So as a cost-cutting measure after the Christmas bank balance fallout, I decided my resolution would be to reduce the number of games I was buying on a monthly basis and rely more on game rental services for the non-urgent titles I wanted to play.
I chose LoveFilm as my rental service of choice, using its one disc at a time deal at £10.99 per month, mainly because I spied a free month’s trial voucher code lurking around Google at the time.
It appears that most online rental services cover all consoles (both standard and portable) however lack support for PC. I find this a little frustrating as it’s just as easy to copy games for a modded PS3 or XBOX 360, but oh well.
So back to LoveFilm. The service centres around a rental wish-list, to which you add games that take your fancy as you stroll around the site, LoveFilm then selects and ships titles on your wishlist as they come available. Renters can have a maximum of three discs at home at any one time (if they are on a premium subscription) and are able to hold onto the game for as long as they like, just as long as it returns in working order.
To use the service to its full potential, LoveFilm advises subscribers to queue up ten or more titles on their lists to ensure a quick turnaround when returning a game – I have now done this three or so times now and I’ve had a new game within 48 hours each time. The service also allows you to prioritise your rental list between high, medium and low to make sure you’re more likely to get the titles you want to play most, sooner.
The games catalogue LoveFilm hosts is decent; you are likely to be able to get any popular game over the past couple of years – so far, I have not yet run a search that hasn’t returned exactly what I was looking for. I was kinda surprised to see less well known games such as The Last Remnant on there to be honest, as I was always under the assumption that games were simply a tack-on to LoveFilm’s film rental service.
I don’t think I’ll stop buying games any time soon, but the rental service does give you the chance to play around with games you otherwise wouldn’t try; be it for poor reviews or simply a genre you are not used to. Big AAA games such as Mass Effect, Final Fantasy and Metal Gear will still be showing up on my VISA statements for many more years, but I’m seriously considering retaining LoveFilm for those smaller-splash games that I would normally never get around to buying.
If you can get a free trial through one of the many voucher sites, I would thoroughly recommend giving a rental service a go.
Most of the cheats below can be entered or obtained at the Cantina Bar the game starts out in – just punch in the codes or satisfy the prerequisites listed below to activate them.
Characters/Vehicles
- Admiral Ackbar – ACK646
- Battle Droid Commander – KPF958
- Boba Fett – LA811Y
- Boss Nass – HHY697
- Captain Tarpals – QRN714
- Count Dooku – DDD748
- Darth Maul – H35TUX
- Darth Sidious – A32CAM
- Ewok – EWK785
- General Grievous – PMN576
- Greedo – ZZR636
- IG-88 – GIJ989
- Imperial Guard – GUA850
- Imperial Shuttle – HUT845
- Indiana Jones – Go to the Bonus Room in-game and watch the new trailer for the upcoming Indiana Jones game
- Jango Fett – KLJ897
- Ki Adi Mundi – MUN486
- Luminara – LUM521
- Naboo Starfighter – Complete Anakin’s Flight (see below)
- Padme – VBJ322
- R2-Q5 – EVILR2
- Sandtrooper – CBR954
- Slave I – Collect every MiniKit piece
- Stormtrooper – NBN431
- Super Battle Droid – XZNR21
- Taun We – PRX482
- TIE Fighter – DBH897
- TIE Interceptor – INT729
- Tri Fighter – AAB123
- Vulture Droid – BDC866
- Watto – PLL967
- Zam Wesell – 584HJF
- Zam’s Speeder – UUU875
Missions/Levels
- Bounty Hunter Missions - Buy all “Bounty Hunters” or “Bomb Throwers” in the shop to grab Jabba the Hutt’s Bounty Hunter Mission room outside of the cantina (over the sandy yard)
- Lego City - Collect ten gold bricks
- New Town – Collect fifty gold bricks
- Anakin’s Flight – Collect thirty gold bricks. Furthermore, if you complete this hidden mission, you’ll get the Naboo Starfighter as a prize to use elsewhere in the game.
Easter Eggs
- Stud Fountain - collect all 160 gold bricks. This will give you an infinite supply of studs.
Skills
- Disguise – BRJ437
- Force Grapple – CLZ738
Whenever a hyped game hits the market, I tend to start playing it expecting the very worst – a hype countermeasure, if you will. I attempted this same tactic for Mass Effect 2, but after being treated to an opening worthy of Spielberg, all reservations were blown away in an instant.
This alone remedies my main complaint for the first game – Mass Effect suffered a substantial pacing problem during the first few hours of gameplay – the sequel begins to an explosive start and the game keeps up the pace through the main story arc.
Indie physics-based platformer Trine has been widely praised for its beautiful graphics, puzzle-solving mechnanics and combat system however its price point has drawn some criticism from the gaming community.
There is little doubt that developer Frozenbyte has created a compelling 2.5D platforming offering here, but is it really worth the £16.99+ price tag?
There are many games I can point my finger at and say “that was one of the first titles that got me into videogaming,” but there’s only one I can say truly marked a milestone for me.
The game that converted me from casual Tetris-player to hardcore gamer has to be Legend of Zelda, Link’s Awakening on the Game Boy back in 1993. I was seven years’ old and was bought the game by accident by my mother before we jumped onto a flight to see relatives in the US. I asked for Super Mario World, but some how that request was lost in translation between the generations.
The 500th game to hit the Wii Virtual Console comes in all-star Nintendo form. The original Super Smash Bros. for the N64 graces our screens once again to give us a chance to replay the roots of what is now a staple per-Nintendo-console-generation title. Looking at the game makes you realise how the franchise hasn’t really developed all that much over the past ten years. But why fix it when it isn’t broken, eh?
The first Assassin’s Creed had promise and a huge lot of hype when it arrived in stores back in 2007 however many gamers found the game to be a massive disappointment – repetitive tasks and lengthy travelling made the whole experience feel like a chore.
Ubisoft Montreal has done a great job of fixing most of the issues with Assassin’s Creed in its second installment – actually, it’s done more than that, it has improved the whole gameplay to make it one of the year’s best games.
The game is set in the Italian 15th and 16th century and is focused around a new character, a charismatic Florentine named Ezio. Unlike the robotic Altaïr before him, the protagonist breathes life into the game’s storyline and injects a little human touch to otherwise cold-blooded missions. The visual flair also adds to this vibrant feel of the gameplay; from carnivale in Venice to the beautiful reconstruction of Florence, everything looks stunning and really add to the game’s overall appeal. With five of these highly detailed and expansive city states to explore, you’ll find it even more fun to leap from roof to roof, stalking, stabbing and sneaking around in the environment’s cinematic style.
