Rock Band to slip to September for Aus

News dropped this week about the slight price hike in their version of Rockband. By slight I mean twice the amount of its US counterpart, not to mention some baffling bundling, which includes the entirely useless 'All the instruments but not the game' edition which is great if you just want to sit in front your dormant TV banging on plastic drums and sobbing.

That's really sucks for you Europe, it really does. Well, buck up, because your aren't THE most fucked in the arse territory in the world.

Ebgames AU website is now suggesting September as a release for Australia. Are you fucking kidding me. Could we be any less of a priority?

Seeing as we already pay double what our US friends pay for games, I can't wait to see the price insanity that Rockband will bring. $400? Why not!?

If you offer a starving man a shit sandwich, chances are he's going to eat it.

-Brother N-

Grandios fuck you, Theft of content and Automatic censorship

A couple of months ago I pre-ordered the 'I have more money than sense' edition of Grand Theft Auto IV. The idea of it being censored didn't even enter my head as GTA: San Andreas was left untampered here in Australia.

I was one of the early adopters of GTAIII who was lucky enough to get the game before OFLC decided to take a hacksaw to it. When GTA: Vice City reared its tightly permed head it became obvious that our government again wanted to play babysitter and decide what we should play. I decided to grab a copy from the progressive nation of New Zealand, where instead of changing the content they change the rating system.

Preemptively I again got the next installment, GTA: San Andreas from New Zealand. This turned out to be a waste of time as the AU version had nothing altered in it, but still contains the elements that had the game originally altered.

Odd.

Apart from the obvious 'average age of gamers in Australia is 28" argument, which is now a pile of mince where a dead horse once was, my main sticking point is the lack of consistency.

One year it's ok to bag hookers, then the next year it's not. Graffiti is banned (see Marc Eckos: Getting Up), illegal street racing isn't (see NFS Underground series). Severing limbs, banned (see Dark Sector). Explosives tearing off limbs, fine and dandy (see too many to mention). Purchasing and consuming drugs, no probs (see Saints Row). Non-playable unfinished sex minigame buried in code, PULL THAT SHIT OFF THE SHELVES! (see GTA:San Andreas)

Saving kids or nannying adult gamers?

In a society in which I can happily buy shit that has categorically been proven to fucking kill you (see Tabacco products, Alcohol, Gilmore Girls dvds) I am unable to buy a game in which I might see a poorly rendered titty.

Fuck you.

Protest and buy your game from New Zealand.

-Brother N-

PS. YOU AREN'T THE BOSS OF ME!!

The Home Hammer game

During one of my regular bottom of the ladder rounds of Call of Duty 4, 'the Hammer Game' from Halo 3 was briefly mentioned and sorely missed.

The group of guys I play flirted briefly with Master of Chiefs and his spartan buddies, but after the fucking lackluster single player campaign was done away with and a series of shitty online matches, it was traded on mass.

One thing we did enjoy though was the aforementioned 'Hammer game'. This was basically a time filler that we fired up waiting for everybody to come online. It consisted of a variant of King of the Hill, Low Gravity, rockets and hammers only on Valhalla. People would rush to the hill, slow to a crawl and then smash each other like green armored pinatas. It was so dumb and so, so awesome. We eventually stopped looking for online games, and just kept playing the Hammer Game.

-Brother N-

That's what Playstation Home needs to be. I know they have promised bowling...*cough* but they really need to think sideways on this one. Let blow each other up, let us play paintball, let us make lego villages...to then blow up.

Burnout Paradise: Adding salt to your wounds.

Ok, before you jump to conclusions, this is not an irrational blast at the latest of the Burnout series. For what I've played, which is around 10 hours on and offline, it's exactly what I wanted. Light-weight, fuck around racing.

What I don't like, is DJ fucking Atomika. I get his purpose, to subtly give the player tips. Cool. And hey, at least he's not the super obnoxious over the top fuckheads from Burnouts past.

So what does he do wrong? The second you lose and event this ARSEHOLE chimes in with some smarmy insult consisting of "News just in of some shitty racer being utterly horrible and fat across Paradise, and I DJ Atomika only give mad props to the awesomest of the awesome" . Or how about one of his fabulous handy 'tips' which are pretty much made up of the following;
"When you're in a race/stunt run/road rage/burning run/marked man, its important to try and go fastest/do stunts/win/go fast/not die, and that will help win and not lose, like you just did. DJ Atomika here, telling you the bleeding fucking obvious."

This guy is seriously my motivation to win. Just so I don't have to choke one of my couch cushions to death each time he pipes up.

-Brother N-

PS and NO turning Tips off in the options menu does not shut him up. He's like the fucking wolf man.....I gotta find a silver bullet.

Assasin's Creed PC: How does 'Fuck You' sound?

Fresh news has just cropped up about the shiny new 'now its your turn' version of Assassin's Creed on the PC and what else can i say to the developers but 'Go suck a dick!'

What's the problem? New shit. More missions, different investigations. Being as my poor old PC is as tragic as one of those dogs with broken back legs replaced by wheels, I probably wont be playing this title. But as previously stated, i did play Ass Creed through on the 360. By the end, I had also suffered the 'Ass fatigue' that many a reviewer described. It was fun but lack of variation slowly ground me into a fine paste of frustration.

So how do you fix these problems? MOARE STUFFS TO DO! But not for you dumb fuckers who have spent a small portion of you life collecting FLAGS for some DOUCHEBAG who can't because it's TOO FUCKING HOT TODAY. HOW ABOUT YOU TAKE THE BALACLAVA OFF MATE?! THAT MIGHT COOL YOUR LAZY FUCKING ARSE DOWN!!

I don't even give a toss if they release it as DLC, I traded that shit in. Here's a trick, WAIT for a few more months AND GIVE ME A BETTER FUCKING GAME, rather than WAITING AND RELEASING A BETTER FUCKING GAME ON A DIFFERENT FUCKING PLATFORM just so you can scoop up a few more sales from the Assassin's Creed psychopaths that collected all 18.6 billion flags from each city.

So Fuck you Ass Creed PC, and while where at it, Fuck you Gears 'O' War PC, for denying the people who made the game a success a chance to fight the real boss. Not some tool wearing a BAT-COAT.

-Brother N-

Burnout Babies

I was listening to the entertaining CAGcast, Cheap Ass Gamer's weekly podcast, yesterday where CheapyD mentioned his disappointment in the Burnout Paradise demo. I have heard the exact sentiment in other gaming podcasts, am I missing something?

Burnout 3: Takedown was the game that made me buy an Xbox. I played it a lot. So when Revenge came out, I was well pumped for it. After playing it for a little while, I was left disappointed. It was still cool, but aside from some tweaks, it was fundamentally the same as Takedown.

So now, people want the same thing, again? In a community that lays wreaths of praise on the original and scandalises the propagation of easy sequels, how can you sit back and bitch when somebody tries to invigorate a series with innovation?

-Brother N-

The art of dicking around

Had a chance to play the Burnout Paradise demo, one word: slick.

Shiny as fuck graphics sure, but what gets me is the interface. To invite a friend I just tap the D pad a few times, and thats it. To join a random online game, The same thing. No menus, everything is an overlay of the still running game. If the host leaves, it tells you, but you just continue on your way.

I was extremely surprised to see that the demo was multiplayer, but in making that decision, they have solidified this games success. The pure fun of 4 people dicking around with high speed vehicles has the potential to become a staple of online play.

A friend and i couldnt find a game in TF2 (that wasn't a grandma speed ping or kicked us out after 5 seconds) the other night so we said, "Burnout?"

All i ask for is some real playground locations. I know its based on a racing game, but give us as many 'warf' like locations with open spaces and jumps, and this game makes itself.


-Brother N-

Ok, that tears it.

Spotted this new trailer for Little Big Planet today, and I've had it. That IS the game that I will buy a PS3 for. That's it, it's decided.

It plays directly to all my weaknesses. Making stuff, fucking with physics, cute yet somewhat odd characters and fucking around with friends.

The tools remind me a lot of those in Adobe Illustrator, which I love, so I can't wait to begin the madness.

I can't wait to see how the world will attack this thing. Corporations making big ads, Graffiti artists making full blown burners, juveniles making photo-realistic dicks.

-Brother N-