So everyone and their grandma has been playing or has played left for dead. And its time for the sparkbox team to give you our tips and tricks to help you survive Zombie Ragnarock… Err Apocalypse.

Tips to keep your sorry butt alive.

Story

- ALWAYS STICK WITH YOUR TEAM! The worst thing you can do is go out alone. That will just lead to getting your ass kicked and your teammates having to come running to save your useless butt.

- When going down hallways, narrow corridors, or streets, always have one of your team walk backwards behind the main group. This way you are never caught off guard and can be warned of any stragglers you didnt finish off. Or that pesky hunter who decides to stalk you.

- If possible, your team should have 2 shotguns,1 assault rifle, and 1 sniper rifle. The assault rifle and sniper can take groups out from afar, plus the sniper rifle can shoot through anything and can kill multiple zombies with one hit. The shotguns are the sweep and clear of the group. Once the horde gets in close, the assault rifle and sniper should kneel down so the shotguns can clear the way. This way no one takes team damage, and no one is in the way of someone elses shot.

- If tagged by a boomer, the affected survivor should quickly back into a corner, kneel down, and start spamming the shove button. Kneeling gives the other group members less of a chance of friendly fire as they are trying to save your sticky ass. Spamming the shove button makes it so you are protected and no friendly fire occours. And being in the corner also makes it so you can only be attacked in front, insted of being circle ganked.

- Hear the horde comming? Have a molotov? In a corridor or passageway? Well you are safe as hell then. Just toss the molotov towards the direction the horde will be comming from, and watch them burn as they run to you. They dont care about burning up, so they will rush through. Best part is all your group needs to do is watch their backs for stragglers, and have 2 members continuously shove the zombies that run through the flames. Saves ammo and is pretty fun.

- Is there a Tank on his way to pummle you to a mushy pulp? Got a molotov? Someone with a Sniper rifle? Then you are good to go. The Sniper rifle does the most damage of all the guns, and setting that motha ablaze will continuously damage him. Just keep back peddling, and make sure to stay away from your buddies and their line of fire. Once the Tank decides to chase one person, he rarely changes his mind. Keep alive and running so your buddies can torch and shoot his ass.

- The most obvious route is rarely the one you want, or the safest. Yes there are many spots where you are forced to go through. But there are enough where you have at least one other way to go. If you see a tunnel or room off the beaten path, head that way. Sometimes you can avoid a huge group of zombies, and you may be rewarded with some hidden items.

- Always have an escape route! Sure this really only works for the finale of each stage, but your screwed if you back yourself into a space with no where to go. Take the finale of Death Toll for example. You have to wait in a boathouse for your rescue to come. Sure the house looks pretty secure, but there are tons of windows and the zombies make it upstairs really fast. So before you call for the rescue, go and check the area for fall back spots. Even someplace with one less window or door can save your life.

- Gas cans aren’t just for filling your tank. They are for setting insane traps too! They are best used for finale defense, as the horde never stops and you may just need a wall of flame to keep them at bay long enough for you to heal up and reload. Try figuring out a choke point (a route they will be forced to come at you through) and drop the gas can. Even if they dont go through that way at first, chances are they will. And when that happens, you can shoot the can and the whole area will be filled with flaming zombies! Or pop one down in your escape route. If you have to retreat, you can give yourselves some precious seconds if you make a wall of flame. And remember, gas cans burn longer and spread out more then molotovs.

CO-OP

Tired of coop and story in general? Its Multiplayer time! When your the survivors, the above strats work just fine. But when your the infected…. You need to do things a bit differently.

- The hunter is the sneaky lil bastard who takes down the straglers. And thats all he should do! You are very vulnerable when not set to pounce, and all it takes is one smack with a rifle butt to make your day. Be a cunning hunter, stalk your prey and take down that guy who is lagging behind.

- The Smoker is an interesting char, but pretty slow. You must attack from far away and from above if possible. This way you drag the survivor away from his friends, and its harder for them to shoot you if you arent on the ground. Plus if you are on a ledge, you can snag a survivor, and hang him like a gut filled pinata for your zombie bretheren.

- Now my favorite character, and the backbone of any attack. The Boomer. Yup your slow, easy to kill, and look like you have been to the buffet way too many times, but your bile is like honey to flies. Plus when you explode, you spray the area with bile too! You are basically a zombie water balloon. You have to get close to the survivors and spray down as many as you can. This will make the horde charge the drenched survivors and make way for your other infected to have some fun.

My No Fail Way To Take Down A Survivor Group

#1 All of the infected must communicate with eachother and timing must be perfect.

#2 Find an ambush spot 1/3 to 1/2 way through the stage to set the trap.

#3 Boomer runs into the group of survivors and pukes on em. Dont worry about escaping, you wont. Just make sure to cover at least 2 survivors.

#4 Wait for horde to rush in.

#5 Smoker pulls away one of the non covered survivors. This way they dont have a chance to help their buddies cause the horde is ignoring them.

#6 Both Hunters pounce in and take down the 2 survivors who have the least infected attacking them. This leaves the last survivor to push back the whole horde as the infected are ripping them apart.

If all works right. The Smoker has one of the survivors hanging helplessly. The Hunters have 2 survivors pinned. And the boomer has the other survivor so covered in bile, that the zombies will never stop biting him. As long as you can seperate the group and confuse them, you cant lose with this. And if all goes well, the Boomer has respawned by now and has covered that last survivor again in puke.

So there you have it. The SparkBoxShow guide to taking down the zombie horde. Any questions or comments, feel free to email us at Mail at Sparkboxshow.com, or post a comment below! Thanks for reading, please digg this article and happy zombie apocalypse!

As always, we are looking for more article writers. So if you want to give it a shot and have your work posted on our site, please email andy at Andy at SparkBoxShow.com or me at James at sparkboxshow.com

Thats right folks. The Playstation Visa Card!

Seems Sony cant think of any way to get people to buy their system *Cough make good games Cough* this season, so they have announcer the a very special deal through their website. All you need to do is apply for the Playstation Visa card (its issued through Chase Bank), and if you are accepted, you get $150 off your purchase of a 80 or 160 gig PS3 through their site. Which is pretty damn good seeing that the 80 gig will then only cost you $249 (well $289 after shipping).

Honestly this may just get me to purchase a PS3. Not for the games, as most are available for my 360 anyway. But for the fact its also a Blu-Ray player. I have been wanting to pick up a Blu-Ray for a while now and seeing that they are around $200 (220 after tax) I figure if I am accepted for the card, I’ll pick one up. So that way I get my Blu-Ray player, and a game system. But who knows, at the way prices have gone down for Blu-Ray players, I may just wait it out till after the holidays and get one through a sale.

Just thought I would pass this one along. I know there are at least 10 people out there who actually want a PS3 for some reason or another. So for you 10, this is the way to go!

http://www.sonyrewards.com/en/clubs/sonycard/

Enjoy!

As always, we are looking for article writers. If you are interested, please send us an email and we will get back to you asap!

Hope you all had a good Thanksgiving!  If you don’t live in the U.S.; don’t fret!  You can have thanksgiving any day… just ask for my green bean casserole recipe.

This week:

- Twilight (movie)

- Left 4 Dead

- Dead Space

- Chris’s 30 sec XBLA review

- Netflix on NXE

- Mirror’s edge OST - 12 tracks of the same song… Is it a rip?

 - Don’t forget! –> NYC Comicon 2009 [ Feb 6-8 2009]

Enjoy and make sure to leave us positive feedback by clicking on the iTunes button on the right if you like the show.  You can also subscribe on iTunes via the same button or the yellow RSS logo.  Or you can download the mp3 here.   

…and don’t forget to check out Maximum Voltage and Ryan’s Rapture and as always a special thanks once again to Mippa-chan!

So another sunday has ended and the movie grosses are in. Lets see who won this weekends battle of the box office!

Four Christmases debuted #1 at the box office this weekend with $31.6 million. (Its a fun Christmas movie with a good amount of comedy. Vaugn is definatly the backbone (comedic) of the cast.

In the film’s second week, Bolt moved up to #2 this week, earning $26.5 million.

Twilight fell one spot to #3 this week, earning $23.6 million.

Quantum of Solace fell two spaces to #4 this week, earning $19.5 million. If you liked Casino Royale, you will love this one even more. Alot more action, and it ties up some loose ends.

Australia debuted at #5 this week, earning $14.8 million.

Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa fell two spots to #6 at the box office this weekend with $14.5 million.

Transporter 3 debuted at #7 this week at the box office, earning $12.3 million.

Role Models fell three spots to #8 this week, with $5.3 million.

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas was in the #9 spot this week, earning $1.6 million.

Milk debuted at the #10 spot with $1.3 million. The film at the highest per theatre average of any film with $38,361 per theatre. (Well No Shit…. It was only in 350 theatres!!!)
BOX OFFICE TOP TEN
1. Four Christmases - $31.6 Million ($31.6 Million)
2. Bolt - $26.5 Million ($66.8 Million)
3. Twilight - $23.6 Million ($119.6 Million)
4. Quantum of Solace - $19.5 Million ($142 Million)
5. Australia - $14.8 Million ($14.8 Million)
6. Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa - $14.5 Million ($159.5 Million)
7. Transporter 3 - $12.3 Million ($12.3 Million)
8. Role Models - $5.3 Million ($57.5 Million)
9. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas - $1.6 Million ($5.1 Million)
10. Milk - $1.3 Million ($1.3 Million)

Not a bad weekend overall. I thought Twilight would have done a lot better second week, with all those tweens and soccer moms having nothing to do. But oh well.

As always, we are looking for article writers for the site. So if you are interested, please send me an email at james@sparkboxshow.com. Laters!

Ok so everyone on the planet has been playing Gears 2 these last few weeks. And yes I have also been engrossed in the world of Gears. So its time to give my impressions of this masterpiece of a game.

Lets just start this off by saying, no I did not go directly into horde mode and collect $200. I did what everyone should have done. I rushed home from gamestop (the source of all evil in this world), put in Gears, and played the campaign mode. I decided hardcore would be the best place to start because I didnt want an easy breeze through game experiance. And at the same time, I didnt want to die every 30 seconds when I was about 2 feet from a barricade. So my experiance began.

From the first load up of Gears when I was treated to a very sweet opening cinematic, I was hooked. The whole underdog fighting againt all leagues of indestructible evil always appealed to me. So I grabbed some water bottles and a bag of chips, and started my journey into the sinkhole. Lets take a look at this game from a few standpoints.

Graphics - No real insane noticeable improvement over the first gears to me, besides it being a little more crisp and the textures were clear as day. I was still impressed with the gritty burnt out world.

Characters -  You’re favorite delta squad is back. Marcus, Dom, Baird, and Cole all make their return for this action packed hit. But you also get to meet a few new characters. Tai the unstoppable tattoo’d badass, Carmine the rookie assigned to delta, and Dizzy, the stranded who signed up for the COG army to get his family into Jacinto. Of all of them, Tai was my favorite. The strong silent badass, who would kick the snot out of anything in his way. I would say he is just a tiny bit less awesome then cole, but way more then carmine.

The voice acting is done very well and you do tend to form a sort of relationship with your squad this time. When they are in trouble, you tend to drop anything your doing, lay some cover fire, and run through a hailstorm of bullets to save them.

Audio -  LOVE IT. Honestly without the musical score, I wouldnt be as into the game as I am. The music lends itself to make you feel as if you are emotionally invested in the game. You get those highs when your fighting back the horde becasue of the music. And you get the emotional lows when it changes to dark and mellow tunes as you watch your buddies get rocked.

Story - Not much to say on this one. Its a continuation of the first game, but with more emotional tones. You have the main story of trying to save Jacinto and take down the Horde. Also you have the secondary story of saving Dom’s wife. Which honestly becomes the main goal for most of the game. You find yourself rushing towards the enemies so you can get closer to where she may be.

Ok now multiplayer, which was one of the main reasons I picked this up.

HORDE! - OMGWTF. Thats all I can say, being able to play with 4 of your buddies in a game where you have to fight back 50 waves of ever increasing enemies (health, accuracy, and damage). This is the meat and potato’s of the multiplayer. If you go in with 4 buddies, the host can pick the map, and starting wave. If you go in to a random game, you start at wave one, and you vote on one of 2 maps. Going in with buddies is definatly the real way to go. Teamwork is a must, and in most levels, picking an area with only 2 entrances is the way to go. Everyone can defend the spot, and gather ammo before the next round starts. The rambo types will die quickly, thus dooming your entire squad.

The other multiplayer modes are the same cut and dry ones as the last game, so I feel no real reason to go into depth talking about them. If you played them before, you know exactly how they pan out in this one.

Overall I was insanely impressed with this game. From Horde, to Wingman, to the coop story, I was hooked all the way from beginning to end. I cannot wait for part 3 to come out. If they ramped up the story, characters, and gameplay this much. Imagine the 3rd. A+ all around.

oh and for all wondering. My gamertag is TENDERROAST1 (last character is a one). Feel free to hit me up on XBL and kill some horde with me. OR chill or whatever.

It’s the First Halloween Episode!

We are happy to announce the release of the first halloween episode!  Andy’s back from vacation and james is back on the show!  

This week:

- Saints Row 2

- Fable 2: 

- Chris’s 30 Second Review:  Age of Booty

- Portal:still alive XBLA Release

- We discuss Halloween Topics:

    Scariest Video Game Boss? 

    Your Favorite “Scary” Game?

    Favorite Halloween Movie? 

 - Don’t forget! NYC Comicon 2009 [ Feb 6-8 2009]

Enjoy and make sure to leave us positive feedback by clicking on the iTunes button on the right if you like the show.  You can also subscribe on iTunes via the same button or the yellow RSS logo.  Or you can download the mp3 here.   

…and don’t forget to check out Maximum Voltage and Ryan’s Rapture and as always a special thanks once again to Mippa-chan!

AND THANKS TO OUR SPONSOR THIS WEEK- Claragra

On Tuesday October 21st  the announcement that will once again turn me into a recluse shall be unleashed upon the masses.

According to everyone keeping tabs this is going to be the reveal that gives us the Knights of the Old Republic MMO.  A tag team of Lucasarts and Bioware has nothing but “win” written all over it.  Thankfully now all us disenfranchised Star Wars Galaxies players will have something constructive onto which we can release our hatred and anger of Sony Online.  Personally I’ve enjoyed that last two iterations immensely and can’t wait to see what they’re going to do with this one.  Maybe we can wrestle the old crew back together, can anyone guess who that consisted of?  *grin*

(A Castle Crashers Review)

A few weeks ago I went to the store and traded in a couple games in order to get Mercenaries 2 at a cheaper price from my local EBX.  While I was out, I decided to leave my Xbox 360 on downloading some of the demos of games that I missed because of the whole red ring of death and 10 weeks without an Xbox thing.  Among these demos was the Castle Crashers Demo.  

Castle Crashers is the latest creation from the team at Newgrounds.  They also made the game Alien Hominid many years ago.  Yes that impossible game where you die from getting hit once and have to memorize the attack patterns of the boss characters and blast away at them for what seemed to be an eternity…  It sucked real bad, but developed a god following since it had pretty graphics and some pretty goo humor.

Where was I?  Oh yes Castle Crashers. In short, I bought it immediately after I had completed the demo.  The long version?  Read on…

The game is beautiful.  The little SD characters and animated backgrounds are very shiny and they look outstanding in HD due to the fully scalable vector design of the presumably flash-based graphics.  The music is truly epic in every sense, I would assume to pull you into the game or to add to the over the top mood of the gameplay.  All the tracks can be found on the Newgrounds website, if you wanted to listen to them on your iPod etc, but just be extra careful that you don’t find yourself hacking people’s heads off and smooching all of the princesses you see.  I’m telling you right now, there is blood, and body parts flying, in a light cartoony way, but you still may not want your children playing it because of this.  

As for gameplay, it’s very hack and slash.  It’s a side scrolling beat em’ up, sort of like Golden Axe and Streets of Rage, but with a leveling and experience points system.  You quest around on a map reminiscent of Super Mario World fighting hordes of bad guys who change with the area of the map you are in.  As you upgrade your 4 basic skill areas with experience points each time your character levels, you of course get much stronger.  If you can’t beat a level on your own, you then have two options:  you can go back and try to level up some more first since all levels you have already completed are open and available should you decide to go back, (and its a good idea to do so anyway, which I will explain in a moment) or you could get some friends to help you on Xbox live.  The games online multiplayer is a blast. There are small differences that occur to make the game more interesting like portions where you have to duke it out with your friends to see who gets to kiss the princess, or having to give your friends CPR when they die in order to bring them back to life.

The game is loaded with goodies and content and hidden items.  There are many weapons in the game to choose from including anything from golden swords to lobsters, some of which are dug up after you get the shovel item, some are found randomly, and some are dropped by specific enemies.  The chance of them dropping from enemies seems to be very low, so I wouldn’t count on getting every weapon you want in this manner.  There are small hidden areas all over which can be accessed with bombs and other special items.  Some thing can only be found with the help of the animal orbs.  Animal orbs are little creatures that are found in the same way as weapons and other special items.  They follow you around and do anything from boost your strength, magic, defense, or agility to fighting enemies at your side or securing loot for you.  My favorite is the giraffe who increases the amount of experience points you procure.  Just a note, if your friends play with you the only way to have the same animal orb as your friends would be the join the game with it already equipped or look for it in the location that it is normally found in the game.  The game only makes one of each available at the animal ark in multiplayer.  I suppose because 4 rammys would just be too devastating.  

 As far as playability and re-playability, the game is so much fun the first time through that you will definitely want to try it again.  The games seems long the first time, but shorter each time as you get used to the levels and learn tricks to defeat the various enemies.  If you are worried about what you can do when your characters reach high levels, there is an “insane mode” available to any character that has beaten the game once already.  You unlock characters with each new character you beat the game with, so there is plenty of incentive to play through the game multiple times,however it is a bit disappointing that you don’t get a reward for beating the game in insane mode.  

All in all, I am very impressed with this game and the types of titles that have been released lately on the Xbox live arcade in general.  This game has probably stolen somewhere along the line of 15-20 hours of my time in the last 2 weeks.  I didn’t know I had hat much time to play video games, much less to play an Xbox live arcade game.  In that time I have unlocked 5 characters and unlocked every animal orb, and nearly every weapon.  Just keep in mind that there is some weird glitch whereby you lose everything except character unlocks.  I don’t know why but when Jungletrek and I were playing the other day, he lost every unlockable except characters upon our beating the game.  Keep in mind that he and I have a knack for finding bugs and tricks.  Other than that I’d have to say the game is flawless.  I’d say it gets at least an 8/10 if not better.  Go out and download it right now, you can go wrong with this one.

Yet another episode of the Spark Box Show Podcast! … and yet another week without james…

But never fear, we have alot to talk about!  And stay tuned for the halloween episode coming out next time!

In this episode:

- upcoming October games - Fallout 3, Fracture, etc, etc.. the list is too long!

 - upcoming October movies 

- Chris’s 30 second review – feeding frenzy

- Games demos - Pure / Fracture

 - Don’t forget! –> NYC Comicon 2009 [ Feb 6-8 2009]

Enjoy and make sure to leave us positive feedback by clicking on the iTunes button on the right if you like the show.  You can also subscribe on iTunes via the same button or the yellow RSS logo.  Or you can download the mp3 here.   

…and don’t forget to check out Maximum Voltage and Ryan’s Rapture and as always a special thanks once again to Mippa-chan!

AND THANKS TO OUR SPONSOR THIS WEEK- Claragra

If you’ve ever had dreams of fighting in large space battles and moving things with the force, you have to start where Luke did; farming moisture out of the air on a desert.

This cool little device called the Watermill is a dehumidifier/water filter in one. It hangs outside and pumps 3.2 gallons of purified water per day to wherever you need it. Pretty good if only one person needs drinking water throughout the day, otherwise you’re kinda screwed. I just want one so I can stare over the sand dunes at the setting sun(s) whimsically.