Owing to spectacular speculative reactions from reactionary types in a typical fashion, Konami have decided to pull their support for the upcoming Six Days in Fallujah, currently being developed by Atomic Games.

One more tally mark for the column entitled ‘things that we expected to happen, but kind of hoped wouldn’t as it’s a bit of a rash, daft and kneejerk decision, much like the reactions of those who commented on the story to the usual tabloid rags’.

We’re working on the title of that column.
But why did Six Days in Fallujah kick up such a fuss in world where games like Call of Duty, Full Spectrum Warrior and America’s Army are allowed to go on existing?

It’s not like they were making a game where a world-famous rap star goes around ‘THE MIDDLE EAST’ killing foreigners because they stole some of his sparkly goods in what would appear to be a complete flippant slap in the face to the soldiers and civilians involved in conflicts in the region, is it?

That kind of thing would be sure to be banned following an extreme backlash from the readers of the Daily Mail… right?

Oh no, wait.

No; instead a game that would – according to the PR guff – cover the events of the US Army’s battles in the Iraqi city in a fashion allowing simple gamers to see what things were actually like for the soldiers, the people and the insurgents has had its publishing support pulled.

Realism, respect and a lesson in the abhorrence of war. Nah, we don’t want that in video games, do we?

Sergeant Kevin Smith, a former soldier himself, said these words:

“Let it be made, and hopefully it will bolster support for military veterans by giving civilians insight into what this war was actually like for them.”

But no – instead of potentially offering gamers a genuine and mature take on real-world events, released through a major publisher and offered to as many people as possible, the game gets edged closer to the scrapheap thanks to popular, idiotic, opinion.

As Konami did gone say:

“After seeing the reaction to the videogame in the United States and hearing opinions sent through phone calls and e-mail, we decided several days ago not to sell it.”

So hey, let’s stick with our fictional wars in ‘THE MIDDLE EAST’, let’s keep to our rappists shooting non-English speakers for reasons of greed and street-cred (or whatever it’s called) and let’s stick to our ridiculously disgusting recruiting tools for the armed forces aimed at 14-year-old boys.

They’re clearly a far healthier option than a (potentially) mature, deep and realistic take on a divisive and destructive conflict. Let’s leave that to the real artforms like books and cinema to take on, shall we?

It’s not like this medium needs to grow or anything. Sigh…

THIS WEEK: In preparation for the impending apocalypse at the combined hands of the credit crunch and swine flu, we revisited Fallout 3 for a training session. Does anybody know anywhere in Britain that offers Alien Blaster repair services and ammunition? It pays to be prepared.

You! Follow hecklerspray on Twitter!

It’s difficult to think of awards to give for the dumbest gaming stories to come out of the news in a week, seeing as there are so damn many.

While we think we managed to get through a week without any stories on how gaming is going to destroy us all, there are still the obvious little snippets here and there that pop out and make you sigh/laugh like a particularly twattish hyena.
The first prize, and easiest to award, goes to a father and son combo who found themselves a nice stash of ecstasy pills in a used copy of Grand Theft Auto IV. While some may just see that as fitting – or a particularly controversial promotional stunt by Rockstar – it actually made for an unhappy time.

Probably should have popped a few, just to keep their spirits up.

Obviously the You Win All Award goes to these two if on account of the incredible picture we are immediately greeted with. Sure, it’s unfair to judge a single photo – they may well be learned members of the intelligentsia, for all we know – but friends with a camera they are not.

Crass judgements aside, what happened in this particular tale?

Ah. Ignore the accusation they may be erudite members of society.

Buying a used copy of GTAIV and finding ecstasy tablets inside it isn’t a stupid move, obviously. In fact, it verges on a bit shocking for sheer “eh?!” factor. The problem, however, comes from daddy’s reaction:

“What made me feel the most distraught was the fact we let our 12-year-old play the game.”

A few things spring to mind. One; you let your twelve-year-old play an extremely violent, foul-mouthed and generally unsavoury 18-rated videogame, and two; what on earth does that statement even mean?

What does playing the game have to do with the pills (bar some in-game dealing)? What does it matter that you let your kid play that game when a bag of narcotics – in real life – was stashed in the case? Is this a glaring admission of idiocy – a sort of subtle apology that can only be picked up on by those willing to dissect the very nature of a sentence?

Ah, the public. You have to love them.

Judges, on the other hand, are a form of humanity most rarely – if ever – have contact with. We once met a Crown Court judge in Manchester and immediately wanted him to take over as our new Dad; such was his affable nature and the unquestionable power he wielded.

While we don’t want Judge Greg Mathis to be a new daddy for us, we do both want to see his show and play his upcoming videogame. While not a stupid story per se, it does throw itself at the mercy of a baying hecklerspray just because it allows/forces players to be bumraped.

You thought it was bad that Marcus Fenix swears a bit? That House of the Dead: Overkill has the largest concentration of ‘fucks’ anywhere ever? That George Stobbart is a bit of a ponce?

Well forget all of that – it’s just been blown out of the water by a massive helping of anal rape.

We say good on you, Judge. Can’t wait to play the finished product, and hope it’ll include numerous QTEs or some good old-fashioned joystick-waggling.

THIS WEEK: Aside from a few perfunctory Steam-grabs (as they’re now called), the boredom of Easter also pushed us ever-closer to the welcoming, warm arms of a free trial on both World of Warcraft and EVE Online. This, dear readers, is a very bad sign indeed.

We also thought “hey, why not check out this wonderful human being’s crap that he gone done over on this here site to try and earn some money to live off?”

You! Follow hecklerspray on Twitter!

April Fool’s Day is rubbish once you’re past the age of about eight, but the games industry seems to have bucked this trend a fair amount. Look at Volition with their Ostrich Hammer, for example.

It’s a sign that it isn’t just the BBC and hecklerspray that pull out incredible April Fool’s’’s’.

Following in the footsteps of Volition – or maybe just walking step-by-step with them, seeing as it was announced at just about the same time – comes Twisted Pixel’s ‘Splosion Man.

Another April Fool’s Day announcement, another thing that actually exists In Real Life. The madness!

What it shows is that games companies are capable of moving things that bit further, thus keeping the whole day of the fool that bit more interesting than in other realms. Unlike, for example, The Guardian and their announcement they would be moving to Twitter-only distribution (more reasonably clever than actually funny).

Of course there are rubbish claims, just as anywhere else, but the effort put in by the developers we tend to worship can verge on the good – ala Blizzard and the Terran Terra-Tron of Starcraft II – through the almost believable, like the Craigslist posting for a paid position as a World of Warcraft Guild Director – and on to the rather spiffy, like Konami’s piss-about with Metal Gear Solid 4.

Which was rather like the excellent, excellent Assassin’s Solid last year, which made many people wet with delight. The fools.

It’s almost enough to make you forget the fact that the world is falling apart around us, that we’re all losing our jobs and that we will soon have to begin feasting on the entrails of our nearest and dearest as we’re pushed closer to the apocalypse with each passing day.

Plus it’s nice that some companies actually make a bit of an effort to make us laugh, as opposed to just going “YOUR MUM’S DEAD AHAHA” and expecting the entire world to crack up.

No, we’re not bitter about what the gamers get on April Fool’s Day. Not even after Computer and Video Games magazine duped us with false claims about unlocking the Ultimate characters on the SNES version of Mortal Kombat 3 and we spent hours – HOURS – trying to do it. Oh no.

Not us.

We couldn’t possibly be – not in a world where an OSTRICH HAMMER exists, thus making Red Faction Guerrilla look more than just lovely. It looks eggceptional.

You know? Like an egg? That an ostrich might lay? A pun? Yes? No?

Sorry.

THIS WEEK: Living in a bizarre fantasy world, we bizarrely thought – in a fantasy fashion – that Crysis might actually be playable on this here laptop. It isn’t. We also managed to get genuinely excited for the first time in approximately 13 years at the news of a new Syndicate game, handled by Chronicles of Riddick developers Starbreeze. Delicious.

You! Follow hecklerspray on Twitter!

The Game Developers Conference (or GDC as we in the kool krew call it) has finished, and in its wake lies a great big pile of nothing much.

While it is true that this is more the development wing of gaming shows, as opposed to the ferociously commercial events such as E3 and the like, it’s still disappointing that we didn’t get any HUGE, LIFE-CHANGING announcements.

Like a new add-on for the PS3 made of human thoughts.

Or that the latest Wii release is going to be a game you actually want to play for more than thirty minutes. Or that the latest 360 community game will involve an ugly girl getting naked…

Oh wait.

No, this was a conference full of mutual back-slapping, Hideo Kojima proving he’s more mental than people gave him credit for and that future ‘secret’ game announcements should probably have recording equipment banned from the room, should they want to keep the ‘secret’ footage ‘secret’.

Mass Effect 2, go and stand in the corner, you dunce.

Far from the Megatons of the past, GDC merely had a few smaller announcements (yes, we’re willing to class Modern Warfare 2 and yet another Zelda game as ‘smaller’), a few “wait until E3” non-announcements and a fair few videos of games we already knew existed.

Though, to be fair, the 10 things about Prototype video is excellent.

There we were, waiting for the Next Big Announcement – waiting for the thing to come along that would change our lives forever, make us better people and cure us of the evil of the credit crunch.

Instead we got Peter Molyneux boring us to death (and still not announcing a new Syndicate game).

So, yes, OnLive was the big thing of GDC – but we don’t care about that because it won’t work (or will it OR WILL IT? etc).

This is not a conference for the everyday gamer to take any notice of, but thanks to the way the internet works and how everything ever seemingly has to be reported, we get a barrage of non-stories from the game-o-news outlets the world over.

Does this happen in other industries? Do fans of celebrity culture get bogged down in the minutiae of everyday occurrences? It’s not like fans of that particular facet of culture (using the word loosely) would really care about the day-to-day, mundane activities of their favourite non-event of a person…

Ah, no, wait – we got mixed up there.

No, this just proves that gamers are exactly the same as Heat (and hecklerspray) readers. One half gives a crap what Kerry Katona’s left armpit looks like, the other take note when Cliff Bleszinski announces that “something might happen at some point”.

Far from being A Bad Thing, the obsessive coverage of GDC is A Good Thing, even if we do have to sift through layer upon layer of tripe to get to the real juicy, meaty, tasty, gravy-coated, with a side of mashed potatoes…

Nope, we’ve lost that train of thought.

THIS WEEK: Aside from being effectively robbed by Steam and its stupidly good deals, we discovered Valkyria Chronicles on PS3. While late to the party, we can still lambast you fools for criminally ignoring this wonderful, wonderful game. You big sods.

You! Follow hecklerspray on Twitter!

But no, he just can't leave it alone. Sodding sod. There's the upcoming not-a-movie movie, the TV series (The Wire crossed with Star Wars?! Yes please, thanks) and the new videogame The Force Unleashed all on the horizon, and it's unlikely that things will slow down any time soon.

But what does all this talk do? Well, it reminds us of all the Star Wars crap we've had rammed down our throats for three decades. Specifically, it reminds us of Star Wars videogames and how mixed a bag they've managed to be over the years. Some have been that good that you can't help but immediately fornicate with the disc/cartridge/arcade machine (risky as the latter may be, with it being a public situation), whereas many more have been so bad it makes you wish Hitler had won.

Nevertheless, in our endless quest to list the tits off everything, here we present our definitive, mega ultra, never-to-be-questioned top five best and worst Star Wars games ever. Now you may think this list has been done a thousand times before all over the internerd and, well, you're right. But shut up, because this time hecklerspray is talking and you better damn well listen.

IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER (except for Teras Kasi, which is the worst game ever made, ever)…

BEST

1. Knights of the Old Republic (KOTOR)

So it's a stodgy traditional RPG based on some Dungeons and Dragons rules with only semi-real time combat. So what? You get to design your own Jedi and lightsaber and can follow the path of the Dark Side (or Light if you're a pansy), choking every bugger in the universe into submission, stealing from helpless peasants and not helping old people across the road. Take THAT, Yoda! It's just a shame that the sequel, though just as playable as the first, was ultimately an unfinished mess.

2. The X Wing series (including Tie Fighter!)


Do you remember the 90s? Do you? DO YOU?! Ah, good. When PCs were something of a luxury and we could visit our rich friend's house to play on X-Wing. You were a Rebel pilot, fighting the good fight for freedom in the galaxy. Then they went and brought out Tie Fighter, where you were an utter bastard, crushing the Rebellion. Brillo. The series went on with a few more spin offs, culminating in X-Wing Alliance, a game in which you participated in the attack on the second Death Star in the Millennium Falcon. Damn, we need to go and find our joystick…

3. The Dark Forces/Jedi Knight series


The original Dark Forces game was a solid affair, though written off by many as a simple Doom clone with Stormtroopers. Which, to be fair, it was. By the time the sequel rolled around things changed to the point that involuntary erections were caused the world over. Starting off as a non-Jedi pleb, a short time into the game you received a lightsaber and training in the force. From then on the game went from 'alright' to 'oh dear christ I just chopped his arm off then threw ten of his mates down a chasm USING MY MIND'.

The further sequels weren't as mindblowing as number two, but all of them provided a laugh. And one even provided the real Lando Calrissian! The real one! Though to be fair he probably does do pretty much anything for money these days.

4. The Super series


Super Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi were classics back in the 16-bit days of the SNES, and a bona fide reason why Nintendo's console shat all over the Mega Drive, quality-wise (ah, re-opening age old arguments).

Taking place in the world of the original trilogy, the games saw players fighting through hordes of baddies, aliens, shockingly aggressive indigenous life and AT-ATs. Highlight of the series has to go to Empire – the Hoth defence level is the stuff of legend, and the continue screen where Yoda asks 'Try Again?' only to state "Try not, do, or do not. There is no try" when you press 'yes' (the pedantic little shit) are two immortal highlights of a fantastic series.

5. The Rogue Squadron series


Let's be honest here, the first game wasn't amazing. It was good, entertaining at the very least, but it came across as shockingly mediocre in comparison to fellow N64 title Shadows of the Empire.

Then came Rogue Squadron II, and all mediocrity gave way to one of the best Star Wars experiences ever committed to the world of interactive entertainment. Even though it was fucking hard. A release title on the Gamecube, Rogue Leader was more than just a great game – it was a stunning technical achievement, created in about three days from base materials like wool, ear wax and a kidnapped puppy. The third in the series, Rebel Strike, was pretty much more of the same but added a co-operative mode for the missions of Rogue Leader. Star Bar!

WORST

1. Masters of Teras Kasi


Ahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha hahahahaha haha hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha ha ha! Annnnnd breathe. What in the Salacious Crumb's name were they thinking? Probably: "I know lads, let's make a game like Tekken and Soul Blade, but let's comically make it as if we're all too monged up on spazz-o-drugs to actually, y'know, make it playable in any way, shape or form."

That has to be the reason. There can be no other justification for this utter abortion of a game being released – that's released as in 'actually released for the buying public to part with their cash on'. The mind searches for reason in many things in life – many – but Masters of Teras Kasi is one of those things that the human brain will surely never understand, like Paris Hilton's ability to keep being mentioned by real people or why said 'real' people insist on buying The Sun/Daily Mail/insert name of the rag you hate here. Awful, awful, awful and awful – not even worth tracking down for comedy value. THERE IS NONE.

2. All of the games directly based on Episodes I-III


Episode One had a good tie-in with the Racer game – honestly – but seemingly every other game based on the movies of Episode I, II and III were doggy dirt of the highest order. Specifically, those based directly on the movies, where you were in control of Obi Wan and the like.

How could they make such a generic, boring mess of being in control of jedi characters? Easy, by making Star Wars: The Phantom Menace on the PlayStation, Star Wars: Attack of the Clones on the Game Boy Advance and Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith on the PS2, Xbox and others. Broken, boring, rushed and derivative, the only pluses were the fact that you could imagine taking control of Mace Windu and killing the snot out of everything instead. Though really that's either none of these games or just a completely different game, thus nullifying the need to pick up any of these titles. Win!

3. Star Wars: Galaxies


A Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG to the cool kids), Galaxies started out as the idea that made Star Wars fans wet. You would live a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away and could live out all of your dirtiest Star Wars fantasies. If you fancied yourself as a Boba Fett wannabe, you could be a bounty hunter. If you wanted to follow the path of Luke and co. by becoming a Jedi then… well… you could, technically, but it took quite a long time.

We're talking days of real time in the game, dozens and dozens of hours of play to get there. In the end about two people got there, but then couldn't actually do anything as if they'd got themselves killed, which they likely would, their characters would be lost forever.

Then the game received some updates which totally changed everything, meaning more or less anyone could become a Jedi with the minimum of effort. The people that had made the effort in the first place were, shockingly enough, annoyed. It was something of a broken mess when it was released and they fixed it, but George Lucas must have got involved somewhere because then came the endless sodding tinkering that we all know and love Georgey boy for, and the game was left a broken husk, deserted by all and left to rot in the big online graveyard in the sky.

4. Rebel Assault I and II


Do you remember the days when full motion video was vogue? When every single CD-based game had to have some no-talent assclown 'acting' his or her way through some sets that looked like the local special school had knocked them up on a particularly haphazard Sunday afternoon? Well, all of this looked like Oscar-worthy material when you put it next to the 'games' of the Rebel Assault series.

Pre-videoed footage scrolled along as you slowly moved your crappy cursor around to try and shoot Tie Fighters/Stormtroopers and the like through numerous levels of mind-destroying garbage. You had no control, though in the sequel they added the illusion of control, and each mission was punctuated with some of the worst sub-amateur Star Wars spin off tosh the world has ever seen. We wholeheartedly blame the Mega CD for making these kind of 'games' fashionable. For about a week.

5. Star Wars: Obi Wan

What better way to celebrate the launch of a new console than by bringing out a Star Wars game to coincide with the release? Well, until Rogue Leader came out with the Gamecube we would have gone with: "anything is a better way to celebrate the launch of a new console than by bringing out a Star Wars game to coincide with the release, even cancer." This is how bad Obi Wan made our insides feel.

Like they were being ravaged by one of man's most fearsome enemies. It wasn't literally killing us though, so score one to Obi Wan. But that is the only one it will ever, ever get. As is the case with many awful Star Wars games it was rushed, buggy and controlled as if designed by an idiot savant with no hands, minus the 'savant' aspect. Then Rogue Leader came out as a launch title a couple of months later and we all promptly forgot about this turd that had been force-fed to the early Xbox adopters. Well, most of us did. Some can never forget.

It actually dawned on us when writing this that there are far more good Star Wars games than we remember. We tried lumping entire series into one entry, but that didn't create enough room, so instead we ruthlessly culled a number of titles from the list. Including Lego Star Wars, which still hurts (it can be secret entry number six on the best-o-list, hush down). And that's that – the 'spray has spoken.

[story by Ian Dransfield]