Rock Band 2’s getting a new instrument! Is it a wobble board? Is it a didgeridoo? No, it’s something secret that plugs into the expansion port of the new wireless drum kit. Rumours abound it could be a keyboard so if you truly want to embrace the eighties, keep it here to find out at a later date.
Buy Rock Band 2 now
New: Buy Rock Band 2 from Amazon.com
For one day only Amazon have slashed prices for the Guitar Hero World Tour Guitar Kit from $99.99 to $69.99 - if you were disappointed to find the Guitar Hero game wouldn’t run with your Rock Band controllers then this is the pack is the solution. The kit includes the wireless guitar, over 85 tracks to jam along to plus the option to download more online. Sadly no discount on the complete $200 band kit, but for less than $70 you’ll get a wireless guitar to strum along with tracks from Ozzy Osbourne, Metallica and Motorhead, something that is going to put a smile on a few fathers faces on Christmas day. Rock On.
If you’re in the US and have a good credit rating then Sony could have the deal of the year for you. Sign up for the Visa Playstation Credit Card and Sony will give you $150 cash rebate if you use your new card to buy a Playstation 3 from an authorized Sony seller before December 31st. This effectively means that you can buy an 80GB PlayStation 3 for under $250 or buy a PS3 160GB for $350. We’ve never seen a PS3 price this low and it really brings the Sony PS3 down to compete with the Nintendo Wii console and the rumoured $100 Xbox 360.
With such a great saving you can get some great PS3 games to go with your console this holiday season - Call of Duty: World at War for the dads, LittleBigPlanet for the kids, and the complete Guitar Hero World Tour to party with around the Christmas tree.
Buy PlayStation 3 now
New: Buy a PlayStation 3 from Amazon.com
If you’re a regular Gamesweasel downloader you’ll know by now I’m sick of World War II games. The last Call of Duty was a breath of fresh air and now it’s back to the 1940s with World at War. This is where it all began for Call of Duty when it took on Medal of Honor and won. So, does it offer anything new this time around? Well, yes and no.
The last game had a great single player experience and addictive multiplayer that gamers are still playing today in their thousands. So, the formula and gameplay’s not really changed, just the setting, which will really please World War II nuts (and I know there’s lots of you out there).
The Call of Duty World at War single player campaign concentrates on America’s battle with Japan and Russia’s push back into Nazi Germany. When playing, you switch back and forth between them to keep the variety up. Of course, the game’s full of fantastic set-pieces as you advance towards your enemy and there’s the weapons you’d expect to be holding, including a new flame thrower which is fun to use as you burn out troops from their bunkers. Keifer Sutherland also provides his best Jack Bauer shouty voice as he leads the American troops to victory, and they’ve upped the music with modern-day heavy metal when it all goes off with a bang.
You can now play the single player campaign in co-op mode. This worked fantastically with Gears of War and it works well here too. You can now provide covering fire whilst up to three buddies try to flank the enemy and get off a quick head shot. And, similar to Left 4 Dead which I’ll be reviewing next week, you have to revive each other when you take a mortal hit.
Play the game on Hardened mode and you’ll have a hard time, particularly as the game seems to respawn enemies at you until you advance. If you’re used to waiting behind cover for your team mates to fell the enemies you’ll be waiting a long time.
Multiplayer is as addictive as always. If you played Modern Warfare you can jump straight in. You gain perks as you earn points and this time, instead of calling in a helicopter after 7 kills, you send in a pack of dogs to maul your enemies and there’s no escaping indoors, they’ll follow you upstairs too! Once again there are plenty of game modes to suit every taste whether you want to work as a team or just run and gun as a lone soldier.
This latest Call of Duty is another complete package. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, so they haven’t. Although it won’t take you an age to finish the single player campaign, there’s more than enough replay value with co-op and multiplayer. Despite some dodgy accents and some unnecessary F-bombs from Mr Sutherland, Call of Duty: World at War gets 9 out of 10.
Here’s a new concept. Take the parkour element of Assassins Creed and make a first person run ‘em up set in a not-too-distant future where couriers now take important packages on foot over the rooftops, risking their necks in the process.
You play Mirrors Edge as Faith, one of these flighty people who have a head for heights. At the beginning of the game your policewoman sister is set up for her Dad’s friend’s murder and so you embark on a mission to find out who did it and clear your sister’s name. What this basically boils down to is you infiltrating a number of buildings via the rooftops, nicking something, then hightailing it out of there whilst lots of police chase you.
So how does the free running mechanic work? Well, to look and turn you use the standard FPS controls of the analogue sticks, then the L1 and L2 buttons to for high and low movements. Examples are jumping, vaulting and climbing, or sliding or dropping down. As you move about your urban climbing frame, red areas indicate where you should be going. If you get truly lost you can press the circle button and that literally points you in the right direction.
Although the game is mainly about running, you’ll sometimes have to fight so you can slow down time at the push of a button, or press the R2 button with any of the afore-mentioned buttons to flying kick, slide kick or punch enemies. You can even press the triangle button at the right time to disarm someone and steal their firearm.
And it’s not a bad looking game either. For once it’s not set at night and there’s a nice clean, crisp look to it that’s refreshing. I’m not too keen on the cut-scenes though, the strange animation technique looks like something from a cheap tampon advert.
When Mirror’s Edge works it’s genuinely fun. Running and vaulting away from the police as shots ring all around you is genuinely exciting. Unfortunately, it’s let down by its ambitious nature. Because it’s in first-person, it’s tricky to be precise at speed. When you’re not sure of your exact footing it’s easy to miss ledges and plummet to your doom over and over again. In fact it brought back memories of the original Tomb Raider which isn’t a good thing.
Luckily, the checkpoints are close together so you’re never thrown too far back into the level, except when you’re doing some of the chase scenes.
Mirror’s Edge is an interesting idea but it doesn’t quite hit the mark. Still, when it works it’s fun and it’s an original concept so because of that this free running game gets a good 6 out of 10.
There’s a couple of Spider-Man games I’ve really liked over the years. I enjoyed one way back on the PSOne which had a more linear gameplay style, then there was Neversoft’s one which was more free-roaming round a big city. You could choose which missions to do when in a sort of ‘Grand Theft Arachnid’.
Since then they’ve all been a bit samey and based round the movies which almost always never makes for a great game. Fortunately, this game’s not constrained by the likes of Sam Raimi’s last Spidey disaster movie and so has license to play around with the Marvel comic character and some of his mates and enemies.
The game begins with Web Head caught in a mammoth battle with the Symbiotes. The first thing you do is have a scrap with Venom and then you get swallowed up by the alien infestation. The game then flashes back to less hectic days as you help to rid New York of gang troubles and invading Kingpin armies.
At first glance it’s not good. Although the animations and look of this SpiderMan game is superb as he swings round the city - the city itself also looks great with reflections shining off the skyscrapers, the tutorial makes you think this is just more of the same. Well, it is and it isn’t as there’s a few new twists that make this really quite fun.
First of all is the ability to switch between your red and black suits at the click of the left stick. Both suits have slightly different attack styles and if you’re wearing the black Symbiote suit, you can even chuck cars at enemies. Something you’ll learn to do straight away when you fight Venom.
As you complete missions you gain EXP which can be used to upgrade air, wall and ground moves. There are also some moral choices to make in the game depending on if you feel like a good or a bad Spider-Man. These choices shape the way the game plays and the eventual ending.
As usual with a game that can go topsy-turvy at times, the camera can sometimes flip out and the game can be a bit too easy. Our old friend rechargeable health appears once again so it’s possible to swing out of the way for a bit if things get too tricky. Another negative is the repetitive nature of some of the missions. Although they’re varied in themselves, sometimes you feel like the mission should end way before it does - one example being having to string together 22 attacks to kill 22 snipers in a massive combo, then having to do it all over again when a second wave turns up.
Although it won’t win any awards for originality, Spidey’s latest adventure is fun, slick and won’t disappoint fans of the tight-trousered teenager - if you like Marvel games then you might want to check out our Iron Man review too. The Spiderman Web of Shadows game gets a good 6 out of 10.
