And now for the fun part..

"Deck the halls". "Jingle Bells". "Theres no chance in hell I'm kissing you, even under the mistletoe" I've pretty much heard them all, meaning that xmas is lacking in sufficient surprises. What is always a pleasent jump every year is the 26th, a.k.a. Boxing Day.

Last year was pretty disappointing when it came to Boxing Day sales for me. Just out of high school, unemployed, almost no holiday money, no online purchasing ability and not getting to shops until late in the afternoon. Oh sure I managed a single obscure PS2 rpg, but in the days of 'HD' and 'sixaxis' more was needed.

Now that the budget has opened up to cover almost all major platforms, the excitement bug is jumping around inside me. Or maybe its because everyone at work is complaining about how much they hate xmas that Boxing Day is the last holiday of 2008 that hasn't been hated on by the masses. But all these 'happy holidays' n 'merry hanukkah' aside, there is something that is sorta bugging looking at potential purchases this week. There is too much shit to buy and play released every yearly fourth quater!

In short, I will have to skip on most of the big AAA+ hype releases. And for once its not about cost factor, there just isn't enough time to get through them all. Now that I can finally get off my rear end and start reviewing again its asking too much of one man to deal with an entire holiday release schedule (and all the other stuff throughout the year that he's missed from not having a PS3)

I'll have to just play it out and see what ends up in my shopping bags on Friday, so til then

Cheers

Anybody Home?

I know what you are thinking. Yet another 'zomg home is broken!' rant to join the other eleventy billion out there, cause we just needed one more don't we < /sarcasm >

However, my experience with home today, while brief, was a lot less broken then others. So suffice to say, while I was quick to get into Home, I was quick to get out of it. I guess when you are an Australian on our internet, 3D virtal worlds aren't going to be embracing us with open arms so much as keeping us out of the Town Square while taking half an hour to download the area.

Before realizing that I would be stuck in my apartment for my visit to Home, the system itself seems quite simple, if a bit limited. While trying to create a virtual nobody to match my own likeness I realized something: The character creation tools made available barely surpass the Mii Channel in variety and you would have to be VERY drunk to mistake the virtual me for the real deal. Hopefully more freebie options are made available for character creation, since I don't want to pay real world money just to get my correct hair/eye colour (and one more thing Sony, why do all but 2 of the face options look like neanderthal men?)

As I'm too cheap for a headset and too lazy to find a USB keyboard I spent about 5 minutes running around my lightly furnished apartment (that I could only dream about matching in location and style) yelling to the room that I do not have a headset of keyboard. By the time I realized the men in the crazy mobile wern't coming to put me in a straight jacket and socially interact with me I proceeded to dance the robot and leave Home until the day when my internet connection can manage the task of getting me out of my apartment.

So in short, hopeful and potential. But even for a day 1 beta over 2 years in the making I feel a little disappointed. But at least I can sleep easy at night knowing that Senator Conroy is jumping for joy at the idea of Australia with an internet so broken he could spend his days in office swimming in piles of hate mail/death threats.

Cheers for now

By popular demand

So yea, at the request of the masses I have to write stuff here. Quite a bit has come n gone this last month so its about time I was given this little push in the general direction of the keyboard.

Now as I am still a student, reenrollment was the second biggest thing from the tafe side of news in recent weeks (the biggest being my recieving an award for my awesomeness) and looks like I'll be quite a bit busier next year then I ever was in 2008. Aside from the two core subjects I can look forward to doing practical placement in some building of professional writing peoples (no idea where yet), non-fiction writing project, myths and symbols and professional publishing. So yea, bit of a jump from the 4 subjects I blugged my way through this year.

The one that I'm generally paying most attention to for 09 is non-fiction writing, because as the good nerd I am I will be continuing the writing of the videya games in that class. Instead of a full book I've been given the ok to write a series of essays on a particular subject, so the plan is for a series of essays with each detailing the growth n elements of specific game genres. As it stands now I unsure which few will get the special class treatment so I'm open to requests, will report on more about this later in the holidays.

And to end the suspence on what is going on about getting a 360 or PS3 I shall bring it to a close here and now. First on the list will be the PS3 this upcoming week thanks to a surprisingly good deal from Harvey Norman (of all places!) for an 80GB console with LittleBigPlanet, collectors edition Far Cry 2, Mirror's Edge and blu ray copy of Casino Royal. The 360 is still on hold until at least another $100 is wiped off the pro bundle prices. Yes the system is cheap enough now, but for something that is going to stay offline (thanks to no built in wifi) it doesn't deserve $400 price tag. That and the bundled games don't interest me, at least not compared to some of the other bundles going on around the world.

So there ya have it, you happy Jordan!

Cheers

P.S. In a vein attempt to look more professional there is a new contact email for the potential new clients. Email is nobodygaming@gmail.com (and dont worry others who know me, ill be using the ol email for personal use still)

Desparadooooooooo

Just when I thought I had made up my mind and was proudly touting I would be buying a Playstation 3 sometime after xmas, Microsoft have to make me turn my head and notice their crazy new Australian price drop on all Xbox 360 models. Now it goes something like this

Xbox Arcade - $299

Xbox 20GB Pro Console - $349

Xbox 60GB Pro Console - $399

Xbox Elite Console - $549

While the Elite is still incredibly overpriced for its only redeeming features (being the 120GB hard drive and black colour) the other systems are looking very appealing. Even though I'm still committed to my plans to buy a Playstation 3 sometime between boxing day and start of my 2009 classes, I can't help but 'want' to jump into the Xbox gaming pool and see what I'm missing now that the systems are coming down in price this fast. I guess I should get all the details lined out about why I have been pro PS3 this whole time

Playstation 3

pros

-80GB HDD, easily upgradeable to anying from 120-500GB

-Built in Wifi

-Free online play via PSNetwork

-Already have Rock Band equipment for PS2 (meaning no new hardware required)

-System does not use a prehestoric disc tray

cons

-AU$699!

-Stripped backwards compatibility for PS2 games

-Trophies don't apply to all games

-Where the hell is Home!?!?

now heres the factors for the Xbox 360

pros

-Cheaper than a Wii

-Achievements/Gamerscore

-New Xbox Experience will help save my discs

-Avatars

-Xbox Live Arcade

cons

-Consoles stability reputations

-Disc tray is still a threat to my games pre install

-Paying for Xbox Gold

-No built in Wifi (and no way in hell I'm paying extra for a Wifi adapter)

Now the situation for me about built in Wifi is a big one, since I don't use a wired connection for anything in my house, and the internet connection is pretty far from where the console would be living. Meaning I can pretty much pass on Xbox Live Gold/Demos/DLC/Live Arcade. Of course now that games can be installed onto the harddrive I'll have a use for the 20GB/60GB storage. All this means is that I will still buy third party software on PS3 just to make use of online play n such, but theres still the matter of Microsofts exclusives.

With no other way to say this I'll just put it out there. Is it worth buying an Xbox 360 Pro Conosle (I'd be gunning for a 60GB deal) for single player experiences in games like Halo/Gears of War and single player exclusives like Fable 2/Ninja Gaiden 2? 

I really need to sleep on this, its hurting my head. The only cure for a sore head would be to go play some more Rock Band so I'm out for tonight

Cheers!

Stoiboi and his new Toi

xmas decided to pop in a tad early this year for me, and Santy Clause left me a little something (heavily emphisise the 'little'). After a year of complaining about the disc drive in my Inspiron 6400 being mostly for decoration and avoiding the 'ctrl' and 'backspace' keys to keep them attached I can finally say screw you to Dell and upgrade (or is it a downgrade?) to an Acer Aspire One netbook!

As a student who is on trains for hours every week with nothing to do a netbook is perfect for me. Although in a somewhat opposite direction I opted for the XP version over the super streamlined Linux model, simply out of fear of change like a politician born in the baby boomer generation. The strange part about coming off a laptop that was once touted to be comparible to standard desktops to a netbook is very little has been lost over the transition. After a day of making the machine my own I've noticed that any attempts to really 'push' the Aspire One will show its weak point. The Aspire One simply isn't built to handle multiple beefy applications that you would run without a second thought on a half decent laptop/desktop.

That said, keeping the interface clean and tackle things one at a time the Aspire One it holds up surprisingly well. It can even pull off a mean gaming machine for WoW or anything below it in terms of demand on the CPU (abit with some sliders turned down). I've just come off playing through Sam & Max - Abe Lincoln Must Die and the experience was identical to what I had on my Inspiron, both chugged at the car chase with giant Lincoln but otherwise had no problems. I wouldn't feel bad now picking up the ol' Fallout games just to see what all the fuss is about Bethesda pooing some guns over Oblivion and calling it Fallout 3.

One strange thing is bugging me about my new Aspire One though, there is no external volume control. No sliders on the side of the machine, just the volume control options from inside the lappy itself. This is making it a little more annoying to adjust the volume when someone is nagging me to turn the sound up/down, but like the disc drive before it I'm sure I wont miss it after a few months. For now I should get to work and finish my final essay for tafe (and maybe some game reviews)

Cheers

EDIT: Actually it looks like the proper writing will be temporarily postponned for now. It seems the 60 day trail for MS Office 2007 (why only a trial when Linux gets full Open Office I have no idea) doesn't want to cough up an activation key. So to you Microsoft I say NO. I will not jump through your loopholes just to temporarily use a program that should have been ready as soon as I open up this machine. You probably wont see revenue from me when I go obtain a full version in the next week just out of sheer annoyannce from tonight, thank the dark lords for the internetz insistance on piracy of software. Now where did I see that link to a cracked download of Office 2000...

Tis the season...to put up with xmas carols in the workplace!!!

One good thing about having a real job while whoring yourself out as a writer is recieving a regular sampling of cash money for materialistic desires. With only a few months of holiday work to look forward to at the overly twaty David Jones I gots a lot of shit to stock up on. Of course this means dealing with Christmas carols being played in the food court while running around delivering foodstuffs to the stalls. After one day I'm about ready to stab someone in the eye, so hopefully I can drown this stuff out for the rest of the season.

While I was originally planning to wait until after I picked up a PS3 for this, I'm really considering jumping into the Rock Band wagon with a PS2 bundle. Sure the game itself is stripped down the hell and back again, but since the hardware is identical over the 2 systems I wouldn't feel so guilty warming up on the PS2 now for when I have a spare $700 to blow out my rear hole (damn these Aus prices!!!) Fingers crossed Big W/EB (if it comes down to price matching) don't disappoint next week in finding my $217 band bundle + game.

As for other newish releases it is bleak until previously said PS3 comes into my life, which wont be until after the holidays most likely. Guess this makes things easier though since after Disaster and Fire Emblem DS there are no must buys. Ideas are always welcome from the masses, especially since I need to get off my hiney and actually WRITE some new reviews. Now since I don't have anything useful to say tonight I shall take my leave.

Cheers

Did you hear the one about the guy with a blog that never updated it?

Don't get your hopes up yet you three people who read my blog that don't like me, I'm not dead yet. And to the other 2 that are indifferent to me as a person sorry but since updating to Google Chrome (and abandoning this as my homepage) I tend to forget I even have this ranting ground fantastic blog. As it has been a month of not mentioning updates I guess I should get around to informing what is new in my small small world of games journalisms.

Eco Gamer - been a bit bad and ignoring the reviews as of late, but the '1 review a week' shedule keeps a nice regular backlog. Since Madden 09 All-Play went up though the well has dried up and I need to find some not too old stuff to write about. Now that I have an income from David Jones I can at least not fret about picking up new releases, although not having a PS3/360 really limits my choice of big software releases to choose from.

Also look forward to Eco Gamers buyers guide. While not a list of 2008 highest metacritic scores like every other gaming site/magazine out there, it is a list of useful tips for being great game gifter to others. 

The Box - I know I know, I said screw them and the people who jumped at my idea for a games section. That changes when the editor emails you and asks if the only one who gives a damn wants to continue the section in 2009. While it doesn't mean free review games as of yet, it means another feature and possible the previously mentioned 'list of 2008 top metacritic games' for extra filler.

Maybe I'll get around to a proper post instead of these pointless updates sometime in the next week. And then maybe I'll actually start caring about this place more than I care about the production of a movie based of the life of Britney Spears.

Repent or thou shall be forsaken!

Yes people, it has finally happened. Some flare has gone off inside the head of the mother creature and she took me out with her to purchase Wii Fit. Not just any Wii Fit, but a FULLY PRICED copy of Wii Fit! Sure the only catalogue that had it on sale was Myer (which doesnt stock games in our one) but she doesn't care since this looks to be a nice impluse buy.

I will admit however that once I got the balance board set up and registered both of our Miis through background shoutings of 'Hurry up, I want to play!' that we both had this strange feeling when we played. I think this emotion is called...fun? Well whatever it was, it made both of us put in a full 30 minute session each of yoga, muscle excersies and hula hooping. Now I give myself about a month before I banish Wii Fit back into its case and never speak of the balance board again (unless I pick up Skate It or some other equally gimmicky piece of software) and as for dearest mother, I give her a week at most. 2 if she finally learns how to turn on the Wii and start up the game herself.

On a more positive note I was able to pick up a little something for myself during the trip to JB Hifi as you can see in the picture below. Now that I'm wrecked for the night I guess I'll start playing this before bed and hopefully finish it in a day or two. 

Developing the Game Down under follow up

A couple days late, but better late then never to show off the rare occasions in which I nab software in its intial launch period. Review should be written up in a day or two after I spend some more time with the game, but since Eco Gamer reviews only go up at a rate of one per week it may be a while. Outside of the game itself I did have a couple of little annoyances that I just need to get out of me now instead of surpressing them like my inner carnal desires.

In a sort of followup to my 'Developing the game Down Under' piece published in The Box I feel the urge to talk more about the Australian made game. Back when folks from Krome were in Melbourne showing off Hellboy and Star Wars at the ACMI center I discussed with them if they felt their game was identifiable as Australian (or even just Krome itself) made. Sure enough they were confident with the hype they had been generating for the Wii game thanks to their exclusive content and multiplayer modes, even making it sound like the 360/PS3 devs were trying to play catchup. Now quality of the games aside, after nabbing my copy of TFU I couldn't help but notice how easy it was to miss the Krome logo on the back of the box while Lucasarts was plastered right on the front.

While the name Krome doesn't generate as much hype (or even casual acknowledgement) as something like Lucasarts, I can't shake the feeling that this is just a dick move in advertising the brand over the artists who put time and effort into this game. Sure in retrospect the Wii game was always going to be sitting in the shadows of its tech heavy bigger brothers, but the point is why do the developers get pushed to the back of the box while someone else takes their credit away. The people at Krome were doing more than porting a PS2 engine to the Wii, they were making an entirely new game seperate to the 360/PS3 showoffs with their own talents. Ranting here wont get Krome front page of Hyper magazine and an appology from Georgey boy himself; thats what hitmen and big bags of money are for. The point is unless you are 'in the know' about the scene, Australians will once again let another locally developed title slip away from their graps while the government continues to ignore the countries potential in the industry. 

Me 0: big bad world 1

Not in the mood for witty comments today, in the middle of one of those 'teen angtsy' moments the youth of today claim makes them extremely suidical and depressed. Frankly, all its done for me is keep my away from the junk food I normally eat when I'm sad so it seems to have bettered me.

Since its been a friggin long time since my last post I figured its best to let people know I'm not dead and give an update on stuffs, so here goes:

Economical Gamer - still plenty of reviews to come, and now that Anthony is doing a few it wont be the typical 99% my reviews list thats there. I'll still try to get through at least one a week for now and I'm just about done with Madden 09 All-Play + Sonic Rush Adventure reviews. In an attempt to better connect with the masses I've decided to take requests for reviews. Right now the list stands like this with my decisded reviews and requests

Wii

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed

Red Steel

De Blob

PS2

Yakuza 2

Devil May Cry collection (1-3 were released in a bundle in the US so I'll just pretend we also got that)

DS

Sonic Chronicels The Dark Brotherhood

Always open to more requests since it saves me time + effort in trying to decide for myself during the slow periods, and with an extremely sad holiday line up for the PS2 and Wii its gonna get frusterating deciding what to review. Also before I forget there will be a holiday buyers guide written up in the next month or so for the site by yours truly covering what are expected to be the big sellers, and some friendly tips/recommendations for game buyers and givers. Look forward to it!

The Box - this is pretty much going to shits for lack of a better word. There will be no term 4 issue of the magazine and I havent really heard anything back from them in continuing the games stuff. With everyone else who originally jumped on the idea giving up/dropping out/being extremely unreliable its safe to say this was just a one off. Guess that means more time to Eco Gamer and other places.

And thats pretty much all to report on what is a surprisingly sunny day.

Cheers

What about me?

Writers block is the enemy of every professional tosser with ink in their pen and a blank page on their desk. To update this and make it a 21st century comment perhaps it should be 'Writers block is the enemy of every professional crybaby with a livejournal and their fingers hovering over the keyboard'


Now if I was someone important, i.e. a professional analyst, or a renowned critic on a specific subject, then anything I say would be eaten up for breakfast by the reading public. Alas since I am a nobody writing mostly on what is still deemed a 'niche' subject by the televised media the amount of people who will take my words to heart is minimal at best, and non-existent in reality. I've been bugged by this for several months now, but after being knocked back by my own teacher about not following 'standards' in writing I feel the need to bitch about it discuss the matter.

When starting up with reviews for Economical Gamer, the final review scheme was still undecided and open for discussion. Now it doesn't take a famous analyst to figure out that opinions on the current standards of game reviews point towards the entire system needed an update past the number based metacritic scores. Since the site is based off getting your moneys worth with games it seemed like a great chance to create a unique review system (or completely ripoff Kotaku's new setup ,whichever one is easier). Obviously this didn't happen and the site went with a traditional number rating, but hey who am i to complain? I'm still writing reviews and such so it would seem unfair to say the reviews all suck.

Next complaint stems less from the interwebs and instead from my own classroom. Complaints about my writing course almost completely passing up the subject of online writing/publications now withstanding, after almost a year in the course it feels less like 'developing your own writing' and more like 'learn to please the teacher'. Despite been given the OK to take a fictitious satirical view on space travel for a crummy travel piece (which I have no real passion for trying to publish) I still receive a talk about having to not trying to do anything different when writing for an audience. At least thats what I think teacher was trying to say, all I heard was "crush any unique creativity in your writing and stick to the standards you pretentious douche".

So here I am stuck in mundane writing position with nothing to brag about. But what do I have to do in order to make it 'big'? Obviously its either conform to the point where standard writing is referred to as 'doing a Steven .J' or do something so incredibly original that its concept will be stolen and driven into the ground faster than you can say Bullet Time. As a starting point for the latter, feature writing seemed like an easy way to express some ideas that are not typically expressed in gaming journalism. One heavily required point for most of my features that are still in the 'early planning' phase are interviews and comments from various important peoples/peoplettes. Of course after a couple months trying to get in contact with said people I now know that these features are a lost cause, since none of them care to return emails or messages I'm gonna have to face dropping these features and look at different ideas.

Now there are still ways for me to move my writing forward. Obvious methods would be to move past this small blog and create a whole website dedicated to sticking it to conventions and 'the man'. But since Eegra does that with more proficiency then I could ever hope to display by myself I'll leave that to those magnificent bastards. Then theres a more unique conspiracy to write/design my own video game; guaranteed press from any site claiming to give a damn about the 'indi' crowd and a promotion into the somebody crowd. However then reality slaps me in the face and I realize that I know nothing about coding up my own game, and my ideas would be impossible with a budget of $23 sitting in my bank account.

Guess all I can do is conform to the masses for a while longer while crying over a livejournal, fingers floating just 3mm over the keyboard letters D U M B A S S (yes there are 2 fingers over the letter 'S')

School's in session, should've learned my lesson...

Nothin' quite like a GTO marathon to stay awake instead of sleeping. Maybe its because I'm sick of constantly sleeping in and running late for morning classes, or that I'm just trying to become an insomniac for attention but I'm finding it pretty easy to stay awake instead of crawling into bed at 1-2am and trying to wake up in 6 hours. Of course by the time the sun starts setting I'm just about beat and ready to crash, but since I don't have morning classes on Tuesday IT'S ALL GOOD!

Anyways, its not like I'm doing anything important on Mondays. Oh sure I go to class and pretend to give a damn about whatever books we are looking at (this week its On The Road) but its just sitting in a chair for 3-4 hours. Not very fun, yet I still show up for every class. Sometimes it would be fun to have a teacher like GTO, but at the same time political correctness would keep this guy locked up forever. Note to self: If I ever become a teacher, make sure to be at least half as awesome as Onizuka!

Anyways, new stuff new stuff....well, I'm buggered! Oh yea, IGN got my hopes up for Madden 09 All-Play being available last week only for EB and GameFAQS to strike me down and tell me to wait a whole extra week. Since I'm not planning to pick up any new games until Force Unleashed, this was supposed to pass the time (and give me something new to review) for the week, but now I'll have to fall back on unpublished reviews. And if that fails, just download a couple small WiiWare games to bitch about. Sometimes it would be nice to have a 360/PS3 just to have some variety since WiiWare hasn't really won me over yet with the exception of Strongbad's Cool Game For Attractive People.

All hope is not lost though peoples! If lady luck is on my side I may be seeing paying holiday work within the next month or two. This of course means $$$ for my own PSP (finally stop borrowing other peoples) and maybe a PS3 if the price is right. Following some new toys, new games to expand my reviewing prowess and make me look more professional and less like a Nintendrone. Gotta look the part this week for the interview so its time for a haircut and to pull out the fancy suit.

Well thats it I guess for this little while. Its just after 3am and Nao is just entering the GTO anime! Why couldn't real life have super hot school nurses like in anime...

Where the hell did this shadow come from!?!?

Google's new street view is pretty awesome, but the fact that they are trying to hide the googlecar is pretty funny. At other places they just smeared black over the car image, but they were dedicated about covering up their tracks at my place. Next time they should be sure to either do their stalking at night or blotch out the shadows to.

Anyways today I feel generous enough (as in I already did it and I'm looking for something to put on this blog) to share my gaming setup with the world. Its nothing to jaw drop over in this modern day of HD sets with Surround sound, but for something in my own bedroom I can't really complain. Enough talk, NOW TIME FOR PICTURES!

If anyone is interested I'll break down the feature list of the whole thing.

- 51cm Sanyo flatscreen television. Settled on a non-HD set for the sake of my Guitar Hero games on PS2 which lack decent HD calibration. Couldn't really go much bigger than this because of the wooden cabinet being pretty small but it gets the job done nicely.

- Slim Playstation 2. Not much to really say here so I'll just run off the list of stuff related to the PS2. Two Dualshock2 controllers, two controller extension cables, two 8MB memory cards (one Sony, one Devil May Cry 3 edition from Hori) and a 1MB memory card (from Futuretronics) for PS1 games and a noname brand DVD remote+reciever currently without batteries.

- Nintendo Wii. Thanks to this little contraption my Gamecube is now boxed up under my bed. Along with a second Wiimote and official component cables there are two Gamecube controllers (including a Wavebird) and a set of Bongo controllers. Also two memory cards (59 block and 251 block) for my GC saving needs.

- Otaku crap! The Japanophile in me is always kept at ease with a complete set of Great Teacher Onizuka books along with beginnings of other series such as Evangelion, One Piece and Yakitate!! Japan. Also you can see the MANY plushies/figurines from both Japanese and Western cartoons. I <3 my moogle plushie!!!

- Games!!! Obviously this is my collection. Not too shabby when you consider my budget (or lack thereof) but its still got a loooong way to go before I'm satisfied. If only I started reviewing every single game I purchased since day 1, but I'm pretty sure that would give me a portfolio to rival real writers. And we all know I'm not a real writer!

So in short, this is my 'work' over the many years. Opinions or comparisons from anyone are always welcome!

Paper or plastic? "This blog is kindda sad"

Never nice to hear bag things about your own creation, but I can see my reader(s) complaints about this place being worthless. Doesn't help that I don't have much to report in trying to avoid this being a current news blog, but since I must conform to please the crazy masses here I go:

The Box - got a bunch of music cd reviews to finish over the next week and a bit. Now without a pair of working headphones I'm denied the possibility to listen to these tunes on the go so now I must sit my ass in front of my computer and listen through the crummy speakers. No idea when (or if) they will be in print form, most likely they will be up on the online version of The Box magazine, which I never pay attention to, sorry Jade. Also going to see advance screening of Pineapple Express this Monday, and luckily I don't have to waste time reviewing it.

Eco Gamer - Yet another review game straight from 2K in the form of Go! Deigo! Go! Safari Adventure has arrived at the door of gaming cheapasses. Wont get a chance to play through this until this weekend, but expect the review to go up sometime in August. In other review news, reviews of My Pokemon Ranch (WiiWare) and Guitar Hero: On Tour (DS) should be next on the list of reviews going up. Seem to be getting positive feedback on last couple of reviews so I must be doing something right, when I figure out what exactly it is then I'll be sure to put it into all my writing.

R18+ Rating Debate - Sadly I got out of bed to watch that Insult to gamers discussion on Australia's lack of an R18+ rating. Unbeknown to me, the poor sucker who was dragged in to ask the question was Joab from Bigpond GameArena whom I have become friends with annoyed and added on Facebook in a bleak attempt to network with these gaming journalist masses. If anyone cares about MY opinion on this issue, I say we wait it out until our generation grows up and become the suited twats of government and we have a new whipping child to cover the asses of neglectful parents everywhere. I personally nominate a revival of the tabletop gaming scene to be blamed for the next decades worth of school shootings, drug overdoses and random suicides.

Guess thats all for now, I'm outta here to go cry in a corner about a single person saying this place is shite!

Cheers

The Price Is WRONG!

While I can brag about being super lucky with contests and charitable donations, when it comes to actual bargain bin/sale hunting I am one unlucky son of a bitch!

Going back last year to the one day Big W sale just following the release of Guitar Hero 3 on Wii (game+guitar for $98), arrived 20 minutes after store opened because I waited for mates before heading to the store. According to the store clerk, they had lines of people buying up the bundles as soon as the store opened. The end result was me running through 4 EB Games, 4 JB Hifis, 2 Dick Smiths, 1 Target, 1 K Mart and a Myer. Since then Guitar Hero has been dead to me and I haven't looked back!


This year hasn't been any better. Going through 3 K Mart stores trying to find Scarface: The World Is Yours on Wii (marked down to $2o) only to find every store was sold out within a day of the sale being on. In the end I gave in and paid an extra few bucks to get it from JB for a passable $30. It was during this time that Dick Smith decided to throw a little clearance sale on, with games on all platforms down to crazy prices! All I wanted was a copy of Phoenix Wright Justice For All ($5) and every Dick Smith I went to didn't have any copies left, even the stores that claimed to have stock according to the store website (went to the Preston store 3 different days and never found a copy there!)

This week I'm hoping to have some slack cut for me. While I don't expect to find a copy of The Dog Island at Target ($15 starting Thursday) going by stock I saw today, I'm hoping I can find one of these rumored $24 Nintendo games at K Mart tomorrow. Mario Strikers Charged, Endless Ocean, Advance Wars Days of Ruin or Batallion Wars 2 would all be fantastic for me. While it is likely I will find no stock once again I have to have some hope, after all this is the same K Mart that sold me DK Jungle Beat w/Bongo controllers for $29 a couple years ago. Wish me luck you ignorant masses!

UPDATE: Looks like I got lucky with this K Mart once again. Found 2 copies of Battalion Wars 2 in stock (of course I only grabbed one for myself) so I got something for my efforts!

Moogle at work Down Under

Been a few days since the last post, kinda makes me feel like I've started neglecting my own child when I realize how little attention I show this blog. Probably a good thing that I changed my mind about getting a dog last year, lord knows what would happen to it now under my care. Anyways, onto the bragging part of this post. New issue of The Box is now available at Box Hill TAFE campuses, complete with my own contribution. A tad disappointed that two of the four original people who jumped on this idea have disappeared, with the other guy potentially not caring about this anymore. But then I remember that people are vile creatures never to be trusted. For anyone who stumbles across this post and has no access to The Box magazine, here is the article in raw text form.

Developing the game Down Under

It’s easy to ignore that little land mass down under if you are a gamer. After all, it’s not exactly clear what Australia has contributed to the gaming community. Even today, the market in Australia for publishers is still undersized compared to other regions. However, the truth is Australia has grown from small groups porting software into a considerable region for developer talent.

Going back to the early 80s with games such as The Hobbit developed by Melbourne House up to the recent award winning Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords by Interactive Studios, people would not realize many of their favourite games come from Australian developer studios. Many of our industry greats can go unnoticed even in their own homeland, with the exception of a few games.

Titles such as Ty the Tasmanian Tiger take a somewhat satirical view of Australian culture, featuring an Australian figure as the protagonist with almost insulting Aussie accents. With the addition of our Australian Rules football games (which do not see international releases) these are the most identifiable Australian games. While we can take obvious credit for these accomplishments, many would be shocked to learn that 1985 fighting game Way of the Exploding Fist was Australian made.

What would it take to make games truly identifiable as Australian? An Underbelly themed sandbox game? Okami redone with Aboriginal styled art? Or maybe an Australian themed Mario game with mushrooms replaced by meat pies, bloopers replaced by sharks and princess peach replaced with a true Aussie Sheila living off her 3 baby bonus payments?

Maybe if developers find a way to represent the Australian lifestyle in video games, we won't have to point to a talking extinct animal as our representative. We may not be ready for Fat Pizza: The Game but it would be a step in the right direction in identifying Australian games.

If I'm so lucky, why can't I find a Brawl matchup online!?!?

I must have had a lot of good karma coming my way this year, since despite being an unemployed student with no income, I still find a way to come into new video games at a regular basis. Once again, thanks to the charity of the folks over at Aussie-Nintendo have picked me as one of the three contest winners, this time for Guitar Hero: On Tour on DS.

Couple that with Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness from Kotaku Aus and Assassins Creed DS from A-N this has been one of my luckiest years when it comes to contests. Also my charitable donations of Ty 2 and my old phat PS2 seem to have granted me even MORE good karma with donations of Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories and Super Smash Bros. Brawl from some generous gamers. When my takeover of the world is complete, these people shall enjoy quick and painless deaths!

Now that I'm just about done with the single player portion of Brawl (9 hours is too bloody long for something this repetitive!) I should look to the online options to keep me entertained this week. However, I grow bored of beating up that punching bag for 10 minutes while no one joins my online match. I thought this was supposed to be the BIGGEST online game for the Wii, yet I have had no luck finding an online match. Maybe I'll have better luck tomorrow...

The Times They Are A-Changin'

Memories of the previous Connection Tours fill my mind with casual groups picking up a Wiimote for the first time with Wii Sports and other simplistic fun games. With the release of Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Nintendo have set up yet another Connection Tour in Australia. In place of the go-active Wii Sports audience, this tour is more catered towards the self-titled ‘hardcore’ gamers.

At opening time, the line of gamers was set with one goal; kick some ass in Super Smash Bros. Brawl! With over 100 entries the Brawl tournament was the main attraction of the day, drawing people to their controller of choice. With four individual Wii systems running copies of Brawl, it was the popular choice for all age groups.

Along with Brawl, the list of games was quite a step up compared to previous tours. With the notable disappearance of Wii Fit and Wii Sports, the floor was cleared for new highlights including Guitar Hero: Aerosmith, Samba De Amigo and Emergency Mayhem. The DS also saw a software roster update, adding to the growing list of Touch Generation games along with Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood and Guitar Hero: On Tour. Here’s a breakdown on my impressions of each new game:

Guitar Hero: Aerosmith – This is my first time using the Wii’s Les Paul controller and I gotta say that I am not a fan of it. Maybe it was these guitars themselves, but the strum bar was flimsy and whammy bar was loose. Outside of controller complaints, this is the same ugly dummed down Guitar Hero 3 people got last year redone with Aerosmith tunes. It won’t win over any new fans, but if you didn’t like the difficulty curve of GH3, Aerosmith may be just right for you

Samba De Amigo – Never played the original game so I have no idea how this compares, but it was a fun game that seems to fit the Wii (or a pair of maracas) perfectly. Only tried a couple songs, but the controls seem to work perfectly so no complaints to be had from me.

Guitar Hero: On Tour – 26 songs isn’t really worth the high price point for Australians, but price aside this is a really well done game. The peripheral is made with small hands in mind, so people with hands bigger than 8 year olds may not want to strap themselves into the device. I don’t know if it’s a good thing that this impressed me more than the Aerosmith game, but it’s a great attempt at bringing the Guitar Hero series to new platforms.

Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood – I wasn’t paying much attention to this game before, but after sampling a bit of the gameplay myself I’m ready to give this game a solid chance upon release. Functional combat mechanics, clean presentation and branching storylines all help to show off that Bioware can make a great game regardless of platform. Still skeptical about the Sonic universe being suitable for a decent story however, and that will probably never change.

Swag was on the light side this year with most quiz prizes consisting of Guitar Hero caps and Pokemon figurines. The top 4 finalists of the Brawl tournament all scored a free copy of the game for their skills, although I question why THEY would need a second copy since they were all of high caliber. All contestants in the tournament also had their photo taken and kept in nametags (although that barely qualifies as swag to most people)

In short, if you were thought this tour would be more of the same as last year then you were wrong. If at any point you try to question this, I would point you to the sea of nerds and otakus hardcore gamers viewing every round of the Super Smash Bros. tournament. The last fight came down to two brothers with a single stock life each, with the younger brother coming out on top thanks to a deadly smash ball and hammer combination.

And what did he get to show off his accomplishments? Along with Mario figurines and a copy of Brawl he received a friggin sweet trophy!

P.S - As much as I loathe Naruto, I still gotta give credit where its due. Props to this brawler for a decent attempt at the world's most annoying ninja.

Like an EA produced game, I'm back for more!

Thanks for the encouragement from the four people who have actually seen this page so far! Lets imagine a couple hundred zero's behind the four and move on.

So yea, having a hard time deciding what exactly goes in this place. It'd be pointless for this to turn into a news blog since there is more news out there than one man can process in time to re post before it is classified as 'gold' by the masses in their Internet forums. Will probably become my own breeding ground for insane ideas, sit-com worthy get rich quick schemes, and maybe (JUST MAYBE) original writing on games, industry overviews and chats with important gaming people.

Can't really complain with the list of options available to me at this point, and who knows. With my own page now I can pretend- sorry, ACT more professional when I'm out and about at various gaming events. Speaking of which, plan to check out the Nintendo Connection Tour at Southland this weekend to try out some new games, chat with some people and take PICTURES! While other better sites may have already gone through this at the other tour locations, this one is special because I say it is. So keep a look out for my posts on the weekend dammit!

P.S. Yes I know my post has nothing to do with Rock Band 2, and I don't plan to keep a sync between blog topic/pics in the future. Like the front page of the Mx I want to mess with peoples heads by providing a completely irrelevant subject matter to go along with my imagery. Get used to it ;)

New Kid on the Block

Woah, turns out it wasn't as scary as I thought to set up one of these things. I guess anything David Jaffe can do, I can do to! *runs of to make crazy game about cars and guns then remembers knows nothing about game programming*

Anyways, lets get to the good stuff! Right now, I'm nothing special. As much a narcissistic prick as I try to be, I'm inherently a good guy so it takes a bit more effort to stand out from the crowd. If you haven't read any of my earlier works from Economical Gamer I'll lay the ground work down for you. The goal in my reviews is not to say 'x game is shite!' or 'game y is teh ballz' but instead to inform readers about the games. What the consumer is getting, how does it work and most importantly, is it fun? I'm the first to admit these early reviews sound like ass kissing material, but I believe the gaming journalism world doesn't need another Ben 'Yahtzee' clone. Maybe one day I can ride aboard the S.S.Sellout and hang crap over 90% of the games I play, but until then I'll continue to pout my lips for the likes of the suits!

Since no one other than close friends and forum members are likely to find their way to this post I'll just end it here and say I hope to get the most out of this bloody thing. Welcomes all round! Now where's my fruit basket?