Archive for the ‘Now Devouring’ Category

While my preordered, Collector’s Edition of the game, Alan Wake, languishes somewhere in a Channel Islands warehouse and volcanic ash clouds gather on the horizon, a chap in Spain,  HeikkiX360, was lucky enough to receive his game 8 days early – courtesy of the good folk at GAME Spain, who it would appear, have diligently shipped off their pre-orders, a week and a bit early.  If it’s not cruel enough that HeikkiX360 has taunted us with an ‘un-boxing’ video, he’s also had the gall to put up a video walkthrough of  the first three episodes, lest there be any doubt that he did in fact have the game.  If you love a good unboxing (it just tends to make me jealous and annoyed), then make the jump and press play to see Alan Wake stripped of his shrink wrap.  Lastly, a community service message for any budding Spielberg planning on shooting an unboxing video of their own.  Don’t film the unboxing on your bed.  It tends to just come off as creepy.

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Was The Wire the best show on television? In the words of the Wire’s corrupt Senator Clay Davis, “Sheeeeeeeeet, yes”.

Having just devoured all five series on DVD, I’m inclined to agree with Clay and the critics. Simply put, this HBO drama is compelling. It’s as addictive as the G packs* being pushed on the Baltimore corners. Corners that I’ve spent more hours on (albeit from the comfort of my lounge) these past few weeks than I care to admit.

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Here at The Incomplete Gamer we like to think that when it comes to video games we’re making intelligent, informed purchasing choices, but truth be known, we’re a sucker for a great advertising campaign.

Back in November, Sony kicked off its ‘You’ve got the whole world in your hands’ print and TV advertising campaign for the PSP; a clever campaign that showcased the versatility of Sony’s portable handheld.

But if it’s software that ultimately sells consoles then we can’t help but think that the campaign would be more effective if it used that same ‘whole world’ theme to sell specific titles.

That being said, Sony have absolutely nailed it with it’s new ad campaign for Resistance Retribution. Building on the ‘whole world in your hands theme, this stunning explosive artwork ‘Your Enemy, Your Battle, Your Retribution’, excellently captures the games and the experience of playing Resistance on the PSP.

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Throughout 2008, game developer Criterion Games earned plenty of well-deserved praise for its racing title Burnout Paradise (PS3/Xbox360).   Not content with creating a great, open-world racing game, Criterion spent the last twelve months delivering additional content, and further tweaking the game play, garnering respect from gamers and the gaming media alike along the way.  Best of all, that content cost nothing!  Feel free to correct The Incomplete Gamer, but if there’s a better supported title on the market today, then we don’t know about it.  That support continues this year, commencing with this major free update which landed on February 6th.

Criterion Games have done a sterling job in keeping the Burnout Paradise faithful happy, but what does a developer do to jump start sales of a 12 month old game in a crowded marketplace.  Criterion Games relaunched the game!  A new SKU, and a new title (Burnout Paradise: Ultimate Box), complete with all the free downloadable content to date as well as the new premium (read: not free) content; the Party Pack – a play at home, social, pass the controller type mode.

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Can you top Lumines? Can you compete with Lumines? Would you even try? Japanese developer Cyber Front clearly believed there was room for a new puzzle game on the PSP and deserves credit for at least for developing a new puzzle IP on Sony’s handheld, at a time when so many new PSP titles were simply ports or sequels. Cyber Front’s PR machine say the game takes its inspiration from Tetris, but literally turns the concept on its head. Such a description doesn’t really do Koloomn justice, nor does it adequately explain what this puzzler is all about. A mere Tetris clone it is not. Read the rest of this entry »

Fans of sitcoms and procedural crime drama were treated this week to a cross over double act with a difference featuring CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (8:30pm, Sunday 29th June, Channel Nine) and Two and a Half Men (Tuesday, 8:30pm, 1 July, Channel Nine).

So was this stunt TV or was it an an original cross over concept that breathed fresh life into two tired television genres? Today The Incomplete Gamer stopped writing about Tivo long enough to pick up the peanut remote and find out for ourselves.

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If there’s one thing we’re lacking at the Incomplete Gamer, it’s time. Time to read, time to play, time to consume…and perhaps most importantly, time to complete ‘Incomplete Gamer’ reviews.

Of course, time’s the one thing we can’t find on Ebay, although a quick Ebay search does  turn up a BACK TO THE FUTURE Flux Capacitor Official Prop Replica for only $350.  Had you been quicker off the mark you could have hit up US seller studbold1969 who was selling a ‘how to build a flux capacitor’ guide for the bargain price of $US20 (parts not included). The item description read ‘serious buyers only’ which you’d think would rule out the vast majority of interested bidders!.

While we’ve passed up on the weird science for now, The Incomplete Gamer did stumble across an equally tempting buy on Ebay the other day and in the interests of serving our readers, and, in the interest of hopefully saving some of that all important ‘time’, we successfully bid for the said item.

The Neuros MPEG4 Video Recorder 2 won’t transport you back in time, but it does promise to save you time and into the bargain, produce a pretty decent encoding of Back to the Future for you to enjoy on your PSP, Video Ipod, Handheld or Mobile Phone.

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There are a lot of good reasons to be revisiting Capcom’s Street Fighter Alpha 3 Max, the Street Fighter port released for the PSP back in 2006. Capcom celebrated its 25th birthday just a couple of weeks ago on June 11th. In May this year Capcom announced what we’ all suspected. Street Fighter 4; already heading to the arcades later this year, would also be making its way to PS3, Xbox360 and PC as well. Then there’s Kristin Kreuk. She’s still the best reason to watch Smallville, and currently she’s filming the latest Street Fighter movie – Street Fighter – the Legend of Chun Li, in Bangkok. Lastly, Street Fighter Alpha 3 Max was the first game ever reviewed by The Incomplete Gamer, albeit for another gaming website. As our first piece of review code, the UMD takes pride of place in the TIG lab.

But a word of warning. while the following review holds a special place in our heart, there’s nothing new here that we haven’t all seen before. If Street Fighter was a singer and not a game franchise it would have retired to Vegas a long time ago, where it could perform the same routine seven nights a week to its loyal fans.

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Lian Xing is stumbling clumsily backwards through the control room, the petite brunette moving with about as much grace as a gorilla on ice, which is disturbing, not only because the covert operative only tips the scales at only 54 kilograms, but because this is Syphon Filter, Dark Mirror, a game of stealth and the first game to bring user-friendly precision control to the Playstation Portable platform. Even more alarming, I’m not actually touching the analogue nub. Lian bumps drunkenly into a doorway, alerting the three guards to her presence and slumps to the floor in a hail of gunfire. Lian’s dead, but far far worse, and without getting too technical, The Incomplete Gamer PSP is rooted.

Everyone out there bemoaning the fact that the PSP only has one analogue nub, and not the two analogue joysticks like the PS2 and PS3; there is a fate far worse, which is of course no analogue nub at all. Kutaragi’s Law of course states that your PSP will break on a public holiday, at a location where you have no on-line access and at a time when you have a great deal of free time to get your game on, if only your PSP would function.

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The Incomplete Gamer loves Tivo; unashamedly, unreservedly, absolutely. Even when the hard drive gremlin turns her pretty features a nasty shade of ‘Green Screen of Death’, and she goes into an endless reboot loop, taking three months worth of Scrubs, Law & Order and Wilfred to the Tivo grave.

Tivo’s built a reputation on three features. It boasts, what is quite possibly the world’s most user-friendly interface. Not only is the UI intuitive, it’s incredibly powerful as well. Combine those features with a reputation for reliability and you have one solid Hard Disc Recorder.

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