IGN UK’s Football Manager 2009 review:

“FM09 is still easily the most in-depth, enjoyable and addictive way to pretend you manage a football team. When you have a formula as compulsively successful as this, one that guarantees you top the PC best-sellers list year on year, it’s churlish to suggest reckless tinkering for the sake of it.”

9.1 – Outstanding

IGN US’s Worldwide Soccer Manager 2009 review:

“I couldn’t imagine why anybody would prefer Worldwide Soccer Manager to FIFA 09 or Pro Evolution Soccer 2009.”

“Yes, the depth of management in this game is impressive. But, it’s not impressive enough to make up for the fact that you aren’t actually playing soccer.”

2.0 – Terrible

[For those who don't know, Worldwide Soccer Manager is the name of the Football Manager series in the US.]

The above almost doesn’t require any comment, such is its ridiculousness. I admit to being no particularly big fan of the Football Manager series, even as a football fan, but I can still recognise that it’s a great game that fans get a massive amount of enjoyment from. Given my perspective on the series I certainly wouldn’t volunteer myself as a reviewer since it would be impossible for me to give a decent appraisal, but if I found myself forced into it my first task would be to understand the massive popularity of the series and try to review it on that basis.

That US review is just unbelievable, though. You’d think the guy would have twigged during one of the numerous references to how it was for hardcore “soccer” fans that it’s for hardcore “soccer” fans, and yet he still not only reviewed it but went on to give it an incredibly bad score, usually reserved for games that are downright broken. Why would anyone play it over FIFA or PES? Why would anyone play Command & Conquer over Ghost Recon, then? I’m almost tempted to start a campaign for the same guy to review Halo Wars, just to see if he shits out a page of nonsense asking why you’d play it when Halo 3 was on the market.

Seriously, this is reason #264,996 why games ‘journalism’ isn’t taken seriously by anyone except games ‘journalists’. Fuck me…

Well… ten years ago in a few days, I was stood in the Video Game Centre, waiting for some of the first Dreamcast units to arrive in the country from Japan to be brought down from the supplier in London, hoping to catch a glimpse of what would surely be the future of gaming.

It wasn’t to be, of course, either that day with the disappointing Japanese launch games, or indeed ever, but I couldn’t let the tenth anniversary of one of the greatest systems ever made pass without a mention. Virtua Fighter 3tb, Godzilla Generations, and Pen Pen TriIcelon might not have done it for me, but at that point we were only six months from the Japanese release of Soul Calibur, which would be the one to break my resistance and buy the little white machine that would outlast the PS2, Xbox, and GameCube in enjoying a dedicated spot among my currently active consoles.

I really think it goes without saying that the Dreamcast is pretty much unparalleled for a library of innovative, technically impressive – for the time, obviously – games. It had a network connection as standard three years before the Xbox and four years before Xbox Live, and used it – some of the time with voice chat, no less – in games like Quake III, Alien Front Online, Unreal Tournament, and, of course, Phantasy Star Online: a game so good that Sega still can’t repeat its magic formula. And with 480p VGA and 60Hz PAL games as standard – how long did it take for all major PS2 games to be full-screen/full-speed over here again? – it’s one of the few retro consoles that will actually look good on an HDTV. (more…)

In case you didn’t know, Rez HD is out on Xbox Live Arcade now for 800 points. It’s basically the same game as the Dreamcast and PS2 versions, but with HD graphics, 5.1 sound and all the expected online leaderboards gubbins. Buy it if you haven’t already.

Yesterday’s download was the first time I’ve played the game in a couple of years – pretty much since I bought a bargain copy in Japan in 2005 – and it’s even more of a trippy assault on the senses than it was then. If you have an HDTV and a 5.1 system I consider it to be a must-buy, in a similar way to how Geometry Wars became an unlikely early poster child for HD gaming. I’m so glad that stuff like this is getting a new lease of life in downloadable form, without the limited print runs that marred its retail performance on release.

Ignoring the inexplicable oversight to make the game default to stereo sound (go into the settings and set it to 5.1 if you haven’t), essentially turning off one of the game’s main selling points, I spent a couple of hours playing the first couple of stages. It’s the ultimate chillout game – even against similar ideas like flOw or Electroplankton – that you can just sit back with and only worry about a stick and a couple of buttons while it plays some great music for you. I love it, and consequently was listening to the Rez soundtrack at work for most of the day today.

Given that Rez HD also supports using controllers as up to three trance vibrators, much to the presumable delight of Jane Pinckard, unless you’re desperate to have the game on your shelf as part of the collection there’s no reason to bother with the disc-based editions. This one costs £6.80 – that’s SIX POUNDS EIGHTY PENCE, or roughly 1/7th of the recent going price for a Dreamcast copy on eBay – and even has the original 4:3 standard definition version in there for the luddites. Just try to make an excuse not to buy it.

I think I’m with most gamers when I say that my biggest question regarding this unusual collaboration is what exactly Mario is doping to enable him to match Sonic in a foot race. After having spent an afternoon with the game at the Wii Flat in London, I’m even more confused. Mario was pretty brisk if you held the run button, but when Bowser, Wario, and Eggman can keep up…well…it’s madness!

Once I was over my apoplectic fit and could put aside my inner fanboy, however, I couldn’t stay angry with it. I was too exhausted to…

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Being that it’s now available for as little as £30 (apparently going up against Halo 3 wasn’t such a good move), I’ve posted a review of Sega Rally. I personally thought it was better than PGR4 which got nothing but top reviews and briefly lit up my friends list in the way that big new 360 releases tend to do, so I implore you to try the demo and jump in if you like it.

I had a great time with it even without being a big racing fan.

So Solid Snake isn’t the only non-Nintendo character to make it into Smash Bros Brawl, as Nintendo has announced that Sonic will be pitting himself in mortal combat against Mario for the first time. Now we know how Sega got permission to put Mario into its Olympic game, then.

I was very indifferent towards Smash Bros Melee, probably because it came out at the same time as I was getting into Street Fighter III: Third Strike’s home debut on Dreamcast and, let’s face it, in a battle of fighting mechanics only one of those is going to come out on top. It was an enjoyable little fanwank but I find myself constantly baffled by lists putting it up there as one of the best games of all time. It’s not. Seriously, it’s not. It’s not even close to being the best game on GameCube, and that’s saying something.

As such, my anticipation for Brawl was almost nil. I still need to buy Metroid Prime 3, and that gets the nod over Smash Bros for having a proper single player experience in there. But this has changed things entirely. The original Smash Bros may have been wish fulfilment for a lot of people who grew up with Nintendo, but in making a fighting game with Mario and Sonic, Nintendo have gone and created my most wanted game from about 1993. Seriously, if I’d told 8-year-old self about this game my little head would have exploded.

So what are the odds on Snake slitting Sonic’s throat for that awful next-gen abortion? Don’t go all family friendly on us, Nintendo.