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13:55: Bah, tech issues mean we’ll have to update this live feed manually, and you’ll need to refresh every so often. Bryony will be along shortly to bring you all the news as we have it. [Andy]

20:12 More tech issues. Hopefully now I am able to update this. If not, one of my TIMJ chums will be able to, and I’ll tweet. However, hopefully I’ll be able to get some winners’ interviews, so it’ll be a bit on-the-fly. [Bryony]

20:28 Despite technical gremlins doing their best to halt our coverage, we are ready for the awards to start at 21:00. So stay tuned for the news at it happens, possible jokes at the expense of the events sponsors by Dara and maybe even interviews with the winners afterwards. Stay tuned gang.

20:55 Only 5 minutes to go, feel free to comment with your predictions. Will Batman Arkham City clean up?

20:58 Dara is having a few microphone issues, at least its not just us that have had problems today.

21:07  Dara is on form having a few amusing digs at ITV using footage from Armour 2 in an IRA documentary. “the IRA didn’t have a uniform!”

21:10 Here we go The BAFTA Video Game Award for best Story goes to… Portal 2!

21:12 The BAFTA Video Game Award for  Original Music goes to… LA Noire!

Nothing for Skyrim or Unchartered???

21:18 The BAFTA Video Game Award for Audio Achievement goes to Battlefield 3.

Strange award this one that leaves you saying Meh!

21:21 MW3′s Craig ‘Ghost’ Fairbrass presenting Best Design and can’t resit saying “Lets do this“

The BAFTA Video Game Award for  Design goes to… Portal 2

2 wins so far for Portal 2, could this be a trend?

21:26 All the footage of L.A. Noire and now Aaron Staton with a new season of Mad Men on the horizon is making me want to revisit the game. I fear it will not be a good night for them though.

The BAFTA Video Game Award for  Game Innovation goes to Little Big Planet 2

21:29 The BAFTA Video Game Award for best Strategy game goes to… Sho Gun 2!

21:34 The BAFTA Video Game Award for  Mobile & Handheld goes to… Peggle HD

21.37 Time for award voted by the public, all of GAMES problems are forgotten for one night only.

The BAFTA Video Game Award for  The GAME Award goes to… Battlefield 3!

21:43 The BAFTA Video Game Award for Action goes to…Batman Arkham City!

21:47 The BAFTA Video Game Award for  the BAFTA Ones To Watch Award goes to…Tick Tock Toys.

Little Big Planet 2 sitting on top of the world with two BAFTAS

21:52 The BAFTA Video Game Award for  Online – Browser game goes to…MonsterMind.

21:56 The BAFTA Video Game Award for Artistic Achievement goes to…Rayman Origins.

22:00  BAFTA  Special Award goes to Markus Persson of the phenomenon that is Minecraft.

I want to make games innovative again.

Well deserved win for a true Indie hero.

22:06 The BAFTA Video Game Award for  Sports/Fitness goes to…Kinect Sports 2

22:10 The BAFTA Video Game Award for Online Multiplayer goes to Battlefield 3

Big night for Battlefield 3 winning three awards.

 22:15 Not a good night for Skyrim or Uncharted

The BAFTA Video Game Award for Debut Game goes to..Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet

Great name for a game, but nobody here to collect the award so not sure how wacky they actually are.

22:19 The BAFTA Video Game Award for  best Family Game goes to… Little Big Planet 2

22:25 The BAFTA Video Game Award for Performer goes to Mark Hamil for Batman Arkham City.

I bet Aaron Staton is wishing he never flew in for the show.

22:29 Jonathan Ross points out the positives around gaming and talks how gaming has brought his whole family together rather than the negative stories you read in the newspapers.

The BAFTA Video Game Award for Best Game goes to… Portal 2

So the awards are spread out but Battlefield 3 and Portal 2 have three awards whilst Little Big Planet pick up a respectable two BAFTAS.

Both Skyrim and Uncharted leave the BAFTAS empty handed.

The big shock of the night is Skyrim and Uncharted which has left many people feeling a little miffed. Some will say that both of these games have been done before and that Portal 2 offered something different so deserve their win, but what about Battlefield 3? Many here are just glad its not Call of Duty.

It was fantastic to see that #baftagames was trending on Twitter and shows just how far gaming as come. I could talk about this all night but we have to rush back to the red carpet and will try to interview the winners. You will be able to read more about this in the next few days, but until then its goodnight from me.

For years publishers have watched on helplessly as high street stores sold second-hand games for £30 without seeing a penny, and maybe the final straw was when cunning GAME bosses allegedly ordered their own staff to buy the Nintendo 3DS on launch for £175 to sell in their own store for £219.99.

However MCV pointed out that GAME and Gamestation accounted for nearly 50% of the Vita’s launch-week sales and warned their readers not to write them off just yet. This proves to some degree how important the high street chain still is to gaming.

Ironically, though, on the GAME website they proudly show a tag cloud containing the most searched games on their website, but several of the titles near the top of the list, which include the now infamous Mass Effect 3, will not be available for punters to buy at any of their stores.

Just when you thought things couldn’t get any worse, Capcom announced the following:

“Unfortunately Capcom must confirm that Street Fighter x Tekken for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 and Asura’s Wrath, both scheduled for release on Friday March 9, will not be stocked by GAME or Gamestation either in their retail outlets or on their online stores operating in the UK and Ireland.”

The harsh reality of all this, is that the biggest gaming stores on the high street will be unable to stock future titles from Ubisoft, EA, Nintendo, and now Capcom. This is simply not sustainable for any company, never mind one that is £200 million in debt and have lost their credit insurance, so it would be fair to assume a very messy breakup of the GAME Group will be imminent.

The only question that needs answering is who will actually announce game over? The bosses or the banks? I would imagine that anyone with a sensible head on their shoulders would be foolish to even contemplate buying the brand that is GAME; I fear that the business, banks, employees and gamers will all be losers.

EA have eventually replied with a brief statement on the saga saying:

“It’s unfortunate that GAME is having challenges with its suppliers, however consumers have many alternatives both in-store and online. Our first priority is to inform our consumers of the many other retailers carrying our games. We don’t anticipate any delay in getting our titles to market.”

This was followed by links to many stores that are selling the game, but they neglected to say that the majority of stores listed were already sold out, turning this whole episode into one big fiasco.

Will Mass Effect 3 be remembered for the wrong reasons?

I am a long-standing critic of GAME, but I don’t see why publishers should be sitting pretty, looking holy than thou in these difficult times either. Before Activision were everyone’s favourite villains of the gaming world, EA held the title successfully for some time with their greedy ways, with regular situations where there were three FIFA games in twelve months that were essentially the same game. Somehow, they managed to redeem themselves over the years, but I can’t help but wonder if they too are drifting back to their old ways.

If you are lucky enough to pick up Mass Effect 3 on release day for £40, you will also be able to purchase premium DLC. This DLC has managed to piss off the entire gaming community, as they quickly realised that maybe they are buying an incomplete game. Visions arises that somewhere, there is a man stroking a cat laughing in a disturbing way but at their expense.

Even if we are to believe that the game was locked down, and that the hundreds of people working on the game simply got started on the DLC early, it doesn’t take a genius that this would ultimately cause bad publicity. Would it really have hurt to release it after two-three months and save the negative stories about your product?

Tempers are already running high with the disaster that is EA Origins, which appears to be a desperate attempt to copy the Stream Community. Do you really need yet another gaming account to store your credit card details on? Especially considering that Anonymous is everyone and everywhere.

In EA’s defence, PC gamers are a volatile group at the best of times. They often feel that they are neglected, but equally ready to complain when a company tries to offer something different. In this instance, though, you cannot help but feel it’s all about the money (I fight the urge to start singing). EA have essentially taken their games from Steam so they can sell them on Origin, but without offering anything different from their rivals other than inflated prices.

Is EA Origins a poor man's Steam at rich man's prices?

Although we could be forgiven for thinking that the outlook for gamers is generally quite grim at the moment, for every hard luck story there is a very positive one too. On this occasion I am, of course, talking about the online store ShopTo.

They have been steadily building a reputation over the last few years with new games at very reasonable prices, and tt seems this could be the time that they step up to the challenge of becoming a major player for the UK games market. They’ve begun a massive TV advertising promotion, not to mention a two-month promotional campaign on the London Underground, in what must be perfectly timed from a marketing prospective, considering the imminent demise of the UK’s biggest gaming stores.

Since the dawn of time, there have been good guys and bad guys, winners and losers. The only thing that remains constant is that magic word; change. Fasten your seat belts, because I got a feeling that things are about to get a lot more interesting.

Despite all this, I was a little saddened to hear to all too familiar headlines of the GAME Group announcing that they are expecting to have average, year-end net debt of up to £70 million and could even end up missing its EBITDA (‘earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization’) covenants set by lenders, when they are tested on February 27th. The big newspaper headlines will send shockwaves throughout the industry because the lenders could take action against the group for breaching the terms of its loans. In reality, this probably won’t happen, but it was still enough for their shares to take a massive dive after the revenue warning.

Although it was a very poor Christmas for the chain, with sales down 17.6% in the eight weeks to January 7^th, Online sales over the holiday period actually increased 3.9%, with annual takings climbing and half a million new customers also signed up to the GAME loyalty programme.

Gamers rushed to buy latest releases such as Skyrim, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, Battlefield 3 and FIFA 12, but consumers cut expenditure on other games that didn’t sell as well as expected, along with peripherals and hardware.

Can PS Vita save the Game Group?

GAME is being squeezed by online competitors and supermarkets who can offer top titles at more affordable prices. However, retail analysts note that next-generation console launches expected in 2013 will provide a much-needed future boost. All eyes will be on the highly anticipated PlayStation Vita, which launches on 22nd of February, and the Nintendo Wii U later in the year.

Although the future of other stores on the high street, such as HMV, also look very uncertain, I think that GAME and Gamestation will be fine for the immediate future. However, in order to survive they need to follow Clint Eastwood’s advice in the film Heartbreak Ridge, which is simply “Improvise, Adapt and Overcome” as the gaming industry starts to move into the digital distribution era.

If the future consists of no HMV, GAME or Gamestation you could be left with the unsavoury feeling of CEX and the infamous Grainger Games to choose from, so even critics such as myself, should be very careful what you wish for.

The current economic climate is starting to bite and these kind of stories become the norm as people look at ways of cutting the costs. This usually starts with a quick look on the internet rather than costly trip to yet another faceless shopping centre.

Although I will fight against ‘clone town’ Britain, where diversity remains on the endangered list, a ghost town Britain would be so much worse. There is a great risk that the humble high streets across the land have become outdated and neglected. We seldom take the time to think about the real social and economic worth to our communities that are disappearing before our eyes, in this time of constant change.

In my day we used to queue up at a shop at midnight to buy a game...

As for gamers, our world will continue to change too, along with how we purchase our games. Maybe one day, we will look back with great nostalgia of how we used to visit a game store full of like-minded souls, talking about games or even playing them inside the store, before a friendly face tells you about all the games that are due out later in the year. You may even reminisce about how they remembered you every time you visited and the lengthy discussions that ensued.

I hope this is not the case and experiences like these can be passed onto another generation of gamers, but there is a wind of change in the air. Tales such as these will be left for you to bore your children with instead, which in many ways is quite sad.

Who am I to criticise, though, I am more guilty than you all, as I post the cheapest online deals to buy games on a daily basis, but I hope you understand the sentiments behind this particular message and my final word on the matter is that I hope both GAME and Gamestation have a presence on our high streets for a few more years to come.

To get yourself into the festive mood, TIMJ will be doing an array of coverage of Christmas-themed games, and it all starts here with Sleigh Ride. Will the game get you in the mood for the holidays, or will it be like the sprouts you leave at the dinner table?

A bit of a Grinch, really
Sleigh Ride is a twitch game; there is only one single element to it, which means that this will end up being one of the quickest games I have ever reviewed. No harm; sometimes you just want something on your iPhone that will kill a couple of minutes, and that is what Sleigh Ride does.

It's the thought that counts, eh?

The busiest time of the year for Saint Nick
The basis of the game is very much like ‘The Impossible Game’, or the Flash-based game ‘Helicopter’. You play Santa, and your job is to jump over objects and avoid crashing your sleigh. In our playtime we noticed that the course itself switched in variations, so it is not a case of learning the set route, as it can change up from time to time. You have two different controls; Jump and Double Jump, both executed by the touchscreen of the iPhone. It is ridiculously simple to play, and links up with Game Centre to ensure that your best scores are displayed to the whole world.

Objects in your way will be snowmen, elves and all manner of other Christmas-themed objects preventing you from delivering the presents.

A winter wonderland
Visually the game does exactly what you expect it to do, bringing the spirit of Christmas to the player, and that is achieved by snowy peaks and themed landscaping. Everything is set out in a winter wonderland theme and it definitely succeeds in getting you excited for December 25th.

Sleigh bells ring; are you listening?

Jingle all the way
One of the strongest points of the game is the soundtrack; it is appropriately themed and does service to bringing the Christmas vibe to the player. Considering you will die a lot, the developers have done well in producing a musical score that doesn’t grate.

A lump of coal?
Sleigh Ride isn’t exactly pushing the value for money mantra. For its price there are hundreds, if not thousands of games, that provide more entertainment value for the price point of £0.69. Sure, it entertains for a brief amount of time and the theming does a good job of putting your in the Xmas mood, but the game is very much short-lived. If you are a sucker for buying seasonal games then this may be worth a punt, but as soon as the holiday season is over, the game will do nothing more than clog up your phone’s precious memory.

So reading this review is like entering a home you’ve already become accustomed to. Welcome in, make yourself at home. Would you like some tea? Your favourite cup is where you left it last time; shall we talk about Modern Warfare 3?

What’s your status?
I think it goes without saying that Modern Warfare has created a rather iconic storyline, with the switching teams, the dramatic twists and a modern world full of old lies and trickery. MW3 is full of the same, which can be both bad and good in a sense. It definitely sticks to the roots it knows well, but if you’re looking for something different, then you’re lucky Battlefield 3 recently came out.

The game picks up exactly where the second left off, with a frantic Price attempting to get his teammate Soap to safety after a final duel in the desert. The two have been stranded, and the only support they have is from friends who are willing to risk their necks to help them… and we haven’t even gotten to shoot anyone yet!

The state of the world is worst than ever. Russian terrorists, lead by Makarov, are attempting (and pretty much succeeding) to threaten the world to give in to demands, via the intimidation through missiles that could destroy the world; and on top of all of this, Price has lost his fisherman hat. What? He has got it? Oh, well then that’s one less problem to worry about.

You take action between several different people; Yuri, one of Nikolai’s men who has a hidden vendetta against Makarov; Frost, a member of the Delta Force; SAS soldier Burns; and a brief role as a Russian President bodyguard named Harkov. Excluding the latter, who you only control for one mission, the game regularly swaps between the three other playable characters. This is often confusing, and each of the missions they partake in are usually incredibly similar, apart from Yuri, who usually takes the stealthy undercover scenarios, leaving for very little character development.

However, character development is hardly something you want in a war zone, and as such, this plays true to its roots of warfare. The emotionless soldiers traipse across different continents and battlefields to complete whatever mission they have been assigned to. Nothing is as straight forward as it looks, with a secret background that comes to play at the worst of times. Call of Duty plays on our senseless need for drama on the battlefield, and it delivers.

Boom.

Contacts, ahead!
Through this drama, Activision has created a fantastic element of gameplay. The storyline fuses nicely with the consistent battles and no punches are held. Throwing you straight into the mix, there aren’t any training sessions as per the previous titles. Modern Warfare 3 knows it’s been around the block once or twice and doesn’t intend to mess its audience about.

The levels in MW3 are fresh and keep players engaged with the mission at hand. Despite the fact all missions will consist of you being directed by someone from one spot to another, it never feels linear. The game allows for people to complete the mission as they see fit, whether they wish to expertly manoeuvre through waves of enemies with knife kills and pick off the more dangerous foes, or simply run in with your LMG and mow down enemies, treading over their bodies with glee.

One or two levels do have you follow strict rules, and this is where the game loses a few brownie points. Yuri is mainly abused by this system, in which you find yourself being told who to pick off, where to be at what time, what to blow up, what gun to use, what hairstyle to don, and what beliefs to have. This isn’t action gameplay; I understand stealth is prime, but being told how to play a game kills the player interaction. Deus Ex: HR was testimony to how allowing you to work out your own stealth tactics can work well. It’s unfortunate how MW3 has to baby you through the steps, even in the final levels.

The usual controls that we all know and love return to serve us in our duty, no differences there, and none were expected. Attempting to change how the CoD controller works now would be like attempting to re-arrange the letters on a keyboard and enforce it on everyone. Even general FPS’ take heed and mimic the button mapping of the CoD series. Recently I attempted to play a demo of Counter Strike: Global Offense, which seemed to take it upon itself to swap most, if not every, button to something we’re not accustomed to, and the results were jarring.

Thankfully MW3 doesn’t have that problem, and it’s almost as if the long time period since 2 didn’t actually occur. The smooth transition allows for players to quickly get their head back in the game and work on saving the world. Again.

It seems that whilst MW3 is much of the same, it’s a bit like Marmite. You’ll either love the similar play style, or hate it so hard you’ll start using the disc as a coaster. As such, Activision has put a large emphasis on other sections of the game in this addition to the series.

The playable addition that has been advertised throughout all of their events is Survival mode, taking on onslaughts of enemies through the multiplayer maps. Very similar to Black Ops’ Zombie mode, the gameplay sees you starting off with merely a pistol, and you’re rewarded money for fighting off enemies. You’ll spend this money on buying more guns and upgrading the ones you already have. The waves get stronger, with each wave presenting a different challenge, such as air combat, or people in Juggernaut armour. You can also tag team with a friend to go at it together.

Standard. However, slightly predictable. Activision’s attempts at solving the monotonous gameplay of Campaign and Online means they have brought in an extra game that will, eventually, become monotonous on its own the more you play. Slightly ironic.

Special Ops is still included in the mix, allowing players to complete challenges to collect up to a maximum of 48 stars. The game mode also features certain weapons that are available only in the mode. We find the same problem here, though; once it’s done, it’s done. Repetitive play purely means getting bored quicker.

Visuals established
All of this gameplay is brought together by believable and fluid environments that in all honesty left me more than a little impressed. The attention to detail in some of the maps is astounding, and most importantly believable. The London areas hit close to the heart, and the lands foreign to myself are places I can easily be drawn into.

That being said, there aren’t any differences when it comes to the enemies, all oncoming armies looking the same unless the country change is extreme from one scene to the next. Many enemies will be covered with masks and donning heavy armour wherever possible. This could be one of two reasons; to avoid allowing people to relate to faces and lead to possible psychological problems, or plain laziness preventing them from animating many different facial expressions throughout the game, through which a level of believability is lost.

To finish this constructive sandwich off, though, the one-on-one scenes between yourself and another character in the campaign are beautiful, innovative and grasping, allowing for some nice storytelling moments. There are several scenes that allow control for a few seconds in flashbacks or asides in which a lot of detail has gone into, and through this, the depth of the game is brought back.

I feel that even though it may sound biased, but I’ve always loved the overlaying, storytelling montages that are Modern Warfare’s loading screens.

Gas masks on !

Radio communications established
Continuing what may feel like a repetitive theme here (I address it at the end, stay tuned!), MW3 provides an interesting and deep experience, if warfare is your thang. Activision’s audio choices fit the bill perfectly.

The thing is, we’re expecting this by now. The fact that this is the 3^rd instalment in the Modern Warfare series, as well as considering the many other instalments in Call of Duty, means that if something was amiss with the mood-setting weather sounds and intense orchestrated pieces, then something has gone incredibly wrong down the line.

Varying styles is actually where Activision drops down a notch. Between dramatic and intense, the styles of music don’t exactly push out the comfort zone. This floods from the game into menus and loading screens, and truthfully becomes monotonous after an hour of gameplay.

Watch my six
It seems that an hour of gameplay will be small-time when taking into consideration the amount of changes Activision have made to their online multiplayer modes. On the surface, it may look as if you were having the same experience as any other games, but a lot of small changes have added up to something huge, allowing gamers to experience a fine-tuned online experience.

Firstly, levelling up has received… a level up. The highest rank a person can take themselves to is 80 in MW3, and pair that with 10 prestige opportunities, a whopping 800 levels are available. While most may get bored around the second prestige, hitting the tenth one will certainly be a feat.

Each weapon now has its own personal ranking system, meaning the more you use a gun, the better gadgets, add-ons and proficiencies you unlock for it. Proficiencies being a new addition, allowing for bonuses alongside the usual, including extra range, additional aiming and the ability to add two attachments, to name a few.

Perks have had an update, featuring a few we’re used to and a few that are new, allowing us to create new combinations with weapon attachments to create a perfectly tailored class to your play style.

Multiplayer maps are looking as fly as ever, with your standard confusing maps, the ones that have so many turns you don’t understand where the bullets are coming from, and my personal favourite, Dome, Modern Warfare 3’s version of Scrapyard.

I’m probably not the best person to talk about the online. I’m happy if I can come out of a game with a positive kill/death ratio, let alone aim for anything in the double digits (apart from deaths). As such, the new Support kill streak option which allow kill streaks to continue through death is a big help in letting me play as an effective team member.

It’s a fantastic online experience, and it’s what the game focuses on the most; even the game’s box states ‘The definitive multiplayer experience returns’. Returns is the operative word that I have a problem with here.

Dominate!

Over.
Now for the clincher. Modern Warfare 3 is good, and there’s no denying that. Yet, Activision has supplied ‘good’ before. Modern Warfare 1 and 2 both provided good, game changing aspects to the franchise. Modern Warfare 3, on the other hand, merely supplies updates to what we’ve already grown accustomed to.

Modern Warfare 3 isn’t bad, not by a long shot, but it is a repeat of what we’ve seen in the past. We knew it was going to be good, and it hasn’t done anything to really break the barrier.

What’s most interesting is that if we were to get down to the real nitty-gritty, Modern Warfare 3 could have actually stood well on its own as a large DLC extra, updating the methods and adding extra campaign missions.

Obviously this lets people choose whether they stick with the new version or continue with the old, but the updates that have been made are genuinely good updates. The game definitely doesn’t deserve the bad press it’s been getting, or the shtick reviewers got for giving the game good comments.

As such a final verdict is hard to reach. The campaign is good, and finishes off an epic storyline, but if the multiplayer is the only thing you’re interested in, then the money may not be completely worth it.

Definitely try it out if you get the chance, and then decide on whether you want to take it further. However if you’re a big fan of the series, then there’s very little chance you’ll be disappointed.

The Ubisoft online pass will be coming our way in the form of the Uplay Passport, which will be a one-time code that will come with new Ubisoft games. Second-hand buyers will be able to purchase codes for £7.99 or 800 Microsoft Points. The first game to require the new pass will be the upcoming Driver: San Francisco and it will go on to be included in other big titles from the publisher, in what is for some an unpopular but unsurprising move. As a business model it is very similar to the online pass offered by EA, but as more companies try to regain some income from second-hand sales, can Microsoft continue to charge for the Xbox Live service?

In the defence of the publishers, they are defending their business from High Street stores such as GAME, who are selling pre-owned games and the publisher receives no income from this. GAME in particular have pushed their luck further by instructing staff to buy products on offer at Tesco and then marking up in their own stores. It could be argued that the Publishers and the High Street are involved in a big fight and you, the gamer, are going to be the one that gets hit hardest.

Typically, you could buy a game on release day for £39.99, which includes your online pass. If, after two months and a few items of DLC purchased for around £8, you then decide to part with the game by selling it on an auction site or by trade-in on the high street, you will get a hugely deflated price due to the slowing demand of pre-owned games; all because of the added online pass required to play it online.

So I need a passport to play a game...

High Street stores already struggling to compete with cheaper online stores will slowly lose their more profitable business of selling pre-owned games at marked up prices, and will slowly disappear. Gamers will be out-of-pocket too as the publishers re-gain control.

Over time people will buy fewer games, meaning we will see less innovation and the norm will become the Call of Duty, Battlefield and FIFA cash cows with little else on offer. For those of you that think I am overacting, a quick look at this year’s game market is already showing how quickly games are losing their value.

I remember being at the Eurogamer Expo last October and there was a huge amount of hype for Brink. There was a queue of over an hour-long wait just to get your hands on this hugely anticipated title, and people were walking away very excited. Fast forward to its release in May and a string of poor reviews ensured that the price had fallen to £14.99 within two months. Homefront was another game heavily marketed for months, but is now under a tenner.

All is not lost though, we can fight back. After all, only a huge fan (or some would say ‘fool’) would spend £40 on a game on a second-hand game, when after only two months later, you could buy the game brand new, complete with online pass for between £14.99 and £17.99.

If this happens neither the publisher nor the high street come out of this well and the savvy gamer will be the champion of champions. I fear that even this victory will be short-lived as the next generation of consoles could surely be digital download only, which would allow them to sell games at inflated prices. A quick look at Microsoft’s Games on Demand takes the smile off your face when you see games such as Crackdown 2 can be purchased for £19.99 but can be found for only £5 at an online store.

Will the future see you paying big money for old games?

The biggest fear among gamers is that we are all being treated as mugs and are rapidly being fleeced. We are wise to the fact that despite paying £39.99 a year to Microsoft for Xbox Live, we then could pay £39.99 for a game that is half-completed because several hours of content is held back, just so it can be released as DLC for £9.99. To announce more charges for online passes and bonus material as well? It takes a very mild-mannered person to not get pissed off.

It appears we are caught in the middle of a war that we cannot win. This is a complex issue that is not going to go away, but who is to blame? Are you angry at the High Street stores for encroaching on the publisher’s income? Are the publishers getting greedy? Do you support the publisher’s move?

We would love to hear your thoughts on this hot potato so please post your comments!

The idea behind this unusual concept is that games are being offered from one week after their official release date and promised savings of up to £21 under the recommended retail price, but they seem oblivious to the fact the majority of savvy gamers do not spend over fifty pounds on a game in the first place.

The pre-owned market has never been popular in the gaming industry as the people involved with creating a game see nothing of the revenue, which gave birth to the inevitable online pass; a thorn in the side of many a gamer in the last 12 months.

The games currently being trialled on the new scheme are

• Virtua Tennis 4
• Dragon Age II
• Homefront
• Fight Night Champion
• WWE All-Stars
• Tiger Woods PGA Tour 12: The Masters
• Shift II Unleashed
• Virtua Tennis 4
• Crysis 2

The idea is that it will work the same as any other pre-order service, but a closer look at this offer reveals that the deal is not as good as it may appear. Let’s start by looking at the future release of Homefront,  available to pre-order brand new and delivered to your door on the day of release for £32.85 from Simply Games. However using the new offer from GAME you could wait for a week and have a pre-owned version for and pay an extra pound for the privilege at £33.99.

Homefront cheaper new than pre-owned at GAME

GAME have pissed a lot of gamers off for sometime now, with their in-store aggressive sales techniques, inflated prices and poor trade in values, but this latest move will alienate them further by getting on the wrong side of the publishers and developers. It is sad to see the decline of gaming stores on the high street but equally it’s nothing short of embarrassing to see them make mistake after mistake. As I predicted before, the store will continue its decline.

Only last week I entered a store and using my observation skills (acquired from a lifetime of gaming) I witnessed the manager motion with a nod to one of his sales people to pounce on me and give a convincing and persuasive sales pitch and  ensure that I pre-order Nintendo 3DS. Anyone that has been in a GAME store will know this is normal practice but as the young worker was telling me about the product, the manager then came over and began rudely taking over his subordinate. It was rather reminiscent of a desperate timeshare salesman than a respected manager of a high street store.

Another look at the games on offer reveals that a second-hand copy of EA’s latest sports title, Fight Night Champion, can be pre-ordered for £33.99 or you could simply order it brand new and sealed for sixty-one pence more at the Game Collection for £34.60.

Fight Night Champion, buy pre-owned and save 61 pence!

I would imagine that GAME’s master plan is that they can make more revenue from the pre-owned games than the new released titles, but this move will upset the gaming industry by quite literally biting the hand that feeds. Consumers that actually go for the deal will very often find themselves having to buy an online pass for EA titles, which voids any savings made by buying a second-hand disc with a few scratches thrown in for your trouble.

Looking to the future, it would be no surprise to see the next generation of consoles will only play digital distributed games and leave nothing but a tumbleweed left on the high street. I ponder if there is any other company out there that seems so out of touch with its customer base, its suppliers and run by people who seem genuinely clueless? I can honestly think of no company other than GAME that seems intent on being in self-destruct mode, but what do you think?

Did they get it right?

Free rider
While both racing games on paper, this is an extremely different product to Kinect Joy Ride. The object of the game is still to beat the other player’s time, using objects to improve your abilities and to hinder the opponent and perform some tricks in order to gain more acceleration, but Free Riders adopts a more futuristic approach than Joy Ride and is much more hands on than Microsoft’s offering. While Joy Ride has you using your hands to steer the car as if you have a steering wheel in your hands, Free Riders demands you use all of your body to operate the hoverboard-like gear, bending left and right to turn, leaning forward to accelerate and holding back to break.

The game’s story mode, Grand Prix, sees you controlling one of four teams in order to obtain the cash prize and treasure, with Team Heroes (Sonic, Tails and Knuckles), Team Babylon (Jet, Wave and Storm), Team Rose (Amy, Cream and Vector) and Team Dark (Shadow, Rouge and E-10000B). There are also additional characters you can control in the Sonic-verse which are gradually unlocked as you play the game. The idea of Grand Prix mode has Dr Eggman hosting an EX World Grand Prix offering the winners treasure and other cash prizes. However, being Dr Eggman, there seems to be more to his motives and as the story unfolds, so you start to learn of the more sinister truth.

Grand Prix is essentially a series of missions that you’ll need to complete on various courses with different sets of objectives. So for example, one mission has you performing tricks before you reach the finishing line and you need to earn x amounts of points before you can continue, where another mission has you collecting 100 rings in a set time limit. In order to complete these missions, you’ll really need to know how to play all aspects of the game. Unfortunately, the difficulty curve is quite high on this one (especially if you want to perform everything perfectly) so before attempting this, you need to make sure you can do everything right first time! Of course, the game isn’t just bound to Grand Prix, you can try Time Trials, Relay races, play co-operatively or competitively or just try out Free Race to get used to the various tracks in the game.

The game also encourages you to collect rings while you play in order to level up your Gear and your racing abilities in each individual race. You’ll level up your dash, limit and power during the race, which increases the acceleration of your craft, the power behind each projectile you launch at the enemy and your own stability. Not only does it help during the race but it also helps you outside as the game has a shop where you can spend your collected rings on all manner of upgrades for your current Gear or to buy an all new Gear which is even more powerful than the one you’re currently using.

Team mates and racing rivals!

Sail or soar?
Describing Sonic Free Riders, I’d say it blends F-Zero with Tony Hawk and Mario Kart. Futuristic racing with grinding and tricks and powerups which can be used to attack your opponent or to give your Gear an extra little boost. The gameplay itself is actually a lot of fun, it does have a lot to offer if you can get used to controlling it and does have replayability. The problem with Free Riders is that controlling it is awkward and really off-putting. Arching your back left and right to turn, moving back and forth and jumping on the spot gives a good workout, but when the game doesn’t always respond to your actions, you begin to wonder if there’s a point in pushing yourself for it.

There are some cool additions to the game though, for example each power-up is different and will require you to create a different motion in order to use it. You’ll get a bowling ball in the game and in order to use it, you’ll need to perform an under-arm swing, just as you would bowling. Another has you holding a rocket above your head, in order to fire you’ll need to do an overarm throw and the missile will then home in on the target. However, you’ll find yourself trying the same gesture several times before the game picks it up, which, once again, really does make you question if you want to dedicate more time to the game or not.

Free Riders is one of the few games in the launch line up that has voice activated menus, which is actually the most convenient and responsive aspect of the game. You can navigate the menu with your hands as before, but sometimes this can be slower and irritating. By simply saying ‘Start Game’ and ‘Select’, the game will jump you right into the next menu or even into the game itself without a single flick of your hand. Impressive! However, you’ll need to know exactly which words to use and be accurate with it, otherwise it will take you to another menu you won’t want.

The game is one of the most difficult to control and adjust to in the Kinect Launch Line up, but it can also be the most rewarding if given the chance.

Explosive!

Colour or blur?
As expected from a Sonic title, Free Riders boasts rich, vibrant colours. It’s everything you expect from a game featuring the Hedgehog and really does have an authentic stamp on it. The characters look as alive and well as they ever have, each with their own distinguishing features. The game is one of the best looking of the Kinect launch line up, maybe not as graphically appealing as Kinectimals but still able to win you over with its charm and grace. Sonic Team are bang on the money with the graphical output for Free Riders, it looks stunning.

The courses are also very different and exciting and you’ll go from the snowy peaks to rocky mountains and even pyramids. Sonic Team have applied an incredibly diverse approach in the way they’ve approached each course and clearly have applied a lot of time and effort in making sure the game doesn’t look stagnant and gives off a refreshing experience during each play-through.

High flyin'

Whizzing past
I found some of the menu music to be ugly on the ears and not exactly in the spirit we’ve come to know and love from the Sonic tracks of the past. However, some of the other tracks on the courses are actually quite catchy and totally authenticate the experience Sonic Team have tried to represent graphically. There’s good and bad with the music in Free Riders, but while the graphics are up to the usual Sonic standard, I found the soundtrack left more to be desired.

Some of the comments from the characters during the race are also quite corny, to the point where you think these racers really need to learn a lesson in competition. C’mon Tails, you don’t need to apologise every time you hit someone with a golf ball; you’re trying to win a race. Also, the voice of the tutorial chao could be the most annoying I’ve heard in a game this year. I wish that little guy had been on a board alongside me so I could blow him up with missiles. That might have made the experience a little more bearable…

Sonic over the Waves
One of the cool features of Free Riders is that it is playable over Xbox Live and it brings with it three modes to play; normal race, ring collection and damage control. Normal race is pretty self-explanatory, up to eight players can race against each other on one circuit to see who is the fastest. All in all, it seemed pretty stable when playing online, although there weren’t many people looking to play Free Riders with me which did make the wait times pretty agonising. That’s quite a bad sign when the game is less than a week old and hardly anyone is playing. That being said, the learning curve on this is pretty difficult, so perhaps people are biding their time before allowing themselves to potentially tarnish their record online.

Collect the Ring is also pretty self-explanatory. Choose a circuit, a character and compete against another player to get the most rings possible within the time limit. This is a frantically fun mode and really does make for some tense moments, especially if you’ve just lost a bunch from a projectile being launched in your direction. Damage Control is the final event and has you trying to inflict as much damage as possible on your opponents in the time limit, with the most points winning at the end. This one is all out carnage and might be both the easiest game to play online and the most unpredictable.

You can also take your avatar online and play against other opponents if you don’t want to use the usual Sonic characters, just as you can in local co-operative or competitive play.

Leave it all on the track!

Conclusion?
I want to love Sonic Free Riders as the game itself is suited to Kinect; it is fun and offers a lot of bang for your buck with a wide variety of modes, online connectibility, co-op, competitive and more. Unfortunately, while the ambition is prominent, the playability is glitchy, at times unresponsive and frankly ‘just not there yet’. SEGA deserve a pat on the back for their efforts to the point where I’m hoping they make a second Free Riders game for Kinect when they’re a bit more familiar with the tech. Unfortunately, having played Adventures, Sports and Dance Central with Kinect, I know what Microsoft’s motion sensing camera is capable of and some of the lazy development of Free Riders does shine through when you’re playing the game. You’ll find yourself pausing the game regularly at inopportune moments during a race (especially irritating when you’re online playing competitively), you’re unable to perform jumps even when you’re doing exactly what it says on-screen and finding yourself stuck in the landscape, unable to move or react.

That being said, the groundwork has been laid for a great game and with some luck, Sonic Team will try again with this. As a launch title, it is one of the better offerings with so much content, but I can’t recommend this over the likes of Kinect Sports, Dance Central and Your Shape Fitness Evolved, simply because they’re much more polished experiences and have really figured out what Kinect is all about. This game is fun but you really do have to pay the price in order to find it.

Upon closer inspection it was clear the reason why the thousands of gamers under one roof were not walking around with carrier bags full of the latest games they had just played and loved. The reason for this was because HMV were selling the games at full retail price.

For instance, one stand contained hundreds of copies of the game FIFA 11 on its release day next to the multiple Fifa booths where people were queuing to play and could be described as a stroke of marketing genius, but when people saw that they were charging a whopping £39.99 a hasty retreat ensued.

I heard several gamers walking past declaring the prices are a joke. On our Twitter feed @Ibu666 probably summed it up best by saying “They should have sold games for 29.99. Guaranteed sales. Maybe they hate money.”

Do HMV hate money?

As game prices rise and in the current economical climate, gamers are becoming increasingly thrifty and are starting to realise that paying £39.99 for a game, only to be offered a small trade in price a few weeks later against another £39.99 game is false economy. Especially when games such as Kane & Lynch 2, H.A.W.X. 2 and Mafia 2 have dropped to £17.95 within a few weeks of release when buying from one of the many reputable online stores.

Doubters only have to look at the High Street store GAME who recently announced that the Game Group made an £18.8 Million First Half Loss. The company currently runs 635 Game and Game station stores in the UK but has said that it plans to close 85 outlets by Christmas 2013. Only a few months ago we reported how tired people were growing on the constant upselling, high RRP prices and poor trade in values at GAME stores.

Recently my nine year old son said “can we go into GAME and see how long it is until they try and sell us something?” We lasted eight seconds before we were asked if we were interested in buying the Halo Edition of the new Xbox Slim for £250, we made our excuses and left. The game he wanted was £15 cheaper online too! If a nine year old can see this, why can’t the bosses of these stores? I fear if the high street stores do not change their thinking very quickly, gamers will not have the benefit of choice in the near future when shopping in their local towns.

Is £39.99 too much for a game at Eurogamer Expo?

There are many different view points on this subject but at the UK’s largest gaming show event at Earls Court, the majority of gamers thought the Eurogamer Expo was excellent but full priced games only from the HMV stand scored them an embarrassing own goal on the release day of the biggest selling football game. As one disgruntled gamer was heard saying as he walked away “HMV = Epic Fail”.

I mean we have one really established actor, an actress whose biggest role yet is as James Bond’s sex partner for a night in Quantum of Solace, and a director whose biggest hit yet was Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. When push came to shove though, and Hollywood decided to actually put some effort into a ‘video game movie’, it kicked some major box office ass… as well as mine for thinking it was going to be lame.

In terms of movie-to-movie sales… Okay, fine. It didn’t kick that much ass, but it did as far as video game movies go. I firmly believe that with a longer list of more quality iterations, we could see a very sharp incline on ticket sales. The general public needs to know that these movies aren’t to be trifled with anymore, before they go and spend their money on ridiculously priced concessions and tickets. Prince of Persia is in my mind, hopefully the first in a long line of prosperity for game-to-movie adaptations.

The movie received rave reviews across the board, even from our site. I think that this has done more for both the gaming and film industries than is presently clear. What was once a gimmick to make money off of big name video games is hopefully now going to be a full-fledged, quality, and essential part of the film industry. That is why this article exists, to relay my message to Hollywood; keep movies like Prince of Persia coming.

Sweet Action!

Not many video game movies have achieved critical acclaim, which is a sad fact indeed. My hopeful thinking is that all of these movies listed on IMDB will turn out to be just as much of a surprise as Prince of Persia. We have God of War, Warcraft, Gears of War, and many more all-star video games on the alleged list to hitting the silver screen. I want to see a trend different from 3/10 ratings, I don’t want the biggest names in gaming to be made fun of as we walk out of the theatre, throwing our now stale popcorn out.

Now when I said before, “This is important to “both the game and film industries”, I wasn’t kidding. If you’re not big into video games, but you still know that the movie you are watching is based off a video game, generally your thoughts on the movie are going to reflect your thoughts on the video game, without ever having played it. This means that the consumer, even critics, may judge the game subconsciously or consciously not on the game’s merits, but the movie’s failures.

In closing, let me say I’m not expecting the next ‘Gone With the Wind’ from anybody (though it would be nice), because let’s be honest; Prince of Persia was a damn good movie. However, it’s not like it was cinema gold. It was a fun outing with my friends, and I would do it again with all of the monetary expenses of going to the movies. Prince of Persia was a huge success in the eyes of gamers, and hopefully somebody over in the golden state of California will get the message. For now, we can only sit and wait for the next trailer, the next morsel of video game movie… Hopefully it will taste as good.