I could never stop being a gamer.

Now that I don’t have time to play serious games, I find myself compulsively playing stupid kiddy games, such as Facebook games, which I mentioned last week.

I almost feel ashamed of myself.

I also recently downloaded a bunch of free iPhone games just for days when I’m caught with nothing to do outside and I didn’t bring my DS.

Last night, in bed, I decided to play Lemonade Tycoon (!!!) on my phone for 15 minutes to make myself sleepy so I can fall asleep.

I ended up spending an hour on it but it didn’t feel like an hour at all. It felt like 15 minutes.

I had to lock my phone in the bathroom to force myself to sleep.

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Table of Contents

1. Heroes Over Europe
2. Time Wasters by Swordplay
3. Sheylara goes to GCA 09
4. Forza Motorsport 3 video
5. Results of last week’s contest
6. Win a limited Forza 3 2GB thumbdrive!

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Heroes over Europe

A review by the Goonfather

I have always wanted to get into a cockpit and get entangled in chaotic dogfights.

I have tried playing games such as Wing Commander, Strike Commander, F15 Strike Eagle III, Falcon 3.0 and F-22 Lightning II, but gave up after a couple of tries. You need to have attended flight school for a week just to make sense of the controls in these games.

So it was for that reason that I stopped buying flight combat games despite being sorely tempted with each release.

Then, one day, I found a copy of Heroes Over Europe sitting on my desk, courtesy of Sheylara. I hesitated a little. To be honest, I still have an unwrapped copy of Blazing Angels which I bought more than a year ago.

But thanks to the forceful persuasion Sheylara, I finally relented and played Heroes Over Europe over the weekend. My first impression of the game was: “Wow! Easy controls!” There are no gauges to bother with and the controls are as simple as those of FPS games.

The gameplay is less of a flight simulator and more of an arcade shooter, which will appeal to players looking for a fun game rather than a realistic flight sim. There’s the regular “chase, aim and fire” tactic to take down the enemy, or the ace kill mode.

When your meter charges up, you can go into Ace mode where time slows down and you can zoom in a great distance to see in magnified detail the enemy pilot, gunner, engine and ammo container. You will need to hit one of these vital spots to one-shot the plane. (Bigger planes may require two vital spots to be taken.)

There is also a nose dive tactic, in which you’re required to dive straight down at full throttle while firing at the enemy. Damage is maximised in this stunt.

The storyline seems messy and weak as the game takes you to different missions in different areas. The story revolves around three pilots, each out to become a hero of the skies during the WWII era. I just skip the stories and go straight for the action, which is addictive enough as it is.

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Time Wasters by Swordplay

Swordplay is my pesky li’l bro who spends all his time playing time-wasting games. To make him a little bit more useful, I’m sitting on him and making him recommend one fun and simple web-based game each week.

This week: Vox Populi, Vox Dei (a werewolf thriller)

Description: An adventure game about heartbreak and werewolves! Sneak up on werewolves and tear them apart with your bare hands, leaving a trail of pixelated blood.

Gotta love the description!

Vox Populi, Vox Dei, by the way, is a Latin expression meaning “The voice of the people is the voice of God”.

I don’t know what that has to do with werewolves and heartbreak, but it’s a cute, simple side-scrolling game.

Here’s what the pixelated blood looks like.

Yes, I caused that bloodshed, evil me.

You get to pounce on werewolves then hit Space Space Space (see the signboard behind?) to liquefy them. You can actually see the blood spurting out and dripping.

How do they manage to make 8-bit games so gory?

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Sheylara goes to GCA 09

I went to GCA 09, as y’all know, shot some footage and did some interviews.

Here’s the video after much procrastination. (I really dread editing videos cos it’s such a tedious process!)

I mainly just went around the Xbox 360 booth, so you’ll be seeing mostly Forza Motorsport 3 and Halo 3 ODST.

Actually, you’ll be mostly seeing me suck at playing the two games.

I also had a chat with The Great Ian Livingstone (Life President of Eidos, founder of Games Workshop, author of Fighting Fantasy books).

He has a new Fighting Fantasy book out, called Stormslayer. A few other popular titles in the series have also been revamped and republished, with more colour and in B4 size.

I’m also hearing that some FF titles will soon be available on the iPhone and DS, like around Christmas! Gasp!

I digress.

Other interviews in the video: John Wendl (Content Director of Turn 10, for Forza 3), Erik Ford (Regional Senior Marketing Manager, Xbox 360) and the two Forza 3 booth babes!

Forza 3 is looking really great! The demo is out now on Xbox LIVE, so go check it out!

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Forza Motorsport 3

Oh, yeah, I think I haven’t shown the Forza videos here, yet. (I have too many channels for gaming news to take care of, these days. I get confused.)

Check this out. It will make you so want to play the game!

Forza Motorsport releases on Oct 23, 2009, exclusively for the Xbox 360.

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Results of last week’s contest

These exclusive GTA t-shirts are going to three lucky people!

Amazingly, Mr Randomiser picked NNNW, bryan and Piers!

Congratulations! You three are getting the awesome tees!

Please e-mail me to claim your prizes. (Prizes not claimed after two months will be returned to the giveaway pool.)

Thanks!

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Win a limited Forza 3 2GB thumbdrive!

I was going to keep this for myself because it’s beautiful and it’s 2GB!

But after some thought, I decided to be nice and share it. I’m sure some Forza fan out there would love to have this.

This thumbdrive is one of the goodies that come in the Forza Motorsport 3 Limited Edition game.

To win this, tell me how much of a Forza fan you are. The person I think is the biggest fan will win.

Terms & Conditions

1. Winners will not be notified. Please check the next issue of GGF for results and instructions.
2. Prizes not claimed after two months will be returned to the giveaway pool!
3. Closing date is Oct 8, 2009, 11:59pm.

It pays to be a fan!

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Back to the topic of iPhone games, Nanny Wen recently introduced me to this game called Tap Tap Revenge 2. It’s also free. It’s a music game where you tap on notes as they fall.

By the way, I only download free games on the iPhone. It’s like that. When you give someone something free from the start, they find it hard to pay for the same, subsequently.

That’s why I haven’t attempted to purchase the paid version of the game even though I really enjoy it, and it has only a few songs in the free version, and iPhone games are actually really cheap (value for money).

You gotta wonder what’s wrong with people.