Video game review – LittleBigPlanet 2 Muppets Premium Level Kit; AKA Fandom of the Et Cetera

“It’s time to fund your virtual wallet! It’s time to buy the downloadable content! It’s time to meet the sackbots with appropriate Muppets-themed costumes on the Muppets Premium Level Kit at the time in which you are able to play said downloadable content!” – A discarded theme song for the most recent LittleBigPlanet 2 level kit

Jamie Breeze takes a look at LittleBigPlanet 2′s most spectacular performance yet, featuring the Muppets.

First things first, if you’re looking for a definite answer to “Should I buy this lovely, cheap, exciting collection of levels, trophies, pins, decorations, stickers, costume bits, and an all-round enthralling, awarding, and enjoyable experience?” then… yes, you should. I’m not going to lie; the new Muppets pack for LittleBigPlanet 2 is, without a single grain of doubt, my favourite level kit from the entire archive of downloadable content in the history of video games. The only real Muppets here are those caught up in their own tentativeness about exchanging such a pitifully small amount of coinage for this marvellous surfeit of Muppet-y love.  Since you’re reading on, I’m going to assume you are also indecisive about this whole “buying things” malarkey.  Let me enlighten you, you eager, unlit torch of initial cynicism.

Jürgen Schmidt’s Nazi Christmas – Part 4

Jürgen Schmidt comes face to face with the purrverted villain responsible for the Star of Deathlehem. Click here for part three.

Mr Snuflz, mein cat, emerged from der shadows.

“You absolute tart!” I roared. “Get bach in your cage!”

He vos vorking ont two feets und vearing deez tall leather boots like Puzz ein Bootzunfluffen. On his head voz a helmet, decorated viz shiny badges in der shape of turkeyz doing der human things, like playing der electric guitar and votching Rocky IV. Von of der badgez voz animatronic. A turkey voz marinading itself unt itz own urine; a glorious golden spray erupting from der bummen-hole. Behind der turkey, a grinning cat salivated.

“ALL I EVER WANTED, M’DEAR,” he screamed, “WAS A BLOODY TURKEY.”

I did not knowing Snuflz could talk or zat he vere criminal masturmaind.

Jürgen Schmidt’s Nazi Christmas – Part 3

Jürgen “Khristmas Kaiser” Schmidt confronts a farmer about the Star of Deathlehem, which has the whole Fourth Reich in a strange, mystical trance. Click here for part two.

“So,” der farmer said, “as I voz saying in der previous instalment, I know a great many things about der Star of Deathlehem. Probably too many things, as eet happens. Things zat keepen me avake at night, partly Jew to deir severity but also because dat Star is bloody bright.”

I noticed zere voz a pair of sonnen-glasses on his bedside table. Good call.

“But I am a poor man,” he continued, gazing at his sixty-inch Samsung Full HD Plasma 3D television. “I vill only divulge such information at a price. Und a high von, at zat.”

Jürgen Schmidt’s Nazi Christmas – Part 2

A giant glowing swastika hovers above the Fourth Reich like a parachutist tangled on a wind turbine. It’s up to festive fascist Jürgen Schmidt to save the (Christmas) day. Click here for part one.

4 DEZEMBER, JAHR 2011, UM HAL …

Oh, forget zat! Ve haven’t tiem fur der journal format anymore. Dere is a bloody big swastika in der sky. Look at it! Such sparklen und pizzazz. Bloody bright und all. Need some sonnen-glasses. Its appearancen nicht unlike zat of der Pillsbury Doughboy, minus der flab. I vunder vhat zis could ull mean. I go over to where der beacon of light shinen und try to figuren out der importance.

“Vhat does zis ull mean?” I asked a very bald man.

“I don’t know,” he said.

“BUGGERANCE AND MORE BUGGERANCE. BLOODY, BLOODY BUGGER.”

Jürgen Schmidt’s Nazi Christmas

Somewhere in the Fourth Reich, a tiny state nestled between New Zealand and that place on RuneScape, Herr Doktor Jürgen Schmidt busily prepares for Christmas.

1 DEZEMBER, JAHR 2011, UM HALB ACHT, AM NACHMITTAG. [7.30 PM]

As I sitten, I see lovely Weihnachten tree. It very bright, with baubles like rotund bomb, lights like product of arsonist, crackers like… German crackers. It really is snowing katze und hunde. Mein eyes fill with water as remember delight of memory relating to Christmas. Mein father und mother, Jan und Anna. Mein hund, Kamikaiser. Mein clothes are become satürate. Maybe I shouldn’t peer into neighbour haus while it snow.

You’ll only like Facebook’s facelift if you’re a big-headed, ego-maniacal mutant

“Remember the time you drank so much alcohol your friends decided to write ‘dickhead’ next to your nipples?  Everyone does and it’s not even slightly funny anymore.”

It wasn’t a particularly vast-desert-of-sand-in-the-upper-half-of-the-hourglass ago when the least anticipated event of 2011 was revealed to the world; the total Facebook reconstruction, the Timeline.  Make no reference to the Michael Crichton novel of the same name, although it might justify more than the vague background stories and spooky video on the official page could.

While Mr Zuckerberg’s new profile promises to thrash rivals to respective social not-works, there’s a couple of kinks to address before we assume the new system is completely flawless. Or, maybe just a bit flawless – which is not flawless at all.

NASA’s UARS – The evil and strangely-shaped truth

Jamie Breeze joins a particuarly prodigious practitioner to reveal the truth behind NASA’s Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite.

There has been a lot of speculation recently about a six-and-a-half ton bus-sized “satellite” hurtling towards Earth at a speed man cannot comprehend.  The satellite could fall practically anywhere on the planet with a 1 in 3200 risk to public safety, so the question on everyone’s anxious minds is – where?

Luckily, with the help of some wet receipt paper and discarded boxes of corn flakes, I have managed to find the devious culprit behind the debris of this media crash and perhaps some further, lonesome intentions hidden in his deep, dark and disturbing mind.

Review – LittleBigPlanet 2 Move Pack; AKA Sackboy’s Post-Horrific Moves

If you are moved by moving and using your moving limbs to move, then you might share with many people a certain fondness for something called the Kinect. No, I’m joking. It’s the PlayStation Move.  Riper than Paul McCartney’s facial complexion, the new Move Pack for LittleBigPlanet 2, utilising the gimmicky wonders of motion control, will put more than a smile on your face and possibly your anthropomorphic motor system.

Spyro the Dragon and the Search for Hidden Intentions

“I would like to congratulate Insomniac Games for being complete bastards.” Jamie Breeze examines PlayStation classic, Spyro the Dragon.

I have recently been wailing about how the modern roster of games possesses no vibe that the ancient classics hold to their respective chests.  I’ve been wailing by myself, with no harpoons – that’s a homophone, you silly sod.  I’d been digging through my large amount of video games that have obviously passed their expiry date, mainly of the PSone era.  I stumbled upon a rather shiny gem from way back when.  Spyro was the game, and the game knew that it was so, rather humbly and masculine with a few lightning bolts in each hand.

What I’m trying to express here is that Spyro is no less than a video game deity.

Portal 3 – A self-proclaimed artist’s representation