Last years Expo was a pretty awesome gig and we definitely think EuroGamer have started something special here. 2012 is going to be a big year for new announcements so we are expecting great things from this years Expo, so get your tickets now and we’ll see you there!

What follows is a comparison of how the digital versions of release-day Vita games compare to prices from around the internet.

Everybody’s Golf (£29.99/€34.99) (£27.95 on Zavvi)

Little Deviants Trial & Unlock (£19.99/€24.99) (£17.99 on Amazon)

Modnation Racers: Road Trip (£29.99/€34.99) (£27.99 on Zavvi)

Reality Fighters (£19.99/€24.99) (£17.99 on Amazon)

Uncharted: Golden Abyss (£39.99/€44.99) (£34.99 on Zavvi)

Wipeout 2048 + Network pass (£29.99/€34.99) (£27.97 on Coolshop)

Army Corps Of Hell (£34.99/€39.99) (£18.75 on Sendit)

Virtua Tennis 4 – World Tour Edition (£34.99/€39.99) (£24.85 on ShopTo)

Asphalt: Injection (£19.99/€24.99) (£17.99 on Amazon)

Lumines Electronic Symphony (£29.99/€34.99) (£22.97 on CoolShop)

Rayman Origins (£29.99/€34.99) (£23.98 on CoolShop)

EA Sports FIFA Football (£44.99/€49.99) (£34.95 on Zavvi)

Shinobido 2 (£34.99/€39.99) (£24.95 on The Hut)

Touch My Katamari (£24.99/€29.99) (£19.95 on The Hut)

Blazblue Continuum Shift Extend (£34.99/€39.99) (£25.85 on ShopTo and Limited Edition is £32.95 on The Hut)

Michael Jackson The Experience HD (£24.99/€19.99) (£17.99 on Amazon)

Ultimate Marvel Vs Capcom 3 (£39.99/€44.99) (£29.95 on Zavvi)

Dynasty Warriors Next (£29.99/€34.99) (£27.97 on CoolShop)

Ninja Gaiden Sigma Plus (£29.99/€34.99) (£28.99 on Base)

Ridge Racer (£16.99/€19.99) (£14.95 on Zavvi)

Dungeon Hunter: Alliance (£29.99/€34.99) (£29.95 on The Hut)

F1 2011 (£44.99/€49.99) (£24.95 on The Hut)

This shows that the average cost of buying digitally is £6.04 more expensive than buying the retail version. Special mention goes to  F1 2011 for being £20.04 more expensive to download than if you bought it online.

This week on The Lonely Wizards podcast…

The Wizards talk about brown shoe polish, camp drama teachers, and games!

Gears of War 3 “Forces of Nature” DLC

Call of Duty on PS Vita

Activision making TMNT game

Guild Wars 2 coming to consoles

SCP 087

Download for Windows

Download for Mac

Episode38

iTunes Link

This week on The Lonely Wizards podcast…

It’s Valentine’s Day and the Wizards prepare to have a romantic meal where the food is words and instead of eating they are speaking… It’s a very poor analogy.

Double Fine Kickstarter Point and Click

Notch Funding Psychonauts 2?

Nextbox Controller Rumours

No Vita Passport in the US

No Rocksteady TMNT Game

iPad 3 Soon

Bethesda’s Week of Fun (Skyrim mods)

Super Meat Boy goes mobile! (and may possibly not be shitty!)

Episode37

iTunes Link

This week on The Lonely Wizards podcast…

What a beautiful fuckin’ day to talk about Ryan Gosling.

Episode36.mp3

iTunes Link

Enjoy!

TLW: Episode Thirty Five

This week on The Lonely Wizards podcast…

We start by talking about Darrell’s inevitable disgusting autopsy and things only get worse from there.

Chats:

Woman with two vaginas offered $1m to make porn film.

Games:

Please bear with us while we go through some cosmetic changes. We know our site looks FUCKING AWFUL at the moment but we will be fixing this shortly. In the meantime enjoy making your eyes bleed with these yellow and purple squares!

Love from Adam and Darrell

x

TLW: Episode Thirty Four

This week on The Lonely Wizards podcast…

A complete revamp this week as we are now officially a podcast all about cats!

TLW: Episode Thirty Three

This week on The Lonely Wizards podcast…

The wizards return for a look back at 2011 and discuss their games of the year, ideas for a Twilight game and as usual – death and mortality.

TLW: Episode Thirty Two

This week on The Lonely Wizards podcast…

It’s a three-dog night so hollow out those cat slippers and cozy up by the fire with this weeks podcast.

Links:

• All Skyrim books for kindle (or kindle app) - (http://capane.us/downloads/Books-of-Skyrim.mobi)
• Dragon Shout app  http://t.co/Si3JlHpt
• PSP/Vita game transfers (http://www.gamepolitics.com/2011/11/11/playstation-vita-umd-039transfer039-pricing-revealed-japan)
• 3DS outsells DS (http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2011/11/11/3ds-outpacing-ds-sales-in-the-first-year.aspx)

It’s been a while since I’ve posted a blog and I’m guessing this is going to be a lengthy one, so if I were you I’d  pop the kettle on and make yourself a tea or any hot/cold beverage of your choosing… That’s obviously if you are thirsty, you may indeed be peckish, so perhaps a small snack would be suitable? Crisps, nuts, apples, etc.

I’ll just let you grab your chosen mouth stuffing and wait right here for you…

Right. Ready? Let’s do this.

The beginning of November saw me heading off on a family holiday (first one in about ten years!) to Centre Parcs. I’d been looking forward to it as a chance to get some proper training in before the Guts and Glory race which was on the 20th. I had been slowly improving my 5k speed but still hadn’t beat my goal of 5k in 30 minutes. I needed some inspiration, I needed Nathan Skipper.

My younger brother has lost over 5 stone since January and currently has the Skipper record of running 5k in 25:28! I am proud of him and am continually impressed by his determination and will power, which has always been my downfall. This was proven yet again when we ran together and he set the pace. I was struggling from the start and had to stop a few times, much to my own disappointment, but I just couldn’t keep up with his pace! I failed to beat my time or even my personal best, but the week still served as a good kick up the arse, as we were active pretty much all day every day, with swimming, badminton, cycling and running.

And then it happened.

Skyrim.

72 hours. So far I have spent 72 hours in the world of Skyrim. My first session was late on the Sunday night I returned from holiday. I was up playing quite late but knew I had the whole week ahead of me off as well, so I would have plenty of time to play and decided to hit the hay.

Somehow I was able to resist the game the following morning long enough to get myself out and running for my Monday session but I swear as I shut my door behind me I heard my Xbox yell “DOVAKHIN!! Get back here and play!” but I ignored the shouts… And I ran.

The Monday session wasn’t great but Wednesday proved to be a great improvement as I smashed my PB and finished in 32:08. Every run that week was fueled by me wanting to hurry back and play Skyrim!

The training would prove insufficient though. The Guts and Glory race was absolutely brutal. As you can see in the pictures below, I look destroyed in comparison to the other members of Team Skipper!

Guts and Glory 5k November 2011

The race started well enough and we managed to pass quite a few people on the hill running sections, but it was when we hit the mud where it got tricky. Several waist deep mud swamps followed by steep, short hills made for a real tough time for my thighs! I got stuck on one slope and just couldn’t get any purchase as my trainers were literal mud stumps. I had to claw with my fingernails, I was on my hands and knees, crawling and fighting and was then pulled up by my team mates at the end. There were several moments like this but I kept ploughing forward. Past the group of women with fairy wings, past the little chubby boy and his mum.. And pass the lone fat man, who was walking, defeated.

We finished the race under the average finishing time (there were 276 runners) with my Dad and my brother 166th and 167th respectively with the same time of 1 hour 5 minutes and 45 seconds and me trailing behind at 185th with a time of 1 hour 6 minutes and 53 seconds. To be honest I was just glad I made it to the finish line!

It was a shock to my system and I immediately wanted to get back to training so I could perform better in the next obstacle/adventure run that we tackle. My last few runs have been great and I have a new lease of life and more motivation and determination than ever before. This week I have beat my personal best twice, with the current time standing at 31:27. My aim is to hit 31 by the end of this week and then get under 30 the week after.

I have found that having a really specific goal is the best way to get results and keep yourself wanting to train more. It’s probably the best  piece of advice I’ve had and I would pass on to anyone wanting to achieve something in their life. Be specific and be realistic with your goals. You know how much you are capable of and you have to be 100% honest with yourself at all times. That’s not to say you can’t have an overall aim, but just don’t focus on that for now, just take things one step at a time. Don’t be ashamed of however small your goal is. Running 5k in 30 minutes is by no means an impressive feat of athleticism, but I know myself and I know that a year ago that would be a near impossibility for me and the fact that I get closer with every run keeps me going.

I am now aware that I have rambled on for quite some time so I shall leave it there and will report back once I hit my 30 minute 5k run! (also, it’s late and I haven’t even played Skyrim today!)

If you’ve not had enough personal fitness stories for one day, then I will refer you to my padre’s blog  – theurbanspartan.wordpress.com

Good night all!

AROO!

TLW: Episode Thirty One

This week on The Lonely Wizards podcast…

Some light-hearted chat about religion, movie news direct from our man in tinsel-town and a run down of Novembers biggest gaming releases.

Links:

• November releases (http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/gaming/news/a348066/10-biggest-gaming-releases-for-november.html)
• Rainbow Six Patriots  (http://t.co/RTi3SfPh)
• “Even an eight year old draws my eyes.”(guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/)
• GTA V Trailer (http://www.joystiq.com/2011/11/03/yes-grand-theft-auto-v-is-set-in-los-santos-and-will-have-multi/)
• Alan Wake spin-off (http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-11-04-alan-wakes-night-springs-coming-to-xbla-news)
• MW3′s “no Russian” (http://www.destructoid.com/modern-warfare-3-has-own-no-russian-with-little-girl-215183.phtml)
• iPad 3 / iPhone 5 in 2012 (http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-11-03-ipad-3-and-iphone-5-to-be-released-2012-report)

This week on The Lonely Wizards podcast…

A Halloween Spooktacular this week as Adam and Darrell share ghost stories over the campfire…

Links:

• Pygg, an Australian service that enables users to transfer money to each other through Twitter, has launched. – (http://www.finextra.com/news/fullstory.aspx?newsitemid=23094)
• Adolf Hitler lives on – (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-10891733 )

• What number are you in the world? – (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-15391515)

• Indie Royale –  (http://www.indieroyale.com)

This week on The Lonely Wizards podcast…

Eyes, tiger genocide,  Batman and one really offensive joke that was meant to be edited out. See if you can spot it – Answers on a postcard!

Links:

• - PokeWOW (http://www.joystiq.com/2011/10/21/wow-mists-of-pandaria-will-introduce-pokemon-like-pet-battle-sy/)
• - Pandas playable in WOW (http://www.wowwiki.com/Pandaren)
• - Diablo 3 FO FREE (http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/38043/BlizzCon_2011_Diablo_III_Free_To_World_Of_Warcraft_Annual_Pass_Subscribers.php)
• - Battlefields 3 grants Mass Effect 3 beta (http://thegamefanatics.com/buying-battlefield-3-mass-effect-3-beta/)
• - Next Box in 2013? (http://www.develop-online.net/news/38917/Sources-point-to-2013-launch-for-Xbox-Next)

Rusty wenches, embalming pensioners and games…

Links:

- Online pass needed to unlock single player content in Batman (http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-10-13-batman-online-pass-unlocks-catwoman)

This week on The Lonely Wizards podcast…

Eggs. Cats. Rape.  Alright?

Links:

- DICE says that Customers “don’t understand” betas (http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-10-07-dice-explains-battlefield-3-beta-decisions)

This episode has a tiger on it.

LINKS:

-  I Am Alive being released for XBLA and PSN this winter

The Wizards talk about their time at the Eurogamer Expo in Earl’s Court!

Links:

Eurogamer Expo

OnLive

We’ll be recording a podcast on Monday to talk about the days events and we’ll also give our thoughts on the biggest game of the year so far; Gears of War 3 , which we’ve been playing pretty much non-stop for the past 48 hours.

Right now though, I have to put on my space invader pants, slip my noseplugs up my nostrils and then make my way to Earl’s Court to fight the horde of nerds for a quick go on all those shiny new games!

Filed under: EurogamerExpo Tagged: earls court eurogamer, earls court expo, eurogamer expo 2011, nerdfest ]]> http://thelonelywizards.com/2011/09/22/live-from-the-eurogamer-expo/feed/ 0 TLWatEGXP digbycaesar http://thelonelywizards.com/2011/09/14/tlw-episode-twenty-four/ http://thelonelywizards.com/2011/09/14/tlw-episode-twenty-four/#comments Wed, 14 Sep 2011 17:40:51 +0000 Darrell Skipper http://thelonelywizards.com/?p=1009 ]]> TLW: Episode Twenty Four

The Wizards are back! It’s a comeback extravaganza this week as we, well, pretty much just have a nice little chat and then talk about games! So nothing has changed, it’s like we never left!

Topics this week include motivational techniques for keeping fit, Gordon Ramsay dwarf, the Famous Fraggin’ Four, the build up to the Eurogamer Expo, Minecraft 1.8, games, games and more games!

LINKS:

- 20 glorious minutes of Skyrim gameplay footage ( Skyrim 20 minutes gameplay (http://www.gamesradar.com/20-minutes-superb-elder-scrolls-v-skyrim-right-here-people/)

No word of a lie, that above quote was what I found when I opened up the last draft of this blog that I wrote about 3 weeks ago. I think it proves my point perfectly, doesn’t it? I’m never really good at finishing what I start.

Despite this, I have actually surprised myself by keeping up with the weekly runs since the last time I blogged and have constantly managed to fit in at least 3 runs a week. I started to lose motivation last week and really felt myself getting bored with running, but after choosing a brand new route and downloading some new music I was ready to run again. Sort of.

The first run went ok, but I’m still struggling with keeping myself motivated as I run. I’ve read countless things on keeping yourself motivated and it basically all boils down to ignoring the little man in your head who’s telling you to stop. The voice is telling me it’s too hard and I’m too tired. He’s telling me “At least you’re out running a little bit, it doesn’t matter how fast or for how long, it’s better than nothing, right buddy?” and I try to fight against him but he’s arguments are always smarter than mine!

“Why are you out here running for? You don’t need to lose weight, it’s not as if you have women to impress? You have a lovely girlfriend who loves you for who you are. She likes you being snuggly. You’re her big cuddly bear.” He says. I try to argue with him and explain that she’s probably just being nice because she loves me. I’m not an idiot, I know she would like me slimmer and more attractive, who doesn’t want their partner to look their best?

Then he pipes up with “Man, you’re so vain. Since when have your looks got you anywhere anyway? It’s personality that counts and you know for a fact the slimmer you get, the less funny you get. It’s been proven.” I’m inclined to agree with him, as it does seem to be that way. Exercise and watching what you eat certainly makes you feel boring. “That’s right”  he says, nodding his head and grinning at me. I look at him and tell him that can’t be true, I’m just the same no matter what weight I am, in fact I’m happier when I’m slimmer and far less likely to be grumpy and a lot more amiable.

He sneers at me and spits on the floor.

I gain some confidence and begin my own argument; I say to him that surely the most precious thing we have is our health, and by getting fit I’m improving my chances of living a long and happy life, I get to spend more time with the people I love and grow old.

He silently watches me then begins laughing out loud, right in my face. “You really think that’s the meaning of life? To grow old? Sure, you get to live longer and you get to spend more time with the people you love… But you also get to stick around and see them die. One by one. You only lose things as you get older, why the hell would you want to stick around for that? You want to die at age 52, face down in an apple crumble, that’s the way to go.”

He’s mental.

….

Is he?

….

Am I?

….

You probably think so, by now. But this is what goes on in my head EVERY TIME I RUN.

I think sometimes I’m too smart to argue with myself. Which is possibly the dumbest thing I’ve ever said, but I’m still going to leave that sentence in.  Fuck it.

Next run: Wednesday 14^th September.

Wish me luck.

My soul feels drained of life, I feel undernourished and I just don’t feel like myself any more… I haven’t touched any “real” games in a week… This is not good.

I’ve managed to squeeze in a couple of games of Street Fighter: Volt on my iPhone, but it’s not enough. I did manage to get as far as booting up Steam once, in an effort to continue my reign of terror in Civ 5 and finally crush the French under my English boots, but then I got distracted by something else… Something that surely couldn’t have been more important than bringing the English nation into yet another Golden Age, could it?…

Oh yes, that’s right… the real English nation was collapsing in on itself.

Despite the riots going on around me, I still managed to remain on track with the running, with 3 more runs under my slightly looser belt! A little self-centred, I know, but you came here to read about a diet, not a riot. The “diet”, if you can call it that, is going well. I’m remaining under my calories for the week, despite slipping up a couple of days, and I’m feeling much more energised and much less hungry. I’ve even received a few comments this week about looking a little slimmer, although I can’t let these go to my slightly-less-fat head and get complacent, there’s still a long road ahead.

My current goal with regards to the running is to be able to run 5k in under 30 minutes. It’s not a massively difficult task for most people, but I’m still looking forward to the day I achieve it and will be proud of myself when I get there. In order to step up my training I’ve mapped out a 5k route for my run, as I was previously only covering about 3k whilst doing the Couch to 5k runs. I want to cover 5k with every run I do from now until I reach my goal, even though I may not run all of it, I want my body to know the distance and doing the same route will allow me to keep track of my progress, as opposed to just blindly running down whichever street looks like it goes down-hill…. In fact, I’ve deliberately made my course difficult in some places, with one killer hill near the end that I can’t even get halfway up at the moment!

The week ahead will present some different challenges for me, as I’m taking on quite a bit of overtime at work. I’m doing a couple of 13 hour shifts and a couple of 8 hour shifts, which turn to 16 hours and 11 hours with the 3 hour round-trip commute I have to take, meaning there will be very little time in my day for exercise, let alone gaming. I really can’t see myself picking up a control-pad until at least Friday, when I am doing a slightly shorter day…  This sucks.

Gaming provides a kind of mental stimulation you really can’t get anywhere else and allows you to truly escape for a few hours. Not that I’m saying I hate my life or anything, but I think we all need a break sometimes and games, for me, provide escapism in the most purest sense. Well, not as much as heroin would, I imagine, but it’s still pretty satisfying.   Films, for example, allow you to escape and to see a new world and perhaps a new point of view. You learn about new characters as they unravel in front of you and bare their soul.  With games, however, they allow you to step into a world and actually participate and change the world around you. You lend a part of yourself to every game you play and invest much more than you do whilst watching a film. You not only learn about new characters and points-of-view, you can sometimes learn things about yourself, about how you would react in certain situations that you would never usually come across in day-to-day life.  I need these experiences in my life. I crave the stimulation you get from playing a game and I’m going to miss out for yet another week…

My exercise will not suffer though, because I must keep my short-term priorities in check and continue to run. I am determined to stick to my Monday, Wednesday and Friday runs this week. It is Week 5 of the program and it looks like it’s going to step up the pace in a big way and I need to be 100% focused. I must force myself to get proper sleep each night and eat well and not get lazy with meals. I’m already failing at the sleeping part tonight as I’m staying up later to type this bullshit up. But I must not let any excuses creep into my mind, no matter how easy it’ll be next week, when I’m spending an ungodly amount of time dealing with angry customers and staring at a computer screen…

There is one advantage to all these hours at work – my food intake. I tend to not really think about food much at work, not as much as when I’m at home with a full cupboard and a full fridge to tempt me…  I also find that I can pack quite a healthy lunch and plan all my meals before I set out, meaning I’m less likely to impulse buy a 6 pack of Cornish pasties and ram them down my throat… Plus I’m broke anyway, so it’s packed lunches all the way this week! Wahey!

Wish me luck for the week ahead, readers, and I shall return next week, when I will be stronger, faster and fitter in body but probably malnourished and broken in mind…

Whenever someone makes an ignorant comment disregarding “gamers” and assuming that they are simply fat losers who just sit in their bedroom of their parents’ house, not socialising and playing games for hours on end, I always want to stand up and argue with them that “gamers” have changed and evolved and aren’t anything like their warped mind thinks we are. Firstly, nearly everyone, in some form or another is a so-called “gamer” – Smartphones, Facebook games and the Wii have given the masses a chance to join in the fun without jumping in at the deep end. Gamers come in all shapes and sizes, many of them intelligent and a lot healthier and fitter than non-gamers, in fact.

However, whenever I want to stand up and defend us gamers I stumble at the first hurdle… Literally. I struggle to stand from my sweat-drenched office chair and if I do manage it, I’m so out of breath and exhausted by the effort required to haul my meat-sack off my arse I am more likely to vomit bacon-flavoured bile over them than I am to spew an intelligent argument in their stupid faces.

I may be exaggerating my weight issues a little for dramatic effect, but I’m a pretty hefty fella, and I have to admit that it’s partly down to gaming that I ended up this way. Years of gawping at a flickering screen, playing through nearly two decades worth of games and experiencing instant gratification for performing meaningless in-game tasks meant I was trained to expect fast results for minimal effort and therefore saw exercise as mostly gruelling and unrewarding.

It’s a tough admission to make, because I love games and I do know people who manage to live a healthy lifestyle and still manage to be hardcore gamers. Unfortunately I’m not one of them.

I’m going to change that.

As some of you may have heard on The Lonely Wizards podcast, I’ve been having problems with internet getting installed in my new flat, meaning my Xbox has been unplugged for about a month now and apart from a couple of very short sessions of Backbreaker: Vengeance, I’ve not really played it at all. As you can imagine this has thrown my whole routine off and caused me to look elsewhere to fill the void. I’ve started exercising… again. I say again because every so often I think to myself “enough is enough… I really need to start losing weight” and then for a few weeks I start to work out, count calories and try to get healthier… Needless to say, it always fails, but this time seems different.

I’ve started the couch to 5k program, which I would recommend to anyone looking to start running on a regular basis, because it’s a very clever system with an easy difficulty curve and it does actually work. I won’t go into much detail, but I wanted to talk about why this program works for me, as a gamer. The program starts you off very slowly and for the first week you only actually run for about 9 minutes per session, which doesn’t sound like a lot, but when you’re new to running it’s just enough to make you feel like you’ve accomplished something and the app that I use really makes you feel like you’ve achieved something too. The program builds up over a period of 6 weeks until you are running for 30 minutes straight, with no break. My eventual goal is to be able to cover 5k in 30 minutes, which I’m hoping to achieve by the end of September.

Along with this there are now a multitude of apps and websites that can help you keep track of your fitness goals using just your smartphone. This really helps appeal to my nerdy side and also my insecure side that needs constant reassurance that I’m doing well at something and to keep doing it. My favourite of these apps is the Runkeeper app, which uses GPS to keep track of you as you run and if you choose to, posts it to Facebook after every run. I’m very aware that I probably annoy the majority of my Facebook friends with my constant running updates, but for me I like to put everything out there for judgement. It keeps me on my toes and it makes me want to succeed and do well. If I start to slip I hope to receive a barrage of comments and insults to get my arse back into gear.

Another fantastic app is a calorie counter from MyFitnessPal.com. You can access it via the website, but it works much better on the go and you can also scan barcodes to add items using your smartphones built-in camera. When you first sign up you enter your weight and then a target weight and it calculates how many calories you should be eating to achieve this. You can also add exercise to this but I found this to be a bit inaccurate, so I just use it for food and any calories burnt during exercise is a bonus!

There are a couple of other exercise-specific apps that are for push-ups and one for ab workouts that I also found pretty helpful. Both of them pretty straight-forward really…

100 Push-ups

Ab Workouts

Anyway, I think you get my point; I like to exercise not just because it makes me feel good, but also because I can track my progress, improve my stats and “level-up” using a wide-range of tools, making exercise almost like a video game! I would like to say that video games can now help you keep fit with the various different motion controlled games you can now get, but I really don’t think any of these are viable as a substitute for exercising the good-ol’ fashioned way. Not yet anyway…

Let’s get back to the point of this article shall we? Gamers aren’t all unfit, unhealthy and overweight… Sure, some of them are, (myself included) but some non-gamers are too! My main gripe with this whole issue is the way gamers all get lumped in together and branded as the same thing, but in order to win this argument; I need to be coming from a better position. A slimmer, healthier, position, otherwise I’m making the whole situation worse by just looking like a fat nerd. This is why I am making it my goal to get fit, get healthy and get gaming! I will hold my controller in one hand and my dumbbell in the other and fight for truth in this dishonest world … Metaphorically. This wouldn’t work literally, of course.

This is just the beginning, ladies and gents, as I plan to bring you updates from the front line as I wage my war on ignorance… In the meantime, you should check out CVGs own W.R.O.N.G. campaign for more examples of utter, utter ignorance towards the gaming world…

Please also check out this inspiring fitness blog from The Urban Spartan (he’s my Pa!)

What do you mean, “Let’s Play as Art?”

It’s simple. You conceive in your head a notion of a fun, interesting, or unique take on doing a Let’s Play video of a stage of the game we are doing. You could do literally anything with it. 

You could make a standard video that’s extremely informative or funny that shows either the skill of your commentary or the depth of your effort, if that’s your inclination. You could also take the more artistic avant garde approach as well. Do your commentary entirely in Haiku, replace the soundtrack with your live acoustic guitar playing, do the stage in some weird meta way that’s incredibly hilarious, whatever you can think of. Just make it entertaining and/or remarkable! Creativity and effort is what will make you King. 

The game is Final Fight. I’ve submitted myself into the running but after seeing Didja Redo‘s video, i’m almost put off entering because of its sheer awesomeness. Take a few minutes to watch The Ballad of Mike Haggar and enjoy the hell out of it, I command you.

The wizards discuss the past weeks various atrocities and throw in some banter just to “take the edge off”. Also there’s a little bit of racism and a recipe for that oh-so buttery biscuit base! Oh and then some waffle about games.

LINKS:

- Buttery Biscuit Base Recipe ( http://allrecipes.co.uk/recipe/6257/digestive-biscuit-base.aspx)

- Star Wars 360 (http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/36014/Microsoft_Reveals_Star_WarsBranded_Xbox_360_Kinect_Bundle.php?)

We did a short interview for them which you can see over at the full site here.

Thanks guys!

The Lonely Wizards back to basics. Talkin’ bout games, fool.

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The first non-gaming Lonely Wizards podcast, this week we discuss hog roasts, bang buses, Elton John in space, homeless hitmen and much MUCH MORE!

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The Lonely Wizards cook up a storm in this weeks episode! We discuss Bridesmaids and hover bikes… basically.

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The Lonely Wizards bring more of their thoughts to your ears via the medium of “words”. In this episode we discuss spider induced boners and waffle on about free-to-play games!

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The Lonely Wizards stumble in, smacked off their tits, and talk about games, poop and cat vom.

After quite an abrupt awakening you find yourself back inside the Aperture Science testing facility where an indeterminate amount of time has passed and the actions from the first game echo in the aesthetics around you. No more pristine white walls and minimalist test chambers; these have been replaced with broken tiles, overgrown foliage, and smashed windows.

The locations and aesthetics alone tell a richer, deeper story than ever before.

You are guided through these opening levels by the wonderfully idiotic Wheatley, a spherical robot voiced by Stephen Merchant, who delivers such a pitch-perfect comedic performance that he nearly steals the entire show. I often found myself just watching Wheatley to see what he would say next and even went out of my way to find lines of alternative dialogue.

Wheatley may have been my favourite character but both GLaDOS and new addition Cave Johnson (CEO of Aperture Science) also bring the funnies on a regular basis and had me giggling like a Japanese school girl nearly every time they opened their mouths. These moments of hilarity are just the relief I needed after solving a puzzle and helped keep the game well-paced and my brain well-rested between levels.

You are given a short re-briefing as to how the Portal gun works (orange hole here, blue hole there, walk through one and come out of the other!) and quickly brought up to speed with increasingly difficult trials, that bring with them a whole new tub of toys to the playpen. These include Thermal Discouragement lasers, which are harmful to the player but also destroy turrets and activate switches; Excursion Funnel beams, which can carry and float the player and any object in its grasp, and Hard Light bridges, which can just be used to cross rooms but also occasionally serve as a shield against those cute little turrets’ not-so-cute bullets.

The real game-changers however are three coloured gels that each have unique properties. Once a surface is coated by the red Gel it increases the speed of any object and player moving across it; likewise the blue Gel makes surfaces and even objects incredibly bouncy, and the white Gel allows any surface coated with it to accept portals.  While these aren’t as revolutionary as the portal gun was they do make for a fresh and interesting twist.

Valve’s second helping may not pack the same punch as the first, but it definitely doesn’t skimp on the good stuff.  It still contains all of the ingredients that made the first game so darn tasty: a brilliant sense of humour, a well-written script, stand-out vocal performances and those famously mind-bending puzzles that just keep you wanting more.

Friends forever and ever and ever and ever and ever..etc. (You can't die)

In addition to the single player campaign there is an accompanying co-operative campaign which sees you and a friend taking control of two test robots and taking on the test chambers together. My co-op partner, as usual, was Adam and despite us starting off with the wrong shaped robots (he had the short, round one, I had the tall, egg headed one) we got off to a flying start and pretty much finished the game within two sittings.  Unlike playing solo you never find yourself stumped for very long because you are both usually looking at the same puzzle in a different way. This also helps alleviate the puzzle fatigue that comes with playing Portal for too long in one go, as I sometimes found myself just following Adams instructions  for a couple of chambers and then vice versa for the next couple.

What I would have liked to of seen is perhaps a more competitive element to the multiplayer, perhaps something where you are both given the same puzzle and you must solve it quicker than your opponent?  This would have definitely added to the longevity of the game, because as it stands it’s only really a one-off experience. Despite this though, it is still one of my favourite games of the year so far.

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The Lonely Wizards are back to normal this week speaking about this weeks gaming news, post e3 updates, cat housing and roast dinners.

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The Lonely Wizards talk you through the first couple of days of e3.

Here’s what we learnt at E3:

Retailing at $249 for Wi-Fi, $299 for Wi-Fi + 3G
Confirmed UK price £229.99 / £279.99

Massive list of third party support for the Vita.

Sony has released the PlayStation Vita sizzle trailer.

Games listed below, new titles bolded
- Uncharted: Golden Abyss
- Wipeout
- Little Deviants
- LittleBigPlanet
- Sound Shapes
- Project Gravity (working title)
- Hustle Kings
- ModNation Racers
- Super Stardust
- Project Ruin (working title)
- Reality Fighters
- Hot Shots Golf
- Shinobido 2: something Ninja
- Virtua Tennis 4
- Dynasty Warriors (working title)
- Dragon Crown (Grand Knights Story! Name reference to “Princess Crown”)

Sony E3 conference Vita summary (thanks Gamespot):

- Kaz Harai hit the stage, talking up the PlayStation Suite more, with PS content coming to Androids.

- Kaz first says the PSP isn’t dead, then praises its killer by talking up the NGP.

- PS Vta was its real name after all. We suppose some rumors are true. And it’s pronounced vee-tah.

- AT&T is going to be the exclusive Vita carrier, which went over pretty poorly with the live audience. Must be iPhone users.

- After talking up social features, it was time for games. First up was Uncharted: Golden Abyss. Though it was hard to keep up with the earlier Uncharted 3 footage, it looked pretty great, even with touch screen capabilities that are totally optional, meaning you can play it like a real game if you so choose.

- Next was a social action RPG that communicates with the PS3, called Ruin. It’s a top down fantasy adventure, it looked like it totally deserved to exist, with hooks into Twitter and Facebook. You can buy a version for the PS3 and switch between saves with ease.

- ModNation Racers is coming to the Vita. They showed a very simple interface for creating tracks in this original game in the player-friendly series.

- Cross-platform functionality is apparently going to be a big part of the Vita, including in Wipeout 2048.

- LittleBigPlanet was announced for the Vita. It looks like the team found quite a lot to do with all the system’s features. It was easily one of the most impressive Vita games they showcased.

- Street Fighter X Tekken is coming to the Vita?!? That one took us by surprise, and it looks quite impressive on the Vita. And Cole from InFamous is going to be a playable character! What the hell is happening?!?!

- After a sexy sizzle reel of games, including Hot Shots Golf, Kaz returned to the stage and announced a holiday launch for all territories.

I’m liking what appears to be the opening of the game, with your character off his tits and stumbling through the zombie apocalypse, very clever, very clever indeed…

****UPDATE! (again!)******

We were going to be streaming and commentating but technology has failed us… So we will be watching each conference VERY closely and making notes for a mega e3 podcast that will go up Tuesday night/Wednesday morning.

Also, along with the sites mentioned below, you can also watch every one at GameTrailers, which we’ve found to be the best stream so far!

http://www.gametrailers.com/netstorage/e3/e3-live.html

Microsoft (http://www.xbox.com/en-gb/e3)

US time: 9am PST, Monday, 6 June, 2011

UK time: 5pm, Monday, 6 June, 2011

Microsoft have either played their cards really close to their chest and are about to announce something HUGE or they haven’t really got anything to show compared to the others. Apart from Gears of War 3, there aren’t any truly notable exclusive games for the console, so everything else is quite vague. Personally I hope they announce some killer software for Kinect, so we can all finally justify buying it in the first place! One game that is pretty certain to pop up is the Star Wars kinect game, but I can’t say i’m anything but indifferent at this stage, so we’ll have to wait and see…

EA (http://live-event.ea.com/e3/)

US time: 12:30am PST, Monday, 6 June, 2011

UK time: 8:30pm, Monday, 6 June, 2011

A really strong line-up of games will be on show here, Battlefield 3, Mass Effect 3 and FIFA 12 being the three I’ll be interested in. One other thing to look for is the possibility of Star Wars: The Old Republic popping up at some point.

Sony (http://blog.us.playstation.com/2011/05/29/playstation-fans-watch-e3-online-try-to-win-your-way-in/)

US time: 5pm PST, Monday, 6 June, 2011

UK time: 1am, Tuesday 7 June, 2011

It’s going to be very interesting to see how Sony can score some brownie points in the PR department after the recent PSN debacle. This could work entirely in their favour as they may have to announce things they weren’t planning on, just to cover up the cracks. The NGP (or PSVita) will probably be the centrepiece and they will unveil seven titles for the system as well. You can read all the current info on Sonys handheld right here.

Nintendo (http://e3.nintendo.com/)

US time: 9am PST, Tuesday, 7 June 2011

UK time: 5pm, Tuesday, 7 June 2011

Last but certainly not least is Nintendo, who are set to announce their new console. Will it just be a HD Wii? Let’s hope not. Nintendo will also be bringing out the 3DS again and probably giving us some solid details on big titles such as Star Fox 3D, Kid Icarus: Uprising and of course Super Mario 3DS.

These are the main conferences we’ll be covering via streams but we’ll also be recording a podcast once the madness has ended to do a wrap up of the entire event. If there’s anything in particular you want us to cover then please do give us a shout and we’ll do what we can!

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TLW: Episode Sixteen

The Lonely Wizards talk mostly about E3 but also about candwiches…

Links:

Candwich

Whole Roast Chicken in a Can

Nintendo Console Announcement

Frozen Synapse

ALL the info on NGP, literally ALL of it

Dead Island gameplay footage

Here is everything we know so far.

Key Features
* Multi-touch 5-inch organic light emitting display (OLED) as the front display
* Multi-touch pad on the rear of the device
* Dual analog sticks
* Two cameras (front and rear)
* Software titles on small, dedicated flash memory-based cards
* Three motion sensors, gyroscope, accelerometer and electronic compass
* Wi-Fi and 3G network connectivity
* PlayStation Network access, including ““LiveArea™”, “Near” and “Activity” log features Trophy Support
* NGP will be able to play PSP titles, minis, PS one classics, video and comics from the PlayStation Store.

But what does that mean? Resolution-wise, it’s pretty much identical to the native rendering resolution of both Alan Wake on Xbox 360 and Call of Duty: Black Ops on PS3. Shrunk down to a five-inch OLED screen, the impression will be very much of a high-definition experience. The resolution itself is ballpark with iPhone 4′s Retina display (which weighs in at 960×640 mostly owing to a different aspect ratio), though obviously there is a considerable difference in the display’s surface area: the screen on Apple’s phone is a mere 3.5 inches, meaning a higher pixel density.

Epic Games’ Tim Sweeney revealed that the quad-core GPU setup was four times as powerful as the current mobile platforms. Bear in mind that the iPad, running what is now an outdated PowerVR SGX535, managed to run Infinity Blade fairly well at 1024×768 (albeit with some compromises compared to the iPhone 4 version), and you can begin to get some idea of the leap in power NGP represents.

In terms of power, Sony said that the NGP sits about halfway between that of the PSP and PS3, playing down previous claims that it’s as powerful as the PS3 itself.

Storage Formats
The device uses a new game medium tentatively dubbed the “NVG Card” – a small flash memory based card dedicated for NGP software titles.
The new format will come in two storage capacities, 2GBs and 4GBs, which Sony says will be used for small and large NGP games, respectively. The smaller card is likely to support more casual titles, while the 4GB card will store more graphically intensive titles.

Interestingly, the cards themselves will reserve 5- to 10-percent of their total storage space for save data, game patches, and other updates, which will be less taxing to the NGP’s internal storage and make continuing progress from one device to another easier.

The 4GB format is a little under half the total disc space used by the average PS3 game, which accounts for just about 9GBs of data.

While Sony has not mentioned an internal flash memory component of the NGP, SCE Worldwide Studios head Shuhei Yoshida revealed to Game Informer that the device will feature “two slots” for memory cards; one for the new game card format (which Yoshida confirmed would be proprietary — not SD) and a second port for additional storage.

Digital Distribution
Andrew House (SCEE): One thing we learnt from PSP, is that we want to have simultaneous delivery in digital and physical for NGP. Just to clarify that, all games that appear physically will be made available digitally. Not necessarily all games have to be made available physically.

Backwards Compatibility
Sony’s NGP will offer full backwards compatibility with the PlayStation Network’s library of PSP games, and will offer an optimized experience for each one.
PSP games played with the NGP will be smoothed and upscaled, and the NGP’s dual analogue sticks will also be supported.PSP games are run via a software emulator within the NGP, and the upscaling can be toggled on and off by the player.

Software Franchises shown or talked about at PlayStation Meeting 2011 (titles are not final)

* Killzone
* Uncharted
* WipEout
* LittleBigPlanet
* Call of Duty
* Resistance
* Little Deviants
* Hot Shots Golf
* Reality Fighters
* Gravity Daze
* Smart As
* Broken
* Hustle Kings
(source)

Click here for a big list of developers and publishers working on NGP projects

(Recently added to that list are EA, Aquire, and THQ)

Uncharted on NGP

NGP size comparison

The PSP’s XMB UI is being replaced by ‘LiveArea’

LiveArea is a “game-oriented communication platform,” according to Sony. In other words, it’s the device’s touch-controlled user interface featuring access to the PlayStation Store, Trophies, PSN friends, messaging, the browser, and other applications. It also includes the ‘Near’ application which makes use of the device’s GPS functionality. It tracks your location, and makes an ongoing map of where you’ve been. Near connects with PSN, and finds out what’s popular among other users where you are right now, as well as what other people nearby are playing. You can even buy games right within that interface.

According to the March 2011 issue of Famitsu, Sony is looking how they can link the NGP to their ‘Second Life’-like service, Home. The news was put in an article on the 1.5 update. Next to that it also states Home will get a speed increase. A better cooperation with publishers on new projects and games developed “in cooperation with players” are also planned.

Connectivity
Multiple versions of the NGP will launch, each with Wi-Fi capability. Only one, however, will also feature 3G.
Sony is currently “working hard” on 3G partnerships. Andrew House (SCEE) confirmed there will be some cost to the user for 3G services.

Cloud Computing
While showing PlayStation 3 exclusive Metal Gear Solid 4 running on NGP, game developer legend Hideo Kojima talked about cloud computing.
“When he launched Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker on PSP he dreamed of a cloud computing future, and that game was an experiment for it. “NGP allows this cloud computing,” he said, cryptically.
“What I’d like to realise is playing on your PS3, and when you go out, you put the game on your NGP, and when you come back home, you can once again use your PS3 and large screen TV.
“This dream is going to come true in the near future. And right now, I’m working on this project of the dream. I’m sorry, I can’t reveal this now. But we’d like to present what we’re doing at E3.”
Sony has confirmed that users will be able to access PlayStation Store from both 3G network and Wi-Fi, which can be chosen depending on the network environments or the volume of content. Existing PSN IDs will be used on NGP.

Price Speculation
SCEE boss Andrew House – “I can’t put a ballpark on it in terms of figures, but what I would say is that we will shoot for an affordable price that’s appropriate for the handheld gaming space” And it will definitely be less than $599

According to Famitsu, most retailers in Japan believe NGP will cost below 35,000 yen (roughly $430) and most gamers there are hoping for a sub-30,000 ($360), with their preferred price being around 25,000 yen ($300).

What We Don’t Know:
* The release date. (Launched in “one region” Holiday 2011 – this is probably Japan – source)
* Is there HDMI support? (as SCEE confirmed there is ‘no video output feature’)
* Clock speeds of the CPU/GPU
* Onboard memory

And now for some games:

Uncharted: Golden Abyss

Kotaku, Eurogamer

Sound Shapes

Kotaku, Eurogamer

Reality Fighter

Kotaku, Eurogamer

Wipeout 2048

Destructoid, Eurogamer, Kotaku

Super StarDust Delta

Destructoid, Kotaku

Hustle Kings

Destructoid, Eurogamer

Little Deviants

Destructoid, Eurogamer

Gameplay Footage for Dead Island has been released and we’ll probably see more next week at E3, but YouTube user TheGamerSheep has got his hands on this footage and walks us through it in the video below;

The melee looks incredibly brutal and bloody – (check out the decapitation at 4:12!) If the zombie slaying feels as good as it looks then they might be onto a winner! Aesthetically it’s very pleasing to look at, I know Adam in particular will LOVE how beautiful the tropical island looks, as he’s always a big fan of palm trees in games. It’s still a little rough around the edges in some areas but this can be fixed as it is still in development.

One thing I did notice is that the style of the game contrasts drastically with the style and atmosphere of the first trailer. The trailer did so well to get everyone’s attention and really captured the sense of a desperate and futile struggle with the inevitable. The game does not seem to carry this mood over in the gameplay, with XP points popping up everywhere and blood gushing from every zombie it really just feels quite trashy in a B-Movie kind of way. This isn’t a bad thing at all, it’s just worrying that there are mixed messages being sent here and it’s leaving everybody a bit confused as to what to expect. I could be reading way too much into this, of course, as the cynic in me is just saying that they obviously just wanted to gain attention and hired a top-notch team to do an awesome trailer for them…

In any case I’m still looking forward to hooking up with 3 buddies and splitting skulls with my spiky baseball bat!

That cobblestone castle you made doesn’t seem so impressive now, does it?

Although the latter half of this review might seem to focus more on the negative, I just want to say that I bought LA Noire on day one and had a great time playing through the main storyline. It is a unique game and i’m very much in favour of seeing a sequel. Firstly, it is gorgeous to look at. Experienced in full technicolour it is visually reminiscent of Roman Polanski’s Chinatown, while choosing to play in black and white puts you into the mindset of Billy Wilder’s Double Indemnity. Certainly a neat effect and one can genuinely appreciate the excellent lighting engine while playing in full-noir mode.

The soundtrack is thrillingly atmospheric and suits the mood of the game perfectly. If anything it has proved to me that more games need a jazz soundtrack.

LA Noire does a good job of tipping its fedora to other media set in the same time period. There is a character shared with 1997′s LA Confidential, a few subtle references to Bioshock (look out for Matthew Ryan, who could be Andrew Ryan’s far less capable brother), and the climax of the game is strikingly reminiscent of 1949 film noir classic The Third Man.

The game engine itself is as robust as ever. The explorable part of LA you’re given is huge (and apparently very true to life), and the people look amazing. Seriously, the new motion capture technology is no less than revolutionary. Being able to make decisions based on the subtle actions of the characters is so much fun.

Unfortunately, what I really want to get into is what irked me about the game and why I probably won’t bother with 100% completion or playing DLC.

HERE BE SPOILERS FROM NOW ON.

To get nitpicky point out of the way, loading felt far too frequent and too long. It seemed like every 5 minutes I was sitting staring at a poorly constructed loading screen waiting for the next scene to start. But what I really wanted to talk about was t he storyline.

I’m a huge fan of the storyline of LA Noire. It’s expertly scripted and acted, and in my opinion the overarching main plot is one of the most interesting in gaming history. That said, the process by which you experience the story is distractingly convoluted.

The narrative develops across three intertwining devices (there is a fourth but it’s a weird little thing and i’ll get to it later). There’s the main storyline that concentrates on you playing as Detective Cole. There are flashback sequences that give you insight into the character of Cole and his comrades-in-arms during World War II. And finally, you find newspapers strewn about LA that give you a villain’s perspective on what’s going on.

You spend the first quarter of the game as an LA cop in training. Remember that fourth storytelling device I mentioned? Well during your first forays into policing there’s a Narrator doing a voice-over at the start of every case. The narration complements the Noir setting nicely and helps to set the tone for the cases. Then it disappears without warning, for no reason, and for the rest of the game. When I stopped hearing it I actually thought it might be a bug. Nope.

You start by solving unrelated crimes (many of which involve a horrifying amount of violence done to women) and learning the ropes. I enjoyed this, although Cole is an angry bastard. Choosing ‘Doubt’ or ‘Lie’ during interviews with witnesses and suspects almost always led to them being shouted at, poor buggers. Makes you wonder why anyone would try and be helpful. This is also the period where you start to realise that every case is going to unfold in a very similar fashion.

You are given a literal checklist of tasks to accomplish, places to visit, people to talk to, with very little room for deviation. Sure, you can drive around looking for side-missions as a distraction, but they’re all pretty same-y and do nothing to advance the storyline.

Even though throughout the game you work for different police divisions (all of which are spoiled for you at the start of the game as they’re all marked in your notepad), every crime that you investigate is handled in exactly the same way; walk around the crime scene waiting for your controller to vibrate, “investigate” clues that you find and talk to any witnesses that happen to be standing around. Then you work down the checklist (there’s never an advantage to working the checklist in any way but from top-to-bottom) of places and people. Do a few interviews and you’re done, case solved. Or so you think.

By the time you’ve been a Homicide cop for a while (disc 2), you’ve started to realise that there might be a serial killer at work here and that you’ve probably arrested people for crimes they didn’t commit. This is where the dissonance begins. You as a player can see that you’re questioning and arresting the wrong people, but you as a cop can’t. This is mainly due to the fact that you’ve been given a crystal ball in the form of a newspaper that shows you what the criminals are getting up to, and it makes you feel like you’re a rubbish cop for not cottoning on.

Why are we being shown what’s happening from the villain’s perspective? There’s no mystery if we’re shown what’s behind the curtain. It’s makes for a frustrating paradox where you know who the antagonists are and what they’re doing, but you also don’t at the same time. This means you’re forced to stick to your investigative checklist until such time as the game decides you can act on information you were shown 4 hours ago. It is very frustrating.

By the time you’re promoted into Vice, all of the storytelling devices (current investigations, flashbacks and newspapers) have started to come together and form the bulk of the narrative. You feel like it’s building towards a big crescendo and you’re waiting for that extra morsel of Cole’s character development… you’re doing more cases… waiting some more… then he has an affair.

Cole is an asshole. You’re given very little reason to like the guy. During the first three quarters of the game you are made to think he’s a dudley do-right, working by the book as the Golden Boy of the police force (the Army too, you see in flashbacks). Then suddenly he trundles off to have an affair with a club singer.

I uphold the letter of the law but FUCK YOU, SANCTITY OF MARRIAGE.

Not that you ever care about his wife and kids either. The only time you see his wife is when she’s throwing Cole’s belongings out onto the pavement. That’s when it struck me – Cole has a house? I’ve been playing as this character for 10 hours, choosing what he can wear, which car he can drive, whereabouts in the huge swathe of LA he travels to, but I don’t even know where he lives? It made me feel even more detached from him.

Shortly after Cole shacks up with the singer is when the story takes a turn that you don’t see coming. Cole gets demoted to Arson and you start playing as a different character, a character who is a vast improvement over Cole, Jack Kelso. Kelso is a badass. At one point he rolls into a guy’s office, shoots him in the leg and delivers a witty one-liner. He even seemed better at handling interviews than Cole did. It made me wish i’d played as Kelso the whole game.

Then there is the very end. There is a nice twist to it, it is a very naturalistic ending, but since there is so little reason to care about the main character, it just feels weak and empty. You end up with a deeper affection for every other character in the game, so to me, Cole’s death was not a big loss

Obviously, if all the cases had been connected from the beginning it would have been rather silly, but I just wish Cole’s character had the depth that I felt the other characters had. We are given glimpses of what happens to Cole during the war but still come away with the feeling that GTA IV’s Nico Bellic character was more fleshed-out, and his backstory was never played out for us.

For me, the issue is more than just caring about a character on screen, it is about the construction of a complete story. Unfortunately, L.A. Noire does not do this particularly well, even though it excels in other areas.

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The Lonely Wizards talk cats, genderless babies and a spoil the shit out of Portal 2.

Links:

Nintendos E3 Page

Sony “Desert” Teaser Site

GTA IV in Google Maps

Brick for a brick

http://e3.nintendo.com/

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The Lonely Wizards versus The Rapture

Slightly different format this episode… Let us know what you think.

Links:

Batman Imposters

PSN Welcome Back gift (Europe)

Dead Island Hands-on (from GamesRadar)

Free Xbox!?

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A gigantic slice of audio pie for you this week as the Wizards double their efforts to make up for last weeks SHAMBLES. Also, stay tuned after the outro for super exclusive bonus material from last weeks podcast!

News

- Sony Has Two New PlayStation Tablet Devices  http://m.kotaku.com//5795627/sony-now-has-a-playstation-tablet

- Driver: San Francisco story focused trailer (September 2nd UK) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HgrynHCuus

- Nintendo new console “Project Cafe” tech specs http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-04-21-project-cafe-tech-specs-leaked-report

- EA subscription service  http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2011-04-26-memo-details-ea-sports-subscription-service

- SupaBoy, the handheld SNES http://hyperkin.com/

More Assassin’s Creed: Revelations details http://www.joystiq.com/2011/05/06/assassins-creed-revelations-details-from-gi-hookblades-bom/

- PSN reboot delayed another week http://blog.us.playstation.com/2011/05/06/service-restoration-update/

- ID protection offer  http://blog.us.playstation.com/2011/05/05/sony-offering-free-allclear-id-plus-identity-theft-protection-in-the-united-states-through-debix-inc/

- Mass Effect 3 delayed http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-05-04-mass-effect-3-tweaked-for-larger-market

- Skyward Sword easter egg http://gonintendo.com/viewstory.php?id=157292

What the wizards have been playing

- Fight Night Champion

- Outland

- Gears 3 Beta

- Far Cry 2

- Marvel VS Capcom 3

- Bulletstorm

- Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP

Gameries

- Quasar Nan

- Time Traveller http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omoAWvDm2_E

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Darrell has a sore throat and Adams battered sausage goes cold… What have those crazy mages been up to this week?

NEWS:

- Gears 3 Beta goes live

- Portal 2 released.

- Battlefield 3 finally releases a full-length trailer. (http://uk.kotaku.com/5792718/heres-12-minutes-of-battlefield-3-gameplay-no-facebook-strings-attached)

- Possible Batman XBLA game (http://www.vg247.com/2011/04/15/batman-warner-registers-gotham-impostors-domains/)

- Uncharted 3 beta July 5th (http://www.joystiq.com/2011/04/18/uncharted-3-beta-begins-july-5-early-access-for-infamous-2-buye/#continued)

- Sexy Uncharted 3 details (http://www.joystiq.com/2011/04/18/uncharted-3-multiplayer-preview/#continued)

- Operation Flashpoint: Red River is released

- PSN hacked and taken offline

What the Wizards have Been Playing:

- World of Goo (iPhone)

- Split/Second

- Portal 2

- Section 8: Prejudice

Gameries:

- The best day of Darrells life

- Adam goes down the chippy

The cherry on the top of this delicious cake is the glimpse of vehicle gameplay footage at the end. If, like me, you’ve already seen the 3 gameplay trailers far too many times, then skip to around 11 minutes for the juicy stuff.

Without further ado  sit back, turn the lights off, whip your trousers off and….. enjoy.

To unlock a developers commentary for this 12 minute clip, EA and DICE are urging Facebook users to “like” their Battlefield 3 page. The video will unlock at 1 million “likes” and is currently at around 800,000, so head there now and make it happen!

**********UPDATE: The developers commentary has now been unlocked!**********

http://www.facebook.com/#!/battlefield