EA Games
Platform: PS2, Gamecube, Xbox
Genre: Supervillains Now that anti-hero games sell more than good vs evil games, the new special Goldeneye gives you the chance to play as James Bond’s most popular enemies. I can’t help but thinking that the reason why they made this move is because the next 007 is going to be fucking Colin Farrell. I mean, who really wants to spend time trying to stop Colin Farrell being killed when you can play as Donald fucking Pleasance instead? Is there a better bad guy in the whole world? Peter Cushing maybe, but definitely not Christopher Lee, he’s over-exposed. The same goes for Kevin Spacey, John Malkovich and Malcolm McDowell. Clockwork Orange doesn’t count because Alex is the hero not the bad guy. If… is overrated as well if you ask me and why did he take all those terrible movies like the ones where he plays a PVC suited time travelling space villain? How much did he get paid for that? Just like Malcolm McDowell when he invites me around to his house for cocktails, this is great and everything but it still has a few problems for a casual gaming person who doesn’t wank off to Halo every night. It’s impossible to play if you’ve just come home from a night with Irish Car Bombs (half a pint of Guinness with shots of Kahlua, Sambuca and Baileys) like the time I played it. What with the totally unsettling and annoying Paul Oakenfold soundtrack and the targeting system LITERALLY a million times wobblier than before, I couldn’t get past stage one. SYRUP DAVIES Call Of Duty: Finest Hour
Activision
Platform: PS2, Gamecube, Xbox
Genre: War It can’t be long now before somebody else apart from the Nazis at Resistance Records makes a game that celebrates the evil ol’ Third Reich. I’m not saying that it’s a positive move, but right now war games manufacturers are making so many amazingly detailed, epic games about fighting against Hitler that you just know there’s some evil little “extreme games” developer that’s working away on something like Sims In Auschwitz or Xtreme Buchenwald Basketball. What about something based around Mengele? They could use those annoying “design your own character” features that crop up in every single game ever these days. Can you imagine the possibilities? I’m not saying it’s morally right, but can you imagine a game called Human Zoo: The Curse Of Dr M, where you could design your own mutants and create an army of them to overthrow the whole world or something like that? It’d probably be okay to have that game as long as you were fighting against the evil forces of Hitler, like you do in this game. After roughly a 35 minute intro about World War 2, you start off playing as a Russian, then get to be a British tank commando, then an American and you get to get to use more than 30 authentic weapons to kill your enemies, but I couldn’t get past the first beach invasion and got killed by a piece of metal which landed on me and I didn’t have time to go through the fucking intro again. War bores the pubes off me. MATT PUKINGSTEIN Ridge Racer
Sony
Platform: PSP
Genre: Street racing This game should be an instant hit. Partly because it’s pure action racing, but more importantly because you play it on a portable PlayStation (PSP). Up until now Nintendo has dominated the handheld game console market. But here comes rebellious Sony once again screwing up the situation for their competitors. The PSP is small and super-slick with a big screen, and it’s as powerful as earlier PlayStation consoles. And they flew me to fucking Tokyo so I could play it. That sort of backfired since when I got there they were all sold out and I spent the entire trip singing karaoke and going to secrete after hours yakuza tattoo parlors. By the way, did you know those dudes aren’t allowed to go to regular swimming pools because of their tattoos? They’re covered by these great, intricate tattoos, like the samurais, and if they want to take a swim they rent the entire place. Because of the yakuza, tattoos are completely stigmatized over there. I met this girl, Keiko, she’s an art curator and she got completely fazed by my tattoo. She said she’d never stood so close to a tattoo before in her life and asked if she could touch it. After she touched it she told me she would never ever (ever) get one herself. The other way to recognize a yakuza is by the hair. They’ve all got crew cuts. At first I thought it was bullshit, but when I started looking for them I totally saw it. Yeah so anyway, they sent me a PSP when I got home instead, and apart from the screen getting smudgy real fast it’s great. It’s like everything I’ve been dreaming of ever since envying that computer book Penny in Inspector Gadget used for pretty much everything except for taking a shit. MOONBOOTS