posts by cunzy
cunzy

Resident Evil 4 Revisited

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Recently, a brand spanking new copy of Resident Evil 4 for the Wii caught my eye. Reduced to clear and put in the shop window of a generic electronics shop in London’s laughable ‘electronics mile’, I couldn’t face the heart break over the thought of that particular copy of that gem of a game slowly yellowing and fading in the shop window, destined to be ignored by the people looking to buy new headphones or a replacement ipod nano charger.

So now I have two copies of Resident Evil 4. One for the PS2. One for the Wii. I should buy the Gamecube version to complete the shelf. Feeling slightly embarrassed in my hideous capitalist material ways with the realisation that there are people in this very world who struggle to have potable water or enough food to survive and here I am, Cunzy “two copies of Resident Evil 4” they call me now. →  Read Theft Auto 4

Post PlayStation 2: Choose your own adventure!

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You are in an excellent position as the market leader in the gaming industry. The PlayStation 2 went from strength to strength and, with few exceptions from the enemy, had some of the best games ever created. Nintendo have frankly just given up on the Gamecube and the Xbox is really heavy. With a huge installed base and the future looking bright what do you do next?

There’s only one thing for it! Make the PlayStation 3. Go to 1
We’ve only just seen the true power of the PlayStation 2 with, of all things a Gamecube port. Let’s stick with it for a while. Go to 2

1) A good idea but disaster! Microsoft have announced a successor to the Xbox and it looks like they will get it to market before you. →  This post are sick.

Love the Capcom

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This is a transcript of a presentation I gave at the Women’s Institute last week.

In the ongoing, victimless, and utterly pointless console wars Capcom is America. It’s selling arms to everyone. Ammunition for all the fanboys to use on each other. Sure the Wii can’t do Dead Rising but then Zack and Wiki just wouldn’t work on the Xbox 360. HD is the only way to play Resident Evil 5 but then is there any greater pleasure than being able to carry around the entire original Resident Evil around on the DS? Science says no. So as the fanboys shoot each other down in flames Capcom continues to produce a stream of the greatest games that ever existed. So here are the reasons why I love Capcom.

Sure, we may all have our Capcom favourites. →  Apply directly to the forehead.

Review – 100 Classic Book Collection

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100 Classic Book Collection for the DS is awesomesauce. That’s the gist of this whole review for those of you unwilling or unable to read further. However, for those with some staying power I will qualify why it is such an amazing condiment after I clarify that it isn’t a game.

100 Classic Book Collection is not a game. Don’t be confused by the packaging, the little box and the little game shaped cartridge. When you pop the cart into the DS and open it up you will not find a game. Instead you will find an assortment of 100 classic books to read. It could have been that simple. Here’s 100 books. Read them all. Cheevos for reading all of them. But much like an exotic alcoholic cocktail so many extra bits have been squeezed in to make it all the more worthwhile. →  An article approaches.
- Read
- Run

Review – Another Code: R A Journey Into Lost Memories

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Another Code:R A Journey Into Lost Memories (herein abbreviated to AC:RAJILM) is from the same developer behind the rather excellent Hotel Dusk. So I was somewhat excited when AC:RAJILM was announced for the Wii.

After an extensive playthrough, it seems that this excitement was altogether misplaced. This is not necessarily to say that the game is bad, or that this review will be negative, but just don’t expect to ever get excited in AC:RAJILM.

It seems that CING, when mixing up AC:RAJILM in the laboratory, accidentally got some of the quantities of the point ‘n’ click ingredients wrong. They have definitely made an adventure with pointing and clicking but some of the elements aren’t optimally balanced.

So, for example, a staple technique used in these kinds of games is to give players lots of things to investigate, the payoff for throroughness being hidden items, secret bonuses, hints or extra flavour. →  Read like G did.

We didn’t go to the Tokyo Games Show

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Despite a great deal of pleading, Jay would not finance a single trip to TGS this year. This is because Jay is a big fat racist. So because we didn’t go we can’t present you with what we saw there. However, because we’ve got nothing else to do besides F5ing the internet we felt like we did go*. We felt like we were there and so here’s the high quality games journalism coverage you would have got, had we been there. Don’t say we don’t give you anything for free vl reader. There’s no point vocalising what we all know.

Videolamers TGS Coverage Issue:

Check out the 4500 photos that Christian took whilst dicking around in Japan. Japanese buildings, Japanese people in the street, signs in Japan in English, Japanese HMVs etc. →  The King of Articles 2002: Unlimited Match

Are you HARDCORE ENOUGH?

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Writing about the hardcore/casual games divide was the new “Are Games Art” but now “There’s No Such Thing as Hardcore/Casual” is the new “There is a Hardcore/Casual Games and Gamers Divide”. This is a lie told to you by casual gamers. Casual gamers are limp-wristed liberals. HARDCORE gamers get chicks and drive huge cars and WILL FIGHT YOU TO THE DEATH defending the console that their Mom bought them.

But are you HARDCORE? Or are you a casual? Do you have armour piercing spermatozoa/ova or are you firing blanks? This is where the HARDCORE test comes in. If the answer to any of these questions is yes, you are NOT HARDCORE AT ALL. You are a casual homo. Don’t take this test if you don’t want the truth.

Remember, any Yeses, even one and you are disgusting. →  Please sir, can I have some more?

The Six Hour Rule

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Great game, great graphics, good story, co-op mode, online play but only 10 hours long. Or words to that effect. I’ve seen a number of reviews that say something about the relatively short length of a game being negative despite the fact that the game, considered too short by the reviewer, would probably take me months if not years to actually play through.

How long is too long? What do we mean by length? How much weight should reviewers put on the price-point/length-of-game ratio in deciding whether or not a game should be recommended? The Ram Raider has a nice article about price point considerations which is what prompted me to think about how long a game takes and about getting old. Being an old cranky, jaded gamer…

Gone are the days when I could buy a game and then revel in it for long periods of time until I’d explored every nook and cranny and devoured all the content in the main game, unlocked all the ummm…. →  Postsona 3 FES

Review – Animal Crossing Wild World

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Animal Crossing isn’t a game. It’s a career. A vocation, a mini alternative life. You could educate a child with it and it would turn out OK. It teaches you everything you need to know about the real world. It teaches you the importance of money, shows you the true value of patience, punishes you for lying, and when characters move out of your town it’s an important lesson about the harsh realities of bereavement in adult life. Freckles is gone, Timothy, she’s gone to another town very far away and she’s never coming back.

It’s not a game, it’s a job. You HAVE to collect your fruit to begin with, else you can’t afford the cool furniture. You HAVE to keep fishing, else you might miss a rare fish. You HAVE to collect all the fossils, fish and insects because something cool might happen when you do. →  Lamers so loved the world that they gave their only article, so that everyone who believes in reading won’t perish but will have eternal lives.

Cunzy1 1 is…

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When first asked to write for videolamer, Jay asked for a short biography in the form of 10 games. You can see the gang’s choices over here. The games I chose to represent me aren’t necessarily my favourite games, games I have completed, games I recommend you need to play or necessarily even good games. They are the games that I have a special association with and games that take me back to a certain time or place. Much like a certain film or a song, games can tug at the memory and take you back to times past. This is my life in games in roughly chronological order.

Snoopy Tennis.
I’m not talking about the horrible Game Boy Color game, I’m all about the Game and Watch version. This is probably one of the first games I ever played and at the time it didn’t have a particular impact on me. →  Get lame or get out.