Game over for GAME Group?

On the 26th March, Game Group PLC- the parent company of high street video game retailers GAME and Gamestation- went into administration, with administrators PricewaterhouseCoopers announcing the immediate closure of 277 stores in the UK and Ireland, and the redundancy of 2,104 employees.

Store credit cards are no longer redeemable either, so I can kiss the seven quid I have on my Gamestation card goodbye.

My local Gamestation was unfortunately one of the 277 shut down this week, much to my grievance, as it is one of the very few successful specialist shops in Halesowen town centre. The ignorant or uninformed will no doubt attribute it to inflated mall property rental fees- but I'm pretty certain that high street game retailers face a much larger problem in the form of an often superior alternative.

It's no surprise that GAME Group's troubles have been largely attributed to their inability to compete with online games retailers such as Amazon and Play.com, and let's face it- all is fair in love and stores. I do prefer going to a local game shop and picking up games and/or consoles in person, on the day, and taking them home.  It's good to be able to come away from spending your money with something instantly tangible, and to not have to worry about when it arrives.

But, the often cheaper prices of new and charting games, guaranteed next day and overall convenience factor offered by online retailers is hard to beat- high street game stores such as GAME and Gamestation cannot really compete with that without taking a few hits themselves. Couple that with "ambitious internal expansion" (as stated by PricewaterhouseCoopers in a BBC News article) and other financial difficulties, and GAME Group find themselves just hoping that somebody will buy them out and keep the brand alive.

Furthermore, should GAME and Gamestation cease to exist completely, I can imagine that this would have a serious impact on the sale of used games and consoles. Even now, buying games and games consoles used, or trading said items in for store credit is a lucrative business area, which some bigwig games publishers/developers (such as EA) are looking to stamp out completely in order to make sure that only they will be the ones skimming any fat.

I hope that the over two-thousand staff who have been affect by store closures are not only cared for and compensated accordinglu, but are soon able to find work elsewhere. I hope that GAME Group does manage to rise from the ashes, for the good of high street game retailing in the UK and world wide. I also hope that, maybe one day, Halesowen town centre will get it's Gamestation back. One can hope.

'Dear future glue sticks...'

This week I'm going to walk you through my experience of one of the latest games I've got my grubby mitts on. What is it, you ask? Well, behold:

OH GOD, THEY LOOK LIKE THEY'RE DEAD INSIDE.

Yes, for the princely sum of £1.99 (or 1p used) on Amazon, you too can own a copy of My Little Pony: Best Friends Ball. Would you want to? Well, it depends on how much you value your eyeballs.

It came in the post and I eagerly ripped it open and put it in my laptop, ready for candy colored equine goodness. So it starts up, and...

WHAT'S WRONG WITH IT? FETCH THE SHOTGUN!

Yeah, Rainbow Dash is leaping around the screen banging on about a party and calling everyone 'darling'. Ugh. Ok, let's get going:

'Pick one'. Ok, do they have different magic powers? Is one an expert in weaponry? Oh, they're just different colours. Ok, then, sod it, I'll be Pinkie Pie. OH GOD SHE SOUNDS LIKE SHE HAD A LOBOTOMY.

Then I'm taken to my house in Ponyville, which... I'm not sure what the purpose of it is, actually, apart from a base to send invitations to this ball thing. I decided to decorate it in the most clashing way possible, as protest.

Oh yeah, the invites. I decided to choose the most pathetic message possible, and then covered it in stickers so it looked like Lisa Frank threw up on a Barbie doll. Shame you couldn't write your own message. 'Dear future glue sticks, please come to my party or I'll kill a puppy.'

Right, off out for a stroll then. You can only move left or right, and when you meet another pony, that pony stands stock still and only their mouth moves, like a rudimentary puppet. It is very, very disturbing.

That is, until I accidentally clicked on a bush and that pony popped out, giggling 'tee hee, I'm hiding!' AAAARGGHH! What else is hiding in the scenery? Killer butterflies? Bunny rabbits wielding axes? Eep.

So I went into the cake baker's house, to, you know, make a cake. Then that happened. OH GOD, IT'S GOING TO EAT ME WHOLE.

Worth noting: When baking a cake, you can put mushrooms in it. THIS. EXPLAINS. EVERYTHING.

Given an opportunity such as this, usually I opt to write graphic swearwords, but I restrained myself this time.

DRESS UP TIME! I think my top hat is rather spiffing. It goes well with my tutu, at any rate.

So I wander up to the castle and no one's decorated it for the ball yet! What's going on here? Do none of these ponies have jobs to do?! I created a pony conga line in protest, and that's when my eyeballs started to bleed.

So should you play My Little Pony: Best Friends Ball? Well, it's cheaper than laser eye surgery.

Monday Richard's review mania

Welcome back to Monday Richard's review mania!

Film - Thor

I was disappointed by Thor, but I'm not entirely sure why. the action was pretty good and some of the set pieces where amazing. but the story does not seem to go anywhere, it meanders around a bit without anything overly exciting happening.

Its a classic brother competing for there fathers love plot. but that's about it, you keep waiting for the twist and when it comes its disappointing to say the least.

I'm only giving this film 2 brains, but i'm not saying you should not go see it, just don't expect anything amazing from it.

Xbox 360 game - Bulletstorm

Bulletstorm's plot is also completely irrelevance but it this case it actually works in the games favour. the plot it dumb to say the least the dialogue is crude and is almost completely curse words. but its... fun...

There is no other way to put it some of the stupid dialogue genuinely made me laugh and the set pieces are amazingly fun, the weapons are over the top and just pure fun to use. plus i can't understate how much fun it is to use the slide to get around the whole game.

3.5 out of 5 brains

Film - Press Start

This is a low budget independent film, but its a good one. The story is your classic RPG fair a chosen hero goes out to collect the sacred stones to slay Count Nefarious Vile. he teams up with a ninja and a space warrior (who turns out to be a girl)

This film pokes fun at all aspects of gaming, from the classic 8-bit all the way up to modern day but does it in such a charming way its impossible not to love. i honestly can't recommend it enough go watch it, plus the sequel just came out.

4.5 out of 5 brains

Board game - paper-clip railway

Before i get into this review i have to stress that the version i played of this was a unfinished prototype.

This game has an interesting concept, its like ticket to ride, but using a free form board layout and paper-clips to represent the length of the rails.

However the rules are a little convoluted and not very well explined (although i have heard they have tweaked the rules a little) to start with the game was slow and uninteresting, but once the game got going i actually had some fun with it. plotting how to make your railways stealing station points from you opponents is fun but the final scoring is a little over complicated.

My main issue with this game however is the way its presented, in my view it should not be a full boardgame, it should be a cheep PDF game that you use your own paper-clips to play.

1 out of 5 brains