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Trent Petronaitis
Posted on 23.03.2008 in Articles, Reviews


The series had a small revive on the Nintendo DS system a few years ago by Konami and since then, the welcome hasn’t been all that warm. With many saying the new games do not meet up to the original game Survival Kids.

Fanboys and girls alike could hide behind the series and be blatant about what games sucked. When it comes down to it, none of the games in the series are perfect and many have some nice interesting features. At the end of the day Lost in Blue 3 is what Lost in Blue should have been.

The series has a very basic promise, with your characters always winding up on a deserted island after their boat sinks in the middle of the ocean. Like all games in the series you some how land on an island which is deeply tied to a criminal gang.

Your character lands on the beach and soon enough decides he remembers crap all about who he is and were he is. But his memory is soon jogged as you go through the game and learn about the story, as well as the mysteries which surround the island.

The plot twists and turns as you play the game are more interesting and detailed then the past games in the series.

The game introduces many fixes but few things new from the last instalment in the series Lost in Blue 2. Lost in Blue 2 introduced a new feature to building which was a small mini game which you had to cut the wood then press on areas for the rope to be tied. This is still in Lost in Blue 3 and has had the room for error decreased, like most other mini games. For example the fire mini game you can never fail unless you don’t do what it says. In the earlier games you would always loose your sticks if you go faster or slower than the last one. But in this instalment of the series the room for error has been shrunken allowing you to speed along or be slower than normal.

Konami has added more backdrops to areas as well as making the graphics slightly better. The backdrops appear in the fishing mini games and when you talk to a character. It is now relating to the area you are not the same background for any location.

Konami has also added more music into the game, past games only had music when you were about to die or a 10second intro into an area. Music now plays in every location basically and the sound track is very interesting. It fits well with the game and the music is very slight to the sounds of nature around the island.

Something interesting Konami has thrown at us this time around is instead of 2 characters you now have 4 which can be playable and live with you. Some people believe this would suck, but it works much easier. You can now go out and do what ever and concentrate less on doing stuff. The other characters you can then have get firewood or food. So it becomes a small community which works together. Also different characters have different skills.

One stuff up you could say which Konami has done to the game is change the Quick Save to a ‘Your Parents want you to do something quick and you need to save the game’ saving system. In which that means you then go to the title screen, instead of continue game play. It would be good if it was an option after its saved such as ‘End or Continue’.

THUMBS UP

Game play: Lost in Blue 3 has very similar game play to the past games in the series. But it doesn’t feel broken but it would still be nice with some more fine tuning.

Controls: Like the game play, the controls are very similar to past games in the series. Also like the game play it doesn’t feel as broken as before but would really do some with more fine tuning.

Sounds: The music and general sounds in the game do not feel out of place or retarded.

Replay: Konami has made a good game, but when it comes to replay its lacking, there is more than the older games. But it still needs improvement. A feature regarding replay you can play as the other 2 characters not just the original girl and boy. Which start in different locations and the game play is different.

Summery: Over all Konami has improved the formula for the series, making this the best game in the series. One thing they have forgotten is that this would have been good if it came out instead of Lost in Blue or Lost in Blue 2. As those two games feel much like an experiment and have destroyed the fan base because of it. This game is great, but not good enough to fix what Konami wrecked. To do that they would have to change the formula very much so.

Review to be posted on www.sk.trinest.com, http://blog.trinest.com (http://trin-blog.blogspot.com) only. You may report this review on a blog or site, but you may not produce large chunks of it.

Review by: Trent Petronaitis

Trent Petronaitis
Posted on 11.03.2008 in Articles, Reviews


The first part was very much what the Game offers. You can view that here.

So this game Bully. Many people can describe it as this ‘missions, mini-games and bashing people up’, and many people will be right.

The game in the first ch. is very limited to what you can do, you can attend classes and do the range of missions which don’t seem to present themselves are much as the later ch. So that can put a few gamers of the game, but don’t put it down before you get to the next chapter which I found to be more open and free to do what you want, theres more things you can unlock and the general missions are much more appealing.

One of the missions I did in the second ch. was a panty rade on the girls dorm. Issued by whom? Well the seady gym teacher out the front of a XXX shot. The cut scene was quite funny and one of the ones I didn’t skip.

So when it comes to the story, I’m quite happy.

When it comes to controls you have a very smooth control scheame. I was very pleased with it as it was really easy to jump in and play. Though the mini games are very tight in some parts.

I have one biff with the control style some of the missions or mini games revolves you shooting something in sniper mode with your snigshot or at the carnival it involves you playing the shooting games. While the control scheme works well, it is quite tiring so the Nintendo Wii Zapper comes in handy here to put the wiimote into for those few things to finish these with flying colours.

The music isn’t in your face and works well as background music.

Some funny things to do in the game is to kiss this guy and afterwoods hes has some very funny homosexual dialogue which he says to you around the place.

Or put your hand up the secuartys dress then she gets mad and follows you around the school.

You can get haircuts and buy clothes like GTA:SA. Infact the world is very much like GTA:SA. Some argument comes into it if its bigger than GTA:VC or smaller. The world of Bully is around the same size as the VC city world, infact maybe smaller. It’s hard to tell due to the range of transport you have.

Doing classes gives you either more clothes, moves or skills. An assentive to attend the boring mini-games. Music, Art, Cemistry and Photography have some fun to them, but after awhile they get boring so you end up skipping school and hanging around town doing the missions all the time.

With the reports of glitches from the Xbox360 version some might ask if the Wii version incounters the same. The game can glitch a few times but it only happens…bearly never and nothing to worrie about.

Review Score

Thumbs Up

I give Bully: Scholaryship Edition for the Nintendo Wii a thumbs up. The game is very well done and is a different aproch to the sand-box genure.

Thumbs up means that this game is a game which I recomend to anyone to buy or play.

Trent Petronaitis
Posted on 10.03.2008 in Articles, Reviews

Enhanced Graphics. Enchanged Gameplay. That is the “promise” which is on the back of the box. But does Bully for the Wii live up to it?

Before I continue the title Bully: Scholaryship Edition is a updated version of Rockstar’s last PS2 title Bully.

The game lets you take control of a teenage rebal called Jimmy Hopkins who his parents have abandoned him at this snooty stricky bording school called Bullworth Academy.

So ofcourse don’t think your getting off easy. You attend classes…or not. Bully on the other kids and avoid the athorty figures.

Through out the school you have all your generic school yard types. I have outlined them here.

Nerds are the kids who look the worst and wear these retarded green clothes. While how annoying they are, they come out good on the end been a strong ally with many reasources you can use.

You then have your Preppies who are just rich fuckers. The Jocks who are tough tools who bully the nerds and always seem to out number you if you try and fuck with them.

Another group at Bullworth is the Greasers these are people who wear leather jackets and hang out at the auto shop. Don’t mess with these guys. They don’t like the average Joe walking around their turf.

You then have your authority figures such as Prefects, Teachers and outside the school there are Cops. These guys try and push law and order on you all the time. Look sideways and your busted.

Outside of school as well you have townies which are everyone that dosen’t live at school. They are total tools.

But don’t think these guys can get the upper hand on you. Throughout the game you can find nerous things to help you out. Such as firecrackers, a slingshot, scateboart, stink bomb, marbles itching poweder and eggs and much much more.

The classes are mini games which you must attend, if a prefect catches you outside of class durring the time one is on, you will be teleported to the class and have to do the mini game if you are caught.

Mathematics class is a mini game which you click on the right answer.

English minigames feature you making words out of a group of letters.

One of the better ones Biology you cut open a range of animals and take out their organs.

The Art class mini game is also fun, you make boxes while other objects try and stop you from making them.

Music is a Rayman Raving Rabbid music minigame clone. It features you wacking either the nunchuck or wiimote in time with the music.

Geography is a bland subject but more fun than English or Math. You put a flag onto a country it represents.

Chemistry is one of the only useful classes. You mix chemicals together to create a reasoruce such as a firecracker or stink bomb etc.

Photography is a subject you unlock after you get a camera. You go around school or town taking pictures.

Gym is another useful class were you learn more moves.

Shop is were you fix up bikes and other automobiles.

All minigames are timed and feel a bit tight but once you get going its easy.

Controls are one of the games hightlights. Rockstar have gotten the scheme of control quite right. You use the control-stick to move around. Pressing some buttons do attacks and swinning the Wiimote or Nunchuck also attacks someone. + and – goes through your weapons and other items.

Music isn’t a strong point but it suits the game well as background music rather than in your face fucking metal or rap shit.

I recomend this game to anyone who can get it.

Trent Petronaitis
Posted on 08.03.2008 in Articles, News, Previews

dum…. dum…. dum…. dum….
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There are a few retro games which I love and will buy anything relating to them no matter how crap they are and hide behind my fanboism when it comes to these games.
Those are:
- Space Invaders
- Suvival Kids/Lost in Blue
- Rampage
and a few others.

Tatio has announced another Space Invaders game. Tatio so far is the best with the licence…(Is it even a licence anymore?) with Space Invaders Extreme for the Nintendo DS been really fun online and offline.

The past Space Invaders games by developers I admit were sour and Tatio is here to turn things around. They have made some great games like Lost Magic for the DS.


TREMBLE IN FEAR AT OUR THREE DIFFERENT KINDS OF SHIPS!

If you were wondering what you did in this version…

“Increase speed, drop down and reverse direction!”

You are the Space Invaders and you distory shit in a Rampage like fasion.

“You are defeated. Instead of shooting where I was, you should have shot where I was going to be. Muahahahaha!”

Which means I like it 10x as much ^_^

I hope this isn’t on Wiiware due to Nintendo’s retarded ‘You can’t take your games with you to other peoples Wiis and you can’t murge your account with other peoples Wii’s if they are in your own household’.

If its WiiWare it can STFU no matter how good it is…

Trent Petronaitis
Posted on 19.01.2008 in Articles

I love it when the gaming industry has another storm. For the past few years it’s been Jack Tompson this and that. Everyone is sick of that crap now.

The latest in the ring is between GameCock Head Mike Wilson and John Romero.
John was the first to say something.

So, over on Kotaku they have a news item about Gamecock’s release schedule. Once again, just like with Godgames, Wilson is taking all the credit away from the indie devs and pasting his asinine logo everywhere.

I got a chuckle out of reading the reader’s comments on the article. People are now starting to get a clue about how Mr. Wilson operates. Hey everyone, he hasn’t changed in over 10 years – these are the kinds of jackass stunts he pulled at Ion Storm with Daikatana. Remember the bitch ad? Yeah. He also ran ads (“image ads”) that just had pictures of Ion Storm founders, himself and our COO. That was just the beginning of his madness.

It got much worse at Godgames where he pretty much just partied all the time and after the whole thing got reined in by Take 2 he went underground for a while, waiting for his next victim/investor so he could go hogwild all over again. And thus was born Gamecock.

Then came the blow from Mike.

Dear John, I’m writing this letter from Moscow, having just read your lovely post about me, which a good friend forwarded me and implored me to reply to. I really never thought I would relive the joy that was Ion Storm, circa 1997, or that the memories of those times still troubled you so 11 years later. Then again, I would guess you live in the memories of your twenties as much as you can, given the reality of your thirties. Glad to know I’m still in your thoughts.
I enjoyed your comments very much, but several of my friends (especially those that were around for those heady time to witness the truth of it up close) did not find it quite so funny, and thought that I should take the time to set a few things straight as publicly as the flame you chose to randomly launch my way.

While I am not at all interested in reliving those days, I will also not allow you to rewrite the history of it all, more to your liking and to my public detriment, and I will in no way take the rap for what you did (or didn’t do)with your dream company. So here are just a few reminders to jog your memory.

While my job title (which you gave me) was CEO of your company, I was one of two “junior partners” in a partnership of 6. I made about 1/3 of what the ‘big boy partners’ (as you liked to call yourselves back then) did and owned less than five percent of your company. I wasn’t awarded a 250k signing bonus like you were for signing up to your own startup and I didn’t have a personal assistant like you, nor occupy one of the 4 corners of power in the original Ion Storm building. And unlike you, I didn’t get to file a federal trademark for my own personal catch phrase,” Suck it Down.” I remind you of these things only to remind you that there was absolutely nothing done by me or Ion Storm, including the advertisements which bore your name and which you happily posed for, that didn’t require your full approval and grand signature.

And while I did think that famous Bitch ad was pretty funny, I’ll remind you that you signed that one too, and I’m fairly certain I wasn’t holding your hand or using a Jedi mind trick on you when you did it. I’ll also remind you that the whole reason for running the teaser ad was that we felt we should be starting to advertise the game since it you said was shipping so soon, for Christmas in 1997. Even though we had nothing but a logo and that signature promise to use for an ad 6 months before you promised Eidos and your partners that Daikatana would be ready to redefine shooters on shelves worldwide.

Our former employee also reminded me that I fought on a daily basis to try to save that company from the poison which you had invited into it (and watched spread like a cancer while you kept your head in the sand), only to find myself ushered out the door, since it was such a buzz kill to hear my incessant complaints about the way things were being run, which were really those of the 80 or so young fresh faced developers we hired in the 10 months I was there. But hey, it was clear that I was the problem there, as you guys really took off the year after I left. Or, more accurately, nearly every one of those 80 hires did.

I do owe you a thank you for that little shove to get me started on Gathering of Developers, a company that I was an actual partner of, and which Take Two ‘reigned in’ buy buying for 30 million dollars, two years after we opened an office, which resulted in no less than eight million unit selling PC games and over 350 million dollars in revenue for TTWO (my investors) during roughly the same amount of time that it took you and the remaining ‘big boy partners’ to shit away Eidos’ (your investors) 30 million and deliver one of the biggest heaps of dung ever put onto a CD Rom, just before being foreclosed on. Thank god for Warren Spector, who was also made a ‘junior partner’, and later delivered Eidos Storm’s only salvation in the form of Deus Ex.

And please don’t be too concerned for the independent developers I work with… just like with GodGames, and like the deal I struck for you with Eidos, Gamecock owns their IP and is branded above the publisher on everything, and has a great royalty rate. Royalty rates are what you make if you actually make a game that is good and sells. Remember Quake one?

I’m also grateful for your concern over my incessant partying, which has somehow led me to be married to the same beautiful woman for 17 years now, while raising two incredible daughters together. You should maybe try the partying, since your unparalleled work ethic and strong character has (just in the time I’ve known you) left only a bloody trail of ex-wives, fatherless kids, and ill advised breast implants strewn across this fair nation, even before you flew all the way to Romania for your latest wife. If she’s not still around, let me know, and I’ll see if I can pick another one up for you here in Russia.

Its been great catching up, but I’m off to dinner now with Harry Miller, my best friend and business partner for the past decade (ever had one of those, John?), and our very happy new investor, followed by some crazy partying to keep it real, just for you.

You take care now, and remember just because id, Eidos, and then Midway fired you doesn’t mean you’re not still awesome!

Suck it down,

Your pal Mike

First I like to say this. Dikatania fucking rocks. You guys have no taste. (I’m talking to the general public here) Second you guys shouldn’t make judgments about these guys afairs. Third now to the parties involved. Stop bitch fighting through Kotaku you look like bloody kids.

To those people who now bitch about GameCock’s game line up etc. They are a publishing company that is why they don’t have ‘games coming out from them’. Second they have published good games Dementium: The Ward for example. The team who made that seem to be happy with what they get from GameCock.

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