have as awesome a backstory and concept as it wants, but it’s developers can go fuck themselves if they think i’m going to struggle through one of the most broken games in history. Centered around a future that has descended into a state of constant war, and borrowing more than a few concepts from movies suchas The Running Man, BoS has you playing a soldier who’s only way to make ends meat is to bet on his own fights with the opposing factions soldiers. Televised around the world this ‘blood sport’ has become immensely popular, with potentially huge payouts for winners. An interesting  concept, one that had me utterly hooked from the moment I heard about the game.

However, random crashes with no apparent cause, unskippable cut scenes, broken levels that sometimes make it impossible to continue, and a difficulty curve more unpredictable than a space badger on crystal meth made this game completely unplayable. Even moreso than S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Shadow of Chernobyl. In fact, I barely made it past the third mission without slamming my head down on the keyboard in shame and defeat.

That wraps it up for part one, part two coming soon. For now, i’m far too addicted to Marble Blast Ultra to bother typing any more.

While that would be a perfectly logical argument, my brain instead screamed as loud as it could that for £35, I could get 3 games from Play.com, making for more points than just Condemned 2. While objectively, points should never be a deciding factor in a purchase, once you’ve started, you just can’t stop.

Here’s where the sometimes (but not oft) beneficial advantage to points steps in, for those who are hopelessly addicted to them at least. They lead you to play games you would otherwise ignore which can teach you some things about yourself, and even lead you to new enjoyable experiences, and no, this doesnt mean you should play Vampire Rain, no matter how morbidly curious you are.

So for the same price as Condemned 2, I picked up Star Trek: Legacy, Tomb Raider: Anniversary and Call of Juarez, with enough dosh leftover for a poster, so now Nero resides on my wall, with his shiney devil arm pointed accusingly.

Ok, so while Condemned is no Bioshock or Portal, it’s fair to say it’s definately a good game, whereas these 3 are mediocre at best. But having said that, once they were given a chance all 3 offered enjoyable experiences that matched up well with their associated pricetags, and offered more than 5 times the longevity I am predicting for Condemned 2. Which made me happy with the purchase.

But when I actually though about what compelled me to buy those games, instead of the immidiete answer being budget price point balanced against quality, instead I found myself thinking “Points”. Points had influenced me to buy, and then play, and *gasp* enjoy 3 games I would never have otherwise given 2 flying farts about before.

I think it’s fair to say that for those of us hovering around dangerously hooked on points (We won’t go into my 50 hour GTA IV marathon.) they can legitimately cause a purchase reaction. In short.

Points are Crack Cocaine.

A lot of games for the aspiring achievement whore can not only be cheap to pick up, but reasonably good too, or at least playable. Games like NBA 2k6, NHL 2k6 and King Kong fall under this catagory. Ok, so they aren’t Devil May Cry 4 or Bioshock, but they are at least playable and, some might even say fun.

But some of the things achievement whores have to go through, I wouldnt wish on my worst enemy. For example, recently I have been gifted with an Australian copy of Cabela’s Alaskan Adventures. Thankfully, the game was never released in Europe, just NA and AUS. And I can see why, it’s a menace to society.

Just how far will you go for 1000 points? Kill over half a million zombies? No problem. Play Bullet Witch for 15 hours? Easy. Spend actual money on Avatar? Ok, getting a little rediculous now. But playing through Cabela’s Alaskan Adventure? I would rather pay full price for Vampire Rain and then be forced to sit through it’s 1000 points. At least Vampire Rain has Vampires, and so i’ve heard, Rain.

While Alaskan Adventure is not the worst game you can play, neither technicly nor in its gameplay, but it is so rediculously mind numbingly boring that you really will not only find it a chore to play, but be actively thinking of ways your Xbox 360 could spontaneously fault so that you can find an excuse to stop playing. You’ll find yourself creeping clumsily through the bushes as the aweful controls completely negate any stealthy approach to your prey, while in the back of your mind you are secretly wishing the 360 will spread wings and simply fly out the precariously open window of it’s own accord.

You can’t even occupy yourself by staring at the pretty graphics to sate your boredom like you would in Oblivion, because they are hideous. They look worse than the early 2k sports games, worse still than Vampire Rain or Dynasty Warriors 5. Heck, even Hitman: Blood Money is leaps ahead of Alaskan Adventures graphically.

This is a warning to all you other achievement whores out there, save yourself and go spend £39.99 on Avatar or Vampire Rain before you bother with any of the Cabela games. If you STILL think you want to sit through them for the points, watch The Deer Hunter, and imagine yourself in De Niro’s shoes, this game will ruin your life.

I should hope Brucie and the Boys are ashamed of this ‘theme’

The fraction of a second for which I lost my judgement when I saw the words “Iron Maiden – Powerslave Theme” was enough for XboxLIVE to swallow up my 150 points, or my £1.28p.

“Shit” I thought for a moment as the realisation of what I had just done hit me like a ton of bricks hitting a combine soldier in one of the early Half-Life 2 trailers. I have always held the opinion that themes other than those that come free, are a complete waste of money for anyone dumb enough to purchase them. And you know what? I was right.

As the initial shock of “OMG Maiden!!” wore off, and I actually applied the theme, I was shockingly reminded of how much I am going to miss that £1.28p. 3 pics of Ed, and the Powerslave album cover art for the backing pics, layed out with no thought to functionality at all, making the text somewhat hard to read (although not quite as bad as what i’ve seen from various Capcom themes people have showed me) and in the case of 2 of the pictures, the scaling is not right and so they appear too big, or small for the screen.

But the biggest shock was the complete lack of thought that went into the dashboard trim and guide background. The guide trim is completely default, grey, and doesn’t invoke anything even remotely Maiden in imagary. I would’ve expected a basic black and blue at least. And for the guide background they simply plastered a generic “Iron Maiden” band logo sticker over the default background. But they tiled it!!! How tacky is that?!? It covers all the text on the guide, making it completely non functional. Even replacing that with a custom one leaves only a moderately acceptable theme that couldn’t have taken more than 5 minutes to scramble together.

I am ashamed of myself for having wasted the money.

So let me reiterate, now firm in the beleif that I am right, having experienced it first hand. Themes are a complete waste of your money.

This makes a big impact on the games value for money, and while 800 points I considered to be a little high at £6.80, for £3.40 Doom offers you a lot more for your money, and might even be the best deal on Xbox LIVE right now.

Doom on XBLA is a faithfull conversion of all 4 chapters of the original Doom, with slightly enhanced graphical resolution. On bigger TV’s this can make the games creatures appear very blocky or blurry however. The game is still a joy to play, very atmospheric, and includes all of your favorite levels and original soundtrack, as well as online multiplayer, 200 achievement points and 2 secret gamerpics to unlock.

The controls are smooth and fluid, moving around with the control sticks is a breeze, however weapon selection can be a little fiddly and unresponsive, it’s on the Y and B buttons instead of the D-Pad like most modern games.

In Doom, you play as a marine of the UAC corperation working on Mars while an experiment with teleportation wrenches open the very gates of hell itself. After the ensuing carnage, you are teleported to the companies Phobos lab and it is clear you are the only person left alive, and you must fight your way, literally, through hell and back to get home to earth alive.

Doom’s gameplay is relatively simple, your task during each level is to seek out new weaponry to defend yourself with, and make your way to the exit, which is contained in a seperate room with the word EXIT written invitingly above the door. All the while, blasting the hell out of everything that moves, and finding keycards and switches to help you progress through the levels.

Doom’s plot is a simple one, and never aims to be anything more than an excuse to blast hundreds of demons back to hell. That said, it never needs to be anything more. The levels vary from simple, to incredibly long and complex designs which adds a decent amount of variety to the game.

For it’s XBLA iteration, the game is presented in 4:3 aspect ratio, and the rest of the screen is surrounded by a black border, which I think is a bit of a shame, there is ample space for some nice artwork there. But at the same time, I could admit that might detract from the games atmosphere.

Consisting of 4 chapters, each containing 9 levels, 36 in total. Most of the initial levels are relatively short, and the first chapter can be finished in about 20 minutes. However a lot of the later levels can be quite complicated and can often take up to 15 minutes each to get through. So there is a good 2 to 3 hours of gameplay to be had especially if you ramp up the difficulty to obtain the achievements. So while the game
is short, and beyond achievements, offers little replay value, for 400 points 2 to 3 hours of play offers incredible value for money.

Overall Doom is a neat little package of retro hyperviolence that no self respecting over 18 would want to miss out on at it’s newly reduced price. It offers a good amount of high quality gameplay in addition to it’s multiplayer modes.

Verdict:
Value: 4/5
Gameplay: 4/5
Presentation: 3/5

Earlier today, Harmonix lead product developer ‘Greg’ posted an asinine, and frankly insulting list of reasons for the insane price of Rock Band in the UK, and the rest of Europe.

Citing the costs of shipping, packaging and taxes as the main reasons, ‘Greg’ attempts to explain, in his own opinion, why the game is so expensive. EA, and HMX bosses have not authorised these opinions so he states they are his own, and simply that, opinions.

“The European SRP incorporates the VAT tax, but AFAIK, there aren’t any further taxes piled on at retail. In the US, the SRP doesn’t include state and local sales taxes. These vary from state to state, (and don’t exist at all in a few states), but a reasonable rule of thumb is that US customers are paying an additional 5% on top of the SRP. So the appropriate full-bundle US price to compare against isn’t $169.00, but more like $177.50.”

Ok, while i understand this as a legitimate point, you can colour me unimpressed for the reasons behind mentioning it. In the UK we pay 17.5% VAT on basicly everything, so telling us that most US citizens only pay 5% is just rubbing salt in the wound, not justifying your price point.

“Another key distinction between the US and Europe: games generally sell for the SRP at all retail outlets in the US. Wal-Mart, Target, Best Buy, Gamestop, etc all charge the SRP for games, with rare exceptions.”

“It is my understanding that European SRP incorporates a hefty retail markup, but that European retailers are free to discount if they so choose.”

Here’s a pointer for you Greg. Contrary to what you may have seen on discount online stores, things work exactly the same way here in the UK. A large majority of stores will sell highly anticipated games (Of which Rock Band is most definately one) at full retail price. Including the big stores such as Asda, Tesco, Game, Gamestation, Woolworths etc. While some may offer discounts on not so anticipated titles, it is very rarely ever more than 10 – 15% But as i stated, the point is moot as the title is so highly anticipated that virtually all stores will likely be charging the full SRP.

Greg goes on to cite shipping costs from China being more expensive to Europe than to the US. Which as most of you i’m sure can work out for yourselves, is complete rubbish, especially as the boxes are coming from china complete and ready for store shelves according to Greg’s other comment. Because of localization issues to do with game manuals, and expensive production costs inside Europe, EA’s only understandable decision was to split the game from the peripherals. But this is a way of saving money, not something that should increase the cost of the game.

“we’re not gouging you, primarily because doing so doesn’t serve our interests. We can only build our franchise if you buy our games. You may conclude that Rock Band isn’t worth the price charged, and that is your prerogative. But it’s not magically going to get cheaper because you wish it to be so.”

This comment is perhaps a little more condescending and arrogant than it need be. That last sentence especially has no right being there and serves only to infuriate and insult European customers even moreso than they already have been.

We ‘may’ conclude that Rock Band is not worth the price, that’s true. But for a large percentage of us, we don’t even get that far into the decision. It’s simply NOT affordable AT ALL to a lot of it’s intended audience. But even if it were worth the asking price, that doesn’t mean we can all magically afford it because EA wishes it to be so.

While i can completely understand that releasing games in Europe has always dented the wallets of many big companies, I completely fail to understand Greg’s math. 17.5% VAT + Extra Shipping Costs does NOT equal a 150% markup per unit.

It’s clear as day what is happening here, at least in my own opinion. Given the problems Rock Band suffered upon release in the US with faulty peripherals, EA must have lost a lot of money replacing and redesigning them. I surmise that they are trying to recoup some of that loss by gouging Europe with a big fat pointy stick, and leaving the retailers to bear the brunt of reducing the cost to actually sell this monstrosity.

A number of people have already stated that they will be boycotting the game, whether this will bring about a change of heart for EA and Harmonix remains to be seen, but for now I think we can all agree that when a single game costs more than the console it is for, something has gone hideously wrong somewhere along the lines.

“The aggrevating factor is that everything inside the game takes place inside a school.” Said State Prosecutor Alcindo Bastos, adding “That is not acceptable.” It is reported that vendors, websites and other stores will have 30 days to comply with the order to block the sale of the game.

The request to ban the game came from a local youth support centre in Rio Grande do Sul.

Rockstar has not commented as of press time, and is likely unaware of the ban.