Games Cheats and Reviews

Let’s face it, one glance at the charts will show you that the public isn’t too fussed about originality. The public wants first-person shooters, fitness games and the next FIFA or Madden. It doesn’t want LittleBigPlanet (despite Stephen Fry), couldn’t give a damn about Okami despite all our best efforts, and thinks Rez HD is a sleep disorder you get from those newfangled tellies.

But while some games are unoriginal to the point of lawsuits (Simpson’s Road Rage, how do you plead?), there is a lot to be said for a brilliantly-made game that adds little genuinely new to the genre. In fact, some of the best games of the past 12 months have been made up of little more than old ideas cleverly repackaged to create something wonderful.

IncGamers’ Andy Alderson takes a first look at EA Sports’ upcoming free-to-play FIFA title.

From the preview:

"Earlier, during a presentation on the FIFA brand, EA Sports supremo Peter Moore revealed how EA Sports’ aim is to attract the world’s two billion football fans to its FIFA products, and FIFA Online plays a big part in that. As such, FIFA Online looks set to be the long-standing football franchise’s most immediately accessible game with gamers able to control it using only the mouse."

EA Sports has announced it has teamed up with the Universal Gaming Database (UGDB) to provide access to the FIFA Online beta.

I first got a chance to play Pro Evolution Soccer 2010 at this year’s Tokyo Game Show. I’d hoped to find evidence that Konami’s beleaguered soccer sim — once the undisputed king of the fútbol mountain — had finally made a solid transition to the PlayStation 3/Xbox 360 era. But the TGS demo left me cold; the herky-jerky animations and clunky controls overshadowed the surprisingly improved, far more realistic visuals. The game felt borderline unplayable, and the ultimate verdict seemed inevitable: Another year, another Germany-versus-Faroe Islands-style beatdown in favor of EA’s FIFA juggernaut.

But a funny thing happened as I played through the final version. Yes, Pro Evo’s animations are still stuck in the PS2 era and don’t really capture the speed and fluidity of the real sport. And, yes, the sluggish controls take some getting used to and don’t offer the pinpoint accuracy of FIFA. But as I spent more and more time with Pro Evo 2010, I discovered that, deep down, it really nails the “soul” of soccer.

Nick @ PS3Center writes:

The game looks to be a bit of a surprise hit, according to the popular online retailer Amazon. The £24.99 EyePet/PSEye combo has topped the charts, leaving tremendously popular titles like Uncharted 2, Modern Warfare 2, and FIFA 10 in it’s dust.

With a busy week for new games, including two highly anticipated titles, it was always going to be interesting what impact they would have on the sales charts. To put the number of new games released last week into perspective, from the UK top 20, eight of those titles are brand new entries.

Many people were speculating whether Fifa 10 would continue it’s meteoric rise having already become the second fastest selling game of all time, or would either of the new major releases, Uncharted 2 on PlayStation 3 or Brutal Legend on both Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 take the crown.

Whilst I’m sure there isn’t much surprise that both games made the top 5, it’s perhaps a little surprising that Brutal Legend only came in at number 7. Uncharted 2 however did come close, taking the second spot behind EA Sport’s already phenomenally successful Fifa 10.

The charts can be seen below:

The prosperity of the entire UK? trade has been placed in danger by the supermarket price cutting that has led to FIFA 10 and Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising going on sale for under £30.

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Time to kick back, relax, and enjoy a dripfeed of today’s biggest gaming news.  We take a look at how the PSPGo launch worked out for Sony, if achievements can help game sales, and FIFA 10’s domination of our friends across the pond.  All of that and more in todays show, so be sure not to miss it!

Links to Topics Discussed:

1. PSP Go is kicking ass and taking names

2. Randy Pitchford thinks that easy achievements can move units

3. Left 4 Dead 2 to possibly be censored ‘Down Under’

4. Microsoft talks Natal pricing strategies, but nothing concrete

5. Fifa 10 has Europe by the (soccer) balls

Open To The Public:

• Would you buy a censored version of Left 4 Dead 2?
  

The Evil Cast:

• Numb to the outside world: Blake Grundman
  

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• Rob LeFebvre, the center of our universe
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Related stuff to check out:

• EvilCast NewsBrief Episode #58
• EvilCast NewsBrief Episode #59
• EvilCast NewsBrief Episode #60

Within FIFA 10 there appears to be some quite frustrating bugs within the Manager Mode feature of the game. But unfortunately the producer of the mode is away getting married right now and fans of the series are even calling for him to come back early to fix things!

Sony has told GamesIndustry.biz that sales of PSP hardware are up 100 per cent in the UK, following the launch of the PSPgo.

Sales of the PSP-3000 have also grown, as the hardware benefits from the release of the long-awaited Gran Turismo for PSP on UMD and EA’s FIFA 10, which this weekend broke records for the franchise.