Saints Row: The Third

Check out the review here

Free Games!

Free games for Xbox Gold members from July

Skyri Humour

Memes and other funny goodness right here

Modern Warfare 3 Humour

Click here for your MW3 humour

Microsoft's 180!

Xbox drops DRM

Sunday, 28 July 2013

PAX Australia: Xbox One



More Xbox One coverage. Enjoy.

Tuesday, 23 July 2013

Sony offers PS4 Devkits to Universities.


SCEE’s head of academic development says Sony are helping to improve teaching with their PlayStationFirst Academic Programme, which is strategically vital for the future of their business. PlayStationFirst is now open for expressions of interest from universities who want to access PlayStation 4 dev kits in 2014, once developer demand has been met.

Dr Maria Stukoff says: “Our aim is to increase the quality and teaching of game courses and therefore we demand universities reach a certain level before they can register on the full programme. Engaging with academia means that SCEE is actively taking part in shaping the future of game development education and offering pathways for students to get skilled-up whilst learning about the industry, the players and the products.”

PlayStationFirst is a Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE) and SCE Worldwide Studios (SCE WWS) partnership programme which introduces aspiring developers, computer scientists and researchers to Sony’s dev tools while they are at university. Institutions on the scheme get access to cut-price dev kits and other benefits as Sony invest in a generation of developers who they hope will become PlayStation-savvy.

Stukoff adds: “It is of huge strategic importance to the future of our business. Technology for gaming is evolving at an ever-increasing rate while traditional markets are changing. The next-gen of indie developers are currently in education and PlayStationFirst provides this talent group with unique access to our professional PlayStation tools and support and to choose PlayStation as a platform of choice to learn their craft to create fun news gaming experiences.”

The PS4 academic licencing programme will begin in 2014. “We’d like to start sooner,” explains Stukoff, “but the main challenge is that all most PS4 dev kits will be sucked up by the keen demand of PlayStation registered game developers. However we are offering immediate access to PS Vita SDK, our latest console which has a lot of similarity with the approaches taken on PS4, so as an example the Visual Studio based approach taken by the Razor optimisation tool is common across both platforms – and so students getting experience today on PS Vita will be able to smoothly migrate to PS4.”

Sony’s interest in indie – which is increasingly cited as the career route of choice by young developers – has been reinvigorated by high-profile success stories such as Journey. And its commitment to small-budget development was reiterated by Mark Cerny at the Develop conference. Stukoff explains that PlayStationFirst should be seen as a route to next gen publishing by aspiring developers. “Since the dawn of PlayStation, SCE has provided access to universities to explore our full professional SDK and tools. Providing access to the PS4 SDK is a natural step for us, especially when building upon the complementary skills PS Vita development has to offer. This is about finding the talent and enabling that talent to get skilled-up and be future-fit for PlayStation publishing opportunities.”

Citing examples such as Sheffield Hallam University’s puzzle game Bounceback, which was published by the university’s own studio Steel Minions for PSP in 2012, Stukoff adds: “We are really keen for students to publish their games on PSN and will continue to promote channels for student games to feature on PlayStation whilst studying. Playground Squad, who are based in Sweden, have published various PlayStation mini titles such as ‘Swap Zap!’ and are about to release their first PS Vita title. So, watch this space…”

PlayStationFirst-registered universities will gain access to support akin to help offered to commercial game developers, a feature unique to Sony’s programme says Stukoff. “Alongside providing online training we offer mentors from all disciples of our studio. Furthermore we are actively support educational events, student game jams and completions hosted by our University members.”

Since its launch three years ago, PlayStation first has tripled its number of partners to 100. Now the scheme is expanding to not only cover Australia, Middle East, Europe and the UK by offering the same support and access to our hardware to Universities in America and Japan.

Universities interested in taking part in PlayStationFirst should email applications@ps-edu.scedev.net to discuss registration. Once SCEE send out the official application form, they will review applicants. Institutions have to fulfil a set of academic and PlayStation oriented criteria to demonstrate the use of PlayStation technologies as a critical part of the teaching curriculum. Institutions who do not meet Sony’s criteria can work towards elgibility for the programme by gaining access to other platforms such as the Move.me SDK and PlayStationMobile.

“PlayStation 4 is setting the pace for global indie development, we are very excited that through PlayStationFirst we are able to offer registered Universities access to PlayStation 4 for the next generation of soon-to-be Indie developers,” adds Mick Hocking, vice president studio group at London and Evolution Studios. “Now is the time for new talent to get skilled up on PS Vita and explore the future of PlayStation game development.”

Thanks to edge-online for this article.

Sunday, 23 June 2013

Blog Update!

YJB Reviews has now been renamed to Fist Pump Gaming.

We are currently updating the blog; so many of the links may not work. Please be patient.
We shall still post news during this time. (Yes, we have more writers.)

Thanks.

- YJB

In the mean time:



Friday, 21 June 2013

Xbox One Drops DRM.


As you may as well have heard by now. The Xbox One has changed their policies; this has created memes and jokes with the unofficial  renaming of the console to "Xbox 180".

What does this mean? Well, you can now play offline without needing an internet check. You can lend your discs freely and so on.

You can find the official article here. Xbox.com

This does sadly drop some awesome features that would have potentially shaken the gaming industry.
Sadly, the 'loud minority' won... or I dare say, the ignorant.

Monday, 10 June 2013

Free Games on Xbox



Xbox has started a new scheme. All gold members will get 2 free xbox games every month starting from July.


In the mean time, Fable 3 is currently free to download on the Xbox marketplace.

Grab it here Xbox Marketplace




Update:
The two games that are announced for July are: Assassins Creed II and Halo 3
The availability window will be July 1st - 16th. Be sure to download them if you do not possess these!

If you have no room for these, no worries! As long as you press download and then cancel, the games will stay on your account for future download.



Tuesday, 2 April 2013

Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition - Title Update 9

Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition's latest Title Update (9) has recently past Microsofts certification testing and has been announced by 4J that the newest patch will be released on 5th April.

Friday, 29 March 2013

The Walking Dead 'SpringSale!'



The Walking Dead game by TellTale Games is a fantastic piece of art, I highly suggest that you play it if you have not done so already.

Xbox Live customers can get the chance to grab episode 1 for FREE on the Spring Sale (which is located on your dashboard). Along with the free edition is a 200 Microsoft Points reduction for all episodes of The Walking Dead. This means you can grab the whole season for a whooping 800 Microsoft Points! (£6.80), compared to the 2000 Microsoft Points (£17.00) it would cost you.

A game of this quality and immersion is well worth the cost and your time. What are you doing still reading this? Go and play!

Thursday, 28 February 2013

PS Vita First Impression



After going away from blogging I found this in my draft pile. I realise that I was very excited when I first got my hands on this device and believed it would go far... no. It is sadly not been given the love it deserves.

On that note, after the PS4 announcement I do believe Sony are planning on giving the Vita more TLC that it deserves and using a similar system that the Wii U and 3DS have been implementing (but better apparently).


Dues Ex: Human Defiance


Dues Ex: Human Defiance was recently trademarked by Square Enix.
What is Human Defiance? Well it could be a number of things: a hopeful sequel, an alternative game in the series or it could even be the movie that is in the pipeline. I am not quite sure nor do I wish to confirm.

Only time will tell.


Saturday, 4 February 2012

The Witcher 2


The Witcher 2 Assassins of Kings is a third-person RPG. Both games have been a hit on the PC and also gained infamy for its "sex cards"(The Witcher) and sexual scenes (The Witcher 2).

Saturday, 21 January 2012

Resident Evil 6 Announced


The trailer looks immense and hopefully this surpasses all the previous instalments. Not to mention the terrible controls.


Tuesday, 17 January 2012

Fallout New Vegas Ultimate

Ultimate's information

Sunday, 15 January 2012

MW3 Humour


Well it is time for some MW3 banter.

Wednesday, 11 January 2012

Skyrim Humour

Welcome to the new year! Hope you had a great celebration period.


We should of all had enough time to play Skyrim and experience the highs and the lows... and the tragic bugs.

Saturday, 24 December 2011

Merry Christmas!

Hey everyone! Have a great Christmas!

I have been rather quiet on the blogging front but I will be back very shortly with more news and reviews.



- YJB

Monday, 19 December 2011

Reviews

This page will compile all the reviews that I have written up.

Game Title - Format

The format in bold is the system used to help write up the review.

Saints Row: The Third - Xbox 360, PS3, PC

Sunday, 18 December 2011

Saints Row: The Third Review



Published By: THQ
Developed By: Volition
Genre: Action
Release Date: 
- NA - Nov 15, '11
AU - Nov 15, '11
JP - Nov 17, '11
- EU - Nov 18, '11
PEGI: 18+
Available On: Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC
Also Known As: Saints Row 3

Super Mario Beatbox

The wonders of the interweb has shown me some creativity from a rather insane beatboxer.
His name is HIKAKIN and he has covered many popular songs and the sort.
Just check out this video below.


Monday, 12 December 2011

Modern Warfare 3 Hits $1bn Mark





Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 has earned $1bn (£640) in its first 16 days of it's release.
This means it has beat James Cameron's film Avatar. Avatar achieved the billion dollar mark in 17 days.


World Gone Sour




Capcom are to create a downloadable game for Xbox Live Arcade, the PlayStation Network, and PC. It is to feature the famous candy known as the Sour Patch Kids. Yes, you are to play as a Sour Patch Kid.