On 12th February 2009 there will be a LIVE event in London where 8 gamers from around Europe will compete against each other and be the first to play FEAR 2: Project Origin.
Anyone can enter and all winners will have their expenses paid to get to London for the event.
For more information and to enter, visit www.whatisfearlive.com
Closing date for entries is 2nd February 2009
Yes I am alive. I came back from my annual Christmas holiday and was immediately struck down by a horrible viral cold/flu-like illness or something which has had me bed ridden for 4 days. Yesterday I managed to scrape myself out of bed to get to the doctors to find I have a nasty chest infection and need antibiotics.
Now this “I am Alive” moment is not actually about my near-half-death-ness but it is about a new game on the horizon called “I Am Alive” and being developed by Ubisoft.
The official trailer reminds me of a series recently on UK television called Survivors where people were scrapping others for food and water.
This game may not see the light of day this year but I for one will be watching it closely. It may end up being another game I am watching for a long time with no solid release date, just like Alan Wake. The game will be released for Xbox 360, PS3 and PC.
When it was announced that the Call of Duty series was going back to WW2 after the wonder of Call of Duty Modern Warfare, fans across the globe cried many tears wondering why go back to a tired old genre when modern warfare was so successful.
But I have to be different. I love WW2 games and was very disappointed when Call of Duty 4 went to modern warfare. Don’t get me wrong, it was a good game but it was not what I wanted. So I had a lot of delight when it was announced they would go back to World War 2. Not just WW2 though, not just the French towns and farms of old, but a new area. Cue the Pacific and Berlin!
Call of Duty World at War takes you to the Americans fight with the Japanese in the Pacific and the Russians pushing the Germans back to Berlin.
The game is very bloody and brutal and even some of the loading screens showed real life WW2 footage of deaths. This was quite shocking, one scene showed a blindfolded man being executed (shot in the chest). I am not sure these sort of real life scenes have a place in video games but it does supplement the game quite well showing the real horrors of the war as it was back then.
The difficulty of the game was quite hard at times. There are scenes where not only you have to deal with the enemy front, left, right and behind, but you also had to deal with them hiding atop trees above you. Then of course you have to deal with the Japanese soldiers who played dead who suddenly jump out at you and attack you. These were quite easy to spot though as when going into a new area you knew you never killed them so they must be still alive.
Graphically the game does look amazing and quite rightly so as it runs the engine which was used in Call of Duty 4. I would say this game looked a bit better though at times, especially when large explosions were involved. The game was longer than Call of Duty 4 and I managed the single player in around 7-8 hours.
I enjoyed this game so much that it is another contender for my game of the year.
This is not a full review and just a basic outline of the game but if I were to review it my score would be a healthy GREAT/10
I was asked to write a review for this game PURE of course I jumped at the chance to play a game before release. But what I failed to mention to them and what I should reveal now is that I hate racing games. I hate them mostly because I am rubbish at them and feel more at home with a good story-driven game.
So it has been hard for me to decide how to approach this review. Of course I have to be impartial and just say really whether it is good or bad and hope that my hatred of racing games is brushed aside.
Yes I know, it is not Sunday, but I thought I would announce a little side project I am doing for Sprites & Bites which will be starting this coming Sunday. Every Sunday I will be posting a new post based on an up and coming game.
To improve reader content for the blog I would like everyone to create a screenshot for the announced game to be included in the Sunday post. Entries must be drawn by yourselves in whatever medium you choose and must reflect the game of the week. You can use Artpad, or Paint or whatever program you want to use. If using Artpad, please take a screenshot of your final work and send it over. You do not need to be good at art to send a submission. It will not necessarily be the best screenshot that gets placed into the post, it will be the one or two shots which reflect the game in question well.
The game announcement will be held midweek on a Tuesday, the closing time for entries for that week will be 12pm Midday on Sunday. For an example screenshot please see the post here
All entries which do not make it into the original post will enter the users gallery for everyone to admire, hate or even laugh at. 
So get your artistic computer pens at the ready, the first game to be featured in the Screenshot Sunday will be “Star Wars: The Force Unleashed”.
Please send all entries to beck AT spritesandbites.net and put “screenshot sunday” in the title.
Sprites & Bites is coming up to 2 years old and I don’t have the will to blog anymore. I am feeling very frustrated about where to go from now. After a few security scares with wordpress and with Google reporting my site as infected – it is clean, but they have yet to remove the bad flag on my domain this may be the straw that breaks the camels back.
The other problem is writers block. I just do not know what to write about anymore and am feeling blogged-out, for want of a better term.
This is not a goodbye, but more of a cry for help. If anyone has any ideas on how to freshen up the site and to motivate me, then please let me know.