Q2 PAL Release Dates shocking for the Wii - Fuck you Nintendo.... fuck you in the eye...

I've been waiting for Paper Mario since I was fortunate enough to get my Wii just before Xmas after weeks of hounding at my local Tescos (And their lies about not getting more stock in..). In fact, I've been waiting for any "good" game for the Wii since putting Zelda down.

Wii Sports are great, well.. the bowling and baseball elements are anyway, but they're definitely not justifying a price tag and Nintendo got it right not to "charge" for it. Zelda is one of the greatest games of all time... and once I get my component cable Ill be back into it (it looks shit on my current TV via S-video cables), but there isn't much out at the moment justifying a PAL price tag. The games I had interest in (Trauma Center and Super Swing Golf) have been postponed in Europe and are coming soon (6 months late isn't good enough in 2007).

I'm starting to see the light and almost believing the Wii is a fad... I hate to say it too, but Nintendo Europe are doing NOTHING to rectify this and I just think we will continue to get the shaft throughout the life of the Wii. I was hoping to hear some good news when searching for PAL releases in Q2, a quarter thats never really full of great games, but as Nintendo have fucked us out of the release of a lot of games thus far, I wanted to see one "Home Run" title to make me believe in the Big N.

But the Wii line up is as follows for Q2 in Europe:

• Wing Island (Nintendo / Hudson) - 13th April 2007

Never heard of it... Hudson haven't released a good game since Saturn Bomberman arguably and their latest revision, Bomberman Act:Zero is an atrocity to man that should be buried in Nevada with all those copies of E.T

• Chicken Little: Ace in Action (Disney Interactive Studios) - 20th April 2007

Don't make me punch someone in the mouth...

• Cooking Mama Wii (505 Games) - April 2007

I actually have to say I kinda want to play thing game *hides head in shame*

• Elevator Action (505 Games) - April 2007

Sounds like cheap porn...

• Pop'n Pop (505 Games) - April 2007

Bust A Move ripoff maybe? Jordans breasts at 35,000ft? Who knows...

• Heatseeker (Codemasters) - April 2007

Again, sounds like cheap porn... involving Cowboys and pudding in hot tubs... *shudders*

• BIONICLE Heroes (Eidos / TT Games) - April 2007

Wow... I can already get this title on my 360 so I'm not going to pay more for a bastardised PAL Wii version.

• Eledees (Konami) - April 2007

NO NO NO NO NO!!! ITS ELEBITS YOU FUCKS!!!! I really, really, REALLY can't believe they had to rename this game... and I really can't believe how late this game is as its one of the few games I really wanted to play. It's since been ripped to shreds so I'm not even sure I'm going to bother now anyway.

• Impossible Mission (System 3) - April 2007

Woohoo... old skool C64 action. Impossible Mission in my memories was an amazing game and I'm afraid to emulate it in fear of shattering that illusion. If this game blows I'm going to be very sad indeed.

• Mario Strikers Charged Football (Nintendo) - 25th May 2007

First game to support online play.. hmm... nah, Winning Eleven X anyone??

• Brunswick Bowling Wii (505 Games) - May 2007

Wii Bowling is about as professional as my bowling fix needs to be and that came free with my Wii...

• World Championship Poker Featuring Howard Lederer: All In Wii (505 Games) - May 2007

Gambling for fake money... sounds great! Oh wait... no, no it doesn't... PKR.com?

• Spider-Man The Movie 3 (Activision) - May 2007

Movie exclusives... now they're always great games...

• Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (Disney Interactive Studios) - May 2007

... see previous sarcasm...

• Mortal Kombat: Armageddon (Midway) - May 2007

Has there not already been an Mortal Kombat: Armageddon?! Great use of a cliche word rather than a number..

• Puzzle Balls (System 3) - May 2007

Oh LOLOL... better than Sticky Balls I guess!

• Chicken Shoot + Egg Catcher (ZOO Digital Publishing) - May 2007

So let me get this straight... I have to massacre chickens by blowing them to bits with a shotgun, then I have to steal their eggs? What a great idea for a game! 0.o

• Pangya! Golf with Style (Nintendo) - June 2007

Golf with Style. Notice the capitalisation of the word Style. Fuck me Nintendo, why not call it "Paris Hiltons Pangya! Golf with Style" and have that cum gobbling whore say "Thats hot..." after every shot. I'm seeing pink golf bags and golf balls with her Chihuahua on...

• Dave Mirra Racing Wii (505 Games) - June 2007

I wondered what happened to the source code for BMX XXX... well heres our answer!

• Transformers - June 2007

Oh please... leave the movie exclusives alone will you! Transformers was good back in the day... LEAVE IT ALONE!!

• Mercury Meltdown Revolution (Ignition) - Q2 2007

You think someone would have told the development team that mercury is perpetually in a liquid state and the concept of it melting isn't a revolution...

• Metal Slug Anthology (Ignition) - Q2 2007

Great game... emulated brilliantly by my original Xbox that still resides underneath my TV.



Well... thats the lot! No Super Paper Mario, no Mario Galaxy, no Metroid, no Resident Evil 4 for Wii. Nothing! Youll see those titles on the other side of the Atlantic but not in Europe. So fuck you Nintendo, I'm off to Mr. Modchips so I can actually play some good games on the console with so much promise. This is the last time I get stung by a PAL machine, I swear to fucking Christ!!

Live outside the EU and got a PSP? Get a bargain for one week only... f**king Sony...

Live outside the EU and got a PSP? Well this is your oportunity to own Loco Roco for the wonderful price of $14.90 (or £7.60 to UK readers). Get across to Play-Asia (see banners) now to grab a copy for this week only! Want to know why us EU folk can't get a copy for so cheap? Thank Sony...


If you don't know what happened to Lik-Sang then I'll tell you briefly and let you make up your mind about them. Lik-Sang were a small Hong Kong based exporter of video games and merchandise from around the world. That meant us poor folk in the UK, and all over Europe, who have been shat on ever since the first iterations of games consoles had the choice to buy US, Japanese or European releases of games when they came out.

This was important as many games in Japan and the US were released way before their UK counterparts and (up until recently where this no longer matters) were natively 60Hz. Remember Star Wing on the PAL SNES and half the screen being borders? That was because of the 50/60Hz issue and our TV systems being different pixel ratios

The other great thing about importing games is the price difference. In the old days of the SNES, importing games was an expensive experience (a copy of Street Fighter 2 Turbo cost me £70 to import from the US back in the day). Thanks to the internet, and global prices generally being cheaper outside the UK, games since about 1998 were and have been generally cheaper to buy directly from Asia. Sony Europe didn't like this...

They took it upon themselves to try and bring down this "Robin Hood" of the grey import market by suing them from so many angles that Lik-Sang eventually had to buckle. One of Sonys bullshit reasons was that the PSP power supply provided from Asia didn't meet "strict EU guidelines" yet the last time I checked my PSP power supply has the CE mark and all the other stuff required. Since when has a DC adaptor been safe for those Asians to use, but not us safety conscious Europeans?!

It seems strange that they only started to really pressurise online exporters around the time preorders in Japan and the US for the PS3 just started. I can only assume Sony didn't like the fact you could buy a region free games console (both the PSP and PS3) and/or the games for about half the UK retail price when they have so much invested in another intellectual property... like their movie industry ties. The failed UMD movie format was the only part of the PSP that carried any form of region locking, and more notably, the Blu-Ray discs are the only region locked part of the PS3. Having eTailers able to provide movies way before their EU release dates would be disastrous for their PR and advertising campaigns in those regions and thus lose sales when we get the upped price discs here.

I also think someone had a lot of sand in their vaginas over at Sony prior to the PS3 launch, with their escalating prices for the PS3, lack of produced units, problems with the Blue diodes and the constant complaints of overpricing of the PSP in Europe and just needed someone to smash their fist into. Lik-Sang was that bitch!!

So, Lik-Sang is gone because they refused to cave in to Sony and they lost. Other online exports, like Play-Asia, now do not ship to zones in the EU that Sony says they aren't allowed to. Nintendo and Microsoft are still more than happy for you to buy their machines and games from wherever in the World you like (after a genuine product sale is a sale for the bigger picture). But not Sony, oh no.. overall it just seems bad for the consumer, bad for the exporter, and surely.. bad for Sony..


Well, anyway... there we go... if you do live outside the EU, go grab a copy of Loco Roco today. Its cute, its fun and its unique - its just an all round great game!! If not, show your protest for Sony Bullshit and just boycott all their products... you can generally identify them as those that aren't good for you, are shit advertised and repackaged to look like they're something they're not and are only out to make money for some greedy corperate scumbag... much like fast food!

Xbox 360 Castlevania Symphony of the Night 200.6% Complete baby, YEAH!

So I did it! I finally completed Castlevania SOTN to 200.6% on my 360, without doing any of the Sword Familiar cheating, and unlocked the 35 Achievement points for doing so! The last pesky areas were in the Colosseum, which funnily enough Amy found on the map I printed... they weren't even the difficult to find areas either!

So that left me with 2 achievements on the game left to complete; kill Dracula without getting hit for 10 points, and the slightly more challenging, Complete both Castles with Richter for 45 points... so on we marched!

Amy needed to do some research on the PC, so I used the time wisely and proceeded to start the game as Richter (enter your name as "Richter" if you didn't know) and play through. Richter is a bit of a git to play with as he doesn't level up, has no way of gaining health on the move (other than the "secret areas" where you can find the powerup items that restore your health, as do the drops after defeating a boss) and most hits to Richter knock off 1/3rd of his energy.

Playing as Richter therefore becomes a constant battle to get to the next save spot before something gets a lucky blow in, which is fine in the Castle but in the inverted Castle it becomes an absolute nightmare at times. There were lots of "shit"s "fuck"s and even a "MOTHERFUCKER" at times!

My advice for this achievement is a mixture of the Holy Water or the Daggers as your secondary weapon of choice. Most of the bosses between the start and the Inverted Clock Tower are easiest killed with the Daggers and hitting Y at the right moment for a 20-30 hit combo, but for some of the tougher areas of the Inverted Castle (the Church Stairway for one, should you choose this path!) are a constant Holy Rain attack area!

Despite the many, many times I died in some areas, I managed to get to the Inverted Clock Tower in less than 45 minutes playtime. I then proceeded to kick Shafts ass (what an unfortunate name for a boss character) and completed that achievement!

Last but not least, I had to kill Dracula in Bloodlines without getting hit. After getting hit when Dracula metamorphosises into demon form several annoying times, I changed tactics and collected the Holy Water on the end candlestick and just punished his bitch ass with Holy Rain and hid in the corner. Cheap? No doubt... but 200 out of 200 achievement points for one of my favorite games of all time look good on the olde Xbox Dashboard! :D

This is the first game I have all the achievement points for too.. Konami had the good graces not to put some insane and impossible challenges in there, you know.. like Complete the game in a Record Speedrun style time!

800 Xbox points thoroughly well spent, 10 hours+ of well enjoyed retro fun and Castlevania Symphony of the Night has been totally worth the wait! This game is brilliant and a timeless classic that I truly recommend to anyone.. whether you get an original PSX version, the arguably better Saturn version (with Maria as a playable character and a couple of extra sections to the game), a PSP "PS1 emulated" version or whatever, anyone with a love for gaming should play this game.

Claiming my Technorati Profile...

Technorati Profile

I hate Halle Berry...

Generally, if you don't want to be on the backlash of a shit load of abuse, its wise to steer clear of talking to me about a lot of actresses, but Halle Berry takes the cake as one of my most hated actresses. She even beats Julia Roberts, and that takes a lot, thanks to her self righteous speech about being voted sexiest woman (wtf?) and it being a step forward for black women...

Shes been talking to Parade magazine (don't ask how I know..) about how she tried to commit suicide over her failed first marriage by trying to "gas" herself. She says:

"I was sitting in my car, and I knew the gas was coming when I had an image of my mother finding me. She sacrificed so much for her children, and to end my life would be an incredibly selfish thing to do. It was all about a relationship. My sense of worth was so low. I promised myself I would never be a coward again."

I mean what is this article... am I meant to feel sorry for the selfish bitch or what?! This does nothing more than re-enforce the fact she is a self involved slut with no regards for those around her, including her friends and family.

Really... why is she telling the world this? Is it so people will turn around and say things like "oooh, that Halle Berry has had a tough life. You know, it must be so hard for her when so many people think shes the sexiest woman on the planet (again... wtf), a big, rich and powerful movie star with all her homes around the world, who has the ability to do so much good in this world now". I mean come on...

We all have problems and have to deal with shit on a day to day basis, but when a multi award winning actress harps on to a magazine about how she almost committed suicide it pisses me off. How could she ever come close to "rock bottom" and think that suicide is her only option?

I wouldn't mind if she'dve had a decent go at it, you know, hacked into her wrists in a warm bath (remember its down the lines not across the tracks people!), ODed on a massive speedball (heroine and amphetamine mixed I think?), or took a running jump out of one of her (many) penthouse apartments. At least then you could say "Wow... shes such a survivor... someone was looking out for her that day" (I wouldn't.. someone might). But no... all shes done is over dramatise leaving the car running as shes parked it in her garage, then saved it for a shitty magazine interview so they can sell a few million copies with the title "Halle Berry Attempted Suicide SHOCKER!!" (see digg article for an example of how to sell a story).

All credibility for everything she has ever done has just been wiped of the charts in my eyes now. Even admitting this, no matter whether its to be honest, to sell a magazine, to get you some (much needed) current spotlight attention, whatever, just goes to show you are a thoughtless, manipulative piece of filth that is better suited to sucking cock than having the ability to do good things for this planet.

If this interview was an attempt to show you are a strong person and a fighter, you missed the boat completely. I just hope karma catches up with you and you die in a fire.

So well done Halle Berry... you are now my most hated female actress... the next time you're thinking of suicide just drop me a line... hopefully I can give you a few pointers and together we can get it right this time.

199.4% through Castlevania Symphony of the Night! Damn you Konami!!!!

This weekend, and since its release a week last Wednesday, I have mostly been playing Castlevania SOTN on my Xbox 360. Some of you may know of its 200.6% completion target, and is actually one of the achievements. Being the Castlevania geek that I am, I have to prove my might and get this achievement unlocked (its actually on my CV that I have done this on its original PSX release so it would hardly be right if I didn't get it on my 360!).

But I'm currently stuck at a whopping 199.4% and that pesky 1.2% eludes me! Then I only have to complete it with Richter and boom, first game to get all the playpoints for!

Pimp My Blog, Support Play Asia and Cheap Xbox360 games!

If, like me, you run Firefox web browser and have a great piece of software called ABP (or AdBlocker Pro as its otherwise know) this post and my blog additions will not affect you too much. Together they make the internet a great advert free place, and the only exposure I get to adverts online now is when stupid MSN Messenger gets my email in its own choice of browser (i.e. IE7) rather than my "default Internet Browser" (this pisses me off).

Anyway, I hope you're not too offended by the addition of one of my favorite websites, Play Asia, and their new additions to my blog. Maybe one day this blog will drive enough traffic to make the 1 to 10,000 ratio or whatever it is to generate some money online, but maybe not! I support Play-Asia and buy all my cheap region free Xbox 360 games from them now that Lik-Sang is gone (and there goes the only healthy competition on the international games import market, thanks Sony).

The great thing is that apart from some localisation on the front cover, everything from the manual to the game menus is in FULL ENGLISH. Thats right, NTSC-J games for the Hong Kong region are around half the price and exactly the same as the PAL English counterparts. I'd even argue they were better because they don't have any of those filthy multi-language menus supporting German, Spanish and French. Plus you get them months before their Pal release, for instance, Gears of War I had weeks before I came home and people were still like "what... you have Gears of War... its not even out yet?!?". To add insult to injury I told them it cost me 40000 won (ie £20) and that it was in full English and they go mental!

So stop paying unhealthy UK prices for games and get over to Play-Asia now; they have a big list of games that will definitely work on UK machines so you won't ever get stung again.

Fortunately I own an NTSC-J Xbox360 so I don't ever have to worry about cheaper English language Asian games (ie games released for Hong Kong) but you'll find a lot of games are region free. Avoid anything by EA though... they suck balls by locking all their games to specific regions so they can bleed you of more money in the UK through regionalised advertising sponsorship.... bastards!!!

The Million Person Outreach program! 1to1000000.co.uk

Touching one million people is my goal... not in a weird pervy way my usual readers might be thinking, but in a logical, I know, he knows, she knows way.

We all like to think our voice is heard, and more over that if we have something important to say our voice is going to be heard. I am trying to embrace the power of the internet to see if thats true. I have read articles about this before; how in some way we are all connected to the whole world by a chain of 6 people, but recently the idea has been playing on my mind.

Like a pyramid scheme, the logic is simple. I know 20 people, who in turn know 20 people, and so on and so forth. This is not a con, it is simply an educational exercise to be completed by a bored Software Engineering graduate (read GEEK) to test the power of this.

Potentially the plan goes like this...

1->20->400->16000->2560000000

There we go, simple and effective. The maths and implementation aren't quite that simple, but without going into those details, a pyramid scheme would only need another layer or 2 and the idea still works.


Why?
I have a few reasons really, but the main one is to see how far an online voice can travel. I find it interesting that we have a global interconnection of information and communication, but on the whole we can still be fed disinformation, lies and half truths by peers, advertisers, governments, whoever. I read a great Violent Acres article entitled The Government who cried Wolf and her sentiment was shared by myself in a lot of the things I write. It's not an original article, but its nice to hear someone who describes herself as an "Average Joe" (she is far from it in my opinion) waking up to these facts.

I like to think that we all have the power to touch others and in the complete opposite way to the emails I receive daily offering viagra, porn, to be enlightened, to pass this chain mail on to 5 of my friends and something good will happen to me, etc etc, I want to put something in motion that has the potential to make a difference. People believe these emails (still! It amazes me!), but I want to see if they will do the same in an effort for research and development.

Plus, this whole Sony hate month is coming to an end, yet they are still pushing their lies about how well the PS3 is doing and that makes me sad that a just because a company has a massive base, a stock pile of cash, and a direct line into the media they can inject lies, like a poison coursing through the veins of society, and people just lap it up. I want to see if email has that potential if we, the people, find something out that effects us all, if that information could hit the mainstream mind.


Whats in this for me?
Nothing more than the satisfaction of intellectual development and the stimulation of a bored mind.


Whats in this for you?
Ah, the age old question of give and take! Well, in an ideal world I will develop a means of giving a voice potentially massive portal for people. All news is subjective, but a means of hearing real peoples voices in regards to events, news and the real world sounds like a good thing to me. Having lost faith in the mainstream media, I want to know what real people are thinking and whats really going on.

I guess this is what sites like Digg are with a twist, but I'm interested more in the ability for users to filter out what news is relevant to their own lives. There are still a few details that need ironing out but the motion has begun.

Really, just the peace of mind in the potential for knowing whether or not if you had something to tell the whole world, how well you would be heard!


Apologies and Thanks!!
I should apologise and thank everyone who does take part in my experiment for the time they have taken to pass the email on, and for their efforts to see if my goal of enlightening the masses works.

In my email I request you Carbon Copy my 1to1000000.co.uk email address so I can see how many people you have touched, so please be assured your email address and those you send it on to will only be used by me for my own research and will not receive any unsolicited emails. This is a research project and I am not a 419 scammer!!!

The website will be up and running sooner rather than later hopefully, so in the mean time, please feel free to peruse my angry blog.

Copyright Law stomps another great website...

CD-Wow is getting the Lik-Sang treatment in another case of corperate scumfucks being able to use Copyright Law as the reason to force the UK into high retail prices with no other options.

Explain to me how this harms the artists and I'll go back to buying my albums in the UK. We are told time and time again we are to "support the artists" as a justification for the iron fist of the RIAA and things like this reiterate the greed element of the record industry. I want to support the artists I love but I won't be ripped off in the process - like Sonys shakedown on Lik-Sang, CD-Wow will just be another long gone Asian website that helped the consumer by offering the UK access to that level playing ground the rest of the world has access to.

You are lucky to find an album for under £10 at a retail outlet (average price for a cd is around £13 these days), and with CD-Wow offering most chart CDs for less than £7.99 delivered each, its easy to see why the big boys in the UK would be losing out... hell, it puts the pricing some where in line with the rest of the world! The last time I checked, the artists (i.e. the people I want to support) got paid on a per CD basis (who also get fucked by the Industry but from a different angle), and as every single CD CD-Wow sells is legitimate I would be doing my bit for them, but unfortuately the system doesnt get enough of a cut.

With CD sales declining (less and less original artists, more covers by cretins, more copy cat bands in a vain attempt to have a "current" artist on every label and expensive pricing in the UK all being factors for this), the UK has to do something to try and "win back" the buying public. Taking CD-Wow away from us isn't going to do them any favours.

Im tired and will finish this in the morning! ;)

Digg : The End of Subjective Broadcasting

Digg(tm) has to be one of my most visited sites for the past 9 months and I really do love to hate it now. Dugg(tm) news, as it becomes increasingly more popular, its becoming rife with over elaborating article news in a sorry attempt to get people to view their own site.

I am sick to death of people saying "The Best Flash Game EVAAAAAA!! w000t!" or "Unbelievable Work..ZOMG!?!" only to lead to some decade old piece that some teenage asshole has just found for the first time.

I guess social networked news brings its own take on internal "editorialism" but I'm pleading with the World here, for people to have a bit of self control the next time they feel the need to use a superlative to describe something they Digg... ask yourself these questions:

1) Is it really the best/amazing/unbelievable/life changing? If not.. STFU else goto 2;
2) Will it still be amazing in a few days/weeks/months? If not.. STFU else goto 3;
3) Has the article been online for more than a year? If it has, most of the people on Digg will have already seen is so STFU else goto 4;
4) STFU

You see, the moral of this rant is that the best articles on Digg are those that don't self gratify and allow the reader to decide whether they really are amazing. Most of the time you'll find its just better than average...