Interesting piece of information I stumbled across today. An article on the BBC’s website reports that according to a recent study (read experiment); a few chimps were pitted up against students from the Kyoto University in Japan to test memory tasks. The tests involved remembering random numbers on the screen and then recalling which boxes these numbers were in.

Guess what - the humans lost! Yeah - THE HUMANS LOST!

Interesting because if you start to think about it, here are just some of the 9 major things that could go horribly wrong with life as we know it:

• Counter Strike will no longer be played by 14 year old delinquents.
• You’ll probably get pwn3d in every online deathmatch by a Chimp.
• Donkey Kong now gets to run around and bone princess Peach.
• Ape Escape and Ape Academy will cease to exist and the franchise will die - breaking the hearts of millions of little girls.
• Monkey Island would be called “Guybrush Threepwood’s Adventures”. Ugh!
• You will no longer be able to use terms like “spanking the monkey” or “freezing the balls of a brass monkey”.
• The Foo Fighters would lose a great song.
• Bananas would no longer be used as replacement dildo’s.
• theANGRYpixel staff would become the smartest primates on the planet and we would eventually rule the world.

Got any ideas of what else could go horribly wrong (or right)? Well, write a comment and buy favour with us now… don’t say we didn’t warn you!

Continuing with the tradition of our Thursday Top 10’s, we decided to look at something very obvious, but yet very distinct. So far we’ve looked at the Memorable Character Deaths, the Best Weapons Featured in a FPS and the Top Ten Nine (don’t ask) Original Game Songs. This week, we’re doing a run on some of the most memorable video game themes.

Why? Because apart from the fact how great games really are (no, really!), gamers themselves often tend to rate a game based first on graphics, game play and artistic appeal (though not necessarily in that order) – which is pretty much what decides whether its good enough to play. But EVERY game has to make use of sound and it’s plain to see that, what with games like Half-Life 2 and System Shock 2. Music forms a crucial component of the game-play experience; get the right music at the right time, and you feel the adrenalin pumping. But while most newer games now use ambient noise and music, a lot of cue based intros and then outros – the games we’ve all grown up on and loved have always had that catchy tune, hook, phrase or riff that made everything that much more captivating!

Hit the jump to read more.
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The world is such a better place when you’ve got what everyone has. But what makes it even better is when you’ve waited for something for the better part of a decade! Since November 2002, we’ve waited. But now it’s here and Live will now see a new breed of gamers - Maharaja styleee!

Announced to launch officially on 05/11/07, we all waited for that day when Monday would be everyone’s most favourite-est day. But yesterday (04/11/07, well?!), I walked into my regular game/music store to pick up my copy of Orangebox so I could check what all the buzz around Portal was, and what actually greeted me was the nice, ‘hard-to-rip-off’ orangey soft pack screaming for my attention! Xbox Live was here and a day before the official launch date! Now I don’t know how much trouble this will get me into, but what the hell, I’ve said it now!

So yeah - Gold subscriptions here now in 1, 3 and 12 month subscription options and Live points are here too. I picked up a pack of 1600 points for ± 1000 INR (± $26). Picked up good old Castlevania - SOTN and Geometry Wars, although strangely, Doom was not available for purchase! Strange, indeed.

Up next, I’ll check out all the “Edutainment” products we were promised. Hell, maybe they WILL have an ‘Arbiter teaches typing’ game after all!!

Yeah, the killer app for the PSP looks good. I’ve played the demo and I’m a believer. After impressing me so massively with Daxter, Ready At Dawn studios have done it yet again!

GoW on the PSP looks like everything you’d expect it to be! Beautiful and alive backgrounds, hordes of enemies coming at you wave after wave, the frenzied slash-and-maim action that we love so much, gruesome and bloody deaths and Kratos’ STFU-or-I’ll-shove-this-blade-down-your-throat-and-rip-out-your-intestines attitude.

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Yeah. ANOTHER Bioshock post, as if there weren’t enough of them already! But this one’s special. At least to me. Because Bioshock friggin’ BROKE my console!

It all starts off with me waiting for the game to come out, telling my retailer to hold on to a copy for me - no matter what, finally getting it and applying the patch!

Yeah, the patch. Now this isn’t a rant about the patch itself, but the utter disgust I’m feeling at the lack of proper testing before a release for a patch to a game that isn’t as impressive as it promised to be. Yeah - I can tell that after playing the 1st 3 levels.

Which brings around another observation. Gears of War used the UE3 engine, and it had problems. Bioshock uses UE3 and it has its own problems. No - not just the annoying bastard corpses that keep twitching like a dead frog’s leg being electrocuted, but I also was subjected to torn textures and clipping when viewing a certain surface at an angle! Hey 2K (wherever you are - Boston or Oz) - the last time I saw something like that was on my Diamond Monster Fusion 16 MB 3D accelerator card!! Whatever happened to “next gen”?

So now I’m pissed off because I pre-ordered Halo 3 : Collectors Edition, I’ll have you know - but now all I can do is just sit and read the manual over and over again till I manage to figure out the ending. That, or I get my replacement console by the 26th of September – which seems highly unlikely!

So if you’re reading this because Bioshock broke your console too, then here’s all I have to say -THE DARKNESS kicks ass! On a more constructive note, if you don’t already know, then here’s what to do in case you downloaded the Bioshock patch on Live. To clear the patch from the system’s cache, hold down both RB+LB (that’s the bumpers - NOT triggers) on the controller right from the second you boot your console till the 2K logo finishes. Bear in mind that you’ll need to do this EACH TIME you play the game.

Time for me to go and curl up in a corner while I sob uncontrollably.

Think Evil. Breed Evil. Control All. Thats what the game’s tag line says and you’re all fired up to unleash all your rage caused from years of virginity upon anything that laughs at you. But you’re let down. Why? Read on, and I’ll explain in this very quick take on Overlord.

Overlord is an RPG that allows you to be truly and genuinely evil and piss off the world to no end. The objective here is to strike fear into the hearts of your enemies and make them tremble at your very name. The more people you successfully manage to impress with your evil-ness, the more powerful you become! To do this, in addition to your broke-ass weapon, you’re also given some cool magic spells and most importantly minions to do your bidding. Think of the minions as the Gremlins meets the small wise-ass, smack-talking Grunt dudes from Halo.

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So I downloaded this demo not because I had spare bandwidth, but mostly because of 2 reasons:

1 - A demo on XBL that weighs in at 500 Megs MUST be downloaded. (except Vampire Rain and Tenchu)
2 - Recommended by my good buddy, Krishnan.

So I downloaded the demo expecting to see what this game was all about. What I’ve seen, makes me believe!!

As the name suggests, TimeShift is a game where you play around with - you guessed it, time. You dont have to wait too long to figure out how, because the intro cinematic pretty much sets the mood and leaves you with a need that MUST be fed - the need to control time. To do this, you’re equipped with a special Alpha/Beta suit that allows you to twist time, any way you want.

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