Features// SPOnG's Review of the Year: September / October

David Cooke – Director of the BBFC – 08/10/2008
BBFC Knocks Back Revised Manhunt 2

The start of October. Oh how we laughed!

The Chintendo Vii! Best. Piracy. Ever. 'Nuff said.

Next up was hardware news of a more legitimate nature, namely, the Xbox 360 Arcade. Although it was not officially announced by Microsoft initially, it turned up on a couple of prominent US retail websites. Lo and behold, a few weeks later the 360 Arcade arrived on UK shelves with a £199.99 price point, HDMI output and a handful of Xbox Live Arcade games.

Keeping on the Microsoft track, we found out that Halo 3 had racked up an impressive (if not altogether surprising) £147.36 million in sales worldwide, making it what Microsoft called “the fastest-selling video game ever”.

Then it was back to hardware. If you were starting to get thoroughly baffled by/bored of new stock keeping units (SKUs) of the various consoles out there, SPOnG can sympathise. By this point, the number of hardware announcements we'd had in 2007 was starting to get faintly ridiculous. Anyway, Sony got round to announcing the rumoured 40GB PS3, complete with a lower price point, fewer USB ports and no backwards compatibility. To go with it, Sony also slashed the price of the 60GB model to £350, complete with two games. SPOnG caught up with Ray Maguire, Sony Computer Entertainment UK's managing director, to chat about it.

Unfortunately, it turned out there was a very good reason for Sony chopping down the price of the 60GB model. It was to be discontinued.

A little more heartache came our way from the BBFC when it decided that the revised version of Manhunt 2 that Rockstar had submitted for classification just wasn't nice enough. It was good enough for the States, apparently, but too violent for us Brits. If only we'd been more desensitised to violence!

That didn't stop the game from getting into punters hands, however. A leaked version of it had been doing the rounds on the Interweb for a while, and it was only a matter of time before a mainstream media outlet got hold of the news and made a to-do about it. The outlet in question this time was Sky News. Naturally, uproar followed. Take-Two blamed Sony, Sony wouldn't say anything, someone took someone else's dummy and threw it in the mud...

At least our chat with Tanya Byron, head of the government's investigation into violence in games, made SPOnG feel that the rest of the world wasn't completely against us.

By the middle of the month, Sony's new pricing strategy for the PS3 seemed to be paying dividends. Sales for week one of the 40GB PS3's lifespan showed a massive 178% spike. We could almost hear the smirk on Sony's face.

Unfortunately, it didn't prove to be enough to stop Sony declaring that its games division losses worldwide would be double its initial estimates for the year.

It looked, for a moment, like we were going to end October on a high note. Reports suggested that the lovely Angelina Jolie would ape her performance in Beowulf to make a naked appearance in Ubisoft's game adaptation. SPOnG was momentarily driven to distraction. When we came to, the SPOnG underwater castle was a in a state and Andy was hanging upside down from the chandelier. Then we decided to think about it. Then we realised that Ms. Jolie hadn't actually been listed as one of the actors lending her likeness to the film and would most likely have been high up the list. Then we felt a bit foolish about Andy's location. Ah well...

Never mind all that though. There were games! Metroid Prime 3: Corruption finally found its way onto the Wii over here. It made us happy. Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction made it to our reviewer and a warm reception in his gentle hands. Clive Barker's Jericho didn't quite set our world on fire, unfortunately. The Orange Box's release on the PC and 360 helped ease our pain, though.

Roll on Greedmas!