#dinosaursagain

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Transformers: Fall of Cybertron Trailer

Oh gosh... I dunno if it counts as an addition to out sister blog: Dinosaurs in Games GRIMLOCK!!! Love and inappropriate indie music, Richie X

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Turok:God FPS were crappy

I've been exclusively playing Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis and Turok Evolution on the PS2 recently. Partly because you won't be able to play PS2 games through the TV anymore, already it hurts the eyes unless you spend ten minutes of naffing through the menus everytime you switch from DVD to TV to PS2 to Wii. I've been playing Jurassic Park genesis because JESUS FUCKING CHRIST KEVIN FROM OHIO YOU'VE SEEN A Ceratosaurus hunt and eat most of a herd of Dryosaurus and you're pissy because the trees aren't authentic? Ahhh the thrills of accidentally deleting security fences. As for Turok Evolution, I've been trying to finish it for that other neglected webpage. Now, I know it isn't particular a great shooter but considering how easy it is to roll your eyes far back into your own head everytime another FPS comes out it is easy to forget the kind of crap we had to put up with. Here's a list of my personal peeves at Turok, some are specifically aimed at that game but other problems are typical of the late 90s-early00s console shooters.

Before cover mechanics every firefight was just a war of attrition. Okay so game developers have shamelessly jumped on the Gears (kill.switch whatever) bandwagon but god it used to be tedious. Turok runs like this. A Walk round a corner. B Five guards telepathically home in on you. C shooting lots of shooting D. Hoover up the generous supply of first aid kits E. Move onto the next area and return to A. If you are good at Turok you'll manage to top up your health to 100% at E ready for A. If you are bad at Turok then in between D you end up backtracking as far as you can go depserately trying to find the health packs hidden by shitty graphics trees and polygonal cavities.

For a game about dinosaurs chapters 3,4 and 5 don't really have any. The levels with the teleporting pricks is particularly annoying.

Sometimes for reasons I can't work out, some weapons just disappear from your inventory. According to the 'boards' of yesteryear it was done to increase the level of challenge. In itself this is fine except the levels are littered with ammo for guns I had last level. NEED TEKBOW, NEED TEKBOW, NEED TEKBOW.

AI. Okay AI is still deeply flawed in most FPSs. Developers will tell you that their game has superior AI and within five minutes you'll see a goon taking cover the wrong side of a sandbag, troops lose interest once you run far enough away from them and guys running round in little circles is still not a rare sight. But jeezus it used to be bad. Once section of Turok, the stealth

You can just run through the levels. I've found you can either complete a level by moving forward two steps, dealing with the spawned in baddies, picking up health then moving forward two feet or you can just sprint through the whole level, opportunistically picking up health. Sadly, the latter is 56% more fun than the former. Sometimes though the game will present a wall that only explodes once you've cleared an area type thing. :(

Comedy violence. Turok had problems in Germany until it turned the bad guys into "Robots" but it's hard to see how they got so heated over some hilariously comic cartoon violence. Turok uses the Quake school of hit a dead body enough times and it'll turn into beef steaks technique.

There's a pterosaur riding flying section that's worse than the flying section in Dinotopia: the Sunstone Pirates.

level is so inconsistent. Sometimes you'll get spotted a mile off and the alarms will sound. Most times the bad guys will pursue you unless you go around a corner in which case the Sleg won't forget you, they'll just wait for infinity for you to come back around the corner. Other times you can (if you haven't randomly lost the sniper pistol between levels) just headshot everyone from 2 miles away and nobody will pay the blind bit of notice.

Some things never change though. The classic, mount-a-turret-gun-and-guys-will-pour-out-in-front-of-you sections are still going strong. Sadly, there are also some features that have fallen off of the back of box feature lists these days. Turok's always been good for the crazy weapons. The Flechette minigun feels particularly weighty and has about a four minute warm up time. Turning goons into mincemeat with the four round shotgun attachment really feels vindictive. Also, you can shoot the guns from bad guys hands and they'll surrender. Remember that? There was a phase of that being the next best thing. That's it. Make your own conclusions. I'm outta here to show Virginia from Missouri some more dinosaurs up close. Apparently she thinks there aren't enough or that the $120 to see the viewing platform is too steep. I'VE BROUGHT DINOSAURS BACK FROM EXTINCTION VIRGINIA YOU THINK THAT SHIT IS CHEAP?

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A weekend of two (4) games

Yes children! This weekend I actually played some games. Shock and awe is what you are no doubt feeling now. Not satisfied with persistently sitting on the sidelines poo pooing any game that someone else might be interested I decided to see if I still had it and played me some games*.

First up I played Turok for the Xbox 360. Totally bog standard shooter that borrows more than quite a lot from Gears of War from the token black guy who carries big guns to running around for six levels for the sake of some comms device. However, it had dinosaurs in it which means an instant 10/10. I totally busted it too! It took me a shocking 15 hours-ish but I enjoyed it nonetheless. All that crap about decent AI was still total bullshit too but it did have some nice boss battles. It is sad that the cheevos were so poorly thought through with the majority linked to multiplayer crap.

Then I busted up Dinotopia The Sunstone Odyysey. It took about 5 hours and 50 minutes of my life. The game started off as truly awful and then got progressively better until it peaked at 10/10 around 2 minutes into the game. If you haven't heard of it, buy it and play it. It's an underrated classic, you know like Beyond Good and Evil and Ico. In fact there was a general consensus that it was similar to but much much better than WoW.

I also tried to do Dino Crisis 3, going for the holy Xbox Dino Games Triathlon but the smart guys at Microsoft haven't made it back compatible yet. SAD SMILEY FACES ON THE HOUSE GUYS.

Then we did some museuming, firstly in Liberty City Museum, taking in the Triceratops, Tyrannosaurus and Whale (below). Then in Chicago Historical museum(above)! It was sweet!

Expect all this dinosaur related-shittery to get the full treatment over here sometime before 2009. *Assholes in the audience point out that Turok, GTA IV, Stranglehold or Dinotopia are not real games, then go back to playing Guitar Hero and WoW.

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TGAM top 50 ultimate TGAM top games best list of best games of all time ever: Number 47

So far, so good. Three great games on the list, I'm sure you'll agree (aside from two of them not really being games). So what is better than Dead Rising you might ask? Well it's only frickin Dino Crisis 3!

Although much hated by most gamers, we don't share that opinion because we have never played it. The last time I checked it still wasn't backward compatible with the Xbox 360 which is a testament to how much it is hated considering that titles like Catwoman, Dinotopia and Bass Pro Shops Trophy Hunter 2007 have been emulator enabled. However, it remains one of the greatest games of all time because from reading the instruction book, looking at the back of the box, examining the screenshots and watching videos it has genetically altered dinosaurs in space. Which is kind of like dinosaur zombies in space which in turn means that it is practically Resident Evil in space which is where Albert Wesker lives. What a great game!

The list so far:

48: Dead Rising 49: Resident Evil Confidential Report File 1 50: Biohazard 4D Executer

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Watch

Listen. Learn.

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Velociraptor Safari

Every now and then a game comes along that does away with pretense of lies about AI. Velociraptor Safari is such a game. If only there was an emoticon to depict a room filling up with ejaculate produced through excitement related to videogames with dinosaurs in it.

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Christmas will get expensive

Especially if I insist on buying shit like this for myself as a reward for buying other people presents. Which I will insist upon. Review of Clever Kids Dino Land based on the box art alone:Shoddy aimed-at-children game that uses about 2% of the space on a DS cartridge. Three thousand complete the six piece jigsaw mini games, and one microphone gimmick game that doesn't really work. There is a 50% chance that this game doesn't allow players to save but instead they have to enter a passcode WHICH IS SO EARLY PlayStation it hurts. With dinosaurs and mammoths 10/10 I dream of the day I can fill my little DS 9 game case carrier with dinosaur and prehistoric creatures games only! LIFE AMBITION PROGRESS: 11%. £40 and I could be 33% closer to my life ambition! MONEY CAN AND DOES BUY YOU HAPPINESS! Fossil League: GOT! Ice Age 2: The meltdown: Need! Clever Kids Dino Land: Need! Dino Master: Need! Dino Crisis DS: Not yet made. Get on it Capcom!!

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Giant DINOSAUR enemy Guitar Hero Speaks Yet Again: Assasin's Creed review

Hi kids. Part three of our fanboys rantings after this inspiring post by Richie!. Here is part one and two. Chuff_72: There are no interiors in the game (well there are a couple but essentially all the buildings are just pretty boxes - there is also no interaction, you can't remove a plank bridge to stop people following you for example.)

Mysterio: OMFG! THIS GAME IS SHIT - ALTAIR IS A HUMAN CHARACTER, WHY CAN’T HE REMOVE HIS ROBES AND MASTERBATE??!!!!???!!!111

Cunzy1 1: Because that would be gay and you'd probably like it and spend all your time in toilet cubicles getting rimmed and thus not buying more over hyped games.