UPDATED: Ireland and Northern Ireland teams named for Xbox Cup Finals
The Ireland team, Patrick Keating, Rathmines; Craig Duffy, Tyrrelstown,
Dublin 15; and Derek Mulhern, Co Kildare (pictured above), will travel
to Berlin to play in the Xbox Cup Finals.
UPDATE: Microsoft
have informed us of a Northern Ireland team also being sent to the Xbox
Cup, they are Thomas Dodds (15) from Lisburn, Daniel Rocks (16) from
Belfast, and Stephen Hegarty (24) from Craigavon. All secured a place
at a qualifying event in Belfast.
While the real Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland teams
aren’t at World Cup this year, soccer computer games Fifa World Cup
2006 and Pro Evolution Soccer 5 have remained at the top of the Irish
Games Charts in the last few weeks, while Sensible Soccer 2006,
Football Manager 2006, and Championship Manager 2006 have featured in
the top 20.
Mulhern (28) secured his place at an event in the Xbox Live Gaming
Centre in Dublin, Keating (32) with a leader board competition on Xbox
Live, and Duffy (15) won an ‘Ultimate Fan’ contest on Xboxcup.com.
They will all be flying to
Germany to play EA’s FIFA World Cup 2006 on Xbox 360. Tomorrow 31 world
teams will be “drawn into groups at a ceremony”. The Xbox Cup Finals
will take place in an 8500 seat stadium at the, with the opening stages
and quarterfinals on Friday, and the finals on Saturday.
The venue, created by adidas, is a replica of the Berlin
Olympiastadion, host of the real World Cup final. It is part of adidas’
wider ‘World of Football’ events. The centre is also been used to host
music concerts and live broadcasts of real matches.
The Irish winners have already won tickets to the Germany vs
Argentina quarterfinal, adidas kit, and an Xbox 360 with games from EA.
Microsoft,
using their Xbox brand, sponsors the World Cup as the Official Licensed
Video Game Console, this event was set up with Electronic Arts and
adidas.
Microsoft’s opponent, opposing console manufacture that is, Sony’s
computer entertainment division has held sponsorship of the UEFA
Champions League since 1997, recently it renewed the deal and stated
they would make use of it when the PlayStation 3 launches later this
year. In Ireland, Sony runs a five a-side schools football tournament,
the PlayStation Schools Cup. The winning Irish school, St Josephs Nuns
Island, Galway, went on to play in European finals competition in Paris
last May.
At the time of publication Microsoft had not replied to questions
regarding if there was a Northern Ireland team or if people from the
north had any opportunity to enter the competition. It is worth nothing
the email to them was sent out of normal office hours – updated above.
REVIEW: LocoRoco
Developer: SCEJ | Publisher: SCEE | Format: PSP
Reviewer: Cian Ginty LocoRoco follows in the zany vain of Katamari Damacy and We Love Katamari,
although not in their shadows. It’s the old ’save the world’,
just with ‘loco roco’ blobs as inhabitants and hairy black blobs as
attackers.
The control method alone sets the game apart, the PSP’s top
buttons, L1 and R1, are nearly the only ones used, navigation is
dependent on them. Each tilts the in-game worlds one way or another;
pressed together they make the main loco roco jump.
As the blob rolls across the 2D world, the mission is to collect
plants, increasing the blob size for one level. Missing plants, or
doing a level slowly can make for a lesser end-level-score, it
shouldn’t however hamper enjoyment.
The game is full of theatrics. When the loco roco is too large
to pass a point, the circle button is pressed releasing the rocos
as smaller individuals. What happens then can be free-fall, hitting clogs or
been dragged along a looping stream for a couple of seconds. It’s
strangely interesting to watch. Less desirable separation can happen
when one roco gets lost in the clogs, falls down a hill, or when the
flying hairy black blobs try to grab one from the main blob.
Sound also adds to the drama, whether separating, whizzing around,
rejoining, been notified of an enemy, getting the attention of a
friendly monster, ending a level, or just the game’s music, there is
always some weird sounds. This is hardly perplexing considering the
weird creatures and environments, however, while most is enjoyable,
some of it — mainly the soundtrack on some levels — can be unimaginably
annoying.
The zaniness or child-associated graphics might put some off, they
shouldn’t. Just rolling through, or getting to the top score, LocoRoco
is highly enjoyable and addictive. LocoRoco is released today.
300-person LAN games event for Dublin?
Last week a “date holder” for a 24 hour LAN was placed on Ireland’s main website for listings of multiplayer computer games events.
The “date holder” on Room101.org, marked as September 23 of this year, has a maximum amount of attendees set at 300, it will “be announced soon”.
We reported late last year that Room 101 were looking at setting up a large-scale LAN — although, of course, this could be totally unrelated.
New Irish games site to launch soon
The launch of a new Irish computer games website, Irishgamer.ie, has been delayed until this Wednesday, June 21.
As well as the normal news and reviews, the site is to feature price watches monitoring the Irish retail sector.
The site is to be headed by Noel Brady, he currently writes games reviews for Campus.ie, and has previously written for Dreamcast Monthly magazine, The Player (an Irish games magazine), and RTE’s Gamezone.
In a post on Boards.ie’s games section Brady explains,
“This is a newspiece that was due to go up on Irishgamer today.
Sadly, we’ve been delayed until next week (ironing out glitches etc.)
as we don’t want to launch the site until its 100% functional”.
For the record: Irishgamer.ie is no relation to
Games Toaster’s previous moniker ‘the Irish Gamer’ that used a
dot com address. Separately we have provided some content for the new
site.
WIN: Blazing Angeles on Xbox 360
To have a chance of winning all you have to do is tell us what war
is featured in the game, answers to win@gamestoaster.com. If you win,
we’ll email you back asking for a delivery address (rules below).
More screenshots
Key features in Ubisoft’s words
- WWII’s most epic and famous air battles
- Innovative squadron-based gameplay
- A large variety of realistic-looking WWII aircraft
- Eighteen heart-stopping missions in a compelling storyline
- Authentic WWII atmosphere
- Planes are easy to handle and fun to fly
- Xbox Live for up to 16 players online
Competition rules: Staff, contributors, writers, reviewers,
or employees of this website, its partners or of any companies and/or
organizations that are involved with the competition, or their
families, may not enter. We (this site, and any companies and/or
organizations involved) reserve the right to cancel without notice any
competitions if deemed necessary. Entrants must be residents of
Republic of Ireland or Northern Ireland. Age restrictions may apply
when the prizes have age ratings and/or restrictions. Entrants must
give us a valid email address, winners will only be notified by email,
and asked for a delivery address — the winners names and general
location (ie County, or city) will be also published. Winners will have
four working days to reply to our email, after such time a new winner
will be selected. No cash alternative is offered for these prizes. We
reserved the right to extend the duration of a competition and/or
withholding prizes in the case of poor response or an inferior quality
of entries. Multiple entries may be disregarded. Answers to silly
questions do not need to be correct. The closing date will
sometimes be on the page of which the competition is on; entries will
only be accepted at our decision after such date. The Editors decision
is final.
PS3 “is not a done deal” says Ireland MD
Counteracting a perceived arrogance around their PlayStation 3 launch,
Niall O’Hanrahan, managing director of Sony Computer Entertainment
Ireland, told the Irish Times “We would never say we cannot
fail”.
“We have a marketing challenge from now until launch. This is not a
done deal. It will require a lot of effort from us”, O’Hanrahan
(pictured, right) was quoted in an Irish Times feature article about ‘the new battle of the consoles‘
(paid subscription required). “Competition is now not limited to
direct competition. We compete with MP3 players. We noticed at the [E3
games industry] expo that games for PCs are back”.
The upbeat feature article by film critic Donald Clarke was a rare
appearance for computer games outside the business pages of the
self-proclaimed ‘newspaper of record’, beside an occasional
games-bashing in the opinion pages. Clarke notes, “New media doesn’t
stay new forever. Just as rock stars, once dangers to society, ended up
accepting knighthoods and playing the piano at royal funerals, the
geeks in garages who pioneered the games industry have aged into a
cautious new establishment”.
Also in the article, countering the PS3
launch, Orla Sheridan, manager of the home entertainment division at Microsoft Ireland
stated, that by the end of the financial year there would be 5.5 million Xbox
360 console shipped, “And by the time our competitor ships, we will have
sold 10 million. In all previous console wars, the first to ship 10 million has
won”.
The PlayStation 3 is set to launch on November 17, Games Toaster recently reported that there is currently no official PS3 price point for the Republic or Northern Ireland.
The “euro” price for premium version of the console was set as 599 euro
in May, while the UK price was later confirmed as £425, but asking if
these prices related to Ireland, SCE Ireland told us that they “don’t
have any further details on [pricing] at the moment”.
Rumoured pricing for the Republic — at least partly derived from the
UK price — is around 625 – 630 euro. At the higher mark, it would be
under 14 euro more then the UK price and over 30 euro then the
so-called “euro” pricing. Last year, the Xbox 360 retailed in Ireland
for 10 euro over the “euro” pricing, but with the PS3 already seen as
overpriced by some, 25/30 euro extra may be too much to ask off even
the usual ‘early adaptors’.
REVIEW: Law and Order: Criminal Intent
Developer:
Legacy Interactive | Publisher: Mindscape | Format: PC
Reviewer: Craig Gallagher There’s
been a noticeable lack of quality point and click adventures the past
few years. Bar The Moment of Silence and one of two of the CSI Law and
Order games, it’s been a neglected niche. Sadly, this trend continues
with Law and Order: Criminal Intent.
The game follows Detective Goren, as he tries to solve
four murders. The gameplay is identical to that of the previous Law and
Order titles. You go to a crime scene search for clues, take witness
depositions and send it back to the lab for analysis. This would be
straight forward enough if it wasn’t for the numerous bugs that blight
the game. These bugs cause the game to crash or freeze for sustained
periods of time and leave anyone unfortunate to suffer them in a state
of confusion.
But let’s look at the positive. Unlike many
adventure games, Criminal Intent is intuitive. Choosing the right tool
for any task is always straight forward, as is implementing them in
your mission. This saves a lot of trial and error that is the bane of
many adventure games. The way in which Goren interacts with other
people is also inventive. He can choose from a number of emotions to
gain information.
Solving the four murders will take between
12-15 hours when bugs are taken into account, which makes Criminal
Intent the perfect fodder for cold dreary weekends. But apart from that
it’s hard to recommend, because of the bugs.
COUNTER VIEW:
While the above reviewer obviously had a hard time with glitches, in
the editor’s — admittedly shorter — time playing this game it didn’t
once crash, or “freeze for sustained periods”.
REVIEW: Oblivion
Developer: Bethesda | Publisher: 2K Games (Take 2) | Format: Xbox 360 (PC)
Reviewer: Craig Gallagher When
creating your character takes more than an hour to accomplish you know
you’ve got your hands on something epic. We’re used to picking a
character’s sex and face, but choosing a character’s skin tone, nose
shape, race, skills and attributes. You think that this would prepare
you for anything that follows, but believe you me nothing can
experience you for what follows.
The story involves the search for the rightful heir to the throne of
Tamriel. But you can easily ignore the main quest and spend months
wandering the vast environment, meeting characters, and taking on
various quests.
The vast range of different races and quests is staggering. Quests
involve everything from slaying vampires to collect fish scales. There
is simply no other game like it.
The ability to skip long tedious journeys is a welcome addition.
This coupled with the easy to grasp combat system opens Oblivion up to
a whole new audience. The entertaining adventures and complete lack of
filler makes Oblivion an essential purchase.
Oblivion is a necessary purchase for any gamer. Just don’t make any plans for the coming months.
REVIEW: Fifa Road to the World Cup
Developer: EA | Publisher: EA | Format: Xb (PS2, PSP, PC, DC, GC)
Reviewer: Craig Gallagher Another month, another sub-standard Fifa game.
EA is known for milking gaming franchises for all there worth and continues
this trend with FIFA Road to the World Cup. There was a time
when fans anticipated the release of any new Fifa game, but that was a long
time ago.
Let’s get this out of the way early, this game isn’t
very good. It’s nothing but a cheap cash in on the upcoming summer events. Now
we’ve got past that lets look at the game.
The gameplay is identical to Fifa Street 2, as
is the graphics engine. In fact, take away the National teams and it may as
well be the same game. Look, to be honest I really can’t be bothered to talk
about this game much longer.
It’s like one of those bad films that doesn’t
even have the decency to be terrible, but is so lazy and repetitive that you
just accept it. So, here goes… Fifa Road to the World Cup is not worth your
time or money.