Onelargeprawn
It’s always big fanfares and a parade complete with seventy-six trombones whenever a new major console hits the market, and the new PS Vita, the successor to the PSP, was no different. The PS Vita, announced way back in July 2009, finally released to western shores on February 22, and we took it through its paces to see what it’s all about.
If you ask a PlayStation 3 owner what their favourite action adventure game is, chances are high that they’ll yell “Uncharted!” even before you’ve finished the question. Naughty Dog, creators of the Uncharted series have managed to marry the shooting, platforming, and puzzle-solving elements with cinematic action sequences and great storytelling to craft games that leave a lasting impression.
It’s this love both from Naughty Dog and fans of the game that have seen the past two titles, Drake’s Fortune in 2007 and Among Thieves in 2009 pick up many accolades, including game of the year. The game’s protagonist is everyman and treasure hunter Nathan Drake who happens to cause all manner of mayhem wherever he goes. Be it the lush jungles Amazon basin, or the chilling height of the Himalayas the cocky Drake always seems to get the girls and finds the treasure that he seeks. His latest outing, however, is a departure from the norm. Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception is more of a serious affair, with Drake making more personal discoveries as opposed to material ones. Find out more after the jump.
Hard, difficult, frustrating, troublesome, tough, problematic, arduous, herculean, vexing, trying, backbreaking, grueling, challenging, tricky, rough, rocky, baffling, fractious, and down-right embarrassing [Ed: You forgot ‘soul crushingly infuriating’]. These are all synonyms for Dark Souls. In the Oxford English dictionary under the word ‘difficult’, the definition simply says; ‘Dark Souls’. I have never played anything like it; it’s unique. At first I used all the above words and many unprintable ones to describe it, often at the top of my voice and sometimes through my teeth, hissing in frustration. But with time I gradually found other words for Dark Souls; reward, respect, learn, skill, elation, win, gratifying, gain, reach, advance, make headway, satisfying, enjoy, rise, and earn it! Find out how Dark Souls beat me down, tore me a new one, and then slowly built me back up and won me over… after the jump.
The final movie for the Harry Potter franchise is out, and as happens with big movie events, a companion game, by EA, invites us to share the…magic. Is the Harry Potter swan song game a magic carpet ride, or is it a spell of certain doom? Join me on my broomstick and find out after the jump. Apparate!
Level 5 has released the latest game in their White Knight Chronicles JRPG series, and Level 5’s well-paid marketing department have sat many long, coffee-laden hours to bestow upon it the creative name of White Knight Chronicles 2. I have always been a fan of JRPG games, because the driver behind the game is the story, not the character. Because WKC2 is a direct sequel to WKC1 (unlike some JRPG games **cough** Final Fantasy **cough**), Level 5 thought it a good idea to also include WKC1 on the same disc. In the same breath, they addressed many of the issues that fans had with the first game, so you can almost call the version that ships on-disc White Knight Chronicles 1: Remastered. Is it worth playing, however? Let me answer that question for you, after the jump.
Singstar is one of those great Playstation institutions, and one of those absolute must-have games for whenever you have—or want—a karaoke party. It’s awesome, then, that Sony have decided that South Africa’s Afrikaans-speaking market is big enough to warrant their own Singstar game: Singstar Afrikaanse Treffers. Find out about my experiences in delving into the world of Afrikaans music after the jump.
However right or wrong, I tend to use Rotten Tomatoes as a yardstick when it comes to deciding whether I want to watch a movie. They’ve not always been right, for example Enduring Love garnered 61% and when I saw it I would have rather poked a bear in the testicles, an experience would have been far more pleasurable that what I saw on the big screen. In any case, sometimes you don’t want (or need) to read a lengthy dissertation about a movie by some pompous critic, you want to know what people on the street think about it.
Christopher Nolan’s Inception just released this weekend and in case you wanted to forgo the critics’ thoughts (spoiler: they liked it) and opt for opinions in 140 characters or less, then you’ve come to the right place. We’ve searched high and low on Twitter, from the mother city to eGoli to Polokwane for what South African tweeple are saying about Inception. You might think our sampling might be confirmation bias, but I assure you it’s not – of the tweets we found, only two people fell asleep and Sentletse Diakanyo from Thought Leader seems to have left before it ended – perhaps he couldn’t hold his pee in any longer.
Just watched Inception again…. Awesome… Again… Go watch it…. Now!
Cuan Robertson
Q121
A dream within a dream within a dream… within a dream. Inception – Genius filmmaking. Entertaining. Very clever! See it!
Scott Cooper
scottcooper_
So went to watch Inception. The movie is rather good, but it didnt prevent a guy from falling asleep. Could hear him snore
Kruger
MrGKruger
See a few more reactions after the jump.
It seems that the world is currently going through a Prince-mania phase, with the “Prince of Persia” movie doing reasonably well for itself at the box office. So if you were hoping for a movie review, you’re going to be a tad bit on the disappointed end of things. On the other hand, what you ARE reading is a review for the new Prince of Persia video game, subtitled “The Forgotten Sands”. So if you were hoping for one of those, well done! It’s your lucky day! Either way, it’s an entertaining review. If you’re already familiar with the Prince of Persia franchise (as any decent gamer should be), feel free to gloss, bleary-eyed, over the next two or so paragraphs, because what follows is a short history lesson. You’re welcome to stay for the entertaining read, though. It continues after the jump.
In 2005, you followed the antics of an endearing bunch of New York City zoo animals who journeyed from captivity from to the jungles of Madagascar. Now roll on the sequel, Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, where it is time for Alex the lion (voiced by Ben Stiller), Marty the zebra (Chris Rock), Melman the giraffe (David Schwimmer), and Gloria the hippo (Jada Pinkett Smith) to leave Madagascar and head back home to New York. The self-engrossed lemur King Julien XIII (Sacha Baron Cohen) and trusted advisor Maurice (Cedric the Entertainer) tag along as well. They’ll be flying aboard the rickety Air Penguin airline, where safety comes last. Piloted by always entertaining Skipper (Tom McGrath) and his fellow penguins, the airplane experiences trouble mid-flight, and crash-lands in the wilds of Africa.
More about the African safari after the jump.
The fourth and in all likelihood the final installment in the Indiana Jones franchise sees a 65-year-old, virtually indestructible, Harrison Ford still slugging it out with the bad guys 27 years after he first cracked his iconic whip on the silver screen.
To be honest I wasn’t holding out much hope for this film considering Ford’s age and the huge amount of time that has passed since the last Indi movie. However, I was pleasantly surprised to see that nothing changes in the alternate universe of Indiana Jones – he’s still a dead eye with his whip, ever ready with a sharp quip (that usually gets him a smack in the mouth from a bad guy), and devoted to hunting down the weirdest and most powerful artefacts in order to prevent the baddies getting their hands on them.