This week on the Gamesweasel video podcast we talk about:-

• Mushroom Men The Spore Wars review
• The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena
• Wheelman for the Playstation 3
• Sonic and the Black Knight review
• Ray Parker Jr interview

We have 5 copies of Wheelman for the Playstation 3 to give away by 13 April 2009, full details of how to enter can be found on our competitions page. Thanks for the emails, keep them coming in to gamesweasel@mevio.com. Be sure to visit the Gamesweasel blog for articles on Ceville review, Wii Firmware 4.0 update, Rune Factory review and EA Grand Slam Tennis. You can also stream Gamesweasel episode 092 direct to your desktop, and watch the Mushroom Men The Spore Wars review and the Sonic and the Black Knight review on Youtube.

If you like any of the games we have reviewed in this episode you can buy from the Sonic and the Black Knight Amazon and Mushroom Men The Spore Wars Amazon pages.

This weeks episode of Gamesweasel is brought to you in association with GoDaddy and offers you discounts on hosting and domain names. Use one of the following Gamesweasel April 2009 GoDaddy coupon codes to save you money – weasel1 gets you 10% off domain name purchases and weasel2 gets you 20% off orders over $50 or £25. Some restrictions may apply, please see the GoDaddy web site for more details.

[STREAM] | [DOWNLOAD MP4] | [VIDEO PODCAST RSS FEED] | [SUBSCRIBE IN ITUNES]

This week on the Gamesweasel gaming mp3 podcast we talk about:-

• Mushroom Men The Spore Wars
• The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena
• Wheelman for the Playstation 3
• Sonic and the Black Knight

We have 5 copies of Wheelman for the Playstation 3 to give away by 13 April 2009, full details of how to enter can be found on our competitions page. Thanks for the emails, keep them coming in to gamesweasel@mevio.com. Be sure to visit the Gamesweasel blog for articles on Ceville review, Wii Firmware 4.0 update, Rune Factory review and EA Grand Slam Tennis.Want to see the games we’ve been talking about? Check out the Mushroom Men The Spore Wars screenshots and Sonic and the Black Knight screenshots on our Flickr feed. You can also watch Gamesweasel TV episode 092 direct to your desktop, plus watch the Sonic and the Black Knight review and the Mushroom Men The Spore Wars review on Youtube.

We’ve compiled links to all the games reviewed in this episode so you can buy from the Mushroom Men The Spore Wars Amazon and Sonic and the Black Knight Amazon pages.

This weeks episode of Gamesweasel is brought to you in association with GoDaddy and offers you discounts on hosting and domain names. Use one of the following Gamesweasel GoDaddy coupon codes April 2009 to save you money – weasel1 gets you 10% off domain name purchases and weasel2 gets you 20% off orders over $50 or £25. Some restrictions may apply, please see the GoDaddy web site for more details.

[DOWNLOAD MP3] | [AUDIO PODCAST RSS FEED] | [SUBSCRIBE IN ITUNES]

This week on the PSP RSS Channel we talk about:-

• Review of Mushroom Men The Spore Wars
• Preview of The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena
• Wheelman for the Playstation 3
• Review of Sonic and the Black Knight

We have 5 copies of Wheelman for the Playstation 3 to give away by 13 April 2009, full details of how to enter can be found on our competitions page. Thanks for the emails, keep them coming in to gamesweasel@mevio.com. Be sure to visit the Gamesweasel blog for articles on Ceville review, Wii Firmware 4.0 update, Rune Factory review and EA Grand Slam Tennis. To get hold of any of the games reviewed in this episode you can buy from the Mushroom Men The Spore Wars Amazon and Sonic and the Black Knight Amazon pages.

This show is made especially to be added to your psp rss channels videos – see our PSP videos page for full instructions on how to get the mp4 automatically to your PSP. You can also watch the Youtube Mushroom Men The Spore Wars review and Youtube Sonic and the Black Knight review videos, as well as streaming episode 092 of Gamesweasel direct to your desktop.

This weeks episode of Gamesweasel is brought to you in association with GoDaddy and offers you discounts on hosting and domain names. Use one of the following Gamesweasel GoDaddy coupon codes for April 2009 to save you money – weasel1 gets you 10% off domain name purchases and weasel2 gets you 20% off orders over $50 or £25. Some restrictions may apply, please see the GoDaddy web site for more details.

[STREAM] | [DOWNLOAD MP4] | [PSP RSS FEED]

YouTube Sonic and the Black Knight review

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Sonic games seem to be two-a-penny these days (Sonic Unleashed and Sonic Chronicles The Dark Brotherhood) and Sonic and the Black Knight is Sega’s latest attempt at actually making a good Sonic game in 3D. This time he gets summoned to the world of King Arthur who looks a lot meaner than he ever was in any stories I’ve ever heard. Equipped with a sword that bounces up and down and talks to you, you’re off to defeat Arthur, running into other enemies such as Lancelot who are actually other Sonic characters Shadow, Knuckles and Amy with armour on. Tails also appears in there as a Blacksmith when you’re sorting out your weapons.

When it comes to gameplay it’s a return to running through a level that’s a sort of rollercoaster. It’s almost on rails as you plunge into the screen, letting you move slightly to the left and the right to avoid obstacles and pick up items and fairies of all things.

Of course, having a sword, you also get to swing it by swinging the Wiimote when you encounter enemies. You can also perform rush moves where attacks are stringed together as you lock onto enemies and smash through them one-by-one. Occasionally the running will stop and you’ll have to fight bosses. You either fight them directly using a combination of blocks and sword swings, or have to defeat them using quick time events.

Once again, my problem is the game almost plays itself at the beginning of the game and then becomes almost impossible later on as you have to dodge all sorts of perils coming at you at a ridiculous speed and of course if you’re not holding any rings, you’re dead!

When it comes to presentation, it’s obvious they’ve put some proper care and attention into the visuals. The environments look great, if a little samey, and the opening cut-scene looks fantastic – it’s a pity the story is then explained using story book graphics that jar with the first cut-scene you see but you soon get used to the visual style and accept it.

Sonic fans will probably enjoy this and whilst I wanted to hate it, I actually found this game had some charm that made me forgive some of its uninspired gameplay. Sonic and the Black Knight gets an average 5 out of 10.

Get Sonic and the Black Knight now
New: Buy Sonic and the Black Knight from Amazon.com
New: Buy Sonic and the Black Knight from Buy.com
Preowned: Sonic and the Black Knight – Pre-Played from Gamefly.com
Rental: Rent Sonic and the Black Knight – free rental trial from Gamefly.com

Related: Sonic Unleashed, Sonic Chronicles The Dark Brotherhood , Youtube Sonic and the Black Knight review

Tags: Sonic and the Black Knight, Sonic, Black Knight, Sega, Wii

YouTube Mushroom Men The Spore Wars review

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Gamecock and SouthPeak Interactive aren’t the big guns when it comes to software publishers but with Mushroom Men: The Spore Wars, they’ve let Redfly Studio create the action platformer, the same guys who are making the Wii version of the new Ghostbusters video game. In this pleasant little platformer you play as Pax, a sentient mushroom who is the last one left of his tribe. When a meteor crash-landed on Earth, spores turned into mushroom men and these split into groups and decided to fight. Your tribe got wiped out and now you must explore and fight your way across the land to find your place amongst the other funghi.

The first thing you’ll notice is how well it’s presented. The intro has a B-movie feel to it and although they don’t speak, the characters all have distinct personalities. The locations are also ingenious, using everyday objects you’d see around the house and the garden, scaled up to be used as platforms, bridges and obstacles.

Gameplay is a bit more formulaic however. You use the analogue stick on the Nunchuck to walk and the Wiimote to hit things. You can also scavenge for items that you can combine to make better weapons, be it melee weapons or ranged items. Unfortunately, each successive weapon you make is more powerful than the last so there’s no incentive to chop and change. Some selective weapon changes for certain enemies would have been a nice touch. You can also use your little mushroom mind to move objects that are in your way, and collect spores round the environment to give you more power.

When it comes to difficulty, Red Fly have gone for a re-spawning system similar to Bioshock. If you die you’ll be sent back a bit in a level but everything will still be how it was when you died – luckily, they’ve provided incentives for beating a boss without dying which should stop gamers just ploughing into them until they’re defeated no matter how many times they die.

Mushroom Men is a fun distraction but it’s let down by really standard platforming gameplay. It’s sure to appeal to younger gamers but unfortunately, won’t have the same appeal for adults. Mushroom Men gets 6 out of 10.

Get Mushroom Men The Spore Wars now
New: Buy Mushroom Men The Spore Wars from Amazon.com
New: Buy Mushroom Men The Spore Wars from Buy.com
Preowned: Mushroom Men: Spore Wars – Pre-Played from Gamefly.com
Rental: Rent Mushroom Men The Spore Wars – free rental trial from Gamefly.com

Related: Music of The Mushroom Men documentary, Donkey Kong Country for the Wii, Youtube Mushroom Men The Spore Wars review

Tags: Mushroom Men The Spore Wars, Mushroom Men, The Spore Wars, Wii, Mushroom Men The Spore Wars review

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Point and click adventures are like unpaid tax demands; years go by without any and then three come along all at once. So after my recent reviews of Evil Under the Sun and Sam and Max I wasn’t thrilled about having a third long adventure to play through but let’s find out if my apprehension was justified or not in my review of Ceville for PC.

Ceville is a mouse driven point and click adventure set in a fairytale land called Faeryanis. You take control of a rather short dictator named Ceville who is a bit reminiscent of Lord Farquar from the movie Shrek (but much nastier). It just so happens that your evil assistant Basilius has coaxed the citizens of Faeryanis to revolt against you and your Napoleonic rule so that he can become King. There is no choice but to escape to safety before the baying mob throw Ceville into jail, or worse tear him apart limb from limb. But there’s a snag. Just before Ceville manages to escape via a secret tunnel in the castle dungeon, fearless hero Ambrosius ends up capturing him accidently after falling down a nearby watering well. Having been a diehard Monkey Island fan when I was a kid there’s no way I could resist a storyline like this so let’s delve into our review of Ceville for PC and see how it actually plays. Well really well is the short answer. The long answer is that Ceville instantly captures your attention with its bright colours, gorgeously created 3D world and catchy background music. From the very first scene the humorous voice acting stands out making your ears pricks up inviting you to listen closer. As with nearly all other point and click games Ceville is all about scouring the environment looking for items to pick up, puzzles to solve, objects to interact with and people to talk to. More often than not though you’ll find it’s a healthy mixture of all four at once to tax your brain. Don’t go thinking it’s all a solo effort, shortly after Ceville is captured you encounter a young girl named Lilly who decides to help you out on your quest. There are many puzzles that require the cooperation of Ceville and Lilly to complete so it’s not a surprise to say that for most of the game you’ll be controlling them both. At certain moment’s they’ll separate so that you can use the skills of both individually; a perfect example of this is a scene where Lilly must direct a dancer towards a trapdoor using a spotlight, Ceville is waiting in the wings to pull the lever to open the trapdoor and make her fall through on her behind.

Faeryanis itself is a huge place with many areas for Ceville to explore such as an Elven Forrest, the Dwarf Mountains and even a Spooky Graveyard amongst other interesting locations each with their own new characters to talk to, or in Ceville’s case; be sarcastic to. Every area is very nicely presented with lots of background detail and you’ll need to visit most locations more than once to complete every puzzle they hold. When you get stuck you’ll no doubt be looking around each area trying to see what or who you’ve missed, this can get a little frustrating at times and makes you want to search on the internet for a tip or two (yes I admit it I had to get help once or twice myself). However this isn’t unique to Ceville as it’s actually a trademark of all PAC adventure games and will likely be that way for many years to come. If you don’t like frustrating moments of wondering what the hell you should be doing then Ceville isn’t for you. However if you can cope with the hair tearing moments then Ceville and it’s huge colourful world full of entertaining characters will put a smile on your face for at least 20 hours (maybe more), I wouldn’t say there is much replay value but at least without any hideous DRM restrictions (yes EA I’m looking at you) it means you can pass the game to a friend when you’re finished with it and let someone else enjoy the wonder of Ceville.

Before I sum up I should mention that my initial experience with Ceville was clouded by some technical issues with conflicting audio and random lock ups; however a trip to the official Ceville website saw me come away with a fresh patch which fixed all of the issues and thankfully allowed me to continue playing. If you purchase Ceville on disc then I recommend downloading and installing the patch before you play, Steam users should have the patch installed automatically as usual. What impresses me most Ceville is the quality of the script and the voice acting itself; Ceville really does buck the trend of many a game where a character’s voice sounds totally out of place and not how you think they should sound. I laughed my socks off whilst after hearing references to Half Life, kids cartoon He-Man, online role playing game Runescape and even a bitter tirade against search engine Google. Finally we have a game that rivals the observational comedy of TV shows like The Simpsons or Family Guy. Ceville’s graphics are very impressive, lovingly created down to the finest pretty detail with superb animation (well maybe not the lip-syncing) and plenty of variation. Ceville is without doubt the best looking point and click adventure game I’ve ever seen and because it’s not an action game needing to display hundreds of enemies at once, it should look fine on older PC’s too. Yes you’ll get stuck and tear your hair out but I can’t not award Ceville a stunning 8 out of 10 because it’s absolutely terrific.

Related: Evil Under the Sun, Sam and Max

Tags: Ceville, Ceville, Point and Click, Shrek, PC