Archives for posts with tag: Portal 2

Super injunction Sunday, royal wedding Friday

May 8, 11 //
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Yes, today’s late episode covers the event of the century… Yes, the Royal Wedding. But not only this, we have super injunction news (which is the reason the episode is late, for some stupid reason we cannot tell you who has super injunctions), we work out how much blood there is in all the humans alive today and have a preview of the amazing William and Kate, the movie (which we later went on to watch) and much, much more. Yes, it’s a jam packed episode for you all today!

We also have real Gaming news too, covering the massive Sony failure and some hilarious Nintendo News…

Remember to go to www.gmcrf.co.uk and e-mail us at letters@gmcrf.co.uk.

GMCRF fm-Episode 46-6/5/2011 Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

PoRtal 2, PR and Art.

April 24, 11 //
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I have spent at lest 0 minutes on Portal 2 and at most 0 minutes on Portal 2… So I thought that was the perfect amount of time to create a fair and balanced review of Portal 2; or at least one that generates a huge amount of SEO (search engine optimization), click-troughs and ad-revenue (hence the reason why I have said Portal 2 several times in the opening paragraph). Hey, Joystiq, IGN, and any other shabby, Fox or AOL-run SEO house have done it so we here at GMCRF thought that it would be brilliant to do an in-depth review, one which is (like the ones at Joystiq and IGN who are both ad supported and seems to advertise things in it’s news-stream with the title of “deals”) not at all bias because it’s made by Valve!

So, what’s different? Well lets start this review off with a hypothetical question… What score will this game get? Out of ten that is. Well if it’s out of ten it’s obviously going to be nine because if they give it a ten the users of the website will instantly think that there is something suspicious going on. So, by giving it nine we can both write about some improvements that can be made, thus increasing the word count, and we can also charge more for the people who want to a ten for their game AND we can then prevent a user revolt in the comment stream at the end of the article, which we will tell you to “comment with your opinions of the game” just to patronize you.

Leaving this hypothetical question aside, I must now pose another hypothetical question. How awesome is this game? Well it must be fucking awesome. It was made by Valve you see. VALVE! Remember half-life 3? No? Ohh, but still VALVE!!!!!!!!!1!!!!!! That’s why we gave it a nine, we don’t want you to secretly tell you that we have loads of ads (please click on some of these ads please…just click, go on, click here) for the game so giving it a low score might be a bad idea because you as the audience don’t want to pay for this content anymore because they like to think they can get everything for free. Well it’s not, proof is in this brilliant review in which we recommend you should absolutely buy this game (see, if we don’t say this we won’t get any more Portal 2, or even Valve ads for our website). Where was I? Ahh, IT’S A VALVE GAME AND YOU MUST BUY IT!!! IT’S WELL ORIGINAL!

In it’s originality Valve has really gone out of it’s way to create original ideas and game play mechanics and such and stuff. Blah blah blah…

Firstly, they got a celebrity to do the voice over. Stephen Merchant (Who? Ahh, the tall guy who is Ricky Gervases agent in Extras) does something in it, so that’s fucking awesome. I don’t know, I haven’t played the game but I assume that it is because in this sheet I have been given by Valve and the PR Overlord who is sat behind me constantly telling me about it whilst I am sat in a darkened room playing the game tells me it’s awesome. So it must be. See, I have 1 hour to play this game so I can’t be bothered, so I’ll just copy this PR sheet.

But it’s okay! See, we here at GMCRF haven’t been given enough money to point out how stupid every single sucker who fell for Steam PR trap (It’s a trap!) should be very, very ashamed of them selves. Really? You seriously thought that they would break their complex release strategies because you were stupid enough to fall for them saying if you bought some indie games the release would come faster? If you did you are a blithering idiot. No. Seriously. You are. They release a date like they did to get all the people who seriously think a business is a kind and genuine entity with their users at heart when they release it early when they just got you as the user to spend more money than you otherwise would do buying these games because it would allegedly come early (though, it was one day ‘early’, well done there!) BUT IT’S VALVE!

Another original idea Valve created all by them selves is the paint mechanic – something they absolutely didn’t steal to an extent by buying a company some students who attended digi-pen created. So, that’s great. But the PR guy behind me doesn’t want me to mention this, the fact that the same happened to Portal in the first place and he also isn’t very happy with the point that the release of Portal 2 is a shameless PR stunt.

I digress; this isn’t really a review of Portal 2… If you haven’t noticed. It’s a very angry commentary on how all the news industry, specifically the online news arena, even more so in the tech/gaming news genre is controlled by paying advertisers and PR companies. Seriously, I can’t see why the release of Portal a whole pathetic day early was a news worthy event. This very subject is something you will have heard both Will and I talk about in the podcasts, yet I hardly hear it in any other program/production.

Finally, another point I hopefully conveyed within this article is that sequels are evil and have ruined the creativity of the industry. This is because companies are so set on what sells, they are afraid of changing that formula in a way which will make the game better because of angry, deluded, ‘fans’ who can’t face change. This is the reason why video games are not and can not be art, the basic lack of control of the artist (making this medium a truly unique experience and insanely hard to even make a compelling story with the typical game) and and the very fact that the game is for a reason, not to entertain, not to compel, not to inspire. No, it’s nothing but money and therefore sales — And the PR companies that run the industry and the world are responsible for this!

Authors note: This isn’t necessarily an attack on the news outlets mentioned and not one on those who work at these places. To be absolutely explicit, it is an attack on ad-supported content which corrupts the content of news-sources and how people are suckered into PR tricks by these corporations.

Look out! There’s game reveals about!

December 12, 10 //
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So then, last night was the annual Spike VGA’s. If you listen to the show then you will be well aware that we disapprove of the majority of gaming award ceremonies and the only “game of the year” we believe to be valid is that which we will announce on Christmas day this year. However, the industry doesn’t seem to want to recognise the sheer awesomeness of GMCRF fm and they hold irritatingly crap shows instead, such as the aforementioned VGA’s.

There is one good thing that comes out of the VGA’s in particular though. There is always a healthy stream of announcements and reveals for the coming year. And believe me when I say, next year is going to be truly great.

Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim – Yes, this is not a misprint. Fans of the series can finally get officially excited again. We have been hearing scattered reports over the past few weeks about the games inevitable existence and only last week we pretty much had it confirmed with the details that it was going to be a direct sequel to Oblivion. Now we have a title and a release date. Skyrim is going to hit stores on 11.11.11 and we have the first trailer here. 1 word – Dragons…

Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception – I want to make it clear that the Uncharted series is fantastic and that if I was to buy a PS3, this would be the reason why. With exceptionally cinematic game play, brilliant voice acting and wonderful storytelling, the continuing adventures of Nathan – “Indiana Jones” – Drake have gone from strength to strength, becoming one of the PS3’s flagship titles. Now the third entry in the series is on the horizon and the following trailer shows that it looks set to continue Naughty Dog’s winning streak.

Forza 4 – Not much can really be said about this other than it isn’t going to take 6 years and will likely not be a disappointment. We also know that kinect will be used in the game for both driving and to allow players to examine the cars from every angle. Other than that, you know what to expect. Anyways, here’s the trailer, which, despite being all most entirely live action, features some pretty awesome driving.

Gears of Resistance 3 – Say what you like about the first two (we say that they are unashamedly unoriginal), but the plot of the third is that the enemy has basically won, you and a few others are all that is left of a once great army and you’re left alone to put up a last stand against impossible odds. Now this sounds disgracefully similar to Cliffy B’s final Delta squad game where the locust are all but victorious, the COG has disbanded, all that is left of the human population of Sera is small colonies living out on the seas, Delta squad are left to fight for survival with a few others against the might of the entire locust. Coincidence? We most definitely think not, but still, trailer, here:

Bore-tal 2 – Valve can do no wrong. Whatever footage they release for any game, their army of mindless followers immediately declare it to be the greatest thing OF ALL TIME!!! Quite frankly, this is getting rather annoying, especially when it comes to Portal 2. Just because the original was, well, very original, it still had its flaws, such as a short campaign and a large number of glitches. Still people have overlooked this and seem to universally accept that Portal 2, despite being a long way out, is already the best game ever made. To be honest, it won’t be. I know it, you know it, but it’s just too cool to say that Valve is the best games company ever. So, without further ado, here is the best trailer, for the best co-op mode of the best game ever produced, in the future…

Mass Effect 3 – Now, it’s no secret that I am rather a large fan of Bioware’s operatic sci-fi space saga. They are the best written games I have ever had the joy of playing and though each work well as standalone games, nothing beats playing them together with the same character. It is a game that is tailored to you and with Bioware saying that the last of the trilogy will be completely unrestricted by the need for further plot past the end of the game, I can’t wait to see just how drastically different an ending I can get with each new play through. The following trailer perfectly captures the no hope sense that the end to the second so perfectly set up and the shot of London in flames, well… I am Will Jones, and this is my favourite trailer of the year:

So, there we have it. Already, 2011 is shaping up to be a really fantastic year for the industry. There are some huge blockbuster games for both Sony and Microsoft fans to get real excited about on this list and there are even more that didn’t appear at the VGA’s at all, such as Gears of War 3 and Dual Stick Shooter. Heck there may even be some surprises in store for next year, as who knows what E3 will bring. Either way it’s going to be great.