Who would have thought that such a simple twist on tower defence games would produce such as marvellous game as Plants vs Zombies. Whilst some of PopCap’s recent efforts may have been a bit lacking in originality (I’m looking at you Peggle Nights!) Plants vs Zombies shows that the casual game developer has a lot of great ideas still hidden away.

As the name suggests there is a battle raging as the Plants have to stand up tall in the face of the barbaric Zombie invasion. The battlefield, your very own back garden at first and later the roof of your lovely homestead. If just one Zombie breaks through your defences then it is game over, your humble Plants failed to hold out.

(more…)

This piece was originally written for my girlfriend Lianne (here blog) to use in part of her journalism course at university, it appeared in a film magazine she produced and now is appearing here. As such it has been edited by her, though the content is all mine.

Video games have a torrid history of being made into movies, there have been very few successful adaptations; commercially or critically. This is a problem that has been apparent since one of the first game to film conversions appeared with Mortal Kombat and such like. However, we have seen more success recently with the Resident Evil and Silent Hill films.

(more…)

Read on for my ramblings regarding what I expect to see in Half-Life 2: Episode 3. Spoilers from Episode 2 are present, so watch the fuck out. A slightly more organised version has also appeared on halflife2.net

Read the rest of this entry

eRepublik is a web based game in a similar vein to NationStates and Ogame in that you log on to the website and run everything from there. eRepublik is a game targeted a strategy gamers who are looking for something they can play for just fifteen minutes a day if they need to. The world of eRepublik is largely user run and this is a world that still hasn’t had the full public launch. I recently had the chance to pose some questions to the CEO of eRepublik, Alexis Bonte, read on to see what he had to say about the game.

Read the rest of this entry

How is it that Goo can contain more charisma, charm, cuteness and lets not forget gooeyness than pretty much any other video game character ever? I will tell you why, it is because the two men who created World of Goo are masters of their craft. From all accounts Ron Carmel and Kyle Gabler have spent their time sitting in a giant pool of goo becoming so intimately attached to it that they could create the perfect Goo ball.

Read the rest of this entry

The latest iteration of Pro Evolution Soccer is nearly upon us with an October 17th release for the UK version and a mid-November US release. If the demo is anything to go by, then this is going to be another top quality football game from Konami. Pro Evo is the fierce rival to the FIFA franchise which will see the 2009 version released later this month. These two football games have been rivals for many years now and while the Pro Evo series has long held the upper hand the FIFA games have been improving as of late. As such it is going to be interesting to see how they fair this year.

Read the rest of this entry

Today is an historic day. Saturday the 8th September 2007 saw Thornhill F.C. win their first game ever in the Blue Square South division. Star man Evo was suspended following a rash sending off in the previosu game, he also received a two week fine for his actions. Facing the prospects of a game without the star player I kept with the same radical formation as in previous games and let the AssMan choose the team.

This was a great game which saw Thornhill record a 3-1 triumph over St. Albans. While following this result the team reamains bottom of the division this may just be the sign of some improvements. Let us hope that players like Jordan Ashley and Jamie Bell can continue in this new found form. This is where I want the post-match Press Conferences that we will get in FM09, they will provide me with a platform to hail my team as future superstars, which they will be.

Read the rest of this entry

DRM and the Piracy issue in general has been causing a hell of a load of debate, anger and frustration for many people over recent months. The issue has become increasingly pressing since the release of Spore and the announcement of DRM for Red Alert 3. I have seen threads popping up in forums all over the place discussing DRM and piracy within and seperate from the context of Spore.

The first thread, and I the biggest that I am aware of so far is this one from the PC Gamer forums. This thread has spiralled around for over a month now and has featured many arguments on the role of DRM in pushing people into piracy.

Secondly we have this slightly less extensive thread from halflife2.net where many people again deride DRM and the measures implemented in Spore. This has seen a craze of DRM related threads including this one revealing Crysis Warhead will be requiring online activation.

Finally we can see that the madness has even spread to the Football Manager forums with this thread discussing people’s fears that Football Manager 2009 will include some draconian DRM measures.

Read the rest of this entry

After a frankly crap pre-season the team arrive at Hayes and Yeading for the first game of the Blue Square South league of losers. As I expected we start off with a bang, the banging of the drum from the supporters who should already be calling for my head. We lost 3-0 and there were very few positives to take out of the match. Well that we didn’t lose by more is one, oh and nobody got injured. Surely a bonus eh?

Read the rest of this entry

At the end of my last update from my job as manager of Thornhill F.C. I was struggling to find a new right back to cover for my injured youngster known as Nick Jackson. Unfortunately I failed to sign anyone before my next friendly, away to Hemel Hempstead. I don’t know what a team of the majesty of Thornhill F.C. is doing visiting this slum in a pre-season friendly, but what I do know is that my team can’t play football for shit.

Read the rest of this entry