The execution, for me, was overcomplicated and boring. So when it was announced that the franchise was being reinvented as first-person shooter Syndicate by Starbreeze Studios (of The Darkness fame), I was intrigued rather than outraged. Much of the old guard may be staunchly against this switch from strategy to gunplay, but I can see how the move was necessary in these modern times of CoDs and Battlefields.

All that aside, the Syndicate demo has recently graced the interwebs and I gave it a go.

The demo is, surprisingly, 4-player co-op only. If you’re an anti-social weasel or just don’t have any mates that are interested, fear not as there appears to be a thriving community already bubbling away for you to jump right into. Putting out a co-op demo is a bold move, and shows just how much confidence Starbreeze have in the mode and how little they wont to give away of the main plot. As this is the only multiplayer the game will ship with, it’s nice to get an idea of what you’ll be letting yourself in for if lonesome gaming doesn’t do it for you.

Before you jump into a match there’s a plethora of stats, upgrades, loadouts and abilities to tinker with. As is now standard, you can customise up to three loadouts with a primary and secondary weapon and two Chip abilities, which range from squad-wide shields to a damaging personal shockwave. As there are no classes as such, the way you combine these elements dictates your role in battle and finding the right balance for you is essential. There’s also a skill tree-type upgrade system, allowing you to spend points received for ranking up on new abilities, physical improvements and hacking prowess.

Instead of unlocking new weapons and attachments as you level up, Syndicate uses a research system. You spend Research points to unlock specific blueprints for each weapon, then use that weapon in combat to research the upgrade. It’s a great way to make sure you get the upgrades you need and it’s reassuring to know that all that XP isn’t going towards unlocking something you won’t use. So, after tinkering with your template and choosing a generic character, it’s match time!

The demo offers only one mission, an assassination assignment against a Colonel at Caymen Global. As the experience differs depending on loadout and team-mates, I’m going to take you through one of my runs.

Lush and hectic. Just how I like it!

Beginning the assault in the back of an APC with my three comrades sitting around me really builds the atmosphere before I’m turfed out the door into a face-full of hot lead. The action starts immediately and barely lets up, making for a breathless, hectic and exciting game.

Each person has to act according to their loadout; shotgun-toting allies need to get in close while snipers need to hang back in cover and pick enemies off at a distance. As we round the first corner, an automated turret starts pounding our position. I sprint and slide to cover behind a convenient chest-high wall, popping up to blast holes in the enemy soldiers now rounding the turret. A shotgun-wielding ally makes a run for the turret and, as she hacks into it, the rest of us pound away at its shield and keep its attention.

Hacking is a major part of Syndicate and takes numerous forms, the most basic of which is ‘breaching’ various objects, terminals and even enemy grenades. The turret’s down but its killer is low on health, so I use my Breach to heal them quickly, another use for the handy ability. With the area clear, we all pile into a dual-gate system.

These ‘Staging Areas’ are present throughout the mission and allow us to replenish ammo, take stock and prepare for the next section. As the doors open we’re met with more enemy fire and I quickly get into cover. While Syndicate has no proper cover system my gun seems to aim around objects, similar to The Darkness, to allow me to fire without exposing myself. Bringing down guard after guard as they pour from overhead gantries, I hear an ally warn us there’s a Reactive on the field; the automatic squad speech adding an extra layer of immersion to an already absorbing experience.

Reactive enemies have impenetrable armour that must be hacked from close range to make them vulnerable. Their presence makes for a tense firefight as one of us tries to get behind while the others draw the fire. Again the shotgunner makes it up close and drops the Reactive’s armour, leaving him wide open. I pop a few shots into him but focus on keeping the troops from reaching ground level, leaving it to my two assault-rifle-bearing team-mates to pound away at the helpless Reactive.

Once he’s dealt with, the shotgunner jabs him in the neck and tears out his Chip. It’s these tiny microchips that make all this ‘remote hacking’ business possible, and leaving his intact gives Caymen goons a chance to revive him, so ripping it out is a necessity.

The next area is locked up tight, but our friendly A.I. helper tells us that we should use the skylights. Climbing ladders, we make it to the roof and reign hellfire down through the large, open gaps. Before long we lose the advantage, however, as troops file into the room and a ceiling-mounted turret is activated, peppering the area below with gunfire. I stay put, using my scope to take out enemies as my allies make do on the ground. It’s a perfect example of playing to your strengths when part of a team and it works fantastically.

There’s no order or marking system yet it’s very easy to see your place in each engagement and in my experience everyone seems keen to do their bit. Finally dropping to the ground, my HUD tells me there’s a hackable panel that deactivates the turret… behind the turret! It’s occupied with my team-mates on the other side of the room and I take my chance, sprinting underneath it and sliding into the tiny room where the panel sits.

Staying crouched, I breach it and the turret goes down. All the Breaching is done with a simple hold of LB and it’s immensely satisfying when you manage to bring down a turret or a Reactive’s armour. Room clear, we rush onward but my ammo is low. In fact, I only have one clip left for my sniper rifle. I decide to switch my sidearm for an enemy assault rifle and in the next area I’m shown I made the right choice.

As we run in we’re met by more guards, who are easily cut down in a hail of assault rifle fire. The tables quickly turn, though, as the roof opens up and troops with rocket launchers take positions on the far rim! Switching to my sniper rifle I know it’s all on me. As I drop the first goon I hear a rocket boom in front of me and two of my team cry out for a Reboot. When you take too much damage you shut down and need to be rebooted by a team-mate.

It’s Syndicate’s version of the archetypal ‘downed’ mechanic and it works fine, nicely woven into the world. I quickly bring down the other soldiers and rush to help my allies. We work the rest of the room, wiping out another few squads of Caymen guards before pushing on to the final area. It’s here our quarry waits, and where the experience goes one of two ways.

Seems one of the CEOs hired an Industrial Goth band...

The Colonel has Reactive armour, which makes close hacking a priority but he also carries a deadly mini-gun that can cut us down in seconds. Add to that the constant stream of goons and you’ve got one tricky fight. Half the time, the guards seem to be softer and less driven, preferring to hang back rather than charge in. In this case it’s easy to focus on the Colonel, working as a team to distract and disable him while dodging his lethal firearm.

My team’s most successful run had the shotgunner hiding out of sight while another team-mate distracted the Colonel and the third hacked his armour. Then the shotgunner emerged and pounded into him while I kept the troops off their backs from a distance. When it works, it’s glorious. It’s also amazing that there’s no actual communication going on; everyone is simply reacting to the situation and using their loadout as they see fit.

On the other hand, if you’re unlucky he’s impossible to bring down. Caymen soldiers immediately swarm the little room you start in, giving you no chance to focus on the Colonel. Before you know it he’s crossed the courtyard and is redecorating said room with your entrails. Trying to leave the room is foolish; the sheer amount of guards and their new-found aggressiveness makes it a suicide move. The only way I found to break this cycle is to keep losing until you get lucky. Not fun.

Overall I’m very impressed with Syndicate. What could have been a by-the-numbers, Deathmatch-based competitive multiplayer is instead an exciting and instantly playable co-op action romp. Some may think doing away with the usual online modes is a bad move but in fact it’s quite the opposite. By focussing solely on co-op, Syndicate has dodged the almost certain fatal bullet of going up against Modern Warfare 3 and Battlefield 3 for the attentions of the tea-bagging brigade. It stands out as a bold statement against leaderboards and K/D ratios and reminds us that first-person shooters don’t always have to be about maps and killstreaks.

Best of all, it does it brilliantly. The smooth and engaging combat is instantly familiar yet refreshingly original, the hacking mechanic opening up a wealth of new tactical options. The focus on loadouts rather than set classes allows you to customise your own play-style while maintaining a role in the team; something that’s very difficult to achieve. The game looks lush and futuristic, equal parts Deus Ex, Mass Effect and Blade Runner.

I for one am very excited about Syndicate. Whatever the old fans say, it’s showing itself to be a unique, tight and enthralling shooter that stands out from the crowd in todays sea of CoD-shaped cookies. What the single-player campaign will entail remains to be seen and for me it all hinges on that. If the solo experience can match, or surpass, the breathless co-op, then people might just start reaching for the credit card come February 24th. Give it a download and see for yourself; you won’t be disappointed.

Scarygirl, in its native form, is a character and brand encompassing a range of toys and said graphic novel, which is apparently critically acclaimed and much-loved. How creator Nathan Jurevicius managed to get a game made of his work, little known outside the comic book world, is a mystery. How he got Squeenix to publish it is an even bigger one!

No matter though, because it’s out now and I opted to take the plunge and see what all the fuss is about.

Only in comic books…
Scarygirl is from a graphic novel and we’re not talking The Dark Knight Returns here. Think cult, indie-type, single-issue comics crossed with a twisted dark humour and you’re half-way there. These kinds of comics usually take the latter part of ‘plotline’ with a pinch of salt… and often the first part too.

The backstory is told in a rushed cut-scene before you even get to the main menu, and tells of an abandoned girl who’s adopted by an intelligent octopus called Blister. He dresses her in clothing from the bottom of the ocean and builds her a treehouse, naming her Scarygirl. They live happily together  but Scarygirl is plagued by nightmares of a bearded man and thusly ventures to see a wise rabbit to decipher her dream. The rabbit tells of a great city where the bearded man lives and so Scarygril sets off to find him.

While it’s not an original plot by any stretch, it does feel like a fairytale or fable with its unusual events and characters. It’s the sort of thing that gets praise heaped on it from the kind of people who like Hello Kitty and quirky randomness but in reality it’s scattered and needlessly strange. We’re never told why she has a hook for one hand and a tentacle for the other. We’re never told why she was abandoned, why Blister is smart enough to make a treehouse and how Scarygril could survive his underwater escapades.

Okay, maybe that last one was unfair but you get the picture. While I’m sure it all fits perfectly in the novel, as a prelude to a game it feels empty and pointless. Plot has very little bearing on most of the game anyway, with only the in-between-level loading sections containing any further plot developments. Most of these consist of stuff like ‘After braving the spooky forest, Scarygirl makes her way to the snowy mountain’, stringing the locations together but not really giving us much reason to play the game to find out what happens next.

I might as well be blindfolded…
Scarygirl plays like two very different sides of a shiny, shiny coin. On the one hand it’s a refreshingly original action platformer with some neat new ideas and a solid combat base. On the other, it’s a maliciously frustrating chore, replete with unfair enemies, ridiculous jumps and our old friend; bullshit.

It starts well enough. Scarygirl’s tentacle arm is your chief weapon and Light and Heavy attacks are the order of the day. You can also use it to helicopter a bit when you jump, which makes reaching those tricky platforms a breeze. Enemies come in all shapes and sizes but all fall to the might of the tentacle. You can also grab stunned enemies and use them to smash others or hit faraway objects.

It’s simple stuff but satisfying enough to hold your interest and the levels are designed to make use of all your skills. Shop ladies potter about each level and, by collecting gems, you can buy new combat moves and upgrades for Scarygirl, including a feather for further helicoptering and a fish the makes you swim faster. While the first few levels are simple platforming fare they soon morph into finger-twisting endurance tests rammed full of traps, tricks and rock-solid enemies.

Scarygirl didn't live in the nicest of neighbourhoods...

Here’s where the issues begin to arise. I’m up for a fair challenge as always and enjoy being tested to the limit of my ability, but Scarygirl is so cheap, so unforgivably mean that it ceases to become enjoyable and instead transforms into a bitter slog of epic proportions. The bullshit is thick and widespread, covering every layer of gameplay. First, the once smooth combat becomes a burden. Enemies walk through combos and hurt you while you stay rooted to the spot. You get mobbed; you have no effective way of handling more than one foe at a time, yet they all attack at once.The finesse and accuracy required to take down some of the baddies becomes impossible to achieve because you’re fighting so many.

The limitations of Scarygirl’s simple tentacle become all too clear when you start to face enemies who can throw rocks and dodge-roll away from you, or birds that swoop around while spitting fire. Upgrading is useless; most of the moves are locked until you reach a certain point in the game. You’re simply ill-equipped to deal with the barrage of enemy types the game throws at you.

Next the platforming takes a turn for the worse. Landing on platforms becomes impossible without injury, the present enemies too fast or packed too tight to make landing safe. Simple climbing sections become gauntlets, as invincible spiders scuttle around twice as fast as you can move and deadly goop drips repeatedly from the ceiling, from too many locations with no fixed pattern.

Traps come from the foreground where they’re impossible to see and even more impossible to avoid unless you know they’re coming, while enemies hide behind foreground elements and spam you while you try to navigate another tricky jump. Every movement is marred by a blitz of bullshit as if the game is mocking you.

This is not difficulty. I’m not whining on about how hard the game is and how I can’t beat it. The game presents you with gruelling gauntlets of danger and then strips you of all your tools; deduction, reactions, timing and skill. How can I avoid a trap if it hits me before I see it? How do I dodge a swinging log when it’s too wide for me to run past before it hits me? How do I kill a bird when it’s in mid-air and spitting fie which knocks me down every time I jump to hit it?

There are a million issues and a million little stories like that, all professing that the game refuses to allow you a fair go. It’s like it is self-aware and wants to watch you sigh as you die once again due to some unseen trap or some unfair enemy. You might as well be blindfolded with how the game gives you such little fair chance.

Yet, I’m compelled to continue. The game’s ingenuity and originality should be praised, as should TikGames’ ambition for bringing such an unusual character to a video-game. The design is solid, with few if any bugs or glitches present. There are no graphical tears or faux pas as far as I can see. The story is well paced and the locations are varied, adding variety to the game and keeping things fresh.

Although this makes me feel even worse because that means they actually indented the game to be this cheap, and it’s this cheapness that prevents any kind of sense of achievement when completing a level. I feel like I’ve managed to beat a cheating opponent rather than a good one.

Living comics
Considering it came from a graphic novel, the art style of Scarygirl is no surprise. Everything is drawn in quasi-cell-shading, all bold colours and black lines. That doesn’t stop it from being beautiful though.

Jurevicius’ work comes to life on the screen, every frame looking like the panel of a cartoon in fluid, gorgeous motion. The inventiveness and imagination on show here is impressive and you’d be hard pushed to find anything quite like this. Scarygirl herself is an original, if a little too odd, character who possesses little expression outside of the comic-book cut-scenes but still manages to endear somewhat. The enemies are as varied as they come, some adopting video-game staples but most an invention of the artist’s mind.

The levels are all designed well with an attention to detail the likes of which have been seen in the best of the SNES library. Something is always happening on-screen, whether you’re making it happen or not and each area feels alive. The variation is also great, taking us from a swampy jungle to a rocky mountain and a snowy tundra with ease.

Chinese New Year gone horribly wrong...

My only gripe is that it all feels a bit pretentious. I’m sure that within the context of the graphic novel, Scarygirl is charming and loveable, the other characters are heartwarming and memorable and all the other stuff the Amazon review says, but as crowbarred-in characters in a game there’s really very little exceptional about them. Things which would be considered ‘quirky’ or ‘inventive’ in the novel feel strange and out-of-place in the game. Without the warm binding of the text and stories, the world of Scarygirl feels bitty and incomplete, like a machine that’s only loosely fitted together.

Bedtime Story
The sound in Scarygirl is uninspiring, which is a shame given the pedigree of the visuals. While the sound effects do their job well enough, many of the enemies sound much less interesting than they look. The only dialogue present is an irritating narrator who sounds like he’s reading a patronising bedtime story to a bunch of (lets face it) adults. While the visuals can be cute and look innocuous enough, this is obviously not a game aimed at children specifically, so the choice of voice over is baffling and makes the occasional story sections seem boring and childish.

The music is a missed opportunity as well. Booting up the game you’re greeted to a cool, techno-based intro song on the main menu. It made me immediately think of Invader Zim which can only be a good thing. Unfortunately the music never seems to top that throughout the game, with the composer content with writing samey scores that conform to every stereotype in the history of gaming. The jungle level has drums, the snow level has pan-flutes and lots of wind. The dark caves are all spooky and the mountain is chilly but epic. It’s not hugely bad and it won’t make you reach for the ear-plugs but it simply fails to impress.

Strange but not very scary…
If Scarygirl started as it meant to go on, I might be in a position to declare it an Arcade hit straight out of the blind-spot. Unfortunately it doesn’t and an original and enjoyable platform romp quickly turns into a gruelling gauntlet of cheap tricks and masochistic misery. Its charm and visual cream only go so far to soothe a seething spleen primed to rupture after you’ve been cut down by an unavoidable trap for the millionth time.

Unlike the obligatory Hardcore mode now resplendent in every game that involves firearms, Scarygrl is not a challenge. It’s not a tough cookie that you feel you can crack with enough practise. It’s all the annoying elements of the side-scroller genre; memory sections, unfair traps, unavoidable injury, weak attacks, gimped abilities, cheap bosses, all  stitched together and painted by a very talented artist, creating a lumbering Frankenstien monster of gaming hell.

Then again, maybe you like that sort of thing. I like a fair challenge, but some of you are self-harmers, constantly looking for the next game to make you declare an active and dedicated intent to murder the developers in unsightly and painful ways. Scarygirl has a lot to offer to the lunatics, with gorgeous visuals and bags of originality. For those reasons I can’t recommend that everyone stay away; through the frustration and bullshit there’s a decent game struggling to get out. It’s just a shame that TikGames buried it so fucking deep.

Introducing the Circle Pad Pro. Last week, the controversial accessory launched in the UK, with one retailer offering it in a bundle with Resident Evil Revelations.

Naturally, we all have our questions about the model, the most important of which, is this simply tacked-on tardiness?

The Circle Pad feels very smooth in my hands. It’s very curvy and well grooved, fitting neatly into your palms without grudge or complaint. For the first time, I felt in solid control of the handheld.

The analog is an exact replica of the one already on your 3DS, with the Circle Pad Pro measured precisely so both analogs are in-line with one another. As a result, the feeling of using the two in synchronisation feels smooth and natural. Equally, the buttons are so conveniently placed that the need to stretch your fingers awkwardly to execute the simplest of moves is gone.

An example of this can be found in Revelations. Without the Type D control set (only available for Circle Pad owners) you can’t help but wonder how different your outlook on the game would be. That being said, the button placement is out of proportion, as the 3DS now has three buttons on one shoulder and two on the other. This is an odd decision, and one I somewhat doubt will make it to the 3DS Version 2.0.

Didn't just fall out of the ugly tree and hit every tree on the way down, but was abused by the entire forest.

It’s hard not to think about version 2 of your 3DS, because, well, the Circle Pad Pro looks like something only Quasimodo could love and it’s no longer a practical fit in your pocket. Also, if you have anything other than a black 3DS, its an utter eye-sore as Nintendo have opted for just the one colour scheme.

Another odd decision is that the Circle Pad Pro comes with a wristband just like the Wiimotes, just in case, you know, you decide to waggle it around like a sword. I guess this could be useful for people who aren’t used to the fit and feel of the 3DS with the add-on, but it feels wholly unnecessary to me.

The battery life is said to last over 500 hours. I will be honest and say I’ve not had a chance to test that yet, but so far, it’s held out on me. Stupidly, however, this doesn’t improve the battery life of the 3DS console, even though they’re clipped together, which is still a rather pathetic four hours with 3D maxed out.

While the Circle Pad is ground-breaking, and dare I say, essential for 3DS games, it really isn’t very considerate of the rest of the handheld. Once the pad is clipped, you cannot pull out your stylus, adjust your network connection, use the back camera or change your cartridge unless you unclip it. It also makes it very difficult to adjust the volume slider. Decisions like this make you realise how much of an afterthought and rushed design the Circle Pad Pro is.

Equally frustrating is that there won’t be any backwards compatibility with some of the poster releases already on 3DS. I know games were designed from the ground-up to fit one analog, but we’re in a digital age where patches and fixes are readily available. Two analogs with Mario Kart would work a charm, as I’m sure they’d fit well in Mario 3D Land, and Ocarina of Time. Alas, these games won’t ever benefit from the dual-analog treatment, which is more than a bit irksome, and makes them feel like half the games they should have been.

In fact, going back to play any game on the 3DS without the Circle Pad already feels quite alien.

On the plus side, it does seem that most major 3DS titles will support the Circle Pad Pro going forward, with Metal Gear Solid 3 Snake Eater and Kid Icarus Uprising already confirmed to make use of the peripheral. If Revelations is any indication, the Circle Pad Pro will do as much to enhance 3DS games as any other feature on the handheld.

In conclusion, the Circle Pad Pro is exactly what 3DS games needed, and they will be of a higher standard and better quality because of it, but for the time being, the Circle Pad Pro is a stop-gap. It’s a temporary fix that isn’t overly accommodating or considerate of the 3DS model it’s clamped onto. Playing games in 2012 without it will prove to be difficult and off-putting, but by embracing this add-on, you’ll have an even greater desire to trade in the old model for a new one when it inevitably releases later this year. To get the most out of your 3DS right now, reluctantly, I have to advise you to purchase.

If you’re the unfortunate recipient, the blood-boiling rage is impossible to suppress. ‘Faggot, cunt, motherfucking cocksucker’. A barrage of foul-mouthed abuse issues forth. You take note of their gamertag and make it your sworn duty to return the favour. Only a revenge tea-bagging will placate the fury that burns in your chest, but the all-consuming anger impairs your judgement. Try as you might, you simply cannot notch up another kill. Every time you hit the dirt, you know what’s coming next. There’s only one way to break the cycle. The most shameful thing a Halo player can do. Rage quit.

So you see, not only is tea-bagging a delightfully cruel way to humiliate and dominate your opponent, it’s also an unsportsmanlike tactic. Enrage your rival until they lose their mind.

Where exactly did this gloriously mean quirk originate from? Well, actual tea-bagging is a sexual act in which a man places his scro… you get the idea. It’s kinda like dipping a teabag into a mug of boiling water.

In Halo Reach, the act of crouching has two distinct advantages: Increased accuracy when crouch-shooting and radar-invisibility while crouch-walking. Halo players added the third, and it’s become so popular that when the Alpha build of Reach prevented the downed player from seeing any potential tea-bagging, a swift fix was implemented.

In fact, the humble act of tea-bagging has transcended gaming and seeped into the very fabric of popular culture. Season 20, episode 19 of The Simpsons shows Homer and Marge tea-bagging a dead body in what appears to be Halo 2.

So, there you have it. The next time you decide to corpse-hump a fallen enemy, take comfort in the fact that you’re in very good company.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

As expected, Nintendo have, so far, been highlighting a lot of the family friendly party titles that will keep the motion control basics of Wii with a few extra bells and whistles courtesy of the new controller and the fact that they have, at last, given us a console that supports HD.

However, we here at TIMJ feel that now is the time to ask some serious questions of what Wii U and that rather large controller can do to some of our favourite titles, starting with some of the more obvious suggestions.

Mario Kart is a guaranteed Wii U release and, inevitably, will utilise the controller screen for the course map and, potentially, to allow you to store multiple weapons. This could be extended slightly with a more serious racer such as Dirt or F1 where the screen can carry all your race data including split times, fuel level and even a car tracker. As you enter the pits I can see a mini-game utilising the screen on the controller to change a tyre.

You aim the controller at the TV screen, which has a close-up of the wheel, target the bolt and hit a button to unbolt the old wheel then move the controller to the floor to grab the new tire, aiming it back at the now empty wheel and pressing the button again to bolt on the spare. In addition to this there is scope for a more-comprehensive-than-ever car chassis design option, using the stylus and screen to allow you total freedom in your car design.

I think it is safe to say that in an RPG or FPS the likelihood is that the controller screen will initially be used as an inventory and this option is likely to stretch into action adventures, where items and weapons can be collected and held for use at a later time.

Personally, for me that’s too obvious; we’ve seen some footage where the Wii U controller is attached to a gun peripheral and the screen is used as your sight. This has to be the minimum in any shooter and with the screen size and variation available from the button setup it could still include your inventory items via a few easy to access menus.

I’m picturing COD or Battlefield here with an enhanced light gun type set up that includes a touch screen or button option to switch weapon, motion control to melee and a simple interface to open a full map and inventory. In Multiplayer, during matchmaking, the touch screen could allow a quick, simple interface to build your class and set your perks saving the time and effort the current menu systems need.

Maps and inventories galore?

Sports games are a mixed one for me. One of the videos I watched last week whilst researching this piece was of Peter Moore discussing his views on the possibilities and showed a Madden game using the screen as the playbook. This is again a pretty obvious utilisation of the touch screen controller but one I like the sound of.

As a huge NFL fan I can see this almost acting like the electronic wrist bands that a lot of the leagues Quarterbacks use for their play selection. How about we add to that some motion control throwing or in the Superstar mode having to catch the pass by lining up the controller screen correctly with the flight of the ball on the TV?

In FIFA we could have an overhead pitch view on the controller screen so we can easily see where our players and opponents players are without it taking up room on the TV screen. Maybe an alternate view on the controller can be our current tactics, making changing to a more attacking or defensive setup even quicker than the current model. This screen can be used to change more tactical aspects without the need to pause and even allow quicker substitutions and last-minute changes to a set piece taker or even a saved set play routine.

We’re all aware of the clip in the reveal video of the golf shot where the new controller is on the floor showing your lie, while the old Wii remote is used as a club. I can’t envisage too many other options for a golf game to utilise the controller and other sports titles such as Fight Night or Grand Slam Tennis might struggle to do anything overly revolutionary but the touch screen and stylus options will certainly allow for a more comprehensive character creation mode.

Character creation like never before

Aside from the standard inventory store mentioned above for RPG’s and Sandbox games, I can see the potential to open up a whole new way of interacting with NPC’s utilising the controller. The touch screen and stylus combination gives developers more freedom than ever in that it could allow gamers to input far more personality than ever into dialogue. Imagine one of the interrogation’s in L.A. Noire where you can devise the question to ask yourself. It would be difficult to pull off, granted, but the challenge is there.

Personally, I find the platform genre as the most challenging to be able to utilise the new controller other than to allow you to play on the controller screen when your TV is busy. Platformers have done motion control with quite limited success on Wii and Kinect and I don’t see this changing with Wii U. Modern platformers will probably allow inventory use, which undoubtedly is going to become a standard for a large percentage of Wii games in my opinion. Perhaps the scope of the controller could allow you to extend your TV screen by looking through the controller to your left and right or above and below your character.

The unique controller has endless possibilities

This in itself is a pretty neat feature that could play a massive part in shaping the future of our gaming experience. Imagine playing the next Tomb Raider and, whilst walking over a rope bridge, a simple movement of the controller downwards reveals a panel breaking beneath your feet. How about walking through a wasteland in Zelda and holding the controller above your head to see a creature or dragon flying overhead.

So there you go, just a few of the ideas I’ve had, but there are many, many more out there. I’d love to hear how you think Wii U can change our gaming world in the comments below.

Finally I want to make an open plea to all game developers that have Wii U projects ongoing or in the future. Please, please, please; don’t ever stop dreaming of new ways to use this hardware. The possibilities are, quite literally, endless.

The big headlines informed us that in October 2013, we should expect a new console with graphics processing power six times that of the Xbox 360, a Blu-Ray player, the next generation of Microsoft’s motion-detecting Kinect system and finally, the infamous sting that angered gamers, is that it may not play used games.

I always exercise caution when I read rumours from big sites wanting to grab the quick headline by using words such as ‘may’ and ‘could’. So, at this stage it would be a little pointless to get excited or outraged about anything. Still, I thought it would be interesting to have a look at the possibilities that might just be heading our way…

First of all, the prospect of a next generation console arriving towards the end of 2013 but using last century’s technology that involves spinning discs to load games could leave you feeling somewhat underwhelmed. Sure, a Blu-Ray disc can store 25 or 50GB of data compared to the humble DVD’s 9GB, but we are already living in a world dominated by Steam, NetFlix, Apple TV and OnLive. Why would Microsoft be so intent on using Blu-ray discs as we head into the brave new digital world. However, given a little more thought, if Microsoft wants to avoid awkward technical difficulty style headlines, it’s a move that makes perfect sense.

With families soaking up an ever-increasing amount of bandwidth, as people download HD movies, stream TV and keep everything in the cloud, I wonder if the future will involve internet service providers charging for data usage and see the ubiquitous ‘unlimited’ messages removed from your broadband packages, especially if users were to download games at 40gb a pop, rather than using streaming options.

An online only gaming platform could potentially isolate many of Microsoft’s existing users who do not have access to fast broadband speeds so maybe this would be a conscious decision to keep the console working offline as well as online.

The most controversial aspect of this story, though, is that Microsoft were thinking of adding technology that would lock-out games that were originally bought by someone else, effectively killing the pre-owned market that has been a thorn in the side of publishers for sometime now. They  currently look on helplessly at stores making money out of their products without ever seeing a penny.

Could used games be confined to the history books?

Although retailers have been creaming high-profit margins from pre-owned games for sometime, there is a strong argument that publishers have already made their money from the game. For hundreds of years, people have traded in the goods that they own for cash or other items and even now in 2012, you wouldn’t dream of having this conversation about selling second-hand Car, Books, DVD’s or clothes would you?

Some would have us believe that the digital rulebook seems to be different, but this is just a way of companies trying to maximise their profits. Ironically it would ultimately harm the industry it claims to protect, as people simply cannot afford to purchase 15+ games at £39.99 a title, never mind the countless other releases, so we will find ourselves with the same old re-hashed FPS and sports titles while innovation is left out in the cold in favour of the familiar, yet safe, titles.

If these stories have any element of truth it could also allow Sony to market a PS4 with a unique selling point if they decided not to follow suit, which would be disastrous for Microsoft.

For those of you with longer memories, you will recall these same stories being circulated around the time of the PS3′s announcement all those years ago, but nothing came of the controversial plans. We need to remind ourselves that these are just rumours that have got everybody hot under the collar, as even Microsoft themselves have declined to comment.

If this story was leaked to test public opinion, the general consensus seems to be that blu-ray is a very sensible move, nobody is that bothered about Kinect 2 and if they stopped pre-owned games from being played then don’t expect punters to buy your new shiny console.

Probably the wisest thing for us all to do though, is to follow the old adage: Believe nothing of what you hear and only half of what you see. That is until, of course, we have information or confirmation from an actual source.

What most people don’t know is that Futuremark also make games; their first was a PC first-person shooter called Shattered Horizon, which looked fantastic but was deeply flawed at launch. Then they made Hungribles for the iOS, which was a little more successful, and is supposedly quite fun. Now they have returned to Steam with the Unstoppable Gorg, a new and different take on the good old tower defense genre.

Suddenly… ALIENS!
Unstoppable Gorg is heavily inspired by ‘50’s style sci-fi films, and this is evident from the off. The story starts when humanity discovers Planet X, lurking beyond Pluto. Miss Solar System herself, along with the dashing Captain Adam, travels off to this world to act as peace envoys for humanity. However, the aliens turn hostile and it’s up to you to defend the human race’s hold on the Solar System from the Unstoppable Gorg!

Yep, that's two different motherships you have to deal with

Now, I’m a sucker for in-game FMV with terrible special effects, and Unstoppable Gorg is packed full of this. From the cheesy between-level briefings to the terribly-acted live action scenes with all their home-made props, it perfectly hits the vibe of films like The Day The Earth Stood Still and Forbidden Planet.

The best form of defence is rotation
Gameplay is very similar to the standard tower defense; place turrets to prevent waves of enemies from reaching your base and destroying it. However, Unstoppable Gorg changes this through the use of orbits.

All the turrets you place are positioned at different spots on the orbit surrounding the main base at the centre of the map. These act like the standard placement points used in most tower defense games. However, you can also rotate them, allowing you to move your turrets when they are not in use or when the enemies shift their path. It’s a great idea and makes it a little more hands-on than other tower defense games, which can just turn into you watching the enemies get minced up by your perfectly arranged turrets.

Apart from that, though, it is very much a standard tower defense game… except for the fact that it is really, really hard. There is an awful lot of trial and error, which increases later on in the game when new races pop up and require different strategies to defeat them.

Visions of space
The best way to describe the visuals of Unstoppable Gorg is that they are perfectly serviceable. There is nothing terrible about them, but they really don’t have any lasting impact. However, they do the job well; from unit cards to the little enemies winding towards your base, they all do the job they are designed for. In contrast to Shattered Horizon that prided itself on its graphics (to the point that it broke the rest of the game), the aim here was obviously to create great and compelling gameplay, rather than just look fantastic.

Welcome to Earth!

The sounds of the stars!
Unstoppable Gorg is great as far as its audio is concerned. Both the effects and music tie into the ‘50’s sci-fi style, sounding simultaneously really good and terrible at the same time. I should also bring to light the terrible voice acting as well; it’s perfectly kitsch and helps to tie everything together in a ’50′s nostalgia hit.

Can you stop the Unstoppable Gorg?
Overall, I really enjoyed playing The Unstoppable Gorg. It’s a very interesting take on tower defense with a great aesthetic, and despite its punishing difficulty, it is still fun. I would recommend you try it though; as much as I enjoy it, the tweaks it makes to the regular formula may not entice everyone.

Personally, I have to admit I have never really been taken in by a sport that seems to mix the grace and strategy of top class boxing with an element of school ground wrestling, but having never really watched it I can’t categorically say which side of the fence I sit.

The fact is, whichever camp you’re in, UFC is increasingly popular and has all the ingredients for a really special video-game, which brings me to the point of this little aside. UFC Undisputed 3 looks to bring you all the action and intensity of the real life sport without the cuts and bruises you’d get if you took to the “ring”.

With a rather ironic Valentine’s Day release ahead, I’ve been getting hands on with the XBLA demo to see if it’s any good.

There are two game modes in the demo, UFC and Pride, which, as far as the demo itself goes, play exactly the same. The only difference at this stage is that Pride is played out in a traditional four-sided ring, while UFC is in an Octagon. Each mode offers two fighters to choose from and a single round bout to get to grips with what the game has to offer.

In UFC, the fighters on offer are Jon Jones or Anderson Silva. Having chosen your corner and your fighter, you can then alter a few settings, such as the Difficulty, Game Rules or the Energy Setting,s which can make the game even harder than it is with the defaults. These options remain the same in Pride with the fighters on offer being Quinton Jackson or Wanderlei Silva.

In your face!!

The polish and presentation is very good throughout the demo, matching up to any of the top Sports titles on Xbox 360, with what appear to be now standardised menus, a nice, high-beat menu soundtrack and every sports game’s Achilles heel; the play-by-play commentary. In fairness to UFCU3, in the short bouts, the commentary comes across pretty well, giving the novice fighter like me a few pointers while following the action pretty well and not repeating itself too much.

Visually UFCU3 is also looking pretty tidy with some very well rendered fighters, easily recognisable to fans of the sport. Each fighter has their ring walk recreated in-game and the fans ringside are full of life.

The gameplay itself also comes across very well in this demo. There are some on-screen tips that pop up at the start of each fight (which you can turn off in the menu) and these run you through the basics. The face buttons are used to strike your opponent. X and Y are used for left and right punches, while the lower buttons A and B are left and right kicks. This works pretty well as a starting point but using a combination of these alone will get you nowhere fast.

UFC or S&M, you decide.

LT and a face button makes your character attack the body while LB forces a technique strike, which will vary depending on your chosen combatant and his specialist style. Blocking is controlled on the right shoulder buttons with RB blocking head and RT blocking body. Although you can just hold these down to protect your fighter, this will only give you limited success, the art of blocking is in good timing, which will then open your opponent up for a counter that might allow you to stun them or trip them for a big advantage.

Any fans of the sport will know that fights are often won and lost in grapple and that is no different here. Moving the right stick towards your opponent will enter a grapple and you can throw punches and kicks on the inside with the same face buttons as before. Each fighter is also capable of a few throws and are performed by holding LB and using the right stick which, when moved, transitions your fighter in hold. Switching your grip position and body position in this way allows you to continue to attack while continuously manipulating your opponent so it is more difficult for them to block and counter.

This is a fairly complex system that at times has left my thumbs and fingers in knots, but a little practice and patience offers a huge amount of control over your character. That said, the flip side is that when on the defensive and in a grapple on the floor, it can be incredibly difficult to counter and work your way free or into a position where you can attack.

Ok, enough already.

The big new feature this year is a new submission system, which takes the form of a cat and mouse style mini-game. The two fighters go into the background and an octagon appears on-screen with a blue and red circle (representing your corner colour) that has a line either side. What follows is mad dash around the octagon jumping from this way to that as the guy in the lock tries to keep his circle away from the player in ascendancy. At first this seemed a little awkward and appeared to disrupt the game a bit for me, but as I have grown more used to it I have to say it does work quite well.

In fact, that last line really sums up the whole demo. The more I have played it the more I’ve enjoyed what UFCU3 has to offer. Without being a fan of the sport I cannot truly testify to its replication of it, but what I can say is that what we have here is a very solid fighter that can stand up to a Tekken or a Virtua Fighter because of the way the fights play out.

There is huge scope to cater for the pick up and play mentality while offering more experienced and dedicated players alike the opportunity to master a style that suits them and the variation from outside to inside fighting will take some mastering.

Strap on your aprons, we’re going to the kitchen!

The Cooking Mama 4 demo allows you to make a Pizza from scratch, playing through a series of mini-games in order to produce the end-product. Great universal choice, I guess. Everybody loves Pizza, even banadana wearing, over-sized ninja turtles.

So, Cooking Mama. If you’re expecting anything above and beyond what it says on the tin, you’re more naïve than a naïve little baby that just popped out of its mummy’s womb. Cooking Mama 4 is about a Cooking Mama, and to make a pizza you need to mix up the dough, spread the base with tomato paste, put some cheese on top, sprinkle it with seasoning, then cook in a clay oven. Voila, Pizza.

The mini-games vary in their control, from whisking up the dough in a bowl by drawing circles with your stylus, to tossing cheese onto a pizza that seems to be floating in the air unsupervised (magic or something…). Regardless, they are all focused on the touchscreen, and don’t make use of the system’s tilt functionality, the analog or buttons. Bit wasteful, really..

Most of the mini-games are responsive and work well, although one or two were simply awful. Fortunately, you can just give up on stages, and move onto the next. Just as well, had I been forced to plough through the sections I wasn’t enjoying, I’d never have made it through this demo.

On each task, Mama will grade you, either saying that she will finish off the mess you’ve tried to make, or telling you that you don’t need her and you’re awesome all by yourself. Once you’ve finished the product, you get a final grade to tell you the quality of your creation. Have to say, I’d rather take my tips from Lloyd Grosman, or Delia Smith, but that’s just me.

Cook for Mama. COOK DAMN YOU!

Once you’ve gone through all the stages, you finally get to see the finished product in glorious 3D. I say glorious, I showed my girlfriend my immense creation, quite proud of myself, and she described it as ‘fucking hideous’, while commenting ‘I’d never eat that shit’.

Job done.

Aside from the final showcase, Cooking Mama 4 doesn’t make much use of the 3D, apart from a crying old mama face coming toward you, shouting and screaming if you fail one of the mini-games. Like that’s really going to be an added incentive for me to cook properly…

I can’t say playing this demo has tempted me to buy the full game, nor can I say it’s turned me off. It’s not awful, it’s not great, it’s just there. It could be for you, it could be your worst possible nightmare, but all the same, Cooking Mama 4 is available to try on the 3DS E-Shop now and is out now on shop shelves.

Games allow us to do crazy things, and the more immersive and real they become, the more choices we’re given, the more our actions are truly defined by us within that game. When the player is actually put on the spot and asked to think about what they’re about to do, assessing the consequences of these decisions,  and they choose to kill virtual avatars in compromising positions, what does that say about their genetic makeup?

Perhaps the tabloids are right. Perhaps games do encourage us in ways they shouldn’t.

Multi-choice, open world experiences are getting more and more popular all the time. Skyrim continues to sell extremely well in the UK Charts, and Mass Effect 3 is one of this years most anticipated games. These games challenge players in ways the likes of Battlefield and Call of Duty never will. They thrust numerous immeasurable tasks on the player’s shoulders, have you interact with the type of people you’d never rub shoulders with in real life and get involved with cults, gangs and syndicates of a shady nature.

Essentially, games give us a chance to lead a new kind of double life.

Of course, this is all happening in the virtual realm, and while the game makes us deal with consequence and we do have to make decisions, the only thing that is impacted is the game in front of you. Not your next-door neighbour, not your cousin or Jeffrey Mills from the other side of the world. Just the game.

Still, tabloids, medical practitioners and psychologists think it runs deeper than that. They say that in order for a person to reach such macabre decisions there must be a hidden desire within them to do such a thing. When playing these games, they are releasing a part of themselves which is repressed, concealed behind layers of what a person perceives to be right, and the way they should act in everyday society. They claim that when playing games, the real person is exposed, much in the same way as it can be when you take a blot test, and the hidden traits are exposed for all to see.

So, if that is the case, just because I enjoy throwing a hood over my head in Skyrim, talking and taunting my victim before I stab them in cold blood by tapping a button on my gamepad, and then running away from town in the hopes of not being locked away, that I’m just as likely, if pushed, to do the same in real life. That I have repressed the desire to commit these acts in my everyday working life, because I’m scared of a consequence, or being judged by the law and those close to me.

What these people don’t understand is that no matter how immersive these experiences are. No matter what a game pitches to us, no matter what scenario we’re thrust into, it will never be real. I’m never going to live in Skyrim, I’m never going to soar the galaxy with Commander Shepard, nor am I ever going to get to 1498 Italy, and assassinate world leaders.

Games present radical, fictional scenarios that will forever be a distant dream and never synchronise with the reality you and I face in our everyday lives. These situations will never happen to us, therefore we’ll never need to make these decisions, therefore when we’re supplied with three or four choices (where it’s entirely possible none of them would be applicable to our real reaction anyway) then it cannot be compared to what happens in our everyday lives.

Reality isn’t as black and white as to class you as a paragon or renegade when you make one sole decision, but Mass Effect is. If you kill someone in Skyrim, you can pay off your debt to the guards, and they’ll forget all about it. Unless you’re Rupert Murdoch, or a star in the Premier League, that’s not an out for you.

I wouldn't do this even if I could. Even though it'd be immensely cool. Am I right?

Surely, if people think it’s affecting our lives so much, that says more for the amazing writing within games, and how these tests and challenges set before us, are engaging our brains in ways psychologists never thought was possible. Surely that says more about the gripping, compelling fiction we have at our fingertips today, and how amazingly detailed, and wondrous these other-worlds are. Surely that’s the largest possible compliment you can pay these ingenious writers who give whole background stories to new races, and breathe life into alien-looking worlds.

My plea? Stop badgering games. Stop trying to pick holes and find faults. Stop trying to blame all the world’s problems on the back of an industry which is still in its infancy, still expanding, and still trying to keep a head above water in this difficult economic climate. Perhaps sometimes developers take things too far, perhaps some content within games should be moderated and observed more closely before release. That’s an arguable point, and one for another time, but the fact is, they do more right than wrong.

They keep kids off the streets, stop them from committing real crimes. They encourage us to look at the good things in life as much as the bad. They weave amazing stories that don’t fall for the same telegraphed twists most movies have adopted over the last few years. The world is a dark place, turning on the daily news every morning is indicative of that. It’s also a much more violent place because of war, because of dictatorship, because of mental illnesses which cause people to do unspeakable acts which could never be expressed or dreamed up in any fictional world.

Besides, not every decision in our games is a bad one. For every occasion a person has to decide to kill someone, they are also faced with the decision to help a young boy who has lost his parents, or prevent someone from being overwhelmed by a life-threatening illness. Yes, the world is a dark place, and games have to virtually recreate that in order to make their narrative arcs even slightly identifiable. In order to keep people hooked, they can’t expect them to get connected with pasty white unicorns and pretty rainbows.

I may be a murder in Skyrim, I may Hail Sithis and as Listener, take my orders from the Night Mother, but the moment I turn off that game, I don’t draw a ring of fire in my living room and pray to fictional demi-gods for a sign. I don’t roam the streets looking for the first person I can find so I can kill them. I don’t drink a cup of blood in order to settle my stomach before bed. I wash the dishes, I brush my teeth, I lock the door and then go to sleep.

Tabloids, psychologists and doctors can judge me all they want, but I’m not under any of your categories, nor do I mould into any of your stereotypes. I play games for fun and I experience them as I please. There’s no more to it than that.

Stop digging.