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	<title>The Average Gamer &#187; Sims</title>
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	<description>Video games news and reviews from the UK</description>
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		<title>Order Up!! To Go Review (iOS)</title>
		<link>http://www.theaveragegamer.com/2012/01/24/order-up-to-go-review-ios/</link>
		<comments>http://www.theaveragegamer.com/2012/01/24/order-up-to-go-review-ios/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 24 Jan 2012 15:17:01 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Pippa Hall</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Great]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[iOS]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sims]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[free2play]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[in-app purchases]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ORder Up!! To Go]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.theaveragegamer.com/?p=8375</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Oh Chillingo, why must you offer me exactly the kind of game I love and then cruelly take it away by annoying the crap out of me with adverts and underhand ways of trying to make me spend money? Don&#8217;t you realise I&#8217;m a stubborn cuss who objects to developers making game progression so mind numbingly tedious in the deluded [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://www.theaveragegamer.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/IMG_0010.png"><img src="http://www.theaveragegamer.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/IMG_0010-300x225.png" alt="" title="Omelette" width="300" height="225" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-8376" /></a>Oh Chillingo, why must you offer me exactly the kind of game I love and then cruelly take it away by annoying the crap out of me with adverts and underhand ways of trying to make me spend money? Don&#8217;t you realise I&#8217;m a stubborn cuss who objects to developers making game progression so mind numbingly tedious in the deluded hope I&#8217;ll cough up for gold stars? It&#8217;s a shame because <em>Order Up!! To Go</em> is a really good game for the iOS platform. the swiping gestures required for cooking translate perfectly and don&#8217;t suffer with user ineptitude (much).</p>
<p>At various points in the game progression you&#8217;ll unlock special visits from restaurant critics offering a chance to earn more coins or more frequently surprise hygiene inspections. These see you frantically smearing the surface of your iPad pretending to scrub dishes or trying to flick rats off your counter tops. You can limit the more annoying of these visits by paying to have your kitchen cleaned. The cynical part of me suspects that this is just added motivation to buy in-game currency.</p>
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<p>I played three restaurants out of a possible seven, simply because I don&#8217;t have months and months to devote to playing the game the cheap way. The management side of the game lets you decide what dishes to stock the ingredients for. This adds a very nice planning aspect to the fast-paced swiping-like-a-maniac segments. Once the cooking day starts you&#8217;ll receive a stream of customers and the game becomes a juggling act to keep everyone happy and dishes leaving your kitchen in a timely and presentable fashion. Alongside the normal customers you&#8217;ll also be served up picky versions who want a unique twist on their order &#8211; manage to work out what they want and you&#8217;ll earn bonus payments.</p>
<p>I would happily recommend this game to anyone. It&#8217;s free (to a point) and it&#8217;s fun. I just wish Chillingo hadn&#8217;t gone for &#8220;making the game dull unless you pay&#8221; route. That said, there&#8217;s every likelihood I&#8217;ll roll over and pay. A good game deserves it.</p>
<p><em>Order Up!! To Go is <a href="http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/order-up!!-to-go/id472934148?mt=8">available now</a> for iOS 4.0 or later.</em></p>
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		<title>Champion Jockey Review (Xbox 360)</title>
		<link>http://www.theaveragegamer.com/2011/10/17/champion-jockey-review-xbox-360/</link>
		<comments>http://www.theaveragegamer.com/2011/10/17/champion-jockey-review-xbox-360/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 17 Oct 2011 10:51:20 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Debbie Timmins (Weefz)</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Great]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Reviews]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sims]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Xbox 360]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Champion Jockey]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[horse-racing]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.theaveragegamer.com/?p=7674</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I was invited out to Windsor a few weeks back to take a look at Tecmo Koei&#8217;s newest addition to the G1 racing game series. I&#8217;d seen the trailer online and &#8211; I&#8217;ll be honest &#8211; it looked a bit shit. Here&#8217;s the trailer for *deep breath* Champion Jockey: G1 Jockey &#038; Gallop Racer on YouTube. It&#8217;s not shit. I [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://www.theaveragegamer.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Champion-Jockey-Jump.jpg"><img src="http://www.theaveragegamer.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Champion-Jockey-Jump-300x168.jpg" alt="" title="Champion Jockey Jump" width="300" height="168" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-7676" /></a>I was invited out to Windsor a few weeks back to take a look at Tecmo Koei&#8217;s newest addition to the G1 racing game series. I&#8217;d seen the trailer online and &#8211; I&#8217;ll be honest &#8211; it looked a bit shit. Here&#8217;s the <a href="http://youtu.be/glH1RPbgbc4">trailer for *deep breath* Champion Jockey: G1 Jockey &#038; Gallop Racer on YouTube</a>.</p>
<p>It&#8217;s not shit. I promise you, it&#8217;s actually quite fun. Yes, you&#8217;ll look like a complete tit if you use the Kinect mode and yes, the responsiveness makes it feel like you&#8217;re riding a particularly stubborn or stupid horse. When you&#8217;re playing with the controller mode, it&#8217;s an incredibly deep and detailed game. When you&#8217;re playing with Kinect mode, it&#8217;s supposedly the same game. In my experience racing with Kinect makes the game feel far less finicky about controls and stamina.</p>
<h4>Off to the Races</h4>
<p>As a new jockey you have to work your way up through the ranks by riding horses at every meet. Thing is, unlike so many racing games, you don&#8217;t actually need to win every race to progress. Some horses are nags far past their best and the stable trainers know this. To win approval from your colleagues and gain jockey points, all you really need to do is place higher than the bookies were expecting. You&#8217;ll earn points every time this happens, with a large boost when you win. You&#8217;ll also gain favour with the trainers, which you&#8217;ll need to if you want to ride the best horses and be the champion.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.theaveragegamer.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Champion-Jockey-HUD.jpg"><img src="http://www.theaveragegamer.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Champion-Jockey-HUD-300x168.jpg" alt="" title="Champion Jockey HUD" width="300" height="168" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-7675" /></a>That&#8217;s not to say that doing well on a horse that&#8217;s halfway to the glue factory is out of your reach. Quite the opposite. I&#8217;ve come first in 16-horse races where my old mare was expected to place no higher than fourteenth and the trainers are very much appreciative when that happens. </p>
<p>Here&#8217;s how you do it: every horse has a preferred racing style and a series of strengths and faults that you can exploit during the race. For example, some horses like to lead the pack whilst others prefer to run near &#8211; but not AT &#8211; the back. Use the ridiculously detailed HUD to work out where your horse likes to be and make sure you&#8217;re there at key points, particularly the first and last quarters of the race.</p>
<p>The next most important factor for winning is stamina. Push your horse too early and you&#8217;ll lead all the way round only to be overtaken by <em>every other horse in the field</em> during the last hundred yards. You need to judge the stamina carefully and build up something called &#8220;potential&#8221; which you then unleash by whipping the crap out of your poor ride for the final stretch. Don&#8217;t do as I did early in my career and spare the rod on some silly humane grounds. You want to win? You whip it. Whip it good.</p>
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<p>Pull off all the right moves and you&#8217;ll unlock special &#8220;powers&#8221; that each horse has. Many horses that prefer to run in the middle will have a power called &#8220;Pack Split&#8221; which causes the horses in front to mysteriously move aside and let you barrel though to take the lead. Another one I&#8217;ve seen in horses who prefer the rear is &#8220;Last To First&#8221; which gives you a massive speed boost that will let you overtake the entire field. </p>
<p>These powers are triggered by your riding and race conditions rather than a mechanic as crass as QTEs, so you really need to be aware of your fellow jockeys. I lost quite a few weeks to injury when my ride unexpectedly triggered her Last To First power and ran smack up the arse of the horse in front. My trainer was NOT pleased and it almost put me out of the running for the Champion Apprentice trophy in my first year. No word on whether the horse taken out back and shot. I do hope not.</p>
<p>As you reach autumn, you&#8217;ll move on from the flat races and into the jump season. I quickly found out that you simply cannot treat steeplechase races like flats with added jumping. Jump horses have much more stamina compared to the length of race, so the competition focuses far more on jumping technique than pacing your horse.</p>
<h4>Back at the Stables</h4>
<p>The game is great fun while racing on the track. Off the track is just as complex but, in my mind, not nearly as fun. Every week has a negotiation period where you look at the upcoming meets and choose your horses. I&#8217;ve talked about needing trainers to like you &#8211; this comes into play here. Those who like you will offer you great horses without having spend quite as many jockey points. Those who dislike you won&#8217;t even give you the time of day. And then there are a few who like another rider better but are open to persuasion. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.theaveragegamer.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Champion-Jockey-Perfect-Race.jpg"><img src="http://www.theaveragegamer.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Champion-Jockey-Perfect-Race-300x168.jpg" alt="" title="Champion Jockey Perfect Race" width="300" height="168" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-7677" /></a>This isn&#8217;t as exciting as it sounds. You hit the Negotiate button, decide whether you want to spend the necessary points and depending on some mystical background algorithm, you either get the horse you don&#8217;t. Either way, you&#8217;ve just spent a load of jockey points that you&#8217;ll have to earn back by racing. I rarely bother with this unless one of the racing journalists has popped up with a hot tip. Costs me a load but they&#8217;ve not been wrong about a winner yet.</p>
<p>Other features are the ability to train up your own horse and do some skills practice with your assigned horses prior to the meet. I&#8217;m appalling at all of the skills trials. Given that screwing them up actually penalises your horse at the meet itself, I have learned my lesson and leave them with my very capable stablehands.</p>
<h4>But is it Fun?</h4>
<p>I really enjoy this game. The career mode is filled with all sorts of bizarre Japanese-translated banter<br />
and my amusement comes more from a perpetual &#8220;What the heck just happened?&#8221; than any decent scriptwriting so it may not be to everyone&#8217;s taste. Thankfully, the cut-scenes are easy enough to skip so don&#8217;t let that put you off.</p>
<p>The racing does have plenty of depth &#8211; so much so that this is a LONG game. I&#8217;ve played it for 21 hours and barely hit the end of my first year of racing. I do very few of the training exercises and only ride about half the races I could do. Still, I managed to be the 6th-best jockey in Europe and won the Champion Apprentice title. I think I&#8217;ve found my natural talent. At around £20, if you&#8217;re even slightly interested in horse-racing, Champion Jockey is a worthwhile purchase.</p>
<p>Here&#8217;s a short video from the awards ceremony at the end of my first year. You can see some of the stats that are tracked throughout your career and examples of the odd dialogue as well. Apologies for the shaky-cam footage.</p>
<p><iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/dwe6aBp9PC4" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></p>
<p>Champion Jockey is out now for <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_sq_top?ie=UTF8&#038;keywords=champion%20jockey&#038;index=blended&#038;pf_rd_p=103612307&#038;pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe&#038;pf_rd_t=201&#038;pf_rd_i=B0053WMWUQ&#038;pf_rd_m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&#038;pf_rd_r=1CGDTY837F4Q4FPR7GPQ">Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii</a>.</p>
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		<title>Flight Control HD Review (PS3/PSN)</title>
		<link>http://www.theaveragegamer.com/2011/02/28/flight-control-hd-review-%e2%80%93-ps3/</link>
		<comments>http://www.theaveragegamer.com/2011/02/28/flight-control-hd-review-%e2%80%93-ps3/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 28 Feb 2011 17:57:01 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Dan Crawley</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Arcade Style]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Great]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[PS3]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Reviews]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sims]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[air traffic control]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[flight control hd]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[iPhone]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Joanna Newsom]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[PlayStation Move]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[playstation network]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[PSN]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[simulator]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.theaveragegamer.com/?p=6064</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Flight Control HD is a port of the popular iPhone game, which has been optimized for the Playstation Move controller on PS3. The aim of the game is simple &#8211; to guide a never ending series of aircraft to their respective landing strips. This is accomplished by drawing flight paths for them on the top down view. One crash and, [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Flight Control HD is a port of the popular iPhone game, which has been optimized for the Playstation Move controller on PS3. The aim of the game is simple &#8211; to guide a never ending series of aircraft to their respective landing strips. This is accomplished by drawing flight paths for them on the top down view. One crash and, much like real life, it is game over.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.theaveragegamer.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Flight-Control-greenfield_beach.jpg"><img src="http://www.theaveragegamer.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Flight-Control-greenfield_beach-300x169.jpg" alt="" title="Flight Control greenfield_beach" width="300" height="169" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-6069" /></a>There is something inherently pleasurable about idly sending planes hither and thither across patchwork fields and blue seas, simply by drawing on screen, whilst a noodling jazz soundtrack plays in the background. Needless to say, the relative calm of the first few minutes soon gives way to a more challenging task, and at times you will have twenty or more planes on the screen, all of which appear to have a death wish.</p>
<p>The Move control scheme works beautifully, allowing you to effortlessly draw any type of path for the aircraft. You can even keep individual planes &#8216;circling&#8217;, whilst you try to clear some space in the sky. It is possible to use a regular Dualshock controller to play the game, but this doesn&#8217;t feel nearly as satisfying, and it shows its limitations once the levels get very busy. A nice touch is the ability for up to four players to play at once, using any combination of Move and Dualshock controllers.</p>
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<p>There are 9 levels in total, which each hold their own challenges, including day/night cycles, emergency landings and changing wind directions. All of these levels are unlocked from the start, so there is no progression as such. The focus here is on high scores, and achieving a higher &#8216;rank&#8217; on the global leaderboards, starting as &#8216;Cabin Crew&#8217; and working your way up to the heady heights of &#8216;Test Pilot&#8217;</p>
<p>Visually the game is clean and simple, with just enough detail to be interesting, but not enough to distract from the task at hand. Flight Control HD supports 3D televisions, but I am sadly not in a position to comment on the effectiveness of this. The sound effects are mostly helpful, and the soundtrack initially fits the game quite well. Unfortunately here lies the one problem that I had with the game &#8211; it only appears to have one music track. Not only that, but the track doesn’t loop, playing just once per level, before leaving you in silence.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.theaveragegamer.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Flight-Control-beach_congrats.jpg"><img src="http://www.theaveragegamer.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Flight-Control-beach_congrats-300x169.jpg" alt="" title="Flight Control beach_congrats" width="300" height="169" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-6067" /></a>This is a very strange design decision, but it can be overcome in one of two ways. Firstly, you can switch the music off and on from the pause menu, which will restart the solitary track. Alternatively, the game supports custom soundtracks, so you can start some appropriate music from your XMB and then go back to the game. Personally I found that a bit of Joanna Newsom provided a nice accompaniment. Combining anything faster than that with the stresses of air traffic control just didn’t seem like a good idea to me.</p>
<p><strong>Flight Control HD costs £3.99 from the PSN Store</strong>, which is definitely good value for money. It is a great pick up and play game, that initially seems very simple, but quickly provides a very real challenge. It is also one of the few games that really benefits from having a Playstation Move control scheme. One word of warning though &#8211; the game is very addictive, so a quick twenty minute session may end up taking longer than you thought.</p>

<a href='http://www.theaveragegamer.com/2011/02/28/flight-control-hd-review-%e2%80%93-ps3/flight-control-beach_congrats/' title='Flight Control beach_congrats'><img width="150" height="84" src="http://www.theaveragegamer.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Flight-Control-beach_congrats-150x84.jpg" class="attachment-thumbnail" alt="Flight Control beach_congrats" title="Flight Control beach_congrats" /></a>
<a href='http://www.theaveragegamer.com/2011/02/28/flight-control-hd-review-%e2%80%93-ps3/flight-control-windy_play/' title='Flight Control windy_play'><img width="150" height="84" src="http://www.theaveragegamer.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Flight-Control-windy_play-150x84.jpg" class="attachment-thumbnail" alt="Flight Control windy_play" title="Flight Control windy_play" /></a>
<a href='http://www.theaveragegamer.com/2011/02/28/flight-control-hd-review-%e2%80%93-ps3/flight-control-greenfield_beach/' title='Flight Control greenfield_beach'><img width="150" height="84" src="http://www.theaveragegamer.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Flight-Control-greenfield_beach-150x84.jpg" class="attachment-thumbnail" alt="Flight Control greenfield_beach" title="Flight Control greenfield_beach" /></a>
<a href='http://www.theaveragegamer.com/2011/02/28/flight-control-hd-review-%e2%80%93-ps3/flight-control-carrier_play/' title='Flight Control carrier_play'><img width="150" height="84" src="http://www.theaveragegamer.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Flight-Control-carrier_play-150x84.jpg" class="attachment-thumbnail" alt="Flight Control carrier_play" title="Flight Control carrier_play" /></a>

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		<title>Apache Air Assault Review (360)</title>
		<link>http://www.theaveragegamer.com/2011/01/04/apache-air-assault-review/</link>
		<comments>http://www.theaveragegamer.com/2011/01/04/apache-air-assault-review/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 04 Jan 2011 17:52:27 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Tom Wallis</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Avoid]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Featured]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sims]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Xbox 360]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Apache Air Assault]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[co-op]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[helicopter]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[rockets]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.theaveragegamer.com/?p=5777</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[We gave Apache Air Assault to Tom Wallis of Newb Review. With his stellar virtual driving skills, he should love a good helicopter sim, right? Not so much...]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><em>Another <a href="http://newbreview.com/">Newb Review</a> guest post from the indefatiguable <a href="http://www.theaveragegamer.com/author/tom01255/">Tom Wallis</a>. Somehow I keep giving him terrible games to review. Or maybe he&#8217;s just a miseryguts who hates all games. You decide. </em></p>
<p>Apache Air Assault seems to be confused about exactly what it is. It toys with the idea of being a helicopter simulation game with the controls being incredibly fiddly, much like a real helicopter I imagine. However, you’re also given infinite rockets. Simply by waiting a set amount of time your weapon of choice will continue to reload ad infinatum, with varying waiting times depending on which weapon you’re using. In what’s touted to be a simulation game, this really doesn’t make any sense.</p>
<p>On anything but the easiest difficulty, the slightest touch of the controller has a dramatic effect on your helicopter, and often flips your gunship, sending it hurtling to the ground. Lining up enemies from a distance and spamming them with missiles as you pass makes up the majority of the gameplay, and it’s frustratingly easy to jerk the view away from your intended targets. Furthermore, it’s incredibly cumbersome to turn around to take another run once you inevitably pass them. This frustrating combination leads to some morale-sapping gaming sessions if you&#8217;re determined to get through the campaign.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.theaveragegamer.com/2011/01/04/apache-air-assault-review/apache-air-assault-valid-lock/" rel="attachment wp-att-5789"><img src="http://www.theaveragegamer.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Apache-Air-Assault-Valid-Lock-300x168.jpg" alt="" title="Apache Air Assault - Valid Lock" width="300" height="168" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-5789" /></a></p>
<p>I do appreciate that it may simply be the case that I am not good at this game. However, if the gameplay is inaccessible for someone who plays a lot of games, I imagine it will alienate the vast majority of the populace. Furthermore, this game attempts to cater to hardcore simulation fans at the same time as having issues with the so-called “realism”, as it’s possible to barrel roll the helicopter and recover, which I’m pretty sure is impossible in real life.</p>
<p>The story is non-existent. The only semblance of narrative is through the text-based mission briefings you are given before each outing. These are both uninspiring and quickly ignored, especially considering the static presentation and extremely wordy write up. The miniscule narrative is made all the more redundant by the fact that each mission revolves around different characters. Whilst I agree that it would be unrealistic to have some über-pilot, completing every major mission across several different conflicts, it’s equally unrealistic to have infinite rockets, so shut your face.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.theaveragegamer.com/2011/01/04/apache-air-assault-review/apache-air-assault-smoke-trails/" rel="attachment wp-att-5788"><img src="http://www.theaveragegamer.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Apache-Air-Assault-Smoke-Trails-300x168.jpg" alt="" title="Apache Air Assault - Smoke Trails" width="300" height="168" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-5788" /></a></p>
<p>If Apache Air Assault is anything to go by, being a helicopter pilot is incredibly dull. There are 16 missions to trudge through and each lasts around 30 minutes. However every mission is something of a by the numbers affair; you ride your helicopter along for a bit… then you attack some enemies… And that’s pretty much it. Once all the enemies, or in particularly interesting twist on some missions, a key enemy, have been killed, the mission ends and you feel a little bit more of your soul being sapped by this vapid experience of a game.</p>
<p>Graphically the game can, at best, be described as poor. Enemy character models look like a cardboard cut-outs, and move even more awkwardly than they look. Cityscapes also evaporate at the mere sight of a rocket from your gunship.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.theaveragegamer.com/2011/01/04/apache-air-assault-review/apache-air-assault-interior/" rel="attachment wp-att-5787"><img src="http://www.theaveragegamer.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Apache-Air-Assault-Interior-300x168.jpg" alt="" title="Apache Air Assault - Interior" width="300" height="168" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-5787" /></a></p>
<p>I’ve tried out the co-op and it is not fun; primarily because it doesn’t allow two helicopters. One person pilots the helicopter whilst the other person has to control the guns. This doesn’t work well at all; it’s kind of like banging your head against a brick wall… because you can’t aim if you’re banging your head against a brick wall.</p>
<p>If you switch the difficulty up to realistic controls or, heaven forbid, veteran, you’re really going to hate it from the beginning. Playing on the easiest difficulty there’s about half an hour of fun to be had with Apache Air Assault, but other than that I really wouldn’t recommend it.</p>
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		<title>56 Sage Street Review (Web)</title>
		<link>http://www.theaveragegamer.com/2010/10/13/56-sage-street-review-web/</link>
		<comments>http://www.theaveragegamer.com/2010/10/13/56-sage-street-review-web/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 13 Oct 2010 15:37:13 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Debbie Timmins (Weefz)</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Great]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[PC]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sims]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[addictive]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Barclays]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[browser]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[educational]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[life-sim]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[NHS]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[promotional]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sponsored]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[The Sims]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.theaveragegamer.com/?p=5311</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I&#39;m not really one for browser games. Almost 5 years ago I really got into Defend Your Castle for a couple of days. Earlier this year I played a lot of Mafia Wars, but neither of those were particularly compelling. I think it was more lack of anything better to do.&#160; Barclays have come out with a new educational browser [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><img src="http://www.ebuzzing.co.uk/statsimagesp/13982_1516_215360_14108_11149.jpg" border="0" style="width:0px;height:0px;border:none;"  />
<p><a href="http://www.theaveragegamer.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/56-Sage-Street-image.jpg"><img src="http://www.theaveragegamer.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/56-Sage-Street-image-300x300.jpg" alt="" title="56 Sage Street logo" width="300" height="300" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-5313" /></a> I&#39;m not really one for browser games. Almost 5 years ago I really got into <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.theaveragegamer.com/2005/10/28/defend-your-castle/">Defend Your Castle</a> for a couple of days. Earlier this year I played a lot of Mafia Wars, but neither of those were particularly compelling. I think it was more lack of anything better to do.&nbsp;</p>
<p>
	Barclays have come out with a new educational browser game called&nbsp;<a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.ebuzzing.co.uk/rd/13982_1516_215360_14108_11149/www.56sagestreet.co.uk/" target="_blank">56 Sage Street</a>&nbsp;and it&#39;s actually quite addictive. Not addictive in the <a rel="nofollow" href="http://bit.ly/aCUsQP">Caesary</a> take-over-your-life way, thankfully. It&#39;s compelling in that just-one-more-turn sort of way where you turn around and suddenly realise that the sun has set and three hours passed. Pretty damn good for a banking promotional game.</p>
<p>
	The basic concept is a rags-to-riches deal. You&#39;re poor and homeless in the dodgy part of town and you need to work your way up. There are loads of job opportunities, Make $$$ FAST schemes and places to stay for a price. You can take all the crappy jobs but you&#39;ll wind up smelly and unable to get the better paying customer -facing jobs. Wash your clothes to be more presentable, stay in nicer digs for more energy, and all that stuff. Put your money in the bank in case you get mugged. Open a savings account to earn interest. Essentially it&#39;s a mini life-sim. I love life sims :) Even better when you can crack through them in just a few hours.</p>
<p>
	What&#39;s the catch? Well, there isn&#39;t a REAL catch. All the banks have Barclays logos and you are heavily&nbsp;incentivised to use their services &#8211; e.g. rent a scooter and you&#39;ll be prompted for insurance. Stay in a dodgy place and you&#39;ll get robbed with a note that HAD YOU BOUGHT INSURANCE your stuff would have been replaced for free. And yup, the only place to get insurance is from the bank. There is some less product-pushing education as well. Once in a while you&#39;ll get a text message or email telling you to verify your bank details at <a rel="nofollow" href="http:// http://www.ebuzzing.co.uk/rd/13982_1516_215360_14108_11149/www.56sagestreet.co.uk/">www.verify-bank-details-barclays.co.uk</a>&nbsp;or something to that effect. Obviously you SHOULDN&#39;T do that but the game lets you try and pay the price.</p>
<p>
	If you&#39;re particularly foolhardy, you can also throw money away on scams or get awards for detecting and refusing scams. Doing well in a job in one area will unlock more opportunities in the next area. Networking where you can will offer other rewards. As life sims go, it&#39;s pretty good without aping The Sims. As educational browser games go, it&#39;s just awesome. Much better than the recent <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.theaveragegamer.com/2010/07/20/the-nhs-goes-gaming-checkurself/">bunny-shagging attempt by the NHS</a>. &nbsp;It looks nice and the controls are okay, although the click-and-drag map scrolling can get tedious. You can even save your game if you link to your Facebook account.</p>
<p>
	I admit, this a&nbsp;<a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.ebuzzing.co.uk/" target="_blank">sponsored post</a>&nbsp;but I was pleasantly surprised by 56 Sage Street. There&#39;s depth there and you can play as a girl or a boy. It&#39;s also nice to hear a British accent that isn&#39;t playing someone evil or making bad attempts at comedy. &nbsp;<a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.ebuzzing.co.uk/rd/13982_1516_215360_14108_11149/www.56sagestreet.co.uk/" target="_blank">56 Sage Street is a free game</a>&nbsp;so go check it out if you have some time to kill.&nbsp;</p>
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		<title>PlayStation Move Demos &#8211; Is it fun?</title>
		<link>http://www.theaveragegamer.com/2010/09/20/playstation-move-demos-is-it-fun/</link>
		<comments>http://www.theaveragegamer.com/2010/09/20/playstation-move-demos-is-it-fun/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 20 Sep 2010 15:37:01 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Debbie Timmins (Weefz)</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Arcade Style]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Avoid]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Great]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[PS3]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sims]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sports]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Echochrome II]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[PlayStation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[PlayStation Move]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sports Champions]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tiger Woods PGA]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tumble]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.theaveragegamer.com/?p=4711</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[My first impressions of PlayStation Move are pretty similar to the first time I played the Wii, to be honest. It&#8217;s fun, there&#8217;s a good variety of stuff to do and it&#8217;s bloody knackering if you play marathon sessions. You run into the limitations pretty quickly but good game design means that it doesn&#8217;t really matter. Well, our FIRST first [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://www.theaveragegamer.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/PlayStationMove_Logo.jpg"><img src="http://www.theaveragegamer.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/PlayStationMove_Logo.jpg" alt="PlayStationMove_Logo" title="PlayStationMove_Logo" width="225" height="150" class="alignleft size-full wp-image-4431" /></a> My first impressions of PlayStation Move are pretty similar to the first time I played the Wii, to be honest. It&#8217;s fun, there&#8217;s a good variety of stuff to do and it&#8217;s bloody knackering if you play marathon sessions. You run into the limitations pretty quickly but good game design means that it doesn&#8217;t really matter.</p>
<p>Well, our FIRST first impression was pretty terrible. The starter kit arrived with a faulty PS Eye camera, so we spent far too much time plugging in, unplugging, twiddling with cables and generally not playing. Once we figured out the problem and got a replacement, it all got much better.</p>
<p>Popped in the starter disc &#8211; every demo needs to be installed before you can play :( Cue ages of press install button, go do something else, come back, press button for next demo. 30 minutes later, we were finally up and running.</p>
<p>I&#8217;m impressed by the tracking. It&#8217;s everything that we expected the Wii to be. The PS3 knows where the pointer is and the direction it&#8217;s pointing, which opens up lots of good melee weaponry opportunities. But hey, we&#8217;re the voice of the average gamer over here. If you want a thorough deconstruction of the tech, go read a tech blog. Nick and I are here to tell you if it&#8217;s fun. In between building our <a href="http://events.theaveragegamer.com/">new games events site</a>, we&#8217;ve been playing through the available demos this weekend:</p>
<h4>Are they any good?</h4>
<p><strong>Echochrome II</strong> is booooring. Wave a torch around and watch the shadows form new shapes. Ooooooo, mind-blowing! Not. Yes, I appreciate that you probably need quite a bit of expertise to build good challenging levels, and there is a design mode for those of you who like that sort of thing. We both got bored playing within minutes.</p>
<p><div id="attachment_4507" class="wp-caption alignright" style="width: 310px"><a href="http://www.theaveragegamer.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Tumble_PlayStationMove2Player.jpg"><img src="http://www.theaveragegamer.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Tumble_PlayStationMove2Player-300x168.jpg" alt="PlayStation Move Tumble - Showing the 2 player game" title="Tumble PlayStation Move 2-Player" width="300" height="168" class="size-medium wp-image-4507" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">Stacking up virtual children's blocks? No thanks.</p></div><strong>Tumble:</strong> This is a very nice demonstration of the finesse and accuracy that developers can achieve with the PS Move tech. I, however&#8230; got bored within minutes on the Build Up levels where you stack blocks to reach the target height. I can&#8217;t shake the feeling that I&#8217;m just playing with virtual children&#8217;s blocks. That being said, Destruction mode was quite fun. You get 3 sticky mines to strategically place on a tower. Hit the trigger to blow them up, spreading the blocks far and wide for extra points. It&#8217;s not quite enough to make me buy the full game, but Nick quite enjoyed the Build Up challenges. Hmmm&#8230;. Tumble or <a href="http://twitpic.com/2ocgbu">Demolition Company</a>?</p>
<p><strong>Kung Fu Rider</strong> has a crazy concept &#8211; push your speeding office chair down the street to escape the Mafia, duck or jump obstacles and use roundhouse kicks to destroy anyone in your way. Sounds like it could be fun. In practice&#8230; yup, you guessed it. Booooring. Maybe I was doing it wrong and I should have been sitting down like I was actually in an office chair. The fact is, I simply don&#8217;t care enough about this type of game to give it another go. Might be a good party game. I&#8217;ll revisit next week after we get a load of friends round to try it out.</p>
<p><div id="attachment_4719" class="wp-caption alignleft" style="width: 310px"><a href="http://www.theaveragegamer.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/TV-Superstars-Screenshot-Lets-Get-Physical-Monkey-Wheel.jpg"><img src="http://www.theaveragegamer.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/TV-Superstars-Screenshot-Lets-Get-Physical-Monkey-Wheel-300x168.jpg" alt="" title="TV Superstars Screenshot Let&#039;s Get Physical Monkey Wheel" width="300" height="168" class="size-medium wp-image-4719" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">Watch the Monkey!</p></div><strong>TV Superstars</strong> actually <em>wasn&#8217;t</em> boring, but it was a little disturbing. The character faces freak me out &#8211; they have real-looking photo heads but expressions are animated South-Park style. It&#8217;s creepy. Aside from that, there could be potential here. The concept is a bunch of TV gameshows &#8211; you control your character through the two shows available in the demo; Frockstars and Let&#8217;s Get Physical. Frockstars supposedly a catwalk show &#8211; in practice it&#8217;s a rhythm game, tracing patterns on the screen like you would in <a href="http://www.theaveragegamer.com/2007/03/01/elite-beat-agents-review-ds/">Elite Beat Agents</a>. Not bad but with my puny delts and poor attention span, each round went on for about 45 seconds too long. Let&#8217;s Get Physical was more fun with a variety of Takeshi&#8217;s Castle/Total Wipeout style stunts. Definitely a promising party game but with only 5 television shows, I don&#8217;t see either of us playing it on an evening home alone.</p>
<p><strong>Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11</strong> crippled me. I have chronic lower back pain, normally nothing too serious but 5 minutes with this game has made me practically couch-ridden :\ I realise that I&#8217;m probably doing it wrong so golf fans should try this one out for themselves. It&#8217;s a little annoying that you need to use a normal controller for menu navigation but gamewise&#8230; well, I&#8217;m crap with a golf club and crap with a PS Move golf sim, so it seems representative to me ;)</p>
<p><div id="attachment_4717" class="wp-caption alignright" style="width: 310px"><a href="http://www.theaveragegamer.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/The-Shoot-Screenshot-Exploding-Barrels.jpg"><img src="http://www.theaveragegamer.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/The-Shoot-Screenshot-Exploding-Barrels-300x168.jpg" alt="" title="The Shoot Screenshot Exploding Barrels" width="300" height="168" class="size-medium wp-image-4717" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">Imma slo-mo' sharpshootin' cowgirl</p></div><strong>The Shoot</strong> is brilliant fun. I really enjoy this game. It&#8217;s an arcade-style shooter on rails, loosely tied together with a film-set concept. Rather than shooting the bad guys to save [insert worthy mission here], you&#8217;re the one responsible for making action sequences look good. Blow up the scenery, get power-ups for slow-mo or other effects and generally cause carnage. Great fun and I&#8217;m seriously considering buying the full version.</p>
<p>Right, I&#8217;m off to further aggravate my back with a spot of painkillers and Sports Champions Archery. We&#8217;ll get a full review up later in the week and cover the rest of the available demos.</p>
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		<title>Sims 3 Review (PC)</title>
		<link>http://www.theaveragegamer.com/2009/06/24/sims-3-review-pc/</link>
		<comments>http://www.theaveragegamer.com/2009/06/24/sims-3-review-pc/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 24 Jun 2009 22:01:30 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Debbie Timmins (Weefz)</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Featured]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Great]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[PC]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sims]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Argos]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[furniture]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sims 3]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[simulation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[The Sims]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.theaveragegamer.com/?p=1446</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The Sims 3. It's The Sims 2 only more awesome.]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I&#8217;ve been playing The Sims 3 every day since its release. I love it!</p>
<p>I know I&#8217;m usually the one going &#8220;narrative, blah blah, games need plot, blah, characterisation, blah blah blah&#8230;&#8221; Screw it. These are not hard and fast rules. I like <strike>virtual dollhouses</strike> open-ended simulations too.</p>
<p>In a nutshell, The Sims 3 is The Sims 2 only more awesome. Here are just some of the annoyances that they&#8217;ve fixed:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Lives were too short:</strong> When I wanted to focus on career or relationships, my sim would insist on aging and dying. It takes time to build up all those logic and charsima points while trying not to set fire to your dinner! Now you have the option to give your sim a double-length lifespan or switch off aging entirely.</li>
<p><a href="http://www.theaveragegamer.com/wp-content/Screenshots/Sims3/Sims%203%20-%20Kitchen.jpg" title="Sims 3 - Cow Print Kitchen"><img class= "imgright" src="http://www.theaveragegamer.com/wp-content/Screenshots/Sims3/Sims%203%20-%20Kitchen%20-%20tb.jpg" width="200" height="160" alt="Sims 3 - Cow Print Kitchen" title="Sims 3 - Cow Print Kitchen" /></a></p>
<li><strong>Customisation:</strong> You can now put a custom skin on everything. Should you, for some obscure reason, wish to have suite of cow-print kitchen appliances, there&#8217;s no need to trawl websites looking. You can go straight into the Design function, chose from a huge range of textures and pick the colours you want. Or you could download them from <a href="http://www.thesims3.com/mypage/Weefz/mystudio">my Sims 3 studio</a> ;)</li>
<li><strong>Other sims are no longer a mystery: </strong>In 2, you could talk about certain subjects but you&#8217;d have to squint at the speech bubbles to see reactions and track inter-sim relationships, likes and dislikes by yourself. Yeah, right. I&#8217;d just guess and occasionally kill a friendship outright by flirting with the wrong person. Now you can discover traits, partners and jobs of the other Sims and look them up later when you&#8217;re planning parties. No more time wasted ringing people who are at work.</li>
<p> <a href="http://www.theaveragegamer.com/wp-content/Screenshots/Sims3/Sims%203%20-%20Graveyard.jpg" title="Sims 3 - Graveyard Trauma"><img class="imgleft" src="http://www.theaveragegamer.com/wp-content/Screenshots/Sims3/Sims%203%20-%20Graveyard%20-%20tb.jpg" width="200" height="160" alt="Sims 3 - Graveyard Trauma" title="Sims 3 - Graveyard Trauma" /></a></p>
<li><strong>Mood triggers and timers:</strong> Previously, you could sneeze at the wrong time and completely miss what your sim was complaining about. Now there&#8217;s a tracker that shows all the things affecting your sims mood and a rough guide as to long until she hits her tolerance threshold. Yep, she&#8217;ll still wet herself but you can&#8217;t say she didn&#8217;t warn you.</li>
<li><strong>Lifetime rewards are useful:</strong> Rather than buying effort-inducing gadgets like the money tree, your reward points are now spent on traits that make the game easier. I wanted a totally career-focused Sim that didn&#8217;t care about cooking, but a lot of my free time was still spend preparing food. With the Hardly Hungry trait, she now eats once every three days. Way more time to spend in the gym to become a a super-fit super-spy!</li>
</ul>
<p>I should be balanced here; it&#8217;s not all brilliant. The community areas are smaller. Some of them don&#8217;t have interiors at all. I went on a date to a fancy restaurant with a prospective partner. All the camera got to see was the outside of the restaurant while the meal progress bar ticked away. Even so, it&#8217;s nice to be able to wander around the town watching other Sims living their little SimLives.</p>
<p>Content creation is limited to reskinning, so you can&#8217;t build your own custom items. It also seems to me that there are fewer interesting models of each appliance/furniture available out of the box. Everythings so far is very&#8230; conservatively designed. As in, they mostly look like furniture you&#8217;d find in <a href="http://www.argos.co.uk">Argos</a>. Hopefully some more outlandish stuff will turn up in the <a href="http://store.thesims3.com/">online store</a> over the next few months.</p>
<p>On balance though, it&#8217;s the Sims 2 upgraded, with lots of usability tweaks. Exactly what the franchise needed.</p>
<h5>Screenshots</h5>
<p><a href="http://www.theaveragegamer.com/wp-content/Screenshots/Sims3/Sims%203%20-%20Gym.jpg" title="The Sims 3  - Gym Weights Workout"><img src="http://www.theaveragegamer.com/wp-content/Screenshots/Sims3/Sims%203%20-%20Gym%20-%20tb.jpg" width="200" height="160" alt="Sims 3 - Gym Weights Workout" title="Sims 3 - Gym Weights Workout" /></a> <a href="http://www.theaveragegamer.com/wp-content/Screenshots/Sims3/Sims%203%20-%20Gardening.jpg" title="Sims 3 - Gardening"><img src="http://www.theaveragegamer.com/wp-content/Screenshots/Sims3/Sims%203%20-%20Gardening%20-%20tb.jpg" width="200" height="160" alt="Sims 3 - Gardening" title="Sims 3 - Gardening" /></a></p>
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		<title>Ion Drum Rocker Review</title>
		<link>http://www.theaveragegamer.com/2009/03/22/iom-drum-rocker/</link>
		<comments>http://www.theaveragegamer.com/2009/03/22/iom-drum-rocker/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 22 Mar 2009 19:23:06 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Debbie Timmins (Weefz)</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Featured]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Reviews]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sims]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Xbox 360]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Drum Rocker]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[drum sticks]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[drums]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[guitar hero]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Rock Band]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.theaveragegamer.com/?p=1179</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Is the Drum Rocker as good as we hoped?]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>As <a href="http://twitter.com/weefz">my Twitter</a> followers will know, just after Christmas I got a load of back pay through from a promotion at work. Like any other video-game-mad ex-band-member would do, I bought myself the <a href="http://www.drumrocker.com/">Ion Drum Rocker</a>. (I played the bass guitar in a band at school because our flat didn&#8217;t have the space or isolation for a drum-kit. We mostly played Metallica covers.)</p>
<p>Let&#8217;s get the most important points out first:</p>
<ol>
<li>Yes, drum sticks are included</li>
<li>Yes, the Drum Rocker is awesome!</li>
<li>Yes, it works with Guitar Hero: World Tour</li>
</ol>
<p>The Rocker comes in a box roughly the size and shape of the Rock Band Instrument Pack. When you open it, you get&#8230;</p>
<p><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/weefz/3375667479/" title="Drum Rocker Packaged by Weefz, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3597/3375667479_00879d0593.jpg" width="450" height="278" alt="Drum Rocker Packaged" /></a></p>
<p>&#8230;a bunch of little boxes. And some poles with bits on them. And Empty Box &#8220;A&#8221;.</p>
<p>Open all the boxes&#8230;.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/weefz/3375668179/" title="Drum Rocker Unpackaged by Weefz, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3607/3375668179_701b65ff54.jpg" width="450" height="310" alt="Drum Rocker Unpackaged" /></a></p>
<p>Lots of thingies. Have no fear, the included instructions are fairly idiot-proof and have lots of pictures. For the record, Empty Box &#8220;A&#8221; contained air.</p>
<p>You may be tempted to disbelieve reports that the kit will take about an hour to assemble even for experienced&#8230; er&#8230; assemblers. It&#8217;s true. The gear isn&#8217;t complex but there are lots of parts and lots of connections to hook up. The thing cost 230 quid, so now is not the time to skip steps. </p>
<p>The finished product is big.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/weefz/3375669209/" title="Drum Rocker Complete! by Weefz, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3555/3375669209_ee59971553.jpg" width="422" height="500" alt="Drum Rocker Complete!" /></a></p>
<p>That TV in the background? That&#8217;s a 46-incher. It&#8217;s about 2 feet behind the Drum Rocker, so you can try to gauge the size yourself. Or, y&#8217;know, I could just go measure it.<br />
.<br />
.<br />
.<br />
Right, I&#8217;m back. In a playable configuration (as pictured) it&#8217;s 177cm wide (46 inches), 67cm deep (26 inches) and 110cm high(43 inches). If you don&#8217;t want to take it apart between sessions, you can fold in the arms holding the red and green drums. That&#8217;ll bring it down to 76 cm wide (30 inches), which isn&#8217;t exactly small but is less dominating. If that&#8217;s not enough, keep hold of your allen keys and get used to doing lots of unscrewing and reassembly coz there&#8217;s no easy way to fold bits up for storage. You do need everything screwed tightly coz it&#8217;s fricking annoying when the drum pad drops a millimetre every time you hit it.</p>
<p>Performance-wise, the Drum Rocker is fantastic! Sure, those missed notes on the original Rock Band kit miiiight have been my fault&#8230; With the Drum Rocker, you get much better feedback. If you miss the drum pad and hit the edge, you <em>know</em> what happened. There&#8217;s no ambiguity to that click of drumstick on frame. I haven&#8217;t noticed the kit itself dropping any of my good hits and the rebound off the drum pads feels much nicer than the original kit. The physical sound is less annoying than the original plastic kit but still enough that you need to turn the volume way up to hear the drum sounds properly.</p>
<p>The bass pedal is still a bit soft. I never liked feeling that I have to consciously hold my foot above the original kit pedal and this kit doesn&#8217;t address that at all. I have no experience with other electronic drum kits but I know that you can rest your foot on a standard mechanical pedal between songs with no problems.</p>
<p>The cymbals feel very strange. If you&#8217;ve ever hit <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crash_cymbal">a real crash</a>, you&#8217;ll notice it straight away. These don&#8217;t move at all. You hit them, they go *clonk* and jar your hand like you&#8217;ve hit something solid. Oh, and if you turn your volume way up you can just about hear<br />
the cymbal noise above the clonk. That being said, they are responsive and you learn not to hit them so hard. Better than not having cymbals at all.</p>
<p><strong>The Verdict:</strong> If you have the space and you really enjoy the drums, this kit is well worth it. You do still need to turn volume up but the drumstick noise is noticably quieter. The Drum Rocker is a great stepping stone to real drumming, if you&#8217;re considering that. Plus, it looks way cooler at parties :)</p>
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		<title>Kudos 2 Review (PC)</title>
		<link>http://www.theaveragegamer.com/2008/12/21/kudos-2-review-pc/</link>
		<comments>http://www.theaveragegamer.com/2008/12/21/kudos-2-review-pc/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 21 Dec 2008 21:20:56 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Debbie Timmins (Weefz)</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[PC]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Reviews]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sims]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[interface]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Kudos 2]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[simulation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[The Sims]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[weather]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.theaveragegamer.com/?p=731</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I don&#8217;t usually go in for casual games on the PC but Kudos 2 by Positech Games caught my eye recently. It&#8217;s a 2-D life simulation/strategy game, kind of like The Sims. Where it differs is that it loses the house-building stuff-collecting aspect and focuses on you character&#8217;s day-to-day life; on your job and relationships. It&#8217;s turn-based, so you spend [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://www.theaveragegamer.com/wp-content/Screenshots/Kudos2/Kudos%202%20-%20Main%20Menu.png" title="Kudos 2 - Socialisation Menu"><img class="imgright" src="http://www.theaveragegamer.com/wp-content/Screenshots/Kudos2/Kudos%202%20-%20Main%20Screen%20-%20tb.png" width="250" height="188" alt="Kudos 2 - Socialisation Menu" title="Kudos 2 - Socialisation Menu" /></a>I don&#8217;t usually go in for casual games on the PC but Kudos 2 by <a href="http://www.positech.co.uk/">Positech Games</a> caught my eye recently. It&#8217;s a 2-D life simulation/strategy game, kind of like The Sims. Where it differs is that it loses the house-building stuff-collecting aspect and focuses on you character&#8217;s day-to-day life; on your job and relationships. It&#8217;s turn-based, so you spend less time trying to coordinate your actions and more time planning out the implications of every decision. Every day you get to do just one thing after work, which has all sorts of implications on your character, good and bad. Even walking to and from work makes some impact. Style-wise, Kudos 2 is all done in cel-shading-like artwork by <a href="http://www.jamiemckelvie.com/">Jamie McKelvie</a>.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.theaveragegamer.com/wp-content/Screenshots/Kudos2/Kudos%202%20-%20Character%20Windows.png" title="Kudos 2 - Character Menus"><img class="imgleft" src="http://www.theaveragegamer.com/wp-content/Screenshots/Kudos2/Kudos%202%20-%20Character%20Windows%20-%20tb.png" width="250" height="188" alt="Kudos 2 - Character Menus" title="Kudos 2 - Character Menus" /></a>I have to say, I was surprised by how easy it was to get sucked into this game. Every decision has an effect on your stats &#8211; walk to work and you get a little healthier but you&#8217;re far more tired at the end of the day. Take the bus and it costs you money. On the other hand, you have the energy to have fun with your friends after work and build up your relationships. The year is seasonal too, so getting rained on will probably make you grumpy as hell when you&#8217;re already tired. All the implications make logical sense and you see the outcomes straight away. If you you like playing games by running the numbers, this game is perfect.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.theaveragegamer.com/wp-content/Screenshots/Kudos2/Kudos%202%20-%20Roulette%20Outcome.png" title="Kudos 2 - Roulette Outcome"><img class="imgright" src="http://www.theaveragegamer.com/wp-content/Screenshots/Kudos2/Kudos%202%20-%20Roulette%20Outcome%20-%20tb.png" width="250" height="188" alt="Kudos 2 - Roulette Outcome" title="Kudos 2 - Roulette Outcome" /></a>That&#8217;s not to say that it&#8217;s just for maths fans. I know I play a lot of RPGs but I couldn&#8217;t care less about numbers. I&#8217;m in it to build characters &#8211; Kudos 2 lets you do that too. There&#8217;s a good range of options for everything &#8211; after work you can hang out with a huge range of people, each with their own likes and dislikes. You can go bowling (increase your fitness and fun) or go to the opera (take in some culture) or just out for fried chicken (build up that flab!) and grow or lose your friendships along the way. If you don&#8217;t like feeling sociable, you can take evening classes to further your career or just read a good book.</p>
<p>The main annoyance I had with the game was the interface. I like to explore things and this game constantly pops up windows that you then need to close individually, which quickly gets tiresome. Even more so when you know that one of your friends likes the cinema but you can&#8217;t remember which one of the 10+ it was.<br />
<a href="http://www.theaveragegamer.com/wp-content/Screenshots/Kudos2/Kudos%202%20-%20Evening%20classes.png" title="Kudos 2 - Evening Classes"><img class="imgleft" src="http://www.theaveragegamer.com/wp-content/Screenshots/Kudos2/Kudos%202%20-%20Evening%20classes%20-%20tb.png" width="250" height="188" alt="Kudos 2 - Evening Classes" title="Kudos 2 - Evening Classes" /></a>Most option selections are annoying as well &#8211; you can only see one at a time and have to scroll through the whole list one-by-one to find the one you want. They do compensate with some good mouse shortcuts like right-clicking anywhere inside to close a window and making use of the scroll-wheel. I still think a quick list view would work wonders.</p>
<p>In short, Kudos 2 is a good game by by <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/sep/11/games.piracy1">Cliff &#8220;Cliffski&#8221; Harris</a>. Cliff used to work on <a href="http://www.theaveragegamer.com/2005/11/21/the-movies/">The Movies</a> before starting up his own small indie games company. He even writes versions of his games for Macs (eventually). <a href="http://www.positech.co.uk/kudos2/demo.html">Get the free demo of Kudos 2 from Positech</a>.</p>
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		<title>Phoenix Wright/Apollo Justice Review (DS)</title>
		<link>http://www.theaveragegamer.com/2008/12/16/phoenix-wrightapollo-justice-review-ds/</link>
		<comments>http://www.theaveragegamer.com/2008/12/16/phoenix-wrightapollo-justice-review-ds/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 16 Dec 2008 08:50:04 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Debbie Timmins (Weefz)</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Adventure]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[DS]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Featured]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Reviews]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sims]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Apollo Justice]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Gyakuten Kenji]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Miles Edgeworth]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Phoenix Wright]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.theaveragegamer.com/?p=589</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Objection!]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I play the Ace Attorney games obsessively. I played Phoenix Wright: Trials and Tribulations and Apollo Justice back-to-back over a couple of month during commutes to work.</p>
<p>I do love this series but there are so many things wrong with it that I find it hard to recommend them to people I don&#8217;t know well. </p>
<h5>Game Mechanics</h5>
<p>The gameplay for Trials and Tribulations is almost exactly the same as <a href="http://www.theaveragegamer.com/2007/11/15/phoenix-wright-justice-for-all-review-ds/">Justice For All</a>. This wouldn&#8217;t be so bad but for one thing; each chapter has at least one point where there are no hints as to the item you have to present to get the story going. Once you know the story, the item is obvious but that&#8217;s the whole problem. You <em>don&#8217;t</em> know the story. The only way to figure it out is to present everything at every statement until you finally hit upon the right combo. Sometimes you&#8217;ve made the right guess as to the story but picked an item that needs to be shown at a later stage. PENALTY!</p>
<p><a href="http://www.theaveragegamer.com/wp-content/Screenshots/Phoenix Wright/Trials and Tribulations/PW%20-%20Psyche%20Lock.jpg" title=""><img class="imgright" src="http://www.theaveragegamer.com/wp-content/Screenshots/Phoenix Wright/Trials and Tribulations/PW%20-%20Psyche%20Lock%20-%20tb.jpg" width="133" height="200" alt="Phoenix wright - Psyche Lock" title="Phoenix wright - Psyche Lock" /></a>Even worse, these two PW games introduced psyche-locks &#8211; during the investigation, you have to persuade characters to spill their innermost secrets by presenting them with the right piece of evidence or character profile. I found these incredibly tedious (though I like the animation and sound that went with it). The psyche-lock segments made the investigation chapters feel just like the courtroom with the added bonus of multiplying the number of times you could get stuck. Not a good thing as I enjoyed the change of pace between research and courtroom.</p>
<p>In contrast, Apollo Justice did away with the psyche-locks, if not the actual mystery-inventory-item flaws. Instead, you get to do a bit of forensic investigation in the form of fingerprint analysis and the like. We previously saw this in the final DS-only chapter of the first game and it was bloody good. It&#8217;s a pity these moments were underused, and just criminal that the only time you got to try them out was when you <em>knew</em> you were going to find something. Still, it was an enjoyable, if fleeting improvement. </p>
<p>The other big change in Apollo Justice was Perception (for want of a better thing to call it). In Bracelet Perception Mode (don&#8217;t ask) you can scrutinise the witness&#8217;s body language and looks for a &#8220;tell&#8221; to indicate that they&#8217;re lying. This was almost fun but for the fact that you could only look at a tiny part of the witness at a time. Allowing me to zoom out for less detail would have been less frustrating as each character had roughly five testimony statements, three different &#8220;phases&#8221; to a statement where they could lie and four different body parts that could have a tell.</p>
<h5>Characters</h5>
<p>(Teeny spoiler here revealing characters that appear in Trials and Tribulations)<br />
 The greatest thing about the Phoenix Wright series is the characters that you meet. They&#8217;re all quirky and distinctive. So why does Phoenix not grow at all during the first three games? Even by the end of game three, he&#8217;s still a self-doubting rookie who needs a sidekick to kick him into action. This was made all the more obvious in the chapter where you get to play Edgeworth, self-confident and in control. Frankly, Edgeworth was just awesome in that chapter and I really hope that Gyakuten Kenji keeps him that way.<br />
(End of spoiler)</p>
<p>I had hoped that new protagonist Apollo Justice would be less timid but noooooooo. Three games of building up Phoenix&#8217;s confidence and now you get dropped right back where you started with a rookie attorney who needs to be taught about the Court Record and presenting evidence all over again. Aaaaargh!</p>
<h5>In Summary</h5>
<p>Not that different from the original game, really. Great storytelling, crappy gameplay. Not a dealbreaker for me but would be for most people I know.</p>
<h5>Screenshots</h5>
<p><a href="http://www.theaveragegamer.com/wp-content/Screenshots/Phoenix Wright/Trials and Tribulations/PW%20-%20Phoenix.jpg" title="Young Phoenix"><img src="http://www.theaveragegamer.com/wp-content/Screenshots/Phoenix Wright/Trials and Tribulations/PW%20-%20Phoenix%20-%20tb.jpg" width="133" height="200" alt="Young Phoenix" title="Young Phoenix" /></a> <a href="http://www.theaveragegamer.com/wp-content/Screenshots/Phoenix Wright/Apollo Justice/Apollo%20Justice%20-Trucy%20Wright.jpg" title="Trucy Wright"><img src="http://www.theaveragegamer.com/wp-content/Screenshots/Phoenix Wright/Apollo Justice/Apollo%20Justice%20-Trucy%20Wright%20-%20tb.jpg" width="133" height="200" alt="Trucy Wright" title="Trucy Wright" /></a> <a href="http://www.theaveragegamer.com/wp-content/Screenshots/Phoenix Wright/Apollo Justice/Apollo%20Justice%20-%20Klavier%20Gavin.jpg" title="Klavier Gavin"><img src="http://www.theaveragegamer.com/wp-content/Screenshots/Phoenix Wright/Apollo Justice/Apollo%20Justice%20-%20Klavier%20Gavin%20-%20tb.jpg" width="133" height="200" alt="Klavier Gavin" title="Klavier Gavin" /></a></p>
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