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Whenever a conversation on videogame genres veers towards survival horror, one name invariably jumps to everyone’s mind: the Resident Evil series. For more than a decade, Resident Evil has been getting us to wet our pants with embarrassing frequency. Even after taking a surprisingly action oriented approach with the fourth game in the series, Capcom still managed to get us to soil our pants again. However, is Resident Evil’s first foray into hi-definition going to make us buy a new pair of trousers again? It did not take us long to find the answer as we popped in the disc in our Xbox 360 on a chilly, rainy evening.
I remember my childhood obsession with airplanes very well – spending hours in a large wardrobe where I’d painstakingly “recreated” the cockpit of a fighter aircraft as realistically as I could at the age of 12 – exquisitely detailed HB-pencil and Crayola renditions of flight instruments, avionics and multiple bogeys, twelve o’clock high – where I’d sit for hours with a motorcycle helmet and a cricket bat serving as my HUD and my control stick, engaged in vivid imaginations of life-and-death dogfights at twenty five thousand feet. My poor parents assumed their kid was probably going to grow up to become an ace fighter pilot (or at the least, fly for an international carrier), that is, until television, videogames and an insatiable lust for pastry made sure my vision nosedived while my midriff went in the opposite direction.
With my flying career aborted before take-off, I found my lust for taking to the skies satisfied by the likes of Dale Brown’s tales of aerial derring-do and games such as Falcon 4.0, Jane’s Combat Simulations, Crimson Skies and Blazing Angels before being welcomed into the experienced embrace of Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator, IL-2 Sturmovik, Ace Combat and the unparalleled Lock On: Modern Air Combat, incidentally another Ubisoft IP. After having suckled at these teats for the better part of a decade now, Ubisoft dangles a brand new pacifier in the form of Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X. – a game that challenges Ace Combat to a 1:1 dogfight in its own airspace – toting an all new graphics engine, pick-up-and-play mechanics and a roster of aircraft that puts Fires of Liberation out to pasture. The real question is – can it deliver?
What do you get when you thrust a controller into the hands of an FPS veteran and push him into the ring to square off against some of the world’s deadliest fighters, both real and virtual?
A palpitating heart?
Cold sweat?
Numb fingers?
I would say all of these and much more, for that is exactly how I ended up once our Editor-in-Chief thrust the latest addition to the Street Fighter franchise into my hands and barked out an order to review it. Now saying I am a newbie to the genre would be putting it very mildly. Having been a PC gamer for the better part of my life, I have always given fighting games a wide pass. So when Street Fighter IV was announced a while back, I wasn’t one among the hordes of fans cheering, fainting or singing hallelujah in the streets, accompanied by frenzied high-pitched screams of “Shoryuken!”, “Tiger Fist” and other guttural noises. Which kinda neatly explains how I’ve remained untouched by all the hype surrounding the game, until the review copy landed in my lap one fine morning.
Phew, we’ve been getting so much of Street Fighter IV love over the days that we just couldn’t bear to tear ourselves out of our game to do the stuff we were supposed to be doing – you know, like, the reviews and contests and all that jazz. With contests raining down every which way at The ANGRY Pixel over the last couple of days, we decided that the best thing to help ourselves and our brain-frozen readers if we ran a (oh god!) trivia contest. So, who amongst you are well versed with your Street Fighter lore? ‘Coz we’ve got one of our resident Transformers-loving, smooth-talking, ass-kicking Street Fighter fan to come up with a list of questions designed to leave you scratching your head as you figure out the right answer. So, what are you waiting for, head on over to our cooler-than-Daddy McCool Street Fighter IV Launch Center to get your shoryuken on, there’s prizes to be won! Chop, chop!
Contest Details / Terms & Conditions / End-dates
And the fight is finished! We’ve thought about this long and hard and we’ve finally decided upon the winners of our Halo 3 Mythic Map Pack contest, which entitles two lucky blokes to download the upcoming Mythic Map Pack for Halo 3 (costing 800 Microsoft Points) for the awesome price of free! We received well over fifty entries for just two codes, and we selected these two images because, well, they were just so damn artistic, something that we feel wouldn’t be out of place even on the back of the Halo 3 box! Without further ado, I give you your winners, Brett Sams (GT: A pIastic bag) and Paul Hoang (GT: jEEborz). Take it away, guys!
Art by Toonrama
Whee, looks like February was a great month for kicking off our extensive coverage of all the hottest video content available on the Internet. With over 80+ high-quality, 720p HD videos that we put up on our YouTube channel (or as we like to call it – TAP TV), we’re off to a great start in providing the latest hi-def game videos to our readers, including hot, exclusive footage from Resident Evil 5 and Wanted: Weapons of Fate and a veritable feast of videos including footage from The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay, Halo Wars, Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 – Uprising, Street Fighter IV, not to mention, the first trailers for games such as Dante’s Inferno, Battlefield 1943, God of War III, Dead Rising 2 and a whole lot more.
So, here’s a complete list of all the videos that are available for your viewing pleasure right now on our video channel. And oh yeah, if you liked the videos and appreciate our effort in getting these to you as soon as they hit the internet, drop us a comment and subscribe to our video updates to stay on top of the latest content to hit the gaming circuit.
Who wants some?
After having finished playing The Lost and Damned and working to get a review out, there I was, thinking about what our next contest should be post-Killzone 2 and our upcoming Street Fighter IV announcement. Rummaging through HBO, we decided that we’d hit up our contacts at Microsoft India to see if we could do a Halo Wars contest, with us giving out a couple of copies of Halo Wars and codes for the Halo 3 Mythic Pack, which you’d have gotten if you swiped your charge card pfhor the Halo Wars Collector’s Edition.
So imagine my surprise when I get an email late afternoon with two codes pfhor the Mythic map pack to give away to our readers. After the initial shock and spending 20 minutes fighting a sudden selfish desire to keep one of them pfhor myself, we now have two codes to give away to our “dear” readers. (Gah!) Quite obviously, we’ve never had the habit of just throwing our prizes away, so yeah, you’ll have to work your fat ass pfhor your codes, typical TAP style. That’s right, no soap-box / toothpaste commercial inspired contests, no “figure out the uber-secret message in bold in our earlier reviews” and most definitely, none of those “be the first to email us and tell us you want to have our babies.” Nuh-uh!
OK, so, not a lot of people made it to the Street Fighter IV launch party at The Living Room last week. Probably because they were busy spending quality time with their friends and loved ones, telling them how important they are when you’re living life at 120 mph. Or they were probably in bed, sipping on a cup of hot coffee, or pounding on a controller, or maybe both. (Ahem!) Oh, I remember now! It was because it was on a freaking Friday evening where the Satanic bosses at our workplace were going, “Just a couple of more hours before these in-bred SOBs go home for two days to nurse their bruises and their egos, so let’s push them harder. And yeah, send that database warehousing tub-o’-lard into my room. I’ve got a couple of fluggaenkdechioebolsen reports that I wanna go over with him!” (WARNING: That linky’s totally NSFW, so beware. And kids, stay away for your own good, at least until you’re older!)
But anyway, that was Street Fighter IV, so let’s talk about Killzone 2. You’ve read about it. You’ve seen all the videos. Maybe even participated in a few forum wars about how it’s the next best thing to hot garlic bread and cheese dip. Well, now is the time to check it out for yourselves. If you were one of the unlucky few who still hasn’t got the game or the fence-sitter minority, The Living Room is the place to be this weekend. Starting tomorrow, gaming folks who manage to wander over to The Living Room in Bangalore after 1 PM will get to spend three days in the company of the numero uno shooter for the PS3, Killzone 2. Like Niko Bellic hoped, maybe this time, things will be different. Or whatever, I don’t know, click on the ad for more details. Me, I have just one question – “Will there be Red Bull?”
(Click image for a high-res photo of the Killzone 2 swag)
Welly, well, well! Looks like contest season has started again here. For all those folks that had their brians (yes, that was deliberate) aching from all the disuse, here’s something that should get those little grey cells firing wildly. Say hello to our Killzone 2 contest, where five lucky blokes will be able to snatch up aKillzone 2 artbook (yes, the same ones you’d have gotten if you got your press kit or placed your Steelbook copy order at GI), a Killzone 2 cap that should serve for protection from the harsh sunlight (if this contest were held on Helghan, we could have given you gas masks, but you’re on Earth, so tough luck!) and a nifty skin to deck out your PS3 and profess your love for all things Killzone 2. Without further ado, happy hunting, and oh yeah, don’t forget to check out our ossum-possum review of Killzone 2 while you’re tearing your hair out! 
Contest Details / End-dates / Terms & Conditions / Winners List
After complaining for months about not getting any love down south in Bangalore from Milestone, we finally got ourselves a nice little launch party for Street Fighter IV this Friday at The Living Room, where fans of the game could just sit back and kick their friends’ butt every which way with punches, kicks and focus moves. In fact, the party was so awesome that we completely didn’t manage to attend it! Don’t ask us why, because it mostly involves our associate editor busy rowing the slave boat and getting whipped good at work. As for me, well, I originally wanted to say I couldn’t make it because I had a brain tumor and had to get it checked out, but if I do, I’ve been promised that I’ll get my neck snapped by Milestone’s friendly neighborhood PR liaise, Payal, who loves nothing more than keeping us on track and, err, “mothering us” to make sure we do what we’re supposed to and don’t go around doing naughty things, like eating sand, spilling cooking oil all over the floor and breaking embargoes. (Ooh, look, Jill Valentine’s dead!)