It doesn’t take sleuthlike perception to realize that Kinectimals’ target audience isn’t dissimilar to that of, say, Hannah Montana (no, not paedophiles!). That said, the game’s message boards are beginning to sound like a Kinectimaloholics Anonymous meeting for 20-and 30-something-year-old addicts, with cries of “I’m a 35-year-old male and I freakin’ love Kinectimals!” and “I bought this game for my 8-year-old daughter but she ain’t gettin’ a look in!” emerging.

Following such testimony, and given that I’m such an open-minded, young-at-heart individual, I decided to rent it… erm, for my girlfriend. The trouble is, without substance and innovation a game like Kinectimals wouldn’t be acceptable by modern standards, and this was my initial fear; after all, the tired old feed-wash-play formula of pet sims of old would wear thin very quickly indeed. So, is the game a groundbreaking taster of the possibilities of Kinect, or is it nothing more than an ostentatious Tamagotchi? Read on to find out.

With the help of your island guide – an incessantly prattling pixie called Bumbles – you begin your journey by choosing, and naming (with your voice), one of a selection of predatory feline cubs to “adopt”. From here, the basic premise is to explore the diverse island of Lemuria in search of Captain Able Blackwood’s long-lost treasure in a tenuous and simple story, but one which allows the game to make use of a quirky pirate theme.

Kinectimals is graphically superb and the game’s environments look great, but it’s in the character modelling of your feline companions where the visuals really come to life; as well as oozing purrsonality, the mogs look incredibly vivid, with fur and animation quality the likes of which you wouldn’t normally see outside a big budget Pixar movie.

The sprawling paradise island is opened up gradually as you earn money and experience points by interacting with your pet and taking part in challenges and mini-games, the diversity of which allows Kinect to flex some of its technological muscle. To an extent, Kinectimals somewhat dilutes the gap between the physical and the digital, effectively allowing you to reach into the game’s world and interact with it. Move left and right and the view will shift accordingly, seemingly transforming your television into an open window, through which you can interact with your cub with an impressive assortment of items, which can be found or bought.

Each item – balls, discs, balloons, skipping ropes, RC cars, etc. – initiates a mini-game and allows you to interact with your pet, and indeed Kinect, in a different way. In fact, I can’t help but feel the game would have been a much more effective showcase title to bundle with Kinect as it better demonstrates a wide variety of the sensor’s capabilities and is ultimately more polished, diverse and has less obvious delay issues than Kinect Adventures. Plus Kinectimals doesn’t need a space larger than you could swing a… erm, cat in.

On the other hand, other than fine-tuning these tricks and decorating your pet in collars and trinkets, there’s a disappointing lack of progression in terms of the animal’s development; however, with all of the items to buy, tricks to unlock, treasures to find and gold medals to earn, Kinectimals is nonetheless compelling and should provide around 20 hours of gameplay, even for the more experienced gamer.

At times the game is so cute you could very well throw up in your mouth, but you’d have to be pretty stone-hearted not to be enamored by the cubs’ antics. Mundane kitty care – feeding, cleaning and petting – plays a refreshingly small part in the game, and it is not these menial tasks that compel you to continue, but the element of discovery, the vast array of collectibles and goals to achieve.

Although the challenges are somewhat varied, most adults will tire of the repetitive formula of the game’s structure, whilst kids will lap it up and still come back for seconds. Plus their beloved companion won’t die so you’ll never have to make that frantic dash to the pet store to purchase a similar-looking feline or make that “Kitty Heaven is a whimsical place” speech. So, if you fancy a break from frantic bullet dodging and hardcore action, Lemuria could very well be the perfect getaway for you to spend some quality time with your inner child.

Don’t expect a continuation of the story, however, as Shenmue Town is, at present, going to be exclusive to mobile phones via Yahoo’s MobageTown mobile social network. Oh, and it’s currently only planned for a Japanese release. Sorry.

Here’s hoping that Sega Japan is merely dipping its toe in to test the warmth of the industry’s reaction and it will set the ball rolling towards the much-coveted release of Shenmue III. After all, it wouldn’t be the first time Japan has used mobile gaming to gauge public reaction for possible future sequels; we only need to look at games like Mega Man, Street Fighter and Castlevania for evidence of this.

Hopefully Shenmue Town, along with the two previous iterations, will make its way over the pond and onto PSN or Xbox Live Marketplace where, of course, Sega has already begun porting some of its other classic Dreamcast titles. It may only be a glint of hope, but it’s still a step in the right direction towards Shenmue III, and perhaps the saga may justly continue after nearly 10 long years of hoping.

Some dismiss it as mere myth; others believe it was part of an elaborate conspiracy fabricated by Sony to improve the credibility of its inaugural console. Well, allow me to let you in on a little secret, friend: the Sega Saturn did exist. And it was good!

Yes, it may have been the ginger kid of the console world, but the unpopular system saw some fantastic exclusives that have sadly been relegated to the dusty space beneath our memories along with the console itself. Well, I’m here to grant one such title a final encore before the curtain closes on it for good: allow me to introduce Mr. Bones (stop giggling in the back).

Mr. Bones places you in the shoes – or rather the fleshless feet – of the eponymous skeleton, resurrected to join the ranks of the dastardly DaGoulian’s skeletal army. Due to his general awesomeness, however, Mr. Bones retains his free will, his eyes glowing blue instead of red. So, it’s up to him to convert the malevolent red-eyed skeletons into benevolent blue-eyed ones in each of the multitude of circumstances our size zero protagonist finds himself.

Following its 1996 release, the game achieved almost cult status amongst ardent Saturn fans (all three of them), praised for its originality and playability, with most levels featuring unique controls, angles and game mechanics. The format of Mr. Bones is essentially a myriad of mini-games that range from the Absurd to the Zany, most of which are trippier than a spliff rolled in an M.C. Escher Rizla.

One such wacky level has you playing keepy-ups with a partial skeleton on top of an immense skull, with the camera then zooming out to reveal a slightly more complete skeleton atop an even larger skull, effectively suggesting a seemingly endless chain of skeletons of ever-increasing size bouncing on top of one another.

Another, and perhaps the most memorable, of the 22 levels sees you playing an electric guitar to a mob of angry skeletons. Each button on the pad represents a riff, and it’s your job to freestyle these riffs into a passable tune, converting the red eyes to blue.

Other levels in the rarer-than-rocking-horse-turd game include platform stages, breakout-style puzzlers, revamped adaptations of games like defender and tempest, as well as original levels that require you to assemble jokes, fly a skeletal pterodactyl or play a set of drums, to name a few.

As well as its originality, Mr. Bones boasts a blend of live action and FMV sequences the quality of which was hitherto unseen, and is embellished with a brand of quirky darkness that wouldn’t look out of place in a Tim Burton movie. As well as groundbreaking visual effects for its day, the game is glued together with an incredible blues soundtrack – composed by legendary guitarist Ronnie Montrose – which is at times aptly haunting and forms the basis of some of the more memorable levels.

Never has a character epitomised ‘cool’ as unequivocally as Mr. Bones (well, except perhaps Cool Spot): he’s a wisecracking, guitar-jamming skeletal antihero. Plus, he’s black (probably). Due to peering back at the game through a retrospective haze of nostalgia, I’m probably forgetting how frustrating some of the trickier levels are, but Mr. Bones is certainly an eclectic journey and remains a unique experience, even after all these years. In fact, I can’t help but feel that PSN and Xbox Live would be the perfect place to exhume Mr. Bones once again.

According to Newzoo, the freebie-loving gamers amongst us are getting their digital fix by taking advantage of cost-free methods, such as borrowing games from friends, enjoying ‘Lite’ versions of apps, demos and the multitude of free games on sites like Facebook.

Although it would be easy to blame the tight purse strings on the recession, Newzoo informs us that the trend began long before the economy bit the dust, accrediting the freeloading to the growth of online gaming (and subsequently to online game trials), which now generates a third of US games revenue.

Personally, I find the figures a little dubious, however – obviously the world of PC gaming is heavily affected by online games, as well as the ease of downloading and cracking software, but surely the percentage would not be the same for console users, and the same goes for the casual iPhone gamer?

Source: Yahoo

Inevitably, the balance of game sales tipped a little further in favor of used titles during the recession, with Gamestop generating a monumental $2 billion in revenue through sales of second-hand games in 2008 alone, equating to around a quarter of its total revenue for the year. Clearly the used game industry is rather lucrative, which is undoubtedly why developers and publishers are once again lashing back, protesting that second-hand gaming is damaging to the industry. Could this perhaps be due to the fact they don’t get a penny of used game profits?

For years now publishers have argued, perhaps rather drastically, that buying used games is tantamount to piracy. What they seem to forget is that the trading of second-hand goods isn’t a new phenomenon, it’s a factor that exists in all economies, and by this reckoning surely the evil folk who buy clothes from Oxfam ought to be imprisoned. And maybe if they lowered the price of new games, people would be more willing to spend money on what is essentially an extravagance.

Whilst the argument between publishers and consumers has thus far been little more than verbal tennis, devious methods – including various forms of DRM (digital rights management) – have begun to emerge that compromise the simplicity and cost of second-hand purchases. Here are some of the underhandedly shrewd tricks publishers are pulling from their sleeves:

Digital Distribution

The digital distribution of software seems like an efficient and cost-effective method of trading – particularly for publishers – and one that may well become the norm in the not-so-distant future. Services like Steam, PSN and Xbox Live, which facilitate the downloading of classic and modern titles, have become a startlingly successful method of distributing games, considering each download (which is invariably priced higher than a used title) has absolutely no resale value.

As each game is attached to the account itself, there is little you can do with a completed game other than simply keep it or send it to the digital afterlife (though you can download it again free at a later date). If hard copies were done away with altogether, gaming could prove to be an expensive pastime and it could be the end of second-hand game buying and trading, rental stores, and simply borrowing games from friends.

Single-use Access Codes

Not content with raking in the fortunes of one of the most anticipated and fastest-selling games of recent years, EA shipped Mass Effect 2 with a single-use code that allows players to access the Cerberus Network, which contains free items, side missions, and characters to download.

Buy the game used, however, and you’ll have to fork out an extra $15 to access the network. This is a pretty sneaky way of collecting a cut after subsequent sales of the game. Xbox Live and PSN are already becoming littered with overpriced downloads and extra content, and this method of using this market to capitalize on the second-hand industry could easily become commonplace.

Limiting Installs

Mass Effect 2 isn’t the first time EA has incorporated DRM into a AAA title, however. Each copy of Spore, one of the best-selling games of 2008, could only be authenticated on up to 3 machines. What this meant was that if your computer needed replacing or upgrading a few times, you were left with a copy of something that’s of more use as a coaster than as something you can play or sell.

EA were forced to upgrade the DRM to allow 5 installs after they were predictably plagued with complaints. Hilariously, 2,016 of 2,216 of Spore’s initial ratings on Amazon.com gave the game 1 out of 5 stars – most of which stating the DRM was to blame for the low rating – which almost seems like the consumers’ way of sticking a middle finger up at EA’s greed. According to Chris Harris, former Maxis developer, the DRM was a “screw up” and a “totally avoidable disaster”.

Multiplayer Restrictions

Perhaps one of the most audacious methods publishers are adopting to profit from used games is to charge users for online functionality. Take the PSP’s recently released SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs Fireteam Bravo 3, for example: buy the game new, and access to the online multiplayer will be free; buy it used, and if it has already been registered you will have to pay an additional $20 (straight into the publisher’s pocket) if you want to take the shooter online.

Publishers argue that for every person who buys a used game, one potential new sale is lost, and that as profits drop so too do budgets, and the quality of future titles could therefore be compromised. Are these examples of restricting the second-hand industry cases of corporate greed, or are they entitled to a cut of subsequent sales of games?

“On April 6th, we will be releasing a system update over Xbox LIVE for your Xbox 360 that will allow USB flash drives to be used for storing profiles, game saves, demos and more.”

The update will allow you to connect two devices to your console at once, and you can even select how much of each device you wish to apportion to your 360, leaving the rest to use as you please. However, you will be limited to 16GB per device, giving you a potential total of 32GB of extra space to play with at any one time. They have also enhanced the memory management functions, which will apparently give you better control of what you want to copy or move between your storage drives.

Microsoft recommends the use of flash-based devices as they are solid state and much quicker, although USB hard drives “may” work. They are also keen to point out that, although any flash device (over 1GB) will work, they are partnering with SanDisk to release an official 360-branded drive in May. Here are some, erm, exciting pics.

Sega’s latest hedgehog-filled slice of gaming pie certainly looks delicious, but when hedgehogs and cars meet, the result is usually fairly messy. Will Sonic’s latest outing bring his run of terrible offerings screeching to a halt, or will it simply be yet another bathetic blue smear of video game roadkill? Step inside to find out.

It’s apparent as soon as the chequered flag is waved that S&SASRWBK Sega Racing does not exude originality, but it would be audacious and difficult to create such a game without looking at the tried-and-tested formula of games like the genre-defining Mario Kart.

Thankfully, unlike many mascot racers, it doesn’t come across as a shoddy cash-in – whew! With 64 varied missions, 24 tracks and 22 racers, as well as various battle modes, race modes and collectibles, there’s enough to keep you interested for a very long time before you even consider its primary purpose: the online multiplayer.

The races themselves are blisteringly fast, which is to be expected. However, one of the most impressive factors is the ease and simplicity of the controls, despite this maintained speed. Before long, even the most inexperienced of gamers will be power sliding around the tightest of corners, earning boosts and racking up “Sega Miles”, which can then be spent on things like new courses and characters.

Other than the odd shortcut, the tracks are actually pretty linear, but they are nonetheless well thought out, and the themes mirror their respective games. For example, Sonic’s Green Hill-esque courses are punctuated with robotic piranhas, chequered loops and springs, which serve to extend the mythology of Sonic’s world – if it’s not grandiose to describe Sonic’s world as having a mythology – into the courses. Other tracks are derived from such classics as Jet Set Radio, The House of the Dead and Super Monkey Ball, making for a diverse racing universe.

In the weapons department there are stark similarities to Mario Kart, but the likes of shells and bananas become boxing gloves, traffic cones and other such unimaginative clichés. There are, however, a few staples of the Sonic franchise – bubbles and speedy shoes, for example – as well as the almighty “all-star” move.

Each character’s all-star move is unique but relative. To name but a few of the fun, if sometimes overly potent, specials, Sonic becomes Super Sonic, which blasts him through the pack, Amy has her trademark giant hammer, and Samba de Amigo uses his Latin rhythm to entrance the other racers into a conga line.

The game looks like it borrows a lot of graphical influence from the likes of Viva Piñata; but that’s by no means a bad thing, as the lustrous, often plasticine-like visuals give the game a solid, pseudo-three-dimensional feel. However, some of the courses are more colorful than a clown barber’s shop floor (zing!). In fact, the colors can be so garish that they make you feel you should perhaps turn your TV’s contrast down before you burn a permanent rainbow into your retinas.

In credit to Sega, they often garnish their games with some pretty tasty soundtracks, but Sonic’s have a tendency to err on the side of cheese. The music in Sega Racing steers away from the typical child-oriented cartoon audio found in games of this ilk, and we are presented with contemporary, funky tracks that complement the courses’ themes. You can even spend you hard-earned Sega Miles on collecting these original and remixed musical numbers from the many featured Sega classics.

With 20 classic characters making up an eclectic cast from Sega’s epic history, there should at least be a few that milk the ol’ nostalgia gland for you. On top of these, the Wii and 360 versions allow you to race with your miis and avatars, but lucky 360 owners will get the addition of Banjo & Kazooie, meaning there are 22 characters in total.

Rather than generic karts, the vehicles they operate are a clever extension of the characters: Tails flies his plane, Banjo & Kazooie drive a car that looks like it’s been lifted directly from a Rare title, and Shadow sits astride a mean-looking Harley, making for some exciting ‘hog-on-hog action.

With a questionable track record of recent years, it’s difficult to lay our trust in the Sega brand as easily as we used to, but thanks to Sumo Digital, Sega Racing has approached the genre, improved upon it and set some new benchmarks.

In fact, dare I say it, it has better character variety, it is more polished and ultimately more fun than Mario Kart. Oh God, what’s that noise? Ah yes, it’s the thundering stampede of Nintendo fanboys heading my way!

With its multitude of references to Sega games past and present, Sega Racing will be most appreciated by those who are familiar with the company’s rich history, dating back to the Master System. But as a generic racer it is nonetheless heaps of fun even for those who just about recognise Sonic, let alone Billy Hatcher!

I loved the heady, Shenmue-enriched days of the Dreamcast. So much so that if Sega were to announce a successor to its outcast little console, I’d hardly be able to contain my excitement – I’d probably have to go outside and kick a pigeon or something just to calm myself down.

So, you can understand my initial glee when I stumbled across some info outlining a motion-controlled, Sega-branded console: the “Zone Sega”, slated for release this summer! In 2001, Sega announced that it would be discontinuing support for the Dreamcast, and the hostile world of hardware altogether, focusing its vastly experienced hands on software alone. Has there been a change of heart?

Well, not exactly. Before you Sega fanboys out there start ritually burning your PlayStations, I should point out that the Zone Sega will, in fact, not be produced by Sega. Although the console is a sequel, it won’t be replacing the Dreamcast but will rather be the latest, revamped incarnation of the Zone 40, a relatively popular $39.99 Wii clone.

With 50 built-in titles (20 Genesis classics, including Alex Kidd, Sonic and Knuckles, and Ecco the Dolphin, 14 “new” arcade titles, and 16 motion-controlled sports games), the Zone Sega boasts 32-bit graphics and will come with two Wiimot- sorry, controllers. Contrary to speculation, there is no cartridge slot, so you will have to make do with the embedded library.

Although the Zone 40 is usually praised in reviews, you can’t help but feel you will really be paying for an inferior Wii rip-off and some old Sega games you’ve bought on half a dozen systems over the years. Also, the Genesis classics sadly do not incorporate motion control, so you will have to play them with your boring old thumbs.

The Sega branding will likely double the price tag since the system’s predecessor, so expect to pay around $80 (£50) when the console is released in the second or third quarter of 2010. I’d like to remain hoping that Sega would only lend its name to products of a certain quality, so perhaps the Zone Sega will be a fun and cheap alternative to the Wii. Plus, it should keep the nippers happy for a few hours (or until it breaks – whichever comes first).

To all the grandkids out there: try to feign gratitude when you receive one of these from your bewildered grandmother who thinks she’s given you the latest popular piece of Nintendo hardware.

(No pigeons were harmed during the writing of this article.)

With Christmas all wrapped up, and as we burst forth into a shiny new decade all shrouded in optimism, it is perhaps the perfect time to take a trip with the ghost of gaming past, pausing for a peep at some of the most historic, amazing, and downright bonkers achievements from the world of video games.

As an ever-evolving media with boundaries and extremes that are always being challenged, it can be difficult to keep up with developments in gaming. Thankfully, though, the diligent folks at Guinness have been keeping their beady Irish eyes on things, allowing Gamer Limit to bring you some of the more remarkable world records in video game history.

Does size matter? Codemasters seems to think so. Last year, it proudly brandished a game boasting record-breaking length and girth, as Fuel claimed the world record for the largest playable environment in a console game with a mammoth 5,560 square miles (14,400km) of open world to explore. And you thought Grand Theft Auto IV’s map was big!

Speaking of which, Rockstar’s sandbox masterpiece holds a rather surprising record of its own, considering the number of music-based titles saturating the market; with a very impressive 214 licensed tracks played over its 18 in-game radio stations, GTAIV boasts the record for largest in-game soundtrack. The title’s monumental release, on 29 April 2008, is also the most successful entertainment product launch ever, having generated a whopping 210 million US dollars (£159 million) in worldwide first-day sales; it proved just how big the video game industry has become.

Whilst the GTA franchise is big, it’s not the biggest; having sold a staggering 200 million copies in his lifetime, the Mario franchise is by far the most successful franchise in gaming history. An interesting fact about the vertically challenged plumber is that his trademark moustache was actually a “forced design decision.” As his character sprite in Donkey Kong was so small, it was near impossible to fit believable lips onto his tiny face, and the blocky, black facial hair was an “elegant solution to a tricky problem.”

However, despite Mario’s unrivaled success, the midget Italian stereotype is merely the second most recognizable video game character. He is currently recognized by 93% of American consumers, according to a May 2008 poll by the Davie-Brown Index (DBI). With 94% of Americans able to spot Pac-Man (Namco, 1980), the veteran sprite’s fame exceeds all others. Other notable additions to the index include Lara Croft, Donkey Kong, Sonic the Hedgehog and Link from The Legend of Zelda.

Pac-Man’s superstar fame is not surprising when you learn that he plays the lead role in the most successful coin-op game of all time, with sticky-fingered gamers having collectively amassed a stupendous 10 billion plays of Pac-Man over the decades. It wasn’t until 1999, however, that gaming guru Billy Mitchell (often described as the “greatest arcade-video-game player of all time”) achieved the first perfect Pac-Man score, meaning he ate every dot, bonus fruit and blue ghost possible over the 256 levels before the game runs out of memory and the screen glitches and splits in two.

Since their conception, arcades have been a hive of score-hungry gamers flexing their finger muscles in attempts to get the highest scores. What better accolade for all this dexterous, frantic finger-work than to become the first gamer to score 1 billion points? This honour was given to Tim McVey (USA) at Twin Galaxies in Iowa when, at the end of a 44-hour 45-minute marathon game of Nibbler in 1984, he had amassed an incredible 1,000,042,270 points. What’s even more remarkable about his feat is that McVey used just one quarter to achieve his record-breaking number!

McVey’s score pales in comparison to the highest video game score ever, though. In 2004, J.C. Padilla (USA) obtained a mind-boggling 2,181,619,994,299,256,480 points playing GigaWings2 on a Sega Dreamcast (Score Attack Mode – Stage 2). In contrast, the world record for Cinematronic’s Space Wars – released in 1977 – was just 19 points; it’s a record that still stands!

It’s not only point-based records that can be achieved on arcade machines. In 1985, James Vollandt (USA) played Joust for an incredible 67 hours 30 minutes, which earned himself the world record for the longest continuous play on an arcade machine. In the process, he also set a high-score record of 107,216,700 points on the title.

You have to admire the dedication of some gamers, not least Richard Lecce (USA). As of August 2008, Lecce had amassed 483 unique video gaming systems, including a variety of hand-held games, home consoles and LCD mini-systems, meaning he has the largest collection of playable gaming systems in the world. Equally as dedicated is flight-sim aficionado Matthew Sheil (Australia), who spent eight years and $300,000 constructing the most expensive home flight simulator cockpit. Based on the 747-400, Sheil’s construction features 12 computers controlling motion, audio and the flight simulation game itself, but most impressive is the hydraulic motion system fitted to the cockpit.

Does “UP, UP, DOWN, DOWN, LEFT, RIGHT, LEFT, RIGHT, B, A” sound familiar to you? That’s probably because, having featured in 151 games to date, this cheat code (the Konami Code) is the most popular cheat code in gaming. Debuting in the 1986 NES version of Gradius, the code’s effect varies from game to game, but in most cases, entering the code when the game is paused grants the player the majority of the title’s power-ups.

One of the most prestigious records in gaming has to be best-selling video game, a title recently claimed by Wii Sports, which has sold more than 43 million copies since its 2006 launch. This eclipses the previous record held for over 20 years by another Nintendo favourite, Super Mario Bros., which accumulated worldwide sales of 40 million copies. Clearly Nintendo is doing something right when it comes to marketing!

Another of the Japanese veteran’s titles, Donkey Kong (1981), is certainly one of the greatest arcade classics and home to one of the fiercest ongoing battles for supremacy. Billy Mitchell (yes, the very same Billy Mitchell who achieved the first perfect Pac-Man score!) set the highest score for an original Donkey Kong arcade game in 2007 (2hrs 39 min) with 1,050,200 points, beating Steve Wiebe’s score by a mere 1,100 pts. The high-score leapfrogging by the pair of gaming titans is also the basis for the highest grossing video game documentary, The King of Kong.

If I were to meet Victor De Leon III (aka Lil Poison), I don’t know whether I’d prefer to shake his hand or give him a jealous clip round the ear. Born on May 6th, 1998, Lil Poison became the youngest professional video gamer at the tender age of 6, having been signed up by a gaming league. Now signed by Gameology, who represents him as his agent/manager, he has participated in over 200 major gaming events.

The gaming grandfather Tetris currently holds nine world records, including the very impressive, but nonetheless unsurprising, accolades of most ported game (ported 70X as of 2007) and game with the most official and unofficial variants. Interestingly, it also features in the world record for longest prison sentence for playing a video game, after Faiz Chopdat, on a flight to Manchester, England, refused to stop playing the game on his cell phone, despite repeated warnings by cabin staff. He was jailed for four months for the offence.

What better way to round things up than with an oversized novelty joypad? Yes, even my shortsighted grandmother could just about see the buttons on David Randolph and David Ledger’s colossal NES pad, which weighs in at a whopping 68kg. (Marginally larger than the original Xbox pad, then!) The 2.43m x 1.01m x 0.22m fully working contraption is the largest joypad and is accurately scaled up, requiring two people to operate it – one on the d-pad and one on the buttons – bringing a whole new meaning to the term “co-op play”. Right, I’m off for the longest gaming session in underwear – it’s not for a record, it’s just how I spend my afternoons. Toodles.

Source: Guinness World Records

There’s a razor-fine line between genius and madness, and anyone familiar with the Saw movies will be aware of the possible repercussions should one bleed into the other. The films’ odd appeal lies in the creatively gruesome and torturous games to which the evil genius Jigsaw submits his victims, using his engineering prowess and cunning to force them into acts of self-mutilation, suicide, and murder. Labelled by critics as “torture porn”, some of the games are so disturbingly well thought out that they can surely have only come from someone with the dangerous combination of a slender grasp on sanity and too much time on their hands. Well, everyone needs a hobby!

When I first heard about Saw’s video game adaptation, I must admit my main concern was how the format would translate into a game, particularly in terms of story progression, and exactly how Jigsaw’s traps would come into play. Well, that was one of my main concerns; my other main concern was whether or not I could make it through this review while resisting all of the potential saw-based puns. Right, now to get my teeth into Saw to see if it does or doesn’t quite cut it. (Sorry)

The story could be regarded as a sort of Saw 1.5, picking up part way through the first movie, and placing you in the shoes of Detective Tapp, whom we last saw deserted with a gunshot wound to the chest. The game hits the floor running in true Saw style, hardly giving you time to draw breath as you regain consciousness embroiled in one of Jigsaw’s infamous reverse-bear-trap gizmos, which is poised to split your head in two should you fail to press the corresponding commands. This superb and tense introduction leaves your heart racing, setting the anxious tone that resonates throughout.

Your ordeal takes place in an immense and derelict 19th-century asylum for the insane. You are not alone, however, but one of a number of victims trapped in the abandoned institute, each with his own “game”. The twist is that the key to their survival lies within you – literally – making you popular with desperate psychopaths who lack the surgical knowledge to remove it humanely.

The story is broken into lengthy chapters, each littered with diabolical traps and challenges as you make your way around the colossal building as a pawn in Jigsaw’s depraved game. Forced to make moral decisions, on which the lives of others are dependent, you must survive the test of will and work your way towards one path of a bisected ending. Ultimately, each chapter leads towards a violent game involving someone from Tapp’s past. These set pieces are your reward for arduous persistence, drawing an entertaining and dramatic conclusion to each chapter and sub-plot. If you are a violently curious individual, you will find yourself failing these challenges just to see the victim’s grotesque dispatch.

The cinematic qualities of the films lend themselves surprisingly well to the video game; the erratic camera and unnerving ambient audio are ever present, as is the convoluted sense of morality and justice that remain the backbone of Jigsaw’s antics. Saw’s dynamics and environments are reminiscent of Silent Hill – Konami’s other survival horror series – while the sense of panoptic surveillance and Jigsaw’s omnipresence evoke the same paranoid fear that was the bedrock of Manhunt’s chilling atmosphere.

Given that the genre is almost as old as the asylum, some traps and puzzles that make up the bulk of the title are very inventive. This is because the creators of the first movie, James Wan and Leigh Whannell, were hired to write the story and design exclusive traps. The asylum is also punctuated with some old “favourite” traps from the franchise, which allow for the story to feel more intertwined with the movies.

The majority of the game’s dramatic traps involve timed explosives, poisonous gas, or other such fatal favourites of the perverse antagonist. Lighting and perspective play a dynamic role, forming the basis for many of the more interesting puzzles. Such challenges require you to manipulate objects or light sources so that information may be visible from certain angles. What may look like a nondescript scribble from one perspective may show you the combination to a lock from another. You are also able to carry one of a number of light sources, each with its own merits and foibles, so choose wisely as it may just save your life.

A number of staple minigames provide Saw with substantial filler. To open certain doors, for example, you are often required to decipher basic puzzles or perform timed button combinations. There are also simple puzzles involving cog selection, the rotation of pipes or wires to reroute poisonous gas or electricity, and the manipulation of Tapp’s hand to find keys in toilets full of hypodermic needles. Whilst these provide some early fun, the frequency and repetition of these puzzles do dull Saw’s edge slightly.

The game’s biggest flaw, however, is undoubtedly the slow, unresponsive combat. It is a simple enough setup: block, light attack, and heavy attack; but blocking provides little protection, and the heavy attack is impossible to land, leaving you no option other than to simply press light attack rapidly in the hope that you get your enemy stuck in a loop before he does it to you. With around 20 weapons, it’s a shame that in this respect there is little physical difference between them. Perhaps they ignored the combat’s ineffectiveness in an attempt to persuade players to use more interesting means of incapacitation, such as tripwire traps, barricades, or the various mines that can be assembled from ingredients found within the asylum.

The game looks like it’s been lifted from the movie set, with dank, windowless corridors, trademark tiled bathrooms, and floors painted with blood. All of this is rendered in graphics that won’t blow you away, but are certainly adequate given the murkiness. However, stalking around tiled, labyrinthine corridors may be apt in the feeling of claustrophobia it creates, but you will find it a little relentless, and you crave alleviation with a change of scenery. This also makes navigation difficult, as it’s nigh on impossible to remember where you’ve been, and, strangely, you begin to rely on the linear format just to get around.

Distant, screaming victims and the reverberating echoes of indistinguishable horror make up some rather chilling audio. Oddly, though, the ominous “Hello Zepp” theme, which has become synonymous with Jigsaw’s trickery, isn’t used at all, but a number of similar versions set at different tempos accompany the more intense moments. On top of this, out-of-tune pianos and violins – the staple of suspense horror – heighten the discomfort, all of which gel together well with the ambient audio and superb voice acting.

The game isn’t too difficult, but you will be given the instant kiss of death by a shotgun should you walk through a tripwire or door that’s been rigged with an unpleasant surprise. Thankfully, it autosaves regularly, for which you find yourself very grateful when you have your skull swallow up a shotgun shell from one of these traps, or get a heroin needle in your eye.

Saw will likely take around 20 hours to complete, but the replay value is marred by a lack of multiplayer and simplistic achievements/trophies, the majority of which you will get in one play through. While a solid single-player may have been sufficient for survival horror once upon a time, we have come to expect a little more bang for our buck nowadays. Given the shocking combat, multiplayer could only really have worked as a modern-day Spy vs. Spy, but without any real reason to come back to the game, it is perhaps one to rent, despite it being a thrilling experience.

The spookiest time of the year has once again been and gone. At sunset on the eve of All Hallows, doorstep-bothering infants thronged into the streets in search of treats in all manner of ghoulish guises. But why stop just yet!? As Gamer Limit’s Alex Yue and Shawn Evans reported this week, our favorite characters and mascots from the eclectic world of gaming are a popular target for some inventive, and often somewhat eccentric, ensembles.

And all of this clever costumery got me thinking that we are in need of a tribute to those of you with the sheer love of, and dedication towards, your favorite games that you feel it’s appropriate to dress up like them.

So I decided to have a nosey round the ol’ Internet to investigate the weird, wacky and downright wonderful world of video game-based apparel. What quickly became apparent is that, whilst there are some brilliant efforts out there, there are some that are bad.

Hilariously bad.

So, I bring you my pick* of some of the best and worst video game costumes from around the world… and don’t forget, Alex Yue would like to see your own inventive costume efforts, so send them to Alex@GamerLimit.com for a potential upcoming feature!

*This is not a definitive list and is in no particular order, fanfolk!

The Good:

Okay, so this isn’t the neatest of outfits, but it is comically ingenious. Plus, if you need to disappear in an instant you can simply kneel down and become practically invisible!

I love the way this outfit requires collaborative effort. The trouble is, if they stand in a synchronised line they run the risk of disappearing!

There are a lot of Mega Man outfits out there, but this one is easily the best example. Mainly because of the adorably accurate proportions! The glowing mega blaster is the pièce de résistance!

Judging by the sheer number of people who delight in dressing up as characters from the game, it’s clear that I’m not alone in thinking that Final Fantasy VII is one of the greatest titles of all time. Plus, Vincent is just so damn cool!

This is an impressively accurate rendition of Soul Calibur’s Nightmare (apart from the lack of enormousness, obviously). The lifelike soul edge, complete with the scary eye, makes it all the more impressive!

Here is another Soul Calibur effort, which is equally as impressive, but with slightly more sex appeal. Only slightly, mind.

Okay, so there are a number of more accurate Big Daddy outfits out there, but this one scores kudos for the frankly chilling incorporation of his daughter as Little Sister!

One of my favorite games and one of the funniest outfits, I love this combined Day of the Tentacle effort and take on one of the classics. The inclusion of the legendary Hoagie would have been the icing on the cake!

This Gears of War costume is simply brilliant. The good news is you can buy a 1:1 scale version of it for yourself from Nightmare Armor Studios! The bad news is it will likely set you back around five thousand big ones (it is not yet priced, but this is the cost of similar models)!

Believe it or not, this isn’t a shot from the forthcoming movie! Granted, the costume probably wasn’t made in some kid’s bedroom using toilet roll tubes and sticky back plastic, but you have to admire the realism, accuracy and craftsmanship that has gone into such a magnificent costume. Simply incredible!

The Bad and the Ugly:

This shoddy collection of Mario and pals actually made me laugh, but the outfits look like they took about 4 minutes to make!

Being enormous is clearly a prerequisite for this Street Fighter costume to work, so all credit to a man who can laugh at himself! But then again, it is just a fat man in war paint. Mind you, try telling that to E Honda!

I can’t quite put my finger on why, but this Bowser number strikes me as a little bit sad. Maybe it’s the psychedelic wig! Or maybe it’s the drab décor…

Now this ‘costume’ is just awful. It looks like Pikachu and a goldfish have spawned a miserable offspring, which has then been run over!

Mario and his pals are inevitably a popular target for costume capers, but this Princess Peach ‘effort’ is by far the worst! Rotund lady or man in drag? Your guess is as good as mine!

Okay, so these aren’t strictly gaming outfits, but having appeared in a multitude of Star Wars video games throughout the years, I feel they’re a justified addition. Plus they’re hilariously terrible!

Fat men in lazy drag and Team Rocket are off the annoyance scale, so the collision of the two can only produce one of the worst gaming outfits imaginable!

In case you can’t tell (which is likely), this hilariously tragic costume is a ‘replica’ of the legendary Master Chief! It looks like it has the mobility of Stephen Hawking with a puncture, but I do quite like the funky razor blade and Space Invaders decals!

What do you get if you combine a blue balaclava, T-shirt, jeans and some triangular cardboard? Well, it certainly isn’t Sonic the Hedgehog, that’s for sure! This happy chap looks more like he’s going to rob a smurf’s bank than achieve the speed of sound!

It’s not often I laugh as profusely as I did when I first saw this video, but the sheer effort and dedication this time-abundant child has put into these hollow creations warrants him a little recognition even if it is for all the wrong reasons!

A popular character choice amongst costume creationists the world over, it seems quite poignant that Master Chief features as one of the best and worst efforts. This kid has already carved quite an infamous name for himself across the Internet with his bizarre (and weirdly impressive) productions, but then everyone needs a hobby!

The charmingly named WarDevil: Unleash the Beast Within – yep, don’t be expecting sunshine and lollipops in Digi-Guys’ inaugural title – has had its details very coyly guarded following its 2004 technical teaser clip. For years the game’s official website featured little but a static image of its protagonist, until recently when glorious screenshots began to emerge from its dreary netherworld.

What we do know is that the game will be a 3rd-person hack-and-slash adventure set in the distant, post-apocalyptic future – lovely! Hit the jump to find out more!

We’ve seen the distant future and it ain’t pretty. Armageddon has devastated the planet, which is overrun by demonic, cybernetic creatures, and there’s only one thing that can stop them: WarDevil. This is where you come in, as you take control of the mysterious, angst-fuelled antihero, battling your way through ruined wastelands, military bases, desert strongholds and other desolate post-world locales.

From what little we’ve seen of the title, the gameplay looks similar to that of other modern hack-and-slash games, like Ninja Gaiden, God of War or Devil May Cry. What sets it apart, however, will apparently be its spectacular visuals, the likes of which have never been seen outside of mega-budget movies. This is because Digi-Guys was previously a dedicated CGI development company, before they decided to branch out into our beloved media. Hey, if game developers can make successful CGI movies, why can’t it work the other way around?

In fact, three quarters of Digi-Guys’ 75 staff are CG artists, so we can expect graphics so crisp and solid you could take a bite out of them. But with little experience in gaming, will it all amount to superfluous prettiness; a pseudo video game caked in CGI make-up? I suppose we’ll have to wait to see whether or not all of the gorgeousness can be glued together with a solid story, level design, physics and AI.

Since 2004, Digi-Guys has drip fed us with morsel-sized teaser clips, each one more detailed and fluid than the last. And there’s no denying it certainly does look impressive: craggy, post-apocalyptic ruins are made physical with incredible texture, as sunlight pours in through gaps, drenching the porous rocks in dynamic light, which bounces off stone, smoky particles and the tarnished metal of cybernetic beasts with impressive realism.

What’s more impressive is that the whole thing runs on a tailor-made and incredibly sophisticated game engine, the RTE1080 (Real Time Engine), which is designed to run WarDevil in full 1080p at 60 frames per second (and, amazingly, it can be adapted to run on an old Xbox!). The head honcho at Digi-Guys, Andy Whitehurst, claims that this will create a game with “Hollywood-grade visuals”. It will be interesting to see how these “Hollywood grade” CGI effects will translate into video game format, such as in its incorporation of motion blurring, believable smoke, water, fire and hair, and the level of clarity we see in minutely detailed textures.

Apparently, the level of detail will be such that if you keep zooming in on an object, instead of the usual pixelated mess, you will be able to see skin’s porous blemishes, the intricate weave of fibrous cloth, or hairline cracks in rock and armour in all their glory. At this stage, much of the game’s technical impressiveness is but jargon, but one thing’s for sure: it will be brimming with more pixels than ever before, each one apparently having individual properties that react to things like dynamic lighting. Sounds delicious!

Previously thought to be a PS3 exclusive, the game will also see the smog-filled light of post-world day on the 360. As of yet, there is no confirmed release date, but the game is being developed alongside its full-length feature film counterpart, so we can expect a joint release. I can’t wait to see what pixelated hocus pocus the wizards at Digi-Guys manage to pull out of the hat!

Source: Edge