It all started with Breakout in 1976 created by Atari and was followed by the cult hit Arkanoid by Taito in 1976. I all the time since then so many clones have been made that it’s just unbelievable, such a simple concept of a game derived from Pong.

Now we have Shatter by Sidhe a Wellington game developer that has gained international renown for a game that in the beginning was based on Pong. Shatter is much more than just another Arkanoid clone though it’s taken the idea and added some 2009 polish and innovation.

What features makes Shatter standout among all the clones? First up I have never seen a game with so much polish, and by that I mean all the graphics, sounds, physics and game-play have been worked into perfection. All the graphics are 3D even though the game is 2D by nature, this is a game worth drooling over, and the graphics make it such a pleasure to watch.

In the middle of play you can shoot out as many balls into play as you want, keeping in mind that each one is a life. So if you have 3 lives, you can shoot out 3 balls making for bigger combos and a higher score, but be careful each of those balls is a life so if you lose even one you are still losing a life. You have two ways of affecting the physics in play, Blow and Suck: Blow pushes Blocks, Shards and the Ball away from you while suck does the reverse. Sucking in all the Shards boosts your power meter which powers your shields and when full lets you unleash a shardstorm destroying or damaging all the bricks it hits.

Game Modes

Story Mode

Story Mode takes you through various worlds with each one containing different styles of levels and its own music. At the end of each world there is a Boss that you must destroy before you can continue. The bosses range from nice an easy to controller throwing, keyboard smashing frustrating.

High scores are listed both for each world and for story mode as a whole, but remember, if you run out of lives you can use a continue… setting your score back to 0.

Endless

Endless mode is exactly that, endless. Waves of blocks keep spawning at the far end of the play field and slowly move towards you and it’s up to you to survive this onslaught.

Endless also sports a Co-Op version where 2 players on the same computer team up to take on the endless block hordes.

Time Attack

In Time attack you face the same challenge as Endless except with a 5 minute time limit. Same deal with Time Attack Co-Op.

Bonus Mode

Bonus Mode pits you against 3 balls in play that move faster each time they hit your Bat and it’s up to you to keep all three in play for as long as possible. There are 3 levels where each one is a different shape and all have 3 balls in them and your score gets totalled up after all three levels.

Boss Mode

Boss Mode pits you against Boss after Boss until you’ve gone through every boss in story mode the challenge here is not only to survive but to kill all the bosses in the shortest time possible.

Soundtrack

This game has one of the best soundtracks for a game to come out in a long time; it both sets the feel of the game and is enjoyable to listen to.

And now I leave you with this awesome peice of entertainment to feast your eyes and ears upon.

Alright, so for about 1-2 months I’ve been out of action on the forums and blogs due to some crazy time warping…

But dont panic! I’m finally back…and I hope to stay around this time.

So yea, here’s a quick summary of everything you’ve missed (detail comes after):

• I jizzm’d at the thought of Left4Dead 2
• Modern Warfare 2 promises a better Single Player campaign than COD4: MW
• MW2 aired its trailer on Sunday night handegg (see football) in the US
• I got Red Faction Guerilla
• I got rid of Red Faction Guerilla
• I found Eve…I got sick of it
• I played DDO to death with Budda and Aezra
• Me and Fireryda now play Resident Evil 5
• Abel from SFIV was once going to be a poof

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So yea, lets do this in order. L4D2, you have all the usual special infected from L4D but now there are even more special ones like the Charger, Jockey and Spitter as well as various regional common infected like Swamp zombehs.

Here is some gameplay footage of the new Special Infected and here is a list of achievements…but if you’re anything like me, who cares I just wanna eat brainz!

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This is all I have to say about MW2:

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Me and Budda both bought Red Faction Guerilla for PC expecting a kick ass sequel to the original which I rather enjoyed.

Instead we were treated to a raging pile of turds. It was a blatant console port, OTS aim with impossibly hard to use mouse sensitivity settings. Everything was sped up by like a million times…Now to some this may not sound bad but get this: I played on Casual, the easiest mode, with an automatic rifle and in the first firefight I got into, I died within seconds…Me…died…on easy…WHAT THE FFFFFFFFFFFFF-!! Basically it comes down to the enemy bots being able to dive roll at near enough to the speed of light…you cant aim at them fast enough.

And then dont even get me started on that THERES NO GODDAMN SURROUND SOUND SUPPORT! Which is cool for people with speakers…I however have a choice between 5.1 speakers or 7.1 headphones…without stereo speakers all you can hear is the blasting engine noise from any vehicle within line of sight…its so loud you cant hear NPC’s talking or anything…and get this, even if you turn off the “environment noise” it does NOTHING.

Shit game, dont buy…unless its for console…also it has a terrible story line.

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Played eve, got to the point where I can now fly interceptors…cbf paying for another month.

End of that story

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Me Budda and Aezra (the latter 2 from xeta clan) played DDO to death, basically its been the only game I’ve really sat down and played in the last few months…its entertaining and I love my Monk

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Fireryda made me get RE5, it took me about 2 weeks to get it…but its finally there. Again its just a straight console port to PC which frustrates the living hell out of me…however I have a PS controller and I have previously played this game a lot on my mates PS3 so it makes sense to play it like a console.

That an zombehs are fun, even if they are all black.

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And goddamn I laughed…this is a story from Kotaku of what Abel was going to be…and honestly I would have been happier if he was a small androgynous boy because that way I would go “awww” every time I lost to him instead of “GODDAMNIT YOU FRENCH PIECE OF SHIT!” every time he does his “I saw that!” roll into grab that removes half your HP.

I cant tell the difference, can you?

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And now you’re up to date, I haven’t done too much gaming recently as tech work was piling on and even then I shouldn’t have played so much anyway…Time for me to go update the anime blog.

Churr, leave comments and questions and stuff.

Watch the Marvel vs Capcom 2 Trailer

After finishing arcade mode a couple times, jumped online to vs other people. Found a bunch on … except no one withing my region. So I had to settle for an American who had 250ish ping. Surprisingly, the lagg wasn’t noticeable. On occasion it would glitch a bit, but I had expected far worse. Too bad that damn american kept porjectile + assist spamming and eventually guard breaking me to a slow and lousy death. He later messages me saying “srry for acting PSSY, but i want to get the gold trophy” (-.-). Anyway, sick of Americans and their ideals, I moved to Jap and vs this guy who absolulely slaughtered/butched/massacred the living shit out of me and I had only managed to hit him ONCE, while he combo-ed my ass with magneto. *sigh* Lesson learnt, don’t play with Japs .. Despite the 0 – 2 loss, I am still keen on playing online, hopefully find an opponent who isn’t too good or isn’t cheap. So, here is the wrap …. It’s a classic. MvC2 remains a faithful port of the original, which you can’t complain. But maybe next time they port it, they should fix up the glitches and those infinite combos that seem to break the game. If you have no idea what I’m mean, I’ll leave you with this video. MvC2 Exploits

Daigo defeated Justin Wong at Evolution 2009 with Ryu while Justin played as Balrog after changing from Abel…who is a dickhead. Bloody frenchies..

This guy is a legend in SF…for those that dont know the grudge and sheer awesomeness of the two players…check out this clip:

Wiki Page of Daigo here

Again…well done to Daigo!

Kotaku link here