Console issue 4 final test

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WHERE ARE WE GOING?

REVIEWS

So we’ve been miss-ing since December, Where have we been? What have we been doing? Why are we back? Why did we disappear? We try to answer all these ques-tions and give you an idea of the new direc-tion of Console maga-zine.

We head off our re-view trifecta this is-sue with the new Ghostbusters game,

is it what fan have been waiting for? Is it true that it may ac-tually include a plot for the third movie that’s currently under production? Up to bat second is the Bigs 2, 2K sport’s latest in-stallment in their

arcade style baseball fest. It’s bigger, better and harder hitting but is it a home run? And hiding in the back is the sequel to maybe one of the most over-looked games of 2008 Overlord 2. With it’s fresh mix of RTS ele-ments and third per-son adventuring can it live up to the cult acclaim it’s predeces-sor left in it’s wake.

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TECHNOLOGY, MOBILIZE

DOWNLOADABLE

Technology takes a look at the plastic pe-ripheral explosion set to hit our living rooms this Christmas. Rock band, Guitar hero, DJ Hero,

Tony Hawks Ride, the list of games featur-ing Fisher-Price play things keeps grow-ing, but when will it be too much?Mobilize showcas-es our top 4 iPhone games of last month,

Doom outsells Ro-lando 2 on the App store? Have iPhone gamers gone mad? We have a look at a motion controlled driving sim that actu-ally really works and do our best not to add another tower defense game to the list.

With the release of Battlefield 1943 set-ting a new standard in downloadable ar-cade titles, and on of the deepest top down shooters going for half price there’s a lot to be excited about.

CONSOLE MAGAZINE IS ENTIRELY DIGITALLY CREATED

CONTENTS

a NEw dawNSometimes when you start something you have an idea, it’s great idea, but it’s all in your head and when you start to commit that idea to the in-tended medium you start to real-ize that it’s not all coming up roses anymore. That’s pretty much how I started to feel after the third issue of Console. It did what it said on the cover, it was full of reviews and solid editorial (that could have used some copy editing, I’ll give you that) and it was for all intensive purposes a solid gaming magazine. But that was never the intention for Console magazine from the start and unfortunately in the process of putting together the first few issues all was lost.

So now it’s time to change all that, it’s taken a ton of time for me to de-cide just exactly how to change or in fact how to actually stay true to the original vision of the magazine.

I thought it would be simple. But it wasn’t. So after a long step back, 6 months to be exact I’m ready to tackle this undertaking again, but this time on my terms. See I’m no writer I’m a designer. I’m not a industry player, I’m a gamer and most of all I’m not impartial, I’m a fan boy. So where does this leave me. Not with a skill set that would really lend itself to making a games magazine all by myself, but for now that’s what I’ve decided to do. Not because I feel I have view people should hear, or I think that somehow my opinions are more important than others.

But really just because I enjoy it. And who knows maybe you will get some enjoyment out of the end product. So I hope you like the new look and the new content and hope you hop on for the ride cause this time Console is here to stay.

The Editor Gareth Seiler

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a NEw dawNCONSOLE MAGAZINE IS ENTIRELY DIGITALLY CREATED

CONSOLEMaGaZINE

CONSOLEMaGaZINE

www.consolemag.co.za

Wolfenstein will either hit or miss, there’s a huge fan base that’s been waiting a long time, but let’s see if ID delver on their prom-ises or just give us a above average shooter. A lot rides on Wolfenstein, ID used to be the name synonymous with first person shooters but lately they are little more than a afterthought, does the old dog still have some fight left?

WOLFENSTEIN

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Madden 10EA sports cash making machine is back for it’s next yearly outing. Don’t get me wrong the Madden games have always been good and they deserve to make a lot of money off them. But I’m just not as ex-cited as I used to be about a new Madden game, I’m sure it will be great though.

Guitar hero 5

batman arkham asylumGet ready for a real super hero game, one that doesn’t suck, one that doesn’t just rely on over the top vio-lence, one that makes you think, a solid game in all aspects. Yes I have high hopes for Batman, but so far they don’t look far fetched so here’s hold thumbs.


COMINGSOON

Seems like just yesterday we were playing guitar hero 3 or world tour for that matter and now we are less than month away from the 5th installment if you don’t include Metal-lica and Areosmith, but hey who’s really counting. Any ways at least the track list is looking good and all your plastic shit is compatible.

Madden 10

JULY 2009BACK IN THE DAY

Downloadable con-tent and games are a huge part of gaming theses days, some say it’s the future and in some aspects it’s hard to disagree. But with all those games out there, what exactly should you be com-mitting your hard earned virtual money and bandwidth to?

Downloadable try’s to sort through the mess and bring you the best download-able content available each month for the Wii, PS3 and Xbox 360.

Battlefield 1943 is with-out doubt the biggest offering yet to hit PSN and Xbox live arcade, with 4 maps, one exclu-sive to planes and all the

features of a full multi player shooter there’s no denying it’s quality, a simple must buy for any-one even remotely into shooters.

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AVATAR GAME

BACK IN THE DAY

In fact touting A Kingdom for Keflings as an Avatar game would truly be doing it a disservice. It’s so much more than that. Coming from the Ninja BEE makers of other quality arcade titles such as Clon-ing Clyde there’s a lot more to this title than meets the eye. What we have here is a wonderful mix

between a RTS and a city builder. But it’s A Kingdom for Keflings easy going nature that really en-dears it to the player. It’s never frustrating, you are never put under pressure and things ever rarely go wrong. The ultimate game to sit back and relax to,

what we have here in a weird way I guess is Live arcades answer to PSN’s Flower or Flow but with some genuine game tacked on. The perfect game to chill out with after a 5 hour stint in Bat-tlefield 1943.


IKA-WHAT?Ikaruga is a top down shooter that has stood the test of time from it’s initial release on the dreamcast and gamecube and offers some of the most ad-dictive hard-core co-op gaming available on live arcade.

dOwN LOadaBLE

RIDE IT LIKE ITS 1996I’ve seen this before, sure I have, I was 16 and in a arcade wait-ing in a line to get on The fancy snowboard game that actually let you stand on a snow-board. Now don’t get me wrong here, it’s a nice idea but besides the obvious dangers on children crash-ing through coffee tables, do we really need this crap in our

living rooms. Skate has already revolu-tionized the way we play skateboarding games and I honestly don’t think this is the answer. I’m not ad-dicted to a medium that let’s me sit on ass all day cause I like

To exercise. Gaming time is couch time for me at most I’ll play Rock band or Gui-tar hero but we have to draw a line some-where before some-one releases a cycling game with a freaking bicycle!

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BE A HERO

PREMIUM

Activision CEO Bobby Kotic has al-ready stated they plan to make an insane amount of money from selling the gen-eral gaming public plastic toys with their games this Christmas and with the release of Tony Hawks Ride, mentioned along side and the Turntable for DJ hero they look well set to empty our

pockets. But let’s not forget Guitar Hero 5 releasing Christmas time and a track record of updating the instru-ments with each major release what evils lie in store for us. Could we see them take on the premium Rock band instruments or again add some new slide

bar or effects pedal or other unnecessary flange? One thing is for certain, this is Ac-tivision, they want as much of your money as they can possibly squeeze expect an

announcements soon on the new range to be bundled for some insane price.

The Rock band premium instru-ments are for lack of a better descrip-tion, pretty fuck-ing awesome. But with their 1:1 scale with their real world counterparts where the hell are we gonna start storing this stuff. I’m also pretty sure “premium” is in no way code for cheap.


PERIPHEIRALS

3GS IS HERE

rolmemore

We give you a little breakdown of what you can come to ex-pect from from console magazine, and why we feel the changes we made were neces-sary

Rolando is awesome, let me just start by saying that, and Ro-lando 2 doesn’t disap-point. But I wouldn’t blame you for saying it’s just a rip off of Loco Roco and you would be correct but and there’s a big but. If you are going to rip off another game you best do it right and they have. rolando is perfect, and as good

a simulation of Loco roco as you will ever play. the game works to the strengths of the iPhones capabilities and motion control. Rolando is a must buy for the iPhone and works perfectly as a sit down and play game or as bite size

chunks. the graph-ics are colorful the framerate is smooth, there’s really nothing I can say bad about this game, go get it now!

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REAL GOOD

DOOMED

Check out our views on the latest titles available, but don’t believe the heading

Is the latest ghost-busters game the best ghostbusters game ever? It might well be, we have a look back in Ghostbusters tepid video game his-tory and try to mea-sure up it’s latest con-tender,

Music games, how many more can we actually take, check our blowout on rock band, vs guitar hero, vs rock revolution as we try to decide how many more games this already stuffed genre has left in it and where they need to go if they are to succeed.

Well it’s finally here, the game every iPhone owner has been wait-ing for, no wait that’s not right, Let’s be honest here. Who re-ally cares about doom anymore, it’s a damn shame doom sells bet-ter than a game like rolando 2.


MOBILIZE

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“The end resulT is Truly someThing raTher special”

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Ghostbusters is a mov-ie franchise held rather dearly in my heart. From the first time I saw a proton back to the last time a trap was kicked across the floor I wanted some of that

action, unfortunately the closest I ever got was a rather shoddy game called Ghost-busters 2 on the snes. I tried to tell myself it was a good game but I knew deep down it

was a rather shame full disgrace to a movie that just begged for a decent video game tie in. so now here we are in 2009 and there’s a new Ghostbusters game, is it any good? I


must admit things were doubtful during devel-opment as the Atari decided to roll over and die near the end of the games completion but thank our lucky stars Ghostbusters - the

official video game didn’t follow suit be-cause the end result is truly something rather special. Including 99% of the original cast from the movies and full voice overs it’s charac-

ters are believable and with ******* and ******** penning the story the original Ghostbusters humor stays intact throughout the game, in fact it feels so genu-ine you may not help

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but believe the rumors that this game is in fact based on the canon for the next movie. Graphi-cally Ghostbusters is impressive with allot or debris flying all over the screen in huge

ghost battles, and a pretty solid lighting en-gine, levels are varied and besides one foray back to a previous area each have a good fresh feeling. What’s more and probably the

single best point about this game is it’s ability to make you truly feel like a Ghostbuster. It’s you in there in the thick of it with the characters you love, exchanging witty banter and frying

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nibh eniat.CONSOLE MAGAZINE IS ENTIRELY DIGITALLY CREATED

ghosts at every cor-ner. The multi player hides a ton more depth to a game that could be considered short however playing on any difficulty higher than casual seems to

seep the fun out of the experience as the sec-ond half of the game becomes extremely dif-ficult even on normal. But for fans of the mov-ies or for those new to the Ghostbusters there

is indeed a great game to be had here, in fact I’m even going to go as far as to say it com-pletely overshadows all previous movie-game attempts and banishes them to holding tank.

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The original The Bigs was the first baseball game since the Nin-tendo Baseball on the Gameboy that really caught my attention. I’m no true baseball fan, I don’t watch it,

I don’t follow it and I don’t pretend to care, but what the Bigs does with Baseball makes me stand up and notice it. A pure adrenaline rush, lashed with copi-ous helping of fun the

Bigs was a blast, but it didn’t offer a lot of depth, in modes. That’s where the Bigs 2’s new become a legend mode comes into play, combining all the best bits of the Bigs from full

“A pure AdreNAlINe rush”


games to mini games to very interesting and diverse situational challenges. You follow the rise to fame of an would be all-star (you) who’s just come back from injury and trying

to make his way back into the big leagues, the character cust-omisation is great and very well featured, and makes it easy to create just the type of slug-ger you are looking for.

As for the game play itself, it’s true great and intuitive controls make it really easy to pick up. But keep your wits about you because of the games arcade style if you really want

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to shine you had better have the reflexes of a cat on speed as some of the legendary moves require QTe like but-ton presses that start a split second after the ball being hit. And you

may struggle at first with the batting as the pitchers never go easy on you. Graphically the Bigs to is spot on at creating the atmo-sphere of a big, fast hard hitting ball game

on your tv, with bright colors, atmospheric lighting and great ef-fect really draw you into the game. The turbo system is back from the first game and works by building


up a meter by pulling of good plays, be it a strike a rBI or a good catch. once full you can activate it to give you an edge in pitch-ing or batting and once the whole bar fulls up

you can activate it for a guaranteed home run or strike out. Very useful for both sides when the bases are loaded. As far as base-ball games go, if you are looking for a good

really solid fun titles you can pick up and play on the fly but that also offers some depth for your couch potato days you really can’t go wrong the Bigs 2. A definite buy in my

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overlord was one of the most overlooked games on the Xbox 360 and never really got it’s dues so we are actually rather lucky that we have got a sequel. At first glance

not much has changed from the original struc-ture and game play, you are an evil overlord you takes control of a bunch of minions that are mostly like a cross between goblins and

gremlins, the game play is a mix between an rTs and a third person adventurer, you control your overlord with the left stick and the minions with the right, this gives you


and the ability to sweep your minions across the levels while you stand back and enjoy the chaos. The story revolves around the empire - the roman like government of the time

having taken control of most of the city’s on a mission to search out the final resting place of some special magical doohickey. of course being the evil overlord that you are

you also want to get your grubby paws on this thing, well at least that’s what your minion adviser tells you. so of you going setting about on laying down chaos wherever you go

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in your quest to beat the empire to their final destination, at least you are not alone as throughout the game you will unlock up to 4 different types of min-ions, browns, which are

you standard brawl-ers, reds, which can control fire, greens, which have a stealth ability and blues, which obviously have water abilities. The levels are nice and varied and

the graphics colorful and lush. overlord 2 is a game that doesn’t take itself seriously and humour wise has a lot in common with dun-geon keeper for those who’s played it. un-


fortunately overlord 2 doesn’t stake the same balance in humour as it’s predecessor. evil for evils sake is great but overlord 2 may just go a little to far at times. It’s not as fun

being evil when you are expected to be evil but rather being evil when you are expected to be good would have been a better path and a bit of inner turmoil in the overlord would

have done nicely. As for the whole package there are some loading time issues and simple tasks such as upgrad-ing your minions are unnecessarily long. But that’s about all I can re-

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CO-OPSo many games late-ly seem to have left out the online co-op option even when it seems the game was practically made for it. The watchmen games for a start, what the hell, local co-op only, damn you must be kidding es-pecially for arcade ti-tles that cost 1200 ms points or whatever it is on PS3. And

big name releases such as terminator, abeit a rather shite game but still with online co-op some fun could have been had. There just seems to be so much poten-tial out there, what about Call of Jaurez - Bound in Blood, talk

about missed oppertunitys, I mean here you are in a game that revolves around 2 brothers each level and there’s no co-op and with all the work they put into multi player it’s really sad.


IV’EBEENTHINKING

It’s also too bad there’s not to many direct co-op spe-cific game idea’s out there, games that re-ally make you rely on your partner. Be-sides the likes of left 4 dead. I’d like to see more co-op platform-ing maybe even rac-ing, there’s got to be a way to get a co-driver properly involved in a rally game. But

I guess for now I’ll just have to be hap-py with whatever is thrown my way. too bad that it seems not that many developers are really taking co-op all that seriously, If you have the time to strap on a ass-hat multi player

mode why not throw in some co-op as well, it may just be the thing that saves your game.

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THEENDa webcomic of romance, sar-

casm, math, and language.

XKCDCheck out our views on the latest titles available, but don’t believe the heading

Is the latest Ghost-busters game the best Ghostbusters game ever? It might well be, we have a look back in Ghostbusters tepid video game his-tory and try to mea-sure up it’s latest con-tender,

Music games, how many more can we actually take, check our blowout on rock band, vs guitar hero, vs rock revolution as we try to decide how many more games this already stuffed genre has left in it and where they need to go if they are to succeed.

Console issue 4 final test

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