Official Review: Slam Bolt Scrappers

Fire Hose Games and Sony Online Entertainment are proud to present to us Slam Bolt Scrappers, a new and quirky puzzle/action game that is available on PSN for you to acquire (with money) and download (with the internets) to your PS3 HDD ASAP. Here are some fine words from them about this Frankestein (in a good way) creation:

Build and brawl in this fast and frantic mash-up – exclusively on the PlayStation®Network! Race your opponents to build the most powerful towers in Slam Bolt City while defending against
deceptively adorable baddies and hugely epic bosses. Create weapons that shoot lasers, drills, missiles, and more to annihilate your adversary. Battle in four-player co-op campaign mode, or go head-to-head for more brawling and block-building awesomeness.
Game Features:
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* Build tons of devastating weapons
* Competitive multiplayer! Up to four players can join the brawl, fighting each other or computer-controlled enemies
* Cooperative campaign where up to four players work together to save the city, unlocking new weapons, levels, characters and hats along the way
* Unique gameplay combining building and brawling that is easy learn, but takes skill to master
* Tons of replayability from the many weapon options, built in challenges, multiplayer modes, and unique levels

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Official Review: TNT Racers

Another day, another review! This time, we have TNT Racers, a great game that was released in the UK for PSN and PSP (difference? One has trophies and is on a console, the other is on a portable and is a bit less expensive) and that is available now on PSP in the US (soon to be available on PSN as well). To start things off, here’s a video that should give you an idea of what to expect from the game. You can also read our last post about TNT Racers if you want to see what the publisher has to say about the game:

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Official Review: The Undergarden

Another week, another game to review! This time I’m very happy to have had a chance to review The Undergarden, a PSN game that developer Vitamin G and publisher ATARI (yep, THAT ATARI) are proud to present to us PS3 owners:

The UnderGarden is a brand new, highly immersive casual game designed to inspire, provoke, and hypnotize.

Gameplay is simple, yet profoundly compelling. Your goal is to master your character’s unique abilities to explore the furthest-flung crannies of this vividly hypnotic realm. Only by stepping beyond what is known will you succeed in navigating vast subterranean networks to find your long-lost band mates and lead them safely to the surface. Challenging puzzles and exotic, fantastical life forms guide you through the quest of a lifetime.

Before you dive into this review, you might want to check the Q & A we had with Vitaming G so you can get a bit of a background on the game.

All done? Ok, here we go!

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Duke Nukem Forever Brings Balls of Steel

We’ve been waiting for a while for the new Duke Nukem game, and 2K knows it… so why not go all out on a higher priced Collector’s Edition to celebrate the return of the great one? He’s out to kick … Read More

Activision Cancels Guitar (and DJ) Hero… And I AM Sad

Yesterday was a sad, sad day for music game fans as Activision has confirmed that after several layoffs hit some of their studios… Guitar Hero and DJ Hero are no more. Smaller than usual revenues for their last two music games (that would be DJ Hero 2 and Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock) pushed Activision to shut down that division of their business so they can focus in what gives them the most profit: more Call of Duty, the next episode of Starcract 2 and giving us a special glow in the dark mount for World of Warcraft every three months.

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Official Review – Faery: Legends of Avalon

Spiders (great logo!) welcomes us to this new IP of theirs with a summary of what this new adventure set before us has to offer:

Faery: Legends of Avalon is a great role playing game packed with a unique atmosphere and  graphic style. Play as an elf or a fairy and discover the fantastic world of Avalon as well as the fantastic creatures that live there.

Hero of Avalon, you must understand why this world is dying and save the kingdom from an inevitable disappearance. In a thrilling adventure where your choice will shape your fate, you will make your character evolve as well as his powers and his equipment, through victorious during battles and completed quests.

Many dangers await you, and some fights against certain creatures and monsters of the game promised to be formidable. To overcome all the dangers, you will gain power in experience but also ask for the support of some companions you met during your journey. Each partner has his own characteristics, strengths, weaknesses and especially his own character. Be sure you chose the best combination of talents, and enjoy the incredible experience of fighting with a dragon, a troll, fairies and other fantastic creatures.

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PS3 Rebuild Database & FAQ | PS3 Recovery Menu / Safe Mode | Video Walkthrough

This does not delete game saves. Another question I get is how long does it take. Only about 2 – 5 minutes. For more FAQ’s check the bottom of this post. This is a good thing to do from time to time to keep your PS3 running smoothly and happy. I did this for the first time in over 4 years, so long over due. Earlier this week I was trying to watch some videos off the internal hard drive and it was lagging and sound came in and out for some reason.

So I thought I’d try to rebuild the ps3 database to see if it would fix it. It was perfect after that. So if you have other slow down, a weird glitch or maybe your trophies take a while to sync this would be wise to do. Check out the FAQ section at the bottom if you have any questions.

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The Undergarden Developer Q & A

We had a chance to ask Antonio Santamaria, Head of Engineering at Vitamin-G, about the soon to be released PSN version of The Undergarden.  As such, we had questions and in return we got answers (shocking, I know!):

1 ) Where did you guys get the inspiration for The Undergarden? Were you influenced at all by thatgamecompany’s “Flower”?

The fun part about making The UnderGarden was that we didn’t design everything up-front.  Instead, we experimented with different ideas and played with what we felt worked, so the game was influenced from alot of different ideas the entire team contributed along the way.

We are definitely fans of Flower, and the way it managed to feel different from alot of games definitely provided some inspiration.   We also play alot of different games and some, especially fps’, tend to build up tension.  So a big part of the inspiration for The Undergarden was to see if we could make something that did the opposite; something that could let you unwind a little.  Also, we wanted to make something that would let our non-gamer significant others jump in on the fun too, even if they didn’t have alot of gaming experience.  It’s always fun to play with someone sitting right beside you.

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