Hello. We seem to have missed an October update, which I’m sure had retro gamers the world around in a state of loss and despair. But to try and make up for it here are two reviews.

One sticks to familiar FFG ground – that is, first person shooters. I’ve had a look at the Doom-powered Heretic, featuring a fantasy setting and magic fireballs.

On the other hand Rik has ventured onto new ground – fighting games. It’s new to us cos, frankly, there wasn’t a lot out there that wasn’t a console port. And while we might review the odd such port, there’s a limit to how many times we want to end with “better on the Megadrive”. But for a rare PC-native title, take a look at One Must Fall 2097.

(bit different to our usual posts, cribbed from my livejournal)

Deus Ex spoiler alert

So imagine a dystopian cyberpunk-ish near future. There’s terrorism, disease and rioting in the streets. An ever growing gap between the lives of the rich in their shiny safe towers and the struggling poor, living in fear. Shadowy conspiracy groups pull the strings of national governments, operate their own armies, control the media and watch over us all.

You as the Hero of the Tale have fought your way to the Shadowy Conspiracy Group’s secret headquarters. It contains a massive network hub through which all electronic communications and computers around the world are monitored (and if needs be, controlled), watched over by a sentient AI. The ability to gather information, watch over peoples lives and manipulate infrastructure is absolutely integral to Shadowy Group’s grip on power.

Do you

1: Blow the whole place up. This destroys the hub and stops anyone abusing its power. It also destroys with it every computer network on the planet. In this tech-dependent world, it means being blown back to a new dark age.

It’s a huge victory for liberty, at the cost of security. No one can rule the world again and smaller more manegable power structures will arise, more accountable to the people. But there will be great hardship and suffering along the way.

2: Elminate the Conspiracy leaders and let another, still shadowy but more benign group take over. They will continue to use the hub. This keeps the world largely the same but dials back the dystopia, perhaps leading to a state of affairs more like the present day. Hardly ideal but less drastic than the other options. However, since the system is still in place, its open to abuse in the future.

3: Merge with the AI to become a kind of godlike administrator of the human race. Watching over every bank, security robot and construction facility. It has intellect, but you will bring compassion. It’s the end of democracy, but also maybe the strongest force the world has ever seen against war and poverty. An all-seeing benevolent dictator will now shape our lives.

I went for 3 the first time I played through. I don’t have a lot of confidence in people sometimes.

So I was flicking through the radio in my car at the Weekend, and on a whim turned to Long Wave. There was a kind of low buzzing noise that I was about to turn off when I realised it was rising and falling in pitch with the engine revs. I’m guessing the signal was being induced by the alternator.

I’m only boring you with this tedious trivia because it sounded just like the kind of tortured approximation to an engine noise that games like Stunts would try and squeeze out of your adlib card (or PC Speaker), back in the early 90s.

So, the new Pro Evolution Soccer is out, and the general consensus seems to be that the series is on the wane.

Apparently, the decline started a couple of years ago with PES 2008, which is odd as it’s the latest one I bought and I’m still playing it now. It’s got one or two problems, and the speed of play is perhaps a bit quicker than I might like, but to me it’s the same solid and enjoyable PES that I’ve come to love over the years.

Of course, if I were to express such an opinion in an internet forum, I would no doubt be accused of being a PES ‘fanboy’, which would in itself provoke frenzied debate as to the relative merits of Konami’s series and close rival FIFA.

Looking at some of the reviews doing the rounds, it appears FIFA now has the edge. Frankly, I find it hard to believe. If that makes me a fanboy, so be it, but I certainly hope I’d be open-minded enough to admit EA’s superiority once I’d played their latest effort.

It’s something that’s not going to happen though, because I play my games on PC these days, and EA doesn’t bother to release their shiny new next-gen FIFA on PC, instead spewing forth a barely-polished port of the PS2 version, which has remained largely the same since 2006.

As if they didn’t give you enough reasons to hate them already. F*ck you EA, I’m keeping my head in the sand and buying the new PES (which, incidentally, is exactly the same on PC as on the consoles).

I’ve enjoyed a few games on DS, but few have been as good as GTA: Chinatown Wars.

I have to admit, when it was first announced I wasn’t sure whether the DS was the right platform for GTA, and part of me dismissed it as a half-hearted knock-off of the early PC efforts.

I was wrong, wrong, wrong. It’s pretty bloody brilliant actually, and the first GTA game I’ve finished, er, ever. They’ve really put some effort into making it a great, original, title for DS and I particularly like the way they’ve integrated the stylus/touch screen into the game, which can often seem contrived.

In a word: awesome! If the pro reviews haven’t convinced you, allow me to add my recommendation…

Okay, so if you didn’t manage to catch it last week, just a quick note to say that Charlie Brooker’s Gameswipe is on again tonight, BBC4, 10.50pm (or you can catch it here on the iPlayer).

While most of us were looking forward to Brooker returning to the world of gaming, where he first made his name, it seems some were disappointed with this one-off special (which may become a series in 2010, depending on ratings, apparently).

Personally, I quite liked it, it did what it said on the tin (ie a variation on the format of Brooker’s Screenwipe, but with games) – the main criticism seems to have come from hardcore forum dwellers griping that a couple of the games he reviewed weren’t bang up to date, and some other stuff to with the fact that they’re the kind of people who will never, ever, be satisfied with anything, ever, except the almost infinite number of opportunities to complain about things that the internet continues to offer them.

Check it out (if you’re in the UK) – I particularly liked the clip of a scared-looking teenager asking the disembodied head of Sir Patrick Moore how he could get better at European Club Soccer on the Megadrive (yes, this was once our number 1 gaming show, GamesMaster).

If you’re in the UK, The Fast and the Furious will just have been on telly. The fourth film is out on DVD on Monday (er, I didn’t know that, a friend told me).

Plus EA have just given their Need for Speed series yet another makeover in the form of SHIFT.

It’s almost like we planned our review of Need for Speed: Underground, with exquisite timing, for this very moment. But you know us better than that.

Hello.

Just a quick one today – a review of the futuristic racer Trickstyle.

Hey. It’s been a while. I’d like to pretend I’ve been on holiday, but that would be a lie.

Here’s something good for you all – or at least a review of something good, anyway – we’ve finally managed to cover the much-loved Grim Fandango.

It’s so good it makes me feel bad about all of the other dross we reviewed ahead of it. For fans of the dross: don’t worry, there’s more to come. And soon.

I recently came across the blog of the RAM Raider.

It’s basically the thoughts and rantings of a seasoned UK-based gaming journalist who seems quite angry about the way things are in ‘the industry’. None of the stuff is a massive surprise – PRs are dickheads, getting an ‘exclusive’ means promising a high review score, magazines aren’t selling as much as they used to – and so on, but it’s still worth a read.

‘Rammy’ likes to slag off reviews and those who write them (who then post angry replies in his ‘comments’ section), which always has a certain voyeuristic entertainment value, but in between the copious amounts of bitchiness and coarse language, there are a few more thought-provoking pieces and interesting tidbits.

Such as why most of the staff of PC Zone suddenly disappeared from their pages a short while ago. Or how New Games Journalism (NGJ) is a load of self-indulgent wank.

Not that I agree with everything he says but, speaking mainly as someone who buys, and is increasingly disappointed by, games magazines (rather than someone who thinks his own collection of amateurish ramblings qualifies him as a ‘writer’) he’s certainly got a few good points about the state of games journalism at the moment. The main one being – things aren’t as good as they used to be.

EDIT: Plus, he hates Edge magazine. Which is always a good thing.