That Gaming Podcast.com

Posted By Rob

Well i was patient and a good boy and it finally arrived the GTAIV special edition so i thought i would upload a few images so you can see just what it is you get

• A lovely large GTAIV box with Nico box art
• A metal safe deposit box
• The game
• A soundtrack cd
• The art of GTAIV book
• A rockstar games keyring
• A set of keys for the safe deposit box
• A rockstar duffel bag

ITS AWESOME……………. ENJOY

Ok everyone, just in case you missed it GTA 4 is out.

Word!

Posted by Ian

Ok, so everyone knows that TNA wrestling is miles better than WWE and it looks like this pattern is set to continue in the wrestling videogame battles too. Gametrailers.com has the world exclusive new video of TNA Impact the videogame from Midway on their site and we’d like to share that with you on our site.

TNA is coming to consoles this summer and it definitely will be a title I’ll be keeping an eye on.

Word!

Posted by Ian 

Criterion have announced another update coming to their free-roaming speedfest Burnout Paradise.  The update, codenamed “Bogart” will be released at the end of this month and features a huge number of bug fixes and general improvements to the game on both 360 and PS3 (see below).

10 ten problems reported by users that have now been fixed 

• PS3 game can crash when a player is taken down and the player that has performed the Takedown leaves the game.
• The game indefinitely displays “Connecting to Paradise City Servers” if it’s having problems communicating with the rebroadcast server.
• Disconnecting the controller before a race begins can mean that race timings can be manipulated with players who didn’t cross the line first being awarded the win.
• Repeatedly joining and leaving a game with 8 players can cause the game to hang.
• Hammering the A (360) or X (PS3) after unlocking a car can cause the game to hang.
• East Crawford and Watt St achievements cannot be achieved if the player goes online and sets road rules before attempting them.
• Audio distortion when using 5.1 / DTS and looking back at the car.
• Enhanced 360 streaming performance stops instances where the game seems to pause for a second or so.
• Total time driven in player stats would stick at 145 hours.
• VoIP connection problems with 8 player games. This is now live on the Paradise City servers.

The following enhancements will also be added say Criterion

• We fixed Head-on Takedowns as these seemed generally unfair and unrealistic. Unfair low speed Takedowns have now been eradicated.
• Increase online race timer timeout so players have a greater chance of finishing the race.
• Fix drifting bug when drifting and boosting. There wasn’t any real control on the brake so players would grind around the walls of the corners. Giving you all better control of the car.
• Stabbing the boost has too much of a jerky behaviour in the car handling, when in Stunt Run.
• Surround sound fix - Centre speaker was 4dB louder, ruining the mix. The speech has now been positioned correctly.
• Increase the # of search results returned for online games.
• Increase Picture Paradise timer so it doesn’t kick in so quickly.
• Post event ticker commentary is not now displayed for disconnected players.
• Show player the number of Complete Challenges easily by listing X/50 in the Challenges menu.

Other issues that have been fixed

• Instances where Barrel rolls were not registering correctly in Stunt Run.
• Takedowns online were not counting towards the Total Takedowns.
• Some instances where Revenge Rivalries desync & don’t get fixed until players are updated online.
• Some instance where the Host couldn’t change the game access if the game was created through an invite.
• Online challenge issues where the challenge couldn’t be completed if it was started at the exact time that a player left the game.
• Incorrect rivalry updates when European players played against English or Japanese players. Online connection issues.
• Rich presence on 360 didn’t change correctly when there is a change in the game parameters.
• Instances where Friends were not being displayed on the mini map.
• Some online race start points face the players in the wrong direction.

How’s that for a patch eh? Keep your eyes peeled for the update on Xbox Live and PSN.

Word!

Posted by Ian

Gametrailers.com will have the exclusive first video of Resistance 2 on their show this Friday (April 11th).

Along with this they’ll also be showing Darth Vader and Yoda in the upcoming Soul Calibur IV and Star Wars Force Unleashed.

This is good ya?

Posted by Ian

We’ve all heard about how much fun Rock Band is from our American cousins who’ve been playing the game for months now. We brits have had to wait paitently on the sidelines and make-do with Guitar Hero. Well no more! (well, for 360 owners anyway).

Yes fans, EA have finally announced the official European release date for Rock Band as May 23rd. However, they’ve also announced that this is only for the Xbox 360 version of the game and that PS3 and Wii owners are going to have to wait a couple more months to get their freak on as the title is a timed exclusive on the 360.

The game will launch with 67 songs included on the disc, including 9 exclusive to the European version. The DLC that has filled up the US Marketplace will then be made available for download here and EA have promised that future DLC releases will be simulataneous for both the US and European markets.

The full track listing for the game is listed below for your rocking pleasure:

Exclusive tracks

• Blur “Beattlebum” (English)
• Oasis “Rock ‘n’ roll star” (English)
• Tokyo Hotel “Through the Monsoon” (English)
• Muse “Hysteria” (English)
• Les Wamaps “Manu Chao” (French)
• Indochine “L’Aventurier” (French)
• Playmo “New Wave” (French)
• Die Toten Hosen “Hier Kommt Alex” (German)
• Juli “Perfekte Welle” (German)
• H-Block X “Countdown to Insanity” (German)

Non-exclusive tracks

1960’s:

• Rolling Stones “Gimme Shelter”

1970’s:

• Aerosmith “Train Kept a Rollin”*
• The Who “Won’t Get Fooled Again”
• Boston “Foreplay/Long Time”
• Mountain “Mississippi Queen”*
• The Police “Next To You”
• David Bowie “Suffragette City”
• Black Sabbath “Paranoid”*
• Blue Oyster Cult “Don’t Fear The Reaper”
• The Ramones “Blitzkreig Bop”
• Deep Purple “Highway Star”
• KISS “Detroit Rock City”
• Molly Hatchet “Flirtin With Disaster”
• The Outlaws “Green Grass & High Tides”*
• Sweet “Ballroom Blitz”

1980’s:

• Rush “Tom Sawyer”*
• Bon Jovi “Wanted Dead or Alive”
• The Clash “Should I stay or Should I Go”
• Faith No More “Epic”
• Pixies “Wave of Mutilation”
• R.E.M “Orange Crush”
• Iron Maiden “Run To The Hills”

1990’s:

• Foo Fighters “Learn To Fly”
• Metallica “Enter Sandman”
• Nirvana “In Bloom”
• Stone Temple Pilots “Vasoline”
• Weezer “Say It Aint So”
• Smashing Punpkins “Cherub Rock”
• Radiohead “Creep”
• Beastie Boys “Sabotage”
• Hole “Celebrity Skin”
• Garbage “I Think I’m Paranoid”
• Soundgarden “Black Hole Sun”

2000’s:

• The Hives “Main Offender”
• Queens Of The Stone Age “Go With the Flow”
• The Strokes “Reptilia”
• Jet “Are You Gonna Be My Girl”
• OK Go “Here it Goes Again”
• Nine Inch Nails “The hand That Feeds”
• Yeah Yeah Yeahs “Maps”
• Red Hot Chilli Peppers “Dani California”
• Coheed & Cambria “Welcome Home”
• Fallout Boy “Dead on Arrival”
• The Killers “When You Were Young”
• New Pornographers “Electric Version”
• Unlockable Tracks:
• Anarchy “Blood Doll”
• Bang Camaro “Pleasure (Pleasure)”
• Crooked X “Nightmare”
• Death of the Cool “Can’t Let Go”
• Flyleaf “I’m So Sick”
• Freezepop “brainpower”
• Honest Bob and The Factory-to-Dealer Incentives “I Get By”
• The Acro-bats “Day Late, Dollar Short”
• The Konks “29 Fingers”
• The Mother Hips “Time We Had”
• Timmy and the Lords of the Underworld “Timmy and the lords of the Underworld”
• Tribe “outside”
• Vagiant “seven”

Track listing originally posted on CVG.com

Posted by Ian

Ok, so I’ve finally managed to get some proper gaming time in this past weekend (the last few weekends me and the wife have been assembling various pieces of furniture). There’s been one thing I’ve been playing all weekend; Variety Pack Team Deathmatch on COD4.

WOW! I’ve never had so much fun online in a game. Whilst the maps were only playable in 3 online modes over the weekend Infinity Ward were tempting players to log-on and play by offering double XP all weekend. This was great for me, I managed to level up 5 times!

Whilst 4 maps were released in the pack: Chinatown, Creek, Broadcast and Kill House, only the first 3 were in the rotation cycle. Each of the new maps are brilliant and remaking Carentan from COD2 and giving it a modern look and feel (Chinatown) was a stroke of genius.

The Maps

The Creek map can be played in several different ways, snipers can sit on top of the rocks surrounding the gulch and pick off opponents. Players preferring to take their combat up-close and personal can opt for a shotgun and hide out in the cave, whilst troopers can run around freely with either machine gun weapons or rifles and achieve a healthy number of kills. Firefights in the confines of the cave can be very manic and it’s always satisfying to lay the odd claymore mine and then watch some fool rush in only to get blown sky high (and earn you plenty of lovely XP).

This map is the one best suited to a 12 player game.

Chinatown is my favourite new map. As stated, it’s the Carentan map from COD2, but with a new lick of paint. This made it immediately familar to me (and indeed anyone else that’s played COD2). However, Infinity Ward have made some very subtle changes to the map that can affect gameplay. For a start a few of the buildings have an extra floor, so you can get up higher, the angle from the mounted machine gun window has been slightly changed to improve the balance, (you can actually make it across the square in the street in front of the window without it being guaranteed that you would get shot to shreds). The turning axis of the gun has also been increased so you can now shoot people in the opposite window.

These changes result in more finely balanced firefights and this was demonstrated several times with games on this map often being decided by just one extra kill.

Broadcast is set in the TV station level from the single player campaign. Most of the level is indoors and combines both open plan rooms with narrow corridors. The fighting tended to centre around 2 locations on the map, the stairs and lobby in the TV studio and the roof of the building. This map tends to ‘push’ you towards these areas.

People seem to ignore entire areas of this map (the back part of it outside behind the buildings). This isn’t a bad thing though, as the feeling you get from calling in an airstrike when you know all the opposing team are on the roof is unsurpassed and your kill count can increase quickly and dramatically. Graphically this one seems the weakest of the 3 maps, though its still great looking, with plenty of detail.

Overall the Variety Map Pack is a brilliant addition, to what was already my favourite FPS of all-time. Well worth the 800 MS points (about £6.50). I can’t wait for the next batch of DLC for the game. In the meantime I’m back online in COD 4 tonight!

Word!

Posted by Ian

In a totally surprising move, Sony have attacked the 360 and put over their own machine the Playstation 3.

This latest verble bashing given by the Japanese giant sees them proclaiming that MS may have ‘punched themselves out of the fight’ by releasing all the big titles for the 360 in the first 2 years of the console’s life. Meanwhile, Sony themselves say that the recent momentum in sales for them coupled with titles like MGS4, GT5 Prologue and various new IPs they have lined up provide both a good base for existing users of PS3 whilst demonstrating that they still have a lot left to offer that we know about (Home, Little Big Planet, Motorstorm 2) and lots of new things we don’t yet know about.

Whilst I believe that the PS3 still has a lot of untapped power I wouldn’t say the 360 has shown us everything it can do yet either - not by a long shot. The recent demo of the new features in Unreal Engine 3 prove that it’s software that will be making the biggest changes to gaming this gen, not hardware. The majority of multiplatform titles look almost identical on both consoles, including titles like Burnout Paradise that was developed first on the PS3, then ported to the 360.

In the end, the conclusion I reach is that both consoles are great and we should all just enjoy gaming (unless you’re Anne Diamond, or her sons).

Word!

Posted by Ian

Unreal Tournament, Epic’s online (mainly) FPS frag-fest is still coming to 360, despite earlier reports that the title was having problem due to Microsoft not wanting user generated content (new maps and mods) on their system.

Mark Rein, the head honcho at Epic, has posted an entry on the company forums stating the title is ‘coming along nicely’ on the 360 and that members of the press will get the chance to play the game for the first time in a couple of weeks when Midway holds it’s gamers day event. However, there’s still no word on an offficial release date for the title. Maybe they’ll announce it at the Midway event?

I recently (very recently, still waiting for it to be delivered) bought UT 3 on the PS3. As listeners to the podcast will know I was waiting for the game to be available for a lot cheaper than the usual £40 price tag, and I managed to snag a (nearly) new copy of it from Ebay yeseterday for the discounted price of £19.99 - not bad at all.
It will be interesting to see how the game perfoms on the 360, compared to the PS3 version as Microsoft’s console is associated with online play far more than the PS3 (at least for us here it is).

Posted by Ian 
The official time for the launch of the new COD 4 map pack is 2.30pm this afternoon. WOOOO! The Variety Map Pack (as it’s officially known) will contain 4 new maps, Creek, Broadcast, Chinatown and Killhouse and John Shiring (programmer of the game, or one of them anyway) said the maps came about as a result of community feedback.

The maps are only for the 360 version of the game at the moment, with Infinity Ward informing us that the PS3 versions will be made available in about 3 weeks time (so not that long to wait really).

I will be downloading these later tonight to play in my shiny new gaming room. The map pack will set you back 800 MS points (about £6.50 in earth money).