When Halo 3: ODST first came out, a friend asked me if I'd bought the map packs for Halo 3 beforehand. I told him I had, which emitted a huge "Ahahaha I bet you feel like a moron now!". So do I? No, not really. One of the big draws to ODST is obviously the second disc for Halo 3 multiplayer, complete with all map packs and the second part of the Mythic pack. While some can say that I've wasted 1,600 moon points on maps I just rebought, you can never predict these kinds of things before hand.

Fallout 3, Gears of War 2, Fable 2, Burnout Paradise, Star Wars TFU, Oblivion... the list goes on. Re-issues of games bundled with already available DLC is rapidly becoming a trend in gaming, and while I'd like to say it's cheap and easy for publishers to pump out another quick edition of their star game and package in a code for us to download the new content, it's not entirely new. Films have been doing this for years, especially now that DVDs are the standard and Blu-Ray is slowly but surely winning over fans. Music suffers from the same idea too, with anniversary editions, remastered albums and special editions released constantly. Extra discs of b-sides and rarities you can't hear anywhere else, and the only way to get your hands on them is to buy that album again.

Take Watchmen for example. Here you can buy the theatrical version, the theatrical 2-disc version, the director's cut, and coming this Winter is the extravagant 10-disc edition. Now think of the fans who bought, say, the director's cut on Blu-Ray, who are now caught between a rock and a hard place. Do they sell it and buy the ultra mega super 10-disc set, or leave it alone, or maybe buy both? In the end, it doesn't make that much of a difference. They have the movie, which is potentially the only thing that matters. It's just a question of how dedicated to the franchise they are to bother looking into the bonus material.

You can say the same for games and it's similar strategy. I haven't played Star Wars TFU, especially after it's less-than-inspiring reviews. But I can't say the Sith Edition hasn't peaked by interest into the title a little more. The same goes for Fable 2's GOTY edition, which I've looked into more. Both games I had next to zero interest in when they came out, but the temptation of more content all bundled up in one package does make me wonder if I'm missing out on something good. In the end all these "new-and-improved" editions are for is the passionate fans of the series, or late newcomers looking for all the material in one place. The only difference is that you can't re-sell DLC. So if a new retail edition of your favourite game comes with some bonus content just for them, it's understandable to be a little upset.

More and more I find myself looking at a game sitting on the shelves and thinking "Is it worth my money to buy this now, I wait for a potential extended edition?". 'Potential' is the key word here, as you can never know if such edition will be released. I have owned Skate 2 since it came out, and while the DLC isn't overly expensive (Bundled together costing 1040 points), the fact that I have to by those stupid Microsoft points in bulk makes them less appealing. So I've sat patiently for a retail copy with the DLC slapped on, but alas, nothing has been announced so far. The same goes for Borderlands. I already partially regret buying it, not because it's a bad game, because I absolutely loved that game. But because I'm betting it's inevitable another version of the game will hit stores once enough DLC has been released. So now I have a choice. Do I sell my copy of Borderlands, hold off on the DLC and wait for a sweet deal that might not even be released, or do I accept my losses and dive head first into the Xbox Marketplace.

I can't imagine publishers feel much strain from this. There's always a sense of urgency and hype that goes into a big game's launch, where people feel the need to buy them on the day of their release. I can't imagine the same publishers will worry if they don't buy an extended super-duper edition of the same game they just bought. Hell I'd bet those same people will buy downloadable content on it's release date as well.

So does it bother me? In certain cases, of course. You can't help but feel cheated after spending money on content that is now inexplicably cheaper to buy bundled from the shelves. But we sacrifice the cost for the time we spend with a game, and the amount of enjoyment we get from it. Downloadable content is, for the most part, extended material that is either used to tack on content for a single player game or give a multiplayer game new life through maps and game types. The idea of fretting over losing this extra content seems pointless, but it's still worth thinking about the next time you see a triple-A title on the shelves when it's finally released.

Does anyone remember a music video that made the rounds on the web a few months ago? It featured naked French chicks holding a stereo while censors over their t 'n' a would say the lyrics. Obviously it got hundreds upon thousands of hits. I mean c'mon, the entire video was naked women walking down a street while slightly confused bystanders wondered what was happening while trying to hide their erections. The video was by a French dance group called Make The Girl Dance, promoting "Baby, Baby, Baby". And it did well (Though many videos just called it generic names like "Naked French Girls!!" or "Sexy Music Video (vote 5 + sub)")

Either way, it seems Activision saw the popular video and decided to gut it for all it's worth. Recently this video has popped up, seemingly just a parody of the original. 4 naked women walk down a street (With a lot more on-lookers I might add), when all of a sudden a huge dude walks up and strips off with them. It's the only time I've thanked the internet for black-bar censors, and quite frankly just made me laugh.

Then I saw the song titles on the bars. "All the Pretty Faces"? "Steady as She Goes"? "The Rock Show"?! Seems instead of putting lyrics over the censor bars, we get a nice slew of confirmed Guitar Hero 5 songs instead. I honestly don't know what they were thinking when they made this. I guess it works, but unless you know the songlist for the game already, you aren't going to have a clue this is a GH ad. Not to mention it doesn't really stick with you. Remember the last GH viral ad, with the bike riding along at night and the lights attatched to the handlebars? Yeah, that's because it's distinctive and original. This is a short parody for an obscure dance group who don't even have a Wiki. The actual music video has been forgotten now and is lost in a sea of shitty web videos.

Of course it could still have absolutely nothing to do with Guitar Hero, but from the song titles mentioned, I'd find that suspect if they didn't have a hand in the quick clip.

"Plug In Baby" - Muse
"All the Pretty Faces" - The Killers
"Looks that Kill" - Motley Crue
"Steady as She Goes" - The Raconteurs
"Smells like Teen Spirit" - Nirvana
"Under Pressure" - Queen
"Ring of Fire" - Johnny Cash
"Wolf Like Me" - TV on the Radio
"Superstition" - Stevie Wonder
"Kryptonite" - 3 Doors Down
"The Rock Show" - Blink 182
"Bleed American" - Jimmy Eat World
"Sweating Bullets" - Megadeath

And, ahem... much more to be revealed apparently.

Original:


Parody:

Well this put a smile on my day. Out of nowhere a trailer for a Doom game for the iPhone has popped up, and I'm sure most fans of the phone will be happy to hear it won't be the classic. I did try to the original game back when the jailbroken app was out, and to be blunt it was terrible. The controls were sloppy, the menus were awkward to navigate and it just wasn't fun to play.

So I'm quite thankful that iD have taken the rails-shooter route for this. From the trailer it doesn't look back. There's multiple weapons, some nice scenery for the hardware and it makes use of the accelerometer quite nicely too. The game itself looks to be a spin-off of the Doom 3 story, although what exactly that story is yet I'm not sure. What I do know is there's plenty of familiar enemies and a few scientists it looks like you have to save (Or at least have the option to). The game itself looks like it runs smoothly too, with no majorly noticable lag in the trailer.

Rumours are it will be popping up on the App store next week, though no price has been given yet.

How many of you even knew there was an Overlord 2 demo out there? It seemingly sneaked it's way onto the Marketplace last night, still tucked away in the new arrivals on the demo page. You might want to note this is the same demo from E3, but at least now all of us can play it. From what I've heard and seen, Overlord II looks and plays very similar to the original, which I'm all for. Overlord is a personal gem in action-adventure games for this generation. The battle scheme was fun to play with, the quests weren't too tedious and there was enough humour to make annihilating small towns seem a little less gruesome. So does the demo stack up to the expectation?

For those that didn't play the original game, Overlord is an action-adventure, setting you as the Overlord of evil. No true Overlord does work themself, so you have minions who will attack, steal and die for you. It's a weird mix between Zelda and Pikmin, but it's simple enough to control that it never feels overwhelming. You explore the world, complete quests and even have some moral choices to make that alter your Overlord tower's appearance.

As for the demo itself, it starts out with an introduction to the story, following up from the end of Raising Hell and showing the minions flocking around their new, young and frozen Overlord in an icy cavern. The boy is broken from the ice, and raised to be all kinds of evil. I'm sure his dad would be proud. Now a fully-grown man, the new Overlord must reclaim the land his father once owned, now ruled over by the Romanesque-style Empire.

The first thing struck me is how beautiful the opening level looks. The original has it's flaws, and one of my major complaints was the lack of diversity in levels. Starting out in a cool ice cave inspires some creativity in that department, and it does look very pretty. The level design is much like the first game, split into sections where you can walk and sections where you can't (But your minions can), but it's still fun to wander around and check out the scenery. At the end of the demo (Or glorified tutorial, like I was expecting anything less), it showcases a few more of the levels, and they really do stand out against the countryside setting from before.

The tutorial itself isn't too bad, teaching you the basics like maneuvering your minions, summoning and gathering lifeforce, and even ends with a quick and easy boss fight. Like before you can upgrade your minions by scavenging for weapons and gold, but now they can tame beasts to ride on. The only one you see in the demo are wolves which make your minions much faster, but the general idea is promising and should be great to see what they do with it later in the game. After clubbing some seals to death for our precious lifeforce (Animals rights should have a field day with that one), we follow an ogre around the level, killing hunters until we get to face him ourself. He's easy enough, but Overlord does have some imaginative boss fights and this is only a tutorial.

The game itself plays almost identically to the original. There's now an option to free-roam the camera by holding LB and moving the right stick, and thankfully they've included a mini-map in the bottom-left corner which displays the area and objectives. The lack of a map was a huge mistake in the first game, so it's nice to see Codemasters learning from it. Other than that it felt exactly the same to me. You can run around holding LT and let the minions do the work, you can herd them around yourself with the right stick, or you can get upclose and personal, bash some hunter's heads in and magic blast anyone who gets in your way.

Overall it seems decent enough, even if the demo is ridiculously easy. It's a nice introduction for new players and a complete tease for fans of the first, but it does a good job of showing off the basics for what you'll be doing throughout the game.

Left 4 Head (Windows Media Player)
Developer: Some cheap ass studio
Publisher: Rapidshare
Released: Yesterday according to /v/
MSRP: Hahahahahahaha no

Left 4 Head is a survival-horror porno. Kinda surprised it took this long to come out really, but I'm sure the fanboys crying over the various ways Zoey gets plowed will be happy now. It's around 12 minutes long and will change the way you play Left 4 Dead forever. Seriously, it's the worst thing.



So anyway, we follow Zoey walking through some wasteland city looking for Louis (Well gee I wonder why), but ends up in a house with 2 zombies. Don't worry, she kills them before they start mauling her. Then we see a Hunter crawling across the floor, followed by a quite possibly the greatest looking Smoker ever, except this Smoker has something else that's really long and extendable. Our deformed friend gets Zoey, but not before groping her and shoving his extend-o-cock down her throat. She stands there wriggling around for a good minute (Somewhere inbetween lifts up her shirt too for some reason, maybe all that infected dick was making her hot or something) before shooting the Smoker off-screen and moving on. Come the fuck on, if I'm watching a porno about zombies, I at least want to see some sweet kills as well.

Anyway, she moves on down a hallway while we hear a Hunter in the background, before it runs up behind her and takes her down to the floor and starts pulling down her jeans and lifting up her top. Apparently Zoey wears a tiny ass pink thong too, although I never saw that in the original game or artwork, so I'll just take their word for it. Then the Hunter starts feeling her up for a good minute or two which is painfully awkward to watch before getting on top of her and whipping his zombie penis out. She's kind of eager to get to work on it too, so maybe that explains why she's always walking off on her own and running into specials. This goes on for the remainder of the movie until she finishes the Hunter off, then coincidentally gets "downed". The Hunter drags her off and it ends.



To their credit, they do use the original sound effects of the Hunter and Smoker. It's really a weird mix of legitimate voice work from the game and the best worst acting I've ever seen. Then there's the setting. It goes from this empty ghost town scene with wrecked cars to some lifeless building that wouldn't be out of place in F.E.A.R., which I don't remember from any of the 4 campaigns. It should be noted that there's also no Witch, Boomer or Tank which sets up a glorious and much anticipated sequel, which I would genuinely be surprised if they didn't make. Don't act like you wouldn't want to see a shitty B-movie of Zoey getting it on with that PMS bitch.

Overall it's funny and relevant enough to keep watching, but unsettling enough to minimize and go about doing something else while the creepy generic horror music and L4D sounds play in the background

Score: 2 -- Bad (Not like "Jelly Car" bad, more like "Power Glove" bad) (2s are a beautiful disaster. Any good they might have had are quickly swallowed up by Zoey's mouth, poor design choices or a plethora of other issues. The desperate or the gullible may find a glimmer of fun hidden somewhere in the pit.)



This review was the stupidest fucking idea ever oh god I'm so sorry for this.

So I've spent the majority of today doing something I'd never see myself doing again; Playing GTAIV. That's not to say it's a bad game, it's just awkward to have fun with once you've beaten it. So The Lost and Damned is like a breath of fresh air into a zombie corpse to me. Trust me, somehow that analogy is a good thing.

I'm sure most people here know the story by now, but for those that don't, here's a quick run down. You play Johnny, vice-president of The Lost, a biker gang from Alderney. When president Billy returns from a brief stint in jail, business quickly picks up, and the gang go back to their roots waging war against rivals The Angels Of Death. Soon enough that war catches attention from the police and other Liberty City inhabitants you'll have met during Niko's time in the city.

Admittedly, the story isn't as good as the original game's, but considering this is DLC it's pretty well thought out. There's some great meta-moments with Johnny and Niko, as well as a few other characters who I won't spoil. As for the new characters, they do a great if not cliche job of fitting the part. This is a GTA game after all, it's nothing new, but it's entertaining. Memorable characters include Johnny's go-to guy Jimmy, ex-girlfriend and complete junkie Ashley and Brian, who has his nose so far up Billy's ass he can't see properly. The plot is paced quite nicely through missions, with some side-tasks and activities which have nothing to do with the gang, so Johnny gets around Liberty City nicely.

As for the missions themselves, they don't disappoint. There's no tutorials here. No taking your girlfriend out, no bowling, no "Hay cusin!". It's just you, your guns and everyone else. It works wonders, supplying you with the weapons you need early on (Including a new semi-automatic pistol which fucking rocks, a combat shotgun and grenade launcher). Another new feature is that if you fail a mission past a certain checkpoint, when replaying it, you'll start from where you left off and not from the beginning. A lot of GTA missions have "pre-mission" parts, such as driving around or following someone, so this is a huge help. There are one or two "deja vu" moments too, which add a little spice to the game for people who have completed the original.

Another new aspect is that you no longer need to hang out with friends long enough to unlock their abilities, unlike GTAIV which required a certain amount of time being spent with them. You can call for guns ot bikes anytime you need, which really helps during the game, especially since this is just DLC. You'll get 2 safehouses, both of which on Alderney, so it can get frustrating to be so far away. But you can always call a cab just like before. There are also new activities such as gang wars, bike wars, arm wrestling and betting to do. Add to that new pidgeons and hidden people to find, and TLAD will keep you occupied for long enough.

If you're a fan of GTAIV, it's likely you'll have purchased this already, but if you haven't I strongly advise it. The missions are great fun (Especially the end one, as if that wasn't obvious enough), the characters are likeable and the new activities give you something else to do around Liberty City. One of the great things about The Lost And Damned is that it never slows down. There's never any mission that feels like filler, it always has something to do with the story. I can't speak for multiplayer since I'm not the biggest fan of GTA's, but hopefully someone else will post their thoughts on that soon.