On the 25^th May, to celebrate the release of the video game Transformers: War for Cybertron, a nationwide competition was launched to find the nation’s biggest Transformer aficionado.  Over four weeks and 300 entries later, we can finally reveal who this fanatical enthusiast is….12yr old Jack Gaughan from Glasgow!!

With over 600 toys, games, official merchandise and memorabilia, Jack’s collection stood out by a mile. His Transformer themed room, which was adorned with posters of Optimus Prime and Bumblebee, was just a small highlight of Jack’s ultimate collection.  For his efforts, Jack has won a priceless life-sized drawing of himself as one of his favourite characters by official Transformer artist Jon Davis Hunt, to add to his ever growing collection.

Jack said of his amazing feat “I just can’t believe it.  I’ve been collecting for three years and love everything about Transformers.  I don’t think there is an inch of space on my walls left for anything else!!”

Transformers: War for Cybertron, released 25^th June, is a gripping, 3rd person action shooter set on the Transformers’ war-ravaged homeland.  Complete with several multiplayer modes, the game allows gamers to play through story missions with their friends in co-op, as well as create their own Transformers character for competitive head-to-head multiplayer modes, choosing among four distinct character classes and selecting from a huge variety of weapons, skills and abilities. To find out more about the new video game Transformers: War for Cybertron please visit www.transformersgame.com

• The Activision, Infinity Ward Drama
• Halo Reach
• World Cup 2010
• Favourite movie tie-in games
• Best video game bargains

[podcast]http://www.wedonetwork.co.uk/podcasts/may/TheGamesNightPodcastep5.mp3[/podcast]

Bearded Dragons & Snakes We Got to Hold!

So with the show firmly on the road, our first stop was the discovery centre. We were guided by two Colchester Zoo staff members, one of which is was named Robert who distinctly reminded me of a young Steve Irwin. In the discovery centre we got to hold three different types of animal. Firstly and aptly was a bearded dragon, flat and sandy not forgetting boggled eyed, these Dragons were docile and interesting, as I held one you could feel the dry scales and sand that poured off of his body. What I didn’t realise was just how flat their bellies are. Which in some ways it would explain the way they travel in their real habitat. Secondly I managed to conquer a fear, for the first time in my life I had held a snake, not just any snake but a python. Luckily it wasn’t particularly animated when I held it, but it didn’t feel how I expected it to feel at all, with snakes you get the impression that they are greasy or slippery, not at all. In some ways they have a very similar texture to that of your average garden hosepipe. How odd. Lastly we got to hold a stick insect, these brittle creatures aren’t remotely attractive and why anyone would want one as a pet, I don’t know. You have to be a complete sadist or a general nutter to want one of those, it was horrible.

Horrible stick insect!

The second part of our tour was more to do with what we came for, we got to see some real dragon training. If you haven’t seen a Komodo dragon before, you really should as they are a real sight. Their tongues are massive, their backs are scaly and they have a majestic almost wise look about them. When speaking to one of the trainers at the Zoo, he informed us that Komodo dragons are now on the lethal animals list. The dragons rather than breathing fire (which is a myth) bite their victims. Their saliva excretes a blood thinning toxin that has the ability to kill large mammals and humans alike. If you ever do train a real dragon you will need to always be on guard, whilst the Komodos look docile, you always need to be alert as once you let your guard down, that is when accidents can happen. The trainer (who looked a little like Sawyer from Lost) told us about how they have managed since 2006 to train the Komodo dragons to follow a target and stop for them to be able to perform health checks on call, doing this is purely voluntary and Colchester boast that their animal treatments and level of care are from voluntary behaviours as opposed to the use of sedatives or tranquilisers. The enclosure they are housed on itself has enough gadgets and computer horsepower than you can ever imagine, taking care of these cold blooded dragons is more than a simple case of feeding them, ambient temperatures and natural UV light all comes into play as well.

Komodo Dragons, More Lethal Than They Look!

To dispel a few myths for you, I can unfortunately bring you the news that dragons cannot fly, nor can they breathe fire. So in terms of the How to Train a Dragon 3D movie and game don’t expect any real accuracies at all, training a dragon is very much a different ball game from the film and sadly not as exciting either. It’s a good job that Dreamworks hasn’t followed the real life version of training a dragon otherwise people would be walking out of the cinema or become induced in a coma. Activision have the opportunity to create a great game from the films concept, on paper it would make a very interesting game and from the information that we have it would suggest that there will be a few interesting features bundled with the game. At the end of our tour we had a Q&A session and were presented with some goodies and an Activision key ring bundled with the additional data we needed.

Graphics look great, now the gameplay, can it cut the mustard?

“Based on the upcoming film from DreamWorks Animation, the How to Train Your Dragon™ video game launches gamers into a third-person action-adventure as a Viking hero where they must embark upon an epic quest to become the ultimate dragon trainer. Gamers can play as characters “Hiccup” or Astrid” on the vast Island of Berk, which features expanded locales from the film including Vikings’ Village, Wild Zone, Training Zone and Fight Arena. In this truly larger-than-life adventure, players will train dragons, explore environments and battle in prestigious dragon tournaments as they battle for Viking victory. Plus, gamers can become the Dragon hero of their living room as they square-off with friends and family in endless head-to-head multi-player combat”

As stated at the beginning of my report, movie licensed titles are a bit of a bitch to get right. It’s not necessarily the fault of the developer either. Tight schedules and a lack of guidance from the film production company and you can easily get a disjointed and rather ‘played it all before’ experience. Can Activision take these licenses and make them into something decent? Ubisoft tried last year with Avatar and failed miserably, despite having two years and co-operation from James Cameron himself. We’re not expecting wonders, but what we are expecting is a game that will be fun to play for the whole family, as that is the ethos of a Dreamworks animation, it’s family based entertainment.

Create Your Very Own Dragon – The “Create Your Dragon” feature allows players to customize six different types of dragons, providing virtually unending combinations of ways to modify your dragon’s appearance.

Train your Dragon for Battle – “Level Up” your dragon’s speed, power, fire and other abilities through intense training to face the critical Viking challenge of becoming the ultimate dragon trainer. Then use your arsenal of trained dragons to battle friends in a variety of unique environments.

Pick up Where the Movie Left Off – Players enjoy an all-new post-movie adventure as they jump into battle as their favorite characters. Explore the picturesque Island of Berk as Hiccup or Astrid in Adventure Mode or experience fierce battle action in Arena Mode as you fight for your crown as ultimate dragon warrior.

Head-to-Head Multiplayer Mode – Arcade mode allows friends to select their dream team of four individually customized dragons or dragons chosen from the arcade roster, then jump in and battle against each other. In addition to Astrid and Hiccup, additional characters are playable in Multiplayer Mode including Tuffnut T., Ruffnut T., Fishlegs, and Snotlout.

Mini-Games – Mini games include Ice Sculpting, Looping Race, Flying Sheppard, Memory Torch, and Puzzle Dragon.  Excelling in Mini-Games earns players experience points toward leveling up your dragon, winning gold and other items to help care for dragons.

The sealion view tunnel is awesome!

It was a rainy day, not that rainy though!

Once the tour had finished, we had some time to go around the zoo at our leisure. It was nice, we particularly liked the sea lion area where they would swim over the top of your viewing tunnel, that was pretty awesome. We had the chance to see lions, cheetah’s, giraffes and elephants to boot and not even the appalling weather could of spoilt the day. If only the same could of been said for the journey home. We were unfortunate enough that on every train back to Portsmouth to be in the carriage with some moron, whether it being overly enthusiastic Americans on holiday, female Vicky Pollards or materialistic air heads straight out of Legally Blonde. As I write this I’m half way up to London again. Journalism, there’s no better job in the world.

Keep an eye out on our website in the next couple of weeks for a review of How to Train a Dragon 3D film and the video game. I’m a 3D whore, no mention of a Stereoscopic 3D game mode, damn!

“From sold out concerts to #1 albums to double digit Grammy Awards, JAY-Z and Eminem define what it means to be a successful artist,” said Jamie Jackson, Creative Director, FreeStyleGames.  “The DJ Hero soundtrack is an expanding collection of chart-topping hit music – mixed in an all-new way – that can only be experienced in our game, and with the addition of the JAY-Z vs. Eminem Mix Pack, players and their friends can not only experience, but interact with over 100 unique mixes.”

The JAY-Z vs. Eminem Mix Pack features the following exclusive mash-ups:

“Shake That” by Eminem Mixed With “Show Me What You Got” by JAY-Z

“Without Me” by Eminem Mixed With “Encore” by JAY-Z

“Can I Get A…” by JAY-Z Mixed With “Lose Yourself” by Eminem

Activision brings us the video game instalment of the current box office buster, Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightening Thief. It’s currently out in the cinema as we speak and oddly enough my significant other and niece is actually seeing it as I write this. Yes, the game reviewing world sometimes deprives you from cinematic delights if there is a work load to do. Nevermind, I shall sit here with a coke and a smile instead. So what’s it all about? Well, it’s probably the US equivalent of Harry Potter except instead of Wizards it’s replaced by demigods and Greek Mythology. In Riordan’s epic adventure (author) these Greek gods are alive today and living amongst us. Percy is accused of stealing Zeus’s lightning bolt which just happens to be most powerful weapon that resides in the universe. With Percy having to prove his innocence and attempt to stop an all out war with the gods his work is most certainly cut out.

So you get an idea of the plot line and the game does a good job of gently introducing you into the world almost as if you are Percy yourself, he doesn’t know any more than you do and soon he is sent into a tumbling world of confusion as he finds out his dad is Posiedon. Not exactly your average day then? No, especially when your maths teacher turns into a monster and your disabled principle turns into half beast, half human. You could be forgiven for snorting a little bit of the white stuff and totally tripping out on the outlandish plot line but Riordan’s world is most certainly inventive and interesting. Unfortunately, Activision lacked the attention needed to make the game that interesting. The plot line is executed with a lack of animation and instead slide based screens with static text and this isn’t helped with the hand drawn characters that lack any real recognisable features. A shame, as the plot line should have spoken for itself.

One you become acquainted to basic combat you’ll be whisked off to camp half-blood where you’ll meet other demigods that want to kill you. Nice. Fortunately combat is relatively forgiving and unlike many turn based RPG titles, you’re not required to grind and level up to progress. This in turn can appeal and put off some people. There is no real freedom in terms of where you want to go in the game, it has a grid based path system that keeps you on the straight and narrow and whilst there are some optional battles to get additional items and up your skill level, you’re not engaged into forced combat, you’ll walk into it knowing a battle is ahead thanks to its distinctive symbolism on the map. Now in terms of strategy there is quite a depth to it, to equip your Demigods which will include your protector Grover, a girl called Annabeth amongst others, you can never be overly attacking minded. You will need someone in your team that can heal as enemies come in different variations and can put you on the back foot. Stick one of your healers into the mix and you’ll have a well rounded battle that in theory you should be able to win without having to retry at all.

So what about the powers that they possess? Well Percy gains the power of the sewer early on and that does not require a degree in scatology. His poison magic will cause constant damage to the enemy for a set number of turns, other highlights include pick pocketing, making your enemies blind and the ability to raise your accuracy levels for a team attack. The team attack itself can be extremely powerful, but you’ll need to build the power meter to ever see it used, charging this up on spare turns can be devastating in boss fights, so it’s worth using it. Now, obviously this game is on the DS. So you would expect some stylus type gestures and in the game you’ll come across a few of them. Each time the enemy attacks you, you can tap the bottom screen to activate your shield. This can be incredibly tricky, especially when you first play the game. Each enemy has a different attack speed and animation, so it’s very difficult to avoid plenty of damage on each go, thankfully that’s the case otherwise it just would have been overly easy. One of the other gestures is using swiping motions to build up an attack strength on a single shot, this seems to randomly happen in battle and once again it’s utterly devastating and can win you battles at times.

So the combat system sounds pretty intuitive and for the most part it is, the stylus doesn’t have the most fantastic registration however it’s a game that won’t punish you for not having a 100% response rate. My other gripe with the combat system is the magical powers themselves, the animations are simply woeful. You may see a colour emit from your sword, or a cloud of smoke appear over a characters head and considering that the DS has pretty much a 64bit engine you would of expected Activision to at least put some extra polish into these areas. Oh, you’ll also notice that if you are in a given area the same background textures are used all the time. Not very fun when your stuck inside Camp Half Blood for easily over an hour. Luckily though, the monsters are pretty cool in this game, from Fury’s to Skeletons although sometimes repetitive there is a new enemy thrown into the works often enough to make it visually interesting. It’s not until later in the game though that you’ll start using certain magical elements like fire and poison to affect your enemies to the optimum amount. Most of the time you’ll be swinging your sword and using melee attacks as it seems to deliver the most HP punch.

For your RPG fan, this game isn’t going to interest you mainly because it’s RPG elements aren’t too deep enough and the narrative simply isn’t engaging enough. Couple this without a free roam system and it just cannot stand up to any of the Final Fantasy games. For the casual gamer, there may be somewhere in the marketplace for this title, it’ll no doubt sell pretty well like all movie licensed titles do however, I can’t see many going past the three hour mark before they lose interest in the constant battles and lack of variation to the gameplay. Not amazing, not bad either. It sits nicely in the mediocre category much like the movie.

I wonder how long it will be before it’s pulled off the servers itself? Activision should also be responsible for the type of advertising that runs in the game, the chances of a Job Centre Plus advert being held inside a nightclub is extremely remote, if we have to live with advertising at least make it relevant! Adverts for the new Leona Lewis album may have been adequate, not adverts for the doll ridden unemployed who spend their money on DJ Hero instead of food. What a joke!

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Never played Wolfenstein before. Heard of it but never played it. It happened to come up in conversation once with my friends and I quizzed them about it. Their response was “It’s Doom…but with Nazis doing stuff with the occult…Oh and a cybernetic Hitler with miniguns for hands.”…Sold. Totally sold.

As I understand it, Wolfenstein had some sequels and was quite popular but I still never played any of them. But Raven Software, id Software, Pi Studios and Endrant Studios (Yes really, four developers!) and publisher Activison has picked it up and is doing a new one, so perfect time to jump on in. I’m still not sure if this is a remake or a reboot but I frankly after playing the demo, I do not care.

After playing the Demo I am psyched up for this title and I wasn’t really excited about many titles coming out by the end of the year. It’s the little things that make this game exciting for me. Firstly the cut scene sort of filled in everything you need to know about this game in glorious HD. You’re some sort of American spy and you have an amulet that does terrible things to people you don’t like. The other is gun play. It’s solid and hasn’t been sacrificed in place of supernatural powers (which you still get!)

Wolfenstein looks bloody and violent and this is no bad thing. Many developers are shying away from blood and violence to get the lower age rating and thus more dough. But the developers (four!) know that Wolfenstein is all about guts and melting faces and has gone balls to the wall with this one. Bravo!

The demo has some wonderful pieces with the occult messing with gravity and the Nazis having weaponry they really shouldn’t have. Wolfenstein mixes a great World War 2 game with inspiration from almost every horror film ever. Gunning down a charging Nazi with a particle cannon and have him dissolve in to nothing and have a scream echo from his dead lips was just plain gruesome and satisfying.

The game screams atmosphere and you get flavours of Indiana Jones and Hellboy mixed in. There are no other better bad guys than the Nazis, but Nazis who are messing with the occult and imbuing the power into technology. Well, that’s just fine. This game snuck up on me and then bit my head off and for that I’m very excited and can’t wait to get the finished item. Get a review for you guys soon! Reviewed on the Xbox 360 and PS3. Best bolt action rifle in a computer game award goes to….