Wednesday 28 August 2013

New WEBUY.COM site is now LIVE!

Good day to you CeX friends.

You may have noticed our little CeX mice working over night to bring you our brand spanking new CeX website at WEBUY.COM for the UK.


We love our customers & love recycling. We hope to make it easier than ever to buy, sell, exchange and donate your goodies for a fistful of cash. With a whole heap of fun in the mix. What is life without a bit of fun, afterall?

Thanks for all the feedback so far. We are listening and will be making a few changes shortly.

Want to tell us what YOU think? Let us know in this quick survey.


The mice would love to hear from you.


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Tuesday 27 August 2013

Splinter Cell: Blacklist

“Sam Fisher returns to the shadows once again in a fresh Splinter Cell game that acknowledges the series’ heritage while simultaneously moving it forward. Variety in gameplay, intense campaign action and a wonderfully thought out multiplayer experience brings Splinter Cell back with a bang (silenced of course).”


Gameplay:
As a series Splinter Cell has gone through considerable changes from its stealthy roots. The modernisation of Splinter Cell in Conviction really pushed the franchise into the action genre and limited the players’ ability to use stealth gameplay, something that the series was clearly known for. Blacklist acknowledges this issue and provides an experience that boasts incredible replay value with the ability to play the campaign using whatever play-style you see fit.


Using a post-level scoring system, Blacklist rewards players for using the Assault, Ghost and Panther styles of gameplay – loud and deadly, quiet and non-lethal and quiet and lethal. Each has very specific gameplay elements and gadgets associated with them. So if the stealth approach from traditional Splinter Cell experiences is what you prefer then you’re more than welcome to tackle the entire game this way. Though fans of the lethal approach can holster their tranquillisers and bring out the big guns. 

If the awesome campaign wasn’t enough, Blacklist also provides engaging multiplayer options. Cooperative missions with various play-style pushed on you forces players to experience the different ways to play Splinter Cell. The famous Spies vs. Mercs also makes a return if you’re looking for competitive action against other players. 

Presentation:
Blacklist’s presentation lacks the shine that you’d expect from a game coming at this point in this generation. The graphics are ok but nothing special and poor voice casting including the removal of Sam Fisher’s original voice actor lead to sub-par story development. This perhaps is more due to the story itself being bland yet believable rather than the actors themselves. Blacklist is a classic example of a package with great gameplay but lacking the polish you’d expect in presentation.


Verdict: 
Splinter Cell: Blacklist’s incredible level design and gameplay really help propel the series back into the limelight where it deserves to be. A great campaign with plenty of replay value will keep you coming back while multiplayer modes serve to bolster the package even more. It’s just a little shame that the same quality doesn’t transition to the game’s presentation.

Regardless, the series has seen change but here is a package that remembers and acknowledges its heritage while bringing Splinter Cell forward. Blacklist is a wonderful way to sign off the series before it makes its inevitable transition to the next generation of gaming. 

Gameplay: 9
Presentation: 7
Replay Value: 9
Verdict: 8

Igor Kharin



Splinter Cell Blacklist at CeX



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Friday 23 August 2013

Noel Fielding @ CeX Stratford!

Who's that filming in our CeX Stratford store? Well I'll be, it's none other than brit funny-man Noel Fielding!

That's right, if you went down to CeX Stratford on the 13th of August then you would have been lucky enough to see Noel Fielding in person filming for Season 2 of his Luxury Comedy show for Channel 4!

Fielding himself happily posed with some of our staff and even browsed our collection of goodies, calling a copy of Lost Boys a "bargain" at £2.50.



Not only is this exciting for Fielding fans, who caught a glimpse of their favourite comedian and had the return of Noel Fielding's Luxury Comedy Hour confirmed, but also for us here at CeX! We'll be tuning in to see some of our famous poster art when it airs on Channel 4 ;)

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Thursday 22 August 2013

Pikmin 3

In preparation for playing Pikmin 3 I played the first Pikmin a month ago and I fell in love with it, subsequently playing it for a day straight. I've always loved RTS games, Warcraft 3 being one of my favourite games of all time, the genre just resonates very well with me. With these two things in mind it should come as no surprise that I was super hyped for Pikmin 3 - not only because it is the type of game I love, it is also the only game until October that looked like it may justify my purchase of a Wii U.


Pikmin 3 is the best looking Nintendo game on the Wii U yet - I just had to mention that first. The vibrant visuals relay Pikmin 3's beautiful world perfectly and this alone makes it worth the way, extended by the hefty delays it encountered. Pikmin have never looked cuter, fruit has never looked tastier and the bosses have never looked so peculiar. Nintendo has outdone themselves and if future games for the Wii U look this good, or even better, it makes me truly believe that the U can compete with the next generation of consoles (in terms of visual fidelity at least).


As you would expect the game functions very similarly to the previous two. You command your Pikmin from a third-person perspective as you collect fruit, battle creatures and navigate your way through obstacles under the daily time limit. Similar to Pikmin 2, there is no overall time limit to completing the game itself, this allows discovery in the game to be more relaxing and laid back, without having to worry about the big picture. However at the same time this is one of Pikmin 3's biggest issues, the game simply lacks any overall difficulty. Although you do have a food supply which is used up daily and if depleted you lose, this is never really a problem due to the abundance of food you can find. By the end I had 30 fruit with me and had finished 27 days, meaning I could play for almost twice as long without worrying about losing. Bosses, however, are difficult and you'll have to figure out a way to beat them fast to minimize the number of Pikmin that fall in battle and taking down some bosses truly brings that feeling of accomplishment. Pikmin 3 allows a player to prosper if they are good enough, its true difficulty comes from completing the game and collecting all the fruit in as few days as possible, which is complimented by the new online leader-board. It is great to see Nintendo finally embracing the leader-board feature, however it still lacks some features, such as comparing your own score with your actual friends.


The biggest gameplay changes in Pikmin 3 are the addition of a third playable character and two new Pikmin types. This means that Pikmin 3 gets even more management elements as you try to juggle three characters at once, trying to be as efficient as possible. In reality I didn't use this a lot, although those racing to be the fastest at the game should be able to put it to good use. The new Pikmin types allow for new ways to play, blue Pikmin can traverse water and your rock Pikmin are durable enough to smash your opponent to pieces. These new types add a freshness to Pikmin 3 that makes this entry the best one yet. For new players to the franchise the game does well in teaching people all the gameplay mechanics over again, meaning if you didn't play the previous instalments 9 years ago you can still jump in and enjoy.


The Pikmin 3 also makes great use of the Gamepad, as you'd expect a real time strategy game would and should, by making the map easily accessible on the screen and providing quick access to other features. Tapping it will pause the game and bring the camera into an overhead view, drag the map around using your finger and get the full display of the area on your TV, all features that become incredibly useful later in the game when you're planning out where you will be going in that day. Quick links are also added at the bottom of the Gamepads display so you can check out in-game notes or, for example, how many rock Pikmin are currently in the field - an excellent feature that can ease some of the more stressful moments. Off-screen play is also possible (I spent some good hours lying in bed using the screen). While it is not as visually appealing and a little harder to perform well using it, it's still a nice feature for Nintendo to throw in there. The Wii Remote and Nunchuck provide a secondary way of playing and although they work just fine (albeit a bit inaccurately), it simply doesn't make sense to use them outside of multiplayer. Simply put, the Gamepad is the best way to play.


The story in Pikmin 3 feels a lot more streamlined, with a few very linear moments that feel out of place. Thankfully the game breaks away from these quickly and allows you to go off and return to previous areas with your new Pikmin types to discover new parts that you couldn't access before, a concept veterans of the franchise will remember. While the final boss design was genius and epic, the whole experience felt like it ended a bit abruptly, leaving more main story objectives to be desired. Nintendo also missed an opportunity to set you a goal to collect all the fruit with game progress left intact. Instead if you wish to continue collecting fruit you have to go back to a previous day, losing any progress previously made, an inconvenience that could have been avoided.

Fortunately Pikmin 3 has you covered when you desire more: a cleverly implemented “missions mode” adds greater value and competitiveness by offering three different modes. These consist of treasure collecting, battling enemies and defeating bosses, all of which are based around time and gaining points, offering tiered medals that will keep you replaying for hours on end. I'm not a big fan of DLC, but the chance that these modes could be expanded upon makes me very interested and would keep me coming back to the game. These modes and another mode, named Bingo Battle, offer a lot of local multiplayer options that will have you and a friend both working together as tightly as you can, and competing against each other like it's the most important thing in the world. Due to the Gamepad being the definitive controller for Pikmin 3, the person using it does hold an advantage over the Wii Remote player as it's essentially easier to use. These multiplayer features, along with story mode speed-runs, adds a lot of replay value to a game that already delivers a great package.


While it may not be worth purchasing a Wii U solely for Pikmin 3, it is one of the best, if not the best, titles out for Wii U and a definite must have. It's stunning, nostalgic and clever all at the same time with excellent Gamepad implementation. The game does leave much to be desired difficulty wise, and the story mode it slightly short, but it offers a lot of content that makes it well worth your money. Pikmin 3 will keep you exploring for hours on end to your delight.

Score: 9.5 / 10

Chris McQueen, CeX Sunderland



Pikmin 3 at CeX



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Tuesday 20 August 2013

The ABCs of Death

Now on DVD and Blu-Ray is the eclectic short film collection ‘The ABCs of Death’. Directed by everyone you’ve never heard of from around the world, starring everyone else you’ve never heard of from around the world this film is a collection of all the mental, physical and sexual abuse that has happened to your friends that don’t remember their childhood. The premise is simple; twenty-six directors were given a letter each from the English alphabet and a single subject. Death. Each of the directors had to make a short film about death based on a word beginning with their assigned letter. E.g. ‘A is for Apocalypse’ or ‘F is for Fart’ (yeah that’s a real one).

The film received mixed reactions from critics, mixed reactions from my girlfriend, and mixed reactions from me. Some of the shorts are violent, some are interesting, some are so artsy that I had no idea what I was supposed to be doing and some are crazy. The Japanese ones are typically FUCKING MENTAL.


Everyone loves Japanese schoolgirls, which is why two thirds of my search history looks like a bloody family tree of Asian alumni. Some people enjoy different things, and the short film ‘F is for Fart’ is certainly a niche market. It start with one Japanese schoolgirl walking out of school and breaking wind creating a cartoon-like fluttering in her skirt. Seemingly caught by her teacher, who is an attractive Japanese woman, the girl becomes embarrassed and briefly discusses the matter before the earth farts a dangerous black gas into the air killing everyone in the school. Now I’m not sure about you, but my immediate reaction to a dangerous gas leak would probably be unpredictable, but I know what it definitely wouldn’t be the following event. They run into a room in the school together and out of fear and some lesbian eroticism the girl begs the teacher to fart in her face so that she may die from her gas and not the earths. Obviously the teacher thinks this is great idea and obviously after a few moments they BOTH end up inside the rectum of the teacher in some ethereal yellow world (yes the teacher is in her own ass).

Yup, you heard right... a yellow fart world.

Not a lot can freak you out after that experience you’d assume, and mostly you’d be correct but with some woman cutting off her body fat like its mutton, a mind fuck of an orgasm death, a series of people wanking themselves to death and a man laughing at his child being crushed by a toilet you’d be hard pushed not cringe, scream or join in the masturbation marathon for the rest of the twenty-six letter. ‘W is for WTF’ which is aptly named easily could have been the title of the whole film.

 Now to be fair they aren’t all that crazy, ‘Q is for Quack’ is a great fourth wall breaking thing with duck orientated snuff film aspirations and there is a sweet one about a woman trying to flush a turd that keeps running around the bathroom at a party, but they are mostly crazy.


Almost every film is like the daydream of a psychopath or a paranoid schizophrenic, and the one about Spiders is enough to turn you into either one of those things. I’m fairly sure having watched this film could be used as an acceptable defence plea in court, somewhere in between insanity and guilty. The weirdest thing is I enjoyed this film mostly, and have suggested it to people I know. Though I’m not sure how their opinion of me will change once they’ve watched a couple of Asian men masturbate over a legless weeping woman. Especially after how much I told them they’d enjoy it.

So if you look for pedophilia, animal abuse, patricide, methane asphyxiation and self-harm to entertain you, then you need to get this film, but about an hour in you should phone the relevant authorities and have yourself arrested or sectioned. Which reminds me, I better find my phone.

David Roberts, CeX Ann Street, Belfast



The ABCs of Death at CeX



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Monday 19 August 2013

XOLO T1000 (XOLO PLAY)

Xolo from Lava International is the first Indian brand to launch an NVIDIA Tegra 3 based Smartphone. Clearly targeted at the gaming audience it’s in the budget range but is a high-spec. phone for the masses, currently only available in India.


Design & Build:
It’s a good looking, clean and simple designed phone. The edge-to-edge screen gives it a rich look and the black matte back cover gives it a good finish and firm grip. The XOLO and Nvidia branding with the logo on the back look appealing and are definitely unique for a budget phone. Both Power and volume rocker are on the right side of the phone, which takes a little getting used to. The Micro-USB and 3.5mm jack are on the top.

Display & Specs:
The device sports a 4.7” IPS OGS (One Glass Solution) display with HD resolution. Contrast is good, colours look bright even from wide angles and doesn’t disappoint up even in the sunlight.
It boasts a 1.5Ghz Quad Core processor with a 12-Core ULP GeForce GPU. Has a 8MP Rear cam, 2MP front cam, 1GB RAM and 4GB internal storage. Battery is your average 2000 mAh but it’s unsure how long it can handle the powerful & high end gaming this device supposedly supports but it has incorporated a special 5th Gen Core to save power.

UI & Apps:
It’s got 4.1.1 (Jellybean) out of the box, which is not a good idea by Xolo since they have older devices, and lower specs that run 4.1.2 out of the box. The UI looks Nexus-ish & veers towards behaving as Stock Android. Scrolling is smooth without any hint of lag. TegraZone has all apps & games made especially for the Tegra devices. Xolo Secure, Xolo Care & Xolo Switch are the other in-house apps.

Multimedia & Gaming:
The phone supports almost all formats which include, avi, MP4, 3gp, mov, and mkv video and MP3, MIDI, WAV, 3GPP, AAC, AAC+, WMA audio. The default video player is very basic but you have the ability to choose from a lot of popular AV players on the Play Store. 1080p Videos play smoothly on the phone thanks to the quad core processing power. It plays 3D games much better than your average Quad core phone thanks to the Nvidia Chipset. The frame rate and rendering however are not top-notch but are still definitely better than most devices out there. The TEGRA Zone has apps and games which are optimised for these kinds of phones and should definitely be checked out.

Camera:
The phone comes with an 8-megapixel auto-focus camera with LED flash. It has the basic settings and the default Scene modes you get in stock Android. It does have a BSI sensor, which should result in better-lit pictures, but there’s no proof of that in the pictures since the low light images still appear dark. The front cam is a 2MP shooter. Video recording is pretty good since it supports 1080p recording but saved in 3gp format, the playback is not as expected.

Battery:
With a 2000 mAh battery that is just about enough to last half a day (12 hrs) on a single charge. If you’re gaming, making calls or watching videos expect it to last less than 6hrs even though you have a power saving core built in. But this is what Android phones have come to in terms of standard usable battery life 6-8 hrs, so nothing radical here.

Verdict:
For the price it’s good value for money. When it almost 40% cheaper than the Nexus 4, no other phone comes close in terms of specs and the kind of gaming you get here. Although the Tegra 3 is not the latest Tegra, for its price you get a good deal – a full HD phone that packs complete entertainment.

Pritesh Khilnani



XOLO T1000 at CeX



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Thursday 15 August 2013

Oh Ireland, you CeXy beast!

Oooooooh my! Ireland just got a whole load CeXier

We are proud to announce that Limerick is joining our CeXy family!

Come on down and check out our treasure trove of goodies you can buy, sell & exchange or just drop by to say "Hi!" and chat about your favourite gadgets, games and films.

You can find us at:
6a Cruises Street
Limerick
Co. Limerick
R.O.I
1
Or visit the store page for a handy little map.

Many thanks to all our CeXy fans and the team who made this possible!




To find your closest store visit here.


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Identity Thief

Just released on blu-ray is Identity Thief, a crime comedy about a man (Jason Bateman) getting his identity stolen by a woman (Melissa McCarthy). Despite the two lead characters being played by very funny comedians this film is only slightly more fun than identity theft is in real life.

The plot of Identity thief is shit, and very lazy, though the quality of the actors mean that the odd joke manages to force its way through the fence of tedium into your ears, but after all the abuse your entertainment glands have been given you end up having a sad smile on your face. The kind of smile you would have if your son told you he wanted to be a scientist when he grows up moments after you found he had only six months to live. Alas the duo of Bateman and McCarthy was not enough to turn this boring film about driving from America to somewhere else in America into Smokey and the Bandit. Instead it felt like a really awful version of Due Date. Due Date Rape if you like.


In short the plot is this. A man with a funny name ‘Sandy Patterson’ gets his identity stolen by a woman. This is funny because he has a funny name. You see the joke? It’s funny because Sandy is more traditionally associated with women and not men, and this joke is what the whole film is based on. It only gets worse from here. I would find more humour in watching a child crying over his mothers’ corpse.

One tedious thing leads to another and man Sandy is going to get fired because of all the accusations from the police about things that woman-Sandy has done in his name. Man-Sandy then has to go find woman-Sandy and bring her back to his office to clear his name so he can keep his job. Woman-Sandy’s real name is Diana and man-Sandy reminds her for an hour that she is a bad person for stealing peoples identities. Lots of people (including a bounty hunter and some unhappy fake credit card customers) also think Diana’s a bad person so they chase her across the country trying to kill her with guns and cars, but that all gets sorted pretty quickly by Deus-ex-machina-by-numbers script writing.


Throughout this film we are supposed, I assume, to believe that man-Sandy is a lovely man and this shouldn’t happen to such a lovely man. He participates in a murder, kidnapping, credit card fraud and lies to his wife constantly throughout the film. The entire film could’ve been avoided if he had taken responsibility for a miscalculation and asked his wife to give him a lift home. Instead he impersonates his ex-boss and sneaks in to steal his credit card details after hours of constant bitching that that EXACT same thing is horrible to do. Diana conversely gets a conscience after a meal and decides to turn herself in since, despite the whole venture, man-Sandy was going to let her get away with it despite that leading to him not being able to support his wife and kids. I’m starting to think this script was written by people jotting down clichés on bits of sweet-corn and just eating them all up - whichever bits they could read clearly in the toilet bowl a few hours later became their film.

What I completely fail to understand is why two self-respecting comedians would tarnish themselves with such a ridiculous venture. Arrested development is mind blowingly good and Bridesmaids was surprisingly laugh-out-loud funny and yet they decided to take several steps back from quality to bore the shit out of me for two hours. It’s like discovering you can ejaculate money and reacting by becoming a priest. Though at least if you did that there would be rich children all over the world.

David Roberts, CeX Ann Street, Belfast



Identity Thief at CeX



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Pikmin 3

“Nintendo’s cast of crazy alien critters return after a long wait for another intriguing adventure filled to the brim with exploration, wonder and glee. Very little mimics the sense of excitement you have traversing an alien planet so it’s a delight that Pikmin 3 makes your steps into the unknown wholeheartedly entertaining.“


Gameplay:
For those of you who haven’t played previous Pikmin games, the franchise is based around exploration and adventure. Crash-landing on a desolate island your crew of three brave explorers discover alien creatures known as Pikmin that obey all of your commands. Using these whacky creatures and their unique abilities, it’s up to you to explore well-designed levels, take down beautifully presented enemies and uncover the secrets of this planet.


What makes Pikmin games so special is the undeniable connection you feel to these lovable little guys – Pikmin come in masses yet every time you lose one be it in combat or by accident or don’t bring them back to the ship before the sun sets; you feel a sense of guilt. This is typical of a Nintendo game as the company knows how to create an emotional connection between the gamer and its lovable cast of characters.

It’s not all about exploration either; players are forced to find food scattered across the planet in order to survive and be able to investigate the next day – Pikmin are incredibly strong in numbers and they help bring supplies in order to keep your mission alive. Lacking the same difficultly curve as previous games in the series makes Pikmin 3 slightly more accessible as it’s hardly ever really challenging. However, sitting around the 10 hour mark makes it an enjoyable experience that rarely gets boring in the time it spans. 

Presentation:
In typical Nintendo fashion we have come to expect colourful and goofy designs. Pikmin 3 doesn’t stray at all from the visual formula of the series but the HD graphics of the Wii U really help to bring out the vibrant characters.


Map design is also very impressive and stunning to look at – it’s a pleasure to explore the diverse locations you find yourself and being able to come back with new Pikmin to previous levels and uncover locations you couldn’t access before really helps keep Pikmin 3 alive. 

Verdict:
Pikmin 3 is very enjoyable but it’s rare not to find a Nintendo exclusive that doesn’t glow with passion. This franchise embodies what Nintendo are all about, wholehearted fun and there’s plenty to be found here for fans of adventure and puzzle-based gameplay. The Wii U will certainly find it difficult to compete with Microsoft and Sony’s future gaming machines but titles like this help make Nintendo’s machine a viable option for casual gamers. 

Gameplay: 7/10
Presentation: 9/10
Replay Value: 7/10
Verdict: 8/10

Igor Kharin.



Pikmin 3 at CeX



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Wednesday 14 August 2013

Parker

Just released on Blu-Ray this month is Jason Statham’s new action-thriller-heist-movie-film Parker starring Statham as Parker and the ageless Jennifer ‘Jenny from the block’ Lopez. Based on the series of novels, specifically Flashfire, by Donald Westlake, Parker is about a Robin Hood of sorts. I say ‘of sorts’ because he refuses to steal from the poor but keeps most of the money, though he does seem to have space for some charity. He doesn’t wear green tights, doesn’t have a theme tune that everyone knows, was never played by Rick Mayall or Russell Crowe, doesn’t live in a wood and definitely doesn’t have a band of merry men. He is english though.


Some films are great and lose many points with a crappy ending while others are ropey throughout but have a great ending. Parker falls somewhere in between, the ending wasn’t great as such but it was the greatest part of the film. The film opens with Parker taking on a country fair heist, with men he has never worked with before. The heist will earn them thousands upon thousands of moneys, and it goes relatively well. The downfall occurs when the men want to invest his side of the money into a bigger heist that will make him millions. He tells them all to piss off and ends up shot in the face lying in a lake. Assumed dead the rest of the thieves take his share of the money and proceed with their plans. He isn’t dead of course, because the film is longer than twenty minutes long.

Leslie Rodgers (Jennifer Lopez) is an estate agent that is getting closer and closer to throwing herself off the roof of her nearest bank. Which I more than understand since their charges are so obscenely over the top nowadays. The last time I went below the agreed over draft limit the Halifax put a leopard in my shower and sent a hillbilly round to rape me in my sleep. Leslie soon learns that Parker has arrived not to buy a house as he originally claimed, but to steal massive amounts of fresh jewellery from the thieves, and thieves HATE that. The thieves heist involves robbing jewellery from a very expensive auction and said jewellery will be worth more than a Brazillian teenagers virginity on ebay ($780K if you were wondering).


Since Leslie has information and resources that are useful to Parker, he agrees to let her help him figure out how to get the jewels from the heist and this instantly transforms the heist-thriller into a buddy movie. My main problem with Lopez  is that she could almost not have been in the film at all. She wasn’t a romantic interest, didn’t really add anything particularly important and didn’t really do much at all other than get in the way and once stand in a room in her undrwear like a mannequin in a storage room. Her character was less dimensional than Paper Mario in a black hole.

One of the problems Parker has, which Jack Reacher managed to avoid was being an adaptation of the nineteenth book in the series. There is no subtlety when explaining his character, that would have been well established by this point in the novels. He is a complicated thief who never steals from people who can’t afford it, and never hurts or kills innocent people. We know this because Statham’s character says it all at least twice throughout the film. Not exactly character development. Perhaps the script writers original plan was to hand out t-shirts to the props people with ‘good guy’, ‘bad guy’ and ‘complicated thief who never steals from people who can’t afford it, and never hurts or kills innocent people’ to really avoid having to think of a way to let the audience think for themselves. But then if the two most interesting bits of the film are when Jennifer Lopez drops most of her clothes for no reason and when Statham stabs himself through the hand for little reason, then perhaps trying to find the intellectual undertones mean that I was just simply not in the mood for this film at this time.


The film is a pretty standard heist movie, nothing particularly outstanding about it, no itches that Oceans 11 or The Sting wouldn’t scratch, but on the positive side it isn’t unenjoyable and the fight sequences have some pretty original ideas, including a moment when Parker, during a tense struggle with a gun, takes out the clip and stabs some guy through the shoulder with it, resulting in much blood and an entertained version of me on my sofa. General internet reviews seem to imply that Parker is a film that’s emotional eliciting value doesn’t equal much more than ‘Meh’. So I give it 3.5 Meh’s out of 5.

David Roberts, CeX Ann Street, Belfast



Parker at CeX



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Friday 9 August 2013

Mario & Luigi: Dream Team

“The video game industries favourite brothers return once again for another devilishly charming, quirky and fun RPG experience in what has now become one of Nintendo’s staple role-play franchises.“


Gameplay:
There’s no doubt that everyone has heard of Mario & Luigi but perhaps not everyone knows of the role-play franchise these two wonderful characters are involved in. When someone mentions Nintendo’s dungaree wearing brothers you immediately imagine platform based gaming, not a role-play / platform adventure hybrid. Surprisingly the formula works wonderfully; made clear by the numerous instalments in the series including the very successful Bowser’s Inside Story. 

Dream Team works on the premise of allowing players to engage in platforming gameplay but when you jump or run into an enemy, turn-based gameplay occurs. In this scenario players are required to actively input commands to dodge and pull off some wacky, outrageous and downright deadly moves. These of course involve both brothers working together using iconic items from Mario’s heritage including shells, mushrooms, hammers etc. 

The aforementioned is the basic principles of all prior Mario & Luigi RPG games, but the added twist and by far the most interesting aspect of Dream Team, is accessing Luigi’s dreams and using his imagination (appropriately named Luigination) to partake in some absolutely brilliant and innovative gameplay. The intertwined combination of platforming, role-play and these special puzzle sequences make Dream Team’s gameplay interesting, always dynamic and a whole load of fun. 


Presentation:
Mario & Luigi RPG’s have always been known for their humour and colourful presentation. Dream Team is every bit as wonderful as other titles in the series but made even more special thanks to Luigi’s beautiful dream sections. Players will absolutely benefit from being familiar with Nintendo’s and especially Mario’s heritage and history because a lot of the humour and jokes are fan service designed to get fans grinning. Like many games on the Nintendo 3DS, actual 3D aspects don’t necessarily enhance the gameplay but it’s a nice add-on if you’re in the mood to add a little depth into your experience. 

Verdict:
Another wholly successful instalment in what’s clearly become a fan-favourite franchise amongst Nintendo fans. Mario & Luigi: Dream Team is a surprisingly intricate, deep and warm-hearted adventure that appeals to an audience of all ages. If you’re looking for a decent amount of gameplay but don’t feel like taking it too seriously then I would recommend Mario & Luigi: Dream Team over something more intense like Fire Emblem.

Gameplay: 8/10
Presentation: 8/10
Replay Value: 7/10
Verdict: 8/10

Igor Kharin



Mario & Luigi: Dream Team at CeX



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Thursday 1 August 2013

CeX cover competition!

Have you seen what's happening on the CeX Facebook?

CeX cover competition

To celebrate reaching 500k fans we are running our cover competition WORLDWIDE to win $500 CeX voucher (or equivalent. Thats £330. €376, 558 AUD, 30,300!)

To win - Just re enact or remake your fave cover from a game, movie, album - whatever you fancy!
Take a photo, draw a picture, plead/beg/bribe your family & friends to help. Kinda like the below -




Email entries to competitions@webuy.com by midnight GMT Thurs 8th Aug. We will share the winner Friday 9th August 2013.

Be as crazy, zany, creative, hilarious as you like! (And treat yourself to something CeXy with the voucher).

Keep your eyes on the CeX Facebook! www.webuy.com


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