Old news, new shots. This is beyond stupid. At least that rigid armour plating should prevent ridiculous jiggling.

I really, really wish I could heap praise on this. They’ve been working on it for two whole years but it just looks dreadful. Cheesy, badly voiced dialogue, laughable polygon nudity, badly animated blocky characters… no, I’m sorry, this is not going to do the image of machinima any favours. I had no idea the Neverwinter Nights engine had aged so badly either. (via BoingBoing)

Laugh all you like, but the game I’ve seen the most genuinely great machinima for is The Sims 2. The community is just astonishingly creative, it’s amazing how Will Wright’s ideas and work (and of course that of the Maxis team) has inspired so much further creativity from the players. For instance, put your possible distaste for Avril Lavigne aside and watch this fantastically well done video. Trust me, watch and be impressed at the effort and talent that went into this.

Look forward to six episodes of videoGaiden on BBC Scotland from the Consolevania lads.

It’s aimed at the 15+ market and the makers say it will treat games as a serious subject whilst remaining tongue-in-cheek - claiming videoGaiden will “Do for videogames what Top Gear does for cars.”

Tall order, that - video game shows are so bloody hard to get right. Games Master was occasionally great for the challenges (who could forget the bloke who completed two Virtua Cop games at once) and Patrick Moore but not much else, Bad Influence was blandly informative (datablast!) with rubbish reviews by kids and Bits… I still can’t make my mind up about Bits.

A Top Gear for games would probably be spot on - varied but consistent, informative but not boring, intelligent but not highbrow, entertaining but not stupid. Can the Consolvania guys pull it off? Have to see. Consolvania was insane, if particularly niche, brilliance but they get a mere ten minutes a week for the new show.

Enough rambling, let’s see how it goes. We’re long overdue a new, regular, quality half hour games show and this defnitely shows the BBC is keen to move towards more game coverage. Maybe Channel 4 will even join in if it becomes the in thing again.

This has been doing the rounds for a few days now, but just in case you missed it, LotR meets WoW parody anigif. Yet again, the WoW phenomenon develiers quality humour even if, like me, you don’t play .

You have a mobile phone. You do, in fact, love Katamari. You need this ring tone. It’s in midi format so most phones should play it and it’s damn close to the real theme tune. If you’re going to annoy fellow commuters with your saccharine ring tone you might as well do it in style. (The Shack delivers once more)

I have a very simple, lazy method of price checking games online. First I go to play, then I add game at the front of it, then I switch in .net. Three sites in pathetically few key presses. Sadly, this cunning system lead only to disappointment this time round.

Shadow of the Colossus is not due out in Europe until February 2006. FEBRUARY TWO THOUSAND AND SIX. This game is out tomorrow in the US. Given that it ain’t a text-heavy RPG the PAL territory translation process should take all of one week. Not four months.

For crying out loud. First we wait an eternity for the delicious God of War, now we have to do the same for this inevitable masterpiece. Waiting a couple of months for Resident Evil 4 and Metroid Prime 2 was bad enough, four is beyond a joke. Microsoft is launching a console worldwide within a month yet we can’t get a highly anticipated game the same year as the States? Either the publishing side of Sony hates us or they just don’t care. Pick one.

OGHC could have been a brief internet phenomenon that amused and then faded out. Instead, they just keep heaping on the brilliance. My hat is sincerely off to them for continuing to deliver Teh Funneh and going all Penny Arcade on us by using their popularity for good. Most recently, they took up Jack Thompsons challenge to create a (frankly ridiculous) game concept.

Thompson promised to donate $10,000 to charity should this concept see fruition. In short, OGHC delivered, Jack didn’t. Hardly a surprise to anyone, but nonetheless one can’t help but despise the man even more. Oh, and after his slap down from David Walsh he’s crying to Senator Joe Lieberman. Unbelievable.

Update: Looks like they weren’t the only team to take up the challenge either. Even better, Penny Arcade coughed up the money Thompson refused to. Presumably, after Gabe and Tycho made that donation they played some more GTA which inspired them to rob and shoot some pedestrian they disliked the look of.

Hidden away in a recent update was this blunt announcement:

Leaderboards are going away. Sorry. The rank-whores, modders, boosters, cheaters and assorted scumbags have so polluted the Leaderboards that they were basically becoming an official list of America’s idiots anyway. There are a few genuinely brilliant players up there, and to them we apologize. To the rest of the folks on the Leaderboards: Tough. Enjoy your hard-earned anonymity.

Hardly surprising and I commend them for their forthright adamance on the decision. PGR2 suffers a similar problem and even online flash games are plagued by cheaters. Every one of them scum.

I still have no idea what the title is about (nor the US counterpart Indigo Prophecy) but I’m hugely enjoying this one. Essentially, it’s a story first and a game second. The developers didn’t go “We’re making this genre of game, now let’s tack on a story”. Instead it feels like they fleshed out the story then built successful gameplay systems around it.

You’ve got an advanced QTE (press a direction to continue or fail a cutscene) system ala Shenmue, though you have to press the right direction on both analogue sticks rather than the d-pad. The conversation system involves picking a single word that summarises the essence of your reply (much easier than reading through a choice of sentences). There’s also no inventory nonsense - you either pick up or use something. It all works brilliantly and the characters have more depth to them than the vast majority of games - they have convincing relationships, fears and bakcgrounds and are voiced well. Nothing here is revolutionary but it’s truly the sum of its varied elements which no one thought to throw together in quite this manner before.

I love it. It’s different yet accessible and involving. Not so much a breath of fresh air as a wind tunnel in the Sahara.

Update: Clocked it, still love it. A couple of story elements near the end felt a bit rushed but overall it’s one of the most refreshing games in years. I also didn’t realise the developers also made The Nomad Soul. I’ll have to pick that up now, especially since a sequel is on the way.

Fittingly enough, it seems GUN has joined this bandwagon (sorry). I think you have to enjoy cryptic crosswords or something to enjoy ARGs. Can there really be that many people who play these things for the effort to be worthwhile? I suppose they get promotion for joining a unique new trend as much as they get regular players. (via LNC)

Witness fragging turned artform. Countless truly astonishing moments beautifully cut together.

They’re finally doing them in black - now we just need them to do likewise to the interface (nice work ventro). The standard model is 40 gigs too so I might just have to cave in. If they announce gapless playback too you’ll be looking at the ultimate MP3 player now Rio are toast.