Mr Butterscotch, Author at Gadzooki

More Wii Possibilities

September 11, 2006 by Mr Butterscotch

Following on from Quimby’s excellent article on the possibilities of the upcoming new Nintendo console (the Wii – though I still prefer Revolution) I’ve decided to take a look at some of the games that are going to be released on or around the middle of November – that is provided it is not delayed.

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
It’s the long awaited return of Link in a more mature form; with this flagship launch title looking to be one of the darkest and most amazing adventures in the series yet.� When Link travels to the Twilight Realm he turns into a wolf.� You of course use the Wii control to full effect, swinging for sword attacks and even fishing (there’s my idea gone).� Similar to Ico you have a horse to explore the world, and by all accounts it is sounding like it is quite a decent size too.� This is one of the games that truly everyone is looking forward to seeing.

Super Mario Galaxy
Bizarre and odd storyline aside, Super Mario Galaxy is everything that Mario Sunshine should have been.� Point and drag using the Wii controller, move Mario around the worlds in a slingshot motion, control him a more typical fashion on the levels and much more.� Finally, a Mario game that could meet expectations.

Red Steel
This game is an Ubisoft exclusive that takes full advantage of the movement of the controller to offer precise first person shooting and sword action.� Again, bad storyline aside you can fully control your character as you move forward to engage in hand to hand combat with a katana and a variety of other weapons.� Swing, and it swings with you.� Or does it?� There’s still some controversy over whether it is ‘free’ or pattern movement based.� This certainly sounds like it could be a lot of fun in multiplayer mode.

Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz
Once again Ai Ai, Me Me, Gon Gon and Baby return to a Nintendo console, only this time the controls will be even better!� Super Monkey Ball has always been a favourite of mine so I really hope that the Wii control system manages to be both accurate and fun – sore wrists I do not want!� Interestingly this version of the game offers boss battles, and a curious ‘jump’ feature with a flick of the Wii controller.� If it is still kept simple that one extra movement feature could allow even more nefarious puzzles! [Read more…]

Why Has Sony Delayed the PS3?

September 9, 2006 by Mr Butterscotch

Well it’s clear now that Sony has officially delayed the PS3 for Europe (and Africa etc).� I can’t quite believe that this has happened, given how huge the UK games industry is alone, never mind the other territories.� Anyway, here we are looking at a Christmas that is going to be fought over by only Nintendo and Microsoft.� Regardless, even if Sony were in the UK for the festive season, it doesn’t look like there’d be enough to go around my street, let alone the country.

I guess the title of this article is a little misleading, at least partially because I’m not that interested in the PS3.� Frankly the price point seems far too high for a console, and then on top of that I haven’t seen anything yet that can’t be accomplished by the 360 – and who knows – perhaps the Wii too.� What I’m really interested in is what is going to be happening come Christmas in the UK.

It should be huge battle between the 360 and the Wii – but something tells me it won’t be.� I don’t know, maybe I’m just feeling dramatic, but I can’t help but be despondent about this whole situation.� At one point, I was absolutely sure I was going to buy a Nintendo Wii – especially after seeing it in action.� Now however, I’m swinging toward the 360.� I never had any intention of buying a PS3 you see.

Anyway, back to Christmas.� The 360 has been out for coming up to a year now, and it sits there comfortably.� I played Perfect Dark Zero the other day – it was fun, but I prefer Dead Rising (which is finally out in the UK) and even PGR3.� I don’t know what the hot tips are for this year, possibly because I’ve been sucked into the world of Cyrodil (i.e. Oblivion).� I can’t help but feel Nintendo has let us down with the name of choice, never mind the no-doubt day-glo characters and somewhat underwhelming gameplay.

I’m never the voice of despondency, I don’t think it suits what it meant to be an entertainment industry after all, but this year has seen Jack Thompson, Bully dragging us once again into the harsh light of criticism, and then finally to top this we have a lack of the PS3 for ‘my’ territory.� Well, how can I round this off?� I don’t know if I can.� Instead, I’ll retreat back to Oblivion for a while – I might pop out for my birthday in a month to pick up a Xbox360 though…

Nintendo in Flux – and the GameCube Top Five

September 6, 2006 by Mr Butterscotch

No doubt this will seem controversial to many of you but I think Nintendo are in a state of flux. No longer the driving force behind video games, but instead an aging giant – and certainly not aging gracefully. After the defeat of all home consoles to the might of the Playstation Nintendo haven’t really seemed to recover. Don’t get me wrong, I can see the magic in the Nintendo DS (see my articles here) – as can many others – but in the arena of the home console they are lost.

To demonstrate this, just look at the GameCube. Not only am I not able to buy games for it in many stores now, but the third party support has been almost completely lacking from the system – which is a shame as the controller was ok and the GC did have a lot to offer. It had a lovely form factor to boot! Anyway, we’ve now seen most of the big releases that would have allowed it to end with a bang being cancelled – at least for the shores of UK. This is a mighty shame, as I had my GC long before I had my Xbox (I never did get a PS2).

Of course, we have the Wii coming very soon. Nintendo probably, and Quimby reckons it might well be this date. I hope they are right. Xbox 360 has a decent user base (and even more so then) and of course the PS3 will be making a big splash. Whilst it has a big price tag, I can’t imagine the behemoth that is Sony getting the formula too wrong. I like the Wii, and I like the innovation it demonstrates. However, I’m concerned that it’s moving a little too far away. Nonetheless, I wait rather excitedly for more developments.

Regardless, to demonstrate my fondness of my black cube of Nintendo-loveliness I decided to give you all my top five GameCube games. Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of other gems out there – but don’t expect to be able to pick them up too cheap. I don’t know why but games (at least here in the UK) for the system are becoming increasingly rare. I guess I’ll have to go online for those I don’t yet have. Anyway, without further ado, please see my top five Nintendo GameCube games:

Animal Crossing

Animal Crossing first appeared on the N64 many years ago. It was fun then, but the GC version takes it to a new level. Esentially the game is a bit of a life/community sim, with a collection element. You come to a new town (with animal neighbours), and you get to pay off your mortgage, sell and swap items, put stuff in your house and much more. It’s satisfying on a very basic level – and even offers Nintendo games to play! The greatest thing is that it has a universal appeal, and even if we in the UK waited for years and years to get it, it still hits the spot every time. 9/10. [Read more…]

Not a Girl’s Game is it?

August 26, 2006 by Mr Butterscotch

I have just sat down (after doing some tedious paperwork) to watch a programme called When Games Attack. It is a production by Gamer.tv – specialists who produce such great programmes as Around the World in 80 Games and Evolver. When Games Attack is a little bit special as it features Dominic Diamond as a presenter – the one and only former presenter of GamesMaster (and columnist for tabloid newspaper The Daily Star). The show is good, but that’s somewhat of a digression. It is amusing and at times aimed at the fairly hardcore, whilst the reviews border on the uninteresting.

Regardless, something did catch my eye during the show, apart from the sardonic wit of the presenter. Namely a section featuring the lovely Caroline Flack. In this episode, she’d gone off to interview the guys behind the (lets be honest) rather turgid experience that was Killzone. She wandered around the office before happening upon the Producer, who was clearly too busy to talk. Cue some silly dashing around and she cornered the Art Director. Here we are I thought, I can see the location photographs etc so time for some real revelations – even if for a poor game. Instead it was very dull. However, Flack then said something that really highlighted the state of the industry: “not a girl’s game then is it?”

Her comment came about due to the director showing her the list of the 22 weapons you could use throughout the game. Nonetheless, I think her statement sums up pretty much where games are as a whole – at least the games we think of as ‘mainstream’. I’m not talking about the stats that suggest almost 60% of online chess/card games players on Yahoo and such are female, I’m talking about the types of games that immediately spring to mind on mention of the dreaded words of video game.

I think this BBC article sums it up pretty well. The geek stereotype not only still has sway but puts a lot of the potential audience for games off. Indeed, you then have the very obvious marketing ploy of putting a scandtily clad female figure on the front of a game box – as if we can’t work out what the target audience for Rumble Roses is. Frankly as a male I think it’s pretty insulting, so I dread to think what a female would make of it. [Read more…]

Guild Wars, WOW and Grinding

August 22, 2006 by Mr Butterscotch

Both Guild Wars and World of Warcraft are MMORPG’s. For the less technical/non-gamers amongst us that stands for Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game. Now, for me, this has become somewhat of a misnomer. For those of you who follow my site, you’ll see that I’m a regular whiner about how great Neverwinter Nights and Baldurs Gate et al were. Not only were they great games, but also you played a ROLE.

I’ve had a fair bit of experience with MMORPG’s now. I’ve played (a long time ago) the original Ultima Online, as well as the new stuff like Guild Wars, Eve Online and of course World of Warcraft. However, only the early stuff seems to actually have any role-play. The rest suffers from a massive bout of the ‘grinding’.

Once again, for those of you not in the know, ‘grinding’ is a term which signifies going through a monotonous routine to ‘level’ your character – i.e. make him or her better in order to kill more difficult foes, pass greater areas of difficulty and wield better weapons. Generally you’ll do this a lot until you completely max out your character. In case anyone tries to tell you otherwise, roleplay this is not. [Read more…]

In Games, Who are We?

August 13, 2006 by Mr Butterscotch

I was playing Half Life 2 on my new laptop (he’s called Mr Blonde – that’s him below, except he’s orange topped not pink) the other evening and I had an epiphany of sorts. Not that you can have an epiphany whilst eating digestive biscuits and drinking cold coffee but you know what I mean…

Games by their very nature put you in a different role – making you someone other than who you really are (barring Brain Training, Nintendogs or abstract stuff like Rez). However, they can never really take away ‘you’. So whilst a person might revel in darkness in Black and White or Fable (or Oblivion), it is probably just a facet of their character they normally don’t get to explore. The following experience proves such an incidence.

Picture the scene. I’m running up the stairs, there’s unknown government agents after me, obviously wanting to hurt me in sharp-pointy-stick ways. A scared couple are cowering and a dictator is on TV (wait for it, here’s the epiphany) and I grab it. I throw the TV out of the window, still turned on. Suddenly, I am torn.

Yes, that was an experience right near the beginning from the game Half Life 2. However, my own actions brought me out of the game. That action of throwing the TV in a virtual world – albeit a realistic, interactive one – made Gordon Freeman and I two again. You see, in real life I’m a pretty neat-and-tidy sort of guy. Everything has its’ place and all that. Gordon and I have had our first moment of cognitive dissonance right then. I would have wanted the gravity gun to tidy up, to bring the TV back in place. Instead, I went and made a mess!

I have indeed played all the way through Half Life 2 before, but I guess I didn’t really take into account such things, and almost went through it as a ‘zombie’ – a slave to the newness and graphics. I can now appreciate more of what’s going on now that I’ve been through it. So how about you? With freedom do you play ‘yourself’ or is it a different part of your character that is unleashed? Do you prefer to do what ‘you’ would do or does the freeform gaming environment allow you to run wild?

Games and TV

August 7, 2006 by Mr Butterscotch

My last post featured a link to Consolevania. Very simply, this is a live-action show featuring a bunch of amusing Glaswegian ladies and gents talking about games and occasionally partaking in a comedy sketch. As in Glasgow, Scotland. There may be some of you out there who can’t make out what on Earth they are saying, but if you bear with it, you’ll find that silly sketches aside, they actually have some very informative things to say about the industry and games in general. The only complaint I have is that there is not enough episodes!

This brings me to the real issue, and one of the reasons why I like Consolevania so much. Frankly, there is simply no coverage of computer and video games on UK TV. This is an utterly nonsensical state of affairs. I can’t think of an industry as big that receives as little coverage on tv, and in fact no coverage at all aimed at what is meant to be the largest demographic (of which I in fact fit into) – males aged in their mid to late twenties.

[Read more…]

The Downscaling of the E3 Videogames Convention

August 1, 2006 by Mr Butterscotch

As reported in Kotaku and BBC news, what used to be the extravaganza, the greatest show in interactive entertainment history is now no more – at least in the three day ‘mega-format’ show. That’s right – E3 is changing. If you ask me, this is really a backward step for the industry as a whole, for a good number of reasons.

Videogames generally get a bad press a large portion of the time. Whether it’s Hilary Clinton using them as a bandwagon for her campaign or the latest ‘Halo murder’ story, games quite literally get a thoroughly bad press. This is both unfair and unjust, and I think E3 goes some way to making games seem acceptable and exciting.

[Read more…]

Adventures in Buying a Laptop

July 29, 2006 by Mr Butterscotch

This feature was meant to be product review – covering the new laptop I purchased to work and play on. However, due to the mortifying (and hilariously bad) customer service I received, instead I thought I would tell you about that. Suffice to say I didn’t, and still have not, purchased a new machine yet.

I guess I didn’t help myself really but because I work long hours I could only get to the store about 50 minutes before closing time. This should have been ample to quickly look around – and it was in one store (a general electrical retailer part of the Dixons group). I was, after a few minutes, approached politely by a young gentleman asking if I wanted any assistance. At this point I did not, so continued browsing and told him I would come back. This store was well presented and had a laptop I was interested in.

[Read more…]