GF! Weekly Wrap-Up #6

Intro

You know when your thumbs get all cramped up and you have to use your elbows to play" Yeah, that means it’s time to save, quit, and download another episode of the GamesFirst! Weekly Wrap-Up. I’m your host, Val Townsend, the Atomic Goddess, and this week we’ll sooth those bruised little piggies with reviews of Jets ’n Guns, Fable: The Lost Chapters, and Metal Slug. If that’s not enough for you, we’ll finish off with an early look at Alan Wake, currently in development for PC and next-gen consoles. But firs t, the News:

News

Crave Entertainment announced this week that they would bring Tringo to Game Boy Advance in November. Tringo is a hybrid of Tetris and Bingo, and the announcement is noteworthy because Tringo was, itself, created inside a game. Created by Second Life user Kermitt Quirk, Tringo has become a popular attraction in the massively multiplayer online world. As far as we know, this is the first time a game developed within another game has been released as an independent title on another platform.

In other massively multiplayer news, World of Warcraft, currently the most popular MMORPG, was hit this week by a deadly plague. Although some servers remained relatively unscathed, many World of Warcraft players found their characters infected with the d eadly disease Corrupted Blood. The disease comes from the boss enemy in the latest expansion from the developer, Blizzard, and was intended to be encountered only by advanced characters. However, some players returned to the densely populated urban areas o f World of Warcraft without applying a cure, thereby spreading the disease to non-player characters and lower-level characters. Since it does such a huge amount of damage, Corrupted Blood is a terminal disease for all but the buff-est of characters. The di sease has created havoc and chaos in many cities and has plenty of WoW players upset. And apparently the bug is not so easy to fix. We feel for you, gamers, in your time of need.

Finally, it looks like the GP2x will hit the US and Great Britain sometime in October. The GP2x is the successor to Hong Kong handheld maverick, Game Park’s GP32. The GP2x runs a Linux operating system, features dual 200 megaherz processors, and 64 megaby tes of RAM. Functions include playing games and a robust media player, as well as more applications that can be installed using an SD memory card as removable storage. In addition, gamers can install any program they can find for Linux, which means it can pretty much do anything.

Reviews

Continuing the indy theme, George came through this week with a review of Jets ’n Guns for PC. Jets ’n Guns is a chaotic sidescrolling shooter in the tradition of insane shooters by Treasure and Capcom. The difference is that Jets ’n Guns is developed by independent developer Rake in the Grass, and it has a quirky sense of humor and vibe that keeps you hooked. It’s easy to feel how Jets ’n Guns represents everything hardcore shooter fanatics love hordes of enemies explode or bleed or both. And the other big hook here is the amazing number of upgrades and enhancements you can add to your battleship. In fact, you eventually unlock such chaotic weapons and super attacks that in later levels your own hell-fury obscures the screen and makes the game almost im possible to play. Many gamers willl get bored with the constant barrage of bullets after a few levels. This kind of action is like crack for the biggest shoot-em-up fans, and a seizure waiting to happen for others. Available at a great price from TotalGami ng.net, we’re happy to give Jets ’n Guns a very respectable 3 out of 5 stars.

Moving from one niche genre to another, Metal Slug 4 & 5 for Xbox brings the classic side-scrolling gameplay of SNK’s Metal Slug series to Microsoft’s big boy once again. Matt James took Metal Slug for a spin and found a pseudo-military adventure that del ivered a few hours of retro-style run and gun. But after those first few hours worth of enjoyment, most gamers are going to tire of the shallow story and difficult gameplay. Of course, the good news is that a few hours after you’ve started Metal Slug, you' re just a few hours away from the end. Although this is a doublepack, the amount of gameplay time is limited. That means we’re supposed to replay Metal Slug and try to get the highest score on the Xbox Live enabled scoreboard. And that’s something even our man Matt couldn’t bring himself to do. We give Metal Slug 4 & 5 credit for nostalgia value and a three out of five stars.

Rounding out the reviews this week comes Eric Bodrero’s take on Fable: The Lost Chapters. We featured this expanded PC version of Fable in a preview a few weeks ago, and we’re happy to report that Fable delivers in all the ways we expected. Now, Eric has gotten to go through the whole game, and even though he’s already played the Xbox version, he is a very happy chicken kicker. Fable puts you in control of a hero and allows you to mold him into a good or evil warrior or wizard. All of your actions in the g ame contribute to your reputation, which travels around the game world and causes characters to react to you differently. These aspects are bound in by an expanded storyline which features much more gameplay than the original version. Enhanced graphics for the PC radd lushness to the tree leaves and motes of dust to the sky, which means that Fable looks stunning. Finishing the enhancements are some new spells and attacks that make the combat in Fable more interesting and less button-mashing. On the downside , the gameplay is still primarily a bit hack and slash, and in the end the game is still too short. If you’ve never played Fable before, then you need to check out Fable: the Lost Chapters on PC or when it releases later this Fall for Xbox. We’re happy to give Fable: the Lost Chapters a hearty four out of five.

Preview

Fable was a monumental idea when it was announced, and we’re happy to feature another game that looks to be a classic in the making: Alan Wake. Our gal Monica fell in love with Alan’s dreamy sensitive guy exterior (and he could be the first male videogam e heart-throb). In development by Max Payne creators Remedy, Alan Wake focuses on the story of a horror writer whose wife has disappeared. Distraught and suffering from amnesia, Wake makes his way to a small town in Washington state. In this remote locatio n, Wake encounters mysterious figures in the night and begins to unravel the mystery of his wife’s disappearance.

While Max Payne was an homage to noir films and novels, Alan Wake is a combination of a Twin Peaks mystery and a Stephen King short story collection. The game is rendered with amazing realism, putting to work the most advanced video cards available. Remed y has developed a complete system for simulating day and night, weather, and completely integrated physics modeling to create a cohesive world.

The focus in Alan Wake is definitely on the storyline and the amazing visual qualities, although it seems likely that Remedy may have kept some gameplay elements hidden from us: After all, these are the guys who pretty much invented Bullet Time with Max P ayne. Remedy reps told GamesFirst! that the goal was to create a game with the feel of a television series, and that time of day and the passage of time would be important to the gameplay.

Much more is a mystery about Alan Wake, and it doesn’t look like we’ll have concrete details anytime soon. Alan Wake is in development for PC and next-gen consoles, but so far has no publisher.

Conclusion

And that’s how we’ll have to leave things: We hope Alan’s pretty little head finds a home soon. But don’t worry fellow gamers, the GamesFirst! Weekly Wrap-Up will be back next Friday. Until then, be gentle to your thumbs. I’m Val Townsend, the Atomic Godd ess, reminding you that you can alwas find more of the latest gaming news, reviews, and previews posted fresh daily on GamesFirst.com. Catch me next week!