Christmas Buyer’s Guide – Global Financial Crisis special (Part 1)

It has been a tough 12 months across the globe, with the global financial crisis hitting families everywhere.  People everywhere have lost their jobs, their homes, their families and in some cases probably their lives.  While it looks like we’re at the tale end of the downturn, it certainly isn’t over and this Christmas will be a difficult one for many people who are still facing financial strain.

 Here at Piranha Poodles we’re in the business of not only cracking a few jokes and waxing lyrical about videogames, but also trying to help the people out there that just don’t know anything about games. And Christmas is a treacherous time for those people. That is why I’ve put together a buyers guide of sorts.  I say ‘of sorts’ because its not your typical buyers guide that recommends the latest and greatest videogames to buy for a loved one, because well, not everyone can afford that.  Instead what you’ve got here is a list of what have been the biggest games of the year and similar substitutable games – games that are a little bit older, or just fell under the radar but that can be enjoyed in place of a full-priced big name title. So without further a due here is a Special GFC edition Christmas buyer’s guide so that you and your family can enjoy a fun and fulfilling Christmas no matter your situation. Merry Christmas everyone, and look for Part 2 of the buyers guide coming soon with a number of other ways to save money this christmas.

 

Brutal Legend:

What’s not to love about this one, Tim Schafer teaming up with some of the greatest ‘minds’ in the metal world of all time. And Jack Black. And apparently it plays alright too, in its part Real Time Strategy, part action adventure and a whole lot of Sandbox goodness. Oh yeah, and its funny as hell. But it’s also new, shiny and pretty damned expensive.

TRY:

Psychonauts:

I guess the obvious comparison here is that Psychonauts is also a Tim Schafer game, which means humour and wacky characters put in the strangest of scenarios abound. So if you’re looking for something with humour, Psychonauts is your man. Or girl. And best of all, its available on XBOX Live Arcade (and the original XBOX), which means no trips to the shopping centre to fight through swarms of rude, arrogant and likely ignorant shoppers.

Robocalypse:

Okay, this isn’t on the XBOX360, but given the huge freakin’ sales of the DS chances are you have one of these babies around. If your loved-gamer was hoping to sink their teeth into the Real time strategy elements of Brutal Legend, Robocalypse is a nice replacement. Icing on the cake is that its also got some humour in the mix. And because its portable, they’ll be able to play it at those horrible family gatherings.

Little King Story:

Arriving with little fanfare earlier this year, Little King Story is (aside from being almost way too cute for its own good) a japanese take on real time strategy. Call it real time strategy-lite. Or Pikmin on a small does of steroids that has been taking Harvest moon supplements. Whatever it is though, if you’re buying for a Wii owner Little King Story is a worthwhile considering. And best of all it can be picked up cheap these days.

  

Borderlands:

Chances are if you know someone that wants this game they either are a loot whore, are sadistic characters that love post apocalyptic worlds or are after some frantic first person shooting. Unfortunately all of this comes at a premium price these days, particularly if you’re tight for money at the moment.

TRY:

Diablo Battlechest:

Scary story this, but I have never played diablo. But from all accounts, and from Stubbsy’s commentary the game is pretty much about the loot. Which means two of the games are double the amount of loot, and because its cheap, its more loot for less money. And the fact that developer Blizzard still supports these games is testament to their quality. I love logic.

Fallout 3:

Its first person and its post apocalyptic. And I guess it has character level progression. While not exactly cut of the same mould of borderlands, you can’t go far wrong with Fallout 3. Chances are, they’re still be playing this one next christmas. Even better value is that a Game of the Year edition has been released adding multiple tens of more hours to the gaming experience. But even if you can’t afford the extra money the original edition of the game, which can be found cheap pretty much everywhere, is still great value.

 

 Batman: Arkham Asylum:

A surprisingly great game based on an incredibly solid premise, Batman Arkham asylum should be on top of everyone’s christmas list. Stubbsy says it “screams game of the year” and I can probably be found at some point saying “its pretty much an Igarashi-produced Castlevania in 3D”. But at its high retail point, if your loved one doesn’t already have it, chances are they can’t afford it. Luckily the same great experience can be found to some extent in some other titles.

TRY:

Castlevania Symphony of the Night/Castlevania Dracula X chronicles:

Castlevania Symphony of the night is quite simply on of the greatest games ever made. And one would imagine it to some degree inspired the developers of Arkham Asylum in the game’s design. So the fact that this game can be picked up on Xbox Live Arcade for a bargain, and also as part of the Dracula X Chronicles on PSP represents some great value. If your gamer doesn’t mind 2D.

Thief III:

Certainly an underrated game released for the PC and XBOX half a decade ago, Thief III will definitely satisfy anyone looking for that stealth/problem solving that can be found in Arkham asylum. It also has a dark and brooding atmosphere that only ramps up as the game progresses. While I’m not suggesting Thief III is better than Arkham Asylum, far from it in fact, I still stand by Thief III as a great game in its own right and one that any gamer would be lucky to receive this christmas.

  

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2:

Call of Duty, in particular the Modern Warfare ‘offshoot’ has become pretty much the benchmark of first person shooters, arguably surpassing Bungie’s Halo games in the popularity stakes. It is known particularly for a fantastically frantic online multiplayer component that extends the life of the game beyond the already fantastic single player experience. If the money is there, its hard to recommend anything as having as much value as Modern Warfare 2; but that’s not to say there aren’t alternatives…

TRY:

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare:

Its cheap. Its pretty damned similar. And if it wasn’t for Modern Warfare 2 being released, it’d probably still be at the top of the First Person Shooter pile.

Half Life 2: Orange Box

A whole lot of game for not a whole lot of money. The Orange Box is great value, with Half Life 2 and both of its episodes, Portal and Team Fortress 2 being included for the price of less than one game at this point. If Call of Duty is the king of the single player setpiece, then Half Life 2 is the god. And with Team Fortress 2 being one of the most frantic online multiplayer games of the last few years, chances are they’d forget they didn’t have Modern Warfare 2 soon enough. And portal is just an added bonus, really.

 

 

Unchartered 2: Among thieves

 The critics are hailing it as a potential game of the year, so chances are any PS3 owner that hasn’t already taken Nathan Drake through his latest adventure wants this game.  But its not the only action/adventure game around – even if it is the current darling of the gaming world.

 TRY:

 Tomb Raider Anniversary/Tomb Raider Legend/Tomb Raider Underworld

 Tomb Raider gave birth to the action/adventure/exploration genre in the mid nineties with a fantastically realised world that gamers would remember for years to come. But it didn’t age particularly well, which made going back to it almost painful.  Which is why its great that it got a second chance on the PS2, PSP and XBOX360 a couple of years ago when it was remade with the technology of the time to provide gamers with the same great experience with enhancements that make the game more modern gamer friendly. It still holds up today, and is arguably a better game than both its predecessor Tomb Raider Legend and its follow up, Tomb Raider Underworld.  But you couldn’t go far wrong with any of the games on the 360 and PS3, and its definitely a decent alternative to Unchartered 2.

 

So there you have it, part 1 of our christmas buyers guide.  Check back soon for Part 2 which gives even more ways you can save money and get a gift the gamer in your life will really appreciate.  For all of you that have had a difficult year as a result of financial woes, our thoughts are with you and we hope that you can still have a great christmas in the company of family and friends.  And some great games.

 

Halloween 2009 – Piranha Poodles v Camera Obscura

We here at the Piranha Poodles are big fans of being terrified.  On a number of occasions we have even hosted nights purely to worship that one great human emotion: fear.  While I would consider myself somewhat of a survival horror veteran, Senor Tubbs is somewhat wet behind the ears when it comes to the genre in its video game form.  But not even my experience could’ve prepared me for what I would go through upon putting that disc in my PS2s.  Needless to say, Stubbsy had no hope.  He was like the new kid in a slasher film that is unceremoniously murdered by a masked serial killer.  Unfortunately, I don’t last much longer.

That disc was the first Project Zero game. And contained within are personal tales of blood-curdling horror and our demise at the hands of this cursed video game.  Open.  If you dare.

Senor Tubbs tells of  flashbacks whenever he hears the sound of a camera discharge…

This was my second week with the PS2. My first survival horror experience. Not one that I will forget.

One summer. On a quiet night, just past 2 in the morning, I saw it,  sitting. A disc. I always knew it was there, but I hadn’t really taken much notice of it before. But now, strangely, I was drawn to it. I took it out of the sleeve and put it into my PS2. How was I to know that the little blue disc could contain what it did.

It was a demo disc, trailers and advertising materials mainly. But a couple of playable games mixed in there too. One of them was particularly unusual. Called “Project Zero” it had an icon of a typical Japanese schoolgirl. I don’t know what draws young men to that particular cliché, but that particular night I heard the siren calling
and I selected it.

It wasn’t what I expected.

From the moment the game started up the atmosphere changed. The living room, already unlit, suddenly felt dark. The volume was down, and the game quiet in any case, and yet I felt surrounded by its sound. I watched as a girl wandered through grainy black and white woods towards a forboding mansion. Talking about how important her brother was to her. How he was her only family. How he was missing? This was creepy.

Five minutes later and I was in the middle of that house, holding a camera and trying to aim the thing at ghosts that were coming from every knook and cranny. The controller pulsed in my hands like a heartbeat, it took a while to register that it was being caused mechanically, it felt so natural. It was the epitome of a haunted house experience, I was already in too deep. Much further than I had intended to be. I was only being curious. I headed towards the exit, but the ground already trodden offered no reprieve, doors shut, more ghosts.

This was my second week with the PS2. My first survival horror experience. Not one that I will forget.

Knowing well what would become of him, knowing the fate of those before him, Old Gaulian put in the disc.  This is his account of the horror.

“…and then I came home and there were a child’s handprints of blood on my television screen…”  Sounds like a horror movie right?  You know the type, stupid guy in a stupid suit running around killing stupid teenagers for some stupid reason.  Don’t pretend you haven’t seen Scream.  But I’ll let you in on a little secret; this story is not an Urban Legend.  It is real.

Well, kind of real.  Yes there were children handprints of blood on my screen.  But they were virtual handprints made of virtual blood – which is something that at the time just did not register in my mind.  And so for a split second there I thought that I had been visited by some little ghost child trying to tell me to find their killer.  I hadn’t of course, it was just that I had paused Project Zero while I went out to get some groceries from the store down the road.  I guess we could call this the first reason that Project Zero still remains the most terrifying and haunting video games series ever created.

The interesting thing is I had entirely dismissed Project Zero as the stupidest premise ever for a game.  I mean really, a chick running around a mansion taking photos of ghosts in order to kill them. That is supposed to scare me?  I’ve survived Pyramid Head, but that just sounds ridiculous.  And it kind of is.  But after being introduced to this by my girlfriend I realised something, this really is horror.  The kind that gets into your brain.  The kind that makes you check twice for an apparition kneeling next to your bed as you fall asleep.  The kind that gives you an adrenaline rush that keeps you wanting more.  And so I submitted myself to the torture three times over.

And one point in the second game, Crimson Butterfly, it had me in submission.  It was an absolute sonic abuse method of torture that sent me reaching for the ‘OFF’ switch.  I just couldn’t take it – the screaming sound emanating from the television was all around me and I just couldn’t escape.  The ghost girl on the television, who turns out to be central to the plotline, was in obviously writhing in pain on the screen, with hundreds of ghosts hands grasping at her feet and ankles.  But for all I knew she, and her posse of hands, was suffering underneath my bed.  I didn’t want to know at this point – but all I knew was that I never wanted to see this apparition again.

Then I realised that I hadn’t saved in a while and had to do it all again at some point.  At least I knew it was coming the second time around.

The pages are torn, and on the last page something is written in blood….

The curse will only be broken when the MASK OF THE LUNAR ECLIPSE is placed on store shelves in Australia….

Happy halloween 2009.

The Piranha Poodles

Games that define a time

Late October 1999.  I was heading out for my much-hyped university entreance exams and Britney Spears was on the radio. Around me fellow spotty-faced teenagers fretted, stressed, checked notes or made awkward gallows-like small-talk. I drifted off into a strange analytical wonderland questioning whether a virginal chanteuse urging “hit me one more time” referred to childhood domestic abuse or was predicting a future slowly fritting away her childhood earnings on the blackjack tables of Vegas. Perhaps both were right.

A year later and Oldgaulian would go through a similar experience, only in his case he got to choose his music rather than having it thrust on him by a local busdriver. For him F**k the Bullshit from Nebraskan rockers 311 became something of a psych-up anthem.

These aren’t unusual experiences. The songs and the events change, not everyone sees exams as the most momentous times in their lives. But the point remains that songs have a well documented ability to define a time, to prompt moment of unrestrained and often unexpected reminiscence.

Can games do the same? After giving it some though, we certainly think that they can, and in Piranha Poodles style we decided to answer with a list. Here are the games which to us have defined a time in our lives.

Senortubbs,

World of Warcraft (WoW)

I’m almost questioning whether I should put this one in here. WoW undoubtedly consumed 18 months of my life in two protracted spans between April 2005 through April 2007. It doesn’t so much define this time, or remind me of this time, as much as it was this time. You don’t really leave an MMO, you divorce it. You grow tired and your life moves in another direction.

Almost every memory of the time that I was with WoW reminds me of it in some way.  How I played it non-stop for 30 hours over a long weekend with a mate.  How I used it as pain treatment after having a wisdom tooth removed.  How I actually found out about the 2006 London Bombings through general chat in Orgrimmar. WoW doesn’t bring back these memories, those memories remind me of WoW. It’s a twisted and complicated world in which we live…

Where were you when you first head about the 2006 London Bombings?

Pro Evo Soccer (PES) 5

As I mentioned before, my time with WoW was split into two large sections. The intervening period is filled with a 4 month binge of football which started in February 2006 and ended with Grosso kicking the winning penalty for my beloved ‘Azzuri’ in Berlin. Despite the best efforts of Shakira with Hips Don’t Lie, and our local football showing station with Beethoven’s Ode To Joy being played constantly during the telecast, the single defining media of this time was PES 5.

PES is a game which I found very easy to obsess about, and 5 was one of its better iterations. The way that the game forces/encourages you to use players the way that they play in real life was intoxicating as a world cup approached. I must have played the tournament with 10 different teams, and loved every minute of it, one day it would be joga bonito with Portugal or Brazil, the next a tactical grudge match with Italy or Germany. And then there was the multiplayer with friends between games. I’ll never forget one particularly good 2v2 session where I managed to score from a 40 yard free kick despite having to completely give away my intentions by describing to my playing partner (OG of course) exactly how to set me up for the shot.

Civilization

Civ defines a rather long period of my life from the moment I bought in late 1993 through till end 1994. What is perhaps most interesting is that it defines a lot of this time specifically because I wasn’t playing it for much of it. I bought the game in San Francisco while on holiday, and spent much of the following month of the trip reading the manual. For those who didn’t play Civ at the time, Sid Meier really had completely widened the scope of what you could expect from a game. It really did feel like you could do absolutely anything, a very daunting idea.

That trip was during the last term of my primary (elementary) school days. The following year I went off to boarding school. Civ had actually lived up to the hype in the intervening Christmas holidays, and now once again I was off and computer-less, left with nothing to do but plot my triumphant return and how I would conquer the world by 1200 with my Roman (no Greek, no how about Chinese) armies.

Perhaps the crowning achievement of my time with the game was the very last day of my first holidays at home from boarding school where I pretty much boarded myself up in the study determined to play one last game, start to finish, within that final day. Quite probably the most defining and exciting 24 hours of my life in gaming.

Diablo II

I’ve explained before the circumstances in which I came to own and obsess over Diablo II. That little point-and-click adventure thoroughly exploited both my love for my new iMac and the envy I had felt back when the original Diablo was PC exclusive.

For me, my obsession with Diablo II really defines that idea of the College game obsession. I poured myself into that game, hundreds of hours over many months. It was the sort of thing that you can only really do with a University timetable. Typically I’d wake up, play for a few hours, go to class (but only if there was a ‘natural pause’ in gameplay), run back to my dorm room, where the game would be paused waiting for me, then play on until the wee hours of the morning.

Rock Band

It may be too soon to tell, but Rock Band has pretty much pwned the last 6 months of my life. Back in March I played Guitar Hero something or other at a mates place. I gained two things from that experience, firstly it reminded me just how much I loved those plastic peripherals, and secondly that I now had a friend who loved the genre but would prefer it if he could play drums. I picked up Rock Band about 2 days later.

We’ve been playing it pretty much weekly ever since, with all that DLC it’s the game that keeps on giving. Suddenly my iPod has filled with tunes from the Rock gods; Clapton, Hendrix and Slash. Sandwiches have been researched and invented, and even a new car audio system installed, just to allow us to live out the rockin’ lifestyle every hour of every day. These are memories in the making.

Oldgaulian

Resident Evil 2

My name is Old Gaulian and I am a Resident Evil tragic.  There, I’ve said it.  In middle school, I was at the height of my love of the series.  I would come home from and boot up Resident Evil 2 in order to try and gain that ‘A’ rating by completing the game in some ridiculously absurd time frame with no saves and by using no health packs or green herbs.

I vividly remember being relatively unmoved by the news that my great Grandmother had passed away while playing this game.  Worse still I still feel immensely guilty that my reaction to the untimely death of Leon within the game was more emotional than that of the death of said relative.  I have kind of hated speedruns ever since - enter them into evidence as Exhibit A – giant waste of time.

DOOM II

I am somewhat of a man.  And since I have never visited Thailand, that means that before that, I was a boy. A red-blooded, violent cartoon and video-game loving pre-teen boy.  So excuse me for living and breathing DOOM II when I was in my last grade of primary school.  It really was all I would talk about with one particular friend every lunch time.  We discussed everything, right down to the final gory detail. The way the Mancubus fat would slide down its skeleton after you’d shot your last shotgun shell into its body, the way you’d started an all-in cross fire war between Imps and Zombies the night before, or just about how good the Factory level was (yes, it was good).

That's 12 months of OG's life right there.

As it happens I was playing DOOM II when news of the Port Arthur massacre spread across the airwaves. Maybe a not so fitting ’soundtrack’ to that horrible incident, but one that from my perspective, reinforces the disconnect between violence in videogames and in the real word…

Speedball 2

Anyone that knew me as a young kid in the early 90s knew two things about me, one, that I have orange hair, and at a close second, that I loved the Commodore Amiga 500.  And for me this love was only bolstered by the rivalry between my brother and I based on, strangely, our respective joysticks.  No game better displayed this rivalry than the futuristic handball/ice-hockey game Speedball 2. Of course that was until the day he discovered that my stick had a turbo button located underneath…. Sorry Bro.

Mortal Kombat II

Another moment in my life punctuated by sheer and utter ultra-violence in a video game.  Sorry mum.  But as I think I’ve mentioned on this site before, Mortal Kombat II had the whole school talking about the various ways in which you could dismember, decapitate and humiliate your opponents at the ‘Finish Him’ prompt.

The ‘fatality’ concept alone was probably the single most important reason why most of my schoolmates hosted Timezone arcade Lock-in birthday parties. That time of my life was spent pondering over these, in hindsight stupid,  posters that detailed every finishing move for every character every lunch time – seated in a circle like Napoleon planning his next move against the Third Coalition. Enter posters into evidence as Exhibit B – giant waste of time.

Persona 3 FES

I hate my job.  There’s no denying it.  The worse part is that I moved from a great job, with great people (including yours and my favourite gamer, Piranha Poodles’ own Senortubbs) to a new city with no friends and a terrible job.  But hey, its not all that bad right?  I mean I once knew these kids that were entrusted with the fate of the world and had to shoot themselves in the head in order to save it.

Thats kind of how it felt for me, every day coming home from a horrible job on crowded trains in the middle of a summer heatwave.  I’m not sure whether it was taking comfort in the misfortune of others, or just those fantastically catchy J-Pop and hip-hop tunes that play ad-nauseum throughout the 70 hours I played the damn thing, but Persona 3 FES really did help me get through the daily grind.  And the Christmas holiday period spent almost entirely dedicated to a school year at Gekkoukan High school was well worth it.  Unfortunately my Persona 3 love-in has long since passed, but I still have this stupid job…

F.E.A.R

In 2006 I started my first real job.  You know the kind of job where you earn a whole lot more money for probably less work and are able to grow big and fat sitting idle at a desk all day. Rant aside, this new job brought a whole lot of new opportunities to me, but also took me away from home – halfway across the country in fact.  As most people will testify moving cities is a hard and lonely experience.

Alma, bringing people together with F.E.A.R.

Ironically however, it was my love of videogames, a typically solitary and isolating activity that made my new city feel like home.  But don’t take those violins out of the case just yet, I’ll save that story for another time.  When I think about that time, I remember F.E.A.R, a game that both Stubbsy and I hold in very high esteem.  It was the game that solidified our friendship almost three years ago, when we took tuns hotseating through the excellent early levels of FEAR until dawn slicked across the landscape.  Them there were some mighty good times.

Oldgaulian posed this question because he is firmly of the belief that that games do define times in our lives. For every single part of his life he can remember what he was playing, right down to the specific part of the game that he was up to. What games do you remember, and what do they mean for you?