Girls Guide to Gaming! FEATURE ( 10.02.09 )

Well here it is – all 30 pages of gaming goodness targeted just at you girls! It’s got pink things and babies in it! Woot! >_>

Cover shot featuring the title in pink (of course) and lots of DS lites because we all know that’s all girls can manage! On the back it features a man and a woman playing the Wii. The guy looks like he’s going to kill something and the woman doesn’t look like she knows what’s going on. Quite fitting really as we all know girls have smaller brains that can’t handle anything other than My Pet Dolphin (which we’ll come to in a minute!)

“A Princess in the Brawl” – OMG PRINCESSES!!!! *squeals* >_> The intro features a woman that looks like a teacher.

“I love puppies! Blah blah blah!” – 10 Tofu points to the first person that gets this reference 😛  This page is all about why you should buy the DS lite…and puppies >.< And I quote “The DS Lite is the only console with two screens” – erm no it’s not. There’s something called the DS Phat which came out before the Lite? You know? Oh sorry you’re too busy talking about shoes >_>

“That tiny little hole is actually a microphone…” – no shit Sherlock, it has MIC written next to it! And patronizing much? “…and if you’re online you can chat to you friends…” – OMFG I found a typo! Haha silly girls, you’re best off in the kitchen. Writing and intellectual things are for men. “…through it when playing a game of Pokemon Diamond/Pearl. You’ll also need to blow into it to put out flames in games like The Legend Of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass and LEGO Indiana Jones. Genius”. Ok I’ve learnt something from this: the way to a woman’s heart is through diamonds and microphones. Gotcha.

This page features the Wii with a whole section titled “Go shopping” – us girls can’t get enough of it! >_> About making Mii’s the guide states “It’s so easy to do as well as you just choose your body shape and then move onto tinkering with your nose, eyes and mouth before accessorising” ACCESSORISING! OMG OMG OMG!!! >_<

Cooking Mama and My Pet Dolphin! Don’t get too excited ladies, you might just break a nail 😮 I think this page is pretty self-explanatory…

Also don’t dolphins attempt to have sex with people stranded at sea? The guide states they are friendly creatures…almost too friendly…

Princess on Ice! And I quote “You’ll get some nice words of encouragement from the judges if you skate well. Excellent!” and “You can check out the personal details of each dancer. Gabrielle likes yellow!” Next week girls we’ll be learning ABC! >_>

“…and buy new toys for your pets. You can also earn new accessories for your pets by playing various mini-games…” – Accessorising pets now? What next? :S The following page features Spore Creatures which looks out of place in such a fluffy magazine…mind you they did add the caption “Change your creature’s body colour and his hair before adventuring” which makes it slightly more fitting. Also I actually played this game and they didn’t have hair >_>

This is more like it! 2 double page spreads on the Imagine games. To be perfectly honest I don’t need to imagine babies – I’ve seen them crying in supermarkets, on buses, in restraunts. Making a game about looking after these little shits? Wow…

Imagine Girl Band (storm the charts as a pop princess – more princesses! Yay!!) states “Everyone’s imagined being in Girls Aloud in front of the mirror. We’ve all done it”. Except me It gives me a creepy mental image of the woman at the start of the magazine parading around in front of a mirror with a hair brush :S

Of course the character shown has pink eye shadow, pink blusher and pink lipstick. Cause us girls love pink! :L

This is the part that saddens me – back in the day when I sported a mahussive 90’s fringe I used to look up to Fern. She was so pretty and cool and did Top of the Pops. Now she’s doing this crap *sobs* Why?!

Animal Crossing and Viva Pinata should not be in here >:L Girl’s brains can’t handle the sheer awesome 😀

More cutesy games…

After buying the first Pokemon Mystery Dungeon I wish I had just burnt my money now…the game has sat unplayed, disregarding the first 5 mins that it took to realise it was shit.

More princesses kicking butt with the power of pink >.< Kirby’s pretty cool though so no dissing >:L

A DS game about cooking because we all know where a woman’s place is 😀

Me & my clones ( 24.01.09 )

Hey guys! Me and Braindead Hero will be recording the podcast tomorrow as my brother successfully ruined my day. I look forward to the weekends – it’s a chance to relax, see Hero and have a bit of private time. Instead my brother opened my bedroom door today with a screwdriver so him and his mate could laugh at us in bed. He not only humiliated me but completely ruined my day.

I’ve told mum and she’s livid with him so he’ll get his punishment tomorrow when he comes home from a party. Yes that’s right – brother ruins day then goes off to a party to brag about it. Not only that but he’s got cigarrettes with him yet he still owes mum the money for her birthday present in October! Mum got herself some slippers and said we could pay her a tenner for them for her birthday. I gave Matt a fiver and haven’t seen the money since and neither has she. On top of that I bought her a CD and some posh chocolate as I’ve got a job and my brother hasn’t.

Rant over – time for some photos! I made a clone picture of me ages ago and did a few more in the last couple of days as I really enjoy making them and the overall effect 🙂 Don’t like the recent ones as much as the original but hey…

Tofu Hero Podcast – Parenting Edition

Back from our Christmas/New Year break we get back into the podcasting mood with a new hour long podcast. Featuring this week we have Timotei (one of Tofu’s mates) and we talk about.

– 6 Yr olds driving cars

– Nobody having any money

– Game of the Year and 2009 wishes

Podcast 10 January

Probably contains explicit content, they usually do.

COD 5 Review (DS)

Title: Call Of Duty: World At War
Platform: DS
Genre: FPS
Release Date: 14 November 2008
Developer: n-Space
Publisher: Activision
Rating: PEGI 16+

WHAT IS… Call Of Duty: World At War?

Call Of Duty: World At War is a sequel to the line of Call Of Duty first person shooters. These games have been released on most platforms such as x-box 360, PS2, PS3, Wii and DS. Call Of Duty 5 sticks to the classic war scene and doesn’t deviate from this concept.

GRAPHICS 8/10

For a DS game, COD 5’s graphics are extremely good. It has made improvements since COD 4 which is what sequels should be doing. Due to the high graphic levels the game can get a bit choppy though. Also, the characters’ mouths don’t move which I found to be really creepy (see Tomb Raider 3 for more examples on lack of mouth movement!). At the end of the day though, this is just down to the limitations of the DS and for a DS game I thought COD 5 looked really good.

+ Definite improvements on the last version

– However could do with some further improvements

STORY 4/10

COD 5’s story is generic and isn’t really well presented. Most of the storyline is text based in between missions and it’s not very deep and engaging. Some cut scenes would have been nice and I’m sure they could fit it into the game, even if it is on DS. They do let you skip the story sections though; which for this game I thought was a good thing!

– Very generic

– Needs heavy improvements such as cut scenes

LONGEVITY 6/10

The campaign is about an average length for a fps on DS and it will keep players amused for about 6 hours. The game does offer achievements which lengthens the campaign mode. However these achievements are loosely jammed into the game and since there’s no way to show them off (i.e. online on your profile) they’re pretty much pointless. I’d like to see achievements in all DS games and the ability to create an online profile that tracks your achievements sometime in the future. The game does promise a lot of multi-player action and I tried out the local connection with Braindead Hero and Shaun. We were surprised about the amount of maps on offer and that we didn’t have to unlock maps in the campaign. The maps were varied and were small enough to not lose players and big enough to explore. There was some problems with respawning in the same area as other players but I think the maps were just right. There was also a few different multi-player modes which were fun and kept us amused for a good hour or so. Overall the local multi-player is fantastic. There is also the option to go online – I’ve tried this a few times and my DS can never find any games to join. So online play is pretty much dead at the moment (probably due to the poor sales figures) but it still has time to liven up.

– Campaign mode is about average but can get quite tedious after a while

– The achievements are pointless. It’s like “I can but why would I want to”.

+ However the local multi-player is fantastic and it’s worth getting the game just to play with your mates

– Online mode is dead at the moment

GAMEPLAY 7/10

The controls are simple – touchscreen to aim, L button to shoot. Most DS shooters use this control system and COD 5 doesn’t try anything new – which in my books is a good thing. It’s a basic shoot the baddies win the game kind of thing which isn’t anything special but isn’t bad either. The training section at the start is quite short so you can get into the actual game pretty quickly which I think is good. There are also mini-games in COD 5. Now the idea is good because it’s making good use of the touch screen and disarming a mine is quite fun. However there’s one mini-game where you have to tap on the screen in time to the DS (it’s basically Guitar Hero in Morse code). I thought the addition of this was pointless and it wasn’t fun at all. Some of the levels are down to luck, especially the one where you shoot planes down from a boat. I found this frustrating and boring since I just held down the fire button and hoped for the best. To me the guns sound like toys and the artillery strikes sound like an old man calling his dog – which I found to be more amusing than crap. The explosions sound really cool though.

+ Simple controls

+ Good idea about using the touchscreen for mini-games

– Mini-games are a mixed bag at best

– Some levels are down to luck

(The level down to luck!)

FUN 5/10

COD 5 is ok – I wouldn’t say it’s great fun but it’s an alright game. Shooting the hell out of enemies has always been a good stress relief so it’s quite therapeutic. The multi-player is definitely the most fun and it’s worth picking it up just for that.

+ Multi-player is great fun

– Campaign mode is average

OVERALL 6/10

It’s generic but trying new things isn’t always good. The graphics are good, gameplay is fairly good and multi-player is fantastic but story and fun are a bit lacking. Obviously the DS version of COD can never compare to the console versions but for a game that costs around £25 I’d either wait for the price to drop/ pick it up second hand/ give this one a miss.

BETTER THAN: COD 4 (DS)

WORSE THAN: Metroid Prime Hunters (DS)

Tofu Hero Podcast – Temptress Edition

This week we talk about:

– Party Rings

– KFC

– Food in general

– LBP and Muslims

– 50 Cent Blood on the Sand

Podcast 27 October

The comic Braindead_hero talks about which I knew nothing about:

Email competition entries to:

tofu_hero_cast@live.com

As always the podcast contains explicit content.