Hooray! Interplay have just announced that they're re-launching Earthworm Jim - and not only the game (which is great news) but the cartoon too (which is fucking AMAZING news!). The original creator, Douglas TenNapel, is on board, so hopefully it won't be arse like Earthworm Jim 3D was. Douglas TenNapel. What a great name that is.
So GTA IV should be arriving at work in the next two days. I'm well looking forward to it. Even though San Andreas was a bit shite, I have high hopes for this one. I'm just wondering if I can get away with playing it on our 360 at work without Rockstar's team of elite ninjas hunting me down and eating my face. I think I'll just avoid Live until Tuesday, and then suddenly sign in at 00:01 with all the achievements. Ha ha! Eat that, score whores!
It's looking superb. I'm looking for a new game world that's massive and all-enveloping; everything I've played recently I've enjoyed, but it hasn't had me utterly addicted. Hell, I didn't even finish Super Mario Galaxy. In fact, I haven't been properly addicted to a game since Oblivion. I still play that fecking game now, even though I've finished almost every single quest, got every achievement, bought all the DLC, finished that, and have now wasted over 160 hours of my life in Cyrodiil. I'm hoping Liberty City will cure my Morrowinditis.
I have to say, I haven't been so underwhelmed by a console in a long time: The Playstation 3 has pretty much nothing that interests me. Every good game out for it is also out on the 360, where it-
a) costs less b) has a better controller c) has a better online service d) has those lovely, scrumptious, oh so addictive achievement points.
The only exclusive title that's even piqued my interest is Singstar, and I am not paying 400 for a fucking karaoke machine.
Plus, I already bought 9 discs of it for my PS2...
Anyway, Metal Gear 4 has me interested, but not enough to buy the machine. But with this trailer for Siren hitting the net, now I'm considering it. It looks bloody terrifying. All I need now is Fumito Ueda to announce a new game and there'll be a party in my trousers.
Resident Evil 5has been picking up press ever since it was first announced; mainly because, following the incredible Resident Evil 4 on the Gamecube, anticipation was higher than for previous entries in the rapidly-going-stale series. However, the press has been growing hostile ever since the newer trailers began to appear. Accusations of racism arose as soon as they hit the net.
Resi 5 is set in Africa (or Haiti, it's still unclear). From the trailer, it does seem that the game consists mainly of a lone white man shooting crowds of black people. Here, take a look:
Allegations of racism are being thrown at Capcom, and it's clear to see why - the trailer makes the black people seem like primitive animals, being mown down by the big white man. For the ones that are now 'zombies', this is fair enough... in Capcom's defence, if the game is set in Africa, then the zombies are going to be African. There was no allegations of racism about Resident Evil 4, despite all the enemies being Spanish. However, the worrying thing will be decided on it's portrayal of the non-infected inhabitants - for example, the citizens at the start of the trailer seem to be uninfected, yet are still made to look unusual and frightening.
For me, its going to be a hard one to call until the entire game is available. As Crystal Dynamics' producer Morgan Gray pointed out earlier this week, Japanese games are not noted for their reasonable portrayal of black people, resorting usually to a strange soul-brother stereotype that hasn't really existed in about 30 years, if ever. Trying to think of black characters in Japanese games conjures up images of Barratt in Final Fantasy VII - who says 'sucka' at the end of every sentence and has a gun for an arm - or the customary South American / Jamaican guy in beat 'em ups (see Dee Jay in Street Fighter II: The New Challengers or Eddy Gordo in Tekken).
The problem with Resi 5 lies in the fact that the usual Japanese portrayal of black characters as loveable, dancing, 'yeah mon!' brothers or Mr.T wannabes is not so much offensive as just hopelessly naive. Portraying them as packs of murderous creatures could start to cross the line. With this one, we'll have to wait and see how it turns out.
