Ian

Blazing Angels 2: Secret Missions Of WWII

War is hell, obviously and the Second World War was more hellish than most. If the endless procession of WWII shooters have taught us nothing (and they haven't) it's that watching your best friend being torn apart by machinegun fire on the beaches of Normandy is a real bitch. But seen from the skies WWII actually becomes quite a jolly experience. That's certainly the picture Ubisoft paint in this rather excellent WWII fighter-pilot game. You'll often find your wingmen having a spot of friendly banter on the radio as you team up with them to bring down a squadron of Heinkel's. You can almost imagine them supping a nice cup of Earl Gray in the cockpit as they zoom down upon the unsuspecting Jerries, guns blazing.

Re-living the aerial battles of WWII virtually is something I'm rather pathetically interested in, purely because my Grandad was in the RAF and used to keep me amused as a young child with stories of the dare-devil adventures of various squadrons. These stories fired my imagination and like many young boys before me I felt impelled to take to the skies over Europe and wage a bitter and bloody air-war against the Germans. The beaurocrats of the private-pilot's licence board stopped me from putting my plan into action in real life so now console based aviation-apocalypse is all that's left to me. Of course, as I got a bit older I began to realise that most of my Grandad's stories had been made up purely to see the shock and enjoyment in my cherubic little face.

Blazing Angels 2 takes a similar over-the-top view of the WWII air-campaign to my Grandad, it's the videogame equivalent of swooping your hand around infront of you like a small plane and making machine gun noises. Realism is thankfully thrown out the window fairly early on, one mission sees you attacking a giant Zeppelin which is also being used as a floating aircraft hanger. Which is completely not made up and utterly plausible. It looks ace as well. Slowly the game introduces those favourites of the History channel, the secret Luftwaffe weapons "that would have swung the war Adolf's way if only the Nazi's could manufacture enough of them". They all look suitably cool and exciting and a hell of a lot better than the History Channel's own pathetic computer mock-up's of them (tune in any night of the week to see a huge selection of Secret Nazi War Weapon-type programs)

The gameplay is equally satisfying, although obviously leaning towards to more arcade side of the gaming spectrum. Thankfully. Controls are easy to get to grips with and provide plenty of opportunities for mad loop-the-loops and other crazy flying fun. The levels feature some nice 'stunt' bonus areas to show your skills off too, places such as underneath the arches of a river-bridge or between the legs of the Eiffel Tower. Like I said, realism is kept at a distance. The combat is also more 'hands on' and visceral than most other flight-sim cum shooters, there's always a huge numbers of targets and bonus targets around you which makes the levels feel more like a random war zone than an on-rails borefest. Let's face it, shooting down an enemy bomber with a machine gun is always more enjoyable than just spotting him on your radar and locking on from ten miles away with your missiles. You also get a bit of radio-banter from the cheeky Nazi's telling you how they're gonna shoot you down, and how the Nazi's are bound to win the war - it's like a 1940's version of the pre-match wrestling interviews. More german wrestlers is a must, if you ask me.

The very best thing about this game is the fact that I picked it up for next to nothing. Going cheap it was, probably to make way for the stream of big-hitting Christmas blockbusters. Cheers industry. It's also fairly short and sweet meaning that I can complete it whilst waiting for those afore-mentioned blockbusters to be reduced and flogged off cheap themselves. Which should be any time around early January.

mike

The Player Podcast: November 07 #1

THEPLAYER's Podcast

Disgrace

Prised at last from the the fuzzy arms of limbo, Mike, H and the ever-decadent Gonzo return to your Internet, pondering cheating in videogames, the sheer evils of feminism, and revealing an ugly truth or two about the Gamesmaster Channel 4 TV show.

Download

Tracklist:

Martha and the Muffins - What People Do For Fun
Aretha Franklin - Respect

BGM:

Royal Nightclub - Welcome Back, Robin
Ride - OX4
Eddie Hazel - What It About

For the socially inclined, the following Player groups exist for your entertainment:

Facebook
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Visit The Player at: http://www.the-playermagazine.com

mike

Scout Niblett feat. Bonnie Prince Billy

What a song, peeps. Digest, consume, enjoy. If you can say you've heard a better song than this over the last year you are either (a) lying (b) not lying and, as a result, are, in fact, telling the truth.

If (a), lol pwned.

If (b), gimme, yo!

Ian

Everybody's Tennis

Developer: Clap Hanz
Publisher: Sony
Release Date: Before The Great War
Format: PS2


Charm. It's probably the first thing you think of when musing on Clap Hanz Everybody's series of Golf, and now Tennis games. It's more of a bumbling amateur's charm rather than a slick Tom Cruise on Oprah kind of charm. Cute little fellows engaging in the popular sport of ruining a good walk. Golf is a game I have little time for in real life, yet in videogame terms it's something of a favourite genre. Ditto tennis, the prospect of sitting down and watching a real-life tennis match fills me with displeasure (although that could be due to the constant threat of Sir Cliff breaking into an impromptu medley) yet throughout gaming history there's always been a tennis game that captured my attention. I just love wacking those balls around.
Now that Wimbledon is upon us, [when the fuck was this review written? -Ed] it's the perfect time for staying indoors playing tennis games and not actually watching any of it at all. Everybody's Tennis does the job with few real fuckups. It's not new, fresh or particularly beautiful but it plays a good game. Timing is the key here, unlike Virtua Tennis where you can press a button early to gain more power, in ET you have to time your shots just right - hit it too early or too late and accuracy and power suffer, but time it perfectly and a simple defensive slice can be powered across court for a winner.
Presentation is up to scratch and typically cute and loveable. Jaunty theme music tootles about in the background as you play and the characters are lovingly modelled into just the right type of big-headed anime sweetness. The voice acting is rather duff but other than that everything looks and sounds as it should. In terms of the competition, it's far more Super Tennis than Top Spin.
The only real flaw is the fact that Challenge Mode (the main single player mode) is less than challenging, it's a piece of piss infact. I completed it within a week, and I'm rubbish at games. But it was a very enjoyable week. A solid first serve for Clap Hanz

Obligitory Summing-Up Box

Compared to the next-gen might of Virtua Tennis 3 it all looks rather pathetic, but does Virtua Tennis allow you to throw down a 500mph serve with a T. Hawk inspired Mexican in a poncho? Think about it.

Gonzo

The Player Fatwas Vol.1: Franchise.


It's nearly 4PM and I am swamped by work; important things at stake like some dude's life if he gets deported, but everybody needs a break, and I need more than most. Perusing gameindustry.biz mindlessly, as i do, I come across Sierra's Martin Tremblay pontificating about how his company's got the oevas to be different and publish more than its fair share of original IPs. I also notice that Take 2 has started to "float" the prospect of a Bioshock sequel.

What's an original IP to you? The chance for something new, original? A fresh experience which might floor you with its brilliance, rather than that same-but-better affair you tend to buy on a regular basis from GAME, right? Because while we indulge in samey sequels, because while familiarity breeds contempt, it's also, like, familiar. Less effort. Sometimes you need a quickie with your girlfriend who loves you and lovingly pretends to orgasm after just two minutes. That's what girlfriends are for. But you also need excitement every now and then, so you go and cheat on them. That's original IP for me: for when you can be fucked to make an effort.

Erm, anyways. The point, I think, is this: This Tremblay character basically says- "we're the shit at lots of genres". He then goes on, to quote him in full:

On top of these four pillars of genres we're going to create original IP, and I would say we're pretty solid in that direction compared to any other publisher. We're going to be up there with the big guys with regard to creating new franchises.

To people in the games industry, originality means "new franchises". The question for someone doing something new is not "let's make something radical, fresh". No, it's, "okay, we think we've milked Halo Prime Zone Solid for all its worth. We need to come up with some new shit, yo". Other media industries invest in new IP for the specific IP's intrinsic merit. The question might eventually be, "can we franchise this? Can this have a sequel?", but at the outset, they invest in the product. In books, a publisher might invest in the name of a rookie novelist. They won't say, at the outset- okay, we'll roll with it, but only if you can turn this shit into an 18-volume series.

Anyways, I've come to dislike the term. I hereby issue a Player Fatwa, on this word: Franchise. Allah damn us to our very soul if you use it in any context other than scorn. Admittedly, I have consulted no one in "The Team" about this. But if they disagree I'll fatwa their ass too.

PS- the piccie is of me as I read the piece about "new franchises". It makes me mad. Anyhoo, better return to this dude who says he'll die if we kick him out of our country...

Not Ian

Crazy Cash-In

You've probably guessed exactly what this game is like. And you'd be right. (Assuming you guessed that it was a compilation of the first two DC Crazy Taxi games ported over to UMD with some half-hearted extras thrown in. And you hadn't mistakenly thought it was an exciting new game about cool-looking space pirates sailing the Galaxy in search of intergalactic bounty or something). Driving round virtual New York and San Francisco like a loon is still fun. But looking back you can't help but feel Sega missed a trick. The laid-back sunshiner disposition of the drivers is disappointing in retrospect. Especially when there was so much promise that the second New York-set game would feature a bug-eyed paranoic De Niro style figure.

"You wanna go to the baseball stadium, huh? Yeah, I know your type. You just want me to take you to that disgusting semen-smeared Porno Theatre again dont'cha? Well no way buster, I'm not going back to that. Get outta my fucking cab you scumbag, don't let me see round here again. One day a real rain's gonna fall pal!" ...etc.

It's also similarly surprising to see a lack of migrant workers in the New York cabbie ranks, after all most New York drivers are illegal aliens. Illegal aliens in New York. As tantric-shagger extrodinaire Sting would say. Despite both of these missed opportunities the game is still a hoot. Except for the fucking Offspring of course, their tuneless gibbering cod-punk is still shite. But thanks to this new PSP version you can stream your own choons off a memory stick. Who said Sega had no good ideas left in them? Unfortunately the game doesn't prolong the enjoyment as long as the fuckmeister Sting can prolong his orgasms. Sting 1 Sega 0.

Mr. Toups

I (don't) heart Metroid
With the looming release of Metroid Prime 3, can we admit that Prime 2 sucks already? I mean, yeah, Prime was a great game, but it was also a great Metroid game, and it was also in 3D, which was a singular achievement for the time. The second game, though... Man. What went wrong? It ditched the open exploration of the first game in favour of mostly linear threads which were unlocked using items and abilities which were little more than glorified keys. What were they called? Translation modules? Give me a break. On top of this, confusing level design and poor enemies served only to highlight the weaknesses of the Prime series' unique first person control scheme.

And now we have a new trailer for Prime 3, featuring a narrator who seems to have lost her way from a Pantene Pro V commercial, uttering the glib catchphrase "she likes it" in reference to Samus' new (and likely tacked-on, poorly thought out) Phazon abilities. Am I the only one who liked Samus more before she was some sort of BDSM freak who got off on radioactive chemical infusions? I would like to find whatever marketing stooge decided this would be the best way to sell the game. Really, why go there? There's no going back now, however. Back in more innocent times, when we knew nothing about Samus, we were free to imagine anything we wanted about her. I always saw her as a stoic, thoughtful adventurer, hardened by years of bounty hunting in extremely unfriendly environments. Those three words thoughtlessly characterise Samus (I admit it's not the first time, but her monologues in Super Metroid and Metroid Fusion were neutral enough and subtly crafted so as to leave most of the important things up to the imagination), and it makes me feel like a part of my childhood is dying. That I rarely utter that internet-cliched expression speaks either to the lengths of which Retro is sullying the Metroid name, or my own attachment to the series. Probably the latter.

Other things bother me about the new footage. The game seems more and more like an FPS, and it has retained some of Prime 2’s obnoxious habits: NPCs who speak and give you orders, bottomless pits which respawn Samus at their precipice, long stretches of padding while in spiderball mode - and Prime 3 seems to focus and exacerbate these problems. Prime 2 was a critical success, perhaps, but the fact that most game critics are so gullible/ignorant doesn't forgive its many design errors. With its new, more traditional control scheme, Metroid Prime 3 could, at least, be a fun FPS. But, I’ve given up expecting a Metroid game from it. That being said, it still bears the Metroid name, characters, settings etc, so it will be difficult for me to forgive the way it's degrading what is, in my opinion, one of console gaming's oldest and most important franchises. Watching Metroid turn into a Halo wannabe is not only backwards, but humiliating. It's like seeing that one cute nerdy girl in the art club being forcefully seduced against her will by the head quarterback. The last thing I come to Metroid for is to remind me of my own heart being broken in high school.

dean

Review: Rugby 08 - PS2
Rugby is impressive. I am, of course, biased, having partaken in the lifestyle for sixteen years (I'm in my early twenties), I'm able to put my hand on my heart and tell you that it’s one of the most demanding sports out there. Sure, the general perception is that it’s a game for fat boys, full of swearing, drinking and homosexual tendencies. This might even be true, but fuck guys, this isn’t 1984!

Rugby has changed. England are good, the game has fewer fat skinheads than ever, and Johnny Wilkinson is featured on more teenage walls than David Beckham. Still, does anyone outside of our fair community care?

Nope. But that doesn’t matter to EA, who have release another iteration of their Rugby series. Seeing as no one else is bothering, it’s very difficult to judge the merits of their games. We have nothing to compare it to, and nothing really to get angry about.

If you like the sport of Rugby, the chances are you’ll find something to like about this game. If you couldn’t give a fuck about Rugby, you probably aren’t going to give a fuck about Rugby 08. So it really makes this a doozy of a review. Do I bitch that defending is simply a case of running in the general direction of the guy with the ball, or do I applaud the fact that breaking the Australian back line with a well placed cross field kick feels like sex?

As I’ve mentioned before, if a game ticks a few boxes, I will enjoy it. Even if the game is fundamentally broken, I am still able to get masses of gratification from it. Rugby 08 ticks those boxes. While there are many things wrong with it, none of them hurt too badly. Whilst I find myself throwing the Six-Axis at my TV, I'm always picking it up five seconds later ready to start running through my set plays.

Where the game excels is in its ability to make the player feel wonderful. Even if you’re losing 43-0 to Samoa, you’re always one step away from making that perfect play, and scoring a try in the corner. When this happens, you’ll smile, put the controller down, and enjoy the replay.

You’ll then get up, turn the TV off, and scream at your wife because the kicking system is fucking terrible.

dean

Beautiful Bombshell
Hype is a beautiful thing. It allows us, as retards, to know exactly what we want, without even thinking about it. Case in point: Mass Effect.

I remember back at TGS in ’05, when Mass Effect was showing. “Winter 06” it proclaimed and we were fed with art, screenshots, information and videos. Fast forward a couple of years, it remains on the cusp of release, and we’re still being spoon fed information. It’s now reached the point where I couldn’t give a fuck. Go back to March ’06, and I couldn’t have been more excited for the game. It was KOTOR without the bullshit, what’s not to like? But slowly, and gently, my enthusiasm waned, and I started to become jaded from the hype.

I mean, did I really care about KOTOR 3?

Here we are, a month after E3, and two games are in total domination of me.

RockBand and Persona 3.

RockBand excites me, because I totally wasn’t aware of it until recently. I mean, I knew it existed, but I had no idea that it would be young man’s Guitar Hero. Honestly, I can't stand Metallica, and 80s rock music makes me gag, so being able to come home after a miserable day at The Player offices, and bang on a Lego drum set to the sounds of the Hives sounds perfect!

Persona 3 on the other hand, comes at the perfect time. I'm in desperate need of an RPG that I can actually enjoy. An RPG that features kids shooting themselves in the head is one that I'm down with.

So now what? Do I ignore all future news reports on RockBand? Do I stop reading all of the Persona threads at GAF? Is it me who needs to change, or is it an issue with the industry? Why do we need to be given screenshot after screenshot of the same generic FPS we see every year? Why can we just get unbiased reviews of games that we all want to play?

I’m right… right?