On Monday Blur was made available to the public in the form of a multiplayer beta “demo” of sorts. This beta was accessible through registration on the official Blur game website with a special beta token, acquirable from various online websites. I was eager to snag my code the second I was able to, doing so during one of my lecture classes and then anxiously awaiting for the beta a week later to start off my Spring Break.

The racing genre has recently been lacking many “arcade-style” racers and has opted more so in the favor of simulation racing games such as Gran Turismo 5, DiRT, Need for Speed: Shift, GRID, etc. However a few games provided relief with arcade-style gameplay including Burnout Paradise and a personal favorite of mine, Pure. Bizarre Creation’s latest game, Blur, is the next great racing game following the studio’s very successful Project Gotham Racing 4 released with the launch of the Xbox 360. So it’s been several years since Bizarre has made a racing game and in this length of time they’ve decided to change things up a bit with Blur.

Read Serial Killers editorials and journey with me as we explore the game series that, in their infancy were the best of their genre. However, as a result of varying factors they have been slowly degraded over time by companies who continue to seek financial gain by destroying memories of names that we once held dear.

We will explore each franchise individually based on the main aspects that have been affected and degraded over time whether it be through gameplay, story, sound or graphics. Games that are set to be included in this editorial are: Prince Of Persia, Rayman, Spyro and Crash Bandicoot (although more may be added in the near future). The possible motives for developers doing the above series such an injustice in their later installments will also be explored as we delve into the psychee of the publishers.

Because I'm writing these I'll give you some background as to how I started gaming. I began gaming on an Atari 2600 clone and quickly moved on to the PS1. I played games that were enjoyed by the masses such as Metal Gear Solid, Final Fantasy, Rayman and Spyro. A variety of games that were all brilliant in their own ways and continue to have sequels on newer consoles.

As technology has grown alongside developer's budgets there is a considerably higher amount of pressure to meet deadlines and maintaining graphical quality is now a key priority as it is sadly seen as the most important component of success within the gaming market. All of this will be discussed and more in the this series of editorials, I hope you look forward to it.

Finally, during the writing of these articles if anybody can think of the name of another series that you believe has been killed off in later generations then feel free to PM me (eldiablov) on the forums and i'll be sure to investigate.

Name: Ginormo Sword
Year Released: 2008
System: PC (Flash game)
Link: http://babarageo.com/flash/ginormo/

Before I start this review I would just like to thank eldiablov for the fantastic articles he produced which have kept this section alive while I was gone. Most of the games the others and I review in this section are eighty/nineties classics hence the term "retro" and it's always nice to revisit these age old gems. Ginormo Sword however was released in 2008 but this game feels and plays like it came out twenty years earlier and if you think that's a bad thing then prepare to be corrected, because this game is one of the most addictive things I have ever come across.

Ginormo Sword is a PC flash game developed and published by Babarageo and released in Japan (although the game is in English).

Plot:

When it comes to plot this game is no Xenogears, in fact if I'm perfectly honest it's on about the same level as Pong, but then again since when have the Japanese needed a reason to fight demons and sand monsters? I may be missing something as I'm still stuck on the final boss which upon completion may reveal some kind of epilogue explaining what I have been doing for the past 10 hours of my life but I highly doubt it. This game is a test, a test to see how far you can go without any sort of reward.

Gameplay:

Gameplay is the only reason why anyone could possibly enjoy this game for one reason: It's like cocaine - no matter how much you want to get off it and do something productive you can't because it's too much fun (Note: Cocaine is actually a filthy drug and I'm not advocating it in anyway).

Ginormo Sword is a hybrid between a hack and slash and role playing game. The idea behind it is you enter certain areas on the map and kill everything you see this unlocks a boss then another area. Monsters drop gold which can be used to add stats to yourself or make you sword bigger which allows you to hit more enemies at once and eventually doing major damage to everything on the screen at once.

The game contains multiple weapons and armors that you can enchant with gems that drop to give you an elemental advantage (for example you can only hurt the Ifrit boss with a saphire (water) enchanted weapon). You can also purchase magic spells which are auto cast when you attack to give you that extra edge. The whole system is extremely simple which is what makes it so great. If you have a hot date don't play this game before it as your finger will be in bits (unless you're left handed like me ).

Graphics:

Ginormo sword looks like it was drawn up in MS Paint which is disappointing, the sprites for some of the monsters look great but the world map and the hero sprite (a pink stick man I shit you not) look terrible but today I'm an optimist so I'm going to say it has an element of childhood charm. There isn't much else to say on the subject, most of the enemies are just recolors of previous opponents and your sword (the main focus in the game) is literally just a block of color.

Sound:

The sound effects in this game are shockingly bad to the point where I had to mute my browser. I'm no composer but I can't imagine anything worse than the high pitched torcher this game put me through, I'm actually getting stressed out writing about it. I challenge any of you to find me a game with worst sound effects. The main problem is it's the same three noises again and again and again every five seconds. To put it into perspective I want you to imagine the most annoying girl you know droning on about the same tripe for five hours without giving you or anyone else a chance to talk, got that? This is worse, far worse.

Conclusion:

Ginormo Sword is by all means a terrible game, it's unoriginal, looks and sounds bad and has no plot what so ever but for some reason I can't stop playing it and for that factor alone it scores fairly high. Take the new Sonic games for example, they look great, have decent sound effects and music yet I don't recall playing anything after Sonic Adventure 2 for the Dreamcast for more than an hour. I have currently logged almost ten hours playing this game (not in one sitting). I feel compelled to beat that final boss and finish it despite the fact nothing will happen and that's what gaming should be about, forcing us gamers to want to complete no matter what.

Serideth signing off saying "Mine is bigger than yours".

Score 7/10

There is an endless supply of tools for us to utilize to grant ourselves more control over our keyboards through macro creation and profiles but the same cannot be said about mice. While you can often find powerful mouse customization software accompanying your mouse, you'll be hard pressed to find a suitable replacement if you don't want to use the included software or if you do not have the mouse that that specific software was designed for.

Whether you choose not to use the software that was made for your mouse because it is buggy or forces mouse acceleration on you, our latest Curious Finding: X-Mouse Button Control by Highresolution Enterprises will give you more control over your rodent without needing to have a special model. Although X-Mouse Button Control is a powerful program that is not resource intensive, it only has support for 5 mouse buttons, a scroll wheel and tilt functionality.

Still, if you're like me and use your mouse to begin transmitting on Mumble or Ventrilo or if you just want to disable your mouse's backwards and forwards buttons, then you'll want to grab this program to save yourself from a lot of headaches.

System Requirements: Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows 2003 and Windows Vista, Windows 2008 and Windows 7. Both 32bit and 64bit. You will also need a mouse and driver that supports 5 buttons. NOTE: If your mouse has 5 buttons but the 4th and 5th buttons don't do anything in XP64 by default - this probably wont work for you.

License: X-Mouse Button Control is completely free.

Screenshot:

Download: [X-Mouse Button Control]

If you've already tried X-Mouse Button Control and know of a better alternative or need help using the program, please leave a comment.

When it comes to yelling at your teammates that you're being attacked and begging for cover, nothing brings your point across better than voice communication. Of course, most games come with good ol' text chat but having to stop defending yourself just to ask for help is sure to lose you the match or game. Although most games offer in-game voice communication, there are some modern games (like Shattered Horizon) that do not and, let's face it, the majority of the time the in-game voice quality is absolutely horrendous anyway. This is where today's Curious Finding Mumble comes in to save us from having to put up with robotic, static-filled conversation.

While Mumble isn't the first application to provide this functionality, it is arguably the program that does it best. Other voice communication (or VOIP) software like Ventrilo and TeamSpeak simply can't match the voice quality or the price of Mumble. When using Mumble I often find myself looking around to see where the person talking to me is standing, simply because it sounds like they are right there in the room with me. Whereas when using another voice communication application or in-game voice chat, I sometimes find it difficult to understand what people are saying because the voice quality isn't good or clear enough.

If you’re like me and you tend to wonder what things you have installed on your system or you want to take good care of your system, you’ll find yourself regularly looking at Add/Remove Programs to decide on what junk you can remove from your system.

When doing so, one thing will stick out like a sore thumb if you’ve been a good computer user and have been keeping your system up to date: multiple installations of different Java versions. Now, you could go and manually uninstall all the other Java versions – like I used to do – but why waste time?

Today’s Curious Finding makes that task as simple as clicking a few times. JavaRa by RaProducts allows you to easily remove older versions of Java and update your system to the latest version with a few clicks of your mouse.

RaProducts describes it best:

"JavaRa is a simple tool that does a simple job: it removes old and redundant versions of the Java Runtime Environment (JRE). Simply select “Check for Updates” or “Remove Older Version” to begin."

System Requirements: Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows Vista without UAC (although I can use it just fine with UAC).

License: JavaRa is completely free and open source.

Screenshot:

Download: [JavaRa]

When you as a gamer hear the term “action adventure platforming-shooter” used, what exactly comes to mind? If the series known as Ratchet & Clank developed by Insomniac Games is not among the top of your list, an update to your gaming catalogue is certainly in need!

The newest addition to the Ratchet & Clank series titled Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time, exclusive to the Playstation 3, is a refreshing breath into a tried-and-true and already immensely successful series.

Staying true to its roots, Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time includes lots of action, plenty of adventure, an abundance of exciting platforming puzzles, and of course to top it all off – an assortment of things to shoot, as well as enemies to shoot at. With a top of the line story to compliment all of these wonderful things here, this title is a real gem folks.

It takes merely a glance at the history of releases in the entertainment industry to discern what element is key to a higher chance of success: braaaiiins or, well, zombies anyway. Just take a look at all the titles that have something to do with zombies and the numbers they rack up:
28 Days later: $45,064,000
28 Weeks later: $54,146,747
Dawn of the Dead (2007): $102,356,381
Dead Rising: $1,220,000
Resident Evil: 6.43 million units sold

Despite the theme being over-done and something we should all be tired of, it's still going strong and is as popular and enjoyable as ever. Why else would Gearbox decide to go that direction with their DLC for one of their flagship products: Borderlands? I don't know what it is about zombies or the appeal of a zombie apocalypse, but it appears to be something we really enjoy being a part of.

Although using the popular zombie theme does seem to increase your chances of success, you need much more to produce an entertaining, immersive game that will keep people coming back for more and more. Is what Left 4 Dead 2 offers enough? Join me as we investigate what Left 4 Dead 2 (L4D2) brings to the table in order to develop The Last Word on Left 4 Dead 2.

Name: Pokémon Gold
Year Released: 1999
System: GBC

As a nineties child I have fond nostalgic memories of various things, from specific TV series I used to enjoy to random collectors cards I used to trade with friends. Though one franchise that stays with me through every category is Pokémon. Pokémon (standing for pocket monsters) was an idea thought up by Bandai and was marketted to children through every possible avenue. In the nineties Pokémon was everywhere, from the TV to the supermarket and eventually to the cinema, Bandai made billions from these fictional creatures and still continue to do so. I'm sure those that do remember it can still recite the famous theme tune used in the first series word for word. Being an avid Pokémon fan during those years I gained a great amount of joy from anything to do with them but I had an even bigger love and respect for the gameboy games that were produced in the nineties. My all time favourite being Pokémon Gold for the Gameboy Colour.

Pokémon Gold is an RPG developed by Game Freak that was released in 1999.

Plot:

In the game you play as a rookie trainer who has just moved into the Johto region with your mother. You are briefed by Professor Oak on what exactly Pokémon are and how you should treat them. As you go through the game you will level up, complete puzzles and defeat your adversaries as you aim to get to the Indigo Plateaux. This is where the Elite Four are housed. They are the best trainers in the Pokémon world and by defeating them you will achieve your aim of taking your place as a true Pokémon master.

Name: Ninja Gaiden
Year Released: 1988
System: NES

Back when the NES was the coolest console you could own, there was a common genre that saturated all gaming platforms; 2D platformers. They were the most common genre and for good reason, they made money. However, most of them lacked the polish and the effort required to stand out in people's memory as a true classic. Ninja Gaiden for the NES was not one of them.
Ninja Gaiden was released in 1988 by Tecmo. It is a 2D sidescrolling platformer.

Plot:

You play as Ryu Hayabusa, a ninja who finds a letter written by his missing father Ken Hayabusa. The letter tells him to go to America and meet with an archaeologist named Doctor  Smith.  Doctor  Smith tells Ryu that two statues hidden by him and Ryu's father from their expedition to the Amazon have the power to end the world if they are united. Ryu then goes on a quest to acquire the statues and destroys them while also trying to discover the fate of his father. The plot was a lot deeper than I first expected for an NES game and I was impressed by it although the story felt "traditional" in the sense of stereotypical ninja stories.