GF! Weekly Wrap-Up #5

Intro

Hi there gamers. It’s Val Townsend, the Atomic Goddess, and I have another GamesFirst! Weekly Wrap-Up all ready for your audio enjoyment. It’s a big week at the old GF! we’ve got reviews of Rainbow Six: Lockdown, Beatdown: Fists of Vengeance, and Big Muth a Truckers and a preview of Lost in Blue coming up in just a few minutes. But first, let’s start with the latest news coming out of the Tokyo Game Show.

News

We’ve been just as eager as any other Nintendo fanboy to get the goods on the long awaited unveiling of the Revolution controller. Late last night, details started rolling in, and we discovered that the Revolution we’ve been waiting for is a… remote co ntrol" That’s right, on first glance, the Nintendo Revolution controller most resembles what you use to change the channels on your cable box, not what you use to annihilate aliens on your favorite gaming system. Featuring 3D motion sensing, pointing funct ions for on-screen navigation, and light gun abilities, the wand packs a real punch. Add to it any one of a number of planned dongle attachments and the possibilities open up. Is this the future of gaming, or just the font of a generation worth of don gle jokes’ We’ll have to get our hands on it before we can tell for sure.

In other news from the Tokyo Game Show, Microsoft announced the official release dates for the Xbox 360. The system will launch in the US on Tuesday, November 22, and will make its way to Europe on December 2. A Japanese release will follow quickly on Dece mber 10. Our sources in the retail sphere tell us that stores are being instructed to stop taking pre-orders of the Xbox 360 once they hit a certain number, which has caused some worries of a shortage of systems on launch day.

Continuing our trip around the world, Australian media mogul Rupert Murdoch and his company Newscorp have officially bought out IGN. Once the 650 million dollar deal is complete, IGN will become a part of the Newscorp empire, along with Fox and Fox News ch annel, adding a whole other tentacle to Murdochs monstrous megaconglomerate. We can’t think of a more appropriate pairing: The worst gaming news site online is now owned by the worst media news outlet on your TV.

Finally, GameSpy and Sony have announced that GameSpy multiplayer matching services will be available to PSP developers. This announcement implies that PSP owners can look forward to more Internet multiplayer features using the PSP’s WiFi capabilities. Now all we need is for somebody to release a decent game for the PSP and then we’ll be excited to play it online with all our friends.

And those are your headlines for this week. On to reviews:

Reviews

Sometimes a good effort is all it takes to make the world around you happy (especially if that includes your mommy). But in the world of games, almost only counts in horse shoes and hand grenades, which is why Big Mutha Truckers 2 just can’t hack it. St effan took this big rig for a ride, and he found himself neck deep in a mess of bad story and badder gameplay. You play one of Ma Jackson’s four kids. Ma has been locked up and awaits trial, and it’s your job to track down all twelve of her jurors and con vince them to let her off the hook. Of course, really you should only have to convince one of the jurors to vote innocent – but Big Mutha Truckers ain’t got no time for plot holes. Unfortunately, Big Mutha Truckers ain’t got no time for quality gamepla y either. The trucks control like any other driving game, except more sluggish. The missions are bland and repetitive, and the whole thing starts to stink faster than you can say yee-haw!. We can only bring ourselves to give Big Mutha Truckers 2 for Xbo x and PS2 a two out of five stars.

Checking in with a review of Capcom’s latest beat-em-up for Xbox and PS2, Laurie takes a look at Beatdown: Fists of Vengeance. Beatdown is a decent evolution of the beat-em-up genre, offering loads of characters and character customization. Eventually you can even recruit other thugs to fight in your group, leading to some interesting potential that ultimately isn’t fully utilized in the game. The gameplay combines Def Jam: Fight for New York’s style of combat with exploration designed after the Grand Theft Auto approach. This combination helps Beatdown stand out in its genre, but some flaws prevent it from being an overall winner. Beatdown features repetitive audio and a tacked-on Versus mode, neither of which really enhance the game. And long load times ca n make it a drag. Overall, Beatdown is a good bet for beat-em-up fans or anyone who finds it marked down in the bargain bin, but folks who pay full fare might feel a bit ripped off. We give Beatdown: Fists of Vengeance a bloody knuckled three out of five s tars.

Finishing out our reviews this week, Aaron delivers a critique of Rainbow Six: Lockdown, out now for Xbox and PS2. Rainbow Six 3 was well-known for having great AI and being one of the more popular online experiences available for Xbox Live. In Lockdown, h owever, the game takes two steps backwards. Lockdown is decent, and the level designs are still really nice. But the single player mode is rendered virtually unplayable by completely horrible enemy AI and terrible collision detection. Enemies in the game w ill literally fire at you for minutes and minutes before landing a shot. It is as if the bullets travel right through you (as long as you’re not standing near a wall for some strange reason). These bugs are completely laughable and very sad to see. Fortuna tely, it’s the multiplayer that really counts, and that mode is good enough to bring Lockdown up from the depths of a terrible review score. As it stands, we give Rainbod Six: Lockdown a mean look and three out of five stars.

Preview

Moving from the games that are out to the games that are coming soon, we take a look at Namco’s Lost in Blue, which has our EIC, Shawn, all giddy:

Lost In Blue is the Nintendo DS sequel to Namco’s Survival Kids series, and this game franchise has really grown up. Featuring a basic shipwrecked plot, you play a boy stranded on a deserted island. Early on you find another survivor, a girl who has addi tional skills and abilities. Your job is to keep both of them fed, hydrated, and sheltered, but that’s just the beginning. As you explore the island, you can gather materials for creating new items, and doing so will build both characters’ skills. Eventual ly your explorations will lead you to some mysteries about the island’s past (and possibly present) inhabitants.

The gameplay in Lost in Blue is what seems so interesting. The Nintendo DS touch screen is used to its fullest potential. You will spear fish in the river by jabbing your stylus at the touch screen, and you build items by tracing different patterns. A wide variety of minigames tied to each survival task should give the more unique abilities of the DS a workout. For example, you will start a fire by using the stylus to rub sticks together to generate a spark. Once you have a spark, you must blow into the mi crophone to get a full-blown fire going. These kinds of interactions have a lot of potential, and we have very high hopes for Lost in Blue. Look for Lost in Blue in your local game shop when it releases on September 27.

Conclusion

And that’s all for this edition of the GamesFirst! Weekly Wrap-Up. But have no fear dear gamer: I’ll be back next week with a whole new podcast full of news, reviews and previews. In the meantime, get online for more on these stories and daily updates f rom GamesFirst.com. I’m Val Townsend, the Atomic Goddess catch me next week!