Strange Gamer

Fallout: New Vegas - I thought I wanted more

2011-07-01T09:44:00.000-04:00

I did. I really did...think...I wanted more. I LOVED Fallout 3 when it came out and I played it on PS3. It was the shooter version of one of my all time favorite games, TES: Oblivion. Despite the bugs that were in Fallout 3 (like the game freezing during the cinematic critical strike scenes causing you to hard reboot the system), the story, open world, choose your own adventure style of play was fantastic. A few months ago, I had about $50 to invest in my next gaming experience after having finished AC2: Brotherhood. I wanted another RPG to sink some time into and keep me from spending money, so I decided to pull the trigger on New Vegas. Review scores were high, and I pretty much knew what I was getting.

After giving Valve more of my money, I dove into New Vegas, using my Dualshock 3 controller as an emulated 360 controller to give it a more console feel with better graphics on the PC. The story started off with you, a courier, being shot, and revived in this small town of Goodsprings. You're main objective is to track down your would-be killer, find out why you were attacked, and in the process of doing so, discover the wasteland's mysteries and politics and determine how you want to influence them. In typical fashion of these games, you can make "good" decisions and "bad" decisions, and the world will change it's relationships with you based on those actions. The decisions are pretty clear cut like Mass Effect (though not color coded), but not as complex as those in Dragon Age where decisions are truly "grey".

One thing this game does better than it's predecessor is introduce a much more complex and dynamic faction system. It's not as simple as deciding which group is good or bad, because there are many different factions with their own stories and goals, and various mutually exclusive goals that force complexity in determining how you wish to shape the story. That is the real strength of this game, and should be lauded as such. I typically find it near impossible to make "evil" decisions, so I tend to always go heroic, but this game forced me to make choices I usually don't because of the competing goals of factions, and critical decision points. More on this at the end of this. But just note that if you want a really good story telling experience, this game totally delivers.

Here's where things start to break down. First of all, the graphics. Though a bit better on the PC because of the higher resolution textures, it's still the same engine used for Oblivion and Fallout 3. Those games looked the best there had ever been...in their day, but that day was 3-5 years ago. It looks dated now. Next is the bugs. I'll give them credit in that creating open worlds where NPC's interact with each other and make decisions in this always changing world is incredible. So bugs or weird things can happen. But environment clipping? Unacceptable. Falling through a rock in the environment is pretty lame. And still the game could freeze during the cinematics. It's just really sad that the same bugs that historically plagued the other two games in this engine till existed in this release. It really took away from the gameplay.

Now a unique thing happened to me during the gameplay that does color my experience a bit. About 40 hours into the game, which is a hefty investment, My SSD crashed. That's my OS drive. I had forgotten to back up in the last week and a half when it happened, and I got bit. I lost my saves. After going through the RMA process, and reinstalling the game, I got to start over. I had intended on being a jerk in the game for a different experience, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. I did play through with pistol specializations instead of energy weapons like the first time, which I have to say, was dumb. It made the game play like a bad shooter, which was boring.

I'm the kind of gamer who wants to experience it all, but in these games, I just can't bring myself to do it. I did find all of the locations on the map, but there is still plenty to do in the game I didn't finish. I got to a point where the game was just getting boring for me, so I rushed to finish it, and ended up going down a different path then I had started out and turning on my supposed allies, but screw it, I just wanted to finish it so I could move on.

If you haven't ever played Oblivion or Fallout 3, then I would recommend this despite it's flaws. Let's face it, all games have flaws, but few deliver such a deep story that let's you shape it. If you've played either of those games in the past, though, I would pass. It just doesn't hold up. If it wasn't for the deal I made with my wife about not buying a new game until I finish the one I have, then I might not have even tried to plow through this again after losing the 40 hours before the crash. Out of 10, I'll give this a 7. Obviously good enough for me to put in over 100 hours, but not the most fun 100 hours I've ever spent.

Where are the games?

2011-04-27T09:59:00.000-04:00

Well, at least the ones I like? And specifically, the ones that push PC's? Most everyone I know has switched to gaming on their PC's and Mac's. With the disaster of what's going on with Sony, and the aging graphics of the Xbox but continued high prices, most people I know have switched to primarily gaming online with their computers. With the surge in downloadable games, growth in delivery services like Steam and D2D, and hardware pushing ahead, where are the developers pushing forward? Have they all bought into the idea that all game sales are on the consoles, and only the casual Facebook crowd game on PC's? Or that the iPhone is the only place to innovate? Having invested in some new hardware, I am searching for games that will let me see some eye candy. After hearing on a recent episode of the Bombcast that Skyrim was going to be DX9 in November (due to consoles), and we're on DX11 in the PC world, I was pretty disappointed. Funny how things have changed, and PC gamers are now the "ports" and "afterthoughts". At this point, I don't even care what version of DX you use. Just push the performance on the pc versions.

For Science!

2011-04-27T06:13:00.001-04:00

When the first Portal came out I was just blown away by such a simple idea. 1 gun, 2 portals and a lot of puzzle solving. I fondly remember playing Portal in one sitting and before playing Portal 2, I quickly refreshed my memory by playing the original one more time. Despite Portal 2 just on the horizon it was still an absolute pleasure to play the original Portal.

Portal 2 returns you back to Aperture Science as Chell. Our female mute hero who has a knack for puzzle solving is awoken by a new character called Wheatley voiced by Ricky Gervais close friend Stephen Merchant. I’m going to get this out right now, the voice acting in this game is great and the narrative is spot on. GlaDOS makes her return with her witty, death threatening, yet very satisfying and often hilarious announcements as you play through each level. Stephen Merchant does a great job in his role as the rather dumb yet helpful sidekick that he is at the beginning of the game. Being British I enjoyed hearing a British talent in such a mainstream game and was quite surprised that voice acting, story writing and character gestures were all executed sublimely. I’m almost tempted to put down that half the fun was just waiting to see how GlaDOS would insult you next or what Wheatley was going to say the next time you saw him. Even Cave Johnson, the creator and owner of Aperture Science who you hear from later in the game does an excellent job of not only personifying the craziness that is the Aperture Science Labs approach to science but also the aging of the company itself.

Aperture Science is in large scale ruin. Nature has made its way into some test areas while others are just decrepit and falling apart. It’s a nice change to what we were shown in the original Portal, but GlaDOS is busy repairing the test areas for you as you advance. What I really enjoyed was how Valve showed the player just how big and massive Aperture Science is. If not darn right ridiculous. Test areas are just huge cubes of robotic tiles that can are themselves movable in this giant structure of a testing facility. It’s really quite cool and I was glad to discover more about Aperture Sciences inner workings and history.

The tests themselves have new components to them too. 3 types of Gels are introduced. Blue allowing you to bounce to the same height you dropped from; great for clearing massive gaps. Orange gel allows you to accelerate rapidly along it and white gel when applied to surfaces makes that surface usable with the portal gun. Tractor beams which could both push and pull, light bridges which could be used to walk along as well as act as a barricade for moving objects or protection against sentries. My personal favorite was the faith jump plates which would launch the player or an item very high into the air at a designated target. I really enjoyed the air time moments in the original portal where you had to plant an entrance and an exit portal while you were in midflight and was glad to see more levels like this in Portal 2.

With all these new additions, you might think puzzle solving in Portal 2 is a real head scratcher, but really their quite solvable. Admittedly there were times where I was like; WTF? But Valve did such a good job with slowly easing the player into learning each new device and how these could be used to help solve future test areas. The learning curve is balanced very well and I never felt any puzzle were impossible. Importantly Portal 2 never makes you feel stupid. Sure you might stall on a few levels while you think, but when you do realize the solution you’re never embarrassed by how stupid you were at not noticing the solution sooner, just genuinely satisfied that you solved the puzzle. It’s a great feeling solving a puzzle in the test area, reaching the exit and moving on to the next test area.

The story in Portal 2 is a lot more informative than the first one. You learn loads more about Aperture Science and its history. Wheatley sets the tone of the game at the beginning but soon you find the tables have turned and you’re learning a great deal from GlaDOS and Cave Johnson in the later levels of the game. I enjoy learning about the lore of game worlds and even though Valve has only briefly mentioned Aperture Science in Half Life 2, I did find myself thinking how Portal and Portal 2 fits in the Half Life universe timeline. In any case it was cool to finally hear about how GlaDOS had come into being. Some information is revealed about Chell’s past but nothing on the scale to everything else going on. While the story formula is nothing new in Portal 2, it was an absolute pleasure to play through to the very end and see the conclusion, which by the way is out of this world! Spoiler? Maybe, but it was an epic end and the rolling credits had me smiling.

A great game and one you should all add to your collections. Could it be game of the year though? Hmm way too early to say for sure. Were only just entering Spring and there are so many games to be released yet but I think it’s safe to say that since 2011 started this is by far the best game to be released this year so far. I’ll be posting my Co-Op review tomorrow.

MAXIMUM REVIEW!

2011-04-25T01:37:00.001-04:00

Crysis 2.

Being the budget gamer I am, I’m forced to play the shiny new PC games on a somewhat graphical lackluster rig. In this case my laptop. While I can game quite comfortably on my laptop, it is starting to show its age when processing the eye candy. Never the less Crysis was able to detect the ideal settings for my laptop and runs rather well on it. We all know Crysis 2 looks amazing.

Even though the graphics are scaled down for my laptop I was still really impressed with the visuals. Crytek did a really good job with creating a destroyed, occupied New York city and while the open world exploration is gone there is still a large amount of freedom for the player to navigate through levels. I found myself using different tactics where possible depending on the terrain of the level and the amount of bad guys in my sights.

Crysis 2 lets you know when you’ve reached a strategic moment which usually places you on some high perch looking down on the level that awaits. During this time you can go into binoculars mode and have a look around, highlight enemies and ammo dumps as well as think about how to get from your current position to the objective.

In all honesty though, there isn’t really much emphasis for you to be strategic. I found myself just having a quick glance at where the enemies were, where the ammo was and if there were any vehicles packing heavy weaponry. The problem is that your radar gives away too much information. It lets you know where enemies are and which way they’re looking. I know you’re in a high tech suit, but a little less of warfare information would have made things a little more difficult and surprisingly. Sorry soldier hiding around the corner, but I know your there! There have been moments though where I was caught by surprise but I think this was just orchestrated by the game itself. The AI aren’t that smart either, too many a time have I caught a soldier glitch walking into a wall only to die by an equally unimaginative and over reused melee kill.

The suit is the real star of the show though. The suit powers have been more mainstreamed since the original Crysis; powers can be activated and deactivated by a simple key press, though the command star is still there. I never did understand why sprint was a power though. Yes sprint is slightly faster in Crysis 2 than other FPS games but it’s not that fast. Maximum armor and cloak are probably the 2 “real” powers you use the most often. Sprint can be used in conjunction with cloak and maximum armor but it drains your suits energy at a higher rate. The same when you use the power jump. The suits power animations though are quite impressive. I especially liked going in and coming out of cloak mode. The animation on the weapons and abilities like grab and melee, while nothing new were all rendered very smoothly. You also have nano vision too which is basically thermal vision. It’s necessary to use in low light parts of the game and when tracking down foes, but really it’s just thermal vision. Why call it nano vision. I felt like there was a missed opportunity here for more suit powers.

Crysis 2 forces you to use the suits powers a lot, but as you progress through the game, you build your own method of combat style with the suits abilities. For the first part of the game I was being very covert and had some excellent moments where I would clear a whole level of enemies with melee kills or just sneak straight pass them. It’s enjoyable but time consuming and you soon find yourself combining powers as the situation evolves around you. Different enemy types require different approaches and mixing all these up kept me thinking throughout the game. I certainly didn’t feel I was on rails shooting non-stop, though there are boundaries and limitations to the freedom you have in levels now. The open world island of the past is gone, but there is still a level of choice to what you can do.

What I really liked about Crysis 2 was the on the fly customization of weapons and your suit. Each power tier can be upgraded to have a bonus trait. For example cloak can be upgraded to use less suit power and the time to activate cloak is substantially quicker. These upgrades cost nano points which you collect from the dead aliens in the game. Weapons can be modified to have different types of scopes, silencers, attached shotgun/grenade launchers, extended magazines, firing modes. I definitely appreciated being able to change the weapons in the game to meet my needs. Something I wish I could see in more FPS games.

The story in Crysis 2 is a lot more character involved. In the previous Crysis I felt there was more emphasis on just the suit, the island and the alien invasion. In crysis 2 there is a lot of dialogue and cut scenes between levels. Some might say too much but I didn’t feel like I was being pulled away from game play for too long and I did enjoy following along with the story.

There’s multiplayer too, but when it comes to FPS games there is only one FPS game I play online and that is the Battlefield series. I played a bit of the multiplayer but found myself just running around aimlessly with my team mates or cloaking up behind enemies etc. It’s fun for like an hour or two but nothing engaging or rewarding about it at all.

All in all a good shooter and an enjoyable single player. Use it to benchmark your gaming rigs.

FRAPS is not your friend

2011-04-12T10:02:00.000-04:00

Recently, I wrote a perspective comparing experiences of gaming on the PS3 versus the PC on the Assassin's Creed games. During that time of comparing and contrasting the video fidelity, benchmarking, and asking for outside opinions from my wife, one thing became clear; I'm a bit obsessive. The second thing that became clear is that FRAPS is not your friend.

This isn't a direct attack on FRAPS. Far from it. I believe FRAPS is an invaluable tool in the real of hardware, because without benchmarking, we have no way to compare objectively one product to another. For those that don't know, FRAPS is a tool that you can download and install that will show you the Frames per Second, or FPS as it's commonly referred to, in any 3d application. Not 3D in "wear glasses" way, but think more in terms of TV or video games. Anyway, if you're reading this, you likely know this already.

So why would I say it isn't your friend? Simple; For those prone to addictive behavior, such as myself, knowing a score drives you to the competitive nature of increasing that score. In order to increase the FPS, you have certain things you can do to effect that number. One is over-clocking your current graphics card. Find that sweet spot between increased performance and keeping the video card cool. Once you exhaust that, you can over-clock your CPU, again finding that sweet spot between performance and heat management. Lastly, updating the drivers for your system to ensure that the manufacturer's optimizations are in place. Those are your free/low cost options.

Once you've exhausted those, you start getting into upgrading to new hardware. Hardware is not cheap. In relative terms compared to historical pricing, it is, but not in real world dollars. An upgrade to your graphics card, depending on the performance you are seeking, is likely going to set you back anywhere from $200 to $400 dollars, depending on your level of performance upgrade sought. Once you drop that, and get an increase, you quickly learn that your CPU is holding back the power of your shiny new graphics card. Depending on the CPU upgrade, it's unlikely that the cost per performance works out that it makes sense to put a different chip on your existing motherboard, so you'll have to update that and the RAM to keep up with the new chipset improvements. That can cause you to easily drop double or triple the cost of the GPU you spent in order to give yourself some future-proofing, if there is such a thing in the realm of computers. Then, you start to focus on the other perceived bottlenecks in your shiny new system, like your hard drive. SSD's blow them out of the water, so you drop a bunch of money on those. Your system is screaming now, right?

So you launch that game you've been playing and notice a 10-20 FPS increase, maybe more, in the little FRAPS score. WOOHOO!, right? Except, did the game change? No. Did your enjoyment? Who knows, because you've spent a ton of money and time upgrading, benchmarking, and everything else instead of PLAYING THE GAME!

I'm not saying you shouldn't upgrade your computer ever. I'm a true enthusiast, listening to podcasts and reading benchmark reviews on a daily basis. But with anything, you (really, I) have to learn moderation, and how to separate knowledge from actionable information. Just because something out there is better doesn't mean you HAVE to have it. If my wife read this, I'm sure she would be doing cartwheels that I've come to realize this.

My grandpa used to say the following about his car: "If you hear a funny noise, turn the radio up". That sound advice work for PC's as well. If you see a drop in FPS, turn off FRAPS. You'll know if the game is unplayable or not by playing it.

Assassin's Creed (2 and Brotherhood): PS3 vs PC experiences

2011-04-12T09:20:00.000-04:00

I've recently spent over 100 hours with Ezio/Desmond and crew. That's a lot of time, and I'm a little burnt out. So instead of contuning to write reviews like all the game sites do, I'll try to come up with new angles to write about. For this one, I thought I would write about the different experiences because of the change in hardware.

I first began playing Assassin's Creed (AC) on the PS3 whent it first came out. At first, HD gaming was all pretty knew to me, so I was blown away. Sadly, that was about all that blew me away in the first game. The game play was extremely repetitive, and I found myself bored about halfway through that game. Eventually, after sitting on my shelf for over a year, I traded it in to my local Gamestop for pennies on the dollar and never looked back...until now.

Time had passed, AC2 had come and gone to great reviews, and AC: Brotherhood was out with high scores as well. When messing around on the PS3 in February after moving on from my WoW days, I noticed that they had a download version of AC2 for $30. That price point was enough, since it included all of the DLC, that I thought I would give it a go. It turned out to be a fantastic decision!

The game was smooth. I really felt like a (virtual) badass, sneaking around on rooftops, tracking guys, taking down those I needed to (and some I didn't), and genuinely loving the pace and story of the game. I thought the graphics were fantastic. It played at 720p on the consoles, and delivered a pretty solid frame rate throughout the experiences, though I did notice a bit of drop in the cities where all the activity of the people moving around were clearly impacting performance.

I ripped through the title, and blew threw the DLC. The story of the game took a great turn at the end, and made me anticipate the AC: Brotherhood title. I finished a few days before the new title was releasing on PC via Steam, so I went that route instead of the PS3 to see about the experience on the PC and whether I could get even higher visuals on it.

I did have a problem to overcome, though, because the thought of playing the game on a mouse and keyboard appalled me. I don't own a 360 contorller for Windows, only the PS3 controllers. After some research and help from Kinto, I came across MotioninJoy Gamepad tool. Using this software, you can plug your controller in (or use Bluetooth), and emulate an XBOX 360 controller, which I can say works perfectly. Even the vibration on the newer Dualshock3 controller will work. So if you're in a similar boat, where certain games will be better with a controller, but don't want to drop $50 on a 360 controller, then this is the solution for you.

With that solved, I got the game and started to play. The first thing to notice was the amazing difference that just the 1080p resolution makes. It's easy to forget this when you're on a console, but it really is a giant difference. I even went so far as to plug the PS3 into my LCD monitor to compare and contrast by flipping back and forth between the sources. The second thing I noticed was the in the PS3 game, the draw distance/textures weren't cranked as high as the Brotherhood version on the PS3 was. I can't confirm if that is because of the two games being different, or if it was just tuned down on the consoles for better frame rate play, which I suspect the latter to be true.

After playing about 10 hours into AC Brotherhood, I had a birthday where some family gratefully donated to my video card budget. I upgraded my GTS 250 to the AMD 6950, and cranked the game back on. I expected to be blown away with the increased horsepower...but I was not. With the settings cranked up, I did notice a more consistent FPS out and about in the country, which was so smooth it was shocking, given I clearly haven't played many games above 45 FPS in my life. But for $250, I expected more. After a lot of research and experimentation with settings and drivers, I did manage to get the FPS up to a solid rate that made the game that much better, which is detailed in an earlier post.

This has gotten long, so I'm going to leave this post as it is so I can start to write my new post that is based on these type of experiences. I'll end by saying if you haven't gotten into Assassin's Creed, do it. You won't regret it. You can skip the first one and not be lost, but you have to play AC2 to understand Brotherhood. The series is fantastic, and I can't wait to see where they go with the new one. Speculation is already that they will be going to Rome, NY, USA because of the DLC on Brotherhood, but the ending doesn't seem to tie to that, IMO. Needless to say, I will play more of this game, and I will likely stick to gaming on my PC for non-PS3 exclusives.

New Hardware! AMD HD Radeon 6950 and OCZ Agility2 60GB SSD

2011-04-05T10:22:00.000-04:00

Well guys, I saved my pennies, got some birthday money, and invested in a new card (XFX 2GB version). I wanted to get something current generation with DX11 support and determine based on that upgrade whether or not to invest in a new cpu/mb/ram upgrade later this year or postpone to next. Also, I wanted to see for myself if the SSD hype was worth it, and upon stumbling into a sale at CompUSA, I picked one up. What are the results?

First, the SSD. I had to first go into my bios and change the default controller to AHCI, since it won't work in IDE mode. I had actually done that during my last system rebuild on my single 7200 HDD. There really wasn't a noticeable performance difference on the HDD when switching the controller interface, which supports all the benchmarking I had read prior. I popped the SSD in my computer, which has SATA2 3GB/s connections, and started installing Windows 7. The first thing I noticed was the speed of the OS install. It took 7 minutes as opposed to my normal 20+ minutes on my HDD.

As we all know, once you install Windows, the first thing to do is put the Anti-Virus on. I am installing all programs to my HDD to conserve space and leave only the OS and other things that can't be helped to be installed on the SSD. Then Windows starts the Windows Update process, involving lots of reboots. All I can say is that rebooting is no longer an issue. It takes longer for my MB to post (8gb memory check, load AHCI controller, etc) then it does for the Windows to bring me to the logon screen, logon, and be able to do stuff. That was a huge noticeable difference.

The WEI (Windows Experience Index) jumped to a 7.3, not that it means much. Again, my programs are all on my "slow" (lol) 7200 RPM HDD. What I can tell you is that everything truly is noticeably snappier. Everything loads faster despite being on that other HDD, and no, it's not just because its a clean install. I did a clean install with partitioned c/d drives prior to getting the SSD for a few weeks to "practice" getting used to the smaller c: drive. Program launch and responsiveness is a bit snappier, probably due to the fact that each drive is dedicated to a function (OS commands versus fetch) more so than the SSD versus HDD. If everything were on an SSD, I can't imagine the difference in total performance.

Lastly, since we're all gamers, I would say that the SSD does not really impact FPS Sorry, but so much of games now get loaded into RAM and Video Card buffers, it's really more about those components and the speed of the available cores more so than the retrieval of the game data. I'm sure if you loaded games that accessed the disk drive during play a lot, like an MMO, then you would notice a little difference.

All in all, I'm very pleased with the SSD, and I can't wait to get one for my wife's new laptop. More on that in a future post.

Now, for the new card. As you know, I was running a Nvidia GTS 250 1GB. I do everything at 1920x1080 on my LCD panel. My CPU is a Q8200 C2Q overclocked to 2.8ghz from 2.33 stock, and I run with 8gb of RAM. On a quick side note, when I upgraded my RAM to 8GB from 4GB, there was a very noticeable difference, because of how Windows 7 will cache programs in RAM. Anyway, back on track now...

The games I'm currently playing are AC: Brotherhood, Starcraft 2, and other DirectX 9 stuff, like Borderlands, Civ 4, etc. I'm not going to go into details on every FPS at every resolution, etc. Go read Tom's Hardware, Anandtech, TechPowerup, or PC Perspective for that stuff. Here's what I'll tell you about what I have focused on.

I went with the XFX 6950 over the similarly priced GTX 560 ti, though I've always been a Nvidia guy. so why the switch? Simple...Price/Performance. Again, if you're interested, go check out those websites I've listed. I'm fully aware of the potential BIOS flash of my card to a 6970, but I won't go down that road until I need to or I want to extend some life in the card in it's later years. For now, this card can handle anything thrown at it, which is awesome because I get to play with settings I've never got to before. Namely, AA settings. With the GTS 250, I was never really able to turn those things on because frame rates would drop too low.

Before I dive into the difference, let me first say is that my GTS 250, with a small overclock, was no slouch, even at my resolution (hence why I got the GB card back then). I pushed this card to the limits, and was never really disappointed. It wasn't until I started playing AC: Brotherhood that I really started to see a difference. I experimented with maxing out the graphic settings, with 2x AA Out of the city, I could pull 30-40 FPS, which was playable, but when I was in the city running around, I would often dip into the 20's, and the stuttering was annoying. I turned the settings down a bit, and it helped a tiny bit, but the loss of visual fidelity drove me nuts. As you know, I place importance on that in my gaming.

Since getting the card, the first thing I did was run the older 3DMark Vantage to compare against my GTS 250. Benchmark wise, it was just over a 100% increase in score on my card. I don't like to upgrade unless I can get that kind of increase in performance, so very happy. Then I launched CCC (the video card application), and turned on the tuner settings so I could manually set the fan. For gaming I read that I should set it at 40% because the sensor doesn't really crank it up correctly and that is a good noise/cooling setting. Now, I guess my old card was bad in this area, because despite having an extremely cool case, and my putting new thermal paste (AC5) on the chip to lower temps, I would game at about 75-80 degrees Celsius with the fan at 90-100%. I tend to have my headphones on, so it never really bothered me, but it definitely sounded like a video card...or so I thought. This new card is so quiet. I don't know why some reviewers think it's loud. Even at 40% I can't hear it over my case fans, which aren't loud either. Anyway, the card idles desktop with the fan at 35% now, and I game with it at 45%. The temps hang around 37 for desktop / 57 for gaming. What a difference!

I launched AC: Brotherhood, maxed the settings, and was blown out. This game looks amazing. Seriously, it is one of the best looking games I've ever seen. That said, I was a bit disheartened when I ran around the city with my new settings, and hovered in the 30-40 FPS? Huh? That's not much different than what I got on my GTS 250? It was only about a 5-10 FPS increase from the same maxed out settings (4xAA in game) apples to apples comparison, same locations, same running path, etc. I wasn't very happy with that. So I then started checking my CPU load vs my GPU load. I didn't do that with my GTS 250, so I can't compare, but my cpu was running all four cores at around 80-90%, while the GPU never really got over 50%. Is it a bottleneck? Sure, a bit, but since it wasn't 100% maxed, it's hard to call it a bottleneck. I think the 2.8 speed is just a bit slow, with no L3 cache and limited L2 cache contributing. But still, I wasn't bottlenecked by the pure definition of the word, so what else? I started messing with Morphological AA, SSAA, etc., from within CCC and messing with game settings. Though there were big differences in visual quality, there wasn't a lot of difference in FPS.

After much research online, it looks like this game was probably built with Nvidia specs and optimized thusly, and AMD hasn't updated drivers for this game yet. Even those with the higher performing 6970 are having the same FPS issues in this game. It's a new PC game, so I'm OK with that. It's kind of expected with AMD cards. Nvidia gets updates for their cards pushed more quickly than AMD.

As a quick test, I launched into SC 2. It detected my card and maxed out the settings. I jumped into a single player mission, and couldn't believe the difference. The game looked good before, but it looks FANTASTIC now. Huge difference, and the FPS was hovering in the 70-90 range.

I did some more research this morning into all the different AA, and setup a few different profiles based on those. For now, in AC: Brotherhood, I have gone with in game no AA, and CCC Morphological AA. At first I wasn't sure I liked MPAA as it's being designated, but after a lot of experimentation, I actually prefer it. Do some homework like I did on these technologies, because they are a huge deal and a differentiator from current Nvidia cards, similar to how Nvidia own's PhysX. If you play those few games that have it, then go for Nvidia, but AMD is doing some amazing things with AA and visual fidelity.

Anyhow, as I play more games, I'll try to pose more about these things, but thought I would share some knowledge with y'all :)

Say it isn't so

2011-03-09T10:14:00.002-05:00

Monday, March 7, 2011, was a very sad day for me. Ladies and Gentlemen. After almost 5 long years of great service, my day one 60GB Playstation 3 has played its last game. I have seen the ylod (yellow light of death) and its not pretty. I was horrified. All we wanted to do was watch a little “X-Files” on Netflix and it happened. Girlfriend ask, “Why is it not on?” and inconsiderately change the input to the DVR before I even got a second chance to try to turn it on again. I was in denial that this was happening to me. I mean, I knew one day that this “Day” would come, but I was hoping it never would.

So here I am today, 2 days later, trying to troubleshoot the problem. I don’t want to replace it with a new model because I like how the old launch models could play PSX&2 games. There’s a fix for it but you got to take the whole thing a part and you need a decent heat gun to reseed the main chips($80) but this may not fix the problem. I could get Sony to fix it which I hear is about $150, half of a new system. A friend of mine said it cost him $75 to fix his 360 from Microsoft. $150 seem like a lot at the moment to just fix a 5 year old system. Crap my killzone 3 disc is in there and I can’t get it out.

Time is money!

2011-03-01T14:52:00.002-05:00

Have you ever wonder how many hours it would take to complete a game? As I was playing Dead Space, I could help but wonder how much more game play there was left in the game. I didn't want to look up how many chapters were left because most of the time it would contain spoilers. Friend, spoilers are not fun. Then I came by this today.

http://everdred.com/gamelist.php

I been playing GTA 4 for 30 hours now(ty steam) and I see that on avg most beat it in about 40 hours. So I'm about 75% done with the game. Neat helpful little tool if I do say so myself.

Deathspank review

2011-03-01T09:02:00.001-05:00

Deathspank is a game I purchased back while I was still playing WoW, and considering quitting. It looked appealing because it promised a fantasy world that had great story/humor, leveling up system, and loot acquisition. I thought it would help meet the same ego filling needs that WoW was meeting, thus assisting in quitting WoW. The Problem? I still had subscription dollars going to Blizzard, so why play this when I'm paying for that?

Therefore, this game was put on the back burner. Now that I've officially kicked the WoW habit (and those who have played seriously know how hard that is), I decided to finish off games that were on said back burner (as you can tell from my previous reviews).

Deathspank is great! It started a little slow, which was tough for me to get into. I probably started the game, played for 15-30 minutes, then put it down, only to return later and pick up where I left off. However, once I got through the first couple of hours of gameplay, and started to understand how to use the menu's, combo my weapon hits, manage my inventory, etc, I found the gameplay very fun. I felt like I was playing a Nintendo game, and that's a good thing. Think Zelda. Early Zelda's, that is. The elements are all there, and the gameplay was really that satisfying. Other then not having to solve dungeon puzzles, I felt like I was playing Ocarina of Time in some weird way.

The fantasy world graphics are great. You really feel like you're controlling and playing a comic-book hero because of the fantastic use of artwork. The humor may not be for all, because there are a lot of inside "gamer" jokes, but there are plenty of other humor elements to appreciate. If you like seeing the trophy window pop up, then there are those as well.

The game offered probably about 15-25 hours of gameplay. I believe it still retails for around 15 USD. You can also get this game on the PC and I believe the 360. I highly recommend this game at that price point. The only knock I can give is that the fighting mechanic is quite repetitive, but again, think like early Zelda; You have swords to swing, shields to block with, and movement to work with. For what this game aspires to be, I give it a 5 out of 5, and highly recommend it on whatever platform you want to play it on.

I will be getting the new episode sometime in the future :)

Marvel vs Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds

2011-02-27T22:15:00.001-05:00

I remember the first time I played Marvel vs Capcom at an arcade at Disney World. Can you imagine as a high school student walking up to a machine that married two of your favorite things. Mega-man and Spider-man in the same game. WTF?!?! Played one game and I was hooked. 11 years later Marvel vs Capcom 3 hits the world and what's changed since then?

A lot has changed since the original and the second, for one the control system has been really simplified. Is this a good or bad thing? To be honest I think it's a plus to the series. IMO, fighting games have become a little too complex so unless you're a hardcore fighting fan it kind of pushes away the casual fighting fan. Anyways, the way the system work is you have a light, medium, and hard attack buttons. Push them in order and you can start a really simple combo. Also, you have a special button that basically is a button to knock your opponents into the air so you can start a bad ass air combo. While the system is more simplified the hardcore fighters can still pull of some amazing combos.

Pulling off team super combos has become really easy. Get your power bar up to at least level three hold down the left trigger button and watch your team lay-down chaos on the screen.

Another gameplay change is the X-factor system. Anytime during a battle players can activate the X-factor which increase traits for your team. X-factor can for example, boost a characters attack, defense, or healing ability. Using this can be a game changer. I'll get to this more as I talk about the online portions of the game.

Another change is the characters, you have your typical SF characters like Ryu and Chun Li, and your typical Marvel characters Spider-man, Iron Man, and Wolverine. Some recent Capcom characters have made it into the games. The addition of Date from Devil May Cry probably made a lot of fans very happy. Too bad this time around there are only 36 characters compared to the 56 in MvC2. It's a shame that Mega-man and Cyclops aren't apart the line up. (Pretty sure that we'll be seeing more characters through DLC.) (I really want to see Mega-man X.)

What else has changed? How about going from pixels and sprites, it makes the jump to the 3D but fights are still controlled on a 2D plain. The graphics aren't mind blowing but they fit very well with the comic book style of the game. It makes it stick out from the other fighting games.

The story of the game is lack there of. The only time you get to see anything that resembles a story is when you beat the game. In some of the endings you see characters that aren't in the roster. Are these possibly going to be part of the DLC????? Only Capcom knows.

The online fighting is fun and frustrating at the same time. It's fun when you play someone that is good and then you don't feel bad for losing to them. It's frustrating when you fight a guy that has found a chink in the games balance system. I had one guy using the same move over and over again. The said thing was the games guard system has been dialed back. So I was taking damage even though I could get close to the guy. The dude felt my wraith after I got close to him and beat the hell out of him with my characters. But the fucker had a trump card. He saved Amaterasu in case I beat the crap out of said characters. Once again he used the same move over and over again. Unfortunately, only a fireball could stop this move but I could never get enough time or space to hit the guy with it. Thus, upsetting me to no ends. Maybe if I was a better player I might have been able to find out how to take care of such a trashy poor excuse of a gamer. Increasing your rank can be a lot of fun but keeping your win ratio up can be really disappointing. Especially, if you fight people that have a slow connection and or expose the games weaknesses in order to win. LAME!!!

Overall I have enjoyed this game. If you're a fighting fan, Marvel fan this is a must buy. Casual fighters it's a recommended rental. Enjoy!!!

GO VOTE! NOW! STOP WAITING!

2011-02-18T09:24:00.000-05:00

http://www.artofvideogames.org

I don't agree with all the categories or the games they put in them, but so be it.

I got your game play right here!

2011-02-17T13:34:00.000-05:00

Here you go, Nintendo fan boys! Explain this! Mew ha ha ha ha ha ha ha...

Seriously, this is some funny shit:

Dead Island Announcement Trailer

2011-02-16T15:21:00.003-05:00

IDK anything about this game but its awesome! (blood&gore)

wiki:

* The game features a sandbox style gameplay on a tropical island.
* The zombie style and the story are massively influenced by George A Romero's movies.
* The game is focused on melee combat, the player can pick up almost anything and use it as a weapon.
* There are multiple playable characters.
* 4 Player drop in/out Co-Op

Stacking stacks up

2011-02-14T08:10:00.000-05:00

I've been on a kick lately to play some downloadable games. The latest I completed is Stacking. For this article, I don't want to write a review. Their are a hundred sites out there that do this already. Instead, I'm going to describe my experience with it.

The gameplay is unique, in that you are a tiny Matryoshka doll who stacks into larger dolls to take on their ability to solve puzzles. Each puzzle can be solved in a number of ways. Usually, one of those ways is quite obvious. For example, in one puzzle, a guard is standing between you and the entrance to a lounge that you need to get into. Next to him is a vent pulling air into the lounge. In the train station, there's a doll who farts. Kind of easy to figure out what to do, right? However, there are multiple ways to solve this puzzle, and they get more and more complex. I never really struggled with solving all the versions of a puzzle until the last stages of the game. But some of those puzzles in the end require a lot of new techniques where you will stack one doll into another, use that dolls ability, then quickly unstack and use the smaller dolls ability to form a combo.

I wish they would have done more combos in the game, because I feel that would have added more puzzle fun in the game. But it was clear this game was designed to be a light-hearted puzzle game, meant for the casual gamer. This is not the type of adventure puzzle game that requires you to pull out your internet-accessing device and look up help. I completed 100% of the game (and trophies), which is a first for me.

The artwork is fantastic. The dolls look just like beautifully painted wooden dolls, and the environments are equally fantastic looking. The game takes place in that early industrialization era of Russia, which is a depressing period of time for that region. Odd that a light-hearted puzzle game would choose that for the setting, but I believe it was a good choice. Their is no dialogue, only cut-scenes in the silent film model.

I would have to say that by the end of the 5-10 hours this game takes to complete to 100%, I was getting a bit bored with the cut-scenes. There are a lot of them. It kind of pulled you out of the world, which is a problem when you're entire game is to make these non-speaking wooden dolls do stuff. It was hard to really care about the story of this game. The gameplay is repetitive by design, but I was able to look beyond that to solve the unique puzzles. In spite of the these issues, I wanted to finish it to 100% for some reason. I guess because that goal felt achievable, and it was. Just when I felt like I was tired of playing the game, it ended, so the length was perfect.

I had a fun time playing this game. I think of these types of games as "escape" games, in that you can let yourself get sucked into a world that doesn't tax your motor skills to play it. It's intellectual and relaxing. If you are a PSN Plus member, it's free, so you must play it. If you pay like I did ($15), I believe you'll get your money's worth out of this title. It's a fun weekend play.

Blue Toad Murder Agency Review (finished this time)

2011-02-10T09:46:00.000-05:00

Last year, I bought the first three of the six episodes and wrote a review. Last week, the last three episodes were on sale on the PSN, so I picked them up and decided to revisit and complete the game. Have my thoughts about it changed?

Yes....and no. The game play is the same, but that's not surprising. I will, admit, however, that the puzzles in episode 4 and 5 were much harder than what I faced in the first three. Thankfully, the last episode was not as complicated.

But the funny thing about this type of puzzle game is that everyone will experience it differently. The puzzles are the same, but each one's brain works a little differently, so what is easy for me is hard for others, and vice-versa. When the wife played the first three episodes with me, it was really apparent how these puzzles affect people differently. Sadly, she is pretty turned off on gaming, thanks to my overuse of WoW in my free time. But I digress :-P

The game wraps up nicely, having solved the mystery behind the murder(s?). It is a fun play through, especially if you have a friend who wants to play a casual game with you. I just wish the puzzles changed. It has a very low replayability, unless you are a completionist who chases after trophies. But if like me, you pick up the game while it's on sale, and not pay full price, then you will get a solid 6 plus hours of Layton-style puzzles with a strong story to push you on. It's worth the investment if you want to remember that fun games can be made on platforms other than Nintendo. Oh, and also, this game is more about the story, than the game play, if that matters to you :)

Heavy Rain (Move Edition)

2011-02-03T01:33:00.000-05:00

I think about almost a year ago, I wrote a post about the demo for Heavy Rain. Ever since I heard the game would be move compatible, I decided to wait and buy the game. Was the motion controller update worth the anticipation or was I just a dope for falling for the wag?

Summary:

Heavy Rain is a story driven adventure game focused on taking four perspectives on a serial killer's story. You have the FBI agent, the private eye, the reporter, and the struggling father. All four of these characters are in search of clues that lead to the Origami killer. Each have their own agenda and their own flaws which are exploited throughout the game.

The Bad:

Maybe the biggest flaw of the whole game is the voice acting. Some are better than others and the top voice actors are only mediocre. I only wanted to laugh when children spoke in the game or when someone slipped out of their accent.

Graphic hick-ups aren't pretty and some character models are just shitty in comparison to the main four. Kind of takes the player out of the reality of the game in my own opinion.

The camera screwing up in any game that causes me to reset a level, always almost makes me take it out on my poor controller and wall. If you want to change camera angles in the story make sure the transition from position in the players controller is smooth. Yes, I'm pointing my fingers at you game studios.

Button layouts were not well thought out for when they made the Move edition for the game. Asking a player to hold square, triangle, and the move button was no easy task. I think it's stupid I had to use two hands to hit buttons on the right side of a controller.

The Good:

While most of you know me as a gameplay guy. The one thing that made me keep going in this game was the story. The story isn't mind blowing but the pacing is good enough to make it hard for you to put down the controller.

No game over screen. I like how a character can die or get arrested and that's not the end of the game but the end of his segment. This leaves the game open to multiple endings. Which ending is your favorite depends on your taste. I'm all for the classic 'Hollywood Happy Ending'. I'm sure many of you can guess how to come across this ending.

Motion controls were awesome.... when they didn't screw up. Making the actions to pick up letters and to open and shut doors felt immersive. I honestly felt like my Move controller was an extension of my hand into the gaming world. I can also see a game like this working well with the MS Kinect. Only in two areas of the game did my Move controller not respond properly. Not sure what the reason was but in timed based sections it was really upsetting. But still the motion controls are a definite plus to the whole game.

Conclusion:

If you haven't played this game yet, play it with the Move. Totally worth it. But because of the short story and timed pressed button gameplay, Heavy Rain is better as a rental than as a full purchase. Unless you can get it for $20 or less. The story is interesting and it is replay-able, but because of youtube there's no need to go through all the trouble yourself. Unless you are a trophy whore..

PSN Demo of Spare Parts

2011-02-02T08:03:00.003-05:00

WTF! I sat down with the Mrs. last night to give this a go, and booted the game up. First thing I had to do was wait 10 minutes for it to download an update to the demo. That's right, they're patching demo's now. Ridiculous. After download, it then installs. Finally, the game launches.

The graphics looked really cool, and I couldn't wait to see what this game was all about. All I knew about it was that it was a couch co-op, so those always make my list to demo with the Mrs. We got in, and the AI told us to go to this training room. We did, and quickly went into a virtual room (think like the new Metroid game) where you practice jumping, and fighting. It didn't take long at all considering the mechanics were very much like the Lego games.

...And that was it. The demo was over. We never got to see a world, or experience any real gameplay. Granted, the game is only 10 bucks, but I don't like to waste money, and I got no feel for this game at all. What an awful demo.

Developers: a demo should tell me whether or not that game is for me. If you won't let me play it, at least, for the love of God, give me a video of the gameplay!

Alright boys and girl(s), its time for some..

2011-01-29T17:41:00.003-05:00

Magicka is a action-adventure game in which you and 3 other wizards play through and try to stop an evil wizard! Yeah, I know, but its not the comical writing you'll be playing this game its the craziness that is likely to happen when you put 2-4 people in the same game trying to cast spells they don't know how or knew possible to cast.

Example: 2 guys running from meteors

Any how Direct2Drive has the game for sale $9.95(which gives you a steam key too use for steam) and a $2 off code: "wetkitty" you also get some bonus DLC if you buy it before Jan 31.

Game does have some bugs but the dev seem to be trying to work things out as fast as they can(already on patch 4).

There is a demo on steam should go and check it out in the mean time another video...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7tQVDOAOCE&feature=player_detailpage#t=397s

Sony announces the NGP (Next Gaming Portable)

2011-01-27T16:39:00.006-05:00

Sony announced yesterday at their annual conference meeting in Tokyo, Japan; 2 very important announcements.

First; the NGP, calling it the Next Gaming Platform. The PSP-esque looking console has us frothing at the mouths with it's amazing performance power and features.

Please watch the video of myself giving my first impressions of this exciting announcement.

Secondly; the Sony Playstation Suite will be made available to some tablets and mobile phone devices in the future. Could this be Sony's answer to Apple's dominance with iTunes? More on that later.

Nintendo 3DS Impressions By a One-eyed Man

2011-01-26T00:29:00.001-05:00

This month around the time I came back to Japan after visiting home, by some lucky chance Nintendo was holding their public exhibit for the Nintendo 3DS. Now this is an impression from a person that can't take advantage of the 3D abilities of the 3DS.

Don't get me wrong. I know this article is one month behind and in a little less than a month the 3DS will be on sale in the land of the rising sun.

The first game I ran for when the show floor opened up, was the Ocarina of Time remake for the system. I could choose from three portions from the game: village, dungeon, and dungeon boss. I choose the dungeon because you can fight and explore in a dungeon. I thought that this would give me a general idea about the gameplay. The graphics have been reworked to take advantage of the 3DS. The game looks really good but feels very familiar. Some things they have added are the ability to use the 3DS' built in gyros to aim the sling shot and bow and arrow. Not something I would use often with in the game but it's a quirky little add on. The game still played like the original and the dungeon was not much different. The Zelda fan boy in me will probably still pick this game up even though it will show no major changes in story or gameplay.

The little slide pad on the 3DS feels rather good but reaching for the digital pad while playing games can feel a little awkward. It's not too awkward though. It's very possible to hit the D-pad while playing a game.. The other buttons feel as good as they did on the DS. Slightly bigger and the L and R buttons feel better than the DS' for some reason. The included 3D camera will probably be a lot of fun for people with two eyes. The cooler part about the camera is being able to use it to make a Mii. But most of the Japanese people they took pictures of to make Mii's ended up looking more like westerners.

My favorite part of the whole 3DS exhibit were the AR, augmented reality, games. Basically the way it works is you face the 3DS' camera at an AR card, which has a picture of the coin block from Mario games, and then the 3DS makes images appear on the screen. In the demo there were these targets that you shot on your screen. With each stage there was more targets. The cool thing was the stages morphed around the area of the card. Sometimes you would have to shoot a jumping target which made the table warp and balloon up. One round a tree popped out of the table and you had to move around the card to find targets. *Spoiler alert* One target was actually hiding in a hole that the 3DS made with the AR card. It was really impressive. Last round you had to fight a dragon that pops out of the card. You have to shoot each part of the dragon until it turns black. When the dragon attacks, you physically move to avoid it's attack. Be careful not to lose sight of the card with the 3DS though, it momentarily interrupts the game. An awesome demo. By far the thing I look forward to the most with the 3DS. There are other AR games coming out for it and I hope some DLC stuff will be available down the road.

Sad thing is they announced the release date but not what games will come out with it on day one. I personally am going to wait until they release a system seller before I pick a 3DS up.

Netflix on PS3/Wii/iPhone

2011-01-21T08:28:00.012-05:00

Recently, Netflix started offering a free 30-day trial for their online version, meaning no discs. I've been doing a lot of research on how to cut the cable cord, and this is definitely something that needed to be researched to see if it could be part of the media solution if I do cut the cord. So how's it fairing?

I was very skeptical at the onset of this trial. The PS3 has one of the slowest wireless connections I've seen in recent years. Anyone that has tried to download anything from the PSN knows what I'm talking about. Granted, wireless will always be slower than hard wired, but due to the placement of my router for security system purposes, that option isn't on the table. I have issues moving files from my PC to my PS3, so how could Netflix work?

Let me explain the issues I've had with PC to PS3 connections. For example, I record HD programs on my computer. It's hard wired into my router, and connected to my HDTV upstairs. When I want to watch those programs downstairs in that HDTV, I have to get it there. Stream, right? Well, I've installed multiple media servers, and the results were the same. The PS3 just could not download the stream fast enough to keep the feed smooth. It constantly freezes to catch up. So then I decided to copy the version locally. Windows Media Server transcodes HDTV like crap. From what I've researched, it decides to scale down the feed to the lowest common denominator, so I was never happy with the quality. I won't get into all that I tried, and I found multiple that fit the bill, but ultimately I use PS3 Media Server (freeware), as it works perfectly. You can adjust the settings yourself, and I have 0 fidelity loss. Again, the problem is you have to plan ahead and copy down the version well in advance of when you want to watch it because the connection of the PS3 wireless is slow.

So how could Netflix possibly deliver HD programming via PS3's wireless connection? The answer, of course, is compression. What I have found interesting, however, is that even though the HD programs are highly compressed, their tech is fantastic to keep the streams seamless, and the fidelity as high as possible. Color me impressed. I streamed via the website on my PC, and I actually think the PS3 fidelity is higher than the PC stream. They both look great, but I can see the pixelation on my PC to HDTV connection, and I don't see the pixelation on the PS3 version. Outstanding!

The menu navigation is easy on the PS3. The categories make sense, and it's easy to find programming. That said, there is an option I think they should add, which is sort in alphabetical order. Once you go down the menu tree branches, you tend to have to search through lots of titles to see if they have what something. Of course, you can search from the main menu if you know what title you want, but if your browsing, it can be kind of confusing (think PSN).

The Wii is now moved and hooked up to my sons room via the Component cable. He has a little 20 something inch tv we turn on Sprout or Disney channel once in a while for him. With Netflix, I can stream kid movies and shows, and they call come through DVD quality (480p). Rock solid. What's interesting is that if you pick a program that you know from the PS3 version is in HD, you won't see it listed as HD on the Wii because, of course, the Wii isn't HD, but the quality of the "HD" shows through the Wii at DVD quality still look amazing and dare I say, HD-ish. They are clearly a higher resolution that has been scaled down, and look fantastic. It's like how great HD content looks on the the iPhone/iPod Touch; Even though the resolution is lower, the screen is smaller (like my son's tv) and the picture looks every bit of HD as the larger counterparts. I'm sure that if I plugged the Wii version back into one of my 50" HDTV's, the picture might not look as good. But it is rocking out that 23"!

The Wii's menu navigation is actually better, imo, than the PS3. It is laid out a bit different, and there is something to that movement of a controller that feels better than the directional pad navigation (which you could use too, I suppose). Again, same stuff, but I like the menu nav better.

Lastly, the iPhone/iPod Touch. I have an iPod Touch (gen 4) that I got for Christmas, and I have been all over it. I was curious to watch Netflix on it, because at times when I'm watching my son, he's running all over the place, and this gives me an opportunity to "watch on the go"! The quality, again, is fantastic. I mean, stunning, really. And I really don't mind looking at that small screen. I guess if you hold it close enough it's like watching a 50", lol. It's all about perception. The menu navigation is similar to other iPhone apps, and is probably the most difficult to navigate of the 4 (not reviewing PC, because PC users will have no issue with a mouse and keyboard). They need to work a bit on this navigation, but I love the innovation. I haven't had a chance to test it on the Mrs.' iPhone 3g, to see how it fairs with some older tech and over AT&T's network as opposed to wi-fi, but the wi-fi is nice and seamless.

Now, for the selection. Meh. It's ok, but it's not great. Their great selection still requires the 2 extra dollars a month to access their dvd/blu-ray collection. The online stuff is good, and I've been surprised at some of the stuff that is there, but don't be looking for any tv or movies that are really recent. I use Hulu (not Hulu Plus...that is on my radar though) on my PC and the movie selection there is about the same, and the TV shows are more recent usually.

My trial isn't up yet. I haven't decided if I'm going to keep it for $8 a month or not yet. But I'm leaning towards keeping it. If you haven't tried it, you should go for it (sorry, non-America dwellers). If you have tried it ( Kinto...I see on the PS3 in Netflix), chime in with your review/thoughts. On a 5 point scale, I give it a 4.

2011 PS3 Exclusives - How does Sony "win"?

2011-01-19T13:08:00.006-05:00

As heard on this last CAGCAST, Cheapy D, Shipwreck, and Wombat were discussing the list of 2011 PS3 Exclusives that have been announced. Take a look at the list. Do any of these excite you? For me, Uncharted games always will. But what else? Join me after the break for a brief thought dump on this list (dump on list...lol)

Other than Uncharted, which is oddly a game that has brought the Mrs. into my gaming world through couch co-op (I play a level, then she plays the next, etc), I can't say I'm very excited about what I see. I'm kind of a narrow minded gamer, I guess, but holy crap, can we please get some innovation. Did anyone else catch the real theme? uncharted 3, yakuza 4, killzone 3, ratchet and clank 714, etc. I can't speak to the two obvious Japanese specific games (you know which ones they are), but the only true innovation I see here is Journey, and Sorcerer. If I had a Move, Sorcerer would be on the list. Kind of looks like Harry Potter meets Fable. But I don't have the Move, and this isn't compelling enough for me to drop the ridiculous amount needed to acquire it. Journey, as long as it's PSN reasonably priced, will likely make it into my shopping cart. I will have to wait and see if there is very much to do, but I like the idea of crafting your journey through the game, and no two people will have the same experience.

In all, it's a strong list, and I'm sure it will result in a lot of sales of games. But I doubt it's going to result in a lot of sales in hardware. Sony has been behind the 8 ball at every step in the last 5 years. I love my PS3, and think it is a fantastic entertainment machine. But while the stuff on it looks amazing, I would say they have few, if any, system seller franchises. So let's think for a minute about what Sony has in the PS3.

HD Games
Blu-ray player
DVD upscaler
Digital Distribution of games, movies, demos, art, etc
Replaceable hdd
Still one of the most powerful CPU setups in home hardware to date (just not fully tapped yet)
Applications (Hulu, Netflix, Vudu, etc)
Photo editor
DLNA protocol to stream from Media Servers on the Network
3d
Motion Control (via additional hardware)
Camera
Music Ripper
Keyboard/Mouse support
Web Browser
Trophy System
Competitive Pricing, though still high end
Voice Chat
Bluetooth support
Free online play
Stable systems
OMG! I don't even feel like typing anymore! You get the point!

Now people are talking about the next generation of game systems from the big 3 being on the horizon. The Wii is expected to go higher-def and offer easier ways to connect people, and M$ is expected to have 3d support and better storage options. Obviously a lot more, but again, you get the idea.

My question is, How does Sony compete? They have nothing new to bring to the market, yet everyone says they need to be first to the market on the next generation or they will get crushed and possibly pushed out of the business. But what do they offer? What haven't they given consumers? Love or hate Sony, there is no argument as to which system offers the most variety for the buck. So maybe that's the whole problem. Instead of treating a game system like a cell phone, why not focus on the most upgradable, awesome gaming rig of all time, and that is what it does. Maybe the variety is what is killing Sony, because with variety/options comes expense, and all of us gamers know that where they really missed the mark was being the high-priced option (and still are). I'm not arguing that you get what you pay for, because you do, but let's face it; Not all gamers are hard-core. They just want the cheapest version that gives them the ability to play the games they want. If not, there would be no consoles, just PC. Hell, I had two family members buy XBOX/Kinect bundles for Christmas AFTER I explained how much the PS was a superior overall system and that the Move controls are the most precise, highest-rated systems out there. So why did they buy the Kinect bundle? "The PS system was just out of my price range, and the M$ bundle fit it".

Sony, that is how you win. You must win the price war, or the PS4 might be the last gaming system you build. Scale the system down to be the cheaper alternative. Like it or not, that is what people buy.

Portal2 going Cross Platform( PS3 and PC only)

2011-01-18T19:36:00.001-05:00

It was announced yesterday that Portal 2 PS3 players will be able to play with PC players. That's not even the best part. Gamers that buy Portal 2 for the PS3 will also have a digital copy they can use on their PC for free. Not only that Portal 2 on the PS3 will be backed up in their cloud service. Mind blown!

Alright now here's my chance to toss in a few speculations. I don't think it's too far fetched to say that Portal 2 will be a downloadable game for the PS3. Most PS3's have the HDD space and recently a lot of shooter like Borderlands and MAG are available for download on PSN.

Valve is quickly becoming one of my favorite game companies. I think they just get us as gamers.

World of Starcraft

2011-01-18T12:14:00.002-05:00

I just saw this on Kotaku and had to repost. I must say, for a mod using SC2 tools, I'm pretty blown away with what they are doing.

The Last Story

2011-01-18T08:05:00.002-05:00

Wii's newest JRPG (Japan only for the time being) is hitting shelves on the 27th. This trailer shows cinematic cut-scenes, which is no surprise. It was made by the original creator of the FF series, and definitely has that FF vibe. I can't help but look at it and wish that the game was going to be on an HD platform, but an interesting to way to watch this one is to see how it rates up against how FFXIII was rated. Both have/had extraordinary high expectations, and FFXIII seemed to fall a bit short. Will this game suffer the same fate?

Braid, the greatest game I haven't completed

2011-01-18T00:22:00.006-05:00

Braid

I bought Braid a year ago on the PSN. I've cleared the first three levels, and I'm missing two pieces of the puzzle before I can "complete" the game. I know I could beat it easily if I looked on youtube for the answer to the puzzles I've been stuck on for so long, but that would ruin the whole experience. Braid is the most unique puzzle/platform (really the only one) game made.

In the game, your asked to collect pieces of puzzles that are easy to get. Then you have to take advantage of speeding up time, using a clone of yourself, and slowing down time with special rules in each stage. When you finally figure out a piece of the puzzle, it really feels like you've accomplished something.

Another thing I love about the game is the plot. It is very vague and open to interpretation. It's the traditional "The Princess is in another castle" setup, but it asks what is this "princess"? Does she even exist? Before each level are optional "books" to read about the plot, and the plot is open to your own interpretation.

Since I can't use my PS3 at the moment, I took advantage of the Christmas Steam sale to purchase it again. Once I get a game pad, I'm going to go through the game again. Since I know the answers to all but two pieces of the puzzle, it won't take long. But those last two pieces, I'll find a way to answer them on my own. I want to know how this game ends.

Highly recommend this game to both puzzle and platformming fans.

Aurora (ambient RTS), free today only!

2011-01-17T23:45:00.001-05:00

Download it here, free today only!

Stacking, a new game by Double Fine

2011-01-17T23:43:00.003-05:00

Neat body-swapping/possession game mechanic.

Video Game Podcast Junkie - What Podcasters need to know from a fan

2011-01-17T08:14:00.005-05:00

Yes, I am a gaming podcast junkie. I listen to gaming podcasts all the time. The addiction started before WoW, but WoW took it to a whole new level. Now that I'm out of WoW, I'm trying out a bunch of podcasts to find what to replace my WoW podcasts. Join me after the break to see what I listen to, and what I look for in my gaming podcasts.

When I look for a podcast about gaming, I have listened to enough to know what I like, and what I don't. The podcast industry has matured, and so has the consumer. No longer will we just accept a couple of dudes sitting near a laptop microphone recording their unscripted banter for hours on end. So here's a list of things I find important in a good podcast:

Notes - You can always tell if a podcast host prepares notes, because the shows follow a basic format. The standard in gaming seems to be open with what you've been playing, talk about the gaming news, predictions about future gaming related stories, and then they tend to struggle with an ending (more on that later). But podcasts that don't prepare notes are frustrating. They lack a focused conversation, and though sometimes they can offer humor in that manner, generally speaking, it doesn't work out like that.
Two people good, Three plus better - the more, the merrier. Conversations flow better with more people because there are more ideas to contribute to the conversation. The important thing, though, is to stay within the focus of the notes, and don't talk over each other. That kind of chemistry is difficult early on in a podcast, but it must be achieved in order to be successful.
Audio quality - This should go without saying, but I have listened to a lot of podcasts that haven't made my list of "Subscibe" simply because of the audio quality. If you want to do it, GET GOOD MICROPHONES! This can't be stressed enough. Noise cancellation is a must, therefore, if you're mic doesn't have noise cancellation, get a second mic to record ambiance, then remove that in your editing software. Recording from sound deadening rooms (think bedroom vs dining room...tile reflective sound, carpet absorbs) is also important. I know if you record remotely with others, the standard tends to be to capture their voice with Skype, which when it works, sounds good. The problem is that stream can get interuptted, and that is a problem. Even one of my favorite, most popular podcasts suffers from this, The Instance. If you have questions about how to make good audio quality, read Chapey D's guide (Cagcast). Also, higher bitrates are importantn. File size is not the same issue it was a few years ago.
If you're not the host, be a good story teller - Here's what I mean by that. Hosts are responsible for the content flow. The others should be there to offer their wit, reviews, etc., and to get the listener to connect, you need to be detailed in your descriptions. The best stories over the air are the ones where the person is good at using adjectives and adverbs to describe, because we're only using one sense to take in and process the information. So if you know you aren't good at impromptu story telling, prepare ahead of time.

Ok, now you know what I'm looking for. So what fits the bill? Here's a list of the podcasts that I currently listen to and why:

Cagcast - This is the most prefessionally recorded podcast out there, imo. Cheapy D and friends discuss games, primarily console related, as well as some of the great deals to get games out there.
The Instance - WoW podcast. I don't even play WoW anymore, but this podcast stays on. These guys play more than WoW, but focus on it for this show. It is very well done, and they have a great pacing to keep you interested for the whole show. Even if you don't play WoW, you should listen to at least one episode to hear how it should be done. It is a standards-maker.
Bombcast - These guys review games for a living, I believe, and I like them because they sound like they are near my age, and give a mature (and often hilarious) look at the games out there. No genre goes unplayed or reviewed.
Weekend Confirmed - Just a great show. I've only recently gotten into them, but this crew is fun to listen to.

Here is a list of the WoW podcasts I used to listen to that were pretty good, but nothing I was going to continue to listen to now that I'm out of WoW. Worth checking into if you play WoW.

Hunting Party Podcast - If you play a Hunter, this is a must-listen. Great personalities discussing all things Hunting.
Raid Warning - To be hones, I still listen once in a while. They discuss beer, a little WoW, and get drunk during the taping which can lead to some pretty funny moments
All Things Azeroth - I quit listening to this one even while I played, but felt it was worth throwing on here. The host, Medros, just started to grate on my nerves as a whiny guy, and I just couldn't take it anymore, but at one time, when I was learning what I liked in podcasts, this was on the list
WoW Insider - if you are into the lore, this is a good podcast. It's done by some of the writers from wow.joystiq.com
Respec Radio - I think this is the one from the guys at Game Informer, or one of those game websites, but it focuses discussions on all things MMO related. Very informative and comical

Lastly, these are the ones on my playlist that I'm checking out now. They're popular, so we'll see.

AppSlappy - The host is the same guy from The Instance (Scott Johnson), and this one is about iTunes games and apps. I like the work that Scott does enough to give this one a shot.
The Drunk Tank - Made it through one episode so far. Seems pretty good. I don't want to endorse until I listen to a few more though.
IGN Podcast Beyond - IGN is popular, of course, so I'm going to give it a shot
1up.com - I've heard a lot about this podcast from other podcasts, so I want to give it a try.
Joystiq podcast - Same as 1up, I'll give it a try
Sarcastic gamer - Podcast focused on Playstation. Haven't heard yet.

How about you? What do you listen to and why? What do you look for?

Demos demo demos.

2011-01-15T21:26:00.004-05:00

Just played Little Big Planet 2, Dead Space 2 and Mass Effect 2 demos on the PS3. Just though I'd post my thoughts real quick.

LBP 2 came across as a game with a lot of potential. Sadly the demo didn't let you create any thing. Though it did have 3 levels of different types of game play. I can definitely see the appeal of making your own levels, game types and arguably a full on gaming experience within the confines of the Little Big Planet Universe.

The problem is (for me anyways) that the LBP Universe just comes across way too childish. I can see the level of customization and user input that could allow for a more control on the tone and look of the game itself. But for example the 2nd level where you jump on a cat, dog and rabbit teddy bear which you can control and each teddy has different powers / abilities. Yet despite what the game play was offering I just couldn't ignore how "kiddie" the whole game felt. Maybe I'm just taking it a bit too seriously, but I couldn't help but feel the game was a little too "cute".

Dead Space 2 demo was pretty good. It offered a decent amount of shooting and puzzle solving gaming. The 3rd person horror shooter in space is a nice return to those type of games that just scare the shit out of you. I was lol'ing at myself at times at just how much the game made me jump. Not to mention the goosebumps on my arms! And this was during the day in a very well lit room. Who know's how'd I'd react to this game in the dark!

I only peeve really is that your character takes up a good chunk of the screen, but this just all adds to the fear factor for the player. I found myself constantly checking my corners through out the demo and looking down my barrel and walking very very slowly! If I can get around to completing the first one then I think this is definitely going to be a purchase for me.

Finally Mass Effect 2. I'm still playing through the first one, but I've read, seen and heard enough stuff about the Mass Effect games to know it's worth my time just for the story. The game play in the original is a little tedious but not enough to be a deal breaker. Anyways I've played a bit of ME 2 already at my friends house. I just wanted to check out the PS3 Demo of ME2 simply to check out the ME3 engine and I gotta be honest. I didn't feel it was all that great. I mean I can see slight changes in quality and sharpness. Lighting and shadows came across a lot stronger and detail in characters faces looked more defined. It's enough for me to say yea, play Mass Effect 2 on the PS3, not the 360. But I don't think that will be enough for players who have already played 1 and 2 on the 360, to make the jump to play Mass Effect 3 on the PS3 later this year when they've already played the first 2 on the 360. Not to mention loosing your character profile data.

Anyways if you got the PS3 definitely try out these demos and let me know what ya think.

Minecraft plugin Biome Terrain Mod ported to Beta

2011-01-14T14:19:00.005-05:00

As of today, prolific Minecrafter R-T-B has ported the popular plugin Biome Terrain Mod to Beta 1.2 (the latest version). Miners rejoice! You can once again generate outlandish chunks, like Avatar-esque floating islands (pictured). R-T-B says he plans at least one bugfix release before soliciting donations for continued development.

He mentions in that thread that he runs a Minecraft hosting solution, so this could be an important precedent in the Minecraft community. Server hosting providers not only have a vested interest in keeping MC administration easy and feature-laden, they also have the technical chops to keep popular plugins from falling into disrepair.

Thanks for the hard work, R-T-B!

Octodad article on nukezilla.com

2011-01-14T12:16:00.003-05:00

Nukezilla has an article on Octodad, an unusual game in which "you play an octopus who has to continue keeping his cephalopodian nature under wraps while doing menial tasks around his home with his (human) family watching."

Download the game for free from the Octodad website.

Return to Borderlands (sorta)

2011-01-14T08:46:00.003-05:00

Yesterday, I was testing out my frames per second on various settings because I'm trying to figure out where I want them to be on certain games before I spend the dough on a new video card. I launched Borderlands to do some testing in the Unreal III engine and see where I'm at. I like to game at 1920X1080, and though my card has held up well (GTS 250 1gb ram), I've started to have to pull down some games from Ultra to high, and I don't like that. But I digress. So what was up with Borderlands?

First off, I'm rusty at it. No doubt, and that was evident. But I launched my lvl 60 character and went to the newest area I have (t-bone junction). I had a quest to turn in, so I decided to go do that while monitoring my fraps. I jumped into a vehicle and took off. I knew the vehicle could go faster, but I couldn't remember how to activate it. (After mashing buttons, I found that "F" key worked). Anyway, on the way, I had to get out and clear that first set of buildings to turn in the quest. OMG! This game got hard! WTF! I used to roll up and and just face roll everything. LOL! I must have died 20 times working through those buildings! It took me so long that when I finally made it to the end, the beginning enemies were respawning! Then I noticed that they were level 61...? I looked down and my character was building xp! I thought 60 was the cap? My inventory was full, so I never tried to pick up any weapons, but I found greens and blues that were dropping that were better than my Orange. Oooooohhhh. Shinyyyyyyyyy. My Precious......

So now, I want to know when we're going back. One, I'd like to start over at this point. But two, man, we gotta go back and wreck some stuff! Who's in?

Gameplay vs Story_Other Side

2011-01-14T08:42:00.004-05:00

I had to do a new post because my reply was too long!

So the premise is a tough one, because there are other video game dimensions that can be argued to be in this conversation, like graphics, pacing, etc. But for the purposes of this, I'll stick to the premise.

While balance is the key, I would argue that from my perspective, Story is more important. You gave great examples to support how gameplay is what will keep you tuned into a game you might otherwise want to leave. I can use the same games and some additional to explain my perspective.

Take Mass Effect (haven't played the second one yet, but I'm very familiar with it and will have it in my hands today actually). When I first got the game, the reason for my purchase was a Steam sale last year and it was rated with a high metacritic score in the RPG category. That's my favorite genre, so I went for it. Almost immediately, I was pulled in. I love voice acting in games. I want to feel connected to the characters, and the voice acting adds a huge element to that. The gameplay was so-so. The shooting was not very good (ME2 supposedly fixed most of it), but that was not at all what kept me pushing through. I kept playing and playing because I wanted to see how the story ends, as well as all the side mission stories. I find that gameplay amazing.

Fast forward to Starcraft II. I didn't play any of the single player in the first Starcraft, because I was a different kind of gamer back then. I was a lot more hardcore. Now, I like stress-free gaming. I have a enough stress in my life, so games are my escape. I don't want to feel frustrated or angry while I'm gaming. I want to feel like I'm immersed, progressing something, and getting more powerful as I go. So with SC2, I started by playing multi-player with Kinto, who had already beat the games missions. He was patient with me, but I didn't like the gameplay. It just doesn't fit my style of gaming anymore. But recently, I decided to at least give the single player a go because I heard the story was great. Story in an RTS? Usually they are dumb (C&C, Black and White, LOTR, Warcraft I & II), but I'm really digging how they crafted the story in this. The high graphic cinematics are worth grinding through the missions. And oh, btw, I'm playing the missions on casual. That's how little I care for the gameplay.

I just finished Red Dead Redemption. Magic formula was reached: Great story (3 endings it felt like), voice acting, and great graphics. The gameplay could be argued as not that good, and I've heard some podcasters giving it criticism for that. Some didn't care for the horse riding mechanics, and the gunplay could have been better (thank goodness for Dead Eye meter), but I couldn't wait to tear through that story.

Now, here's my perspective on the Wii games that were described. I've never played a Mario Galaxy game. They get great reviews, people rave about them, and they even end up in the conversations for GOTY on many sites, but they just haven't drawn me in. They just haven't hit on my magic formula of great story, great voice acting, and great graphics to win me over the games that come out that have offered that. Bethesda, Bioware, Blizzard, and Rockstar keep taking my money. While I get enjoyment out of just about any game, I measure where I spend my dollars in a fun per hour equation (not literally, but you get the idea). The game needs to keep me engaged for a long time, and a great story is what I have found to be what keeps me. I will look past some, not all, gameplay issues if the story keeps me engaged.

Take a game you would think would fit my criteria (because frankly I though it would too). Last year, I got White Knight Chronicles INSTEAD of FFXIII (same launch day). I played about 20 hours worth. Great graphics, voice acting, ...but the story was lame. It was the same old Japanese "the princess has been kidnapped, you're a humble, awkward teenager who gets some special power (suit in this case), and you and your party go out to get her back". I just couldn't do it again. The game is not bad, it just didn't hit on my main thing, which was story.

So for me, I'll forgive some (not all) gameplay issues if the story is compelling and well told.

But outside of the constraints of this post, the magic of a game that keeps me engaged is all about my mood. Multiplayer online? Give me a shooter, and eff the story. Co-Op on the couch? Tower defense. Give me a great peripheral and I'll rock out or race with you. Variety is the icing on the cake of games.

Gameplay vs. Story

2011-01-14T01:24:00.000-05:00

Which is more important within a game, gameplay or story?

I'm a firm believer that gameplay must come first and then everything else must follow. I think this is one of the main reasons I find it hard to play RPGs now and days. Yeah the stories are really awesome like in Mass Effect or Dragon Age. But after playing the demo for Mass Effect 2 for the PS3, I wasn't too impressed with the games third person shooting gameplay. (Yes, you can argue I just hit the tip of the ice berg with gameplay.) But let's ask ourselves this, if Gears of War used the same duck and shooting system as Mass Effect, would we still consider Gear of War a good shooter? I felt like Shepard was wearing heavy shoes and popped in and out of cover like Asimo the robot. Because of the intriguing story this wasn't a deal breaker but I'm pretty sure that I might end up quitting the game before I even finish it. If the story is the main draw of games, why don't people read books more? Wouldn't that be better than grinding for endless hours to finally get to the bad conclusion we normally get out of video games.

Has anyone played Mario Galaxy 2 recently. Yeah, I'm a Nintendo fan boy but I'm not so biased in my opinion to not confidently say that it was the best game I played in 2010. Yeah Mario games have near to zero story. To be honest it doesn't need it. It keeps players playing by having solid gameplay and a really awesome camera system. I haven't gotten all 240 stars yet. But getting the normal 120 stars never felt like a chore. They were challenging but they were definitely worth all the effort I put into getting them.

Let's take a look at Epic Mickey. Really solid story but the core mechanics, like the camera and character control are so broken that it takes away the drive for the average gamer to want to complete or even buy the game. Warren Spector made awesome games. But now I feel like he's more into his little gimmicks versus making a really solid game with an awesome gimmick. Poor Mickey. I really wanted to buy this game but bad cameras equals Wade going insane. Can't have that.

Now let's take a company like Blizzard and Naughty Dog who seem to know how to marry the two together. Uncharted 2 is still one of my favorite games to date and I can't wait for part 3. Why don't more companies put in the effort of mixing solid gameplay with epic stories?

Time for a come back!

2011-01-13T21:25:00.002-05:00

So... like the title suggests I really want to do something productive with my addiction that is all things gaming. While I enjoyed throughly posting on this website in the past, writing about my experiences with games just didn't stick. It's not that I didn't enjoy it, but rather it was a mix of lack of exposure / feedback on the articles I wrote, personal time conflicts and even my own dedication.

What I really want to do is a mix of maybe smaller straight to the point articles and focus more on video. What I really like about websites like ign and gametrailers (which i rrequent everyday!) is the video reviews and commentary voice overs. However rather than just game review videos why not just little video 'post its' (short 1 or 2 minute videos) of anything gaming. I really enjoyed video editing. I got kindly reminded of this while making a video of my winter vacation for my English classes.

It's all in the air right now. But I'm eager to get my hands dirty. I think I may use youtube as my main gateway (for now) to post videos and link them here to the site. Hopefully have something to show everyone near the end of January.

I'm really excited about this year for gaming in general. Some awesome titles coming out. Alot of them for PS3 which I brought back with me from my travels to the UK. Much to the dissapointment of my younger brother. :)

Anyways here's to another year, game on!

Johnny

Choose my adventure

2010-10-08T11:55:00.004-04:00

Instead for reaching for stories, I'll write about what I know. And what I know is Cataclysm, the next expansion for WoW, is set to release on Dec. 7th of this year.

I'm excited, but not necessarily for the reasons others might be. I only started playing the game this year (February, to be exact), so I don't have the years of experience that many others of this game do. I can't recall the epic 40-man raids where 10 or people went afk, or having to fly halfway across the world to go meet at the dungeon summoning stone that you want to go into and LFG (Looking For Group). I haven't been around when an expansion releases, and it takes hours to get logged on because the servers are full, or the thousands of people competing over that new mining node, or suddenly see the game flooded with everyone playing the new races available (or paying for a race change).

Some of these things about an expansion release are a bit off-putting to me. It's one thing in current game to occasionally fight at a Wintergrasp Titanium mine, but to deal with hundred's of people going for that new mine? Ugh. So farming mats, while plenty of money can be made on the Auction House from that activity, is just not appealing to start off the expansion with.

How about creating a new toon as a Goblin, the new Horde race? Well, EVERYONE will be doing that, so competition by waiting around for the game to spawn and hope you're the first to get it is not my cup of tea.

Oh, I know! How about leveling one of my 80's to 85? New zones, new quests, new everything! Well, there will be some of that, because I belong to two raiding guilds, though I'm only a main in one of them. But they are casual players, so there is no rush to be "Realm First" anything. So I'll do it, but I won't be in any major rush.

So as it stands, I have no idea what to do first. So if anyone reads this, I'll list options and let you decide:

1) Level my 80 Hunter to 85, which is my 'main', and get him raid ready.
2) Level my 80 Death Knight, which is a ton of fun to play currently, and get him raid ready and become my new 'main'
3) Level my 80 Warlock, which is in Kinto's guild and goes on the alt runs with his guild (though Kinto never goes with me :( )
4) Level my 60 Druid, which may be 80 near launch date, may not be.
5) Farm ore with my DK in the new stuff
6) Create a new Goblin Warrior
7) Create a new Goblin Rogue

Tokyo Game Show 2010

2010-09-02T21:56:00.000-04:00

Since I was a kid I've always wanted the chance to go to an event similar to E3. Now that I live in Japan, I thought that I might take advantage of this opportunity to go to TGS or the Tokyo Game Show. Armed with my trusty iPhone 4 and Johnny. I'm hoping to get some exciting videos of this event. Let's get this blog a rolling!!!!!

Grown-up gaming

2010-08-09T06:38:00.003-04:00

This has been a year of change for me. So many things are different now than they were a year ago. The biggest of these changes is the addition of my son. I knew that having a baby around would change everything, so since this is a gaming site, I'll note how it's changed that aspect of my life. The change occurred in three phases...

Prior to the baby, I was console gamer 90%, PC gamer 10%. I only played on the PC once I started gaming with my cousins, as we started shooting bugs in Borderlands and laying waste to...well, a wasteland. I pretty much stuck to my PS3 for gaming, though occasionally found time to throw a few Wii casual/active games in the mix. Being an RPG junkie, my games of choice tended to be Fallout 3, Mass Effect, Dragon Age, TES IV: Oblivion, etc.

I found myself transitioning to my pc more to game socially, so I built a new rig about the time that my son was born. Also, I knew my time with the TV was going away. So Phase One of changing my as a gamer began.

The Second Phase happened around Christmas. As we all know, that is the time of year that Steam takes all of our money. I was not immune to this, and I spent a boatload. The problem was that I hadn't been saving, and had been spending a boatload every month since I built my pc. In January, I reviewed my annual expenses from the prior year, and my gaming expenditure trend was quite frightening. Baby expenses were on the rise, and my gaming expenses were competing for those precious resources (e.g. Moolah). So what to do? I'm not going to quit gaming. And I'm not going to withhold necessities from the baby. Oh, what to do? Hey, doesn't Kinto play an MMO? WoW you say? How much? 15$ a month! That's nothing compared to what I currently spend! I'll give it a go! Second Phase...commence.

Download trial. Play 2 hours. Meh, don't like it. Quit. Wait a few weeks. Consider buying ME2. Look at gaming spend trend line. Download new trial for WoW. Kinto sees me playing trial. SURPRISE! Being a good friend (or evil?), he takes me under his wing, we link accounts, and begin the journey anew. Second Phase complete.

I'm now exclusively playing WoW. It's not that other games haven't interested me, or made me want to play. I'm just cheap. And WoW keeps me interested and leaves a few more dollars in my pocket for those unexpected life expenses. I've missed out on releases of games I thought I couldn't live without. FFXIII, ME2, Red Dead, Uncharted 2, Super Mario World Wii, SMG 2, Dragon Age expansions, etc., etc. I like to think that when the greatest hits versions come out, I'll pick many of those up. I've found that I can live without them all hot off the presses. I've also found that I LOVE MMORPG's! Now, instead of what's new on the PS Store that I can throw 10-15 bucks at, I look forward to Cataclysm, and even more so, SWTOR MMO next year. I cannot wait for that one.

So for me, Phase 3 of my grown-up gaming transition has been a move away from console, and single-player campaign's, to PC social MMORPG gaming as my gaming of choice. It's not to say that type of gaming is more mature or grown up. Arguably, it could be perceived as the opposite. But as a true life-long gamer, I believe the most important aspect is to find what brings you the most enjoyment for your buck. And for me, with the lifestyle I now have, I believe I have found it :)

Woo Hoo! E3!

2010-06-17T20:21:00.000-04:00

My two favorite times of the year are Christmas and of course E3. These are probably the best two events of the year IMO. Who doesn't want to hear what Nintendo, Sony, and M$ are up to.
This year seems to be about which company can try and take what Nintendo has built with casual gamers. M$' Kinect IMO was probably the most disappointing thing about E3. I pretty much just skipped over that part of the presentation. Other than that on the M$ side I am excited about GoW3 and Halo Reach. It's about time GoW3 had a four player co-op. You think Cliffy would have implemented that in the last game. Better late than never right. Last month I had a chance to play the Halo Reach Beta because of Johnny. It was fun but I don't see myself playing Reach as much as I played the past Halo games multi-player. The video of the single player campaign was really meh. It was everything that you pretty much expect from a Halo game. I was hoping Bungie was going to show us something that would get us excited for Halo Reach. Space Jet fights IMO isn't really a selling point for the game. I'm much more excited for GoW3.

On the Sony side of things. It seems that Sony was a little bit smarter with their motion controller. They're not only trying to market to the casual gamer but they're making sure that the hardcore gamer still feels the love. I'm getting the move because Sony will be implementing it with games like Killzone 3 and Resident Evil 4 Gold Edition. Smart move Sony. On the Sony side I'm excited for Gran Turismo 4 and Killzone 3. With all of Sony's early leaks I was hoping for somewhat of a better show. I wanted to hear news about Resistance 3 and The Last Guardian. I also wanted to know if Sony was really going to make HD remakes of ICO and Shadow of the Colossus. I've never played any Sly Cooper games but if there's a demo I'm willing to give it a try. Also, Little Big Planet 2 sounds promising. Especially if I can create levels with the Move controller.

Yes! Nintendo can do! Not sound like a huge Nintendo Fan Boy but Nintendo outside of the technical fluk with Zelda had an awesome press conference. Every single game that they showed on their screen I wanted to play. Except for Golden Sun. I never played the first two so I'm not sure what the hype is all about. The show stopper was definitely the Nintendo 3DS. I can't even use the 3D part because of my one eye. However, the idea of owning a DS system with GC graphics sounds really awesome to me. The most disappointing thing though was that they don't have the color white as a choice right now. I'm sure it'll come eventually, fingers crossed.

What do you guys think?

Change is Going to Do You Good!

2010-06-17T19:46:00.000-04:00

I decided that it was time for a change to the background. When I first made this blog site, I wasn't really happy with the aesthetics of the site. It was good enough but it didn't feel original. I like this simple design. What does everyone think?

Parallel Kingdom – Age of Emergence

2010-05-10T05:32:00.002-04:00

Parallel Kingdom, Age of Emergence is a free to download MMORPG for the iPhone and Android OS smartphones. Parallel Kingdom is an interesting take on the MMO genre as it uses Google maps as the virtual world to play in. Now having played my fair share of MMO’s for several years previously, I was somewhat intrigued on how the MMO genre would work on a platform such as the iPhone. I wasn’t expecting anything ground breaking in terms of graphics, but I was interested in how they incorporated Google maps into the game and the iPhones ability to locate you pretty much anywhere in the world.

When first starting PK you’re given a quick tutorial before being relocated to your actual location in the real world on Google maps in the game. The tutorial is very basic, but intuitive thankfully. You learn that to move your character in the world you simply double tap to where you want to go. You also quickly realise that a lot of the actions you do in game, have to be done through a menu. Understandably the iPhone screen isn’t big enough to display a lot of information like PC MMO interfaces but I found the PK interface to be decent. Your health points are displayed as a green bar under your character, world chat at the very top of the screen and a menu button at the bottom. Everything else is Google maps. Unlike many mmo’s where there are quests, storylines, different races and lore to the world you play in, PK is all about claiming territory, resource gathering and overseeing your flourishing Empire.

The game uses flags and buoys as markers of territory. Each flag claims a circumference of territory from its point of origin and as you place more flags you can expand your empire. Flags aren’t free though, eventually you will run out of the materials needed to build them and as such you will have to go gathering the necessary resources to build more flags. This involves chopping down trees for wood and killing animals for leather. Mobs randomly spawn everywhere on the map and your character can engage in combat to kill them, gaining experience, loot and gold. From what I’ve seen your character can wield a single weapon such as an axe, cross bow, sword etc, armour and a shield. Your character is displayed on the world map as a face icon with small icons representing the weapon, armour and shield you are wielding. Sadly there is no player customisation at the very beginning, but as you level and obtain rare loot from caverns your character starts to look more Epic, for a lack of a better word.

Instances or Dungeons do exist in PK, but as caverns that randomly appear on the maps. Caverns can be accessed by having the right equipment to gain entry. In most cases a fire torch which must be crafted first before given access to enter the dungeon. Once inside, you’ll fight against high level mobs that drop better loot and the end boss will usually drop something rare, either a weapon, resource or both. Sadly combat in PK is rather dull and non-strategic. To attack an enemy you simply tap them, select attack and let you character go to work. You can eat berries which heal you over time while you’re fighting, but aside from that there is no work involved in combat. It’s a shame because it would have been good to see some diversity in player’s characters such as classes. The warrior, healer and dps roles usually seen in MMO’s are non-existent in PK. Just as long as you have enough armour and firepower to dish out to the enemy and enough berries to keep your health at 100% you should come out alive. You can however party up with a friend and go on the grind together. However chatting in game requires the channel and keyboard to appear obscuring the screen completely. What’s even more annoying is the iPhone vibrating every time you’re attacking in game while navigating the menus.

When you do die in PK, you lose experience and a certain percentage of gold. You also drop items which can be picked up by other players, so be careful if you ever come under attack by another player in game. Thankfully NPC’s seem to only pick up items dropped from other mobs that you have killed. For example, if you kill an ogre and he drops a sword, be sure to pick that up fast before his ogre buddies pick it up and go to town on you.

PK is very much a passive MMO. Tasks such as resource gathering and flag placing all take time in which you just have to wait. For example when placing a flag, a progress bar appears with a countdown timer. Forcing you to wait until the task is done. I find myself multi-tasking between studying my Japanese vocabulary and tapping on trees to cut down in PK because there is a lot of down time in waiting for tasks to be completed. This becomes even more apparent when your most important resource; food, runs low. Food is required to level up your character after accumulating enough experience. I recently found myself stuck at level three because I was unaware at how food was obtained until I required it to level.

Although PK is a free game to download, the food resource can only be acquired from purchasing it from the makers. For example 100 food costs £2.99 while 1000 food costs £24.99. Considering that most MMO subscriptions are around the £10.00 mark per month, I was amazed at how expensive it was to acquire food. Yet by then most players are too invested into PK. They’ve already built a small empire in their hometowns and want to keep going and see how big and how far they can expand their empire. But the prices were just too steep for me. If I wanted to pay that much money, I’d play a more mainstream MMO on my PC. However, after asking a few people on the chat channels in game, I soon found out you could trade with other players. I recently traded 100 wood for 100 food. No easy task considering trees spawn randomly in the world.

Determined players however can plant the healing berries in order to make seedling trees which after 5 days will grow into a full size trees and can be harvested for wood. The only reason all players don’t grow their own trees takes us back to how passive PK is. Every resource or building action takes a certain amount of time to complete. Cutting down a tree takes around 20 to 30 seconds. Multiply that by 100 and you’re already looking at about 50 minutes of repetitive mundane work. Understandably the more hard-core players in PK purchase food, but the limitations and passiveness of the game experience as a whole didn't make me want to buy food, in fact rather the opposite.

The passive play of PK is actually what keeps me coming back. The game is so easy to play and an excellent time killer. The ability to relocate your character to where you are in the real world on Google maps is great fun. You never know what you’re going to find. It’s great on long trips on a train, I found myself relocating my character every time my train stopped at a station and quickly placing down a flag. Travelling in PK however is rather limited if you don’t travel a lot in the real world. You can only move within the territory of a flag. If you wish to enter into another territory owned by you, you must click on that flag and select visit which costs feathers, a resource used for moving your character. As your empire expands, it becomes impossible to see all of it due to the field of vision limitation on your character. You’re unable to zoom out of the map like you can in Google maps, so you have to scroll your screen until you reach your range of view limit and select a flag to visit to move long distances. As you come across cities, you can visit them again through the menu rather than travelling to them directly, but again at the cost of feathers. You also have your own hut which you can build, destroy and rebuild at will providing you have the materials and this can also be visited through the menu, again costing feathers.

Feathers are purchased from non-player controlled ogres which also attack you if you start cutting down trees. Interrupting your cutting progress and giving you a difficult decision of either A) standing your ground and killing the ogre so you can continue cutting down your tree, but preventing you from being able to purchase feathers from all ogres for 24 hours or B) retreat into a different flag zone and cut down trees there, assuming there aren’t any ogres there to disrupt you. You can only see what is in a flag zone once you visit it, which is somewhat annoying, especially when you drop in on an infestation of lizard men wielding spears!

I’ve played the game on and off casually for about 3 weeks now and although I have been coming back for more. I find myself continually doing repetitive tasks to gather resources, placing a few new flags in unclaimed territory to expand my empire and go hunting into unknown areas with my dog. You have a dog in game that allows you to explore random areas to hunt, harvest and place flags if you wish. It’s an excellent way of coming across mobs, trees, gold and materials but it’s completely random where you end up, but usually just outside the boundaries of your territory you were previously in. I would recommend the game to anyone who would find it fun to see just how big of a territory they can make in their home areas and even where they’re at work. Anywhere you go in the real world is a place you can visit for free in PK. But prepared for the repetitive tasks that take time for each action and the somewhat large reliance on difficult to obtain resources that are required to pretty much do anything in the game.

What FFXIII Did Right and What It Did Wrong!

2010-04-20T02:31:00.000-04:00

Final Fantasy XIII was held with a lot of mix reviews. People either loved it or hated it. One thing is for sure it didn't set any new standards for RPGs. I'm actually a fan of the game myself but I can still see the many flaws that probably brought the game down. Let's crack FFXIII open and dissect what could have made this game better.

What did Square-Enix do right?

The battle system was done really well in FFXIII. It pretty much took away the grind work that even most of today's Western RPGs still have. This could be a bad thing if you're the type that actually enjoys killing the same monster over and over again. I for one am not one of those people. On top of cutting the fat, they implemented strategy a little more with the Paradigm system. I like how the battles were fast but your only concern was not to just wail and wail away at a single enemy until the fall over. I like how each character class was implemented and important for each battle.

The visuals in JRPGs are still more pleasing to my eyes than those from the west. I like brightly lite games and characters that don't look like they are all hiked up on steroids. The worlds are amazing and well imagined.

What the hell went wrong?

The lack of exploration was probably one of the most disappointing parts of the game. I don't mind exploring new areas as long as I don't have to fight a monster every two steps. Eliminating that problem actually makes exploring fun. Especially, if you reward players with awesome loot for the exploring.

The story wasn't horrible but it's definitely forgettable. The cast wasn't anything to brag about either. I do like Lighting and Snow though. Their relationship and the small bond that they shared with Lighting sister made parts of the story interesting but after reaching one point in the game they kind of dropped that development.

The weapons system in the game just sucked. There was no incentive to invest in any other weapon but the one you started out with. I like upgrading weapons in games but I felt like there was no point in FFXIII because the new weapon you picked up never was as good as the one you upgraded. You kind of waste all these decent parts into on one weapon only to find out that it might be possible to have a better only if you had held out until the end to spend your parts.

I think one thing that FF series hasn't done well since FFVII is they haven't created a bad ass antagonist since then. What makes a good story for most RPGs is having a great villain. Look at Sephroth that dude killed your girlfriend. I remember that being one of the biggest holy shit moments for me in gaming. They need to make someone not like Sephroth but they need to make a villain remember able like Sephroth. I'm sorry Orphan was one of the most shitiest villains of all time. Bring back the badass.

Gamefly

2010-04-16T21:57:00.002-04:00

So I figured I try renting games for once. I made an account last Saturday and got Uncharted 2 on Wednesday. For some reason I just got a loading screen. I updated my PS3, downloaded and installed the UC2 update...and it still doesn't play. Might just have to return it to Gamefly and claim it defective. Not sure what to think of this service. :/ I want it to work out. Even if I just get two games a month I'll get a lot of gaming for just $12.

I hope the other games work for I can give a more fair review of the service. The next game on my log is Heavy Rain, so hopefully that will work.

How to Kill a God! (God of War III Review)

2010-04-08T23:55:00.001-04:00

Most games today have a very typical main character. There's this ruggedly handsome dude or super hot chick that is out to save the world. The character starts from nothing gains tools and weapons to further their journey to save the world. Then enters Kratos probably the baddest BAMF, bad ass mother fucker, in video games. Kratos isn't out there to save the world, he is out for some heads. Kratos has little heart left in him, by standers should pray that they don't cross paths with him. He doesn't even blink when he slaughters the innocent.

Why God of War III is fun!

If it's broken don't fix it: Outside of Ninja Gaiden and DMC, Devil May Cry, GoW has some the best controls in the action/slasher genre. The gameplay works really well in GoW so, I was kind of happy to see that much hasn't changed. A few good tweaks are switching between the weapons mid-combo is a lot smoother. Kratos can stop almost all of his combos mid-way to block.

Visually Awesome: I don't care that when there are multi-platform versions out on games that the PS3 doesn't look as good. The reason for this is because I know that the developers didn't put in the necessary time to make use of the PS3. Compare GoW III and Uncharted 2 to any game on the 360 and nothing can really compare. However, if you compare Uncharted 2 to GoW III they're pretty much equal in quality. Just for the record I think Uncharted 2 looks better but that's because I like a brighter visual styles. Some of the best scenes in the game are the boss battles and the epic ways Kratos kills them. One other impressive note of the game is the visual scale. Fighting enemies on top of a titan not only sounds good on paper but turned out really well in the end.

Heads will Light the Way: If all out violence is your cup of tea then look no further than GoW III. It's really brutal and sometimes hard to watch as Kratos pulls out eyes and cuts people and things in half.

Nitpicks:

Story: GoW I probably had the best story and the most relate able Kratos out of the whole trilogy. Towards the end it was disappoint to see how Santa Monica Studios tried to humanize the slayer of gods.

Two Control Flaws: I've died too many times to count where i had to double jump over a pit and use Icarus' wings. Double jumping sucks in this game. Last minor flaw is the magic in the game. I thought it was better when the weapons weren't connected to the magic. I might be the only one though.

Camera: I had more bad angle from the camera kills than from double jumping to my death. Sometimes they were a combo kill though.

Length: Too short!

All in All:

GoW III I felt ended this trilogy quite well. Some may not agree but I liked the ending. My nitpicks are so small that they're more like warnings before playing the game than anything. I do wish it was a lot longer though. If not a fan of the series it's still worth a rental.

When does a man become greater than a god? When that man's thirst for revenge is unquenchable.

Blue Toad Murder Files: Girl Friendly

2010-03-31T05:59:00.006-04:00

The wife and I downloaded the first three episodes available on the PS3 last night in a bundle ($14.99). Damn the wireless adapter in the PS3 is slow. Anyway, this looked like a co-op adventure/puzzle game, so it was a must buy. The game will be releasing another batch of three files for sure somewhere in the near future, so I assume all six will run you about $30 when all is said and done (unless you're an idiot who buys the episodes one at a time for $7.49).

The game first asks you how many people are playing (up to four...sorry, no online MP that I could see). It then has a British narrator describe events happening in a town leading up to a scene where your character talks to a person. Someone gets murdered, and you (and your friends) take turns interviewing the suspects....sort of.

You don't really interact in the world because it's all narrated. With a lot of light-hearted, hilarious, mellow-dramatic voice acting. It's quite entertaining, and I actually laughed out loud a few times! I love the way the narrator says "MURRRRRDAAAARRRR" every time.

The actual game play is an alternating set of puzzles you must complete. For example, they asked me one time to add up the sales of jewels, but do it buy converting the dollars into pounds. No calculator needed, but a keen eye and logic is definitely on the bill. Another game asked me to recall a character I saw early on and build their face by choosing the correct eyes, nose, and mouth from the sets available.

I found the first episode very entertaining, and I look forward to the rest. Each episode is about an hour or more, so 3 hours of game play seems a bit high for the price, but I'm hoping there will be replay with different puzzles available? Not sure about that one yet.

With My One Eye I Cry!

2010-03-23T22:43:00.001-04:00

Recently, the next step in video games seems to be 3D projection. Lot's of companies like Sony and Nintendo are taking a look at the 3D video games market. What does this mean for gamers like me?
When I was younger due to cancer I lost my left eye. I won't go into further details than that. In fact I've never considered it much of a handicap. I can do everything someone with two eyes can but I can't watch movies in 3D. This actually wasn't much of a big deal until Avatar came out. Avatar proved that an entire movie can be shot in 3D and the audience can enjoy the experience.

It seems thanks to Avatar a lot of companies are pushing for digital media to use 3D technology. I'm actually rather intrigued by it. However, unfortunately for me and other gamers like me. I may never be able to appreciate the generation in gaming.

So the question I'm asking, is 3D a gimmick or the next stage in gaming?

Pixeljunk Monsters: girl friendly

2010-03-17T06:13:00.007-04:00

Yes, I'm aware this game has been out for over a year, and yes, I was an early adopter who also has the expansion pack. The point of my 'girl friendly' posts is to review games I have played, or attempted to play, with my wife and the impressions we have had. If you haven't played this game yet, and are on the fence, read on...

Pixeljunk Monsters (PM) is a tower defense game built for the PS3 and distributed via PSN, and they now have a deluxe version that is distributed for the PSP in the same manner. I haven't played the PSP version, so I won't be discussing it.

The concept, at least from what I can decipher, is that you are a village chief that has to protect your 20 villagers from being killed by the onslaught of various monsters. The monsters are varied between fast land types (spider like things), slow heavy armor land, physical resistance (requiring elementals to defeat), fast and slow aerials, and bosses. Forgive me if I missed a type, but you get the concept. Your job is to run around the static map (meaning the map you see at the beginning of the level doesn't move, nor does your overhead perspective) and replace trees with weapons (towers) to combat the onslaught. You start out with only enough coin to purchase a few tower types that are very basic, to which you will get coin and gems to spend to buy upgrades to defeat the harder enemy types they throw at you later. Also, you can stop on any of your towers and your avatar will start doing a war dance to upgrade the levels of the tower, making it more effective.

One of the things that makes this title stand out from other tower defense games, besides the great art style, is the music. They found a way to make the music and sound effects keep you in a peaceful, catatonic-like state despite the nail biting you will be doing as the monsters stream towards your villagers. You goal is of coarse to keep them all alive, which nets you a rainbow after completing the level and unlocks new levels. But it doesn't necessarily mean game over if some of your villagers fall, it just means you didn't get a perfect score and some areas might not be unlocked until you do, so give it a retry. That's why the music is important in this game, because your game play is designed to be repetitive, and lets face it, adrenaline-filled rock just wouldn't fit. (Incidentally, you can buy the soundtrack for the game, though I'm not sure it's THAT good!)

Played solo, the challenges are quite hard, and any hardcore gamer will have challenges in defeating each level, especially if they are going for the perfect score. Where the game shines, IMO, is the co-op. Have a friend? Toss them that extra controller, and now there are two chiefs to battle the onslaught. I can't swear to this, but I think all that does to the game engine is cause additional monsters to come each wave, but I could be wrong. Oh yeah, there are 20 waves per level. Anyway, as a co-op, what makes this so great is that the map is large enough that you don't feel congested, so one person can focus on one side of the map, and the other on the other side, and then you'll switch occasionally because your partner will need coins to build towers also, and if all the enemies are getting slaughtered before they reach their towers, then ...well, you get the idea. Also, since the map is static, you don't have to worry about split-screen. Let's face it, couch co-op is best when games don't use split-screen.

My spouse and I have probably logged 50+ hours into this game over the last year, and we continue to pick it up occasionally for an hour here or there. It's that type of game that never really gets old, and is easy to pick up. If you're looking for a couch co-op, have a PS3, and want to bring your girl into your addiction, this is a must-buy! Assuming, of course, that your nice enough to work together and let her get some gems and coins once in a while :P

Beyond Good

2010-03-16T11:50:00.002-04:00

I just finished "Beyond Good & Evil" today, writing up a review on the PC port soon.

I've been WoW'ed

2010-03-16T07:09:00.003-04:00

Sorry, I haven't written jack in well over a week. My excuse? Gate River Run (15k) and World of Warcraft. I completed the run on Saturday in 93 minutes, which put my like 5400th out of 13.3k people, so being a more than casual runner, I was pretty happy.

As far as WoW? Well, I gave it another shot, and with Kinto's help, I'm loving it. 10 years late to the party, but oh well. This will carry me over until we all get on FFXIV. Come join WOW!

Work picked up also so I'm not getting quite as much gaming in as I'd like, but that ebbs and flows.

Also, been co-op gaming with the wife in the evenings, so I'll be writing a review of those experiences soon. Titles include Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Lego Star Wars (PS2), and Pixeljunk Monsters.

Game Achievements

2010-03-16T07:06:00.003-04:00

I may have become addicted to in game achievements and gamer points. Recently I played some Halo 3 and went on the hunt for the hidden skulls. One skull hidden on each level. The skulls allow the player to modify certain aspects of the game such as having the enemy throw more grenades than you can juggle and turning off things like your motion radar or your HUD entirely. You also get in game achievement points for obtaining these skulls. I have only played a few games on my 360 recently but I’m up to 4000 gamer points now and it’s quite interesting looking back on all the achievements you’ve obtained throughout the different games played. Some of my friends online have in excess of 10000 gamer points or more!.

I think the achievement system is very good for extending a games lifespan, not to mention a great way to boast about what you’ve accomplished in game. It’s certainly made me always choose the hardest difficulty setting now when I start a new game, just so that when I do complete the game, I get all the achievements in regards to difficulty and don’t have to go back and play the whole game again on a different difficulty level. You really have to look at the rewards though to see if it’s worth your time and effort to completing it again. Yes it will look great on your achievements page to have gotten every achievement in the game (which very few people have done) but how many gamer points is it worth. A measly 15 points only, you’re better off playing a different game from scratch and racking up the points from that. At least you’re playing something new and refreshing. However that’s where the reward system differentiates between gamers. You’ll have those who will want nothing but to get as many points as possible regardless and you’ll have those that want to completely and utterly get every achievement in a game. The developers know this and rightfully so have achievements in place that can only be obtained from extensively playing the game. For example Gears of War 2 has an achievement for those who obtain the Veteran rank in online play which I believe is level 100. I’m not sure how experience is obtained, probably through winning games, kills and accomplishing in game objectives but I can no doubt imagine, getting to that rank would require considerable amount of time devoted to the game.

As much as I would love to fully complete the games I play, I can only really say I have ever done this with Super Mario games, mainly Super Mario 64 and the New Super Mario DS. Arguably these are easier to do than some of the more complex games out there, but game developers further draw out their games life span with achievements. Sadly there are no gamer achievements for those Super Mario games but it’s incredibly self-rewarding to have obtained every coin, star and unlocked every secret. I do wonder why Nintendo hasn’t adopted their own in game achievement system. The gamer achievement system on the 360 and the PS3 is notably similar and it’s always gratifying to achieve something in game. I only wish it didn’t require so much “work” and “dedication” to fully complete games these days. I suppose the question really is, does beating the last boss mean you’ve completed a game or does obtaining and doing everything a game has to offer mean you’ve completed a game?

A benefit of in game achievements is that it could introduce new aspects of the game to the player. For example, the Easter egg hunt like achievements in Halo 3 for the skulls brought me to areas of the level I would have never thought of going to. I enjoyed being forced to leave my usual style of gameplay and do something a little different. Not just exploring but in shooters you could get an achievement for a target amount of headshots or doing something as simple as ski diving out of a helicopter and safely landing on the ground. As incredibly simple as those sound I guess some players may just not bother doing certain things in a game that is available to them and in game achievements is a great way of promoting and introducing a different style of play for the player. Which ultimately results in a different experience, hopefully positive.

Mario's 10 Dreadful Secrets, You Probably Don't Know! (Japanese Article)

2010-03-15T07:04:00.000-04:00

Recently, I came across this Japanese article about video games most persistent and loved hero, Mario. The article was based on an American article written in Orange County, California but there are slight differences. Translation after the jump and links to both the ocweekly site and yahoo!Japan site. Enjoy!

Nintendo's big hit "Super Mario Brothers," has appeared even in the the "Genius World Book of Records," as the world's best selling video game. However, have you ever thought why was he named "Mario"? (Yukito Ikeya) On the foreign news site, "ocweekly.com" they ran an article called "Ten Things You Didn't Know About Super Mario Bros." In the article they exposed each and every known secret about of Mario, starting from the origin of his name, to why Mario wears overalls, all the way to the existence of various hidden stages. How many of the 10 secrets do you know?

① The grass and the clouds use the same pixel graphics.

If you take a good look at the clouds drifting in the sky and the grass coming out of the grass coming out of the ground, then you can realize that they both are the same graphics. This device was used to save even the smallest bit of memory space.
*Side note: Super Mario Bros. took up 40 kb of memory space.

② The hidden "Minus Stages"

             When entering the warp zone at the end of the stage 1-2, using a slight trick before the screen scrolls over you can enter the pipe that takes you to a place labeled "-1." "-1" is a water stage but for some strange reason the graphics in the background look like a running stage. Throughout the stage Princess Peach and Koopa come out.

③ Mario's name's origin comes from the landlord's name

            Mario's name was taken from the owner who rented out the office during that time. His name was "Mario Seagale." It seemed at the time Nintendo of America was running behind on the rent, Nintendo made a deal to extend the payment by naming the game character after Mr. Seagale.

④ Mario was influenced by "Alice in Wonderland."

           The "Super Mushroom," an item if eaten makes Mario's body grow bigger. According Mr. Shigeru Miyamoto when he was answering question for a foreign interview, the motif of the item appeared in "Alice in Wonderland." If you think about it, Alice also eats mushrooms and grows bigger and smaller.

⑤ Mario really does hit the blocks with his fist.

          By chance is there anyone that really thinks that Mario hits the blocks with his head? If you look carefully at Mario's jump motion you can see that Mario properly thrusts his hand above his head. Well, in the case of his squat jump do you know whether or not he hits blocks with his head?

⑥ The reason for the hat and the mustache.

        This is a pretty famous story but Mario wears his hat because when Mr. Miyamoto was designing Mario, it was difficult to represent Mario's hair color with pixels. For the same reason, Mario has a mustache because it was a device that easily showed where Mario had a mouth.

⑦ "Super Mario Bros." was released on Friday the 13th!!!

        "Super Mario Bros." 's release date was September, 13th 1985 on a Friday. Yes! Friday the 13th!!!! I've said enough....!!!!

⑧ "All Night Nippon" edition does exists.

        Commemorating the 20th anniversary of the 1987's "All Night Nippon," a limited amount of copies of "All Night Nippon Super Mario Bros." were manufactured for the Famicom Disk System. The contents were nearly the same as the original, but gumbas were replaced with Sun Plaza Nakano, a Japanese celebrity, Toads were turned into the various personalities from the program. The means of obtaining this wasn't through general sales but through a prize drawing. To the people that have this game, it's a rather precious, so please treasure it.

⑨ Why Mario wears overalls.

        Have you ever wondered why Mario's clothes are overalls? There's a proper reason for this. According to one of Mr. Miyamoto's past stories, he said "I did this in order to clearly show Mario's arm's movement." Because they're overalls you can easily make a distinction between Mario's arm and waist, moreover with the overalls I can show Mario's lively movement.

⑩ Isn't Koopa's flame backwards?

       If you take a good look at the fire Koopa breaths, the front part of the flame looks like the the tail of the fire. It's a flame that flies forward but normally shouldn't the tail of the flame come out at the end? If you think about it calmly, even though it's clearly strange, why until now has no one pointed this out? Perhaps some of the turtle tribe .... the parents it seems like someone is coming at this time.....

Japanese Article

Ten Things You Didn't Know About Super Mario Bros.

Does Japan like Borderlands?

2010-03-14T19:27:00.001-04:00

Though Borderlands has been released in the west since last October. In the land of the rising sun, Borderlands was released just last month. When it comes to RPGs we know that Japan and the west don't see eye to eye on the core mechanics. So how well does this fun to play coop game hold up in Japan?

The following is a translation of a article from Yahoo!Japan's game section. Translated by your truly. ；） Enjoy the read!!!
Recently, it seems even in Japan people who like first person shooters have increased. This is a genre where you gain instant satisfaction from the feeling of being on a battlefield and heated gun fights. With that add the elements of a RPG and then you'll have "Borderlands."

       The game's genre can best be labeled as a "role-playing shooter." Players can enjoy the speedy battles of a FPS and the fun of steadily gaining experience of a RPG at the same time. In a normal FPS after battles the only thing left is the players battle record, this is used to keep the fun of the battle itself. If players defeat enemies level up and complete quests, the places they can go increases. It also has second play through that's particularly attractive in RPGs.

       The setting in Borderlands is a barren planet called Pandora. Players will aim to make a quick fortune, make use of weapons like sub-machine gunes and sniper rifles, and subdue monsters and bands of bandits. With the ability for a four player coop game, players can work together to fight enemies and with a buggy they can race around the wide maps. Even though, it's a barren world, the characters and scenery have a cartoonish humor. Because of this the game doesn't have the characteristic of feeling brutal.

        If players level up, skill up, and find strong weapons then players can oppose strong foes. This game I can't only recommend for existing FPS fans but also for players who haven't played a FPS before. Players should by all means invite friends and experience this new sensational world of a roleplaying shooter.

God of War I + God of War II = God of War III

2010-03-08T21:36:00.001-05:00

Next week the king of brutality comes back. I finally had a chance to play the 2009 E3 demo. What can I say about one of the most anticipated games for western PS3 fanboys? Well it looks really, really awesome on my HDTV.

I wouldn't say that I had a bad time with the GoWIII Demo but I can say that I think I over hyped this game in my mind. The game looks very amazing and it's what you expect from a first party developed next gen game. But the game plays exactly like the first two God of War games. But the game plays EXACTLY like the first two God of War games. No my computer isn't broken, I just wanted to stress this point. This isn't a bad thing but since I imagined that since this game was going to go next gen. Santa Monica studios would have done something gameplay wise to blow my brain open. Then again this is a demo and you don't want to lay all your chips out before someone else takes a bet. But throw me a frickin bone here.

This game looks awesome. Visually only Uncharted 2 can match the detail and overall eye candy of this game. This game's art direction is much darker but I think it does what Dante's Inferno was trying to pull off. A lot of PS3 haters were claim that most of the screen shots of GoWIII had to be photoshoped. They couldn't be more wrong. I don't really understand how I can say that a grotesque scene like a dude getting his head ripped is beautiful. But it was and I can't wait to do it again in the final version. I'll be picking this game up next week. I'll post a review as soon as possible.

Turn based strategy games.

2010-03-08T09:03:00.004-05:00

So I’ve been playing through Front Mission on my NDS and am just in absolute nostalgia. Not because I’ve played Front Mission before, but simply because it’s been so long since I last touched a turn based strategy game. I’ve played Front Mission 3 on the PSX, Advance Wars on the Game Boy Advance and the Final Fantasy Tactics series too and love the simplicity of the gameplay yet the complexities in the strategy involved. At times it can seem overwhelming and in most cases I wouldn’t recommend these games for the quick “fix”. I think last night I went to bed with my NDS with the intention of falling asleep around 12ish and staying up till about 2 in the morning! Turn based games just take time a lot of time! Especially the ones where you can customize the units you use in game. Final Fantasy and Front Mission have always allowed the player to customize the load outs of the characters / mechs. Advanced Wars focused more on just having a set of units with pros and cons but then mixing it up with Commander Powers that buffed your units or debuffed your enemies.

All the above games are played on a grid however, but there are games that have successfully taken the turn based strategy genre away from the grid system. Most notably is Valkyrie Chronicles which is a great example of turn based strategy in a 3D setting. Controlling infantry and tanks, you take turns carefully positioning your units to attack the enemy and avoid the enemies counter attack as much as possible. If you own a PS3 I highly recommend trying this game. This was the second game I purchased for the PS3 after MGS4… naturally.

For some reason I just remembered Zone of the Enders turn based game for the Gameboy Advance. Pretty much a Front Mission clone but allowed the player to manage the accuracy of the weapons aim by having a fixed crosshair and a moving enemy target that would very quickly come into the sights, an interesting addition and highly satisfying getting a perfect bulls eye.

I’d like to play these types of games more, especially the Super Robot Wars series as that combines the 3 things I love in to one. Mechs, Anime and Games! The only unfortunate thing about these types of games is that their incredibly long winded at times. Levelling up your characters, gearing them and then a single battle could take up to an hour or more. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, I love customisation; I guess I wish it was more mainstreamed in some of these games.

Does anyone else enjoy this genre of game, if so any recommendations?

PSP Cell really happening?

2010-03-04T15:24:00.002-05:00

According to Kotaku (who got it from the Wall Street Journal), Sony is planning to release a smart phone that can play PSP games. Can we say, "duh"? I mean, we've only been saying they need to do this for...6 years? Or however long the PSP has been around? I'm actually pretty pumped, though. If they do that, I'm probably in. Better late than never.

What about you? Good move or more iPhone fodder?

HALO Reach Multiplayer Video (aka Tribes Returneth)

2010-03-04T10:07:00.008-05:00

Like I've said before, I'm not going to buy a 360 for one game. But I do love me some Halo. Or at least I used to, before they became TRIBES. I LOVED Tribes. So maybe this is Bungie trying a formula that THEY KNOW DAMN WELL WORKED! I'm getting upset because I don't own a 360 and this is one games' multiplayer that I could totally get into! Compare this video with the TRIBES video, and you tell me what I'm missing.

Video Games | Halo: Reach | Multiplayer Beta Trailer HD

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

Now here's a video representing my beloved college day LAN parties: TRIBES

I never realized just how similar these two franchises were. Or rather, how much HALO ripped off Tribes (or paid it homage?) now with the jet packs. I mean, look at minute four in that Tribes video, or seconds before it. You'll see the dude shoot down a ...Banshee? Anyway, some of you might not have played the original Tribes, so I thought it would be good to share some of the highlights. This montage was the best I could find, but nothing can replace that sense of speed and map scale like actually playing it. It makes games like MW2 feel very restricted and slow. For that matter, it makes ALL multiplayer shooters feel restricted and slow. For Tribes, it wasn't just about twitch reflexes, it was about knowing how to lead your opponent with a shot based on your trajectory, speed, and distance vs. theirs. Epic.

BTW, like all computer based FPS multiplayer games, it went downhill fast by the modders. Pissed me off when they started modding to 'opponent seeking rockets', so they didn't need to aim. They just camped in the back of the map and shot in the air. F&*@ modders.

More coming to the waste land

2010-03-04T09:35:00.004-05:00

Looks like borderlands will be getting more DLC love as Take-Two has just let everyone know that there DLC is making such a return for them there going to keep shovelling out bit and pieces at you for more money =D. The next DLC(s) are unknown but said it could also be just stuff you can pay extra for example(making s*** up): Buy the best weapons, buy more talent points, more bag/bank space, new skins, New extra super more hot than that other girl sexy hunter model. IDK, I just like to ramble and .... BL!

Battlefield: Bad Company 2

2010-03-02T08:13:00.003-05:00

Battlefield Bad Company 2 recently got released on the 360, PS3 and PC platforms. It’s been a while since I last played a battlefield game, Battlefield 2142 was the last one I touched. Since then however I never felt the urge to play the original Battlefield Bad Company or the recent online only Battlefield 1943. The original Battlefield Bad Company seemed too oriented towards console gaming and not so much PC. Battlefield 1943, aside from the graphics didn’t really seem to offer anything new to the franchise. So why has Battlefield Bad Company 2 got me nursing a semi in my panties you ask? Do read on…

Single Player -

I started to play the game on the hardest setting hoping to experience a challenge but sadly it would seem the challenge comes not from the increased damaged the enemy AI deals to you, but the idiocy of your teams AI. While at times they do down one or two enemies, most of the time they were waiting on me to push forward and in turn they would become static. I found this very odd considering I’m not even the squad leader and am incapable of interacting at all with my squad. The missions felt very scripted and at checkpoints, the game would fade out into a brief cut scene and then throw you back in to the game. I would have preferred if you could remain in first person view throughout the story telling. Pulling the player away from the game to watch a video and then quickly throw them back in just ruins the pace of the game. Other check points would have your squad mates all of a sudden appear ahead of you which is just dumb. One minute your moaning about your squad being too far behind you and then the next second you’re playing a game of catch up as their already attacking the enemy base.

What I would have preferred to see is the single player focusing on the squad play that DICE studios execute so well online. Being able to play through the missions as one of the classes would be more interesting and challenging. Imagine 4 different ways of playing the same mission, where each class has unique objectives only they could achieve or perhaps the ability to switch between any 4 of the squad members during play. 4 player cooperative mode would have been interesting to see as well, especially with the recent success of Borderlands. It’s a shame that the single player differs so much from the online experience. Online your part of a squad that works together, but in single player your character seems to be able to do everything and your squad seems incapable of doing anything… most of the time.

The game levels look amazing. Some wide open areas with lush backgrounds and good distancing resolutions. I would have liked to have seen more close quarter battles. So far I’ve only been fighting out in the open and the buildings I do go into are never bigger than one or two rooms and sadly always the same floor plan. The environments are well designed and the Destruction 2.0 engine adds a lot to the dynamic of the game and the way the player can affect and manipulate the level. That said I don’t find myself utilizing the ability to blow things up in the same way as I do online. In single player it seems to be very cosmetic and not built into the strategy to complete a mission.

I haven’t completed the single player yet, but these are my first impressions. Battlefield has always excelled in multiplayer and that’s where Bad Company 2 really stands out.

Online Multiplayer -

I need to get this out of the way now. Battlefield BC2 online is awesome! I’ve always enjoyed the online experience the Battlefield series has offered and it’s great to return to series after having played 2142 almost 2 years ago. Battlefield differs from other online shooters in that it focuses more on squad play and teamwork. You can still go at it lone wolf if you wish, but you won’t be achieving as much as you would working with a squad. Which is what you want to be doing in order to increase your rank and unlock new weapons and items. The game rewards are increased too, for example aiding a fellow squad mate will be worth more experience points, as opposed to aiding a player on the same team as you. This in turn emphasises the player to stay with their squad during the game, as opposed to running off with some other player. The ability to spawn with your squad is great for getting straight back into the action and decreases the time needed to meet back up with your squad. Battlefield is a big game and there are times where you will find yourself running A LOT! Thankfully there are vehicles to jump into for both transport as well as blowing the crap out of pretty much anything. Tanks, helicopters, ATV’s and even Jet Ski’s make an appearance. The overall online experience is greatly increased with the Destruction 2.0 engine. Nearly everything is destroyable, which adds a new level of thinking when playing. You might be safe behind a concrete wall from bullet attacks, but along comes a tank and blows a hole in your wall and your either dead from the explosion or greatly exposed to enemy. The entire environment can change. The forest you ran through for cover earlier has been cut down by a gun fire and now you’re forced to risk being shot out in the open or take a different route entirely. It’s all very dynamic and adds an interesting concept to FPS online multiplayer which isn’t seen as much as I’d like.

There’s a nice variety of maps and game modes to choose from too and providing you can find a good squad to play with or better yet with friends on mics, you should have a really good time playing this game online, increasing you rank and unlocking new upgrades.

See you on the battlefield.

The Other M(ario)

2010-03-01T21:13:00.000-05:00

Nintendo had it's media summit last week. As a big Nintendo fanboy, the past two media summits have been somewhat disappointing. Last years announcement of Punch Out wasn't anything new and it wasn't the flag ship franchise everyone was waiting to hear news from. In all due respect SMB Wii was a pleasent surprise last year. But finally a media summit that was worth reading about.

Metroid: Other M is starting to sound really amazing. When I heard that Team Ninja was taking over the franchise I almost pissed in my pants. Of course I was worried that they would try to give Samus too much jiggle and draw away the attention from the story. From what I've read Team Ninja is doing something really great with the game. The story seems like it it's going improve on Samus's character development and gameplay mechanics just sound amazing.
I think like most Metroid fans out there I was really happy to hear about the return to side scrolling. Though I am a little worried that the lack of buttons on the wii-mote my lead to some funky controls. The lack of shoulder buttons has me a little worried. Standing still and being able to shoot down and right or up and right made Super Metroid a dream game. On the other hand the switching between side scrolling and first person view sounds awesome. If the transition is as smooth as most sites claim this could be a really fun new way to incorprate puzzles into boss fights again.
This game has a realse date for this year so this sounds like another promising year for Nintendo. Can't wait.

Another promising title coming out for the Wii this May is Super Mario Galaxy 2. I love Mario Galaxy. It was such an awesome little game. Visually it competed with most HD games and there is no other platformer that can stand before this game. Some seem a little disappointed in another Mario Galaxy but I couldn't be more excited. I collected all 120 stars in the first one and I was begging for more. Well Nintendo seems to have heard my telepathic cries. It seems like this time Nintendo is doing Yoshi more justice in his second 3-D outing. I hope there are more power ups on top of all the past ones.

All these games are schedule to come out before the holiday season so what game is Nintendo waiting to announce at E3? The fan boy in me wants Zelda but I highly doubt we'll get a new Mario game and Zelda game in the same year and on the same platform.

Civilization V

2010-03-01T14:35:00.004-05:00

I've played Civilization IV, and all it's DLC's (or whatever you want to call their add-ons), plus Colonization, for hundreds of hours now over three years. I don't play it online or competitively, because I get all the challenge I want from the game AI. In fact, I have a new game I just started yesterday. So needless to say, I'm pumped it's truly being worked on. Not only that, but it's scheduled for a fall 2010 release! Seriously, why are all the greatest games ALL COMING OUT THIS YEAR! Sheesh, our wallets and lives need a break!

There isn't one other game franchise you can point out that has never had a blemish on it's reputation like Civilization. Not Mario (remember Paper Mario, or SMB 2?), not Zelda (look at Spirit Tracks...'nuff said), Halo (uh...ODST? Can we say no innovation?), nothing. I challenge you to find one other game series out there with multiple sequels and add-on packs that delivers 9 out of 10 ratings everytime, and often perfect 10's. Heck, I though Civilization Revolution might be the first bad mark by creating this kind of game specifically for the console and now iPhone (early ports of the Civ series don't really count, because they weren't new IP's, they were the same game. They just didn't work as well on the consoles, but if you played the same game on the PC, you would get the 9/10 scores). However, they delivered a unique gameplay that averaged a 9 out of 10 score as well! Sid knows his stuff. And he's working on a Facebook version. Hmmm...

Anyway, look forward to your comments. Especially if you have a series that you think is on par with Civilization in terms of always delivering the top notch quality. However, at least three entries of a game need to be there before you say it's on par (sorry, no "Uncharted"...still only has two but is on the right track!)

PS3 suffering "hiccups"

2010-03-01T07:50:00.004-05:00

According to Kotaku, the PS3 is having a problem. I won't re-report their story. Go read it. But I checked, and I, too, am affected by this problem. Hopefully they will get this resolved soon. Like before March 9th.

PC gaming FTW!

Update: Sony has said they will have a fix in 24hours. If you have a Pre-Slim machine, they recommend you don't turn it on until tomorrow. Details in the original link.

Borderlands: Dr. Zed's Zombie Island

2010-03-01T06:36:00.008-05:00

Late to the party, I know, but hey, this blog is about anything gaming related you want to post, and since it is what I played over the weekend (with Kinto...thanks!), I'm going to post about it.

"Dr. Zed's..." is a DLC (one of three) for 'Borderlands'. Once installed, you get there by teleporting to "Jacob's Cove". A brief intro starts, similar to the beginnings of Borderlands, where Marcus is telling a story to his kid. Seems Dr. Ned...*ahem*...Dr. Zed needs help. As far as the story goes, that's all I'll post so you can play it yourself for the story. What little there is, anyway.

The entire map is colored in a sort of green that is often associated with nighttime creepy zombie-like atmosphere's from Halloween. As Kinto pointed out, this DLC was supposed to come out during Halloween last year, so the vibe is definitely sent. As far as how that affects gameplay, I'll discuss shortly.

Here's the new enemy types a brief description. I won't recall them all, but here's what I remember:

Regular zombie - Very slow, walking towards you. If they get close, they melee you and your shield will be gone in one hit, so don't let them get close.
Torso - Has no legs. Comes out of the ground and crawls towards you. It can also do some damage, and a little harder to see because they blend in with the ground so well.
Midget zombie - Hilarious. They run and leap at you, so they're a little (pun intended) difficult to put between your crosshairs.
Pyscho zombie - Remember the Psycho's in the standard Borderlands? Yeah, it's them, except once you hit them with a bullet or melee, they truly go psycho and get really, really, fast. Best to equip Daze ability.
Suicide zombie - They carry a big barrel and run at you. If you don't shoot the barrel before they get to you, they blow it up next to you, killing themself and likely you. However, they also come in handy because if you blow them up when they're near the approaching horde, they take out many of their compatriots.
Treasure zombie - Very rare, but a few points have these giant muscle zombies that have a treasure chest chained to their back. Kill them, then the loot is yours.
Were-Skag - I think they were skag's. Anyway, big were-skag dudes that aren't too hard to kill. They're fast and agile, but you can easily take them down. Problem is you have to make sure they're down. When they're health get's low, they emit this red light that basically superpowers them, regen's health, and makes them a lot harder to take down. Fortunately, they don't really attack in packs, unless you're dumb enough to run from them into more of them. If you do, you're going to have problems.
Badass Zombie - Something like that. Kind of like a badass bruiser, but harder to take down. Much, much, harder, especially because he never shows up unless you're being mobbed by a horde. Or mob?...
Bosses - I'll let you experience them. There aren't many.
Defiler - Vomits at you, which hurts you, slows you way down, and covers your screen with the vomit so you can't see. You definitely want to take them out quickly.

Strengths:

New Foes. Obviously, there are zombies. Lots and lots of zombies. But don't think this is Left4Dead material. These zombies are mostly slow. The horde isn't so much a horde, though there are a few points where it will seem a bit chaotic.
Different atmosphere. No doubt you're playing a different game within Borderlands. It makes it interesting because it really isn't more of the same. I like that, because a DLC should always, repeat always, add content, not just slap more of the same onto a game. Otherwise, you're releasing an incomplete game.
Humor. They went out of their way to bring some pretty funny moments, mostly through recordings found, to this experience. I encourage you to listen carefully to each one, because they are well done. You'll pick up on the references.

Opportunities for Improvement (we don't say "weaknesses", right?)

Loot. IT'S AWFUL! We played through after beating the second playthrough, so all zombies were level 50+. In the main game, playing this "third playthough" will give you highest chance for good weapon drops. In addition, since I play the Hunter, I equipped my +2 Find Rare Items class mod. That almost always results in yellow and orange drops during a couple hour playthrough. Usually more. We didn't have one in the entire DLC. Not one. And I believe we only saw five purple drops in total. The chests were even worse. Green and white almost exlcusively. That made the entire playthrough rather frustrating.
No long distance shooting. As a Hunter, I usually snipe a bit until enemies close in, then break out the pistols and Bloodwing to take down the masses. But in this game, the opportunities for long distance shooting almost don't exist. Maybe a personal pet peeve, but I felt like it was really made for Bruiser and Soldier, not Hunter and Siren. Balance just seemed a little off. On the plus side, though, I did become a much better pistol shooter once I rebalanced my hunter for guns and bloodwing. I used skills I normally didn't, and I like that you can easily retune your skills like that. So it wasn't all bad.
Atmosphere. Ok, I like that they did something totally different from the main game. However, the night sky with the dark green ground often made it extremely difficult to see. I guess that's what they were going for, being zombie and all, but it did make it a bit frustrating at times. Plus the music almost never changed. It got a little monotonous.
No fast travel! This is apparently an issue in all the DLC's. Once you fast travel there, that's it. Even though the DLC's have large maps with many different areas, there is no fast travel. That really, really sucks. After the first few hours of blasting zombies, we just stopped shooting and ran where we needed to go. We could easily outrun the zombies (especially with Bloodwing flying out and dazing everything!) If they're going to commit to making you move to the locations instead of fast travel, they should at least make you fight your way. I don't think game design benefits when you just run by it. Then again, I might be frustrated if I had to stop and fight everything along the way. Hmm, tough call, but in the end, I prefer fast travel for maps of this size.
No replayability. Spent $10 bucks. Not much, got some new stuff. Played and beat everything in about 4-5 hours. Now, I'll never play it again, unless I have more friends that get it, then I'll play with them to get through it. The loot system is the main point. If I can't find good loot in a game like this, what's the point? I'll go shoot through "Crimson Fastness" again 100 times (I've already done it quite a few!) and get great loot drops before I'll revisit Jacob's Cove. I mean, it's where Jacob's guns were made, so damn, I expected to find all the rare Jacob's guns throughout. Really disappointing. Also, the enemies, while unique, don't feel as satisfying to shoot as do the enemies in the main game. So why go back?

Overall, I'm kind of negative on this DLC. Having played it, and already having played a couple hours in the new General Knoxx DLC, the $10 I spent on this one doesn't feel as well spent. That said, if you don't have it, and it ever goes on sale (like part of a DLC pack on Steam), I would go ahead and pull the trigger on acquiring it. If you really like Borderlands, you'll appreciate that they gave you an opportunity to experience something very different in the world of Pandora, and who knows, you might get better loot drops than I did.

If you've played it, I'd like to see you impressions in the comments. Really love to see differing opinions.

Update: Just saw this on Kotaku...I figured as much. Good stuff!

March Games

2010-02-24T19:16:00.001-05:00

March is quickly coming upon us. There were a lot of great releases this April and it's really unfortunate I couldn't play all of them. I'm still looking forward to playing games like Heavy Rain and Borderland's new DLC. The beginning of 2010 has given the year a really strong start and it doesn't seem like the momentum is going to be dying down anytime soon.

What are you looking forward to this month?

First, let me list a few major games for March 2010.

March 9th:

Final Fantasy XIII PS3/Xbox 360
Yakuza 3 PS3
Resident Evil 5: Gold Edition PS3/Xbox 360
Calling Wii

March 11th:

Mega Man 10 Wii-ware/PSN/XBLA

March 16th:

God of War III PS3
Metro 2033 PC
Fragile Dreams Wii

March 23rd:

Red Steel 2 Wii
Just Cause 2 PC/PS3/Xbox360

I know many of you are counting down the days to Final Fantasy XIII fortunate for me I live in Japan and had a chance to play it before. (Mwahahaha)

The major release I'm looking forward to is God of War III and Red Steel 2. I'm not a huge God of War fan but what the game does it does well. With every new video that gets released the game keeps looking better and better. I'm a pretty big fan of the action/platformer and I was rather disappointed with the reviews of Dante's Inferno. I may or may not still pick this game up. But Kratos is coming and soon and his vengeance against the Greek gods will be in 1080p on my TV. Can't wait!

The Wii is really losing in the 3rd party side of development. I wish companies would stop throwing their shovel ware into the system. Hopefully, Red Steel 2 can finally force me to eject Super Mario Bros. Wii from my console. I bought Red Steel 1 on day one of the Wii's release. The game was far from perfect but I remember liking some parts of it. Shooting with the Wii-mote was a lot of fun and easy. However, the sword fights, which I looked forward to the most, were so disappointing. The Wii-mote lacking the one to one motion drained my spirit of fun. Now with the Wii-motion plus and the delayed developments I'm hoping for a really good Wii game from Red Steel 2. From the videos I saw on IGN and GT I think the game can be a lot of fun. Then again I saw some flaws in the shooting mechanic. In the videos I saw that the invisible box that determines how fast your character point of view changes, hasn't changed from the first game. The box is was to big for the type of FPS controls I am used to. Hopefully, there's an option to allow you to change the size of this box..

Well I hope you guys enjoy FFXIII like I did, but are there any other games you want this month?

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II (Review)

2010-02-23T19:45:00.000-05:00

I'm going to be honest with most of you. I've never played Modern Warfare. I heard a lot of positive stuff about it, but I was on the other side of the world. In the land of the rising sun, FPS are not really popular. Plus, until recently I didn't have a good enough PC to even run a game like L4D in it's normal settings. I'm pretty much jumping on the band wagon because a lot of people have been saying that MW2 is just plain awesome.

Why this game is awesome!

Graphics: This game just looks absolutely wonderful on my PC. Sometimes I get so distracted with eye candy that I die. Outside of Crysis this is one of the better looking games on my computer. On top of that it runs at constant 60 fps even in 1080p. Even if there's a massive amount of enemies on the battle field it feels like the game's frame rate doesn't dip.

Controls: I played it on computer. I really don't have to say much more than that. Mouse and keyboard for the win. There are some really cool parts in the game. For example, when you blow open a door in a hostage situation, for that short moment you go into slow motion and it's really cool to take out the kidnappers in that short moment. (I'm telling you guys, I'm a sucker for the slow mo.)

Variety: I like the variety of gadgets and weapons you can use in the game.

Structure: The game is as linear as Uncharted 2. I loved that game so I have no problem with this linear story here either.

Multiplayer: With friends this games multi-player can be quite addictive. I like the leveling up system and the handicap system it gives to noobs like me.

Where it lack in awesome. : (

Story: MW2 has a story but I feel like it's sold short. It's a really imaginative way to tell a story through multiple soldiers. However, I feel no real connection between any of the characters I control. I don't sense any character development at all.

AI: The AI is as dumb as rocks. At least my allies like to stare at me while I'm being gunned down by a huge squad of enemies. It's really upsetting to see them do this to me time and time again. I tend to survive longer if I get away from those bastards. When I'm with them I think to myself they got my back but I couldn't be more wrong.

They all look the same: Honestly, all the terrorist look the same. It's like they were cloned or they all shop at Terrorist R Us. The uniformed soldiers I can understand. But that's ridiculous.

Multiplayer: They tried to balance the game with the handicap. I really like the handicap but it still doesn't help. I still get my ass handed to me online. I guess this isn't much of the games fault but my own for not purchasing it on day one. But for noobies like me I think I'll quickly get bored of having my ass handed to me.

Last complaint: This one is really small and might not bother others but I hate how slow the transition is from aiming down your gun from aiming from the hip. I've died plenty of times from just switching between the two views. It's way too slow for a fast paced shooter.

( Played PC version 5 hours into the campaign. Played 3 hours of Multiplayer. Still haven't tried Black OPS.)

Final Fantasy (and FF II) for iPhone

2010-02-23T05:32:00.006-05:00

According to IGN, the first two installments of Final Fantasy will hit the iPhone app store this Thursday (25 Feb).

I can't tell you how much this game changed my life. I rented it so much the store finally gave it to me because I basically 'bought' it. It changed hands with all of my friends. I still have the cartridge to this day. My love of RPG really started with this, though I guess you could throw Link in there sort of, though he's more Adventure than RPG.

Anyway, I have always loved the FF series, even if the stories, acting, and characters haven't necessarily matured with me. And I have always thought that the 8 bit games would make perfect smartphone ports. RPG's are great for this because you can usually save anywhere (in the world, just watch out for getting stuck in a dungeon when you arrive at your destination or else you're screwed!)

If you haven't played these, and you enjoy RPG's, and you have an iPhone, pick these up. I promise you won't be disappointed (unless you despise grinding!)

Setsubun Festival

2010-02-22T08:45:00.004-05:00

This is gaming related because I learned about this on Cheapy D's latest podcast.

Apparently, there is an annual festival in Japan where the children, according their age, throw the corresponding number of roasted soybeans at their father, or other person, dressed as Oni (Demon from Japanese folklore) to drive away the demon spirits.

You have to listen to at least the first 5 or 10 minutes of his podcast to really appreciate it, but seriously, wtf? That is a wicked cultural difference.

Gaicha, is this celebrated where you are? Interested on your insights here.

Secret Armory of General Knoxx

2010-02-19T14:16:00.003-05:00

For you Borderlands Fans

They finally made available some actually game footage of the new DLC and there walkthroughs to boot.

Lvl cap up to 61
New Cars
New enemy types
New Zones

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/t-bone-junction-borderlands-general/62090
http://www.gametrailers.com/video/crimson-tollway-borderlands-general/62092
http://www.gametrailers.com/video/lakebed-walkthrough-borderlands-general/62094

Hand-held Consoles

2010-02-19T09:31:00.005-05:00

About a year and a half ago, before my vacation in Cabo San Lucas, I finally made the plunge and bought a PSP. I was so excited! One of the first things I did was rip my DVD of "Transformers" onto a format the PSP could play, and then loaded it onto the Memory Stick Duo card. My wife and I watched the movie on the plane rides over, and it was great. But then it all went wrong.

Although I didn't spend a lot of time playing it, I was working on an RPG (surprise, surprise) in the evenings. Then, all of a sudden, my PSP was gone. Stolen from my room? Maybe. I reported it, but of course nothing was ever found. Could I have left it by my chair poolside and someone swiped it while I was enjoying my adult beverages in the comfort of the pool? Probably. But either way, my time with the PSP was less than one week. One week, people.

I was crushed. I've always wanted access to a portable gaming system for times where I am traveling, or just on the go, which tends to be a lot. Plus, a lot of the games I like (RPG's) are starting to dominate the Hand-Held market. There are also other games like platformers that work great on these systems.

So while investigating the DS vs PSP, one thing greatly stood out. Prices! Damn, these things are ridiculous! I mean, I would love to have the PSP Go, but $250! Are they freaking out of their minds? And DS or DSi, while a little cheaper, don't do anything but just play games. Part of what I want is netbook like features, where I can still surf the web, or use Skype, etc. The PSP is definitely a better option for me, but c'mon! $250? When I bought my PSP, I bought it used for $100.

My wife has an iPhone, and if she wanted to, she could game on it, but honestly, I haven't really seen any titles that I thought would be that great. It's growing, but I don't want the expense of another iPhone to pay that extra $30 a month for a phone. Hell, that's a new PSP game every month!

What are your thoughts on Hand-Held's? Do you own one (PSP, DS, Smartphone, something else I don't know of)? Pro's/Con's? Worth having or waste of money?

[By the way, I knew that picture would force you to read my ramblings :P]

(Image copied from Kotaku at http://www.kotaku.com/gaming/images/jess_psp.jpg)

Real Treasure

2010-02-18T22:16:00.003-05:00

I'm a avid fan of the Angry Video Game Nerd. His latest review as of writing, Sworquest, was such an awesome concept. A game series where you can win REAL prizes. Not just money, but a real, one of a kind treasure! Real swords. The trophies and achievements you get with games today are fine, but man, getting a real gold encrusted sword with a silver blade is beyond words.

With the internet, it might be harder to pull off something like that off. You would have people online getting together and posting answers left and right, killing the joy of solving the mystery on your own. But having a game with such perplexing puzzles that they'll give you such a huge payout makes me yearn for something more. I mentioned in other posts that I'm a fan of adventure games, and something like this would of excited me if I was around for it.

How about it gamers? Wouldn't it be awesome if companies did some viral advertising with one of a kind, specially made treasures for the truly dedicated gamer? The concept just seems too awesome.

Here's the video. It's jut epic:

Video Games | ScrewAttack | Angry Video Game Nerd: Swordquest

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

Blast From the Past! (Half-life 2)

2010-02-18T19:52:00.000-05:00

Blast From the Past, (BFTP), Half-life 2. I'm really late in joining the millions of fans that have already beaten Half-life 2 and to be honest I'm still not completely finish. They say that a picture is worth a thousand words, and I think the picture to the right says everything I pretty much want to say about this game.
While visually Half-life 2 is starting to show it's age, this game still maintains a lot of it's charm. Tell me if I'm wrong, but other than the first Bioshock, there isn't another FPS, first person shooter, that delivers a story quiet like Half-life 2. It's really rare for me to find a FPS that makes me want to find out more about the story. As you know I am not a Halo hater but a lot of the floods enemy types look very similar to Half-life's aliens. I'm not really bashing the cheif with the above picture or comment but rather I want to show how much better of gaming experience Half-life 2 is even compared to Halo 3.

Playing with gravity is still a lot of fun. At the beginning of the game when you get off the train. I still think it's funny to grab a can and throw it at the nearby guards. When I finally got the gravity gun, I think I played catch with dog for at least 20 minutes. On top of that Valve, found ways to throw in puzzles into the mix so it's not just your everyday FPS. This variety makes in gameplay makes the game so much fun.

I highly recommend replaying this game if your game library runs a little thin.

(BTW: I have an extra copy of HL2 and HL2 Episode 1, if anyone doesn't already own a copy of either.)

(This picture was taken from http://defaultprime.com/2009/03/...er-halo/ )

Who wants to go for a ride for $7.50

2010-02-18T11:12:00.003-05:00

Sony has gone and blog that there Capcom games will be going on sale including Marvel vs. Capcom 2 =D. MvC2 is on sale for $7.50 (down from $15) until Fed 25. I'm in!

Source

Shattered Horizon Free to play for the weekend

2010-02-18T09:41:00.005-05:00

Shattered Horizon is a death match style online game that you play in outer space. Its developed by Future Mark Studio, sound familiar? Same studio that makes the GPU benchmark programs.

Note: trying to add a pic but the button does not work =-(

Update: already pre-loading

No More...WKC (You were expecting "Hero's"?)

2010-02-17T15:48:00.003-05:00

Can't do it anymore. The fun is gone. I guess I just so desperately wanted this to work. But alas, despite all the coolness of this game, I just couldn't keep it. If I want MMO gameplay, I'm getting an MMO (Hellooo, FFXIV). A little sad, yes, but I've replaced it with CoD: MW2 (PC), so I'll be looking for you online! MUH HA HA!

Fan Made Megaman Deathmatch FPS

2010-02-17T09:45:00.003-05:00

Cutstuff has released a trailer for for their upcoming Megaman 8-bit Deathmatch. It's a mod for Skulltag, which brings the classic Doom engine to the online world.

Excited for Halo: Reach?

2010-02-15T21:17:00.000-05:00

I am by no means an Xbox fan boy. But I bought a 360 for two reasons. Gears of War and Halo. Halo 3 wasn't even close to next gen in my opinion. It is what I call Halo 2 complete. Halo 2 lacked a fun campaign mode and Halo 3 came in and made it better. Playing 4 player co-op was really fun but does more people players equal next gen. Halo 3 I felt was disappointing because the graphics were just a little bit shinier than Halo 2's. What about REACH?

From interviews and videos it seems that Halo REACH is the next gen Halo. I've only watched videos from X10 and I already want to play this game. The story seems more cinematic than the past Halos'. What seems to be the setup to this game is, you're a rookie Spartan (Master Chief?!?!) sent to replace a MIA spartan. "Spartan's don't die they just go MIA." I don't know why but that line just sounded really cool to me. It's not a line that none of us haven't heard before but I'm sure it makes most of us want to say "urah." Yes, it's going to take more than a cliche line to sell the story of the game, but for a trailer it's a good start.

REACH graphic-wise is everything that Halo 3 should have been. Like I mentioned before, Halo 3 looked good but compared to other 360 releases, such as Gears of War, it just wasn't up to par. Looking at the videos of REACH you can definitely see the next Gen graphics in this game. Some thing so simple as the rifle in the game looks ten times better. Character movement and enemy movement seem to flow a lot more natural and smooth, too.

One thing that could possibly take this off my must buy 360 games' list is if they decide to take away split screen co-op and four player co-op in campaign mode. I understand that the overhaul in graphics in the end could take away from the needed CPU power to run a game like Halo: REACH in co-op mode. However, one of the main reasons I was sold on Halo was for two things LAN skirmishes and campaign co-op. Can Bungie maintain the foundation of Halo while moving it into the next gen graphics territory?

Facebook games: Social?

2010-02-15T08:05:00.005-05:00

Nine months ago, I joined the modern world and setup a Facebook account. In many ways, I think Facebook is pretty great. I've gotten in touch with so many friends that I probably would have lost all touch with, and my life is better for it. One of those friends quickly sent me an invite to 'play' Mafia Wars. Game? about Mafia? Sounds intriguing enough...

I log on, and am presented with a Menu screen. Pick class of protagonist, pick attributes to spends skill points, wait, is this an RPG? I start to get excited! What they basically did was take the game play decision points in an RPG, strip out all the CG and exploration, and let a person 'click' their way to prosperity. Grinding isn't running around looking for things to beat up, it is now a simple click. After messing around with the menus and exploring my options, I was hooked! This was great!

I began to get interested in these other 'games' I was getting invites to. I opened up 'Farmville' and found an actual Java or Flash based game! I began to build a farm and...level up! How great!

Then, the fun started to wane. Quickly. Sure leveling up is fun, but if all you have to do is open up the 'game' and click to build experience, you lack the feeling of accomplishment you get from actual RPG's. Say what you will about grinding, but at least you feel like you are rewarded for actual game play.

For the casual gamer, I'm sure this is superior fun because, let's face it, leveling up is fun. But for me, the games became more of a nuisance than fun.

My disclaimer is that I have blocked all the games...except Mafia Wars. When I log onto Facebook, I always go spend my job points and progress it. I guess I hate feeling like things aren't complete. The fun has long waned, yet I still 'click' the buttons.

So how is it that Zynga is making so much freaking money! People are actually spending real money on these types of games? For WHAT! Someone please explain the phenomenon.

February the 14th!

2010-02-12T21:10:00.001-05:00

One of the most romantic and depressing holidays is coming up this weekend. Will you and your significant other be gaming?

I think one of the hardest challenges I've had while being in a relationship has always been finding a balance between gaming and my girlfriend. My girlfriend id Japanese and she thinks that gaming = being an 'otaku.' Otaku is the Japanese word that means nerd but has a much deeper negative tone to it. Usually otakus have a stereotype of being unfasionable, girlfriendless, low life, and desperate. The way people associate a person as being 'otaku' is by looking at their hobbies. Do they watch Anime? Do they play video games? Do they collect action figures? I mainly play video games so my girlfriend already throws me into this catagory of being an 'otaku.'

At first, she tried to convince me to stop playing video games. "It's uncool to play games and when you play you don't pay attention to me." are one of the things she says, but video games are more than just a hobby for me. It's a good way to let me just get away from the grind that is an adult life.

Thanks to the Wii, I have found ways for us to play games together, but we never play a game together exceeding an hour. That is all fine by me. I'm happy that she's more accepting of my so called "bad habit."

What is the relationship between your loved one and video games?

New WoW content in 2010?

2010-02-11T12:55:00.002-05:00

Kinto will be lost again...

WKC: Update

2010-02-10T07:30:00.007-05:00

Since I think I'm one of the few that actually goes back and reviews posts on older blogs (because I subscribe to be emailed on them all), I'll post my update on the game in this new post.

I've played the single player mission up to Albana(sp?), the desert town. It's not that far into the game, I think, maybe 10-15 hours, but enough that I have a good feeling about the various game mechanics.

I was right on about the single player story. Typical, predictable, and yet, you still feel the need to push forward. So I'll give it a 3 out of 5 on the Likert Scale. I haven't seen any plot twists, but then, I'm not far into it, I'm not sure it even has any, and this is planned to be a story spread across at least two games, so the story doesn't end with this game.

I've now had a chance to mess with the Georama. That's where you can build your own city. Not to get too deep into it, but I think it is one of the best city builders for a console I've ever seen. Now, how does that fit into the game? I'm not sure yet, because I've just messed around and added a few things so far, but I have a feeling you can build it up so that the people you recruit to live in it have jobs that help you, like harvesting for needed materials, or blacksmiths to improve armor, etc. And to give you something to do that helps you forget the story :P

The other mechanic in the game is online or solo questing. Think beast hunts in FFXII. But with friends. This aspect of the game is what I am most excited for. It took me a long time to figure out how to actually do a quest, as I tend to skip the menu helps they throw at you early on, but I went back and read the quest one and realized you have to pick a location where a quest is on the world map, and then select that quest in the submenu that pops up. Oh well, I live and die by the speed at which I navigate menus.

Anyway, I only did one quest, though I've purchased (in game, not real money) additional quests. The first quest was "Boot Camp I", and the goal was to slaughter (ok, so I think they say kill or destroy, but that doesn't sound cool enough anymore) 25 enemies in 30 minutes. I hate time clock games. It's an element in a game I don't care for now that I've grown up. I have enough stress in my life, I don't want my games to add that time crunch that simulates work deadlines! And since I was trying the mission on my own instead of finding strangers to do it with, I was already feeling the pressure. Until I fought the first monster. Two shots from my bow (my avatar is being skilled as a Ranger) and the little Kibble lies in pool of it's own blood (not really. The game isn't that graphic, but I'm taking editorial liberties). Five minutes later, a box pops up and tells me I've completed the mission. Reflecting on the carnage of 25 enemies down in 5 minutes, I can't help but be reminded of my days in Guild Wars, and how having some buddies there to lay waste with would be sooooo much more rewarding (with chat!).

All in all, I think this is a great buy for the JRPG fan, or any fan that likes to get a full value from a game they buy. This is not a 10 hour play for $60 USD. It seems like this can easily cross into that three-digit hour time-consumption if you do all the missions and single player quest. That's not even including the hours you could spend building your city, interacting with it, visiting friends cities, interacting with them, blogging on the in-game message board, collecting trophies, taking in-game snapshots with the crystal camera, and so on, and so on, and so on...whew. So much to do! The coolest part about this game is that after the first ten hours of the single player quest, and you collect the abilities to do these tertiary things in game, you have to ask yourself not IF you want to play the game, but HOW do you want to play the game today?

[Image linked from http://playstationlifestyle.net/2009/08/19/white-knight-chronicles-gamescom-09-trailer/]

Fallout: New Vegas - Hopeful or Full of Hype?

2010-02-09T07:06:00.007-05:00

First, I'm a Fallout 3 fan. I poured nearly one hundred hours into the first play-through (I like to be stealthy and do EVERYTHING). I also went back and played another 20 hours as a Renegade just to try it out. So I can't believe I was authentically surprised when I saw the trailer for a new Fallout game by Bethesda!

I confirmed that this game is, in fact, a new game and not a DLC for Fallout 3. The release was announced by Bethesda to be this Fall (2010). It is not Fallout 4, so I wouldn't expect the game engine to be updated or changed. There seems to be a lot of buzz, however, that a whole new writing staff is creating the dialogue, and it is expected to be wittier, fresher, and everything that could be improved in dialogue is expected to be there. Not that it's bad at all in Fallout 3, but I guess they decided to up the ante (or put a spotlight at what changes are going to be there).

Since it's not a "Fallout 4", I can't expect all of my disappointments to be addressed. When I originally got it and played it, I didn't notice many of the flaws that I now notice when I go back and play an hour or so. For example, the character animations are pretty bad. They feel wooden and not like they are really reacting to the environment or dialogue as you might expect. Also, after playing a game using the Unreal engine, I don't recommend jumping right into this game. The visuals are still really good (for 2008 rendering), but my god, no sprint button? No jumping higher than one foot off the ground? (Have you gotten to a fence line and tried to jump it? FRUSTRATING!) So the game has flaws.

But all games do. Fallout 3 really did more right than almost any other game ever has. The flaws stand out because this game is so polished (unless you suffered through the PS3 port like I did...horrible port that is buggy as hell...PC FTW!) So given that there are so few flaws, can they address them in Fallout: New Vegas, or will we have to wait for Fallout 4? I for one am Hopeful.

Image and Video copied from Bethesda's website (http://fallout.bethsoft.com/eng/home/home.php?fbid=tzgON_I0YRx) and Youtube (as advertised in video)

We are Francis

2010-02-08T23:06:00.003-05:00

The true definition of what a WoW player is...

I give you... Francis

Do I Still Want to Play JRPG? (Final Fantasy XIII Japanese Review)

2010-02-08T22:26:00.000-05:00

Final Fanatasy XIII is creeping closer and closer to it's international release. However, some lucky consumers, ahem me, bought the Japanese version last Decemeber. The question in my head before buying the game was, "Is this game going to be just another JRPG?"

Yay! JRPGs!!:

Later in the game in order to use your summons you'll have to fight them. Once defeated you can call them using TP points. TP points accumulate depeding on your ranking in battles. Once, summoned your summon replaces the other two members and starts attacking the enemy. Each time you or your summon hits the enemy they're drive gauge continues to rise. On the other hand, your summons HP is constantly going down. Once it reaches zero that the end of the summon. If you time it correctly you can make the summon go into drive mode right before it's HP runs out. In drive mode each summon turns into a different vehicle. It's probably fair to say that drive mode is like your character's limit break.

The next thing I look for in a JRPG is the story. Can the story carry me through 40+ hours? I don't really want to go into the details of the story, but basically you're a group of people brought together by fate. Do you follow the orders of fate or do you release your self from it's chains? This time around the stories theme seems to be `Hope.' There is a love story built into the game but it's only a side story compared to hope. I wouldn't say that FFXIII has the best story of all the FF, but I do think it's better than VIII and X. The story will definitely carry you through this 50+ hour game.

This game is beautiful. Probably the best looking RPG out right now. The cut scenes look even better than Advent Children. The in game engine is just as amazing. This game has plenty of eye candy for the graphic enthusist. I probably didn't even have to tell you that.

Unfortunately, all those great FF sound bits are gone. I.e. the FF victory song is no where in the game. I think the only thing that is the same is the Chocobo theme song. This isn't a bad thing though, because the music in the game really matches the mood. Everyone will miss the old songs but, I'm sure they'll enjoy the new sound tracks. Voice acting in Japanese is awesome.

Bad! JRPG! No Cookie:
It's like with each new FF, the games become more and more linear. Only one part in the game do you have the choice to explore. I used to love how I could explore an unknow cave only to find an awesome weapon that'll make my progress a lot easier. That is pretty much dead and gone. I'm sure in the one area you can explore you'll find some unique items but it really doesn't feel the same to me.

Where's my airship? You aquire different flying vehicles in the cut scence but you never get to use them to travel back to areas of the game that you already visited. The adventurer cried when I realized this fact.

All-in-All:
This is definitely a must buy for RPG fans. This is the FF game we've been waiting for since X. The fast combat is enough to warrant this game a must buy. This game makes me feel like there is still hope for JRPG games in this generation.

(Played the Japanese version on the PS3 for 56 hours. Completed main story but did not complete side missions.)One thing I've always respected about Square Enix and their Final Fantasy series, FF series, is that they're willing to try something new. There isn't a single FF game with the exact same combat system. Systems are similar but they're never the same. Combat to me is what makes or breaks a good RPG. This time around FFXIII is all about speed. How quickly can you take out a group of enemies? Like in FFXI and XII you can view enemies on the map and decide whether to fight them or not. The fights are quick but the complexity of the system is quite vast. Each character after a certain point in the game starts with three job classes. The job classes are attacker(ATK), blaster(BLA), defender(DEF), healer(HLR), jammer(JMR), and enhancer(EHR). Each of the six main characters has a job class that is meant for that character. For example, Lighting is a good attacker and Snow is a good Defender. In battles you only control the group leader. The others are controlled by A.I. The way the NPC, non-playable characters, react in battle depends on what job they are equiped with during battle. Through the Optima system you can change every characters job class on the fly. However, you can only have six different combinations for the party. Let's say you're fighting a weak bunch of enemies the best route is to use, as your optima to eliminate these enemies in little time. But, if you're fighting a boss there maybe a time when you need one of your members to heal you, so works well. The healing character doesn't have an attack ability so their job is to only heal. Works well I've never died in battle because I felt like the AI wasn't sufficient enough to keep me alive. Within battle each and every enemy has a 'Break' point. Once your targeted enemy turns yellow their defenses drop dramatically and if your attacker has the ability they can knock said character into the air. Once in the air your party can start doing chain attacks. The longer in the air the more the damage multiplier stacks. If done correctly even a boss with a massive amount of health can be defeated in a few minutes. Awesome, right?

Heavy Rain Demo Impression

2010-02-06T08:39:00.001-05:00

Do you remember when you were a kid and you read 'Choose your own adventure books'? Sometimes you would read so far into the book only to find out that whatever choice you make ends in travesty. Quantic Dream's "Heavy Rain," may take interactive story telling to a new level.

In the demo you play as two of the four characters: Scott Shelby, an old private detective, and Norman Jayden, a FBI agent. First, you start off as Shelby and the demo gives you a little tutorial on how the controls work. The left stick is used to control the direction in which your character looks and R2 is used to make your character move forward. Most of the time during the game you can hold down L2 to hear your characters thoughts. The right stick is mainly used to control the actions of your character. I.E. press the right stick left to open the car door. Move the stick right and down to pull out money to bribe the a man at the front counter. Really, really different compared to most games out there. Definitely interactive but I'm still not sure I feel like these controls are a extension of my own personal body. It may be that because the controls are so new that my brain feels like it's not natural.
Shelby has come to an apartment to see a prostitute. She's definitely not happy to see you and as the player I wasn't sure if the visit was for business or pleasure. I pressed the thought button and all that was cleared up. I threw out some cash and began talking to the woman. Apparently, her son was a victim to the 'Origami Killer' and you came to see if she could give you more info. From this point on is where you "choose your own adventure," you can decide to be aggressive and try to force answers out of her or you can sympathize and persuade her to give you answers. I decided to sympathize becuase I felt like that fit my character better. In the end I didn't get any new leads (this maybe different for others experiences) I leave the apartment but not before leaving my card. As I leave Shelby has an asthma attack and you play a little time button sequence event to breathe in your inhaler. After that you can see a rather muscular man approach the prostitute's door. He's aggressive and barges in her apartment. You can stay and help her or leave. Once again the hero inside me tells me to save this woman. She might thank me by giving me more information on her son.
I quickly got into a fight with the big man. This part was awesome! Even if you make a mistake unlike most common game's with time button sequences the story moves on. I was hit several times but managed to dodge the deadly blows. I imagine that Shelby could have died if I wasn't quick with my fingers. The man finally gives up and the prostitute thanks me and I leave. According Quantic Dreams even if one character dies in the game, the story moves on. Each time you play the game the story can be different. That sounds awesome.

Next you check out a crime scene with Agent Jayden. What's cool about Jayden is he has some high tech glasses and gloves. You use these tools to analyze the crime scene. There's no major action sequences but you get to play detective. The detective mode is a lot like Batman Arkham Asylam's detective mode. Screen changes filter and you can suddenly see foot prints or pheromones floating in the air. I did my detective work and got to a hill that I had to climb with another time button sequence event. However, I wasn't a fan of this one. Sometimes you have to hold two buttons at the same time which felt a little awkward for me. After two attempts I finally climbed the hill but not after getting my FBI suit all muddy. You find tire tracks that can possibly belong to the 'Origami Killer.' There weren't as many critical choices in this part of the demo. Demo ends and the new trailer begins.

All-in-All: The story has me quite interested in it. I like a good mystery novel every now and then. The controls are new some parts are exciting while some parts just feel awkward. I think people will either love or hate the controls of this game. I really liked the demo and I may pick it up when it comes out in Japan. This is a hardcore game and I don't see it selling to the masses. Hopefully, the final game will be just as awesome.

RunMan: Race Around the World

2010-02-05T10:40:00.004-05:00

RunMan: Race Around the World is a spastic 2d platformer from Tom Sennett and Matt Thorson. The emphasis on blazing through levels is reminiscent of Sonic the Hedgehog, but more satisfyingly bouncy. With bright, primary colors, and ironic MS Paint-style art design, RunMan is cute and memorable.

Gameplay vid after the jump.

RunMan: Race Around the World Release Trailer from Tom Sennett on Vimeo.

Precinct 52 (Heavy Rain: Demo)

2010-02-05T08:51:00.001-05:00

For those of you with a PS3 and are anticipating Heavy Rain, click at the bottom to head on over to Precinct 52. Upon completing the users can get a chance to play a demo of Heavy Rain. What are you waiting for gumshoe? Click away!!!!

Precinct 52

(Update:If you have a US PSN account first you have to register here then go to the above link.)

Knytt Stories Design Tour

2010-02-04T10:51:00.005-05:00

These design tours are old news, but the uninitiated should check them out. Courtesy of the most excellent Wolfire Games Blog. They provide a rich, sophisticated analysis of some lesser-known gems. This design tour is about Knytt Stories, an atmospheric 2d platformer with clever art and tight controls.

Wolfire Games are also behind Overgrowth, and have posted fascinating development articles about their engine's use of triangle mesh voxelization, among other things.

White Knight Chronicles: Review

2010-02-03T20:28:00.011-05:00

I just picked up the international release on opening day. I have currently played exactly...one hour...so this is to kick off my on-going review. I want to be detailed, so I'll chronicle a lot. Check back to this post often for updates.

Install:
Yep, there's an install. So right after you stick the game in the PS3, it automatically goes into install mode. I believe it takes a gig or two to put some content on your HDD. That took about 10 minutes to install. A little annoying, because lets face it, when you buy a console game, you want to put the disk in, and start playing. But it's one time, so whatever.

Game Start:
Movie time. The game begins with a cut-scene. It lasts about 10 minutes (for those keeping track, you're 20 minutes into putting the game in before you actually control anything). It attempts to give you a little story about some guys on horses approaching a castle, where the King is having a coming out party for his daughter. It shows a background scene where the princess watched her mother be murdered, and then through dialogue you gather that the king is about to make peace with the kingdom responsible for his wife's murder, explaining that since they speak the same language they should be sharing words, and not murdering each other. There is a procession where the invited king from the other warring kingdom is entering the kingdom. Also, there is this hooded guy with something wrapped up that is long, like a sword or something, who gets stopped by the guards, but he glares at them, light shines in his red eye, and apparently he uses a jedi mind-meld to let the guard let him by. Lost yet? Good, because this is just the opening sequence.

Gameplay:
Finally, after the movie part where Leonard, the 'hero' of the game shows up in a shop, where your avatar is working, and is told by the owner to go get the wine from a nearby village/winery and bring it ASAP. Now, I didn't even look at the instruction booklet, because I expect games nowadays with unique combat systems to train me. Outside of the shop, when I am finally in control, a couple of pages of control information pop-up, which I quickly read, and then I am in control. I immediately see a purple glowing stone, and assume it is a save point. Just like FF, it is, so I create a save. These save files are massive. They take a little longer than a PS3 gamer is used to, and the file is nearly 5mb! So the traditional rotating of three will still come into play, but just know it will take a while to save each file.

I ran around the town talking to everyone I saw, and even discovered a few...chests. Yes, that's right, we don't want to break JRPG tradition and have something different. They are chests. Of which I got a few health and mana potions. After a few conversations, and despite the mini-map, I had no idea where to go. The mini-map has no compass, so I don't know if you get one later, or what, but I kind of wonder about the mini-map's value other than to show enemies. I started pressing buttons, and behold, pressing the select button brings up a sub menu where you can bring up a full sized map that you peruse using the directional pad. There was a compass on this, so I knew where to head...for another brief cut scene that took me outside the city limit.

Suddenly, I am in a field, and Leonard is voice talking to my character that we need to hurry up and get to the winery. I see a glowing stone, and do a quick save. As I cross the bridge over the creek, I spot an enemy. This is just like FF XII, where you see the enemy in the open world and engage in combat without breaking into a combat only screen: It takes place in the world seamlessly. Mind you, I had no idea what to do, so I figured, when in doubt, press x. Sure enough, I engaged the enemy, and after my circle filled, I attacked (you play as Leonard). My avatar (named Landoram of course) attacked automatically. I figure there is some kind of gambit system to work on what he does, but I haven't gotten that far yet. Anyway, I easily whoop up on a few enemies, and notice a nearby tree glowing. I press x by it (nothing prompts you), and I start digging up strong and weak roots. After I gather a few, I got bored so I moved on down the road.

As I was fighting enemies, I noticed the edges of the screen turned red. I figured I was dying, so sure enough, a glance at my health meter indicated it was low. So how to heal? I had no idea. The only option I could see was an attack. I press the circle button, and I sheathe my sword. Only problem is enemies are still fighting me. I tap triangle, get in my menu, and navigate to my items (thankfully years of playing these games helped understand my menu). I was about to use a health potion when I was killed. Damn! Thankfully I had saved when I entered this area.

This time, paid attention to my health and that of Landoram. I found a few chests along the way, and manged to get a better shield, which I was able to figure out how to give to Landoram to use. I also figured out how to use the skill points to upgrade attacks, and finally figured out that pressing up or down on the directional pad IN battle would allow me to call up items (or spells, but I don't have any yet). I made it to the save point near where I have to transition to the winery, saved, and stopped for now.

Impressions:
My initial impressions are that this is very much like FF XII, or really, any JRPG. Dialogue is a little wooden based on the translations, characters are quirky and over animated, but again, all of these things are part of the charm of JRPG's. You either appreciate it or you don't. Battling is definitely going to take some getting used to. And finally, don't expect to have your hand held. I haven't felt this lost in a game for a long time. I'm sure that once I get used to it all, it is going to be great. I know, writing a review after one hour is lame, and I promise not to be so specific on all my updates, but I wanted to get a post started for this game. If it pans out, I think it could be a lot of fun for all of us to link up and play since it is supposed to have online friend questing.

(The image was copied from http://site.video-game-ce

ntral.com)

30 Commercial Games Released For Free

2010-02-03T11:21:00.002-05:00

GamesRadar has a post on 30 commercial games that are, in one way or another, now playable for free. If you never played the original Grand Theft Auto (pictured), you should give it a play. This was probably one of the first violent, subversive games that I ever experienced. You get mega bonus points for running over an entire group of Hare Krishnas.

Steam down for Maintenance Thursday, the 4th

2010-02-03T07:58:00.003-05:00

Heads up. Just read that Steam will be down for maintenance tomorrow starting at 1800h PST. No downloads, updates, online play, etc. Off-line Steam games will still work though. So no Borderlands co-op tomorrow. :( However, that works out well for me, because I pick up White Knight Chronicles today, so I'll be able to play it tomorrow :)

What will you play without Steam online?

Project Natal vs. PS3 Wand

2010-02-03T01:25:00.001-05:00

Gaming has entered the waggle generation. The Wii has probably changed gaming forever and Microsoft was calling the system a gimick. Sony on other hand tried to jump on the band wagon with a last minute add of the SIXAXIS to the PS3 controller. Micosoft was kind of right because the SIXAXIS became a cheap gimick. The Wii-mote was beyound a gimick to some extent. Many complained about the lack of one to one controls. Two years later that has been fixed with an add-on called the Wii Motion Plus.

Project Natal:
Project Natal is a depth sensor with a infrared projector combined with and a monochrome CMOS sensor. These sensors allow Natal to see in a 3D field under ambient light. (1)

The tech demo Ricochet was shown at E3 and made an appearance on "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon." The game itself looks fun but it looks limited to one player at a time.

Pros: I think it's really cool that Microsoft is willing to play around with new technology. Pure one to one body recognition is unheard of on the other two consoles. Microsoft has already given dev kits to over 10 developers.

Cons: Is this thing a gimick? Yeah it looks like fun but outside of Ricochet can Microsoft really plan to grab the casual gamer. In my opinion, I don't think Natal will reach casual gamer level. Out of all the tech demos I've seen on the inter-web there doesn't seem to be an all at once four player game, like Wii Tennis. Also, call me silly but I think it would feel weird to play a game without a peripheral. If my on screen character is holding a tennis racket or sword, I would feel disconnected with the game if my hands were empty.

Price point: If Microsoft doesn't sell this at the right price point this thing can go flying out the window faster than the HD-DVD drive. Yes you can get an arcade Xbox 360 at a $200 starting point but to get the needed HD drive cost about another $100. Add the cost of the unknow Project Natal and we're looking at what could possibly be a $400 price point. I can't imagine Microsoft selling this under $100.

PS3 Wand (Playstation Motion Controller):
The motion controller features an orb at the end which can glow in any of the full range of colors according to the RGB color model by an LED. The PS3 EyeToy2 then reads this orb to track the controllers position with a 3D field. (1)

A tech demo showed that the wand is one to one and quite possibly more accurate than the Wii Motion Plus. There was also a demo of RE5 being played with at TGS 2009.

Pros: A true one-to-one perpheral that's running on a HD system. There's something actually in your hand when playing games. Sword fights can possiblbly be mind blowing on the PS3.

Cons: Outside of Sony and Capcom little is known whether other developers are getting ready for Sony's motion controller movement. The thing as of right now looks the silliest of all three makers controllers. During the RE5 tech demo people were playing with the wand connected to a DS3 controller. It didn't look comfortable or natural. Hopefully there will be an option nunchuck like add on. The major con for Sony however is where are the casual games? Or are they making this for the hardcore gamer?

Pricepoint: Eye Toy 2 is listed at $40 on http://www.bestbuy.com/ . I imagine that each wand will sell at $40 a pop, too. If Sony is smart they'll sell a bundle with the Eye Toy 2 and one or two wands for $60. A good start for Sony.

All-in-All: I think each company has a good edge behind their product. Microsoft seems to have the game development side going, where as Sony has the price point going for them. I don't want to buy a Natal but I do want to try playing it. Depending on the games I may buy a PS3 wand.

What do you guys think? If you had both consoles what would you do? Who do you think will come out on top? Will Nintendo lose the market?

(1) All technical information was pulled from http://www.wikipedia.com/ . Products are still in development and can change before release. Read specs with caution.

Borderlands: PC version update (and PC specs)

2010-02-02T08:06:00.002-05:00

Just a quick post to say I got it, so co-op is now possible. Also let me say that the Unreal engine is incredible on the PC. I didn't think it would look better on my PC than the PS3, but damn, it looks AWESOME! I guess it uses the graphics card heavily, which is not where the PS3 shines. Games built exclusively for PS3 look incredible because they've learned how to write the code to utilize the cell processor. As games on PC start writing their code to multi-thread, I can't wait to see what graphics are pushed out (because the CPU will be able to take over all non-graphic specific functions like physics, background rendering, etc). Also, I'm not on an SLI machine. I built this one back in November on a tight budget and used some existing parts I had, so my PC specs are:

CPU: Quad-Core Intel 8200 (2.3 ghz stock, overclocked to 3 ghz)
Video: Nvidia GTS 250 (Software overclock a bit for a 15% boost)
Case: Cooler Master (How I get away with keeping temps low)
MB: Gigabyte (Don't remember exact model, but great for tweaking overclocks)
HDD: 7200 RPM Samsung, 500 gb. Next will be a SSD for the Operating System only.

Only thing I need to get now is a mic so I can chat in our games! I'll try to get one before this weekend.

How about y'all? What kind of rig are you playing on?

Look into the future of 2010

2010-02-01T18:49:00.003-05:00

What games are you looking forward to this year? I know the two games for the first quarter of 2010 are Heavy Rain for the PS3 and No More Heroes: Heroes Paradise! I've really been jealous of Wii owners for this one and will be happy to get my hands on it when it gets released this year. With no American release date in sight, I might have to import this one.
Now with that out of the way, I like to talk about Heavy Rain.

I mentioned that I like adventure games. Heavy Rain might be the closest thing we'll get to a next-gen adventure game. It has that nice Silent Hill vibe to it, next gen graphics, and a good crime/detective story going on. I'm really looking forward to this. More then God of War 3. More then Final Fantasy XIII. This is one game I want to pre-order if I can. I know this game wont sell well as a new IP with everything that it is coming up against...but this is something I have been waiting for!

I know it's already released but I would like to give Darksiders a chance down the road. It looks like a dark, next-gen Zelda game and I've always been a fan of Zelda. It seems to be getting decent reviews too.

Also looking forward to the translated version of Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth. I played the Japanese version already and it was pretty fun but I know I'm missing out on a lot. I don't have the fluency to understand all the details that well. For adventure fans I think this is a must buy title!

Hmm...even though I said games for 2010, I guess all I can think about is Q1 of 2010. Let me hear what you guys are waiting for!

What are we going to co-op next?

2010-02-01T13:14:00.003-05:00

Alright. Have we assembled? Check. Are we actively posting and communicating? Check (Well, three out of five :P). Are we gaming? Like it needs to be said. Check.

Sooooo, what do we all need to get for some great co-op play together? I've heard rumors of L4D2 arriving at Gaicha's and Kinto's for...PC? Is that confirmed? Unfortunately my Borderlands is for PS3, so I can't hook up with your PC version.

I'm considering buying White Knight Chronicles (PS3) tomorrow when it releases here in the US tomorrow, but I don't really want to get it unless one or more of you are going to get it, because it has on-line co-op that must be used throughout, and I don't really like on-line play with strangers. Just not my bag.

Do we look for MMORPG's? I was into Guild Wars for about 6 months, but I finished the main story, the level caps at 20, and PvP wasn't really that fun for me in that game, so that is my only MMORPG experience (Unless you count the one week trial of LOTR). KOTOR MMORPG is coming out this April, I think, and Star Trek just came out. Aion looks cool, but no offense to Kinto, but a lot of the WoW community is going to that game, and I really didn't care for what I saw in the WoW community. A lot of very immature kids. I know those kind of games are all about the guild you hook up with, which is why I am mentioning it in this post.

It's time for us to start planning our game purchases so we have co-op play available to us. I've sent out Friend requests, so be looking for them (ahem...Kinto).

So whatcha think is next?

Girlfriend + Mario = Fun time (New Super Mario Bros. Wii Review)

2010-01-31T22:07:00.003-05:00

I remember the first time I played a video game while my girlfriend was over. It was such a noob mistake I can't believe I didn't see the ramifications of my actions. I consulted with a few friends and everyone's conclusion was girlfriend + videogames = upset girlfriend. I know there are those of you that have the exception when it comes to girlfriends that can tolerate videogames. Recently, I picked up the mighty red copy of Super Mario Bros. Wii. I really wanted it for the four player catastrophy that's still waiting to happen. The day after I got my girlfriend came over and she saw the red box and that's when I took a leap of faith and asked her to try and play with me. Her face didn't exactly light up with glee but becuase she loves she was willing to bare a few minutes of gameplay.

Why my girlfriend likes Mario! Let's face it, Mario is probably the gateway game for most of the guys in my generation. This time around he finally shined his appeal to my girlfriend. The first thing my she liked was the approachable bright graphics. She thought the opening cinematic was cute at the beginning. The Wii isn't pushing the benchmark when it comes to graphics. But one thing Team Mario has that can't be denyed is style. This style can be called childish but I think the word approchable is a better adjective to describe it. I think the average girlfriend would probably walk away from a guy playing a game like God of War, but if they see Mario they may stick around for a while.

Watching my girlfriend play Mario for the first time was quite cute. To me it was like watching a baby learn how to walk. She really didn't have a grasp yet on her limits as Lugi. (Yeah that's right when you play in my house I am Mario.) She would run in spurts and she would always over jump enemies and power ups. After a few quick tips she was able to keep up with me while we ran around the Mushroom Kingdom. The game was very, dare I say, approchable for her, though she made mistakes and lost a few lives. The game wasn't unforgiven and it allowed her to keep up with a Mario Bros. vet like myself. She really liked the new propeller mushroom , with this power up if she fell into a hole she could save her self with a shake of the Wii-mote.

The one thing my girlfriend really liked was the co-op gameplay. She told me she originally wasn't excited to play the game because she thought, like in past Mario Bros. games, we would have to take turns. I can totally understand this feeling, unless the game has a deep story watching another person play a video game is quite boring. If there was no co-op gameplay I believe she would have made me turn off the game after the first time she lost a life. After we finished playing she confessed that she liked how during the game I was always helpful. I gave her my Yoshi when she lost hers. Awww...

What she didn't like! This is the only case where I think that the Wii-mote doesn't work well within a game that Nintendo made. Picking up and anything, other than a turtle-shell, while holding the Wii-mote in classic style just doesn't feel natural. It was rather awkward for her and even for me. My natural instinct was to just run up to an object, like in past games, and expect Mario to automatically pick it up like he used to. On Nintendo's defense I think using the past mechanic would have made the co-op gameplay annoying. You can pick up your own teammates. So, if you're constanly unintentionally picking them up, then I can see how this can quickly become annoying.

Probably the biggest fault in the game is unintentionally jumping of Yoshi. With just the lightest jerk of the Wii-mote Mario and gang would abandon their friendly dino-pal. She disliked this the most because she liked how Yoshi increased her hit points. She was never happy when she lost her little green dino friend.

All-in-All: This game is another brilliant addition to the Wii catalog. If your significant other isn't into video games try coaxing them with the New Super Mario Bros. Wii. This is by no means the only reason to buy the game. If you played any Mario game in the past, this game was likely made for you. I recommend calling three other friends and just watch the chaos unfold. Like all Mario games this game lacks a story, but when it's this fun to jump on turtles, why wouldn't you want to save the princess again?

Gamertags

2010-01-30T14:14:00.001-05:00

Watcha playing this weekend?

2010-01-29T09:22:00.002-05:00

Post comments about what you're planning to play, buy, or any other gaming news.

Dragon Age: Origins

2010-01-28T07:10:00.005-05:00

First off, if you haven't bought this and played, WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR! But be forewarned, you should really buy the PC version if your 'Puter can handle it. I've read that it ports well to consoles, but certain functionality is not available, which I found vital.

DA is a game that reminds you of the LOTR lore. It is based in the Fantasy realm, and let's face it, the imagination for this realm has greatly diminished. you've got humans (arrogant city dwellers), dwarves (beer slogging melee fighters), elves (tree-living archers), and witches/mages (live in towers in fancy clothes), who all need to band together to defeat a great evil, The Blight. So from that perspective, I was highly disappointed that they didn't do something new or different. Almost.

You see, the game starts off with you choosing your protagonist, and all of their attributes (gender, race, class...typical, right?). But here's where things get interesting. Every combination creates a unique start to the game, with totally different Origin stories for you character for many hours into the game. It is not until the battle of Ostagar that the stories start to take similar paths. This plants the seeds for replayability right off the bat. And I have to tell you, it's worth it to go play each character's origin story for replay if nothing else.

I choose to be an elf who start out living in what is in essence the ghetto of a human city. It's my wedding day, and right off the bat, you start making decisions that affect the entire game play like I've never seen before. It put other Bioware titles to shame with how the decisions affect the total game (yes, even better than KOTOR). Are you excited to be getting married? Do you want to punk out? Insult the bride, or sweet talk her? Seems insignificant, right? Let's just say much later in the game, my decisions here came back to cause me some awkward moments. During the ceremony, the local human authority's son rolls up with his goons and takes the bride for his right of 'Prima Nocturna' (remember "Braveheart"?) This pisses of your character, and you set out for blood. And that is how my game started.

Sucked in yet? Ok, let's say you're still skeptical. Maybe this will whet your appetite.

- Like Battles? There's hundreds.
- Like Blood to be spewed? It's everywhere
- Like story? Probably the largest scale story system I've ever seen in a game
- Like Decision making? You better, because you are going to make hundreds, if not more.

Let's talk about the decision making for a second. You are going to be presented with the hardest decisions you've ever had to make in a game. You will be presented with options where every one of the options sucks. I mean, really sucks. Good or bad is rarely evident. Like life, it is a world of grey, which by the way, is why you become a Grey Warden. Again, just part of how they tie the story together in an amazing way. Like at one point, I had to decide who should die: Child, Mother, or Father. I won't tell you how it ended for me, but that decision alone gave me pause like no other in any game ever. I even had to ask for council from my wife! When do games ever bring that kind of turmoil up in your game! The reason is that EVERY DECSION MATTERS, and the game experience will change accordingly. It is impossible to have two people play this game, discuss, and have the exact same experiences. The game is that smart.

As far as the battling, I won't go into too much detail, because you can decide for yourself. But I will say this. I do play puzzle games, and love strategy and deep thinking in my gameplay. That said, there is a difference between hard thinking and hard gameplay. I don't play games to get frustrated. That's why I work. Games are supposed to be fun. So unless you like to be frustrated, or enjoy the gambit system from FFXII, then heed my advice and play this on the PC. You can hit the space bar and pause the battle, then micro manage where and what your team is doing. Tedious? Maybe, but you'll get your ass kicked if you don't. Mark my words. The gambit system can be setup so your NPC's work how you want them to, and it works most of the time, but for major battles, you are going to need to adjust your strategy as you play. From what I've read, that option to pause is not in the console version.

Lastly, the 'Romance' (or 'Bromance' depending on how you play...or 'Lezzy'...your call) is strange to have in a game. I mean, I like the idea of building relationships with my party members, and this game has depth of character like no other game, but really, do we have to worry about sequences of getting into a characters pants when we're trying to rally the world to defeat the Blight? It just seems out of place, and that BioWare does this simply for the publicity. It doesn't really hlep the gameplay, but it does affect it (Remember I said decisions came back to cause me 'awkward' moments later?) So anyway, it's there, it at least impacts the gameplay (not like Mass Effect), and 'nuff said. (Except dwarf on dude options? Really? Ugh...)

So if you haven't played this, and have a need to scratch an 80 hour RPG itch, then this is your game. The graphics aren't quite what I would expect at this point for new title releases by major developers, but they aren't bad by any means. I'm just spoiled by games like Uncharted.

My Love Letter to Uncharted 2 (Review)

2010-01-28T01:46:00.003-05:00

Dear Uncharted 2,

This is kind of embarrassing for me to say, but ever since I saw screen-shots of Uncharted, I knew it was time to buy a PS3. The gorgeous graphics, the Indiana Jones like exploration, and the cover-fire gameplay, probably made me feel that love at first sight feeling I had. When I pictured next gen games, Uncharted was the type of game that I imagined. I was instantly hooked and I couldn't stop playing you until the end. My only complaint was, "Damn, you're already finished?" Two years later and Uncharted 2 comes out.

Why I love you. Uncharted 2 is freaking awesome. Everything that I liked about the first was made 10x better in the second one. Graphics were amazing in the first, right? Everything in the jungle was so green and vibrant. I like how they took Drake out of the Jungle setting and placed him in several different environments. There was more than one occasion that my jaw dropped while looking at the games landscapes. IMO, I don't think that there's another game that can challenge the visuals of Unchated 2 except for Crysis.
        The story from Uncharted isn't anything outstanding but the way it's delivered is truly amazing. I haven't played a game in a long time where I felt like, man I wish I don't have to go to sleep. Also, it's one of those rare games that a friend, ahem or girlfriend, wouldn't mind sitting down and watching you play through it. Some critics cited it as being the cinematic experience of 2009. One of the main reasons why this story was well delivered is because of the voice work. Not only in the cinematics but through out the game it felt as if there was good chemistry between the actoes. Just to show the level of one of the voice actors, Nolan North, the voice of Drake, is starting to pop up in more and more games. ( I think this is one topic I would love to jump on later.) Drake, I believe, is becoming one video games most liked characters.
        I've heard many people complain that Uncharted's shooting sections are too rinse and repeat. I completely disagree with that statement. There are times you have to be stealthy, not MGS stealthy, but more stealthy than Gears of War. Then there are times where you're hearts racing because you're being chased through a city by a helicopter. There are a lot of shooting sections but from what I understand this is a 3rd person action shooter. Naughty Dog has really cleaned up the small glitches from the first game. The biggest one being the gerenade tossing. In Uncharted, I rarely threw a gerenade because they never ended up where I wanted them to land. Uncharted 2 let's just say that gerenades were flying when I was up against a mob. The other thing they improved on is the hand to hand combat. It feels like the hand to hand sequences flow a little better than before.
          Thank you for a complete package. Sweet single player mixed with a fun multiplayer experience. The PS3 really needed a game like Uncharted 2 to pick up the slack in their online area. I hope more of my friends pick this game up because I really want to play the coop maps online. Playing online games are a lot of fun. Team based matches it's really hard to go off and play as the lone gunner. There's a level up system really similar to Modern Warfare.

What is there to hate? Ummm... Did you read the title to this article? It says love letter. This is hands down my pick for 2009.