Friday Frugal Findings

It’s the weekend again, and thank Jebus for that. Its been a long week here at Reaper Towers and as we rush about finishing off our chores, mucking out the dragon nests, bathing the Ogres and producing offerings for the Great Old Ones, we all have only one thing on our minds… LA Noire. For those of you who are fiscally challenged or just have little interest in Rockstar’s latest jewel, here are some games to consider getting your thumbs around as you settle in with that saucy wench that is your gaming platform of choice.


Dirt 3; Xbox 360/PS3 at Amazon UK
£37.91/$61.63/43.39 Euro

“Brum brum, screech, smash” That Ladies and Jellyspoons is my total knowledge of cars in a nutshell., however some of you seem to like these new fangled contraptions, even more so when they are hammering around a track at breakneck speeds, so if your one of these types Codemasters have just the thing. The third in the Dirt franchise offers double the amount of tracks that appear in Dirt 2, over fifty Rally Cars and more mud, sweat and gears than you can shake a sparkplug at. Dirt 3 is out on 24th of this month.

Killzone 3; PS3 at Game
£24.99/$40.70/28.63 Euro

A fantastic alternative for disillusioned CoD players, battle your way through everything from alien jungles to artic tundra, get your grubby mits on a varied and diverse range of weapons and beat the living daylights out of the Helghast with a brutal melee system.

Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing; Wii at Amazon UK
£12.99/$21.14/14.89 Euro

Race around the track with Sonic and chums in this high speed cartoon romp.

Yakuza 4; PS3 at Amazon UK
£26.75/$43.46/30.63 Euro

How do you like your Japan? Personally I like it with a slab of crime and more than a dash of marshal arts, which means Yakuza 4 is perfect. An open world title, that’s a cross between GTA and Street Fighter, with enough RPG elements to keep you interested as you immerse yourself into the Japanese underworld. If this is your first foray into the Yakuza games you don’t have to worry about missing out on any of the plot from the first three releases as you get a recap at the start. As we have come to expect from releases from the Far East, there is quite a bit of dialog and cut scenes, but these only help to pull you deeper into the rich storyline. There are a couple of things that may put you off, the dialogue is in Japanese (so you’ll need your reading glasses for the subtitles) and graphically, with the exception of the cut scenes, it’s a bit weak. Your getting a hell of a lot of bang for your buck here though, with hours, if not days worth of playtime.

Rock Band: The Beatles; Xbox 360 at Play.com
£5.00/$8.15/5.73 Euro

A cracking excuse to get drunk and wear mop top wigs.

"Gears of War 3" Campaign Trailer on 28 May

Press Release:

Assemble your squad and brace yourself for a stunning look at the most anticipated blockbuster of the year, as a new trailer for “Gears of War 3” premieres next Saturday, 28 May during two of the world’s biggest sporting events of the month.

The spectacular conclusion to one of the most celebrated sagas in video games, “Gears of War 3” has already surpassed one million pre-orders worldwide, making it the fastest pre-selling Xbox exclusive in the history of the platform. As further testament to the immense anticipation surrounding the game, more than one million players participated in the “Gears of War 3” multiplayer beta this spring, helping refine and polish the hotly anticipated juggernaut.

Irish & UK fans will be able to watch the trailer when it airs on Sky Sports 1 at 9.45PM on Saturday, 28 May 2011.

Microsoft to Replace 360's Damaged by Firmware Update

Microsoft have confirmed they are to replace, free of charge, all 360's that have been damaged by their latest firmware update. The update is intented to expand the amount of data that can be read and carried on new discs appearing soon, however some console owners have found that they are unable to play games since this latest bit of tinkering, recieving error messages informing them that current discs are unreadable or incompatable.

In a statement to Eurogamer a Microsoft representitive said:

"Following a recent update to our system software, we have become aware of an issue that is preventing a very small number of Xbox 360 owners from playing retail game discs. This issue manifests itself a as a unique 'disc unreadable' or 'disc unsupported' error on the screen. We are also able to detect this issue over Xbox Live and are proactively reaching out to customers that may be impacted to replace their console."

If you do find your console has been affected you can also contact Microsoft here.

Curiouser and Curiouser - Alice: Madness Returns New Story Trailer

Alice! a childish story take,
And with a gentle hand
Lay it where Childhood's dreams are twined
In Memory's mystic band,
Like pilgrim's withered wreath of flowers
Plucked in a far-off land.

Things are not going well for Alice it appears, it seems her previous journeys into Wonderland have fried her brain box somewhat or perhaps the years of ingesting massive amounts of Mescaline have finally caught up with her. Either way, in this new story teaser trailer from EA and Spicy Horse we find Lewis Carroll's creation under going some much needed therapy, but lets just say this session isn't going as well as it might have.

Alice: Madness Returns is due for release on 14th and 16th of June on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC.

Duke Nukem - History of a Legend - Pt1

Me and Duke are good buddies, have been for many years. We often go shooting up the town, popping some caps in aliens asses and then hang out in strip joints afterwards, we might even rent a holiday home together next summer... but for the rest of you unprivileged mortals who don't know the great Duke'y then wrap you face orbs around this vid and learn some history in preparation for June 10th(Global) or 14th(USA) - That right! - I said 'Learn'. Demo hits June 3rd - but only for pre-order and Duke Club members - That's Right!! - I said 'Members'. Check out the official website here for more vids and trailers - including the 'Feces' one, yuk!. That's Right I sai... aww forget it!

PES 2012 - Will it be an improvment??

So 2012 is coming and along with the possible end of the world scenario there will be the usual invasion of sporty games begging for our cash. Time to pick sides again - Pro Evo or Fifa? - the eternal question, eh?! Fifa always had the polish and licences that have eluded Pro Evo and with Fifa basically stealing Evo's great gameplay mechanics in recent years, it has really been a tough time for poor old Evo. Since about 2007 Evo has struggled to get back its glory but with little sucess, only the hard core supporters have been keeping the title afloat, at least up on till this year with Evo 2011, which was better but still not quite there... Below is a vid of the Evo creator 'Seabass' giving us a yarn on what improvements to expect in the coming game. Warning - Its a vid for hardcore footy game heads, to anyone else it will be just boring. You can follow PES 2012 on facebook here.

I really hope they do sort their shit out and make Evo 2012 a great game, we here at Reaper Towers have very fond memories of the series as far back as when it was know by the name 'International Superstar Soccer' or ISS. Yeah, I know... were old.