See you next week, while we are going to talk about the most anticipated game of the year!

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Games we’ve been playing this week: Fat Princess (PS3), Afrika (PS3), Uncharted 2 (PS3), Saw (Xbox 360), Borderlands (Xbox 360).

Thanks for listening! Don’t forget to visit the web site at pstp.podbean.com. You can send a comment to our email address, mailbag.pstp@gmail.com. Don’t forget to subscribe to us on iTunes and our youtube channel www.youtube.com/pstponline.

Games we’ve been playing this week: Halo 3: ODST (Xbox 360), Left 4 Dead (PC), William’s Pinball Hall of Fame (Xbox 360), Rock Revolution (Xbox 360).

The Classic Critique will be back next week!

Thanks for listening! Don’t forget to visit the web site at pstp.podbean.com. You can send a comment to our email address, mailbag.pstp@gmail.com. Don’t forget to subscribe to us on iTunes and our youtube channel www.youtube.com/pstponline.

This week’s link: Final Fantasy XIII English Trailer

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Classic Critique of the Week: Venom/Spider-Man: Separation Anxiety. Watch us playing here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5Z-bMWlJaw

Thanks for listening! Don’t forget to visit the web site at pstp.podbean.com. You can send a comment to our email address, mailbag.pstp@gmail.com. Don’t forget to subscribe to us on iTunes and our youtube channel www.youtube.com/pstponline.

Classic Critique of the Week: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Hyperstone Heist for the Sega Mega Drive. Watch us playing here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hq_yn1NNWqQ.

Thanks for listening! Don’t forget to visit the web site at pstp.podbean.com. You can send a comment to our email address, mailbag.pstp@gmail.com. Don’t forget to subscribe to us on iTunes and our youtube channel www.youtube.com/pstponline.

Games we’ve been playing this week: UFC 2009 Undisputed (Xbox 360), Monster Lab (Playstation 2), Prototype (Xbox 360), Shaun White Snowboarding (Xbox 360), FlatOut: Ultimate Carnage (Xbox 360), Zoids Assault (Xbox 360), BattleField 1943 (Xbox Live Arcade), Velvet Assassin (Xbox 360), Legendary: The Box (Xbox 360).

Classic Critique of the Week: For the first time on the podcast, we are reviewing a hidden gem on the Famicom, the shoot ‘em up, Crisis Force by Konami. As always, you can watch us playing here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdK079cSDVE.

Exceptionally, next week podcast is probably going to be delayed again. So, join us in two weeks!

Thanks for listening! Don’t forget to visit the web site at pstp.podbean.com. You can send a comment to our email address, mailbag.pstp@gmail.com. Don’t forget to subscribe to us on iTunes and our youtube channel www.youtube.com/pstponline.

Classic Critique of the Week: A little bit of arcade, a little bit of western cowboys, a little bit of a run and gun, YES! This is Sunset Riders on the Super Nintendo. (Watch us playing here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0fYut__b-0).

Join us next week!

Thanks for listening! Don’t forget to visit the web site at pstp.podbean.com. You can send a comment to our email address, mailbag.pstp@gmail.com. Don’t forget to subscribe to us on iTunes and our youtube channel www.youtube.com/pstponline.

Classic Critique of the Week: Heavy Barrel for the NES. (Gameplay: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esoQ6ux9mwE).

Join us next week!

Thanks for listening! Don’t forget to visit the web site at pstp.podbean.com. You can send a comment to our email address, mailbag.pstp@gmail.com. Don’t forget to subscribe to us on iTunes and our youtube channel www.youtube.com/pstponline.

Classic Critique of the Week: Pocky & Rocky 2 (Super Nintendo). (Watch us playing here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k77I7eZDJi8).

Join us next week!Thanks for listening! Don’t forget to visit the web site at pstp.podbean.com. You can send a comment to our email address, mailbag.pstp@gmail.com. Don’t forget to subscribe to us on iTunes and our youtube channel www.youtube.com/pstponline.

Games we’ve been playing this week: Banjo-Tooie (XBLA), Bionic Commando: Rearmed (XBLA), Mass Effect (Xbox 360), Crackdown (Xbox 360), Infamous (PS3), X-Men Origins: Wolverine (Xbox 360), Raiden Fighters Aces (Xbox 360), Dead Man’s Hand (PC), BLACK (Xbox), Tenchu Z (Xbox 360), Doom 3: Resurrection of Evil (Xbox), Rock Band Unplugged (PSP), The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (NDS), The Legendary Starfy (NDS), Boing! Docomodake (NDS).

Join us next week, classic critique you will have…

Thanks for listening! Don’t forget to visit the web site at pstp.podbean.com. You can send a comment to our email address, mailbag.pstp@gmail.com. Don’t forget to subscribe to us on iTunes and our youtube channel www.youtube.com/pstponline.

This year’s show was great. As usual, lots of news, lots of announcements, listen to this week’s episode to learn the most.

Part 1 - We go with ours predictions with this pre-E3 24 hours before the event started. (Most of ours affirmations turned out to be correct!)

Part 2 - We recap the Microsoft press conference (Overall, they were the best!)

Part 3 - We discuss on the Nintendo and Sony press conferences (Impressed by Nintendo, again, Sony fails!)

Join us next week, when our classic formula will come back.

Thanks for listening! Don’t forget to visit the web site at pstp.podbean.com. You can send a comment to our email address, mailbag.pstp@gmail.com. Don’t forget to subscribe to us on iTunes and our youtube channel www.youtube.com/pstponline.

*sorry for the sound quality, we recorded this podcast at 3 different places.

A fresh and fun new take on tower defense that has you wondering if you really wanted to see a plant eat a zombie.

What makes Pop Cap Game’ Plants vs. Zombies so unique? Well, other than the fact that there are plants fighting against a mob of zombies, quite a bit. The game delivers a new take on tower defense that has added layers of strategy that will have you wanting more.

Tower defense games are a dime a dozen in this day and age; each with its own way of attempting to be unique. Traditionally, in tower defense games, the enemies would start at point a and travel to point b by following a set path. You, as the defender, would set up some form of defense along that pathway and every enemy would be subjected to the towers. PvZ changes up that formula by changing the path that the enemies follow. Instead of the a to b path strategy, PvZ has six lanes that go from left to right. The Zombies begin on the right and attempt to invade your house on the left. You must strategically plant your plants, one at a time, in the lane that you see fit. But, like with anything in life, flowers are not free. Each flower costs a certain amount of “Sunshine” and a delay between uses. These two aspects is what makes you strategically plan your moves as opposed to planting carelessly. Since plants can only attack zombies in their lanes, with the exception of a few higher level flowers, a hasty planted defender plant will be useless in a lane with no zombies and your house becomes an easy target for the walking dead. There are two ways of earning sunshine in the game, either from it falling from the sky every so often (where else would it come from?) or from sunflowers (go figure.) The more sunflowers you have the more sunshine you can harvest and the more plants you can plant or you can plant more effective plants. The other bit of strategy that PvZ banks on is that your land itself is divided into 45 individual squares where one plant occupies one square. You must use your wits to balance the number of sunshine producers and defenders. It sounds more complicated that it actually is.

Your land is a precious, limited, resource and with the right balance of defending and attacking plants, victory is easily attainable. PvZ has an almanac of different plants from pea shooters who shoot a single pea down its lane to a plant that harkens to a look-a-like Audrey II from the Little Shop of Horrors movie. There are “wall” nuts that act as walls and cherry bombs that also do what their name implies. The sheer variety of plants allows for a number of ways to play and still be successful on any level. But even the zombies have a few tricks up their sleeps, or lack their of. In PvZ you can expect anything from zombie football players to zombie zamboni drivers who can ice over a complete lane rendering it useless. Each zombie and plant are well drawn and look almost as if they came out of a 2d platformer. They are all easily identifiable on the field which allows you to properly react to the invasion appropriately. There is no shortage of strategies that you can apply since every level will have you dealing with something totally different from the last.

The game offers up five different stages each with 10 levels each. The first stage has you learning the basics on your typical front lawn with nothing really special. The second stage has you doing something completely different by defending your place at night ( that means you don’t have access to sunshine.) You do, however, get access to a breed of plant who doesn’t need any sunshine to grow. This was what really surprised me about PvZ. They were able to take a simple idea but still provide a very engaging experience every level of the way. No two levels feel the same and you will rarely ever do the same thing twice to win. You really have to understand what each plant does and how they can work together rather than individually to win.

Not every level goes the same way either. Some levels do not require you to harvest sunshine but rather have a conveyor belt at the top of the screen with random cards that come down that you can plant anywhere on the field without paying its costs. It really does feel that the developers wanted the player to experience something new on every level and apply difficulty in ways beyond simply adding more zombies. That level of care really does show and this is a great example of why PvZ shines as a tower defense game.

Beyond the game, there are minigames that are unlocked as you play the main story mode and range from a slot machine type game to a game based on the popular bejeweled called “begouled.” The other, more unique, game is one called Zen garden. This is essentially a plant nursery where you are rewarded coins based on how well your plants are taken care of; neither tower nor defense. PvZ will have you replaying previous levels to earn coins that unlock better plants for your arsenal or more valuable plants for your Zen garden. These extra options are a welcomed change of pace from the story more and have much to offer in terms of replay-ability.

There is definitely nothing like it out there, in terms of personality and entertainment value. PvZ has something for everyone from the hardcore strategist to the casual botanist. There is a lot of replay value and it is definitely one of the best tower defense games out there. Anyone who wants a change of the ordinary will not be disappointed with this one.

Rating: -A

Ricardo R.

Games we’ve been playing this week: UFC 2009 Undisputed (Xbox 360), Fifa Street 3 (Xbox 360), Terminator Salvation (Xbox 360), InFamous (PS3). 

We are finally reviewing the final disc 4 of Lost Odyssey. What does it contains? BOSSES … 

Thanks for listening! Don’t forget to visit the web site at pstp.podbean.com. You can send a comment to our email address, mailbag.pstp@gmail.com. Don’t forget to subscribe to us on iTunes and our youtube channel www.youtube.com/pstponline.

Games we’ve been playing this week: Killing Floor (PC Steam), Call of Duty: World at War (PC), Made Man (PS2), Patapon (PSP), Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune (PS3), Rag Doll Kung Fu: Fists of Plastic (PS3 PSN), SingStar (PS3), UFC 2009 Undisputed (Xbox 360), 1 vs. 100 Canadian Beta (Xbox 360).

Join us next week, more games are awaiting to be played, and the result of our last week of the Lost Odyssey journey! (Real this time!)

Thanks for listening! Don’t forget to visit the web site at pstp.podbean.com. You can send a comment to our email address, mailbag.pstp@gmail.com. Don’t forget to subscribe to us on iTunes and our youtube channel www.youtube.com/pstponline.

Games we’ve been playing this week: Geist (Nintendo GameCube), Plants vs. Zombies (PC - Steam), Grand Theft Auto IV (PC), Prinny: Can I Really Be The Hero (PSP), Elite Force: Unit 77 (Nintendo DS),  Resistance: Retribution (PSP), Tomb Raider: Underworld (Xbox 360), Monster Jam (Xbox 360).

We Discuss About Remote Play on PSP and PS3 really quick and at the end, we started to tease with our few thoughts on E3 2009. (rumors and spoilers)

Join us next week, more games are awaiting to be played, and the result of our last week of the Lost Odyssey journey!

Thanks for listening! Don’t forget to visit the web site at pstp.podbean.com. You can send a comment to our email address, mailbag.pstp@gmail.com. Don’t forget to subscribe to us on iTunes and our youtube channel www.youtube.com/pstponline.

Games we’ve been playing this week: Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X. (Xbox 360), Battlestations Pacific (Xbox 360), Contra 4 (NDS), Viking: Battle for Asgard (Xbox 360), Zeno Clash (PC), Frontlines: Fuel of War (Xbox 360), X-Men Origins: Wolverine (Xbox 360), UFC 2009 Undisputed (Xbox 360).

We are reviewing and discussing: Lost Odyssey Disc 2. The disc was more painful than the first one. The game is turning into a real RPG. (instead of a casual one that we thought at the beginning).

Join us next week, more games are awaiting to be played, and the result of our 3rd week of the Lost Odyssey journey!

Zeno clash is most definitely a very unique visual experience offering a 1st person melee combat system in a surreal caveman-esque dystopia. It’s very hard to describe exactly what you will see in the game since everything is so bizarre, but in a good way.The setting itself is very surreal with animals that seem to come straight out of someone’s Spore Cast. The colours are vibrant and everything feels like a Saturday morning cartoon on crack. At times, the setting does feel so bizarre that it takes you out of the experience just to analyze exactly what you’re seeing but those moments are few and far between.

Each area of Zeno Clash is divided into ‘fights.’ Where they are preceded by a versus screen showing you and your opponents. More often than not, it will be you versus three enemies that are just as visually unique as the surroundings. The only people to look like humans are you and your partner who is usually not around when a fight breaks out. Putting its unique visuals aside, Zeno Clash is a very by the book 1st person ’shooter’. The combat of Zeno Clash is mainly through hand to hand combat, where your moves are decided by which direction you’re pushing and which mouse button you used much like a boxer maneuvers his body to shift his weight properly to throw certain punches.

On the defensive side, you can block, evade or, if timed correctly with your opponents strike, a parry that allows for a devastating counterattack. The combat is no more complicated than that but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t very satisfying. Every strike feels like you’re hitting with all of your force and there is a very visceral feeling to it. This fits well with the b.c. time period. Even though it is very satisfying, there isn’t much to sink your teeth into once you get a hang of the basic movements. This may come to a disappointment to those who enjoy having a complete list of combos and moves at their disposal. This can be frustrating at times since the fights are you versus many, you may feel that you are being overwhelmed, especially in the later levels. You may end up resorting to cheap tactics simply to get past certain areas of the game.

Another unique aspect of Zeno Clash is that there is very little gunplay this 1st person action game. The guns are used more as a way of weakening your opponents or as a finisher rather than the main method of winning. More often than not, one strong strike from your opponent will knock the gun from your hand and you’ll be back to fisticuffs. Since the combat itself is very bare-bones, some will feel that it is much too repetitive for its own good. At about the halfway mark of the game, the combat attempts to vary itself by offering up new enemies and settings. Though, this may not be seen by those who already get bored by the combat before this point.

Zeno Clash is definitely unique experience and can offer a rewarding experience to those who can muscle their way through the receptiveness but it’s definitely not for everyone.

Rating: B

-Ricardo R.

For the beginning, we are going through the game schedule for this week. (Velvet Assassin, Banjo-Tooie XBLA, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Cryostasis). 

A little bit of news: Trailer for Dead Rising 2 just came out (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNcUByV_My4), A brand new bundle for the Xbox 360 Elite is coming up next week (it will include: Halo 3 and Fable 2), if you didn’t did it yet… you can go pre-order the game Ghostbusters at Gamestop or EB Games to get an exclusive bad ass t-shirt.

We are reviewing and discussing: Lost Odyssey Disc 1. (Remember, we have a month to finish this game, 1 disc per week). Overall, we did enjoy the 1st part, hopefully the rest of the game will go as smoothly as the 1st DVD.

Games we’ve been playing this week: Demigod (PC), Splinter Cell: Double Agent (Xbox 360), Viking: Battle for Asgard (Xbox 360), Sega Superstar Tennis (Xbox 360), Left 4 Dead Survival Mode (PC).

Join us next week, more games are awaiting to be played, and the result of our 2nd week of the Lost Odyssey journey!

Thanks for listening! Don’t forget to visit the web site at pstp.podbean.com. You can send a comment to our email address, mailbag.pstp@gmail.com. Don’t forget to subscribe to us on iTunes and our youtube channel www.youtube.com/pstponline.