Mentioned under Skynet too ;-)

VIKI isn't as bad as Skynet, though, it's being "bad" to protect humans - or so it thinks - rather than to protect its own computing kind.

Re: I take exception to low rating of "Moon"

It's not a rating of the film dude! If that was the case, I'd probably have given Moon a 90%.

These are trivial ratings of each computer and its level of badassability, they're not really meant to be taken too seriously.

Well to be fair in FC3, you can create both multiplayer maps and single player sandbox levels... ;-)

Re: Do they really play this to review it?

To be fair when reviewed on console, it's difficult to get your own decent screenshots. Most official websites have an images section and that's often where shots are sourced, hence their duplication on other sites. If images are sent by PRs, they tend to be the same as those anyway.

We usually take our own screenshots for PC games, though.

Yeah it does seem unfair imo, but wikispeaks. The "Wii" games are a franchise in their own right, apparently.

Personally, I think the fact Tetris numbers are made up of its appearance on calculators is a bit unfair in the first place anyway.

Re: Uh, reportage fail.

We're right... of course.

We all know the difference between a weekend and a week here... even if our recollection of one is far more detailed than the other. ;-)

Re: Pathetic

Ok, it's true that most of you will probably have not "missed" Hitman, with the overkill of advertisements recently. But it is still one of the better games out there released in the last few months.

Don't be too misled by our headline, these roundups are meant to wrap up any (good) games that we haven't managed in full multi-page reviews. There's loads of average junk around and we've missed out plenty of titles.

If we only covered small indie titles and completely unheard of console games from the last 2/3 months, I doubt we'd even have 10 (let alone 20 here) that are all rated 70% or more.

Just for the record, the new Hitman rocks! It has drained at least £30 worth of electric at home in the last week, I swear.

Our last "games you may have missed" piece back in August included Journey. Great game and it still gets played often in my household!!

It obviously didn't mean 2-3 Star Wars films a year. I think it did mean 2-3 Lucasfilm movies a year, though.

Disney puts out far more than 3 flicks annually already anyway.

Re: Virgin Mobile?

As far as I can tell, Virgin do not offer any 12-month Sim-only contracts and these are all one month rolling deals.

Re: Beware the hype

I can hold my hands up and say I've never been hammered by Rockstar. Not once.

Then again, I love all of the games you just mentioned and while not without flaws, they're definitely worthy of high praise... LA Noire was under-rated imo.

I do agree that smaller sites/ blogs are often "scared" to speak out, worried that any negative press will lead to "blacklisting" or finding it hard to get review code.

However without the readership to back you up, of course you'll be lower down the pecking order and probably need to do loads of buttering up to get preferential treatment.

Unfortunately, the world is driven by fear. Perhaps there are a few exceptions, but I don't think game publishers are literally approaching people and 'hammering' them into positive reviews. When you think about the way it's all set up, the buttering-up of publishers by small blogs is probably an inevitability.

I can't understand why any site with significant readership would be pressured into this kind of thing, though.

"Exclusives" on the other hand may come with a "critical opinion not allowed" guideline, but I've never seen that with tech and haven't the experience of an exclusive game review yet, so can't say for sure. Again, if so, fear is probably to blame rather than a conscious effort on the publisher's part.

I guess the moral of the story is, always be objective and stick to sites that you know you can trust.

I'm not just saying this because I work here, but El Reg is definitely one of the good guys! We're critical where necessary and would laugh at any threats of blacklisting, before making an article out of it to embarrass the company in question further. :-)

Re: Seems to be limited

If only Sony did the same eh? You would be due a truckload of PS3 consoles by now.

I wonder why... ;-) I thought I had Commander, sorry, 'Major Shepard' looking pretty good, but we don't have the time to spend ages on trivial photoshop jobs, unfortunately.

Re: Re: Re-writing History

It's hardly hiding... I guess a casual read would mean starting at that point and ignoring the entire article?

I previously talk about smartphones long before that with the Ericsson R380, mention handsets like BlackBerry, Pocket PC and Palm and then talk up how feature phones started to evolve into smart devices.

Only then does the iPhone get a mention and all I say is that we've seen hundreds of smartphones hit shelves since that point. It's merely a bookmark in the timeline.

Apologies if there was any ambiguity, but I really think things are being exaggerated far too much here.

Re: Re-writing History

Urm... where in that quote do I ever say Apple 'invented' the smartphone?

Hundreds of smartphones have hit the shelves since the iPhone was released. I think that's pretty factual.

Seems you have grossly misread the sentence to allow a means for your anti-Apple rant, but if you read the whole piece, you'd see smartphones start to be mentioned at the end of page 2 long before the word iPhone is ever brought up.

Re: The pain

Apologies, we had a few technical issues with images stretching. Should be sorted now, hope the bleeding stops soon. ;-)

Re: But, but, but...

Good point. Kinect Star Wars did have that going for it I suppose...

Re: Bill & Ted

Face palm moment... that was totally bogus of me!

Re: Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

He had pretty good taste in cars then.

Re: Skylar of Heroes?

D'oh... Sylar, Skylar... I think my Breaking Bad addiction is mething with my memory.

Mate, you try working with some of THESE... OOPS IT HAPPENED AGAIN

http://www.reghardware.com/2011/01/31/review_ten_wireless_keyboards/

Rainbow Six was in my shortlist but again was dropped due to a serious overload of FPS games released in the same era.

Half-Life, Unreal and Tribes all hit shelves in the same year as RS, which wasn't as significant imo. It's all subjective though I guess.

Hard to narrow things like this down to 20 titles with a fair spread of release dates.

Keep your eyes peeled for RPG sometime. ;-)

Re: Far Cry/ Crysis

Far Cry 2 would be the sequel to Far Cry. ;-)

They probably feel similar because they were both FPS games made by Crytek and were set on islands. I see your point...

Re: Re: Unreal?

You guys were right, the previous screenshot of Unreal was a Beta version... I've changed that one and the contentious Wolfenstein 3D, which I think must have been the image of a slightly remastered mobile version. Thanks for the heads-up.

Re: Fallout

Really? Fallout can't be considered FPS. The first two games were isometric view anyway. Fallout 3 and beyond have an FPS angle included, but surely the game is far more RPG than anything else. Don't really know what you'd classify GTA as really, it doesn't fit here though that's for sure. Third person shooters, maybe?

Re: Wot? No Deus-Ex?

It was very very close to being put in. Was a toss up between Deus Ex and Bioshock. I literally had the list down to 21 titles and it was only left out due to wanting a broader release date range. Both are hardly traditional shooters, though. Which genre would you say DE is most suited in? RPG?

Re: What about the most bestest one....

Check our 20 Horror Games slideshow for that one buddy ;-)

Re: From Virgin Media T&Cs

Well spotted, I just chased Virgin for clarification on this as well. 10GB of data then 3G speeds thereafter is pretty generous imo and certainly feels more "unlimited" than some of the other ones out there.

It's all subjective, I guess. I found RE2 far scarier and it's definitely my favourite RE in the series.

Re: Ammensia

Didn't glance through the whole slideshow? Amnesia is there bud, it's the second to last slide. ;-)

If you look below each picture, there is the release date, the developer and the platforms it was launched on. :-)

Re: Erm..

It is in there? Certainly gave me the creeps, so I couldn't omit it.

Re: Foolishly, I was expecting that there would actually be a slideshow here

Apologies everyone, we had a couple problems in the back-end. Oooh er. Nothing a quick fiddle can't fix. All good now. :-)

Re: Re: Later this week?!?

http://shop.ee.co.uk/nokia-lumia-920-black/pay-monthly/details/

There's ya pricing.. P4U has the exclusive for retail outlets I believe.

Re: James Pond???

Awesome game, I was only 7 and yet remember it pondly

Re: Been reading GamesTM, I see.

Or... maybe we came up with the idea all by ourselves, based on the fact there's a new game out this week and a new film out next week... *shock* shirley not?

I hardly thought looking back at all the old Bond videogames would be the most original of ideas this month, but I assure you it wasn't a spur of the moment thing based on 'cribbing' content from other sites. It's merely logic.

I glanced at the GamesTM article you're on about after reading your comment just now and aside from the fact we both talk about retro Bond games, these couldn't be more different if they tried. What am I missing?

Yep the tablet part has its own battery, this is what was reduced down to 5000mAh. The handset itself packs a 2140mAh battery.

Re: DSLR?

Fair point, but the LowePro is a great bag for your other kit too, it just has the added bonus of a DSLR pocket. That wasn't what skewed the rating by any means. It's compact, well designed, has pockets for all tech and even has a backplate for attaching to suitcases. It is a really impressive backpack either way.

Re: Story smells iffy to me

It doesn't appear to have affected everyone, but some of our own staff members have had the same problem for months as well, so it's certainly affecting some gamers.

I think some may not realise they have a problem, though, as the items you're supposed to have access to only appear for a split second before they're removed. So while the service appears to be running fine, many of us in the EU have a limited service in comparison to those in other regions.

Re: Erm...

Apologies for that, updated the link now.

Re: Xperia V?

Ah, thanks for highlighting dude. This Xperia V will not be launched in the UK, though.

I guess that's why it was omitted from the press release I received.

Re: Mortal Kombat

Buckethead ftw!

Re: Vivacity is now £39.99

Wow, if you can get the Vivacity for £40 it certainly is crazy value for money.

Take your point entirely, but the public also sees 50% as below average, so if we rated an average game 50%, there are plenty of people who see the score, think it's complete turd, then switch off.

In my school days anything below 60% was an F.

then it worked its way up with D (60-69%), C (70-79%), B (80-89%) and A... and the scores of gaming reviews are very similar in my opinion.

I think in general, these are our rough guidelines FYI..

If a game scores less than 25% it means it is faulty and shouldn't have been released.

25-35% waste of time, pretty unplayable

40-50% Not much cop, unlikely to enjoy

55-65% Playable, but don't have high expectations

70-75% Average game, run of the mill

80% Good game

85% Great game

90% Tremendous game!

95% Seminal work that excels in almost every area

100% Acme of gaming in the moment.

Makes sense, no?

These are only a selection of the games I have played over the last few months. There were definite exclusions - some mentioned in the opening para - which would have scored below 70%.

We didn't want to give you a list of poor games - the idea is to point out some that you might like. While many of these still have their shortcomings, it would be harsh to drop them below the 70 mark, which isn't exactly a thrilling score anyway.

When you start getting into 60s and below, it generally says a game is pretty awful and it would be harsh to label these ten so unfairly. So yeah, while I have pointed negatives out with some, they still warrant a score that reflects their respective 'comme ci, comme ça' status. They might not all be exceptional, but none are a complete waste of time and money.

Then again, it is games, so it's all somewhat subjective anyway.

mwahah

It was unintentional... of course. Do you really think I'm so cruel that I mock American obesity so publicly? ;-)

Not everyone is so kind....

https://www.facebook.com/GabeNewellsFifthChin

Re: You look...?

Usain Bolt looked around to make sure he was still in first place during his Olympic dash. Just saying. ;-)

Re: More Excellent Reporting from El Reg

You're right, I totally should have written it was still in proof-of-concept stage in the article. Oh wait a second... I did.

The articles do continue underneath the images, just incase you weren't aware. ;-)

Re: Re: "Bringing the classic first-person shooter to consoles "for the first time"."

Hate to break it to ya Barry, but I never said first time to PlayStation, I said first time to PS3... Shirley you of all people know the difference between Sony consoles?

Re: "Bringing the classic first-person shooter to consoles "for the first time"."

I've tweaked for clarification now - Doom is coming to PS3 for the first time. It has been available on Xbox before.