Tim Minchin - So Live

So Live is a DVD of Tim Minchin's recent live performance of his show of the same name. With the best elements of his So Rock and Dark Side shows smushed together, it covers everything from "Environmentalism, the Middle East, mental illness, rock 'n' roll, sex, God, death and paradise" and boldly claims "you pretty much won't need to watch anything else ever".

If you've never experienced Tim's magic before, you should check out YouTube. Watch out for clips of Rock 'n' Roll Nerd, Inflatable You and Canvas Bags.

The show is a comedy performance. Tim performs a range of musical, verbal and some physical comedy, too. Tim's awesomely witty and nearly always downright true lyrics make for one of those experiences you just agree with. You can relate to pretty much everything he says. Notable performances in the main show include So Fucking Rock, Take My Wife, You Grew On Me and Dark Side.

There are some sections of regular Stand-Up comedy, where tim still shines. His London and Minicabs segment is pure gold.

There's much swearing, much profanity and some blasphemy in here, but don't let that stop you. Tim is worthy of your hard-earned.

As for extras, this DVD throws 'em all on. Featuring Tim performing on Spicks and Specks, The Sideshow, at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival and some BBC footage, you'll be able to keep laughing for ages.

I really can't fault this DVD. You should really buy it.

Tim Minchin - So Live
Starring: Tim Minchin
Distributed by Madman Entertainment
Available on DVD
Current Release (2007)
Rated MA 15+ by the OFLC (Strong sequal reference, Strong coarse language)
GSh Gaming Score: 10/10

Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back

Crash Bandicoot 2 is the shining star of the Crash Bandicoot series. At least in my opinion. Being the third PlayStation game I ever played probably helped it. Especially seeing how the first was A Bug's Life and the second was V-Rally 2: Championship Edition.

Released ten years ago in 1997, Crash Bandicoot 2 has the pick-up-and-play control style, fun visuals, a storyline which has reasonable depth, as well as replay potential I've not found in many other games. I'm still able to pick it up and have fun ten years later.

Having defeated Dr. Neo Cortex in the previous game, Crash is enjoying a well-earned sleep when Neo reappears, asking for Crash's help to gather crystals to save the world. Fortunately, this is the first time Crystals are a vitally important part of the game, as i feel it is overused later in the series (Especially after the Sierra takeover). Crash Bandicoot was a more linear game which simply involved beating levels, getting bonuses and winning the girl.

Crash 2 involves many firsts for the series. The first of which is the Warp Room mechanic. Rather than an entirely linear game, requiring you to progress level by level, Crash 2 gives you a room with five portals, each leading to a separate level. Levels usually stick to one theme per warp room, though. There are five warp rooms, and thus five warp room bosses. You fight the warp room bosses once you get the crystal from each level in that warp room. Defeating the boss allows you to move on to the next one.

Boss battles are pretty much perfect in difficulty. Requiring a good deal of skill with the DualShock controller to defeat. Each boss has a different type of challenge for you, from avoiding exploding floor tiles to a jetpack race in orbit.

The levels are very varied. From the classic boulder chase levels, to polar bear rides and standard platforming, Crash keeps you interested, as there's always a few different level types to choose form in each warp room. Unfortunately, however, you must pass all the levels in that warp room to advance, but this is not too difficult.

The graphics are not the best, but they are what I come to see as Crash Bandicoot's true style. Jagged. I feel newer games lose touch with his original character design. The environments, however, are nicely detailed and each environment type has its own unique visual style.

This is also the first Crash game to make proper use of a Memory Card as the default save style. It also uses a far more sensible load/save screen in each warp room rather than the silly "once you pass an unlockable bonus level you get a password" mechanic from the original.

The game has a solid platforming style, with multiple viewpoints used, but unfortunately it has an unmanipulable camera, which means that sometimes it's impossible to see what you're doing.

Crash Badicoot 2's storyline is somewhat average. It's interesting, but not amazing by any means. You're just out to save the world, while Neo tries to destroy it.

This game remains one of the great tiumphs of the fifth generation of videogames. Naughty Dog did its previous game justice, as well as making a far better, more meaty and more entertaining game.

This game should really be in your collection. If it's not, go buy it. I guarantee it's worth it.

Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back
By Naughty Dog
Available on PlayStation
Classic Release (1997)
Rated G by OFLC
GSh Gaming Score: 10/10

V8 Supercars 3 Shootout

From my experience with Codemasters' V8 Supercars series I was expecting it to be a fully fledged V8 supercars experience, with a reasonably interesting storyline built in.

I was wrong.

V8S3 Shootout is a very much dumbed down version of the racing game I loved on the PS2. While the PS2 version needed you to unlock nearly everything, it was okay because it was interesting. The PSP version lacks story, lacks interest, and lacks the "Fully realized damage model" i was expecting from previous versions. Sure, you can bend your car's bumpers a bit, but panels don't fly off, wheels can't be ripped from your axles, and you're not going to lose any doors.

And these were features in V8S 1.

Lets start at the beginning. Once you start the game from your XMB, the intro logos flash by, and you're greeted with a menu. This menu gives you the options of career mode, quick race, starting a V8 supercars series immediately, and some others.

Starting career mode gives you absolutely no hint of a storyline, you're just presented with a list of event series' that you must complete. Starting with basics such as braking and steering. This is not what i wanted. If i wanted a cheap Gran Turismo clone, I wouldn't have bothered to buy one.

The graphics are nothing interesting, either. The cars are all the right shape, but there's nothing pretty or interesting about it. Tires smoked at times, but there was nothing very special about them.

The game, to me, just feels rigid. It's a merchandising game, and nothing more. The fact that Codemasters actually make one game and brand it under different licenses for different regions makes the game cringe-worthy.

Vehicle handling was poor. I guess V8 Supercars would be difficult to handle, but the brakes are far better in reality, I'm sure. It's so much like Gran Turismo it's not funny.

This game disappointed me a huge amount. I was hoping for a decent game, but i got a really poorly executed moneygrabber. I'm really glad i bought it from Cash Converters for $35 now, as it's still $70 in stores.

V8 Supercars 3: Shootout
By Codemasters
Available on PlayStation Portable
Current Release
Rated G by OFLC
GSh Gaming Score: 4/10

Crash Tag Team Racing

Deviating once again from the original Crash Bandicoot formula, this cheesy racing sim has some interesting parts, some annoying parts, and some parts that make you wish Naughty Dog never sold the rights to the series onto Sierra.

Crash: TTR places you in Von Clutch's Motorworld, where you have to wander around collecting Wumpa Coins (Another stupid change from the original formula) and power crystals (A bit overdone now) in order to fix Von Clutch's park and take ownership of it. Not to be outdone, Dr. Neo Cortex is back trying to do the same thing, so he can use the Power Crystals, once again, to take over the world.

The game was not at all what i expected. Having played Crash Team Racing, i would've expected it to be a game using a similar play style, however, it takes the platformer almost back to its roots, with a full 3D platformer used between races, for collecting Wumpa Coins, outfits and spinning at ninja penguins.

The game plays okay, it's not classic Crash humour, nor is it classic crash action (Generally being 2D in motion) but it does the series some justice.

Unfortunately, Sierra have taken crash entirely the wrong way, portraying him as a total idiot. Crash was never a babyish moron. He never spoke because he had no need to, and he as never dumb. In this game, he is portrayed horribly. Making annoying squeaks and stupid noises Crash would never have made. If anyone wants proof Crash was never an idiot, look at the cover of Crash Bandicoot 2 (Review coming soon) - he's serious.

Crash's jump from PlayStation to Xbox, PlayStation 2 and GameCube was not a happy experience for me. Sierra did a really bad job of emulating Naughty Dog's work. I guess i'm too much of a Crash and Spyro purist to give Sierra any credit. Sure, it'll appeal to new players who never touched the old games, but if you want older players to return, you should not make such distinct changes to the characters.

The racing, however, was quite fun. The "clashing" added a new twist to the Mario Kart-based formula introduced with CTR. The handling was good, but it felt too easy. I won every race, even on the hard modes. I guess I'm just too good for it.

The new characters were interesting, but it's a shame you don't see many classics return. Crash also misses out on some of his older mobility. He can no longer crouch or slide, but can now double-jump by default. Crash's idle animations are, to be put simply, stupid. The first involves armpit farts, the second puking, and i couldn't bare to leave him idle long enough to see any more. Again, Crash is portrayed as stupid.

One thing i have to say is that this game fees too babyish. The visual style as well as music grind on your nerves very fast. Also, the NPCs in the midway have a way of interrupting you when you attempt to talk to someone. The talk indicator moving to their head as they move, staring, towards crash. The AI needs work.

Crunch's constant Mr. T impersonation is probably the most humorous part of the game i've seen. Kids wouldn't really understand it, but it's a nice touch.

Another good part is the minigames, while a deprture from the original Crash formula, it's still a nice addition to this theme-park style game. The bowling one is a really nice addition, and a fun way to get some more Wumpa coins, which are needed to progress in the game.

Also present are stunt, arena battle and Crashinator modes, each of which sees you doing something silly in your chosen vehicle. Unlike the mobile version, this game has cars for each character, rather than cars anyone can choose.

Graphically, the game is nothing special, good enough to do itself justice, but not amazing.

Crash Tag Team Racing is overall a poor representation of the characters it uses, however, it has a solid game underneath and should be fine for children and newcomers to the crash franchise. For everyone else, there's always Crash 1 to 3 on PSOne.

Crash Tag Team Racing
By Radical Entertainment
Reviewed on PlayStation 2
Available on PlayStation 2, Xbox, Gamecube, PlayStation Portable
(Older Release)
Rated PG by OFLC
GSh Gaming Score: 6/10

Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock

The Guitar Hero series is one of the best rhythmic based music games on the market with Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock being no exception. The Xbox 360 version is packed with new features, such as; new characters, new controls, new venues and much, much more.

As with the previous Guitar Hero games, the player uses a guitar-shaped controller to simulate the playing of varying genres of music by playing notes as they scroll in-time with the music. Gameplay from the previous installments hasn’t changed too much for this series, except for the addition of the new battle mode and carrier co-op mode.

The games tracklist consist of over 60 songs, many of which, in contrast to the previous games, are master tracks. There is a wide range of rock music in Guitar Hero III and consist of bands like; Slipknot, Disturbed, Metallica, Kaiser Chiefs, Kiss, Rage Against The Machine and many more, I know I will spend hours playing a range of chords and notes while my animated rocker jumps around the stage and smashes guitars.

As for the graphics in Guitar Hero III, well let’s say that the game has completely been revamped with cleaner graphics, smoother animations and more colours. Neversoft has taken control of the game and used a new animation engine to create every little detail and make it look as real as possible, even the singers lip-syncing is in time with the music as well as your character playing the real notes on his guitar. For previous “Guitar Hero’s” this is a nice new touch as it is a cut above the rest and the best graphics we have seen in a rhythmic, musical based game.

The story line isn’t much to look out. The guys at Neversoft decided to add a few animated cut senses with no sound and only about 15 seconds long each, which is a change from the other games but it left us wanting more. Basically you are an up-and-coming rocker who wishes to become the best. To do this you must travel all around the world and even go to hell and back where your final battle against the devil takes place.

With the nice addition of some new characters the games character list has made for some serious fun, Activision has also decided to add some boss battles into the mix to make it more interesting and just way more fun. With bosses like Guns & Roses’ Slash and Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello you know the battles have to be up to standard. The battle feature is also playable online against other punters who are willing to give it a shot. The idea of battle mode is to earn “attacks” to send at your opponent as to ruin their run and give you the win.

As for the un-lockable content, it consist of other costumes, bonus tracks, new guitars for your character, new finishes for your guitars and un-lockable bosses such as The God of Rock and Lou, the Devil. It hasn’t changes much from the other installments but its still an important part of the game.

Finally the new control. It is something to look forward to. There are two styles of controls; the Gibson Les Paul for the Xbox 360, Wii & PS3 and the Gibson Kramer for the PS2. The Les Paul control is a lot better then the new Kramer as it is a lot more comfortable and the frets are a lot easier to push down, also Activision plan to produce a series of custom face plates to alter your guitar and make it seem even more rockin’

This game really does give you the rush of being a rockstar while sitting in your living room chair. While the game is done exceptionally well its gonna have to watch for its competitors Rock Band.

Overall, this is the best of all rhythmic musical games, thus far, but it did leave me wanting more.

Guitar Hero III; Legends of Rock

by Neversoft
Reviewed on Xbox 360

Available on Xbox 360, PlayStation 2, PLAYSTATION 3 & Wii

Rated T for Teen

Richo's Rating; 9/10

Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition

The Midnight Club series has always been about free-roaming street racing action. Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition is no exception. The PSP version features loads and loads of cars, SUVs and choppers from real licensed brands. All of which have at least something you can tune to make your ride as fast and good-looking as possible.

The Graphics of Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition are pretty damned good for one of the first racing games to come out on the PSP, tires smoke up, lights are blingy and it shows Rockstar really know what they're doing with the PSP. For those of you familiar with the graphics of the GTA series, this far surpasses those in terms of texture quality and smoothness.

As for storyline, there's not much on offer here, other than you being a new street racer who has to prove you've got the balls to stand up in the scene. Cutscenes are used throughout, and are not realtime rendered.

The racing is fast, fun and addictive. It's a shame about the loading times. Sometimes, just to get from the XMB to a race can take several minutes. Rockstar have done the wrong thing here. The PSP, notorious for being a slow loader is forced to re-load the same environment each time. Rockstar should take a lesson from EA's Need for Speed: Most Wanted in which you rock up to a race, it loads your competitors and that's it. No re-loading the whole gameworld.

I can understand it loading each city, but Rockstar managed to make a fluid game in Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories and Vice City Stories - there were only two times in the whole game where it had to load - startup and when changing islands.

The cars are many and varied, and split up into Tuner, Muscle, SUV, etc. With differing customizability for each. It's not all standardised parts for all cars like Need for Speed: Underground and Most Wanted.

The Garage feature works well - everything can be tuned and purchased at the one place. You can also "Copy" your cars - meaning you can trick them out however you want, as many different times as you like, and keep them all, then choose one for your racing.

The Soundtrack is mostly good, made up of a mix of Rap, Rock, R&B and some crazy dance stuff. I recommend the Rock section to anyone, with Jimmy Eat World, Marylin Manson, Queens of the Stone Age and Unwritten Law all in the mix. The other sections include tracks from TI, 50 Cent and other generic rappers. Some bad, some slightly better. Unfortunately, not all are conducive to a driving game situation, unlike the Need for Speed series' soundtrack.

The overall visuals were very slick, but the menu system was a letdown. It seemed pretty laggy, and selecting a car was a chore as each had to load to be viewed and passed by, with a pointless burnout wasting time as the previous car drives off before the UMD spins up.

As for graphical demands, the PSP holds up well. No frames are ever dropped, and the camera has never found it's way inside a model it shouldn't. The default controls leave something to be desired - who put brake as Triangle? What crazy person did that? When i ended up getting NOS was the first tim i figured this out - NOS is Square and the brakes are Triangle. Thankfully, this can be fixed in the options menu.

Overall, it's the best racing game I've played on the PSP so far. On a negative note, I hope there are better ones out there.

Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition
by Rockstar Games
Reviewed on PlayStation Portable
Available on PlayStation Potable, PlayStation 2, Xbox
(Older Release)
Rated E10+ in EU and G in Australia
GSh Gaming Score: 7/10

Boxshot by ~treyarch

Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters

Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters is the first in the Ratchet & Clank series (Apart from Going Mobile) to come on a platform other than the PlayStation 2. It's also one of the best action games I've seen on the PSP to date.

Throughout the series, Ratchet and Clank, your two main heroes have risen from the Wanted list (Ratchet & Clank) to become celebrities (Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando) and have now taken a break from their saving of the universe to have a holiday on the beaches of Pokitaru.

The thing I personally love about the Ratchet & Clank series is the storyline. The stories always appeal to me, and make it more than mindlessly bashing the square button. This one is no different, with Captain Qwark once again involved with his own sub-story (Searching for his family - fauxfamily.com -a classic) and classic humor once again.

Gameplay is mostly as you'd expect having played the PS2 versions, except the camera controls with the L and R shoulder buttons. That's one thing about the game I don't like. It feels a bit too slow for my liking, though it must be said that this is more a weakness of the PSP, rather than the game.

Graphically, Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters is almost as good as it's PS2 counterparts. There are some points in the game where the game's low texture details become apparent - such as scenes with closeups to Ratchet's head (His ear textures are pretty bad here) in some cutscenes.

Speaking of cutscenes, Size Matters makes full use of them, just as others have. They are rendered in realtime, not as a video, which does show off the PSP's graphical grunt.

The graphical effects really show what the PSP is capable of, with some great model details and good lighting effects. I was surprised at how good the Giant Clank levels were visually. The sheer volume of particles displayed on screen at any one time during those scenes could be immense, and the PSP still happily chugged along without dropping noticeable frames (CWCheat's frame rate counter confirmed this - 30fps and 29 during graphically intensive parts)

As for gadgets and weapons, there is once again a vast multitude available for your purchase from the Gadgetron vendor, with new stock on each planet. Unfortunately, one little letdown is the fact that there is still really only one good general purpose weapon. The Lacerator is your average Assault weapon (Akin to the blaster pistols of previous incarnations) and is probably the most useful weapon in the game - with a lock-on system, dual wield and a reasonable amount of ammunition, it packs a reasonable punch.

The Gadgetron PDA is a useful tool I haven't seen before (I probably didn't notice it though - so don't worry) allowing you to purchase weapons and ammo from anywhere in the level, with a delivery fee, of course. Does come in handy during boss battles where it takes more than 120 hits of your Lacerator (And you can't get close enough with anything else) to kill. Saved my neck a few times indeed.

The HUD and health system are the same as each game since at least Up your Arsenal (I didn't play Going Commando) with a health number rather than four health orbs. You can achieve a maximum of 75 health in the game, which is plenty. Much better than the constant 4-orb system of Ratchet & Clank 1.

Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters is a great game worthy of your UMD drive. I recommend to all PSP owners (OE, Devhook or official) to go buy this game. If you enjoyed the PS2 versions, I'm sure you will love the pocket version.

Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters
by High Impact Games
Available on PlayStation Portable
(Current Release)
Rated E10+ in EU and G in Australia
GSh Gaming Score: 9/10

Boxshot by ~treyarch

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