Introducing a regular feature of Mass Effect, a monthly preview of gaming, with the fabulous month of Septmeber.
First up, the PC!
South Asian tradition tells of the Blind Man and the elephant, a tale about a man trying to describe an elephant to his blind friend. I feel much the same this month. The reasons for the is trepidation is that this friday Europe braces itself for Will Wright's new magnun opus, Spore. Billed as five games in one, Spore seeks to live up to the description of "evolutionary biology in a box." Don't cancel the BSC quite yet but don't expect too many elephants either....
Spore is due for release on Friday (UK & Europe) but 3.2 million user created creatures can be viewed at Spore.com. My contributions can be viewed here!
Expect more updates and picutres plus a full review!
Warhammer Age Of Reckoning
Yes its another fantasy based MMORPG. Yes it uses the Warhammer license, from Games Workshop but will it be any better than World of Warcraft of even Lord of the Rings online? The answer is... we'll wait and see. With any MMO the launch months are the most critical. Conan suffered from incomplete content but Warhammer claims to be finished, however they did some major changes last minute. Check back after release for 1st impressions.
Honorable mention- Flight Simulator X -Complete Edition - for all those veteran flight simmers out there...or the perfect software for budding pilots. Please note: flight simming can lead to serious hardware addiction.
Nintendo Wii -Tiger Woods 'bla bla' '09.
Another year and another round of EA sports titles with '09 slapped on them. Having fond memories of pitch 'n' put in Leytonstone I took the plunge to relive them via Tiger Woods and the Wii. Tiger Woods '09 is a quality game but a very heavily US game whose overbearing tone can quickly irritate. A case in point would be the addition of a condescending trainer whose sole purpose seems be to get you replay your own worst holes and be the focus of your swearing. If you thought golf on the Wii seems appealing then Tiger Woods '09 delivers the goods with robust single, multi and online play, get it. Best played drunk with friends as many of the best Wii games are.
Samba De Amigo -
A very strange remake of a rather strange game. Essentially a rhythm game where you shake your controllers like maracas to match beats. Best for children or university studies on hallucinogens. Start waving like a mariachi on Sept 23
Xbox & PS3
Viva Pinata
While maracas are from Puerto Rico, its Mexico's Pinatas that feature in Rare's mini masterpiece. Viva! is essentially a game about between garden design for multi coloured roaming pinata. This games didn't get the sales it deserved so go lavish some attention on it later this month.
Program of the Month: Punkbuster
Punkbuster (P
is a program that runs in the background with some FPS. It detects and kicks players caught cheating and griefing.
