Remember a few months ago when I wrote a blog here in neutral ground as such about a lot of drama going on around an XBLIG title I reviewed along with others and a certain bit of reaction from the developer.

Well as it turns out the drama hasn’t ended yet and As Pitchford did to Sterling now O’Reagan has done to Indie Gamer Chick.

To catch those up on what happened
Developer makes game
Reviewer reviews it and gives it poor write up including a serious glitch (one I didn’t experience, but said reviewer did)
Developer rather than being a little upset his game has a bug and saying they will have to look into it, said developer calls the reviewer a liar.
Over days more reviews for the game pour in, all negative.
Developer then proceeds to call all reviewers so far crackheads
Developer then fills reviewers comments with less than savoury replies.
Developer then changes box art for game in some kind of act of defiance against reviewer.
I decide to pull my review as I don’t endorse this behaviour and believe even the minor exposure of my very small site is giving by hosting a review is too much now as it seems I’m endorsing this developer and their actions.
Developer sets out to release new updates and patches to the game

You’re now caught up with the basics. So since then the developer has been submitting new version approvals to the app hub to be released on XBLIG and update the title as such, essentially the XBLIG version of patching. During the approval process which is peer reviewed as such a developer reported a code 4 error also since the first issue another reviewer ran into the same code 4 brought up initially.
Well it exploded again. Indie Gamer Chick asked for an apology for being called a liar, what follows is the resultant conversations.








That’s right you just read that, a developer is refusing to apologise for calling someone a liar until a slating review of their game is removed. For those who want to read that slating review here it is [click me]. The developer later goes on to claim he’s had plenty of useful feedback and doesn’t need the feedback from certain reviews as it’s not useful to him. You thought Randy Pitchfords reactions to Jim sterling over Aliens Colon Myopathy was bad well here in the XBLIG we’ve now got our own version and I’m not sure which one is worse now.


Look I've dealt with annoyed developers before. There was Milkstone studios on about their game Avatar Farm claiming I was wrong because they were getting sales from it. Though somewhere in that studio something sunk in as they released a better version of the game with online multiplayer. I even had a little debate with the creators of Minecraft in space clone Xenominer which was possibly the most enjoyable argument I've been in as it was a case of both of us almost goading the other to rage, very professionally done on both sides. I hold no ill feeling towards either of those developers because hey its the industry and there is a reason I have the tag line "Shamelessly unprofessional reviews" as I'll happily acknowledge my view might not be that of everyone else and acknowledge my review is jut my opinion, however much weight people think it holds is up to them.

However I do take objection to people going quite as far as being shown here.
Claiming someone is unprofessional = passable (At least least to me it is as I wear that claim)
Claiming someone is a bad gamer = passable if a little annoying as sure not everyone is MLG but thats part of gaming
Claiming someone is telling lies or mentally unstable and should seek medical help = yeh you crossed the line a way back on that one.

So anyone have any ideas how to treat Pitchforditious ?

Many years ago in the days of the Dreamcast when Sonic Adventure 2 had just come out, I did what I always did and went into town to buy it, this was a time before the big rise in online sales and as such stores were still pretty much the only place to get games. I went into the local branch of Game and asked if they had the game in stock. They didn’t, but what has come ringing back to me was the words of the salesperson after I said I didn’t pre-order games. “That’s weird I don’t know why you wouldn’t as it means you’ll have a copy waiting for you”. It’s true I have pre-ordered some games since then, two to be precise (soon to be 3 when Cyberpunk 2077 is on the books) but I’ve never seen the point mostly .

If I pre-order online sure I could get the game a day or two early maybe but I quickly learned my lesson about listening to reviews. You see I used to really enjoy playing a game by Kaos studios called Frontlines Fuel of War, I heard they had a new game coming out called Homefront and they showed some amazing gameplay footage claiming to be from a multiplayer match. I really enjoyed Kaos studio’s first game and saw them really support the community especially on the Xbox forums. I didn’t listen to any reviews or check any, went into town day one and bought it, it was crap, it’s one of the few games I’ve rapidly traded in this generation. I learned my lesson to listen to reviews. So what have been the two pre-orders I’ve made ?
The Darkness 2 and Portal 2, that’s it. I never actually picked up the Darkness 2 because I was told I could pre-order free and it would be there for 48 hours for me. I read reviews for it and decided the removal of the open world stuff for me was a deal breaker so I never picked up. Portal 2 I pre-orded again because the pre-order was free and hey it’s Valve they’ve proven to make good games and not just have one hit. I’m happy to say I’m weird in that I don’t pre-order games, even though it’s free here in the UK at many places. Why would I ? it’s rare I go for a game on launch day now and I don’t see why I would pre-order. Even then on launch day there’s plenty of copies about and with the amount of glitches and errors seemingly turning up I’m happier to wait a little while. You see even back in the Dreamcast days I never had a problem getting games, even Sonic Adventure 2 I got day one simply by going to the same chain but one town over.

Companies have seemingly lost sight of one group of consumers. The day one purchaser. They pay full price for the game and yet they get screwed over both ways. The guys who pre-ordered (or in some cases pre-purchased) get the cool extras, limited and collectors editions now run as their own thing being more expensive mostly and people buying down the line get the cheaper price and can then use that saving to buy the Pre-order DLC that’s been released. I have actually bought a game Day one in recent times and that was The Witcher 2, my reward for this was I got the limited edition with art book and map, it was the same price as the standard version so I thought why not ? I was being rewarded for buying new and I trusted CD Project to have made a good game. The problem as I see it is not with pre-orders it’s with the incentives to pre-order. Sure throw in a beta or game demo or code for some cheap little thing but I was torn between two ends of buy later or pre-order games and I went with buy later as there’s no incentive to buy the game day one now. I didn’t want to pre-order as honestly even buying Homefront day one taught me my lesson and with the present uproar over Aliens Colonial Marines I can’t say it’s made me re-consider pre-ordering games in the future. And this is with it being free, for many people in other countries I really feel bad for you having to put down money in advance on games like some firms make people do.

It should however be noted being let into the game in development isn’t a bad thing as I did it with Minecraft on the PC and I’d happily do it with other games and there’s a big reason to this, one that many AAA developers will hate. Most of the games are indie games with no NDAs. People can talk about them and people know what they’re getting. Pre-purchasing a complete game and playing the incomplete one early is a very different business model at present to what many see as the AAA pre-order system where if a game is NDA covered you are going in sight unseen. This is not pre-ordering as such as to me you’re buying the game in its present state, everything beyond that point is a bonus. I didn’t buy into minecraft as early as many others but I bought in at a stage I felt it was worth paying for, at the stage I felt there was enough game to be worth the money. That was in Beta 1.3, since then as you’re most likely aware Minecraft has evolved hugely and is now in full release and way more advanced than Beta 1.3. Everything since then has been a bonus to me. I never invested in some dreams and aspirations I invested in what I saw as a product worth my money.

The question is, why should I support the publishers now by buying day one or within the period where the new sale matter (During a games print run as such). I get screwed over by not pre-ordering and going in, in some cases, blind as to the game, I’d have to pay more for the game too compared to people buying 2 months down the line or so who can then put the money they saved into the now available pre-order bonuses as DLC. By bringing in pre-order incentives and neglecting the day one market by essentially putting limited editions up on their own new premium price tier they are actually harming themselves. With Reviews coming out the absolute moment the NDA finishes now consumers can get up and see if a games worth buying then if it is buy it new that day, yet with pre-order incentives its actually de-incentivising people to buy new, its giving people a pretty good reason to wait and pay less. Oddly information suggests games sales have been in decline recently I’d suggest part of this is due to people actually not buying day one anymore and buying later down the line which harms the retail sales as publishers don’t see the big sales spikes normally used as indication to continue a games print run beyond the initial week or so after release.

Why should I be punished for buying day one and yet rewarded for paying in advance or paying later down the line ? What purpose does this serve to publishers as its forcing consumers to either pre-order or actually wait on the game and not add to the main sales. Inadvertently or deliberately Publishers have actually broken part of their own sales market rather seriously now. the main questions are, how will they fix it ? Do they care enough to try and fix it ?

Warning Contains language some readers may find offensive

So after an erotic adventure game got removed from Steam Greenlight and app developers have been told content containing sexual, political or religious material may not be able to release on the IOS marketplace by apple, one little story slipped this net. As far as I’m aware I might be the only person to actually be writing about this however due to sources who have oddly been in contact with me of all people. Microsoft have banned a game from the Windows 8 store. This has actually in part been verified by the developer of said game in a tweet.



So what on earth kind of game could Microsoft ban from appearing on windows 8 ?
It’s an XNA game and as such it’s kind of my area of expertise
It’s this game



According to my source the game was considered “Too politically sensitive by Microsoft to release” with numerous complains within the department being brought up about different aspects of the game being seen as offensive.

So with 80 Microsoft points ready to burn I decided to check the game out. Its shit........ and that’s me being polite to the game I don’t think the required swear words have yet been invented to truly do this game justice as to how bad it is. Now I’m about to explain the story better than the game initially does. You play Wilson Cooper, you work for a board game company and your bitter rival out of spite turns you into a fish because um Technology (seriously just saying because Um science would be better but the game says specifically technology). You Swim to Libya during the Libyan crisis and come up in the toilet of Colonel Gaddafi. That really is the story. The game is a point and click adventure in the sense that, very little has any functional logic too it and you tend to resort to rubbing things on other things in the hope it works.



Now for those who want to play the game please stop reading this article now and here’s a link to the game so you can waste 80 Microsoft points on a 30 minute pile of putrefied piss if you so wish.






Ok for those who don’t want to waste money on it, time for me to talk about the rest of the game. You steal a Video Gaddafi made and upload it to the internet using a confiscated computer. The Rebels make you vice commander, you help Gaddafi write a speech and he then goes to hide behind the Sofa. The Rebels storm the place and can’t find him but give you two green envelopes one with rebel base locations and the other with locations of vital locations to be bombed. You mix up the envelopes and as such when you phone Nato you end up giving them both sets of information and are told by the Nato official its fine they’ll be able to sort it out. Nato bombs the rebel leaders by mistake and the Libyan version of Rambo leads one last charge on the palace, waking you up from the bed. You reveal Gaddafi was just hiding behind the Sofa the whole time and then become leader. At the UN you’re given a “choice” of who to ally with. Allying with the US causes a game over as the ending says you get rich and fat then die of a heart attack 2 months later. Allying with Iran causes Nato to invade and assassinate you. Allying with Australia causes you to abandon oil production and begin rock farming.
The game really does only continue if you pick Australia. You’re then tasked with dealing with two opposition parties trying to overthrow you. To deal with the one leader you place an advert in the local paper pretending to be a female lonely heart seeking true love with the exact match partner being the leading rival. Using a make up kit, a wig and a Rock you create a disguise to turn you into a Woman. You go on a date with him then reveal you share none of his political views.
Heartbroken he loses his power to lead. For the second leader you have the police raid his house telling them not to arrest him initially as you want to arrest him only if he’s broken the law. You go in and find he’s keeping hippos in is home. You find him sleeping in the closet and try to have him arrested for taking hippos without consent however you’re informed this isn’t a crime, so you have him arrested anyway. The epilogue goes that rock farming paid off due to the economy seeing a huge peak in demand for rocks. You win.

That really is the whole game and there’s still problems in the game. Firstly it’s not funny, it doesn’t even manage the stoner humour some might enjoy of say Aqua Teen Hunger Force, this really is something I never thought I’d find, its humour that’s even beneath my threshold for comedy. This is the comedy where saying fuck is considered the height of wit. This isn’t me saying I’m above finding swearing funny but it has to be used well. I like south Park and can find offensive language and insane things funny but it has to be used in context. Cartman telling Kyle to “stop fucking swear shitface” or whatever is funny due to the obvious display of irony. However this game is a case of “Oh fuck” being considered the joke, nothing else to it just that.

Characterisation plays off as you’re a complete dick and stereotype hopeless nerd, Gaddafi is a moron as are most other people in the entire game. There’s just nothing redeeming about it. Heck even when the games over there’s no way to return to the menu, you have to exit the entire game and come back to it that's how broken the game is it doesn't even end you just have to leave it.

But yet I can’t see why it was banned from being on the Windows 8 store, it’s not offensive to anyone really as everyone comes off as morons and un likeable amoral people or just complete idiots. It’s not even very political in real terms as the Libya war is over in the game in a single night and it doesn’t really mock this either or anyone caught up in it. Honestly if a game could be banned from a service for being shit this would be the prime candidate but with Microsoft clamouring to get developers to actually get their games certified and in the windows 8 store this really does seem strange for them to turn down someone willingly submitting their game to it. However this gets weirder still when you realise, as you probably have already due to the link that the game is available already. The game is actually on Xbox 360 in the Xbox Live indie Games section and not just that it’s on the Windows Phone 7 as an app game. So for the time being it has to be asked by me, and was wondered by my contact as to why this game really was banned from being on the store, especially considering it’s already out and available on two formats.

Oh and for those who might somehow care about this game, it’s apparently presently trying to fight its way through the greenlight process on steam. So hurray PC gamers might get a chance to experience the horror sometimes spewed out onto XBLIG too. Its actually worth going on the greenlight link simply because of the video the developer themselves has chosen to put as the video for the game.

This video in fact




Also as far as poor indie games go, I will say the developer already has a track record for them with his first game Let’s get Fiscal and the another game Rock Bottom, a game another indie game reviewer said this about “This game is the final conclusive proof atheists have been searching for; no cosmic creator could sit back and consider his work done while this monstrosity exists”. The worst thing is this is even less game than Let’s Get fiscal so before anyone feels bad for the indie developer in this case. I really wouldn’t encourage him not even if you’re an avid fan of podtoid and want to try and get Jim Sterling to force Jonathan Holmes to play this, as its probably far worse than any of the made up scenarios so far discussed.

So recently on my other blog I've ended up doing a glut of reviews for infinite runners and looking particularly at the mobile gaming market where there runners tend to have settled best and as I'm kind of new to this world of Mobile gaming (Yes I played Snake and simulants revenge but I mean the slightly bigger mobile gaming scene now). I thought now owning a Kindle fire it might be worth looking at some.

all these reviews are of the kindle fire version though they are also available on most Android and IOS devices too.




Name: Angry Gran
Cost: Free (Ad supported) (Micro Transaction supported)
Review bit:
The idea behind this game is you play as Angry Gran furious over cuts to her pension, so she goes out on the street and decided she’s had enough of the rest of the world and wants her dues now. How she goes about getting what she sees as her dues is using a variety of objects to brutally beat people and break things. Pressing on the screen charges up her attack, the higher the charge the more cash you get. The game relies on you releasing the swing at the right moment to hit enemies and avoiding hitting the police or you end up in a straight jacket for a while. The main goal is to collect enough money before the next checkpoint to keep going.

Ok that’s enough being professional, now for the bit everyone comes here for, the rage and grumbling about the game. Firstly Angry Gran is add supported so you need to go online to play it, which unless you’re managing to use a wi-fi network then you’re going to be using your data allowance (Though as I played this on a kindle fire it’s wi-fi only anyway.). Next is the fact while a free game that’s add supported it does really try hard to sell you the microtransaction items with the hints screen regularly displaying “Did you know if you bought the most expensive item in the store you could unlock everything in the game” To which I then have to question why anyone would then want t play this ? You see the idea behind playing and getting money is you can upgrade gran herself or buy items for her, each with special effects.

Upgrade wise there’s Discount, Power and recovery. Discount as you’d expect discount upgrades and items for you. Power means you get more cash. Recovery is a weird one though as if you swing and miss you have 10 seconds or so before Gran can charge another swing. That’s right in a runner game when you start out, if you miss a swing you have to sit and watch able to do nothing for about 10 seconds. Well that’s just great isn’t it what a brilliant game design choice to actually force you to sit doing nothing for 10 seconds and worse than that it seems very borderline if you hit or miss as even having the bat go right through enemies sometimes it counted as a miss while when I seemingly swung too early and missed I got a hit. Oh and to top all this crap off the game crashed on me about 3 times randomly on the menus.

Verdict: It’s hard to say a game that’s free is bad. In this case I will as while I can’t say it’s not worth you money (though the items definitely aren’t) this game isn’t even worth the time or install space for it as it is a rather blatant cash grab with little to no redeeming features or variety to the game. A Game which in itself is tedious and barely able to be classed as a game. Even compared to a cow clicker title.

The Score: 0 out of 6



Name: Temple Run 2
Cost: Free (Micro transaction supported)
Review bit: Well It’s another runner game on the kindle fire and this time it’s the sequel to what was considered one of the better, or at least more popular runners. The present incarnation begins with you grabbing a jewel and running from some monster, guardian of the jewel. You go down a zip line and the game really begins. You slide under fallen logs, flamethrower statues and concrete beams. You move left and right to collect jewels and go along small ledges along with avoiding ancient ruins, touching the ancient ruins re summons the monster. Once the monster is chasing you, moving left or right to collect coins will sometimes result in the monster catching you, hence you don’t want the monster there as it means less money collecting for you. Another thing you have to do is jump obstacles, such as rivers, broken bridges, concrete structures or revolving barrels covered in spikes or just to grab a zip line. The final thing you have to do is pick directions, at intersections you have to pick left or right or you simply run off a ledge or into a tree. On certain paths on the fairly procedurally generated levels you’ll find a jewel, these act as currency for various things including the continues.

Falling for any of the traps results in the option to continue, initially costing one gem then if you hit another one its 2 gems, luckily this cost resets each run. The money you earn goes into either unlocking one of the three locked characters, each with their own abilities which can be switched out, or put into upgrades such as higher value coins or quicker activating power ups. To earn experience to level up which also gives rewards you get given some objectives to help vary up the gameplay such as going X distance without collecting coins or simply getting past a certain distance, or even using options such as the head start or multiple save me uses.

The problems however come pretty quick enough. Firstly the power activation is unresponsive and sluggish compared to the rest of the game and often you’ll find despite the responsiveness the game does latter have a tendency to pull some fairly cheap deaths such as a pit just out of sight round a corner, requiring you to have jumped as you turned the corner. The game also only runs with the kindle vertically rather than allowing you to play with it orientated Horizontally. My final complaints are that the missions don’t really help in stopping the game becoming tedious and that it offers head starts in game without telling you that it will drain your coins. Honestly I’d have preferred if they just left the headstart option in the store and not had it pop up in game.

The different thing in this one is the minecart sections where you have to pick the right direction to avoid blocked caves, along with ducking under fallen beams and tiling the cart to go over sections with a single rail. The games graphics are also a bit above the standard level of most runners.

Verdict: A rather good looking game which despite trying to mix things up seemingly falls into gameplay mediocrity fairly quickly. The unlockables are passable but the game really doesn’t do much beyond looking a little better graphically than most others. I’m not going to recommend it as it’s not really doing anything different other than graphics.

Trailer




score 3 out of 6




Name: Jetpack Joyride
Cost: Free (Microtransaction supported)
Format: Kindle Fire (Also on other android devices and on IOS)
Review: Oddly I got recommended this game very early on by Amazon or at least it appeared in the free games shortlist. I thought what the hey it’s free and expected the worst. However Jetpack Joyride isn’t bad, in-fact it’s pretty damn good. For a Free game with a microtransaction business model they’ve actually given you so much content I never felt I was being pushed towards buying anything to keep going.


Jetpack Joyride is a very simple game, you play a guy who has stolen a military grade jetpack that works by firing two high powered miniguns at the floor, pressing the screen makes you rise and letting go sees you fall. It really is that damn simple and yet it manages to take such a simple concept and make it a huge deal. The Obstacles also seem simple with only 3, electric field wall things, missile and laser grids. Even the main aspects of the game are simple, collect coins and collect slot machine tokens, coins letting you buy some upgrades as well as single use items and slot tokens letting you play the slot machine at the end of a run. The slot machine is fun on its own making good use of the touch screen function so you’re pulling the handle. The true genius of the slot machine is the rather cool element of random chance it brings to the game, with some results giving; a few or a lot of extra coins, one giving more token to play on the slot machine, ones giving a small or large extra push so you cover a bit more distance, ones giving you a free single use head start item for your next run and even an option to revive yourself and carry on your present run.

However simple it’s how the game combines these features with the huge variety of missions and extra vehicles that really makes this game stand out. Each vehicle offers a different change to play; The lil stomper (a robot mech suit) lets you jump and glide with a jet engine under it, the badass hog lets you jump and comes with a shotgun, the teleport chamber as the name suggests lets you teleport about(even balancing this with it being timing related), the profit bird seeing you press to flap and climb, the dragon which only descents when you press. It’s things like this that add depth to the game and also give you the chance to take an extra hit before faceplanting the floor.

The Missions it must be said are where this game excels beyond all others with a star system and missions with varying star rewards. There are the standard mission like “Get X far”, “Collect X coins”, “Avoid collecting coins for x distance” However it throws in ones such as; “High five 5 scientists” “slide 5 metres along the floor on your face”, “Scrape your head on the ceiling for 50 metres”, “Near miss 5 missiles”, “Die at this point on the level” and my personal favourite “Hit 5 lights”. The thing is normally if it’s a run with a rather specific objective the game will set itself up in such a way to make that objective possible, say for missile close calls, it will have lots of ! marks coming up alerting of lots of incoming missiles, more so than a normal run.

The upgrades themselves also don’t seem like flat power upgrades, often they are silly things like No scientists on the level or if you hit something instead of just dropping to the floor you gain a hamster ball style cover round you that lets you bounce a short distance alone the floor, and thus have a better chance at distance based objectives.

Verdict: For a free game, the variety it offers and how little it tries to push you to buy coin or token packs and how little grind you feel while playing I have to say I recommend this game. It only misses a perfect score because it can get boring if you play for extended periods beyond about 1-2 hours at a time , however each time you come back its still fresh and enjoyable

trailer



score 5 out of 6

So it’s that time of year again, you know the one,Its shortly after Valentines day and my supply of Christmas cheer or as I refer to it, or “that large pile of high percentage alcoholic drinks” as others call it, is running dry. This can only mean one thing it’s time for a massacre and what better victim than the hapless Christmas themed indie games, who have about 2 weeks of relevance before being seen once again as the useless gimmicky pieces of crap they actually are.
Originally I posted this over the course of a week on my main blog but hey I thought some here might enjoy it as its the 2nd year I've done one of these now.

So sit down with some "Christmas cheer" and enjoy reading this and wondering how I don't want to deck the devs with bows of holly for producing some of this absolute yellow snow poor attempts at games while I may or may not have gradually got drunker and angrier as these progressed.

All costs are in Microsoft points.
Approximate conversion 80 = $1

Scoring system
0 = I don't think in good conscience even call this a game either because it lacks any elements of gameplay or is an unplayable mess of glitches that should be buried in the desert instead of the ET cartridges

1= It qualifies as a game just about though its probably the kind of game banned under the Geneva convention as a torture device more than a conventional game you'd want to play.

2= It's a game, it offers a few bits of fun but they are few and or it has a lot of bugs still in the game or is overpriced to the nth degree. Not worth the money being asked in most cases on these.

3= Its a Run of the mill game, you come out having had some fun, you don't feel like you've wasted your time but you don't really feel you've used it well and made a wise purchase. Sure you don't feel cheated by the game but you don't feel you found treasure either.

4= A better than average game, providing some fairly fun sections with minimal annoying parts and relatively bug and glitch free. Makes itself feel worth your money and you might even play it again

5= A game of exceptional quality, providing next to no annoying parts or down time you feel like it was well worth your money and you feel time on it was more than well spent.

6= Why do you not own this game yet ? Every so often the gaming equivalent of gold dust comes about. A game that has the pacing just right, the game play refine down zero glitches in my play time and being price such that its honestly insane quality and or time for the cost. In over 200 reviews only 2 game have ever been given this score




Name: Super Santa Slayer
Cost: 80
Review Bit: Now from the retro style box art initially I thought this game might be fine, I mean it appears to be from the same guys as Washington’s Wig and that did wasn’t terrible. Turns out I was wrong its actually a totally different company that made this title. Though I still had hope this title wasn’t going to be a steaming pile of reindeer droppings.

So I decided to play it, that was my first mistake. My second mistake was expecting a game with a single player option to be worth playing in single player. You see far from my expectation of a side scrolling brawler, one a still held after checking the tutorial I should add, I was slightly shocked to find it was a fighting game. Yes a fighting game in the traditional sense of two people beating one another up and no others joining in. Now you see the problem with Super Santa Slayer is in single player, you play Santa and have to fight trough a succession of increasingly difficult enemies. That is to say each is more difficult because the first enemy doesn’t move or attack. Oh that’s right there’s no real enemy AI in this game, the extent for most is repeating a series of attacks, the first doing nothing, the second doing single punches and moving towards you, the third doing mostly single punches then a low kick every now and again and the fourth throwing in a few more low kicks.

So the AI is crap I mean it makes Aliens Colon Marinate look good but surely it’s not that bad right ? It must have a redeeming feature ? Well the only one I can give is the game didn’t crash on me, and that in itself is a shame as at least I’d be able to call it a buggy pile of crap rather than just crap. You see beyond the terrible AI is a laughably simple fighting game, its three buttons and directions. You can punch, kick and block and vary them by doing jumping and ducking versions, no special moves, no real character variation and at most 3 frames of animation for each move per character. Oh there’s 8 characters but they look dire, I’m not normally one to criticise graphics or art but this looks like something I submitted for art homework in highschool. It’s so terrible it's almost laughably bad.

Verdict: A rather terrible fighting game that can only really be played multiplayer with no online support, you have got to be joking if you think this is getting a recommendation. This game is so terrible that even if this were a boxed game Grandparents would be ashamed to give it to their kids because even they’d be able to tell how terrible this game is. Avoid this like I try to avoid answering the question most relatives seem to love of “Oh why aren’t you seeing anyone ?”

Score 1 out of 6




Name: Gingerbread holiday sharing
Cost: 80
Review bit: So for some reason Gingerbread houses have gained a connection to Christmas more than they have to fairytales now. I really went in knowing this game was going to be crap. I’m sorry but seriously it’s a game about decorating gingerbread houses and being able to show those poor unfortunate friends who also got dragged into playing this game.

The games problem is it forgets two of the more fun parts. Eating the house and watching the house collapse as you pull vital parts of it off.

In fairness to the game I think its target audience might be the 3 and under crowd with its simplistic design and controls. You pick up sweets and hang the required amount on the houses and signs to complete a level. But wait the second level has a twist, you have to open presents to find an icing bag to draw on the icing use to attack the sweets to. Now you can draw the icing on anything pretty much and it’s a nice white colour. You know where my immature mind immediately went with this one I’m sure. But just to clarify, yes I did draw a giant rather graphic action shot of a penis. Even better I discovered if you leave the icing a while it turns blue meaning I made a penis of someone dying of hypothermia. I also then made them a steroid user by replacing the balls with Acorns. Oh yes I had plenty of fun doing that, I’m guessing it’s not what the developer intended for it but it’s what I did.

Verdict: I can only recommend this to people with very young children who are easily amused or collage students wanting to see who can make the most warped and corrupting town in a weird contest amongst friends. It’s by no means a worth while game and you’ll quickly bore of the seemingly intended way to play and start trying to abuse the game. Avoid like I avoid going anywhere near yellow snow.

Score 1 out of 6



Name: Santa’s Xmas Dash II
Cost: 80
Review bit: So yes this is the sequel the previous Santa’s dash, which I never played however by looking at the previous title I’m pretty sure this game has exactly one difference and that’s a whole 1 extra song in the options. Ok there may be a minor mechanical change meaning it better represents when you’re meant to press the buttons but I can’t be sure.

In Santan's Xmas gash II you play Santa and it’s your job without your sleigh to deliver presents. To do this you have to climb between houses on strings of Christmas lights, this sounds like some kind of great setup for a kids stealth game. Unfortunately it’s not a stealth game it’s a quick time event. In normal mode you automatically move to the Christmas lights and climb on, the only thing you then have to do is press the corresponding buttons as they appear inside the scrolling box at the bottom of the screen, the very slow scrolling buttons.

In Dash mode it’s changed slightly as you have 60 seconds to see how far you can get, so the tedium of waiting for the buttons to show up is gone. Instead you simply press the buttons as fast as they come up and see quite how far you can get.

The game also offers competitive race multiplayer and apparently co-operative multiplayer, local only of course. As when you have a game with next to no gameplay that’s exactly the kind of thing that will make you so beloved by friends for introducing them to such a poor and boring game

Verdict: With all of 4 midi esc vaguely accurate Christmas tunes and very poor gameplay value Santa’s Xmas Dash II is so little improvement over the first it’s almost a joke. This added to the fact the first game doesn’t appear to have been very good itself really does make me question why the developer bothered with what is one of the most obvious holiday cash in series on XBLIG. Who knows maybe next year it will have 5 songs and online multiplayer. Avoid this game like I generally try to avoid ever being sober over Christmas.

Score 1 out of 6



Name: Jigsaw Jumble Xmas 2013
Cost: 80
Review bit: So Jigsaw Jumble Xmas 2012, a Christmas version of the normal Jigsaw Jumble game, a rather shameless holiday cash in game. You’re given a range of Christmas pictures to pick from, you can then select the difficulty, or how many pieces there are in the puzzle.

Easy being the kind a 2 year old would be expected to do and hard being the kind your gran normally has set out in the front room and has been doing for the past few months. The game has a few problems, firstly you have to scroll through the pieces individually, meaning with large numbers of pieces, progress is slow going. Secondly the colour selection on the control screen made it near impossible for me to be able to tell what the controls are as the text doesn’t stand out much against the background.

Verdict: A shameless cash in on holiday spirit which actually fails to be better or even as good as the N64 minigame jigsaws on Banjo Kazooie. Avoid like I avoid all contact with Charity collectors while I’m Christmas shopping.

Score 1 out of 6




Name: Story Mania Christmas
Cost: 80
Review bit: Have you heard of mad libs ? Well I’m led to believe it’s a widely known and well loved form of basic entertainment in the US. Loved for its basic nature and simple non digital design. Here in the UK it never really caught on our version as such was sitting in a high school common room playing Film title nipples a simple game where you just go round in a circle replacing a single word in a film title with the word nipple with people being eliminated for um-ing, going er or laughing at anyone else’s entry.

Why am I telling you all this ? Well the Story Mania series brought this idea to the digital world with you selecting from a series of predefined words for each purpose (Verbs, Adjectives etc etc..). Unfortunately while the “game” does produce a story based on your input its only humour value is rather puerile and unfortunate mistakes such as a dog killing a pet baby back rib, no that really did happen. As I do with most games aimed in any way at kids I decided to go out of my way to make at as un child friendly as possible so I deliberately picked options that sounded like I could make it into a very non PG story involving a princess, a waitress, Alcohol, Pirate DVDs and the night they shared a bed. Unfortunately for me the game was onto me and managed a rather garbled story about what happened Christmas morning. The full version does offer more story templates that can be used including “Rudolph the Red eyed Elf” but really there’s little gameplay here and the preparation period for each story really does drag on, for what are actually rather short tales.

Verdict: I really find it hard to recommend this to anyone at all as it’s barely a game. If this were an app for android or IOS I could just about get it but on XBLIG it seems really out of place having no game play elements at all. Avoid like one year I will finally manage to avoid crying by not watching Love Actually at Christmas.

Score: 0 out of 6



Name: Christmas Carnage
[b]Cost:[b] 80
Review bit: Welcome to a game that counts down to Christmas for you, what happens on Christmas day ? Who knows, I can tell you I wasn’t going to boot it up on Christmas day to find out.
Christmas Carnage is , you guess it a horde shooter with the aim being to survive as many levels as possible and get a high score. You play as a fairy which in game looks nothing like the fairy shown on the join screen because and use the right stick to fire in the corresponding direction. Enemies come in the form of different Christmas themed things such as lights and Dr Who esc moving Christmas trees, see I managed to make another Dr who link to a Christmas game. On each level a quick text scroll cynically questions traditions such as bringing a tree into the house as its “Beautiful on the outside but dead on the inside”, very much a close description of me if you replace beautiful with the word hideous.

The power ups are almost required with enemies on some levels requiring multiple hits but many power ups cutting through multiple enemies in a single shot. The one annoyance is the shield power up which actually blocks you from picking up other power ups too. A second bug managed to occur for me in the form of a serious pocket of lag, that’s right lag in a single player game. This short period of jumping / slowdown in the game I really do have to suggest is a rather weird bug still in there.
One and only one plus point this game has is the enemies don’t just look visually different but behave it too, mostly in their motions around the screen which does help define them a bit more.
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Verdict: Hey game I’m the one that makes the cynical smartarse remarks about Christmas you’re meant to be a fun enjoyable game. I can’t really recommend this game to anyone at all not even as a joke as the whole aim is to get a high score and with no online scoreboards there’s no real competition except for any unsuspecting friends you can convince to play this rubbish. Avoid like I avoid trying to remember what gifts my ex got me for past Christmases.

Score 1 out of 6


Well that's it hope you enjoyed my slightly dark look at some of the offerings XBLIG served up this Christmas and I'll leave you with one question.

Will there ever be a Christmas themed game that doesn't suck ?

I actually planned to add this into my previous article on Xbox live but then it reached near 4000 words and I thought this one probably needed to be its own article.
The question is often asked now when PSN offers online play free, and for the same price as live you can get a large amount of games to play and discounts, why do people stay with Xbox live.
It’s actually some clever trickery at work that’s got people to this point, unfortunately the tricks are wearing thin.




Playing on psychology 101.



The Human brain from an early age is already programmed to believe more = better, before we learn the true value, the experiment is to find a much younger sibling and offer then two much lower denomination coins for a higher denomination coin (I have no idea on US currency I really don’t if it’s less than $1 you’ve lost me). If said sibling doesn’t understand the value of the coins then will trade them seeing they’re giving one coin to you for two back.
Xbox live is designed to work on this principal through gamerscore as more gamerscore is better or at least that’s the bit at work there, the amount of places your gamerscore is prominently displayed without you realising shows how well this has been done. So even while you might be conscious of the fact it means nothing the displaying of the figures so often is designed to work on your subconscious.
The problem is the more devs use gamerscore to drag out games and not do anything other than prolong the game artificially with more grind the less people care for them. In recent years with gamerscore modding and easy 1000 score games, gamescore on a value level has seen a big fall even for those who cared for it before. Now it’s far more about individual, tough achievements to be able to prove how good you are rather than to have the higher number.




Investment of time.



Xbox live is all too ready to show you your investment of time. From the newly added numbers on gamertags showing how long you’ve been a paid subscriber to the gamerscore again. By displaying these things it’s a constant reminder of the time invested and for most people they don’t want to feel like they’ve wasted their time. Be it enjoying their leisure time by playing games or even writing an article like this. No-one wants to feel like its wasted time and by reminding you both with the gamerscore and the years of membership that you have invested time in this. It’s almost questioning the player saying “do you really want to get rid of this and start again from scratch ?” You’ll notice this with the amount of people who play progression based games as not only do they reward you for playing but they make you feel you’re getting somewhere. The problem is people are now questioning where they are getting too. I mean sure the road to this point wasn’t bad but with the Road ahead not looking great and another service now offering you the chance to go with them on their road, the numbers are failing to work.



Investment of money.



Here’s a big one, sure when you trade something in you expect a lower price than you paid, however until Microsoft decide to abide by EU court ruling stating they have to provide a way to sell digital content on, some content is just lost. Trade in your console or game now and you essentially can’t get any money for the DLC, XBLA or XBLIG. Its account locked and as such people are less willing to trade in and lose that money out right. It’s a very good plan and it could in the future, if the no used games sales rumours are true, form another way to lock a consumer further into their console choice as they are unable to trade in the physical games to get any money towards the other console. This is also remembering that consoles aren’t cheap anymore, they’re what twice or more the price of the past generation ?


The Spread of games.
Ok looking at the present generation, so many games are being multi console releases, there’s been less reason to want to move from XBL to PSN. Sony haven’t really had those titles that really pull people over. Out of all the games that interest me the only one exclusively on Playstation are Little big Planet and Journey, with the only one offering a major pull being Journey. Now as good as Journey is I’m not about to pay out £200 ($330ish) to play just one game. While it might seem strange and sure Microsoft hasn’t got the exclusives as much now. They don’t need them, they managed to draw people in initially and rely on the other methods to retain customers.

Being there first
While the PS3 might have been the more powerful console, by getting there first Microsoft could essentially say down the line “Why play PS3 when so many people are already here ?” It worked too and people did flock to it and its only been closer to the end of the console generation that PS3 has picked up hugely.



It seems a weird situation to look at from the outside looking in I must admit. I mean personally I bought my Xbox 360 early on in the console cycle and as such I have the library of games, DLC and digital games. I couldn’t have predicted what the 360 would turn into down the line. At the time I went with the console that had turned out best last generation and was happy with it. Now however to see the really user unfriendly dashboard filled with adverts (It is less user friendly than a My stuff tab essentially) and the lack of exclusives, even with Microsoft shutting down the XNA development service soon, along with having shut down their own show productions like inside Xbox. The console I have now is far from the console I started with. So for me at least sure, I’ve thought about moving to PS3 but I still don’t have a big enough reason considering what’s holding me back in the form of digital content. However people are going to leave soon as with the next generation of console coming it will mean people can’t stay anymore so Microsoft will have to either try a whole new load of tricks or it might actually have to work and make something consumers want and dare I say, compete with Sony again.