A sample of our forthcoming (soon!) videos from Leipzig. In this peice, Danny, Denis and Dale chat about their trip to the sony booth, the games on offer, and Chinese Food.

The version below can be viewed in HD on our vimeo channel, or alternativly check out our YouTube channel for an ultra low-res copy.

In a case that'll make most people sit up and say "WTF!?", MMO blogging site Massively is carrying the story that, according developer Multiverse, an MMO based on Joss Whedon's much missed TV show Buffy The Vampire Slayer is in the works. Fans of the Joss might remember that Multiverse are also the ambitious lot supposedly working on a Firefly MMO, but nothing has been seen of that project since it was announced back at the end of 2006.

Multiverse producer Jon Landau was scheduled to drop the details yesterday at the Virtual Worlds Conference in Los Angeles yesterday, but I've yet to see anyone else picking up or confirming this story. Massively have an excerpt from the relevant press release. It also claims that Multiverse are working on a project based on James Cameron's Titanic. Oh, joy.

...is the name of a new feature interview that just went up over at Kotaku. Bionic Commando: Rearmed is the excellent remake of the original NES game that's been available over Xbox Live Arcade and on PC for a little while now. If you haven't played it yet it's definitely worth picking up, with a built in co-op mode that's fun to wile away the evenings with.

What's really remarkable about the game is its soundtrack - it's absolutely fantastic and a great piece of music to listen to in its own right. Kotaku's Owen Good had a thorough chat with the composer responsible, Simon Viklund, about his own history as a gamer, the challenges in reworking a 20 year old 8-bit game score and his own thoughts on how things turned out. To quote liberally:

"So you knew the game front and back.

Oh yeah."

Direct yourselves to Kotaku for the full thing.

When he's not adding the finishing touches to Oasis albums or showering abuse on is musical peers, Manchester native Noel Gallagher likes nothing more than to add his two cents to the video games world. In a recent interview on music site music radar Noel was asked his opinion of video-games like Guitar Hero;

We do Noel.

CD Projekt, publishers of the really rather alright RPG The Witcher, are about to give the great unwashed access to the beta of their new digital distribution service Good Old Games. The GOG service is gearing up to offer some classic PC games in a DRM-free (hurrah) digital format for literally some dollars. To quote their website:

Everyone who signs up at www.gog.com before Sunday September 7 at midnight (EDT), during the next week will receive an access key, which will allow them to dive into the GOG.com site. If you don't receive your access key on Monday, don't worry as we're sending them out in stages.

While GOG have yet to officially announce their full catalogue, it's a fairly good bet that it'll feature the likes of Fallout, MDK and Giants: Citizen Kabuto, seeing as how they've included them in the header image. 

Given the fact that a lot of older classic titles are becoming increasingly difficult to find via legal channels, the GOG service seems like an excellent idea - throw in the fact that it's DRM free and that CD Projekt are promising to tweak the games to work on modern operating systems and it looks like the publishers could be on to a winner. 

Expect a follow up when the beta goes live, assuming I can get my hands on Giants without any fuss.

Thanks to CG user "Thane" for sending this badboy onto us. When we were at Leipzig there was some controversy over a Space-Invaders installation peice that used imagery of the twin-towers of 11/9 fame (i refuse to use American date syntax - they makes no sence).

The peice, a social commentary on the futillity of war, was taken down by request of the American creator Douglas Edric Stanley. Well it seems those rudigers ovre at Squeenix arent happy enough with that, as they, the owners of all Taito IP, are considering taking this further

What? Games companies care if you use their IP's without permission? I better redesign the ENTIRE SITE.

PS: Sorry for the weeklong lack of updates including podcasts, its been crazy here. And all you staff folks, im emailing around today! Non-Irish, sorry for a blatently Irish headline. Ill start being professional soon i promise. 

Im sure loads of you are still listening to our womper of a 3 hour podcast, but for those you who ate all your greens, heres some desert. Locatedon the link below is a collection of shots from our weekend in Germany. More Hands-On articles beinguploaded through the next few days including; Sonic Unleashed, Far Cry 2 and Little Big Planet.

For now...CLICK HERE FOR PICS

Zigcast #2 - 24th August 2008
Coming in at a whopping 172mins, we spend our last night in Germany talking about every game we played on the show floor. Left4Dead, Killzone 2, Sonic Unleashed, Force Unleashead, Bionic Commando, Stalker: Clear Sky, Fable 2 and loads, loads, LOADS more. This laid back podcast has three intervals to break up the insane flow of awesome gaming news. It should be enough to keep you happy while we edit and render the video.

Download or RSS it below:
MP3 File: Click Here
RSS Feed: Click Here
iTunes Link: Click Here

If ever something required reinvention, it would be Konami's Pro Evolution Soccer series.

For fans of the series it's been an absolutely frustrating graph of hilarious up's and down's over the last number of years. Considered by many to be the "football fans" football game, Konami have shown contempt and almost distain for audiences that have followed it with religious fervor. The last iteration PES 2008 quite possibly having the largest fan backlash of all. The Achilles heel being an absolutely useless online component across all platforms.

At Leipzig 08 we have had our first effort at a few games of Pro Evolution 2009. The build was considered 75% complete by Konami, outside of this 75% the game mode available was just a simple 5 minute exhibition match, with a few of the bigger international football nations on offer.

Getting down to the game, the textures are of a far higher quality and from the few players we could see the player likeness' are much improved. Sadly though the animation hasn't changed much and still doesn't have the fluid reality like movement of the players in the Fifa series. The framerate and stability thankfully are vastly superior but still not flawless.

When playing the game it retains the feel of the Pro Evo series, the major change for us in our short time with it was a much less forgiving system for passing, and all types of long ball's and trough balls. It seems that timing has come to the forefront of the game which I'd be willing to wager will make for a better experience in the long run, with a successful defence splitting pass bring rapturous joy and the other 90% of your passes causing agony and rage in equal measures.

Every year the first few games of Pro Evo are a little bit ropey while you find your feet and wonder will you end up having to go back to the older copy or play fifa. That's why I can't get too angry about the minor bugs and the retention of some framerate issues. At the end of the day I think we PES fans will master the game and come to love it again but that is dependant on the Online side of things, that's where this game lives and dies, and in my opinion that where this whole series lives or dies. Another unusable online component and it could well be the straw the broke the camel's back.

Left 4 Dead, I'm approaching this with fanboyish euphoria, so if that's not your cup of tea you can take your mochafrapacino to go.

As a 4 person group we were in prime position to experience what many will consider the co-op game of the year. Sadly I was split away from the herd leaving Danny, James and Dale to play in a group together, while I played with complete strangers who didn't speak my language. In general that last sentance would be no big deal, but in a game so finely balanced it was a real eye-opener. When the zombies hit the fan I found myself legitimately scared and hoping to hear the voice of one of my cohorts, this bodes well for playing online with randomers.

In our brief playthrough the map, pacing and weaponary options were all as polished as you would hope from Valve. Playing through "movies" that contain "scenes" it really was as cinematic as it sounds. With it's intelligent enemy spawning leaving the perfect lull's before the terrifying rush of zombie folk to envoke an immediate underwear switcheroo. The 2 scenes in the first movie (First movie of 20 might I add) your motivation was simple and effective get to helicopter escape or die, I won't spoil it for anyone but I will stake my reputation (it's the most worthless thing I own) on anyone playing it enjoying it. George Romero would be rising from his grave were he dead.