2011-A year in review/2012-A year to come

Hello one, hello all.
Apologies for not posting in quite a while, no real excuse really, more soon, promise...or something.
Anyways as 2011 draws to a close I thought it's be appropriate to look back at the year that was 2011 and a small insight into the year that will be 2012. Hope you enjoy!

2011

Ubuntu 11.04

I became a Linux user towards the end of April 2011, 5 days short of the Ubuntu 11.04 release if I remember correctly so as you can imagine I was pretty stoked to see the new Ubuntu in all it's glory. The day came, I didn't get it because I was in Wales, but then came the few days after...the day...yes. When I finally did get the upgrade, I was disappointed (to say the least) about this brand spanking new, all singing, all dancing or something interface Shuttleworth called "Unity". Don't get me wrong, I wasn't weeping to death over it like some of the Gnome vets you'd see out there. It's grown on me though but a turd is a turd no matter how attached you become to that turd, there ya go if someone wants to give me a billion quid for coining the world's worst phrase, you can, everybody wins! Except maybe Mark seeing as he fucked a lot of us over when he decided to abandon Gnome for the most part 6 months later.

Mortal Kombat 9

It was 19th April 2011 when we were graced with the ninth instalment of the 19-year old Mortal Kombat franchise. This game was observed as a homage to the 1993 game, Mortal Kombat II as shown from the redesigned levels from Mortal Kombat II, the inclusion of all Mortal Kombat II characters and the Mortal Kombat II style story tower. As well as these new features have been added which I hope we see in later instalments of Mortal Kombat, failing that, other fighting games. If you're a fan of fighting games with a particular liking to watching bones break, this is the perfect game for you, go buy it, NOW!

XVIII

Just to point out this is the review of MY year so bitching about missing games or events is pointless unless I've played them/these events have affected me. So anyway I turned 18 this year yayyyy! (for our funny foreign friends, in the United Kingdom 18 is the adulthood age, the age of alcohol, tobacco, gambling etc. I believe it's different in other parts of the world for example the drinking age in the United States is 21) anyway, thought I'd share that with you :)

Driver: San Francisco

This is a game I had been anticipating since July-ish, only got to play it in mid-December, gotta say, very mixed opinion boiling down to a pathetic aspect of my view on gaming: If it's a GTA-style driving game, it must have an Open-world aspect. I am the kind of person who will completely shun a game of this genre if I cannot leave my vehicle and there is no open-world bit, hence why I don't like things like this, I can see myself liking games like Carmageddon though, that looks cool.

(K)Ubuntu 11.10

As I mentioned before I'm a Ubuntu user but had a stint with Kubuntu in October and parts of November due to the 11.10 upgrade breaking my distro so I thought "Ah what the fuck, might as well". So I installed Kubuntu when I reinstalled and really enjoyed it...for about 2 weeks or so, the novelty wore off and the entire interface became a massive eyesore, so I went back to Ubuntu, well Unity at least. I haven't been using Ubuntu as of late sadly, mostly because Wubi has been giving me hell as of late (in that it constantly crashes and is thus barely usable). I may be using Ubuntu on my laptop when I go down to university though (leaving /root to handle the procrastination side of my university work).

11.22.63

John Fitzgerald Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas 48 years, 1 month and 8 days ago today, ending his short term of just 2 years as president of the United States. The novel shown to the left is about an English teacher going back in time to prevent the assassination and so far (I'm only 3 chapters in, why I'm talking about it now I do not know) it is somewhat based around the butterfly effect of time travel (seeing as there's 2 versions of this theory). The butterfly effect is the theory that if you went back in time and did so much as kill a butterfly you could change the world completely and thus they've been discussing how different US history would be had the JFK assassination never happened, seems really interesting so far, coming from a guy who usually only reads the metro on the train, I'll let you decide if I'm well read enough to provide an opinion or not. Anyway great read, I suggest if you're a fan of King and/or time travel, read it, you'll thank me. I was also gonna talk about The Travel Diaries of Karl Pilkington, but then again I was a pillock and left it on the train.


So that is 2011 summed up for me, it has been an overall decent year to say the least, now let's see what next year has in store so far.

2012


Skullgirls

Skullgirls is a game due for release in early 2012 for XBLA and PSN, it follows the style of Marvel vs Capcom 3 in that you can have 3 characters in your team and the characters are...cats...riight, another thing to add for those of you who watch Sanity Not Included, Ms. Fortune is voiced by the same person who voiced Amanda in Sanity. I'm really excited to get my paws on this game and hope you will join me in playing (my PSN tag: UnspokenEchoes).






Cast 2012 tour

For those of you who have bought a BBC DVD from around 2003 you may have seen an advert for all the DVDs that had been released from that year, the song they used in these adverts was Fine Time from a Liverpudlian band, Cast. So these blokes announced in November/December that they were going on tour in early-mid 2012, and I am going to see them, along with Tesni, at Liverpool University, on 31st March 2012. Fancy going to see them? The dates are in this article.



New OMD album

As well as a new Cast album we should be expecting a new album from another Liverpool (well...Wirral) based band, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, I don't really know much about this album seeing as they only started recording this month, hopefully more about that as it comes.





The year of TheOpenSourceGamer

Yes I am determined to make this year my year, I'm am going to start getting serious with my videomaking, I am going to script my videos, gonna get my hands on a copy of Fraps, I am going to edit my videos, the works. If my youtube career is new and fancy to you head over here, ta. See you there!






So there you go, 2011 is drawing to a close, I hope you've all had a brilliant year, I'll be back on the first Wednesday of the new year (4th January 2012) for the new year edition of the Flash Game of the Week, see you soon.
TheWardy signing off for the last time in 2011.

An open letter to the YouTube community.

As most of you know I am starting to get re-involved with YouTube with my new gaming channel TheOpenSourceGamer and I've been part of the community before that dating back to around 2006-2007 so in a sense I am kind of a veteran in a sense but thats beside the point. As the YouTube community has grown I have seen people come and people go, I have also seen the community get a lot dumber as time has gone on, therefore I leave all who are involved an open letter expressing my feelings on the current state of the comments sections that remain open. So to all whom it concerns:

• The dislike bar: The like/dislike bar is a good way for users to voice their opinions on videos and for YouTubers to get an insight into how users like their videos, this number of likes and dislikes are both visible directly underneath the video player, neither need to be referenced in the comment section, no it is not a glitch, yes the video should have a dislike bar, wanna know why? Because different people have different opinions and neither YouTube nor Google will not let a video succumb to bias because you are too ignorant to see that.

• Opinions: Maybe you've heard the word before? Everyone has them, everyone is entitled to their own and to express them where appropriate and should be respected, so when someone says they don't like this, this and that about a video you accept the fact that they don't like it and leave them be, you do not lay into them or call them stupid/retarded you leave them alone because slamming them will NOT change their views.

• Irrelevance: This is mainly aimed at people randomly drop names of artists they don't like, what is the point? NEXT!

• Partners: OK I am not a part of the partnership program, therefore I don't know the ins and outs of said program but I do know a few things, it is not free money and it is not much, believe it or not most partners probably still have day jobs and if not it is probably due to secondary, tertiary etc. incomes because at the highest most average partners will earn ~$100pcm (this is all based on assumptions and whatnot, got evidence that proves otherwise? Please show, thanks) moving on.

• You don't like it?: THEN JUST SAY! Jesus Christ! The bitch fits people throw when someone does something they don't like, people hoping that YouTubers lose everything, hoping companies go bankrupt, all these bad things because people are doing things they don't like, there is no need for all this hatred, less of it.

• Loyalty: There are moments when you realize loyal fans, are quite the inverse. I'll provide you with two examples from two, fairly popular shows. My first example is fairly old now but there is a show on Machinima's network known as Sanity Not Included which was created by two men known as Dex and Lyle, each with their own personal channel, but I'll get back to those later, while waiting for the season 2 finale people have been bugging them, as you can expect, they're impatient to see this spectacular conclusion to the series, it's expected, what isn't really that acceptable is accusing them of being lazy and, worse still, attacking their personal vids, all because you want them to rush an episode?! There is no need. My next example is very new and even more annoying, there is a channel I am subscribed to called HappyConsoleGamer, recently he visited the Penny Arcade eXpo, or PAX for short, anyway he went down there and recorded a fair bit of footage in HD, few people were doing that there, unfortunately while he was there, though he didn't notice until he looked back at the footage, his camera started skipping frames and it turned out that it was giving out, now he made an appeal video saying he needed $1000 to get his camera repaired and reminding people that they were not obligated to give him any money if they didn't want to, despite this, people seemed disgusted, as if he didn't devote his time making videos to entertain them and whatnot, as if he was just randomly asking for hundreds of thousands of dollars in handouts where in reality they had to pay an alarmingly small amount of money, assuming that he has 34, 600 subscribers (which he almost has) each of those subscribers would have to pay $0.03, that is less than a fucking cent people! $1000 is not a lot to ask seeing how much time he has put into entertaining you ignorant children! Next point.

• Daily dislike: This is not really infuriating as it is stupid, you see this for people most people don't generally like, Justin Bieber, Rebbecca Black, Cher Lloyd, Lady Gaga, Nicky Minaj etc. either going onto their videos or using bots to go there soley to dislike the videos, in terms of general success rules, the likes/dislikes are near enough useless statistics and in a partnership situation does not affect income in any way, shape or form and in fact by visiting that video every day you are making them money just so you can alter one meaningless statistic. Good job.

• Thumbs up: I can sort of see why people would want people to thumb their comments up but even then, if you wanna be in the spotlight get a camera, screen cap software, capture card etc. and fucking work! Chip in, be a part of the community!

• Pointless comments: I don't care what year you are watching this video, how old you are, where you should hear about these people or anything like that, no one does, unless you can provide real and direct relevance to the video or people involved.

• Attitude towards YouTubers: OK I don't know where people get ideas about YouTubers, especially those on the partnership program, that their lives revolve around their channels, that if they make all these videos they have no lives, they get money and fame for doing nothing etc. If you scratch the surface of one of the top 100 channels you will find normal, sometimes working class people with 9-5 jobs, friends, family, girlfriends/boyfriends/fiancées/wives/husbands whatever, they are normal, down to earth people who probably make no more than your average college/university graduate.

Anyway I'm going to halt it there, I could go on forever but those are the best bits of my growing anger for idiots on YouTube, feel free to tell me I've made terrible arguments, I'm a hypocrite, I'm taking it too seriously but these are my views and I am sticking to it.

Anyway in other news I am calling it quits on the QuakeCon recap due to the fact that its been almost a month and most, if not all of you will have seen it all by now so I'll be just stating the obvious every time.

Anyway that's it for now, I'll be back with another post on Wednesday.

Bye for noww.
TheWardy signing off.

I'm back bitches!

Yes after 19 days of 0 activity (along with 21 of 0 pageviews) I am back. I don't really know what else to say now except I've had a decent holiday in in Bordeaux, France which consisted of drinking, staying in and more drinking, very social me. Also had a amazing time in Disneyland Paris which gave me a chance to act like a child again, few gripes here and there, not having that much money, being dragged onto rides, oh and that "princess" from the princess and the frog being in the once upon a dream parade, I mean COME ON! Why is she even being referred to as a true Disney princess, it's like classing Selena as one for fucks sake! Anyway, unrelated babble...Before I go I'd just like to notify you of a new project that I will be working on into 2012, only saying one thing at present, it involves computers and retro games, another teaser at the start of October ;)

Anyway I shall be back on track by next week with my horrifically late Quakecon recap on Wednesday as well as a lets play of Monkey Island 2 part 1 maybe? We'll see.
Bye for noww!
TheWardy signing off.

Early leave

Hey guys, owing to the stress and panic I've been suffering due to the riots which are rapidly spreading across the United Kingdom I have decided to call an early hiatus, I will return to regular blogging at the start of September as planned.

See you soon.
TheWardy signing off.

Internet and hangovers

In short, my reasons for not posting are:

Wednesday & Thursday-Rather bad internet problems.
Friday-At a party downing lager, whiskey and rum.
Saturday-Throwing the aforementioned drinks up and suffering from my first hangover.

For these reasons I have put everything off to next week, my deepest apologies.

I shall be back on wednesday, until then.

TheWardy signing off.

Pushed back

Hey guys.
I regret to inform you that the review has been pushed back to next Saturday, sorry, included in my apology is a double review/feature all in one post so stay tuned.

In other bad news as of Saturday 13th August 2011 I will be taking time off due to leaving boring old England for sunny France and won't resume posting until the start of September 2011...so yeah. Should anyone need to get in touch with me I'll still have my shit pile of a netbook (as opposed to my glorious Pentium PC) so if anyone wants/needs to get in touch with me through google, twitter, anything you can and I will respond ASA :)

Anyway that's all for now.
Next time we shall meet is Wednesday for Flash Game of the Week.
TheWardy signing off.

Flash Game of the Week: Dude and Zombies

AGH sorry everyone probably no-one, didn't realise how late it was, I'm gonna press on with this and try make it short and sweet OK?

Today Yesterday I bring should have brought you Dude and Zombies which was made by the wonderful men and/or women at FunCrow.
The main aim of the game is to repair your ride while fighting off hoards of zombies we've all been there we know what it's like. As well as the car's permanent repair status there is also a sort of temporary repair meter which degrades as the vehicle is attacked and will stop you from permanent repairs until the meter is brought all the way up. The game features both a shop selling various weapons, a health boost (which is upgradeable through the skills menu) and mines and a skills menu which has 3 three-tier skills which cover health, reload time experience and so on.

This is another one of those games that can last you for hours and, unfortunately, isn't really intended for those 5 minute time spaces due to the time consuming nature of the game, nevertheless this is an excellent game and if you don't play it well .you may as well be the devil himself, I'm jus' sayin'.

As always the link to the game on Kongregate
And there doesn't appear to be a second site for the game, all the "More Games" links appear to link back to Kongregate.

Anyway that's it until Friday, but may end up being Saturday if nothing of my interest surfaces between now and then...
See you later (:
TheWardy signing off.

Feature: Autumn and winter games (plus games from 2012 onwards)

If you know me you'll know I tend to get very excited over upcoming game releases (and only buy them several months later) so here are a few releases I'm looking forward to:

• LA Noire PC port- I may not have played LA Noire yet but I am very excited to see this release and how much more it has to offer over its console counterparts.
• RAGE- Once again if you know me at all you'll know I'm a massive id fan, following them since age six and I am totally stoked for their new game and new engine which will soon house Doom 4.
• The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim- I've hardly ever played any Elder Scrolls game but I've heard about them before so I've decided to give Skyrim a go, in the meantime I will be checking out Arena and Daggerfall seeing as they're both free.
• Doom 4- It's been announced, rumours are circulating and it is due to be confirmed in 9 days, should it come out when people are saying it will this will be the first Doom game (expansions not included) in almost a decade, in typical id style.
• Quake 5- Being the massive Quake fan I am any word of a Quake 5 of any sort gets me real excited and seeing as id have been hinting towards it I'm starting to get super excited and will be waiting eagerly for John to say "It's official, Quake 5 is on its way", sadly due to RAGE and Doom 4 we may not see Quake until 2013/2014.

Well that's my insight into the games of the foreseeable future I'll be back tomorrow morning with another wonderful flash game to review.

Tata for now.

TheWardy signing off.

My first playthrough, should you enjoy very badly done playthroughs

That's Interesting: QuakeCon

That's right guys QuakeCon 2011 is now less than 2 weeks away SO EXCITED.

"Hey Tom, what is QuakeCon???"
QuakeCon is essentially a LAN party held by id software every August out in Texas....noting more to say.
OR IS THERE?!...yes there is.
id also use QuakeCon to announce/discuss any upcoming projects and this year there are 3 projects on my mind: Rage, Doom 4 and Quake 5
We thus far know that Rage is on its way (out 13th September I think, cannot be bothered to check) and we know that Doom 4 is a possibility and that Quake 5 may have been taken into consideration so for all of us id fans QuakeCon '11 is going to be an exciting event.

Sadly I will not be attending the event this year but may attend next year's so keep an eye out. I will be following the event closely as it unfolds and put my findings in a blog post for you all to see (:

Anyway that's it for me now sorry this was so late.
I may see you all later on today but if I don't I will see you on Tuesday where I will be discussing the best upcoming titles as 2011 draws to a close.
Goodnight.
TheWardy signing off.

Flash Game of the Week:The Soul Driver

Well here I am once again providing regular posts (hopefully) I'm gonna kick it all off with a quick one.

The Soul Driver is a sort of flash equivalent of The Need for Speed, the main objective of the game is to drive 42 miles without totalling your car. Every time you reach a certain distance, you will go into a garage which gives you chance to upgrade and repair your car but also adds a new obstacle to the road. There are several felonies to commit in this game, once you commit a felony, the shield in the bottom-right corner will begin to fill and once full you will gain a star and the cops will release another resource which range from spike strips to police helicopters.

As it appears in Kongregate
And Armour Games

Anyway sorry for this being late...all I can say for that really.
I shall be back tomorrow (Friday) for interesting stories in the gaming world.
Until then...
TheWardy signing off.

REBOOT!

"But Tom, why did you shout reboot?"

Because I'm back! That's right guys I am back, hopefully for good, I have no idea but what I do know is that there will be a big overhaul involved which means that days will be removed/changed, all of which with immediate effect.
There will be no more dev blog for a while as all projects have been put on indefinite hold.
Features will be posted at the end of the month and mostly consist of any big game releases (including upcoming releases)
I haven't planned any changes for the Flash Game of the Week but I may still have to alter it.
Hardware review is being scrapped completely because quite frankly doing it was no fun at all.
That's Interesting, again no planned changes but always open to them.
I'm considering slowing the review down to once every two weeks, will confirm on Friday, also considering bringing our very own Tesni in for a guest review at some point.
Finally I may be adding something to the Sunday slot, confirmed on Saturday.

Well that's it for now.
Glad to be back.
FGotW tomorrow.
Bye.
TheWardy signing off.

Retrospect 8/8: GameGear Vs DS

This is it! The last one!! Sorry it's like hideously late but I truly have been all over the place this month (it even shows in the stats) but it's here now (and soon, the others should)

Time to get on with this.

For the finale we will be looking at the Sega GameGear and the Nintendo DS which were released in 1990-1991 and 2004-2005 respectively with the GameGear being retired in 1997. So without further ado lets get on with this.

Comparisons: Battery, media and functionality

Ok firstly a small advantage for the battery, there is no need to plug it in anywhere as it runs on AA batteries (even if it does take SIX of the bastards)

For once the media situation is different, basically the carts are much bigger and thus harder to lose, seems a bit silly but its my blog.

Anyway that's it for Retrospect! I hated doing it but I'm kinda sad to see it go really :( Anyway I am back permanently and will be posting on time every single time I promise :) Or Tesni will do mean things to me...possibly.

Anyway Imma prepare tomorrows flash game special, what is it? Only time will tell ;)
Bye for nowwww.
TheWardy signing off.

I'm back!

Hey guys sorry I'm a week late but better late than never eh :)

Ok so a few things: Firstly I was watching E3 for all of you who are wondering and despite only watching a few keynotes I have high hopes for the 2nd half of 2011 and the first half of 2012 and despite the fact nothing was said about Doom 4 (or at least I don't think there was) I am super stoked for that, secondly the Sploder game has been pushed back to the start of July, final time I swear, and finally you will be seeing some changes to the blog in the upcoming weeks which will be covered in depth on Sunday.

Back to normal posting tomorrow.
Until then, buhbyee.
TheWardy signing off.

Right

I need a break, so I am giving myself one.
I shall return Monday 6th June 2011 with the new release and stuff like that as well as some housekeeping seeing as I am struggling to keep up with this now.
Anyway, as most of you will not know I turned 18 on Monday :DD so now most of my break is gonna involve PS3 games...and the Amiga I bought from Super Effective Sunday.
Anyway I'm off seeing as I'm going out YET AGAIN tomorrow on my 3rd attempt at getting the Orange Box.
Goodnight.
TheWardy signing off.

Flash Game of the Week: Hacker vs Hacker

As I've mentioned before, I love Tower Defense games and this game is one with a twist, kinda like the one I talked about a few weeks ago.

OK Hacker vs Hacker is a pseudo-TD by Age of Games and is basically like Monster Castle but instead of passing them, they destroy them, and it has an Anti-TD feel too in that as well as your enemy attempting to breach your defenses you are trying to breach his.

I really like this game's...sorta originality...I don't know but I love it.

Kongregate
and Age of Games

So sorry this is so late, I'm trying to keep up but I guess it isn't working :/
I'll be back with catchups tomorrow.
Oh and about 130 this month, foreseeing something here.
Night everyone.
TheWardy signing off.

Retrospect 7/8: Gamecube Vs ColecoVision

No intro...gotta problem with that?

OK this time it is the Nintendo Gamecube and the ColecoVision which were released in 2001-2002 and 1982 respectively and discontinued in 2007 and 1984 respectively. The Gamecube saw pretty big success (nowhere near the PS2 which then went onto sell an astonishing 150 million, yes, 150, 000, 000 units) the ColecoVision however surfaced just before the videogame market collapsed and therefore did not sell well at all, plus Coleco had a bit of a bad reputation due to the whole Atari 2600 add-on lawsuit and subsequent release of the Coleco Gemini and other irrelevant things that have nothing to do with this comparison.

Ok what will we be looking at? These: Controllers, Media and Compatibility.

First up controllers; now the Gamecube may have had a D-pad and 2 analogue sticks but it only had 7 buttons whereas the ColecoVision had 14 buttons plus like the Atari 2600, the ColecoVision can use alternative controllers (e.g. Sega Megadrive) for games that don't use the keypad.

I don't need to do this, media is more durable and has no fucking load times!

Now this one is interesting, compatibility, we all know you could play Gameboy/Gameboy Advance games on there, but could it play PS2 games or connect to your PC? Thought not.

Anyway that's all I have really, Flash Game of the Week and Hardware Review tomorrow.
Goodbye.
TheWardy signing off.

Dev blog: Skipping a week, youtube and deadline pushing

Hey guys, sorry I've not posted in a week, everything got in the way and so I fell behind and took a week off, plus I needed some time to relax, play some Quake 2 and catch up on coursework, and it was good :)

Anyway new youtube chennel: TheOpenSourceGamer got a couple of videos up already gonna be doing a vlog tomorrow so watch this space.
And finally I'm pushing the release date of Blockheads Generic Adventure Part 1 to Monday 6th June 2011 so it falls on dev blog day yayy!

Anyway that's it really, I'll have Retrospect up by tomorrow.
Goodbyeeeee!
TheWardy signing off.

Dev blog: Starting levels and bye birdy

Ok sorry I haven't posted That's Interesting or the review but I've been too ill and upset to, I'll get back to that later.

Anyway I've started work on levels 1 and 2 and by the looks of it I'm gonna JUST hit the target so keep an eye out for the announcement.
That is all really...nothing else to say.

And now onto something upsetting.
Yesterday my (well my dad's) cockatiel got out through the back door. That was the first time I've seen my dad cry in 3 years, not easy seeing a 48 year old man frantically running through the street like a little lost child. That bird meant a lot to him as it did me which is why I took it the worst and was literally crying like a baby for about 10 minutes.
Anyway sorry for depressing you with that sob story, still trying to come to terms with it and stuff.
Be back tomorrow with the Retrospect.
Bye all, and Alfie :/
TheWardy signing off.

Hardware review: ASCIWare Super Advantage (SNES)

Ok it's late and I'm tired so I'm gonna make this quick. But before I start I'd like to announce I now have the Quake 4 bonus disc :D

Ok the Super Advantage was an arcade controller for the SNES by ASCIWare. What makes it different from the original controller is that it's meant to be sort of tabletop (and thus designed for arcade games). It also has a slow button with a speed slider, a turbo/autofire feature for ABXY and the shoulder buttons each with their own speed slider.

The controller works really well when put to good use but most games aren't really designed for anything like that so unless you have or are planning on buying an arcade game (particularly a fighter), avoid using this controller.

So sorry this was so rushed but as I mentioned before I am tired and wanted to get on with it.
I'll be back same time tomorrow which That's Interesting.
Terminate aplication: Tom being awake.
Night.
TheWardy signing off.

Flash Game of the Week: Doodle God 2

Well guys they have done it again, first there was Doodle God, then Doodle Devil and finally we have...DOODLE GOD 2 *gets excited*

OK a short recap for those who may be unfamiliar with Doodle God:
Doodle God is sort of a trial and error point and click game from a group called Badlim of which there are 3 titles (see above) which all involve combining elements and stuff.

This game adds 2 more episodes (which I have yet to play) as well as the main game so the replay value has improved greatly...other than that its mostly the same but is still somehow better than the original.

I wouldn't recommend this to everyone as it only hits a very small amount of gamers (like me) but if you like sort of combination games I whole highly recommend this game.
As usual here's the Kongregate link
And here is the Elite Games link

Anyway that's it
Apologies for the lack of quality (it is like 2:32 in the morning), hardware review tomorrow.
Anyway I'm off to bed, night!
TheWardy signing off.

Retrospect 6/8: Playstation 2 Vs Sega Master System/Mark III

Another pre-written one...there is something seriously wrong with me..

Anyway that is unrelated, but I'll tell you what is related (mainly because it is the main focus of this particular post): my comparison of the Master System and the Playstation 2!

The Master System/Mark III and PS2 were released in 1985-1989 (with the Japanese version bearing the name mark III until 1987) and 2000-2008 respectively with the Master System being discontinued between 1989 and 1998. The Master System only had major success in Europe and Brazil whereas the Playstation 2 went onto become the most successful console ever selling over 150 million units worldwide.

Ok this Retrospect will include the comparison of the following: Media and emulation.

I'm so sick of repeating the media advantage but here goes: Cartridges hold up better and lack load times.

The second and final (too short) point is the idea of emulation: As far as I know there is only one PS3 model that will emulate SOME PS2 games whereas Sega's Power Base Converter supported most Master System carts and cards.

Anyway that's it, sorry about the lack of quality this time round, 6 down, 2 more to go.

I shall be back tomorrow with another wonderful game authored with Adobe Flash :)
Take care, bye.
TheWardy signing off.

Dev blog: Sploder updates and announcements

Hey all!

Um yeah not been able to do much on Sploder this week seeing as I've been catching up on posts as seen there VVV
But there is one thing I can tell you and that is level 3 is more or less complete as seen in the first production screencap here V

Apologies for the crappy size, had to lower the resolution just so you could see it.

Anyway you may have also noticed we have a new member on board!
Yes as of yesterday (or in terms of writing this, today) fellow blogger Tesni Hill joins us as we try to expand the blog that bit more :) I'm also open to anyone who can help me in any way as usual so if you think you can help feel free to speak to either of us and we'll see what we can do :)

So that's it from me today, Retrospect tomorrow :)
Until then, bye!
TheWardy signing off.

Under new management! [But not really]

This blog has a new contributor! *applause*

I feel like an intruder here, but I was asked to do an introduction.

So, Hello! Time for some quickfire!

Name? Tesni.
Occupation? Student.
Console? PS1 FTW!
Favourite game? Spyro! ^^
Want? An Atari! 2600 :(
TheWardy? Terrible at time keeping and not to be trusted in the kitchen. ;) But otherwise, great.
How dead are you for mocking him on his own blog? On a scale of 1 to Osama...pretty dead.
Probability that he'll delete this and make you post again? High.
And Finally, your purpose on this blog? Currently unknown. But very excited to contribute! ^^

My posts on here will probably be quite rare, seeing as I barely find time to update my own blog! Thank you Ward for letting me loose on your blog!

Over and out.
- Tesni

Review: Video Pinball (Atari 2600)

Ok FINALLY back on track, let's keep it this way.

Right I now have time so I'll pay a bit more attention to this one :)

About the game

Video Pinball is a pinball game (if you didn't get that from the name then god help you) released in the arcades in 1978 with a home port on the Atari VCS CX2600 (aka Atari 2600) and plug n play versions (I don’t know their release dates though) by both Atari and Sears. That's really all there is to say..

Moving on.

Graphics

I've seen the capabilities of the Atari 2600 and this really doesn't show it at all, the other games I talk about have decent or impressive going on to amazing but this is not one of those.

My verdict-5/10

Sound

Just a collection of different beeping sounds which isn't good but hey this was 1980 on 8 bytes of memory.

My verdict-5/10

Control

Not good at all, you have a fire button yet you press down on the stick to launch the ball, plus using the stick to operate this flippers is very annoying which cannot be blamed on the fact that there is only one button on the controller because there were other controllers out there including ones with more than one button, more to the point why did we need a home pinball game at all (mind you I play pinball for Windows so I can't say anything really)
The only good thing I can say about it is that the controls are fairly fluent.

My verdict-2/10

Difficulty

Well you don't even need to operate the flippers that often so there's not that much to it.

My verdict-2/10

Length

This game has a variable length so it can be too short or too long really.

My verdict-5/10

Replay value

The replay value of this is terrible really, can't say much more than that.

My verdict-1/10

My final verdict-20/60-D-Lowest score I've ever had to give but let's face it, this game is god awful, really is horrific. On a brighter note I bought this (as well as the 2600) from Level Up (its actually the second one that I've bought from there that I've reviewed, the other was Super Mario Land which was the first game I bought from the 8 day old shop) so I'm kinda supporting the store in a way :D, btw thanks Lucy! (not for the game though)

One last thing before I go, I am considering setting up a Ustream account to use for sort of Q and A sessions during the final few hours of production before my games are released and stuff.

I'll set up a poll up there ^^^ and if I get enough votes by the 30th May I will do it.

Well that's it for me I shall be back on Monday where I hope to see all of you.
Bye all!
TheWardy signing off.

P.S. I've just been looking through the settings and noticed that the timezone was set to PST...oops.

That's Interesting: PSaNonymous?

Ok one more after this and I have caught up!

Right this story has been floating around the internet, namely YouTube and various gaming forums, for almost 3 weeks, the PSN hack and subsequent outage and theft of credit card details.

Like the other big story recently, the death of Bin Laden, I've not been too bothered by this, but have felt sympathy for the sister's boyfriend but as for me, I'm more Xbox despite the fact I hate Microsoft, hence why I am using Ubuntu.

But this story recently took a twist of sorts; Sony have announced that they have found a file on their servers which included the phrase "We are legion" which is largely used by the hactivist group Anonymous, and now they are linking this to Operation Sony.
This annoys me so much, I know Anonymous, I know what they are like they attacked SECA websites because Sony were attacking gamers (mainly jailbreak fans) they are not going to knock the servers out too, wether or not to help thieves (which they wouldn't do). Here's how I see it: this is probably a bunch of newfag hackers who thought they were big/helping the cause by taking the servers out, that or the thieves did it themselves and framed anon.
One final note: If it was Anonymous, they would have come clean straight away, they denied it, Anonymous may be sick and twisted people at times but take it from a medfag going on oldfag, they do not lie especially when it comes to taking responsibility for their attacks.

Well that's it one more and I'm done, see you very soon.
And look, rules 1 & 2, unbroken.
TheWardy signing off.

Hardware review: Original NES controller

Ok guys I'm so sorry this is so late but I'm almost caught up so here you go.

I'm gonna be reviewing the NES controller supplied with every pre-1993 bundle in the US and every bundle in the UK which soon set a standard for controllers which still remains to this day which is...wait for it...A DIRECTIONAL PAD!

There was one problem in that its sort of square shape was not too friendly on the hands but it does fit in the palm so that's good.

I've got 2 of them (which both came with my NES) and they are slightly stiff and unresponsive but bearing in mind I only bought it in august, a possible 25 years after its manufacture and god knows how overused it was/how long it may have been collecting dust, it is a very durable controller. One final advantage is that the controller lead is rather long, much longer than some I've used NAMING NO NAMES SEGA AND ATARI!

Ok 2 more tonight, That's Interesting is next.
Back in about half an hour.
Bye!
TheWardy signing off.

Flash Game of the Week: Diamond Hollow

Ok I've almost caught up again, yay! :)

Anyway Diamond Hollow was made by a dev team called Arkeus, supposedly in 48 hours for the Ludum Dare 20 contest. And is reminiscent of a game from 2008 (I think) called Tower of Greed (I think) but this is a lot better, plus it has upgrades which means you kinda need to continue playing until you get them all (well...I feel the need to anyway)

Anyway I think this is a great game and I haven't seen any other LD20 submissions but I really hope these guys win, really no way to properly recommend it :)

Here is the link, y'all enjoy it

OK I promised I'd have them all done tonight but I am way too tired to carry on so imma finish them off tomorrow.

Night peopless.
TheWardy signing off.

Retrospect 5/8: Megadrive/Genesis Vs Wii

Ok sorry this is as late as it is but here it is: RETROSPECT!

This Retrospect covers the Sega Genesis/Megadrive and the Nintendo Wii which were released 1988-90 and 2006 respectively with the Megadrive hitting the dust in 1995-7 and were both pretty successful although the Wii has kind of succumbed to the curse of casual games in the past few years.

Moving on to the comparison.

Ok in this we will be comparing: Media, controllers and playback

This one is getting a bit tedious to put out every time but here goes: more resistant to damage and no load times (excluding the Mega CD)

The next is controllers, as most of you know the Wii uses a motion sensing controller where as the Megadrive uses a standard control pad which in most cases is a lot easier to use.

Finally there is the playback advantage, the Megadrive was using the newest technology out at that time (CD-ROM) whereas the Wii is using Optical discs which were used on the Gamecube and were inferior to the likes of HD-DVDs and Blu-Ray discs.

Anyway that's it really.
Next up is the Flash Game of the Week.
See you then.
TheWardy signing off.

Dev blog: Gameboy Advance programming (maybe?)

Hello everyone, this is the part where I spend the whole night catching up on late posts, starting with this.

Whilst in college on Wednesday I acquired a Gameboy Advance compiler (which had a basic tutorial and links to other tutorials, which sadly were all dead seeing as the tut was from I think 2003) so hopefully I'll be able to put out a few homebrew GBA games.

Ok I was away for most of last week so I was not on Sploder at all, I will however be on this weekend, anyone who wants to help out with the games on there let me know through any of the communication channels used on this blog and I'll get back to you.

And now onto the next post.
See y'all soon.
TheWardy signing off.

Review: Ratchet and clank II: Going Commando (Playstation 2)

OK let me start off by saying I am terribly sorry for not posting anything last night (or today), preocupied with both both Ubuntu and Fedora problems so please, bear with me for the next week.

OK I'm gonna be quick with this one so apologies it its a bit shit.

About the game


Ratchet & Clank 2 was released on the Playstation 2 in late 2003 and follows our, now famous, titular heroes who have been teleported to the Bogon galaxy to fight a new evil, you know how video games work WE'RE MOVING ON NOW!

Graphics


Not really pushing the boundaries of the PS2's graphical capability but the graphical quality is superb to say the least.

My verdict-9/10

Sound


Not too much to say about the sound on this game, ok music, excellent sound effects, nothing elst to say really.

My verdict-9/10

Control


The controls on this game are very fluent but alas there is a slight problem, it NEEDS a Dualshock 2 controller, no alternative controllers for you.

My verdict-9/10

Difficulty


Three words: Perfect-Difficulty-Curve, which is all I can say about it really, perfect.

My verdict-10/10

Length


This game will eat up around 6 hours of your life (Based on one full play) so its long enough to be interesting but short enough to not get boring.

My verdict-10/10

Replay value


I've completed this game twice and deleted my saves countless times and never really get too bored of it.

My verdict-10/10

My final verdict-57/60-A-Absolutely perfect game.

Well thats all I have for you, I need to be up for college in 5 hours so I'm off to bed.
Night gamers.
TheWardy signing off.

That's Interesting: Child of Eden

Hello all! (I'll get this back on track soon I promise)

Most of you will not know this but I am a fan of a gaming magazine called Gamesmaster (which used to be a TV show 92-98 featuring Dominik Diamond and terrible sexual innuendos...at 6:30 pm!) and I was flicking through this month's issue when something caught my eye (and made me feel like I was tripping acid) which was a game called Child of Eden. At first glance of the screenshots I assumed it was either a casual or music game, but then I looked at the review box and noticed that this game was a rail shooter (similar to an FPS, only you cannot move your character) which made me very excited seeing as rails are my favourite types of arcade games :D

OK I don't like the graphics in the game too much (or the fact that it uses Kinect) but I really do have high hopes for this game and, like the 3DS, want to see how this plays out, I don't think it will ever par arcade standard rail shooters (even if ID and Valve merged to become an uberdeveloper) but it will be fun to see how they compare :)

OK wrapping this up with a poll (^up at the top, may have to scroll through them^) and then I'm going to bed.

Na-night.

TheWardy signing off.

P.S. Just wanna say thank you to everyone who helped push my views to their highest last month, lets see if we can do it again this month, as a special birthday treat ^^

Hardware review: Mad Catz Nunchuck Controller (Nintendo WII)

Hello and welcome to another review on another piece of hardware (and sorry it's late I didn't have time to write it), today's piece of hardware is a nunchuck controller for the WII made by Mad Catz.

Basically I bought this controller to use with my second wiimote as it did not have one at the time and such. I used this controller maybe 3 times and it broke on me...yeah not too good guys.

So avoid this one guys as it is a waste of money.

Sorry this has been short and shitty, I promise next one will be better.

That's Interesting is up next.
Take care.
TheWardy signing off.

Why do I use Ubuntu?

This was purely done out of boredom and because I love it so much.

OK here are 10 reasons why I am using Ubuntu:

1-It's free-Who doesn't like free stuff?!
2-It's open source-This being an open source operating system I can legally change any problem with the operating system myself without being sued or anything.
3-It's pretty-I'll admit the looks really got me with this system, it just looks so smooth.
4-It's fast-Comparing this to my Windows operating system it is immensely faster especially when you see what Ubuntu can do, plus I have never seen a 10 second natural shutdown apart from Ubuntu.
5-The social aspect-Ubuntu has integrated messenger, mail and social networking apps which mean I don't have to fire Chrome up everytime I want to check my e-mails or tweet something.
6-The command line interface-As a programmer I love toying around with and learning about command line interfaces.
7-It's safe and secure-When I was installing this I was required to set a password which I don't think can be removed (Haven't checked as of yet) and not many viruses have been written into Linux.
8-It broadens my game development horizons-Because Ubuntu uses OpenGL as opposed to DirectX I can learn how to program games for OpenGL platforms and possibly how to port games between APIs.
9-It has 4 desktops-Which means I can reduce taskbar clutter.
10-It is indie(ish)-I plead guilty to using it because it is not really mainstream, I am not proud of it but I will admit it.

Anyway those are 10 of the reasons I have for using Ubuntu, that was a useless waste of my time but I hope you enjoyed it.
The dev blog will be up on Tuesday at the very latest, until then, goodbye.
TheWardy signing off.

Flash Game of the Week: Elephant Quest

Well Ubuntu users this is it, the wait is finally over, the final release of Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal is due out later today :D SO EXITED as seen here <

Anyway unrelated, but what is related is this weeks flash game review: ELEPHANT QUEST!

This game was made by our good friends over at armour games and what does AG+elephants=? Jmtb02! Yes that's right, Jmtb02 did the artwork on this game as he did with all over elephant games and such.

Anyway in this RPG/Shooter/Platformer you are an elephant helping out other elephants with different tasks and looking for this woolly mammoth thing who you must kill for reasons I can't remember...simple as that really.

This is another great game by Jmtb02 and all others involved and I cannot recommend this, and their other games highly enough really.

Hrere is the Kongregate link
And the Armour Games link with a bonus Sushi Cat mini game (2 of my favourite games combined :O)

Yay first time using the link feature :D
Anyway now time for the hardware review, should be here later today.
Ta ta for now!
TheWardy signing off.

Retrospect 4/8: Playstation Vs NES/Famicom

OK I may have to cut this series short because I'm running out of current/last gen (yes playstation is still last gen seeing as the PS2 is still current gen) consoles, may not be the case though.

So this Retrospect is about, you guessed it Sony's Playstation and the Nintendo Family Computer/Entertainment System which were released 1994-1995 and 1983-1987 respectively and discontinued 2006 and 1995-2003 (no joke) respectively so as you can see, Playstation lasted for 12 years and the NES a staggering 20 years which means Nintendo had clearly done something right.

OK time to look at them! We will be discussing 4 things: media, storage, loading mechanisms and A/V output.

I shouldn't have to say what the media advantages but here goes: durability and load times (which by the way are atrocious on the Playstation)

Now storage, sadly most NES games (and fortunately hardly any Famicom Disk System Disks) lack battery back-up but the ones that do have it do not rely on removable storage and the problems it causes, most of you would have one a PS or similar you know what they're like.

Only one thing I can say about loading mechanisms, Playstation toploader NES frontloader. Why are frontloaders better than toploaders? they can be stacked! Which in my case is rather good. NEXT!

Finally we come to the A/V, how is RF/RCA better than A/V multi? Simple, if I lose/damage my RF/RCA cable(s) I simply steal one from elsewhere and even use one RF for my NES, Snes and Megadrive (seeing as they all use the same TV). Inversely if I lose/damage my PS2's AV multi cable (which I use for the PS1 too) I have to revert to my RF cable from my PS1 which does affect the picture quality greatly.

Anyway that ends a painfully rushed Retrospect, I should have the Flash Game of the Week up in a few hours followed by the hardware review.
Bye for now.
TheWardy signing off.

Dev blog: Hiatus and future plans

This is the part where I denounce Horace Returns' descent into vapourware by putting on hiatus until at least Feburary 2012 because, lets face it, I'm getting nowhere with it and have been trying to hide it for a while (although it should have seemed pretty obvious to people who aren't what leading Oxford scholars are only able to  refer to as "thick"). I have instead decided to focus on my sploder game, Blockhead's Generic Adventure! Part one is due out 1st June 2011, more information on it as it becomes available.

OK 2 more and I have caught up and can start pre-writing a few.

See y'all in an hour or two.
TheWardy signing off.

Review: Secret Maryo Chronicles (PC, Mac & Linux)

Ok this one is a bit naughty because I only came across this game on Monday and have only played it for about an hour but here goes!

About the game

This game was released as an open-source (My favourite lisence) game in January 2003 and is somewhat of a Super Mario World clone therefore I don't need to explain and for that reason I won't.

Graphics

The graphics in this game look great but I have two complaints. The first being that some graphical aspects of the game make it look like a poorly drawn flash game. The second complaint I have is that although most of the game is 2D, the coins and I guess you could say the mushrooms are 3D which stick out like a sore thumb and just make the game look that little bit tackier.

My verdict-8/10

Sound

Not too much to say about the sound, except for the fact that the music appears to be missing in Ubuntu at least (Anyone proving otherwise, let me know, UPDATE: I have since found out that there is music, but it has to be downloaded separately and seeing as I did not get this game from its original website I did not know it was not included which is a pain in the arse so just 2 points added) and the sound effects are a bit hit and miss to say the least.

My verdict-4/10

Control

The control isn't to obvious (unless you look at the options menu) but is relatively simple to grasp and easy to remember.


My verdict-9/10

Difficulty


This game holds the same difficulty factor as most mario games so theres not really anything to say.

My verdict-9/10

Length


This is where the naughty bit comes in, I've only reached level 3 of this game but because it has a level editor and I think levels can be sent to other users therefore I declare this game technically has infinite length.

My verdict-10/10

Replay value


As I just said: Level editor, make own levels, spread, play more, SIMPLE AS.

My verdict-10/10

My final verdict-52/60-A-This is a great game based on a greater franchise.

Well thats another post closer to catching up, the dev blog is right around the corner.
Back soon!
TheWardy signing off.

That's Interesting: Mortal Kombat IX

ITS FINALLY HERE!

That's right folks Mortal Kombat 9 has arrived, it was released on the 21st April for the 360 and PS3, I have yet to play it but am very excited to get my hands on it.

OK this one is extremely short and this is the last bit, what I know so far.

It has Noob Saibot in it :D as well as Kratos from God of War on the PS3 version. There is also a new feature known as x-ray moves (basically you can see inside your opponent during the attack and watch the bones break etc.). We also see a lovely 2.5D perspective in that we have 3D characters on a 2D stage. Finally this game is apparently a homage to Mortal Kombat II (which I have the Genesis version of :D) hence why we have the recreated levels from II, Noob etc.

Anyway that's it for that story, review next.
Goodbye for the third (and officially final) time tonight.
TheWardy signing off.

Hardware review: EyeToy (Playstation 2)

OK sorry again I'll have everything back on track by tomorrow I promise.

Ah Kinect, Microsoft's newest monstrosity in order to sell more Xbox 360 units and games(along with the ugly as fuck slim console, the word slim being used extremely loosely seeing as it has had less than 1/5 cut off) but it is a stolen concept really, a mod of an existing motion sensing camera so lets disregard Kinect for now (or for good) and look at Sony's EyeToy.

I don't really have much on this so bear with me.
EyeToy was released by Logitech and Namtai in 2003 for Sony's second console, the Playstation 2 in order to increase sales and such I had one it was great etc etc etc.

Anyway the EyeToy was supported for about 5 years and pulled in about 10.5M sales which is only about 500K more than the Kinect has sold but the EyeToy was never hyped and stuff. Another interesting thing about the EyeToy is that there were fewer problems, the only major one it had was the whole lighting thing that was even worse on the Kinect.

In conclusion the EyeToy was great but alas it was a cheap control gimmick (like 3D effects, take note people)

Anyway I will be starting That's Interesting after I reboot and such.
Until then.
TheWardy signing off.

Apologies + announcements

OK let me start off by saying I am so sorry! I planned out blog for Thursday-Monday to be queued up for when I went away for Easter but I ran out of time.

Anyway I am proud to announce that I am now using the open source Linux distribution Ubuntu 10.04 LTS Lucid Lynx (Soon 11.04 Natty Narwhal) which will be my primary operating system for programming, blogging and OpenGL development :)

In other news I have decided to drop the comment questions and weekly polls (I will still be putting polls out from time to time)

OK hardware review up soon.
Be right back :)
TheWardy signing off.

Flash Game of the Week: Fade

OK I have a feeling this is actually stolen content but it was featured so here goes.

This game was released 3 months ago (but I remember it being around at some point in 2010, maybe even 2009) by Frozen Coin and involves a llama running across platforms, gaining speed as it goes along and as it gains speed, colour is added to the game and when I last completed it it was like 200mph (I think?) anyway you also get upgrade points and such.

This game is a good one but be warned the replay value is next to none as it does get rather repetitive after a while.

Kongregate: http://www.kongregate.com/games/frozencoin/fade
Games Butler: http://www.gamesbutler.com/game/4975/Fade/

OK sorry I was late again, the hardware review (Eye Toy) will be up later on today sometime.
See you tonight.
TheWardy signing off.

Retrospect 3/8: Xbox Vs SNES

I don't know why I keep doing these so late but here it is! Like a whole day late but oh well.

Today I will be comparing Microsoft's Xbox and the Super Nintendo Entertainment System which were released in 2001-2002 and 1990-1992 respectively and were both pretty successful, the SNES being moreso but the Xbox was still pretty successful.

OK onto the comparison, thingy.

The first point is, you guessed it, media, faster, more durable etc etc. Also you don't really need casing for them, I mean ideally you would keep them in boxes and stuff but they are not essential.

Second point is the weight, for anyone who hasn't held an Xbox, it weighs about 1 1/2-2 360 units, basically if you dropped one on your foot, you'd know.

Finally there is sound, with the SNES the only noise you get is that god awful click you get when flipping the power switch whereas the PSU (or possibly CPU fan) on the Xbox makes a terribly annoying whirring/buzzing sound.

Anyway I think that's it for this week's retrospect, once again sorry I'm late.
Be back in an hour or two with the Flash Game of the Week.
See you then.
TheWardy signing off.

Dev blog: Week 12

Hey guys.
Sorry I'm late...YET AGAIN.

OK today's blog will not be about the game which I am borderline neglecting at the moment but instead the dev tools I have aquired of late.

One of the development tools I am now using is for like...10 year olds but I don't really care. Sploder the online tool I mentioned a few days ago. Anyway I am actually working on a little 4 piece game at the moment called Blockhead's Generic Adventure, the first part of said game should materialise in the comming weeks so stay tuned.

Another I have started using is 3D Rad, alas I have no bloody clue how to use it properly so it'll be a while before I use that, possibly after Horace Returns.

 I am also about to start using a form of BASIC I've come accross called Basiegaxorz (I think) which will enable me to program Genesis/Megadrive games, YAY!

Finally I have 2 new 2D game engines that I can't remember the names of and can't be bothered to look, so I won't.

Anyway that's all I have at the moment.
Retrospect will be up in the next 2 hours.
Until then.
TheWardy signing off.

Promotions and stuff: Level up

For the third time today, hello and welcome to another blog post.

I've decided to discontinue the little opening thing because quite frankly I hated it.

OK I've mentioned this before about 2-3 months ago but I wanna put it out again because I'm nice and don't want any special offers or anything of the sort.

Anyway if you are a gamer within the Merseyside area there is a game shop located within Quiggins (give you the address in a second) called Level Up, this shop was established on I think 1st-2nd November 2010 and has since moved from the 1st floor to the basement following a break-in and the subsequent closure of the entire 1st floor. Anyway Level Up has pretty much everything, consoles, accessories, plug and play stuff, and games ranging from Xbox 360/PS3 from 2010/11 to Atari 2600 games from 1977 (but those are all mine mehehe). On top of that there are comps, tournaments and of course, excellent customer service, very friendly and resourceful (take note highstreet gameshops!) as well as the leisure of being able to reserve anything in store for really any period of time.

Ok address:

Level Up

Quiggins basement (behind Grin, the main shop when you enter the building)

Grand Central Hall

35 Renshaw Street

Liverpool

It's around 3 minutes away from Liverpool Central (turn right as you leave the station and you should see the building as you turn the corner)

Web adresses:

Main site: www.leveluponline.co.uk

Tournaments: www.leveluptournaments.weebly.com

And thus ends, quite frankly a shit weekend which was made..less shit by the tournament (and Lucy's obvious attempt to help me win, that or her complete lack of understanding of the words VOLUME and CHANNEL)

I shall be back tomorrow with the dev blog.

Byee.

TheWardy signing off.

Review: Pokémon Red/Blue/Green/Yellow (Gameboy)

Hello again it is Sunday the 17th April 2011, I have just (well, not just) came back from a tournament, I'm TheWardy and this, is My2 Rusty Pennies.

Might drop that soon.
Anyway today I thought I'd review one of my many childhood memories, Pokémon! Interesting fact I got Crystal before Red...That wasn't interesting at all was it. Moving onto the review now :)

About the game

Pokémon! Red, Blue, Green (Japan only) and Yellow were released between Spring 1996 and Autumn 1998 worldwide and is about...10 year olds forcing animals with magical powers to fight each other...or something like that.

Graphics

The graphics on this game are not that bad seeing as it is a Gameboy game in...I guess you could say colour, its monochrome but not black and white like most Gameboy games, this being said, this came out near enough the same time as the Gameboy Colour so they could have pushed it back by a few months but there was probably some sort of financial issue there.

My verdict-9/10

Sound

The sound on the game is great bar one thing, for some reason during the health alarm most of the sounds are either absent or distorted in one form or another. Not too much to say

My verdict-9/10

Control

Not really much control to this game, just walking and fighting which is sort of a "press and watch what happens" style as is standard with RPGs and particularly J-RPGs and eventually becomes a bit of a button masher which is kinda good because it is not as tedious as one that keeps you over involved, take Final Fantasy XIII for example.

My verdict-9/10

Difficulty

This game (as with most RPGs) has an excellent difficulty curve, that is all I can really say to be honest.

My verdict-10/10

Length

I recently ambled through this game and got to victory road in about 48 hours so I imagine the average length is about 12-24 hours or maybe 4-8 if you tank through it. All in all great for any amount of time you have on your hands.

My verdict-10/10

Replay value

I'll let you guys work it out, you will play on even after the game has finished and only delete your file when you get bored of that.

My verdict-10/10

My final verdict-57/60-A-This (only just noticed I've been referring to them as this, but I won't change them as I am too lazy) is an excellent game that has gone on to make a successful (but getting worse) franchise of games, in the words of Kieth Lemon "Tellyshows" and films along with other merchandise.

OK sorry for another late, one more coming up in the next few hours so stay tuned.

TheWardy signing off.

That's Interesting: Lisenced by Nintendo

Good afternoon people it is Sunday the 17th April 2011, this is another late (sorry), I'm TheWardy and this, is My 2 Rusty Pennies.

So does anyone remember when The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time came out? I don't, I was 5 at the time but I do remember the port coming out in 2003 (I kinda thought it was the original at the time) anyway there have been rumors (not sure wether or not they have been confirmed yet but we'll see) that Ocarina of Time 3D is not being developed by Nintendo but by another studio (whose name I cannot remember), now as optimistic as I am about this port, I've seen things like this happen before which didn't work in favour of the developers (e.g. the Mario/Zelda CDi games and Renegade III: The Final Chapter), will this be worth the wait, we will see in June.

OK sorry about this being as late as it is, review is up next.

Also I'm now using Sunday to send out personal messages, promote stuff, announce things etc etc.

So that's it for the moment, I will see you in about an hour.

Bubyee.

TheWardy signing off.

Hardware Review: Venom Dualshock 2 controller (Playstation 2)

Morning all it is Friday the 15th April 2011, I'm now on Sploder, I'm TheWardy and this, is My Two Rusty Pennies. But more on that later.

OK this review is about Venom's Dualshock 2 controller which is so far the best PS2 controller I've ever used.

Bit of history first: My original controller sucked and died in about 2005-2006 (bearing in mind I was given my PS2 in Summer 2004) and luckily I had bought (well my parents bought it) a 3rd party 2nd controller in late 2004 I think and it only died in 2010 and I got 2 other controllers which seem to be based on the Venom models (in fact they're the same excluding the Venom logo) and they're still going today.

OK the last thing I will say about them is that the difference is that it is black (mine was, like my PS2, aqua), the Venom logo and 3 additional buttons; a turbo button, a slow button and a turbo clear button. Anyway sorry this was kinda rushed and shit. I'll try and put out better ones in the future.

Anyway onto Sploder!

Sploder is a sorta online game creation site that allows you to make, play and share games and such.

Anyway I have created an account and will be releasing games in the summer.

My username is Pyrogramgames

So for the first time as the founder of Pyrogram Games, goodbye.

TheWardy signing off.

Flash Game of the Week: Monster Castle Defence

Once again, good evening, it is Wednesday 13th April 2011, my Runescape membership is about to run out, I'm TheWardy and this, is My 2 Rusty Pennies.

OK this wasn't a featured game but they're all shit this week and this caught my eye 'cause I'm a sucker for tower defence games,

I found this one slightly different seeing as it is 1D in a sense (in other words it is rows as opposed to a map layout thing.
OK this is a save the princess game, can you say cliche? But that is one of its few flaws, the only other thing I can see is that it does seem ridiculously short (4 bloody levels!)

All in all this is an average game that may or may not tickle the fancy of TD lovers (certainly did it for me though) And just to throw it in there this game was made by Fliptico.
Kongregate: http://www.kongregate.com/games/fliptico/monster-castle-defense
And there doesn't appear to be a second link so I'm going to assume that Kongregate is the host site.

Anyway sorry about the lateness of the Retrospect (again), will try not to let it happen again.
Tomorrow I will be reviewing the Sony Playstation as part of my hardware review series, be excited!
See you laterr!
TheWardy signing off.

Retrospect 2/8: Gameboy Vs PSP

Good evening ladies and gentlemen its Wednesday 12th April 2011, I fell asleep whilst writing this last night, I'm TheWardy and this, is My 2 Rusty Pennies.

OK so the consoles I will be comparing today are the Sony Playstation Portable and the Nintendo Gameboy which were released in 2004/5 and 1989/90 respectively which is kind of irrelevant so I'm going to move on.

First off, media, Gameboy uses cartridges (or "Game paks") and the PSP uses UMDs, 2 things with this.

The first is an obvious one, the load times, PSP load times are usually 30s-1min, Gameboy instant load blah blah blah I know it cant be helped.

The second involves the durability of the media, now I've only had one Gameboy (Gameboy colour to be precise) and I've had my fair share of UMD cases split on me making them unusable.

Secondly there is storage, put simply with the Gameboy you don't have to worry about SD cards and stuff like that.

And I think this is the last one, this is sorta stupid cause of the ad-hoc game sharing thingy but you don't have to worry about wi-fi or anything like that.

That's all I can say really, next one I think will be the SNES and the Xbox Classic.

I'm sorry this came out late, will try write them earlier.

Anyway Flash Game of the Week should be up in about 15-30 mins :)

See you then.

TheWardy signing off.

Dev blog: Week 11

OK it is Monday 11th April 2011, it is week 11 of me not doing anything, I'm TheWardy and this, is My 2 Rusty Pennies.

I am going to try keeping that intro going :)

OK again not much going in terms of development but hey, Easter holidays are just around the corner and I'm broke so...

OK a few words before I go too, first off I am proud to announce I am once again dabbling into the wonderful world of fan-fiction once again, I shall link to my latest story when I finish the first chapter.

Second is I still need help improving the look of the blog/youtube channel when it materializes so if you feel you can help do not hesitate to get in touch with me either on the comment section below, in a private message or on twitter @sadonions

Third notice is that I NEED PROMOTION cause the monthly views are slumping now (have about 30 at the end of the month by the looks of it) so please, tell your friends, family, neighbours, Jack Thompson ANYONE just get the word out, thanks.

Finally I am on the road to recovery my throat feels a lot better and I don't feel like death. YAY.

OK that's it for this weeks dev blog, I will be back tomorrow with Retrospect 2/8-Gameboy Vs PSP so I shall see you then, bye.

TheWardy signing off.

Review: Super Mario Bros 3 (NES/Famicom)

Ok sorry about the lack of formatting but i can't get onto the computer, thanks sis.

About the game

Super Mario Bros 3 is the third game in the super mario series with the same story as the 1st blah blah blah I'm running out of time making this quick.

Graphics

This game looks a lot better than its predecessors but it really doesnt utilise the graphical capabilities of the nes to its full extent (but to be honest the better part of those graphics look awful)

My verdict-9/10

Sound

Nothing to say about the graphics really, great but not the very best.

My verdict-9/10

Control

As with the 1st game the controls are decent with a few minor problems that will happen in most games really.

My verdict-9/10

Difficulty

This is actually quite challenging for me (mainly cause I suck but y'know..)

Only frustratingly difficult aspect of this game is those fucking scrolling levels *rages for a few hours*

My verdict-9/10

Length

This is quite a long game really seeing as it has...7 worlds? Which each have around 7-20ish levels? (just a guess) so it is satisfyingly long.

My verdict-10/10

Replay value

Like the first game i cant put it down, could play it forever, never gets old.

My verdict-10/10

My final verdict-56/60-A-Another great game from the smb series :)

And thus ends a very unstructured week on the blog.

Should be back on track next week though.

I'll see ya monday.

TheWardy signing off.

That's Interesting: Did Not: Finish

Well I'm sure most of you have heard the news, the upcoming first person shooter Duke Nukem: Forever has been pushed back by a month, this is getting a bit stupid now you've been doing this for 14 bloody years now! Word of advice guys, either get it together or declare vaporware, simple as that. I am excited to see what this becomes (which at the moment looks a bit like Half-Life which is both good and bad I guess) but to be honest, Mortal Kombat 9 is my main focus at the moment. Anyway, schedule is kinda back on track now, shall be back tomorrow with Super Mario Bros 3. Until then. See ya. TheWardy signing off. P.S the formatting seems to be a bit fucked up and Doesn't want to present the post with the right formatting, sorry about that.

Flash Game of the Week: Bullet Haven

Well today has not been a good day at all, finding out Nu Foundation died 2 weeks ago (how I enjoy trying to come to terms with this) to finding out MC Sharkey is quitting hardcore this year to discovering that there is one last Jory Caron Opens Mail and Shit.

Bullet Haven put simply is a top-down flying shooter game from kupo707 that I guess you could call a spin-off of Epic Battle Fantasy? Basically you shoot things, you get coins, you finish levels and upgrade, nothing different to most but damn is it fun.

My only real complaint about this game is that they could have put a bit more effort into creating original characters instead of making a tie-in but its no real biggie.

This is a fun game if you have an hour or so to spare, recomend you all check it out.

Kongregate: http://www.kongregate.com/games/kupo707/bullet-heaven

This is actually a Kong native game so I have no second link.

Ok apologies again I was gonna upload this last night but I dozed off (Then woke up feeling like death D:)

Anyway poll will be up shortly followed by that's interesting.

See you all in a few.

TheWardy signing off.

Dev blog: Week 10 + moar announcements

Ok basically I've worked on the controls that's it, I need to get these announcements out.

The blog is to receive a nice little restructure this week.

Ok new schedule

Monday-Dev blog

Tuesday-Feature/Series (e.g. Retrospect)

Wednesday-Flash Game of the Week

Thursday-Hardware review (Starting next week)

Friday-How interesting (Basically I go over a news story/event from the last 7 days)

Saturday-Review (Returning next week)

Sunday-Hey even I need a break!

Anyway I still need help with the blog/channel appearance so if you think you could assist leave me a comment, message or tweet @sadonions

So that's all I have for you right now.

I shall see you tomorrow with the ngp rant.

Bye guys.

TheWardy signing off.

Announcements

Ok I know there is no review, and there's a reason for that.

On Friday I noticed that there were still irregular breaks in my week therefore Super Mario Bros 3 will appear on Thursday.

Thanks for understanding.

Ok one last thing I will soon be opening up a YouTube channel in the next month, more details as that unfolds.

Speak Monday.

Traaa.

TheWardy signing off.

Feature: NGP-My thoughts

Late late LATE sorry.

Been ill since Monday night so most of the content will be a few days late.

OK so as most of you know the PSP 2 (or NGP) is due out I think they said later this year? Really cannot be bothered looking so we'll assume I'm right anyway I'm rambling so I'm gonna move back on track.

Anyway I've been looking at it so far and to be honest I'm not seeing much, cue abuse from Sony fanboys.

Ok as much as I love the PSP I don't think the NGP will do it any justice.

AND HERE's WHY!

The first reason is half reasonable half stupid and involves the new media they are using: SD cards! Ok first the reasonable part, this may not happen but I reckon it is gonna be a lot easier to pirate games this way (may be wrong) and the stupid reason is when have SD cards worked in this case?

Second point: THE THUMBSTICK! (that circle thing below the d-pad that was JUST analogue and very awkward to use). They've added a second one to the equation, now the way I see it they've either done one of two things which are doomed to fail in their own way. The first thing they could have done is kept the same design which is basically fighting fire with fire. The second thing they could have done was raise the stick a bit to allow it to move like a regular a-stick but would make it rather pokey-out and fragile.

Finally we have the new control schemes, touch screen and touch panel on the back. Now seeing as I am using my PSP 2K at the moment (well...waiting on Spyro 2 to finish downloading but the point is I can hold it) and the touch screen/panel are easy but awkward to use/avoid.

Now after all this you are probably saying "If you hate the NGP why complain so much?" Well...I don't necessarily hate the NGP it's just at the moment I see little potential in it and who knows, maybe there are still things we are yet to know about the true NGP, we shall have to wait and see.

So sorry about this being so late (and my schedule being blown off course) I shall have this mess fixed by Monday.

So because I'm ill and lazy this week's comment question is do you feel sorry for poor unwell me?

Anyway I shall see you all tomorrow.

Traa.

TheWardy signing off.

Flash Game of the Week: Roadkill Revenge

Hey, so so SO sorry, kinda had a bit of a fall-out with someone really close and was really in no fit state to finish the review until about 12ish.

OK Roadkill Revenge is a game by a company called Kizi games and is basically about a group of critters who I guess are pissed at humans for running over their bunny mate or something and go on a Grand Theft Auto come Carmageddon killing spree.

Your basic aim is to drive into cars, buses, tankers, buildings, f-16s and even missiles and kill as many people and cause as much damage as possible. Each of the 50 levels have one main goal and 2 optional challenges, these challenges will eventually help you unlock the last few levels.

This game is really good fun and perfect for the sadist in us.

Kongregate: http://www.kongregate.com/games/kizigames/roadkill-revenge

Kizi games: http://kizi.com/games/roadkill-revenge

OK Tuesday's Retrospect has been pushed back a week for a bit of a mini-rant about the NGP (sorry).

Anyway sorry I was so late.

Be back on Saturday with a look at Super Mario Bros 3.

Until then see ya.

Poll up soon.

Byee.

TheWardy signing off.

Retrospect 1/8: Atari 2600 vs PS3

Hello and welcome to the first part of my new blog series; Retrospect.

In this series I will be looking at a new and retro console and pointing out the retro's advantages.

I'll start with a controller advantage, the controller (well joystick) on the Atari has a 9-pin joystick adapter which was the same used for the Sega Genesis/Megadrive, Commodore 64, Sinclair ZX Spectrum (with the Kempton interface) the list goes on which means if the joystick does pack in it is interchangeable, now I've not tested this with the PS3 as I do not own one (yet!) but I don't think that will work very well, if at all.

The second is an obvious one that will be referenced throughout the series, the media keeps up better, this is shown best in carts made by Atari with pin shields.

The next one kinda ties in with the cart vs cd (well...blu-ray) is that there are no load times (until you get into the milliseconds) so no waiting to play :)

Finally (cause I'm kinda late) I don't know about all versions (I have reason to believe mine is a PAL Darth Vader, may be wrong) but my Atari 2600 model does have quite a long RF cable which means as long as you keep the carts nearby you don't really have to get up (I am stupidly lazy so you see why I find this good) whereas most AV cables/HDMI cables aren't long enough to reach the user from say about 7-10 feet.

Anyway apologies for the shortness and lateness of this one, the others will be on time and fully fleshed out I swear.

Ok next week is the first (and probably only) handheld comparison which will be either the NDS or the PSP Vs the original gameboy.

Look forward to seeing you then.

But wait.

Today is (officially) Wednesday.

You know what that means. Drumroll please?

FLASH GAME OF THE WEEK

Which I will start writing in a moment.

Anyway see you all tonight.

Before I go the comment question:

What is your preferred mobile OS (iOS, android etc.) and why?

Kthnxbai.

TheWardy signing off.