Humpday Gaming

KOF Movie Is Amazing For All the Wrong Reasons

2010-09-08T12:35:00.000-07:00

MAI!

Other M, More Like WOW THIS IS ACTUALLY GOOD

2010-09-08T10:42:00.000-07:00

I have never seen so many Nintendo fanboy dicks being ripped off over one game. Of course that game is Metroid Other M, a game that I essentially had zero interest in from the moment Team Ninja was uttered in the same sentence. I thoroughly hate every game Team Ninja has ever made, and have sworn them off time and time again even though I always seem to play whatever game they release just long enough for me to be like "Yep, it's a Team Ninja game", while throwing it into the Never Gonna Play This Game Again section of my collection. So of course I grabbed Metroid Other M out of my usual morbid curiosity for Team Ninja games, and....I really like it.

First off I should mention that I haven't played Metroid since Super Metroid. I never much got into the Prime series, mostly because everything after the first Prime game seemed like constant tedium. And after I heard Team Ninja was gonna sex up Samus for Other M, I had essentially realized I would probably never play a Metroid game that I enjoyed again. Somehow though, they pulled off the impossible, and made a game I am really enjoying. Especially the further I get into it.

So what does it do right? A good amount, actually. The combat feels completely solid, and there are a lot of really unique fights for a game that only uses two buttons. I've actually never much cared for the action in Metroid, so it was a nice surprise that I found myself really getting into the various battles the game throws you into. For me though, shooting stuff has always been secondary to exploration in Metroid games, and Other M really nails that, too. It's not massively huge, but just about every room has powerups that can be found, or doors that you'll need to come back to later. Some people are moaning about how linear this Metroid is, but it's really not at all. It's just that the labyrinthine exploration of the older games has been streamlined into something much more approachable. Instead of Metroid and Super Metroid's massive, out of the way corridors that lead you on for days just for a missile powerup, you now get much smaller sections off the main path that will get you the same thing, with just as much satisfaction. It's hard to explain, but it works. I've spent more time trying to get the various powerups than I have actually playing the main game, so it must do something right. Oh, and the controls and weird 2.5d/third person/first person stuff all works. Again, it's just something you have to play to understand.

Okay, so I obviously like the game, so what don't I like? Basically all of the actual story elements are pretty painful. Samus is as stale of a character as any I've ever seen, and even goes above and beyond to sound like a dumb girl most of the time. I'm not sure how much Team Ninja had to do with the storyline, but it has their hallmarks of shit only a sugared-up twelve year-old anime fanboy would find exciting. There is also far too much of it. Especially in the first hour. At one point I just wanted Samus to shut the hell up so I could actually play it. Other than those complaints, I really can't think of too much. The gameplay eventually trumps all the shitty story, so I can ignore that aspect for the most part.

I'm about 80% through so far, and plan to take it out this weekend. Unless it just totally shits the bed in the last 1/4 of the game, I don't think my opinion will change much. So if you can get past the awful storytelling then I highly recommend you try it out. It's certainly worth the experience once the game lets you get into it.

I DO consider Myself A Pioneer In Interactive Technology!

2010-09-04T13:31:00.000-07:00

This is extremely exciting to me

2010-09-03T06:58:00.000-07:00

Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath Is Back!

One of the biggest regrets I had about the last generation of consoles was never getting to play Stranger's Wrath. Looks like that will be rectified come early next year.

This is still the best thing Sega ever made

2010-08-30T21:26:00.000-07:00

YouTube - Sega 32X Promotional Video "Confidential": ""

Oh, So I Guess It Wasn't Sonic 4 Anyway

2010-08-25T14:51:00.000-07:00

Sonic and Knuckles 3D fan video is all sorts of rad | Joystiq

Well I guess I can go back to only being mildly excited. I can dream, I suppose.

Okay, I Can't Deny It Anymore. This Looks Awesome

2010-08-25T09:43:00.000-07:00

The more I see these videos, the more excited I get for Sonic 4. I know I shouldn't, but damn. Just look at that. That's Sonic. And I haven't been able to say that for a decade or more.

Mafia II: Party Like It's 2006 For The Second Time This Year

2010-08-25T09:00:00.000-07:00

I'm far too tired to write too much right now. But I just wanted to mention that playing Mafia II after playing Red Dead is like playing a budget PS2 game. Hell, it even looks like one on PS3 (Definitely go with the 360 version if you have a choice). While Red Dead's slow pace fit incredibly well with the gameplay, Mafia II feels like it's stuck in molasses. From the minutes long cutscenes, to the missions that have you doing nothing for the majority of them, it's all just so damn tedious. The game is far too in love with its story, and it seems a lot of gameplay was sacrificed in order to go along with how the game presents your character. And even if it didn't it would still feel dated. This game would have been neat three years ago. But in a post Red Dead world, this game feels like a throwback to a bygone era that just doesn't fly anymore. Especially not for sixty bucks. I'll go ahead and refer to it as "Crackdown 2 Syndrome".

The Justification For Buying A Playstation Plus Subscription Finally Manifests

2010-08-23T14:26:00.000-07:00

Holy SHIT, son. Are you ready to get EXTREME? And not just extreme, but 2XTREMe? Fuck yeah you are. The all time PSX classic will be released for FREE tomorrow to all of you continually beat down Playstation Plus subscribers to download while crying softly into your hands. 250!

You Get A Prize If You Can Sit Through This Without Groaning

2010-08-22T21:26:00.000-07:00

I got this in the mail when I was a kid. I don't know why. I didn't even have a N64. And even if I did, I probably would have felt way less excited about having one after watching this mess of a promo video. This video is the fucking worst. Your host is filled with so much "'tude" that its honestly hard to watch. Usually I love how bad these old promo videos are (See the SF2T video somewhere below), but this is just bad. So, so bad.

Languishing In The Video Game Wastes

2010-08-22T21:15:00.000-07:00

Recently, all I've wanted to play is Bad Company 2. I guess because I never got into it too much when it first came out. My biggest problem I think was that I largely ignored Rush mode, and instead went for Conquest. This time around though, I'm making every effort to just play Rush, and so far I'm enjoying it a lot more. Rush feels like the more full-featured multiplayer mode, while Conquest feels like its just kinda there to appease us old timey BF players. There's just way more meat on Rush's bones, and I'm having a lot of fun leveling back up again. I'm also doing a second run through Uncharted 2 just for the hell of it. I decided to go ahead and try to get all the treasures this time around. Time will tell if I can manage to stick with it, though. It's INSANELY rare for me to play through a game twice, so this is certainly something a bit weird for me.

So yeah, not much to offer here, folks. Its been a busy time with this new job and all. But I'm confident that once the end of September rolls around things will pick up again. I've decided to go ahead and skip Halo Reach next month, mostly because I have zero excitement left in me for that series. I know a lot of people do, and that's fine, but playing through ODST just ripped every ounce of interest I had in the Halo franchise out of me. And playing the multiplayer beta of Reach confirmed that as well. I'm honestly far more excited about the Bad Company expansion and Killzone. Killzone in particular, as it was probably the biggest surprise I had with a multiplayer game last year.

Okay, enough rambling about nothing. I promise this blog will be more interesting when I'm able to do so. Until then, hope you enjoy random Youtube videos like the one I'm about to post above this.

The Long Game | Edge Magazine

2010-08-22T21:02:00.000-07:00

Great article on game length, and knowing when to stop instead of adding way more than most players will ever see. I know a lot of smaller downloadable games go on way longer than they ever should, and Joe Danger for PSN is the example here.

The Long Game | Edge Magazine

Learn How To Play...THE SOBE WAY

2010-08-21T08:55:00.000-07:00

Continuing today's ongoing Golden Tee 2010 coverage is this fine video showing you how to play Golden Tee the Sobe way. Who is Sobe? I have no clue. A guy that plays Golden Tee I guess. Highlights include the other guy looking on in orgasmic amazement at anything Sobe says or does, and Sobe's crazy Golden Tee roller ball technique that would make you think it has all the depth of a Street Fighter match. Which it may indeed have, but I'm sure is completely lost on the drunk kids at the local Buffalo Wild Wings, who are mostly playing it as a drinking game.

I..um...

2010-08-21T08:47:00.000-07:00

My Blasters Run Hot...For More Ratchet

2010-08-14T21:27:00.000-07:00

Managed to finish up Ratchet and Clank: A Crack In Time the other day. Just about as solid a 3D platformer you could ever want outside Mario. I was also glad to see that it kept the shooting to platforming ratio balanced all the way through, unlike the previous shooting-heavy outing. Really my only complaint would be that the side missions outside the planetoids get repetitive as Hell by the end of the game. Especially the security bot ones. Also I did have a few missed jumps on the later planetoids late in the game, but they're completely optional. The main game stayed fun throughout, if a little easy compared to the first game on PS3. The humor was also a lot more consistent. Which is surprising since this game was a lot heavier on the Captain Quark stuff (God I hate him). Overall it's probably the best platformer on the PS3, and I really can't recommend it enough if you like those kinds of games. And it is just that: a game. It doesn't give a shit about anything other than being a bright, colorful, crazy fun video game, which is sadly all too rare these days.

Well we've hit August, and I've pretty much cleared out my backlog. I still need to get through 3D Dot Heroes, but that's a game I can come back to any time. I really don't want to rush it, so I'm doing a temple every sitting or so. Otherwise, I don't have any big games on my list to play. I'm hearing good things about Monday Night Combat on 360. But mentioning TF2 and tower defense in the same sentence does not go a long way in making me want to play your game. I'm still meaning to dl it soon, though. My biggest worry being that. like most Live Arcade mp-focused games, most players will run off as soon as the next big mp game is out. Leaving Monday Night Combat with a much smaller group of players. Who can say though, since I think BF43 still has a pretty large userbase to this day. We'll see if MNC can keep its legs when Halo and COD come out.

I guess that's it for now. Looks like it's gonna be a slow couple of months until Dead Rising 2 hits.

A Street Fighter 2 Turbo Promo For The Ages

2010-08-10T09:27:00.000-07:00

The guy in this video is seriously the worst ever. Also the fake kids surrounding the arcade in the beginning are the best things you'll see all week.

To Billy: My PS Home Experience

2010-08-10T09:21:00.000-07:00

lord me and tiann were in the Star Wars cantina last night
10:52 AM
and next to us was a couple that was having a very illegal relationship on the internet through home
10:52 AM
a much older woman with a younger man
10:52 AM
who was not older than 18
10:52 AM
she kept asking if she showed up at his house would he call the police
10:53 AM
and that she had found it on google maps
10:53 AM
then they would start making out
10:54 AM
meanwhile me and tiann sat at a table with a man wearing a giant panda mask
10:54 AM
home is just the weirdest thing on earth

Video Game Commercials In The 90s Were Totally Rad

2010-08-05T15:31:00.000-07:00

I'll Take Dots Over Mass Effects Any Day

2010-08-04T11:11:00.000-07:00

So after being disappointed with Limbo, and barely being able to survive 30+ hours with Mass Effect 2, I felt it was time for a change. First step: turn the 360 off, and turn the PS3 on. Second step: Play games that are fun.

3D Dot Game Heroes
Man if this isn't the best love letter to people who played the original Zelda on NES then I don't know what ever could be. Equal parts parody and homage, it captures the gameplay and spirit of the original Zelda in a way that many of the actual Zelda games simply refuse to do anymore. Sure, its got some problems, but they are all problems associated with the original game as well. I imagine anyone who hasn't played NES Zelda would just look at this game like some weird, unplayable curiosity. The rest of us though, will pick it up and instantly be at home. Look at it this way, if Nintendo had made this game, every Nintendo fanboy would have an erection across the room. Don't diss this fine homage just because it's not on a Nintendo platform. It is quite obvious From Software cares a lot about Zelda, and this was their best chance to remake the original in their own unique way.

Modnation Racers
Great kart racer all around. The creation tools are even better than LBP's as far as I'm concerned. Everything is laid out very plainly, making it totally easy to just jump in and start making awesome stuff. I made a decent looking zombie in about twenty minutes, hopped in my kart, and played some online races before having to go to work. I haven't got to spend as much time as I want with this one yet, so hopefully I'll have a bit more time once I finish:

Ratchet and Clank: A Crack In Time
This one has been in the backlog for quite a while. So far I am not disappointed at all. Unlike the first Ratchet on PS3, this one seems to have a much better focus on both shooting and platforming (the first game focused way more on shooting). It even has some Super Mario Galaxy-like planetoids you can explore for Zoni (This game's Mario stars). I'm about halfway through and enjoying it a lot. It has a great pace to it, and the levels are quite varied. It even features its own 8-bit Smash TV game that is completely destroying my time in game that should actually be devoted to beating the real game.

So that's it for now. I can definitely say that my plan is a complete success so far.

The First Fighting Game To Ever Use AI

2010-08-03T21:38:00.000-07:00

This whole video is filled with so many choice quotes that I can barely contain myself. I think I lost it when he said it was "focus testing approved".

YouTube - Eye Mario System - Waterloo Labs - Episode 04

2010-08-03T21:33:00.000-07:00

This Is Probably One Of The Better Things I Have Seen Lately

2010-07-30T22:07:00.000-07:00

Play dodgeball? No? Dress like a video game character in your spare time? Still no? Well fuck you because this is awesome:

The Video Game Dodgeball Team

Still Feels Great To Hold My Own In Street Fighter

2010-07-30T19:51:00.000-07:00

Don't get me wrong. I'm no pro or anything. But going 15-2 against B-C ranks makes me almost feel like I'm not that much out of practice. Either that, or no one no how to beat a semi-decent Vega player. I wish I could condition my hands back into the shape they were when I played SF on an hourly basis, but I don't quite have the time for that these days. I played a couple of hours and my fingers and thumbs are damn near ruined.

If anyone wants to match up on PSN sometime, throw me a request at OMGJeremy (Yes that is my ID, shut up). I have yet to get a decent group up for endless battle, and I'd love to try it out. If my old man hands can hold out, anyway.

Jesus Christ Someone Did A Playthrough Of Action 52

2010-07-28T17:16:00.000-07:00

Let's Look At Limbo Again. This Time Without A Headache.

2010-07-28T11:57:00.000-07:00

I figured I should probably come back and write a slightly less headache-induced review of Limbo. While I am certainly not in love with it, I did enjoy the quality two hours or so of gameplay it gave me. It's that two hours of gameplay that is really eating at me, though. A lot of people say that I should want quality over quantity, which I am certainly fine with. But Limbo pushed that to the extremes, to the point where I literally feel like I was scammed by some slick guy on the street yelling about five star reviews, amazing atmosphere, and a game like I have never played before. Except he then conveniently forgot to mention that the game was barely long enough to enjoy any of those points. Simply put: Limbo is just too short, and far too easy for the asking price.

First, let's look at what Limbo does right. first up, the graphics are indeed as striking as they look in stills. The game uses blacks and whites to draw your attention to and from things like it's some sort of College art refresher on the proper uses of lights and darks in charcoal artworks. It simply looks stunning. It also doesn't hurt that the controls are super tight, which is neat for a genre of games that have relied on very drawn out animations (Out Of This World, Heart Of Darkness, etc). Running around and jumping feels great, and interacting with objects feels very natural, thanks to the great physics model. Overall, I have no qualms with the presentation or how it plays. I just wish there was more of it to get into, since only rarely are those very precise controls needed in a way that would justify them over the old style.

Okay, now onto the bad, which more or less boils down to just how fast the game is over. I have heard the arguments telling me I am supposed to play it more than once. Sorry, but I don't much want to. I went back and got all the eggs, which is a task that took no longer than fifteen minutes once I figured out where they were. I guess it also didn't help that the last half of the game sort of shits the bed compared to the amazing first half. A first half that goes by far faster than the second half, thanks to extremely obvious - but far more organic and fun - puzzles. The difficulty did thankfully pick up towards the end. But the stark industrial setting that takes over halfway through the game didn't draw me in at all, making me not really want to see what was just around the corner by solving the current puzzle like I was doing in the first half. Around chapter 21, and about a dozen puzzles involving giant gears later, I was beginning to think that this was not the glorious, magical experience I had been promised by the guy on Inside xbox. A guy so enthralled by it all that he was damn near moved to poetry and tears while describing it in the dashboard video. Maybe he forgot to play the second half of the game.

Once the game abruptly ended, I was simply amazed that Limbo could get such high praise for something that had just committed the video game equivalent of highway robbery. I had basically been given half a game of what I had been told I would get, while the rest was barely interesting enough to sit through. And I'm not even a guy to shit on these small indie games. After all, Braid was probably my favorite game of the year when it came out. It was also fifteen bucks, and could probably be beat in a couple of hours. But Braid was also completely challenging, and far more rewarding than anything that I played in Limbo. Also, when I finished Braid, I didn't think I had done something wrong to end it that quickly. I can't say that for Limbo.

Okay, I need to stop shitting all over this game. I did enjoy it (The first half of the game is legitimately amazing). But I cannot for the life of me figure out where this scary love for it is coming from. I can't even say that maybe this game isn't for me, because all I have wanted for over a decade is a new Out Of This World. Limbo certainly delivers that experience. But it is so short, and the last half so uninteresting, that I cannot recommend it for the asking price of fifteen dollars. Even if the very end of the game is kind of neat.

Hangover With A Side Of Hangover

2010-07-24T08:49:00.000-07:00

Well it's Saturday morning, and I'm hungover, so that must mean it's time to bitch about some games. Okay, let's run down what's been up since the last time I tried to type on this blog:

I beat Deathspank, and then went on to S-rank the whole game. I enjoyed it from beginning to end. My only complaints is that the game did not do a good job handling leveling after you hit level 16 (the max level is 20) Once you hit that level, you will have recieved all the hero cards (The game's equivalent of boosting damage/run speed/etc), whether you wanted them or not. One of the cards is being able to equip items up to 3 levels above you, so once you hit 17, you can get any armor or sword you want. Also, there is like two end level armor sets, and once you get one of those, any other loot you find is virtually useless. Still, it's a damn fun game that I can't recommend enough. Just don't forget to turn the voices off.

I finally beat Mass Effect 2. My thoughts at the end of the game essentially boiled down to "I never want to play Mass Effect again". I put in a good forty hours for a game that stopped being fun after 15 hours. This is because there just isn't enough RPG hooks in ME2 to support that kind of length. The game basically a third-person cover-based shooter. And a good one at that. But the game has shown you just about every trick it has by hour ten. And after ten more, I was thoroughly not wanting to play it any more. My best advice is to make sure you download the free Firewalker DLC, which adds much needed variety with cool hover-tank missions. I made the mistake of doing it very late game. It would have helped the monotony of every single identical "talk to dudes then shoot dudes" missions. As a side note, the paid DLC missions are probably the best in the game. Especially Overlord.

On the complete opposite end of the spectrum, I managed to take down Limbo. Mostly by accident, since the game is like maybe two hours long. I'm not making that up. Hell, there's an achievement for beating it under one hour. The game is really awesome, though. It reminds me of Out Of This World combined with very precise platformer controls. It's just way short for a fifteen dollar game. I couldn't believe I beat it as fast as I did, and was actively thinking I did something wrong for it to end so fast. It's also not very hard, only ramping up the difficulty in puzzle complexity very late in the game. Bottom line is that I guess I feel cheated for the money spent. This is a game that feels like it should be a free online flash game in its current state.

That's about it for now. I have no clue what to spend time with now. I'm about 3/4 through Darksiders. But I just don't want to sit down and play it too much. Maybe I'll finally unwrap Metro 2033 and play it. Who knows. Hangovers don't make for good decision making.

Deathspank Is My Favorite Game Of The Year So Far

2010-07-17T15:31:00.000-07:00

Only recently did I much care about Deathspank. It flew completely underneath my radar, all the way up to release. Once I saw that it was essentially Diablo mixed with WoW, I was definitely interested. It also didn't hurt that it was headed up by Ron Gilbert, one of the guys responsible for Monkey Island. And now that I've been playing it for a good seven hours, I think I can safely say that this could be an early favorite for my personal game of the year. Yes, I loved Red Dead a ton, but Deathspank is such a great throwback that I simply don't want to put the game down. I constantly feel like I'm playing a great SNES action RPG, or even the more obscure Herc's Adventures for the Playstation (A game I hold near and dear, regardless of the fact that maybe three people total ever played it). It also has all the hooks of a great loot-fest like Diablo, while putting you in a colorful world that isn't daunting or huge.You can get to just about anywhere super quick, which keeps the pace going constantly. There are virtually no dead points in Deathspank, and that is such a refreshing change of pace from these types of WoW clones that give you far more downtime than a game that isn't an MMO should ever have.

I should also mention the humor, which starts off kind of bland, but quickly ramps up after the first act. I also found the game far more amusing after I turned off the voice acting. The cast is fine, but they almost sound like they're trying way too hard to force the funny on you, by playing everything WAY over the top. Turning them off produces a much better effect, as this seems like one of those things that are funnier when read, not spoken.

So I basically love the game, but it does have it's flaws. I guess the biggest is that the combat lacks any real tactile feel to it. It has that same thing that a lot of games have lately where it never much feels like you hit anyone, and can only tell you've hit them by watching their health bar decrease. This produces pretty unsatisfying attacks that just seem to woosh through the air. Thinking about it, it's a really hard thing to explain, but it's definitely noticeable when you go into other games that do it well. There is also some hit detection problems at times, and focusing on certain enemies in a large crowd can be all but impossible. So far, none of the above has gotten in the way of me having fun, though. We'll see if things crop up later in the game.

So yeah, I can't recommend Deathspank enough. If you like your WoW with a bit more Diablo mixed in, and some great humor and art, then you'd be hard pressed to do better than Deathspank. Easily the best fifteen bucks you'll spend on a game for quite a while.

Shattered Memories; The Psychology Behind It

2010-07-06T10:23:00.000-07:00

In my previous post, I discussed the gameplay of Shattered Memories, but really didn't touch on the whole psychology aspect of it, which deserves it's own post to elaborate on. Personally, I'm a huge fan of psychology. It fascinates me like few things can. The human brain is an amazingly complex thing, and sitting someone in front of a man with a pad of paper is almost a disservice to what is being dealt with. What most psychology patients don't realize though, is that man with a pad isn't just taking each individual problem on their own, but instead using all of them to build a profile. This profile needs to cover as many areas in the patient's life as possible, because each one could contain a detail that could change the entire profile. Expert psychiatrists can put together profiles that are so accurate it's scary. Shattered Memories tries to do this through sessions with you in between each chapter, and it does it so well that it deserves it's own breakdown.

What should come off as extremely hokey is pulled off in a way that is absolutely convincing. The setting of you sitting in front of the Doctor is eerily accurate in the way that he interacts with you. Even the activities presented are actual exercises that could be used in a real life session. Many of them are used to simply play with the patient's mind. To make them rethink the things they think are fact. For instance, one activity has you placing pictures of people on the table. You are supposed to pick out the pictures of people that are sleeping, and those that are dead. You spend a few minutes going over them, certain that some are dead and others are just sleeping, placing them on the table accordingly, Come to find out, none are actually dead. It was just a mind game. Something used to make you realize that some things are never as they seem, even if they are presented that way. After all, he never said any of them were dead. You simply inferred that some were because the option was mentioned. It also gives the Doctor a look into how you think. Why did he pick these people as being dead? Is there a common thread linking them? What does this tell me about the patient that I didn't know before? It also makes the player stop and ask the same questions about themselves.

So what does the game accomplish with all of this? It actually changes the game based on what you do in the sessions. Some things are obvious (The house and car in the game will be the same color you used to color them in the session), others are less so. Clothes will change based on how you react. Characters will be presented differently. Locations will change entirely based on likes and dislikes. If the game sees you focusing more on sexual things, then the game will become more sexual. If it sees that you are introverted, characters will react to you in a way that makes you seem as if you aren't being forward enough. Some things are so small that you won't even notice (keep an eye on Harry's coat). The game is essentially changing itself to play to your fears, likes, dislikes, and what you consider to be normal. It works amazingly well, too. In fact, you probably won't even notice it while playing. But take a look at some Youtube videos after you beat it, and you'll find an almost entirely different game at points.

Even more amazing is the fact that all of these sessions, and the things you make the game to be, all work into the ending of the game. What you find out at the end makes everything you just went through make sense. It's something you won't see until the very end, but when you do, it hits you like a ton of bricks. I'd love to get more into the plot and just how it all works together with the psychiatry sessions, but I don't want to get into writing plot synopsis type stuff. There are enough out there for you to read if you look. Just be sure not to shortchange yourself on the story by not looking at one after you beat the game. It makes all of the psychology stuff even scarier in a way that isn't readily noticeable to the player as you play through it. There are definitely very real issues the main character has that can be sorted through. Some of which are pretty disturbing. I'm actually amazed that they found their way into a video game. Especially on the Wii.

Oh, and don't forget to sit through the credits to be presented with your own psychological profile. If you did all the activities honestly, this can be just as scary as the game itself. There's something entirely creepy about seeing your brain pretty accurately deconstructed by a game that has had no input but your own. But I guess that's what psychology is really all about: being able to understand the patient through their own admissions, and then put it all together to make the patient understand as well.

Even if they don't readily want to.

Shattered Memories: Shattered Gameplay

2010-07-05T13:00:00.000-07:00

I finally managed to beat Silent Hill: Shattered Memories on Wii yesterday. Overall it's probably one of the more unique games you'll play. It's such a strange game in overall concept that it will probably take a few days of going over it in your head after you've beaten it to really reign in the things you saw and did in a way that will make sense. And even then, there's going to be a hazy cloud of uncertainty sitting around. Ignoring the gameplay, the plot is easily as intricate as Silent Hill 2's, but not immediately so. It's not until you beat the game does everything you just played fall apart and rebuild itself in a way that makes some sort of sense. And even then, you'll need the help of a good plot synopsis to put the remaining pieces of the puzzles together. There are some deep, deep things going on in Shattered Memories. Taken at face values, those things resonate hard with people who have dealt with them. Dig deeper, and it gets even more disgusting. This is layered storytelling as good as it gets in gaming, made even more surprising that the guys at Climax and not the original team is responsible for it.

What isn't so surprising is that the gameplay is pretty awful at best. While Climax brought it hard with the plot, the gameplay falls off a cliff at points. Most of the time, you'll be running around Silent Hill exploring the town, which is generally fine. Then about halfway through, you discover that what you can explore is on such a linear path that it makes it almost no fun to search for nooks and crannies. There are collectibles to find, but I stopped caring about them fairly quickly since nothing about the environments made me want to explore them.

It also doesn't help that the graphics can be quite muddy and unattractive. I realize that SH has never looked "pretty" but most of Shattered Memories looks very badly modeled. For example, just look at pictures from Silent Hill 2 or 3 on PS2, then check out Shattered Memories. There's no personality here. Everything seems as if it was taken from very basic models, and then made to look a little dirty. Nothing about the town looks as if it had been lived in save for a few select scenes. This is one of the things I miss most about the old PS2 Silent Hill games. Few games ever looked so dirty and disgusting. It set the mood just as much as the story. Shattered Memories had none of that. Literally, sitting here a day after I beat it, I cannot think of one environment that stood out at me. I still vivdly remember dozens from SH2 alone.

So far I haven't even mentioned the action stages, which have you running from monsters with no way to fight back. It's a damn interesting idea, and something that could have worked with a far more capable designer at the helm. What's in the game though, is an absolute mess. The scenes are supposed to create tension. along with that great "running for your life" sense that few games try to do. What you end up with is no clear path where to go while monsters that are far faster than you swarm every room. If they grab you, you have to do an annoying waggle with the controller to push them off, which by then has caused the four other monsters to catch up. You then gnash your teeth as each one takes their turn jumping on you, pushing you closer and closer to throwing the controller at the cat. And if you die, it's back to the start of the level. Worse, there are a couple of sections that are labyrinthine in design, which makes it all the more of a trial and error situation. Halfway through the game, I got so angry at these sections that I knew I wouldn't finish the game unless I started watching Youtube runs through them. That's not the sign of a fun game.

I know I've been sitting here shitting on this game for a while, but I did enjoy it a lot. It's a great reimagining of the original Silent Hill that hits on all the right spots. Especially the plot. It just seems like it could have been so much more if given the time and money to polish things up.

Crackdown 2 Demo: What A Terrible Night To Have A Curse

2010-06-25T15:41:00.000-07:00

At some point I remember really liking parts of Crackdown. Though I think most of those parts were the times I wasn't actually playing the actual game. The things I remember most with Crackdown is doing ridiculous stuff with my superhero guy, throwing cars at people, and attempting to climb massively tall buildings for a couple of orbs. It was fun for what it was, but lacked any real structure, and featured non-stop jank throughout the entire game. At the time though, those were almost features in it's favor, as nothing else had really done the whole "superhero in an open world" thing quite so well. If I had to describe Crackdown in one word at the time, it would have been "neat".

Times have changed though, and more than a few open world games have raised the bar far above where they were four years ago. Especially Sony's Infamous, which took the Crackdown theme and actually built a game around it. Infamous not only did the awesome superhero stuff great, but it also added in super tight controls, a great mission and side-mission structure, and gave you a reason to progress past just farting around with the game engine. Even beyond Infamous, games like GTA4 and Red Dead Redemption have have made open world games feel far more solid and coherent than it's ever been before. When Crackdown 2 was announced, I had hopes it too would be able to modernize itself. Unfortunately, going by the demo released on Xbox Live, it decided to simply act like the last four years never happened.

Crackdown 2 is essentially the original Crackdown with one huge difference: it has zombies. Oh, sorry, they're more like mutants I guess. Yes, that's about it as far as Crackdown goes to differentiate itself from the first game. So instead of seeing that the original Crackdown is terribly outdated in almost every way at this point, they decided to forgo any substantial improvements, and instead added a game mechanic that got tired over a year ago. So just in case you haven't shot enough zombies over the past three years, Crackdown 2 has your back. And not just a few zombies, either. No, when it hits night time, the streets are FILLED with them as far as the eye can see. So in 2010, Crackdown has finally brought you the MAXIMUM ZOMBIE/MUTANT KILLING ACTION that you have been craving. Like...all those other games have been doing for years now I guess. You know, this wouldn't be so eye rolling if the rest of the game was massively improved. It is sadly not.

Everything from the graphics, the touchy controls, to the fact that you have to sort of glitch your way up tall buildings is all still here. Not to mention the AWFUL lock on targeting that has caused me to lock on to just about everything but what i was pointing directly at, just like the first game. Speaking of shooting, there's still no feedback to it. All you have to go buy that you are actually shooting someone is just watching their life bar go down. You could be firing a stream of air at them and it wouldn't feel any different. Even the look of the game, which was pretty original in it's day, looks totally dated now. Everything looks too simple, characters still have that stilted Crackdown animation, and there are times when you'd be hard pressed to not think this was a high res xbox game. And thanks to the darker, dirtier theme of the city now, it actually manages to look worse than the original. This is all just almost laughably inexcusable, and comes off more as an expansion pack released four years after the fact for sixty bucks.

So with all that bad, is there anything that would make this a full price purchase? Not much. The core of Crackdown is still fun though. Running around collecting orbs, throwing cars, doing ridiculous stunts, it's all still pretty compelling. Especially with friends (You can now have four players get bored and run cars off bridges over and over). It's just that things have changed too much to suddenly be asked to go back to a game where the primary fun factor is decided by how much you want to try and break the game/fuck around, and not actually progress through it (See Saints Row 2).

My advice: Unless you have an uncontrollable urge to spend 60 dollars on every game that comes out, or some scary love for the first game, then pass. Just wait and get it when you see it hit 30-40 bucks. I think that's a fair price for the type of game Crackdown 2 is, which is essentially a 2006 sandbox game.

Dead Man Walking

2010-06-21T11:49:00.000-07:00

Red Dead was a hell of a ride. I won't spoil the ending, but it's probably one of the best I've ever seen. Rockstar had some serious balls to go the route they did, and it totally paid off. The last section of that game is unlike anything I have ever seen. By the end of the game, the word epic never fit better in a game for me. I can't talk too much about specifics without giving stuff away, but it really left an impression on me. I will say this though: best late title card in a game EVER.

I also managed to finish up Skate 3 over the weekend. I don't know why. I mostly dislike Skate and it's more sim-like approach. I guess I'm just that desperate to play a skating game. And after Tony Hawk shit the bed with RIDE, this is about all I've got. That Shaun White skateboarding game looks neat, but I don't have much hope of anything coming from Ubisoft that resembles an actual skateboarding game. Lately all of their games seem to be built by robots in a manufacturing plant. I can't quite put my finger on it as to why I feel like that. I guess it's like staring at a dead body: it's still a person and exists, but there's no life left to it. That's where Ubisoft rushes in to electronically move the body's arms and legs around while shooting off fireworks in an effort to trick you into thinking that thing is still alive and well, but it's not fooling anyone. That's kind of a dark example now that I think of it. What was I even talking about before? Oh, Skate 3. Meh.

Crackdown 2 demo drops today. Looking forward to seeing how the whole "unlock achievements from the demo" works. Apparently whatever you unlock will unlock for realzies when you buy the game new. I've also heard it has to be bought on the day it comes out for them to unlock, but that sounds a little sketchy. I guess we will see. As it stands, it's a genius hook of a way to get people to buy the game. I can't believe no one thought of this before. We'll see if it works on me, as I've never been that big of a Crackdown fan. The idea of jumping up a mile high building just to slip up and fall to the ground just for a couple of orbs is making me remember why I stopped playing the first one. Hopefully Crackdown 2 has a little more polish and meat on it's bones.

That's all for today kids. Guess I should get back to doing real life work for a while.

E3E3E3E3

2010-06-18T07:53:00.000-07:00

Man E3 was pretty great this year. Tons of new hardware, some awesome new games, and the return of a butt-load of classic franchises. Let's take a quick look at some of my personal highlights and lowlights.

-The MS press conference was a tragedy. Nothing they did made Kinect look any fun at all. That's too bad, since every hands on impression with it during E3 was very positive. I guess it's hard to convey on stage, but what they came up with obviously wasn't so great at winning over with first impressions. In fact, I was completely unsold on the Kinect by the time their conference was over. After hearing all the super positive hands on with it though, I think I'm back on board. Kinect could be super special. MS just seemed to go out of their way to turn it into Wii2. LOOK AT THE WATER!

-Epic Mickey looks so good. I want that game now. The idea of a darker Disney world that is in shambles was pulled off perfectly. It really looks great. Then they showed the sidescrolling stages and I just about lost it.

-Kirby is back, and for the first time ever I actually want to play a Kirby game. The art style looks awesome, and it seems to be completely integrated into the gameplay. I once asked myself what it would take for me to ever be interested in Kirby. This is my answer I guess.

-Donkey Kong Country was my personal highlight. I love the first DKC with a passion, and this just looks to be a reboot of that. I know DKC is a love/hate franchise, but you have to admit that Retro Studios has done a fantastic job recreating Rare's magic.

-I was pretty meh on Zelda. It's nowhere near the overhaul Nintendo has been promising for years. It looks cool, but god damn am I tired of waggling to swing a sword. Also reports from the show floor said it wasn't quite 1:1 as Nintendo said. Saying that there was definite lag, resulting in missed strikes. That could get annoying in a game that requires exact striking. Also that Miyamato demo on stage was painful to watch.

-Sorry folks, I just don't have the giant erection for Goldeneye most people do. Yeah it was great, but that was 15 years ago. This is definitely something you could play with your girlfriend or a couple of friends while drunk, but otherwise seems like an ancient relic that would be better off as a downloadable game. Guess that's why it's a Wii exclusive.

-Speaking of games that should be downloadable, what the fuck is up with NBA Jam now being a full boxed game selling for full price? Sorry but fifty bucks for an arcade game is asking a lot in 2010. Especially when games like Bionic Commando Rearmed 2 exists for fifteen bucks.

-Twisted Metal is back next year, which is already my GOTY 2011. I don't need to explain my love for TM. Fuck you.

-Mortal Kombat looks great. Seems like the MK I've been waiting for since MK3 made me want to curl up and cry.

-I'm completely excited for the 3DS. I don't know how much I'd ever use the 3D, but the updated graphics and huge lineup of games would be a worthy upgrade over the DSi. I'm not a huge Kid Icarus fan, but I'll sure as hell sign up for a new Pilotwings.

I think that's about all of the major things that really got my attention. Overall an awesome E3. Here's hoping it stays that way.

Quick Blurbs About Shit I'm Playing/Played

2010-06-09T22:42:00.000-07:00

Red Dead: Heading toward the end now. Finally made it out of Mexico and MAN does that drag things down from the first act. Maybe it's me and my total dislike for any sort of revolutionary era Mexican stereotypes, but every character introduced (other than Rickets) annoyed the shit out of me. Thank God (most) got what was coming to them. Also unlike the first chapter, the end of the Mexican storyline just makes you feel shitty about everything and everyone. I couldn't wait to get out of there. Game is still crazy fun regardless.

Blur: Grabbed it for forty bucks at Kmart today, and so far enjoying it a lot. One of the few games I just went straight into multiplayer without touching singleplayer first. It's set up a lot like Call of Duty, with it's persistent leveling and perks system. I would also suggest that if you are going to have any fun with this game, then you need to leave your bullshit meter somewhere else, because Blur will have it filled before one race finishes. It's essentially a kart racer at heart, so don't expect to sit in first an entire race. Thankfully placing isn't top priority, and gaining fans to level up can be attained by doing most anything. I have not had a race yet where I felt I was defeated, but I have yet to actually win a race. Sound weird? You'll understand when you play it.

Split/Second: The other arcade racer of the month, Split/Second is just constant insanity. It is just too spectacularly intense to really convey in words. I don't think I have ever been more on the edge of my seat while playing a racing game. Or really any game in recent memory as a matter of fact. Left up to me, I'd say Split/Second is simply more fun than Blur, but it lacks Blur's awesome multiplayer progression. A tough choice made slightly easier since you can currently also get this game for forty bucks at Kmart and Best Buy for the rest of this week.

Animal Crossing: I hate myself.

Cave Story: Continuing through Cave Story, and I am getting to the point where I am close to telling Cave Story to fuck off. Floaty jumping has been a huge pet peeve of mine since the NES days, and it goes a long way in ruining games that are perfectly fine otherwise. Cave Story has a lot of personality though, so I could almost forgive it and forge through if it wasn't all sorts of messed up in other significant areas besides just the floaty jumping. The worst being the constantly respawning enemies that exist in a game that is heavy on backtracking through levels. At one point last night, I killed every single enemy on a level 5-6 times over just from backtracking. The problem being that if you go through any door (which you do....a lot) for no matter how long, when you step foot back outside, every enemy in the stage has magically reappeared. And as cheap/maddening as most of the enemies can get (especially in numbers) it just becomes tedious as all hell. Yeah I'm not sure I can go back. I was really wanting to beat that before I got into Contra, but it's really pushing me to just toss it.

That's it for now. Gonna try to beat Red Dead tomorrow. I'm hoping for a far less painful third act. Or at least maybe just a few less people calling me a fucking gringo.

We Meet Again, Tom Nook

2010-06-02T21:41:00.000-07:00

Against my better judgement I have been playing an unhealthy amount of Animal Crossing on the Wii. I think mostly because I enjoy hurting myself by playing the same game over and over again throughout multiple console generations. To be honest though, I never got to play the DS version much, since a gf at the time became completely obsessed with it. I played around with it some, but not really enough to the point where I figured City Folk on the Wii would feel like a retread of it. I was right, it doesn't. It just feels like a retread of the Gamecube version I played years ago. The game barely offers anything new, and the whole city area you can bus to is completely throwaway. Stuff that was in town or just happened automatically now requires a drawn out bus ride to the city. Sometimes I find myself wanting a haircut or needing to check in with the Room Academy, only to remember I now have to get on a bus and waste five minutes to get to the city and come back just to do so. That's when I say fuck it and go fish. Somehow I find myself still enjoying it, though. It's something I can play in between long sessions of Red Dead, and come away satisfied. It's still completely pointless in ways few games would ever want to be, but still somehow manages to be fun. That's some damn black magic right there.

Speaking of Red Dead, it's just great. The more I play it, the more it amazes me. Even with all it's open world jank and bugs, it still does nothing but make you want to play it more. I won't bore you with a review of it, since last I checked there are enough Internet erections for it going around to last years. You don't need me to tell you that you should probably play that game. And if you do, then yes, you should probably play that game.

I also forgot to mention in my previous post that I have been playing Cave Story some, and so far it's a fairly simple platformer. I know it's had a ton of indie praise gushed out on all sides of the Negaverse for it, and it IS a good game, but I'm just not seeing where all the crazy/scary praise for it comes from. The jumping is way floaty, the enemies can be annoyingly cheap, and getting around can be confusing at best. It's fine and all, but I guess people had just built this up in my head way too much as being a premiere platformer. I'm about halfway through, so we'll see if it ramps up in the second half.

That's it for now, kids. Check back next time when I will probably regret every minute I have spent playing Animal Crossing for Wii, but will continue to mindlessly play it every day.

Whoa I Played Some Games

2010-05-29T16:42:00.000-07:00

I managed to finish up Alan Wake the other night. I'm not entirely sure what happened at the end, but I was pretty satisfied with it. Awesome game, though it shows all of it's tricks early on. It seemed the game needed more unique encounters to break up the regular shadow guys that come at you instead of just new set pieces to do so on. It sort of tries to break things up a bit with Left 4 Dead style survival scenes, but you're still doing the exact same thing, just with a lot more dudes coming at you. At least the combat is tight and really fun, it just sucks that halfway through the game you already know the drill of how the stages are gonna go: run for a bit, get ambushed, shoot guys, run for a bit, shoot guys, repeat till the end of the game. It's also pretty linear, but I honestly enjoyed that aspect. I didn't want an open-world game, and I certainly appreciate a game that doesn't want you to fuck around too much. Alan Wake constantly sits behind you and pushes you to the next checkpoint, which is a really nice change of pace from most games that seem more about being like "Yeah do it if you want to or just fuck around. Whatevs". I may sound down on it but I actually totally liked it. It's huge into the atmosphere, and really feels like a horror novel come to life. I just wish there was more variety in the combat at some point.

In other news I managed to finally get a Wii and play a good sampling of the ten or so games I actually ever wanted to play on the Wii. The highlights so far being Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, and Super Mario Galaxy 1 and 2. SH was the bigger surprise, as it is just a brutally creepy game. It looks like last gen ass, but it uses the unique features of the Wii (motion controls, the speaker on the Wiimote) to really push the mood and scares. It's also heavy into psychology, which is a subject I hold dear.Mario is Mario, and in case you haven't heard, those games are pretty sweet. It's just unfortunate that that style of game can't be found more these days. Mario is straight up a video game, and it doesn't give a shit. A SHIT.

I guess it's now time to really sink time into some Red Dead. I've played a few hours so far and it seems to have been made especially for me. From the characters, the setting, and the dark overtones of revenge and frontier insanity, it is just an amazing sandbox of awesome.

I also killed a cougar with my bare hands.

Go buy this game.

Clear Your Week Out, Haunted House Is Coming Next Week

2010-05-20T16:44:00.000-07:00

In the single greatest bit of gaming news I have heard in at least thirty years, it seems that HAUNTED HOUSE is being released in Game Room next week. Did your pants just explode off you, get sucked down your throat, and then blown back out your ass like mine just did? HELL YEAH THEY DID. And I know of at least one other person that is sharing in this momentous occasion:

Me: I am thinking about making a countdown page for Haunted House. Are you in?

Billy: YES

So look for nonstop Haunted House coverage starting next Monday. Including liveblogging from a random Gamestop where we plan on purchasing the points card that will buy Haunted House. We'll also have exclusive interviews with myself and Billy, where we document how Haunted House has changed our lives over the years, and how survival horror has never surpassed it.

This is gonna be epic.

Damnit, It's Contra Again

2010-05-19T16:40:00.000-07:00

So I recently took the plunge and decided to grab one of the new black Wiis. There really isn't much on the Wii I care for playing beyond some Nintendo stuff, but I did go ahead and grab Contra Rebirth on the Wiiware side of things. It's essentially a brand new 16-bit Contra game, which by itself is just crazy. I got to play a couple of stages and really liked what I played, so I decided that maybe I should take up the challenge of actually beating it. Keep in mind that I haven't sat down with an old school hard game in years, so we'll see how fast this makes me want to pick up my cat and throw it across the room. Though what I played so far seemed to have the old school Contra challenge dialed back a bit. I played on normal and made it to the second boss before the continue screen popped up at least. If this was old Contra, I wouldn't have made it to the first boss without a continue on my first attempt. Who knows how hard it eventually gets though, but there just wasn't the sheer amount of shit exploding/bullets everywhere/nonstop madness that Super Contra was known for (The game that Rebirth is obviously riding the nostalgia train for).

The weirdest thing so far though is that there is actually a story of sorts. And what a story it is. The best I could figure out is that Contra veteran Bill was in cryostasis and is woke up in the future to be sent to the past with a robot maid and some Japanese guy named Yagyu from Neo Contra to stop the aliens from blowing up all of "The Contra", thus being able to go back to the future and take over Earth. I think. It's about the dumbest thing you've ever heard basically. The worst part is that Yagyu takes the place of venerable second player character Lance, who is apparently kidnapped or something. Who knows, the whole story is laughable at best. Good thing the game seems really awesome. Did I mention how weird it is to play a new 16-bit Contra in 2010? It blows my damn mind.

So I'm gonna try my best to get through it. If it's not teeth grindingly awful then I may pick up Castlevania Rebirth, which is a new 16-bit Castlevania game. Yeah, I know. It's like the Wii is calling me out or something. The only two hard game franchises I will sit down to beat is back and staring right at me. This is gonna be a rough month.

DIY Game: Finger Trap

2010-05-09T09:01:00.000-07:00

Here's the third DIY game. Nothing too special, but even seemingly simple games like this involve some trickery in the script editor. I actually ended up finishing the Dojo section of the game where you essentially finish premade projects. It almost comes off as puzzle-like, as you go through the script editor to see what you need to add to make the game work. As I finished the last line of scripts, it kinda amazed me at how much the game actively tells you to cheese the editor to make it do stuff that it can't by itself. It comes off as a little lazy compared to something like Littlebigplanet, where every action that can be done is plain and clear. Not a tutorial telling you to put something somewhere so this other thing can work in a way it's not supposed to.At any rate, this game was finished in about an hour. Nothing too crazy, other than the art that seems to suggest I live in a state of constant fever dreams. You can find it in my Warehouse using the friend code below:

Warioware DIY Friend Code:
2193 0348 2512

One more game to go!

Sticky Mines Should Be In Every Game

2010-05-07T17:25:00.000-07:00

After taking a bad game-induced gaming break, I recently decided to come back around with Splinter Cell Conviction. Why did I choose SC? I have no clue. I hate SC games. The constant trial and error of the previous games is a genre that has all but died in present day. It had been getting some pretty awesome reviews from various folks I consider to have tastes similar to mine, though. So I guess I figured what the hell, since I really enjoyed Batman Arkham Asylum, and SC was being compared favorably to it in terms of how open the stealth mechanic was. I actually ended up beating it a few nights ago, and I can honestly say it was a gamble I'm glad that I took. It's a great game.

First off, I could care less about the story. It's every Government spy plot you've ever heard of. Constant backstabbing. Swerve after plot swerve. People being dead and then not being dead somehow. Hacking computers with a few taps of the keyboard. Enhancing the image. EMPs rendering entire cities helpless. It's all here, and just as stupid and ridiculous as it always is. The real meat though, is the gameplay. A weird mix of the old SC games without all the trial and error. I guess there IS some trial and error, but nowhere close to the "redo the last twenty minutes over because you forgot to shoot out a lamp while a guard walked away for 2 seconds" shit. This game is much more forgiving with your stealth tactics, minus one later stage that makes you spend the first section going around undetected. And even then, I felt like I had enough options at my disposal to make the situation completely change, instead of a set path that required exact timing and movement that the old SC games used.

Some people have complained about the last few levels being too action-oriented, and turning into a shooter more than a stealth game. I must have played the game wrong or something, since there was no part (besides the Iraq stage, and a brief run up to the White House) where I didn't feel like I could totally ambush the AI and take them out how I wanted to. The game does give you the option of just gunning through, but that never seemed like an ideal way to play the game given all the gadgets you have to use at any given time. Every new group of enemies presented me with a sort of puzzle on what gadgets to use, who to mark for instant kills, and who I could leave alone so that I could get my instant kill ability back. It immediately reminded me of the large stealth rooms from Batman, only on a smaller scale.

I ended up having a ton of fun all the way to the end, minus the absolutely ridiculous plot. I can't comment on the coop too much, but the stage I played was pretty fun. I could see myself playing through that, and the main game a couple of times. In fact, if it weren't for me needing to get into Darksiders finally, I probably would be going through the main game again. So if you're on the fence about SC, I'd say try it out. Just try not to turn it into a third person shooter, and you'll probably have a lot of fun with it.

Warioware DIY Game: Cat Punch

2010-05-03T13:29:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the lack of updates, real life work hours have been a bitch and a half lately. Anyway, as promised here is the second in our Warioware DIY created games: Cat Punch. The object is simple: just punch the shit out of that cat when it isn't defending. This was actually an attempt by me to recreate one of the games included in DIY that uses the same premise, just characters from some NES game. I could have simply imported that game and replaced the graphics, but where's the fun in that? It actually didn't take too long to do. As usual, the art took the longest, if you can manage to believe that. I'm finding the hardest things to do in DIY is putting polish on a game. IE: it took me a while to make the cat punch once when you tap, and not continue to punch with every tap. Getting it to be won or lost with one punch and not freezing the game as I did in Crash Course was a bit of a pain. Anyway, I think it's a solid effort. As of now, this and Crash Course is in the warehouse, so get Crash Course while you can, as it will have to be replaced on the next update. In the meantime, get out your DS and PUNCH THAT CAT

DIY Game: Crash Course

2010-04-22T19:43:00.000-07:00

Okay, this was one of my first attempts at a game. It's pretty simple overall. Simply tap the plane to keep it from crashing into the mountain. The scripting was simple enough, with the hardest stuff being switching art out once you tap the plane. One weird thing to note is that anything you want to suddenly appear somewhere (like the text that appears when you win) is actually placed off screen when you create the game. When the action happens for it to be on screen, you tell it to jump to that spot. It's almost like you're cheesing the editor to do this shit, but it's totally in a tutorial as well.

To get this and any future game, just put in the friend code below. From there you'll have access to any game posted. They are posted as open, so you can edit and change them as you see fit.

Warioware DIY Friend Code:
2193 0348 2512

Do It Your God Damn Self: A Quick Look At Warioware DIY

2010-04-22T15:12:00.000-07:00

When I get tired of constantly leveling Pokemans, I've been throwing in Warioware DIY. If you're unfamiliar with what Warioware is, it's essentially a game based on very quick "microgames" that can last anywhere from a couple of seconds to, well, not much longer than a couple of seconds. The idea of DIY is that you make your own collection of microgames to play, share them with friends, and download their stuff as well. So you know that one racist game you've been wanting to make about a butt and a few choice religious figures? Well here's your chance to shine for all that can bare witness to it.

As for me, I love the concept of making my own games. I know it's not for everyone, but I love the idea of finally being able to put the creative hat on, and build my own game from the ground up. DIY literally lets you do just that, with a surprisingly advanced (for a DS game, anway) suite of game editing tools. Anything from making the backgrounds, character art/animation, composing music, it's all right there for you to mess with. There certainly are limitations to what you can do (any object is limited to four frames of animation, music can only be so long, etc) but what you can do is more than enough to make whatever stupid microgame you would want. It ends up being completely addictive once you get past learning how to do shit, which will probably be the biggest hurdle for people.

So how easy IS it to actually make games in DIY? Depends on what you want to do. Some games can be scripted and drawn from scratch in about half an hour. These would be the games that involve a simple "Touch this object, win game" script. Anything more advanced is certainly going to take more time, requiring you to get the hang of how to work with switches, moving objects in and out, and then making it all work together to make a functioning game. Though a good majority of the time spent comes down to custome art assets, and debugging your game so that things work the way you want them.

Wait, I probably just scared everyone ever away from this game with the word "debug".

Okay, so yeah, you will be debugging your shit. While DIY doesn't contain any sort of code you need to produce, it does however contain "scripts" that you make for each object you need to use in your game. At it's base level, a script is simply making a trigger for an object, and then the action that goes along with that trigger. A basic script for an object looks like this:

Trigger:
Tap object on screen

Action:
Once object is tapped, move west

This would make your object move west once it has been tapped. Pretty simple, right? And if you want, you never have to get much more advanced. You could simply draw cows farting themselves off the screen when they are tapped for days and easily get your forty bucks worth. If you do wish to get into the more advanced scripts, you'll be adding multiple triggers and actions per object, along with object switches, which are essential for making any game that involves more than tapping on something to win. The crazy long tutorial goes a long way in easing you in, but really the best way to learn is to just jump in and play with the scripting yourself.

If all this sounds like a bit much for you, you're still covered. You don't HAVE to build anything in DIY. If you simply want to see what other people are making, you essentially have an unlimited well of Wario microgames to play. Heading online to the Ninsoft store gets you weekly "best of" games, along with games being made from famous developers in a sort of developer spotlight. Last I checked, the guy who made Cave Story made a way pretty game. These are all available to download to your DS, which you can then mix into your own custom Warioware game. You can also connect with friends at any time to check out the games they have deposited in their online warehouse. There is sadly no dedicated online hub where you can search everything, but when you think about it there is no way Nintendo would be able to keep up it's kid friendly image AND be able to monitor every tubgirl game that came in at the same time. This kind of leaves it up to you to store your own collection of people to find games from, which kinda sucks.

To help you out, I'm going to be doing a sort of running thing on the various DIY games I make over the next few weeks. Later tonight, I'll be posting the first, along with my DIY friend code so you can check in on the various retarded shit I make that will all inevitably degrade to dinosaurs fighting monster trucks.I'll give a bit of insight on what I've made, then leave it up to you to decide if I wasted an hour of my life making it. In the meantime, go check it out Warioware DIY if you're curious about making your own games. Or just curious to see how many terrible microgames you can play before you start choking yourself.

Hey Pokemans Aint' So Bad

2010-04-20T17:13:00.000-07:00

A few days ago, me and Ronnie decided to step onto the slippery slope of being a couple of those older guys that play Pokemon games. I think it mostly had to do with the fact that that sweet assed Pokewalker came with it, but it seemed like a good enough time to see what all this Pokemon shit has been about for the last seemingly six hundred years. Ronnie had played a bit of Pokemon Red back in the day, while I have never touched any such game other than some passing glances at Pokemon Monopoly. So what does someone who has never played a Pokemon game think about this mess?

It's pretty okay, actually.

I have reached around six hours of play time, with a couple of gym badges in Pokemon Soul Silver so far. Ronnie has lost his mind, and gained about five badges or so, but I mostly blame that on brain damage from jumping off the roof of a Hardees about eight years ago. I've been enjoying it, despite all attempts to make myself believe I'm not. It's dead simple; basically a JRPG stripped down to the bare essentials. I realize this is a remake of the old GB game, but it holds up well other than a few nagging complaints. The biggest one being that the game generally expects me to know a ton about Pokemon at a base level. And not just the Pokemon themselves, but how the game works as well. One example: it took me ten minutes to figure out where the fucking PC Box was so I could store my Pokemon. The game had never once bothered to tell me, and nothing had ever popped up saying "HEY RETARD, THIS IS THE PC BOX". Instead it took a step by step guide on the Internet to tell me it is a tiny computer on a desk at the Pokemon Clinics, which more or less just looks like it's there for decoration. I also have gripes about endless menus and terrible use of the second screen, but otherwise I have been pleasantly surprised.

The biggest surprise however, has been the aforementioned Pokewalker. Simply put, it's awesome. It seems like a stupid (but cool) gimmick just looking at it, but it goes a long way in allowing you to take the game with you when you're not playing. Being able to use your "watts" to find other Pokemon and items, then allowing them to come back into the game next time you play is such a cool thing that I'm shocked it's never been done this well before. Yes, I'm aware that the VMU did this with some games on the DC years ago, but it never worked this well, or was this much fun. Also my Pokewalker battery doesn't die within five minutes of playing it like VMU units did.

So yeah, I'm cautiously upbeat on the amount of fun I'm having with this shit. It has a simple addictive quality that shines past a lot of it's not so great older trappings. Also, there's just something about playing a Nintendo game that really gets my nostalgia glands going. I'm trying to resist, but those damn sound effects are hitting every right note. God I feel myself closer and closer to buying a Wii the more I play this.

Deadly Premonition Playthrough Part 4: Had Enough Of This Shit

2010-04-18T15:07:00.000-07:00

Well, not long after I stepped back into the game, chapter one ended. This essentially gave me the option to continue on with the game, trudging through the badness to wring out the goodness that only seems to come when I'm not actually playing the game. Or I could just throw in the towel, and move onto playing a game that was, you know, actually fun to play. I chose the latter, but it amazingly came with a heavy heart. I REALLY like what Deadly Premonition is. The concept of a bad Twin Peaks video game is nothing short of genius. The dialogue and characters are so endearing in their stereotypes and bad acting that it makes you want to love it. It's just so unfortunate that actually playing it is so, so very painful. Honestly, I would play DP through to the end no questions asked if the shooting sections were either shortened considerably, or done away with entirely. I mean really, why ARE they there? Only Agent York can see or acknowledge them, so what's the point? Rip those things out and just have a good old open world adventure game in the same vein as the Gabriel Knight games. That would be so awesome.

So there you go. My opinion on Deadly Premonition stands as it being some sort of genius that is forced to carry 400 pounds of stupid behind it. Eternally hamstringing it from being the awesome thing it is SO CLOSE to being. And hey, if you think you can handle the terrible other world sections and shooting, then by all means go for it. Jeremy P has mentioned he may pick it up and see if he can get through them. I think he has a lot more patience than I do for terrible games, though. You can also find playthroughs all over the Internet as well, as it has become some sort of weird meme over the last month. It even shot to the number one spot on Amazon's game charts for a day. That's just insane when you think about it. As for me, I'm closing the book on this one.

Sorry, Deadly Premonition. I just can't love you like I should.

This Will End Badly

2010-04-15T12:00:00.000-07:00

I have never played a Pokemon game in my life, btw.

Massively Confusing Action Game

2010-04-09T16:00:00.000-07:00

Sorry for no real update this week, but I guess I've just been in one of those weird moods where I'm half burnt out on playing games for a minute. I seem to get like this whenever I play something that is absolutely no fun at all for a prolonged amount of time (See previous post for the cause). This also happened when I got on my Gamefly binge of playing really awful games for achievement points. I guess I never learn.

I did pick up and have been playing MAG a decent amount, though. I heard a lot of mixed reviews for it, so I wasn't quite sure what to expect from it. Turns out it's a really, really solid and fun FPS. Actually the closest thing I can compare it to would be if WoW's battlegrounds existed by themselves. It has a very MMO feel to it with it's persistent teams, huge maps, and leveling system. I've been having a lot of fun with it, minus the fact that is absolutely sucks at easing you into how to play it. Even the tutorial was terrible. It basically shows you how to shoot your gun and reload, then is like "Okay you're good now. Have fun!". After that, the game essentially leaves it up to you to figure out how to play as a team, follow/give orders, play each match type, and generally everything else that would be of the utmost of importance to teach the player how to do. I thought I had got things figured out with the more simple attack/defend matches, but once I stepped into the massive 256 player matches, I was completely lost. Multiple objectives, orders being thrown out everywhere, and just absolute chaos. It took me a good half hour to even grasp what was happening. Still a hell of a lot of fun, though.

Other than that I've been playing Heavy Rain and Just Cause 2 a bit. Just Cause 2 is awesome but gets old hella fast. While Heavy Rain is an amazing and super tense experience, but it's terrible movement controls almost ruin it if you can't get a handle on them, I'd still recommend everyone playing both just for the experience.

So that's about it for now. Still gonna try to finish up chapter one of DP. Not gonna go any further than that since it has become the Internet's latest meme. And honestly I'd rather watch the folks over at Giant Bomb play through it than me suffer through any more of it. It's sad, since I would totally play through that entire game if they completely nixed the combat and shooting segments. I was prepared for a bad game, just not the kind of time investment DP seems to demand. Even if it has a leaderboard for the amount of times you have shaved in the game.

Deadly Premonition Playthrough Part 3: I like the way she puts it in

2010-04-02T12:40:00.000-07:00

Ugh. This was the first time I've played a portion of this game that really made me question if I could keep playing through till the end. At one point it got way too tedious, and not fun in any sort of way. Not even in a way I could laugh off. Also instant death quick time events. I don't think I need to say much beyond that, but we'll get into the details soon enough. First, let's pick up where we left off, which I think was some sort of haunted hospital.

After I left the hospital, I was asked to go with the Sheriff and his super-hot cop girl to the scene of the crime. I politely told them I would drive myself over, and that they should head on by themselves. They told me not to be late, and gave me a certain time frame that I had to arrive in. I can see that becoming annoying if it gets narrowed down to short periods of time, but as for now they gave me like eight hours to get there. I was just unaware that it would take almost eight real life hours to actually drive all the way across this God-forsaken town.

Happily moving along at a brisk 40 mph, I suddenly noticed that I am responsible for keeping the gas tank full to keep my horse and buggy moving. I thought surely gas wouldn't come into play too much, as this is a fairly small town. Oh how I was wrong. It seems that the developers did not simply stop going insane making this game look and play like it does, but also went the extra mile and made the entire town scale to a real life slice of countryside. I sort of mentioned this before, but this was the first time I experienced it in all it's glory. Driving from the hospital to the crime scene took no less that 15 minutes. Yes, FIFTEEN MINUTES. IN A CAR. For comparisons sake, it takes less than 6-7 minutes to drive across the entire map of GTA IV. It is just mind-blowing. And as good as Deadly Premonition looks, you can bet it wasn't very scenic, either. It really just reminded me of those old driving school simulators at the DMV. Except when I turned the wheel on that fucker, I didn't do a 360 and fly off a mountain. Which I am very apt to do regularly any time I so much as look at a vehicle in Deadly Premonition.

Anyway, at some point during my cross country trip, I noticed I was running out of the afformentioned gas. So it was off to the map to try and find a gas station somewhere. Luckily, one was pretty close. After barrel-rolling my car across two lanes and clipping right through a gas pump, I was met with the super slutty gas station attendant. Remember when I mentioned that DP is not big on subtlety? The below pic should help you see what I mean.

Yeeeaaahhh...

So after a few minutes of her telling me how she likes to stick it in and pull it out, I was finally able to purchase some gas and get the fuck out of there before I contracted hepatitis C just from talking to her.

Five days later I arrived at the crime scene, where I was scolded by the Sheriff for taking so damn long to get there. After a quick "F U", it was time to do some clue hunting, which amounts to you looking for the big red glowy parts on the ground and pressing A to pick them up (Sometimes this involves shooting them out of trees with your gun. Seriously). This is also where profiling comes in, and I was finally able to make some sense of it. You have a base set of profiling pictures that flash by when you first go into an area. Collecting clues will then make those images clear the next time you profile. Collecting them all will complete the sequence, and then give you a picture of what happened when the crime occurred.

From what I was able to gather, some crazy guy in a hood killed the girl, strapped her to the tree, and then worshiped her like she was a god. There was also a second girl that seemed to be in on it, but ran away. This is also the most sense this game has made since I started playing, as we now have a real crime to solve, and people to find. First up, is the guy in the hood. A clue I found led the Sheriff to believe it came from the old abandoned lumber mill. Sounding ominous enough, I bet it would be the perfect place for the game to try it's hand again at terrible shooting and puzzles. I would not be dissapointed.

Okay, so at this point, this is where the game turned into a tedious mess. Remember the hospital and the woods before this? Those were very short, easy to get through set pieces. I was hoping this may be the norm, but upon arrival at the lumber mill, I was quickly introduced to just how bad the actual "other world" sections of the game can be. The lumber mill is a giant, labyrinthine mess that you get to stumble your way through. The puzzles are still generally super easy, but the act of getting the parts or keys you need becomes an exercise in tedium. Between the millions of ghost people that keep coming out of walls, and the non-stop super cheap placement of all of them, it makes getting anywhere a pain in the ass. The game loves, LOVES, placing the ghost people right behind blind corners, resulting in you getting hit in the face with a crowbar, taking a large chunk of health in the process. This results in you being super careful, making any sort of momentum or suspense non-existent. Not that agent York moves around these places with any momentum anyway. Even the simple act of stepping over an object involves being in the EXACT place the game will allow you to step up, press the A button to step up on it, then watch a slow animation of agent York doing so. It's enough to make you wish you had mono. It also doesn't help that there are maybe three textures total in the whole place, so every room and hallway looks the exact same. This makes you bring up the map every few seconds, thanks to there being no minimap whatsoever. Ugh. Think it's about time to put that overtime suit on.

After seemingly five hours of wandering through dark hallways, I found myself trapped in a room by the guy in the hood. This is also the same guy that ran me off the road in the beginning of the game, and his big ass axe didn't seem like it was fucking around. The game then suddenly informed me to hide somewhere in the room before the guy busted in. Once he did get in, the game decides to do a weird split screen view of the action. One screen is some random angle, while the other is his. This was a pretty neat idea when Siren on PS3 did the same exact thing, only it didn't cripple the framerate when it did so.

Yes, for a game that appears to have been made at the dawning of the crustacean period, the game somehow slows to less that ten frames per second when it splits into two screens. I have no god damn CLUE how that is possible. This game cannot be programmed this bad and it not be on purpose. (Also sorry for the shitty pic above, but I was literally shaking with anger at this point after I twice failed to press left trigger to hold my breath when he got too close.)

After our hooded guy leaves the room, I go back out where I came from, only to then be chased by that fucker back across the lumber mill (In the same split-screen view). Though it should be noted that I am not actually controlling my character this time, and am now at the mercy of terrible quick time events. I am not kidding at all when I say this part was so dumb and bad that I almost turned the game off. It was almost unplayable before with the framerate in split screen, but then you add in horrible quick time shit and it becomes a chore on unheard of levels. Also the point of quick time events is to make the player feel like they are doing things that is simply not possible with the regular game mechanics. Deadly Premonition is the exact opposite, and actually makes you wish you had direct control over your character, because you can plainly see you could do everything better yourself. For example, after running down various hallways away from the hooded guy, you come across a box in your path. The game then informs you to jam on the A button to push it so you can get around. Problem is, the box takes up less than half the hallway, and is maybe waist high. So the two most obvious actions of jumping over it or just maybe RUNNING AROUND IT is completely ignored. Instead you have to watch your character slooooowly push a box forward for no fucking reason. Then, after you push it forward enough, guess what your character does? He runs around it. This goddamn game is going to kill me.

After running forever from that fucker, we found ourselves face to face for a showdown. Only problem was that the game decided to make it another quick time event, complete with instant death if you miss one button. I should also mention that these QTEs, just like the car, uses every button on the controller. So you never fucking know where to hover your hand. At one point it called out for the fucking right bumper to be pressed. By the time I stopped having a stroke from the sheer shock that right bumper was being used in a QTE, I had missed my attempt and died. Thank God the game has the mercy to start you back right at the beginning of the fight, or you'd never be reading any more of these. It took me a few deaths, but I was finally able to escape the lumber mill with the clues I needed. Thank Christ.

So that's where I stopped. I couldn't handle much more after that. We'll see if the game can make up for that mess of shit, but if it pulls that again, I'm not sure I can handle playing through it. We'll see though.

Check back next week to see if I feel like punishing myself some more.

Deadly Premonition Playthrough Part 2: Oh, so this game is supposed to be scary

2010-03-25T17:47:00.000-07:00

Getting started right where we left off last time, I sat down and loaded up chapter one, only to be treated once again to the weird dream-sequence place that seems to be a recurring theme at the beginning of each chapter. For those of you that were having a little trouble picturing the insanity from last time, I've tried to take a few more shitty pictures to at least try and convey the shit I'm seeing to you. Anyway, here's the dream place:

Pretty awesome, right? Check out that sweet forest texture in all it's N64 quality back there. After a quick run down a path and a weird meeting with another creepy young kid, chapter one starts for realzies, and our guy, Agent York, wakes up in his hotel room. After waking up, I could walk around the room and mess with some of my personal belongings. The only thing worth mentioning was my suitcase, which allowed me to dress in three different suits. All of which had some sort of weird purpose. Like my "overtime suit" that was "Perfect for late nights at the office". I decided to go with my regular suit for now, but I may switch over to the overtime suit if this game starts feeling a little too much like work down the road.

At any rate, there's not too much to say about what I played, as not much happened. After a brief breakfast with the woman that owns the hotel, Agent York noticed the letters "F" and "K" in his coffee. I guess this is the way he does his weird premonitions. Yes, he has to look into a cup of coffee to see the future. Pure brilliance. After a quick talk to Zach (Who has to be some split personality or something), we're off to the police station to go over the basics with the Sheriff and the hot blond officer. But not before we get introduced to the worst driving controls ever.

To my horror, DP is a sort of open world game. The town you're in isn't very big, but you're able to go around and do shit at will. And to do this, you're gonna need to drive, since everything is spaced out pretty far away. You also need to use EVERY SINGLE BUTTON ON THE 360 PAD TO DO SO:

Look at that shit. You'd think this was a damn flight sim or some shit based on that. But no, this is just to drive your car around town. The car also controls like the tires are made of turds, and your character has no idea how to turn the steering wheel other than to quickly veer in every direction at the slightest touch. It's the touchiest driving controls I've ever had the pleasure of laughing at. I really hope there's not some sort of chase sequence at some point (I did notice checkered flags on the map, indicating there are actual races to do in this thing. God help me).

Once I finally made my way over to the police station, I had to do a brief quest that involved me searching for some keys. The dialogue and character you do this for is pretty indescribable. He runs like a Japanese school girl, and seems to be the wimpiest man on Earth. Agent York even comments on his girlish tendencies, and why he would ever be working for "The Monarch" (Agent York's Nickname for the over-bearing Sheriff. After I accomplished that and went through a quick meeting with the Sheriff, it was off to the Hospital to check out the autopsy reports. Well, it would be time for that if the Sheriff would stop telling me that this is HIS town and he don't need no fancy mans up in HIS town because in HIS town he is the King. HIS TOWN. This game uses subtlety with a precision I have never seen before.

After enduring the Sheriff, we all hop in the tardcar, and swerve our way down the road a LOOOOONG way to the hospital where we are met by (and I'm not kidding) a nurse named Freckley Fiona. She's as ugly as the name implies. She briefly tries to break the fourth wall by announcing she's reading a book about a small town torn apart by a horrible murder. No one really cares though, and we're off to find the good Doctor.

Barging in his office, the game presents you with a completely out of place puzzle to solve. It seems the Doc has left, but has gave you a total nonsense puzzle to try and locate him somewhere in the hospital. I quickly begin to relate to the Sheriff with his "What is THIS horse SHIT" lines about the puzzle and why it exists. Agent York is a little more apt to solve the puzzle, which has to do with Chess pieces. Great.

It's pretty simple to solve, even with my general retardation with Chess. Once that's solved, we see that the Doc is downstairs with the dead girl in the morgue. Shocking, I know. Once down there we get another long, drawn out scene where I listen to everyone talk in incredibly disjointed ways. It turns out that the girl was alive when she got sliced down the middle, and she also had her tongue bit off by whoever did the crime. Agent York then finds some weird seed in the victim's mouth, then proceeds to say that the case is now under offcial FBI investigation. The Sheriff is none too happy that HIS TOWN isn't his so much anymore, and asks why. Agent York pulls out several bags full of the seeds that have presumably been found all over the country at such crime scenes. The Sheriff sort of accepts this, and we leave the room to see that the game has decided to become Silent Hill. If Silent Hill was really, really lazy.

I'm guessing this is how the game will work: Long investigative scenes capped off with things going batty in a sort of parallel world that only Agent York is privy to. Everything turns sorta dark, with the walls covered in red Ivy. We also have the weird zombie people mentioned in the previous entry coming out of walls now. I needed to get back to the entrance of the Hospital, which wasn't too hard since all these "other world" areas so far have been really straight forward. Occasionally there are two doors you can go into, but one is almost certain to hold a key that you needed to unlock the other door. It's dead simple stuff. It's also supposed to be scary, but the game looks so primitive/cheap/bad that nothing comes off frightening in the least. The voices for the zombies are the best thing though, in a terrible horror movie sound effect kind of way. I fought through pretty quick, easily taking down the shotgun-wielding zombies at the entrance. I'm starting to think maybe I should have chose the hard difficulty at the start of the game for the extra achievement. Oh Well.

I decided to stop there. The chapter isn't over yet, and I'm now supposed to go to the scene of the crime with the Sheriff. I couldn't much handle him grunting and being shitty with me any more, so I figured this was a good place to stop.

I have also realized that I have now played this game longer than Mass Effect 2.

Even worse, I think I'm enjoying it more than Mass Effect 2.

TO BE CONTINUED

Deadly Premonition Diary: Prologue and Wow This Game Is Bad

2010-03-22T13:59:00.000-07:00

Let me start off by saying that Deadly Premonition is a really bad game.

Got that?

Okay. Now that you are aware of that extremely important point, let's get down to why I am about to spend a large amount of time with this game. In short, this is the best terrible game possibly ever made. It is one of those super rare games that crosses the line of being "too terrible to even play" to simply being "so terrible you HAVE to play it". In fact, I have decided that everyone who has any taste at all for all things bad should experience this game for themselves. And if you can't, well I'm gonna be right here detailing every single chapter as I go along. I may regret this sooner than later, but I'm going to give this my best College effort while I can. So with that, let's get on with The Prologue.

Deadly Premonition opens up with a brief opening cinematic to introduce you to just how terrible this game looks. And boy does it. DP (I'm going to have a really hard time not laughing at that abbreviation) is the worst looking game I have seen in a very long time. I'm not exaggerating at all when I say this game would barely pass for a first generation PS2 game. It looks THAT bad. The only thing that even remotely looks new is the incredibly bad normal maps put on some of the main characters. And even with the PS2 level graphics, it still looks to be running in sub-HD resolutions with no anti-aliasing. Thus providing jaggies as large as small mountains shimmering down every hard edge in the game, which basically means every edge in the game. It is so bad that I can't help but to hope that the people that made this wanted it to look this bad. Sadly I don't think that is the case. Anyway, let's get back to the game itself.

So in the opening, we have two creepy little kids running around a forest with their Grampa'. A few steps down the road they discover a woman has been strung up to a tree, with the majority of her pelvis ripped open. Or it could be she spilled Kool-Aid down her stomach thanks to a texture so low-res that it's honestly hard to tell. Gramps freaks out, police are called, kids still act creepy, etc. So now we are aware that shit is going down, so it's time to cue the ominous title card!

DEADLY PREMONITION

Once the game starts proper, I then quickly see that this is going to be the Japanese version of Twin Peaks thanks to the freaky dream sequence the game suddenly puts you in for no rhyme or reason. We have the two creepy boys sitting in a couple of chairs dressed in angel outfits, while a few other things sit around for you to look at. You can press the B button to observe some things, at which point you get a slooooooooow text crawl explaining what it is. Sometimes with pretty hilarious results (IE the picture at the top of this post). This little sequence is kind of a tutorial for how to move around, but let this be a sign of just how weird stuff is gonna get.

Once the game sees you have aimlessly ran into things enough, it ends the dream sequence and puts you into the game proper.This is where we get to meet the guy we get to play as. He's some FBI dude sent to profile strange cases across the country, and is currently driving out to some mountain town called Greenvale. It's also at night and raining. Nothing good can come from that. In the meantime we are treated to the best opening dialogue ever in a game, where we have our guy talking to some guy in an earpiece about how Tom and Jerry are completely insane and have deep psychological problems. It is pure genius and I am not even kidding. The guy he's talking to is called Zach, though you get the impression that Zach isn't real, or maybe just some other personality of the main character. Or maybe the developers could have simply not drawn any sort of earpiece on our guy's head. Sadly I can't rule out the latter. I'm hoping this gets cleared up soon because it's really bugging me.

SUDDENLY YOU ARE RUN OFF THE ROAD BY SOME GUY IN A TRENCHCOAT FOR SOME REASON

To his credit, our guy stays totally cool as he careens down a dark forest mountain. At one point he almost hits a couple of squirrels (that make a screaming monkey sound effect no less) but he deftly avoids them only to flip his car over and catch on fire. At least he didn't kill the wildlife I guess.

Okay so NOW the game starts. And really there's not too much to say when you are actually playing the game. Your character's control is functional at best. Using some semblance of the RE4 control scheme, but then making it really bad in the process. You use the dpad to select weapons, then press R2 to equip, then press R2 AGAIN to aim, then press L2 to do a sort of lock-on to the closest enemy. You also find yourself stuck in place when you slowly reload. It's bad, but thank God the crazy Joker-looking ghost things trying to kill you aren't so fast. I'd tell you what they are, but the game has given no clue whatsoever to what is happening at all. After you crash you're just running down a forest path trying to get out, while solving very basic RE style puzzles to turn generators on. Occasionally the ghost people show up and you have to kill them. That's about it.

There are some really inexplicable collectible things just lying around, though. There are baseball cards featuring the game's characters that you collect. This would be fine, but your character ACKNOWLEDGES these cards by saying "I guess I shouldn't leave this here". What did he do? Make pre-made baseball cards of everyone in the town before he came, including himself? I sort of really hope so at this point. There are also medals that give you agent points or something. I'm not too sure what those points do yet, but it is extremely odd just seeing this stuff floating around the environment. Though I guess this perfectly sets the tone with just how weird this whole game is.

One thing I did notice was happening during the prologue was, at certain points, you'll notice something of importance. Suddenly the game goes to this separate screen that says PROFILING while flashing a lot of random pictures really fast at you. I have no clue what or why it does this. Even when I collected all three of the profile objectives, nothing was solved or shown. Just a longer slide-show of super fast pictures. I imagine this will be important later, but like the rest of this game as of this point, it makes no damn sense whatsoever. I'm not even going to mention the insanity that is your menu screen when you press the start button. It's just...wow.

So after a while of running down a forest path, I ended up meeting the person that ran my car off the road. This was the only part where I died, since I didn't notice the game had suddenly decided it wanted to do a quick time event. I missed my button press, thinking I was dead, only to miss a second quick time event that I guess would have saved me. Anyway, I died. This was confirmed by a lone dialogue box that simply said "Died". I loaded back up, and this time managed to hit the right button, which made our trenchcoated friend run off. I ended up on an actual road that then made me run a LOOOOOONG way before I met the cops of Greenvale. One being an attractive blond girl, and the other being a big ol' mean sheriff guy telling me that "This is MY town" and that he "Don't need know fancy FBI guys nosin' around in MY town". I'm guessing that guy is gonna be a tough one to tango with down the road. I hope I find his baseball card I made of him soon.

And with that, the prologue was over. I decided to stop there, as I don't think I could handle any further weirdness. I'll probably pick up with chapter 1 soon enough, so check back. We'll have more DP (HA!) soon enough!

God of Whoa

2010-03-20T16:45:00.000-07:00

For all the PS3 fanboys that would scream until their throats wilted away about how the PS3 had far superior graphics capabilities, there seemed to be far more sane people that would scoff at those claims based on current games. I have been of the latter camp for a very long time, as I have never once seen anything on a PS3 that would make me say "This is something only the PS3 could pull off". Lately though, I've began to wonder if time is finally giving way to just how powerful the PS3 is, and some credibility to those claims of superior graphics. Playing Uncharted 2 was the first time in a long time where I was stunned by just how good a game could look. It was the first time I ever started to think that maybe this console had some muscle that other consoles couldn't come close to (Save for a powerful PC). The tipping point though, came last night when I sat down to God of War III. Holy Shit.

God of War III is absolutely stunning. It looks so good that the first stage of the game had me slack-jawed a majority of the time. The models, the environments, the camerawork...it's a thing of beauty. This game is pushing a meaty chunk of polygons, throwing around shaders like child's play, and still maintaining a framerate that stays upwards of 60 fps. For the graphics geek in me, GOWIII is a stunning technical achievement. If you want to show your PS3 off to people, this is the new game you throw in. It is absolutely ridiculous.

So do all those graphics make the game any better? Not really. It's God of War. It's a pretty good game regardless what you think of the graphics. So far I've noticed that some of the camera angles tend to confuse me, but overall I'm enjoying it a lot. It seems slightly easier to pull off Kratos' crazy moves, but that just may be me giving it a bit more time to grow on me than I did previous GOW games, where I mostly just pressed the square button until the credits rolled.

I'm also being dragged along to play Final Fantasy XIII, which I'm really interested to see just how good it is. Right now the gaming press seems to be forming a backlash to the initial backlash, which was created by their own damn reviews. One day someone hates it, then the next loves it. I'm interested to see just what the fuck this game is, honestly. Though I highly doubt it will allow me to use the R3 and L3 buttons to gouge some guy's eyes out of his head.

God of War III is already clearly in the lead.

Three Months Worth Of Dragon Age Thoughts In a Pretty Short Post

2010-03-16T17:32:00.000-07:00

Man if Dragon Age could have been much better, I'm not sure I'd have been able to finish it. I just didn't want to. I had so much fun going around with the characters and parties I had made that it was really hard for me to say "Okay, it's time to end this". I finally did yesterday, and after three months of playing, nearly 100+ hours of playing, and the successful porking of Morrigan, here are my thoughts:

-Every decision I made played out in a way that didn't feel cheap. There are so many ways that game can play out that it just boggles my mind. You can completely change an entire character's attitude to a huge plot point simply by selecting a throw-away chat option. It's just crazy. By the time I had finished, I felt like I had made the story I wanted to make, and not what the game pushed me to.

-Morrigan is white hot fire. Even better since I discovered Claudia Black does her voice.

-I don't think a few of the characters are as interesting as they could be. Some things with them also seem completely out of nowhere and really break the illusion sometimes. It's something you notice more and more. I guess the price for open-ended story is paid with random character jank. Unfortunate.We'll see if this can ever be fully dealt with.

-The mage's tower is the worst thing in the game.

-I really enjoyed the entire story of the game. Never once was it bogged down by the fact that you are fighting to save an entire land from destruction like so many heavy-handed JRPGs do. In fact, the majority of the game doesn't even deal with the real threat, and instead focuses on betrayal and revenge on a much smaller political scale. It was totally refreshing, and by the end I completely cared for every single thing that happened. It also helped that everything happening was set in motion by decisions I made.

-Crafting and such things seem almost throwaway. There's really nothing to it, and it kind of sucks that it couldn't be more interactive or interesting.

-There is not enough unique armor and treasure in the game. There are a total of two base sets of armor for rogues, and maybe three for heavier armor. Only swapping colors to differentiate. It kind of sucked seeing the same model for a new weapon I got that I had been staring at for the previous three weapons.

-The three DLC packs for the main game were okay. Nothing too great, but each had some nice stuff. The best was probably the Warden's Tower. It not only gave you a base of operation after you beat it, but also a much needed bank to store rare stuff in.

I'm sure there's a ton more, but at the moment I'm just excited enough to have finally beaten it. It's probably my favorite RPG of all time, and I'm looking forward to sitting down with Awakening soon. I think I'm gonna take a break from Dragon Age for a bit though, and finally put all my focus on Mass Effect 2 finally. I hear it's a pretty good game.

Even if it doesn't have Morrigan in it.

Glyde is pretty okay

2010-03-11T13:06:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago I saw a story on Kotaku gushing about Glyde; a fairly new website dedicated to buying and selling used games/DVDs/CDs. The main draw being that it's incredibly streamlined compared to Ebay, and far easier to get a lot more money out of your used games than what Gamestop may give you for them. In an ideal situation, this is how Glyde should work:

You post your game on Glyde's website, set your price and the condition of the game, then wait for someone to decide they want Ass Blaster IV for a cool price of thirty bones. Nearly half off the new retail price!
You then receive word that they have bought your stuff. Glyde then sends out custom pre-made packaging with the buyer's address and info already on it. Once you receive it, you jam your stuff into the envelope, walk to any standard mailbox, and dump it in.
You can then track your package, and when the buyer happily receives his game and makes sure it doesn't look like it's been regurgitated by your dog, he will give the thumbs up on Glyde's site. Once he does this, your money is then released to you to use either as Glyde currency, or withdrawing it to your bank account. Suddenly the buyer is blasting asses, and you are thirty bucks richer. Thus the circle of life continues.

Okay, sounds great. If almost a little too good to be true. I decided to give it a try with a couple of fairly new games that are still listed as being bought for around 30 bucks. True to it's word, Glyde is dead simple to use. I chose what game I wanted to sell, set my price, and before I got to work a few hours later I had recieved emails for both games saying they had sold. So far, I'm pretty damn impressed. The problem came when I was informed to look for my envelopes sent by Glyde to arrive later next week. I sold the games on a Wednesday, and it was gonna take a week and a half to mail me two standard envelopes? Christ. They actually arrived the next Tuesday, but that's still a sizeable chunk of time for two standard packing envelopes to get there. Oh well. The first step was done.

Glyde suggests you mail your games within 24 hours of recieving your envelopes, so the next morning I dropped them off at the local rusty mailbox. I was kind of worried to see that Glyde had also decided to print out the names of the games in bold red print on the front of the envelopes. Making it an easy target for any evil mail person looking to theft some games. Glyde does supply a tracking number on all packages though, so I could at least watch where my package was going, and if it made it there. So watch I did. No evil mail carrier was going to be taking MY games. No sir.

Three days later my package finally arrived. Now it was only a matter of time until I got my money, as the buyer is informed by Glyde to immediately give a thumbs up to the transaction if they find that I did not mail them animal parts instead of a game. Glyde apparently expects far too much of gamers, since it took the first buyer one full day to okay it. While the other guy never decided to at all. Glyde will automatically release your money after a set amount of time, so I had to wait another two and a half days before I had all the money I had coming to me available in my account. If you were keeping track, the entire process took about two weeks from start to finish. Not counting the two extra days it takes to have the funds delivered to your bank account. Not exactly what I'd call instant gratification.Or even the 7 days that Glyde's site suggests each transaction will take.

So do I recommend Glyde? It depends. You definitely get a ton more cash for your games, but it comes at the expense of waiting to get it. Glyde says it will be opening more distribution centers for faster envelope mailing (currently the worst time offender), and that would send the service to a solid thumbs up. Also apparently things move much faster if you're on the west coast. As of now, I suggest you give it a try. It's a great place to find some pretty rare games, and a great place to sell a lot of your old back catologue games that Gamestop won't take anymore.

Just remember that, as of now, patience is a virtue with anything you do on Glyde.

Bioshock 2 is a pretty good electronic video game

2010-03-01T17:22:00.000-08:00

Finally took down Bioshock 2 yesterday. Dare I say I liked it better than the first? After a pretty boring first half, the second half of BS2 is absolutely relentless in it's insanity and WTF IS HAPPENING moments. I loved it. It took all the right turns that story should have, and the ending I got was suitably grim. Though it seemed that ending is where the game kind of pushes you. It's not good or bad. It's just right. I'm not sure I could see that game ending another way, but I may try with a second play through.

One thing that did endlessly get on my nerves was Sofia Lamb's ENDLESS over-the-speaker diatribes on religion and psychology. Now don't get me wrong, I love me some diatribes on psychology and how one's ego can get in the way of the greater good. It's all fascinating. But good fuck is she so completely boring to listen to. There is no passion in this woman's voice. It honestly sounds like an old psychology teacher endlessly rambling on through a tape recorder. I realize this may be how the character was designed, but Jesus could she just emote a little more? Maybe? The worst of it comes in the final stage where it seems it just goes on forever. One after another. By that point I could have cared less about her crazy assed utopian/religous experiment gone wrong. ugh.

Anyway, beyond that complaint, I loved the game. I've been playing a little of the multiplayer, but not in solid chunks of time. It seems fine. Billy decided to marathon through that bitch to level 40 though. Last I heard, he was a completely broken man. You can read all about that on OMGJ when it's posted later this week.

Now I guess it's on to Mass Effect 2 finally.

When Fan Service Becomes Parody

2010-02-21T13:29:00.000-08:00

So I downloaded the Resident Evil 5 dlc Lost In Nightmares last week and played through it. I ended up enjoying it a lot. For five bucks you get about a two hour long stage that is well made and fun to play. I don't think you could ask much more from dlc, really. The thing that makes it even better though, is that the first part of the dlc is literally nothing but fan service. It takes place in an all too familiar mansion, involves Jill picking locks, playing a piano to open a secret wall, and saving your partner from a ceiling of spikes coming down on them. At one point you even discover a crank, and Chris responds with "Man, what's up with this guy and cranks?". It is ridiculous, but it's done pretty well, and It never comes off as goofy.

I did have one thing that nagged me after I finished it though. I kept asking myself at what point does fan service become parody? If you take a step back and look at it, the first part of that dlc is nothing but an excellent parody of the original Resident Evil. It really doesn't come off as parody, since as a fan of the original RE, I was too busy being entertained by it's modern revisiting. But this isn't a remake or a re-imagining. It literally ties into the story of RE5, and makes no bones about that first part being nothing but a big joke. It's just a well hidden joke behind a wall of nostalgia. It's a great trick, I'll admit. And it makes me wonder if we're all missing the intended message behind it, and maybe why we shouldn't be so happy about it. At least I'm not.

Metal Gear Solid 4 is the only other game that I could think of that has done it so blatantly. Their mid-game escape into the original MGS was so unexpected and awesome that it's original message of you can never go back was almost entirely missed. Everyone was too busy saying what an amazing homage it was to the original game, when it was meant as nothing of the sort. I halfway wonder if this RE5 dlc is a similar message to the people who begged for this kind of game. A way to show them that Capcom doesn't want to make this kind of game anymore, and here's endless hallways and locked rooms filled with passwords and emblems to show you why. The only problem being that, unlike that MGS throwback, playing this feels totally new and fresh. It's actually pretty fucking awesome how well that old style of play feels when coupled with this newer RE5 engine. So basically, Capcom is only showing players what they could have done if they had taken the time to really modernize the more classic aspects of Resident Evil instead of turning it into the shooter it is now that no one really wanted in the first place. Perfect.

Capcom has no one to blame but themselves for that, though. Especially after Street Fighter 4 was released. Equal parts fan service and parody, Street Fighter 4 knows it's place in the past. It's also taken that past and pushed it into the present with amazing gameplay that all but revitalized fighting games. I kind of wish Capcom had done the same with RE5, instead of thinking that the way RE was can never work in present day. Street Fighter and MGS4 clearly showed how it evolved the game over the years so that when play them, you still know you're playing these games as they used to be, just in a more modern form. When you play that MGS section, you think to yourself "Man, how the fuck did I ever play this?". In RE5 though, when I was running through the mansion, all I was thinking "Holy shit THIS is the RE5 I wanted". Probably not the desired effect Capcom was wanting to throw out there, which was probably "lol cranks are stoopid".

I may be wrong. Maybe people really do like the way Capcom has changed the series. Resident Evil 4 was a great way of evolving itself from earlier titles to make that formula work now. RE had stagnated forever gameplay-wise, and when RE4 came out it completely changed everything. I think the hopes were that Capcom would continue to improve on those changes with RE5. Instead, RE5 seemed to be created from a mishmash of western gaming trending words like co-op play and third person cover-based shooter. What we ended up with was RE4 put into a co-op shooter with better graphics with no time spent making the now stagnant-feeling mechanics of RE4 work in that kind of game. Personally I like the game a lot, but I'll readily admit it's not because I like it as a Resident Evil Game. It's because I like it as a co-op shooter. The dlc only makes that harder to deal with, as it gives me a game that I genuinely like as a Resident Evil experience...just in the form as a sort of joke. That kind of sucks.

Oh well. I guess I'll have to live with a clever parody instead. That's worth five bucks and ten years of waiting, right?

I Cannot Play The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom

2010-02-17T15:42:00.000-08:00

I'm sorry. I just cannot play this game. Why? I dunno if you ever played Braid, but one of the worlds focused on a mechanic where you had to rewind time, and use your rewound self (while it still occupies the same space as your non-rewound self) to solve puzzles.

I cannot do this.

My brain, for whatever reason refuses to work in a way that can understand this mechanic. To me, it's like staring at a piece of paper full of algebra. It is actually kind of amazing to me because this is the ONLY THING in the history of gaming I have found that I am simply incapable of doing because my brain is hard-wired to not be able to comprehend it. I forced myself through that world in Braid with the aid of Youtube videos because I knew it was one single world, and the rest of the worlds I had no trouble with. P.B. Winterbottom is an entire GAME of it. It's like a game being released and it forcefully tells you that you are too retarded to play it. So fuck you, kid.

No thanks. My confidence can only take so many punches to the stomach.

Back Into The PC Wasteland

2010-02-14T13:23:00.000-08:00

Last week I lost control of my mind and decided to buy a big honking gaming pc. I haven't had a desktop in almost 3 years, or even the desire to own one. So why the sudden change of mind? I'm going to blame alcohol, since I was drinking copious amounts of it when I bought like half the shit that was on sale during Steam's Christmas sale. Picking up a mouse and keyboard to play a FPS was like getting back on a bike. Except unlike the bike, I didn't blow my kneecap off my leg when I got down to business with Borderlands. In fact, I enjoyed it all so much that I finally broke down and decided to get a proper desktop.

I realize pc gaming isn't exactly gaming nirvana lately but it comes down to a few key things that led to me losing a considerable amount of money:

(I know all the pc kids have been aware of all of this for quite some time, but I have essentially just took the time to figure all this out over the course of a month. Also I haven't played a pc game since Battlefield 2 came out. So indulge me, please)

Steam - Steam is quite simply the best fucking thing to ever happen to pc gaming. Back in the day, the act of installing, playing, and updating a PC game was about on par with sitting down to a desk of paperwork o fill out in terms of fun. Steam streamlines everything, adds integrated friends lists and voice chat, and - best of all - automatic game updates. No more going to Fileplanet and downloading a 3 gig patch at the blazing speed of 20 kbps over the course of five days only to have it crash and force you to dl the entire thing again. Fuck that shit.

I Am Lazy - The idea of the digital future can't come fast enough for me, and Steam is doing a better job than anyone right now with it. I can (usually) have my game bought and downloaded before it comes out. Then on the day of it's release, it unlocks, and bam, ready to go. I also never have to search for discs or activation codes. Steam keeps them all right there, no matter what computer I sign in on. Steam is basically rewarding me for not wanting to get up and change the disc in the disc tray. Thanks, Steam!

It Can Be Ridiculously Cheap - Not even mentioning that most games on Steam are 10-15 bucks cheaper than their console prices, you also get some crazy freebies. I got the original Bioshock for free when I preordered Bioshock 2. As I'm typing this, THQ's entire library of games on Steam is a staggering 50 dollars. 50 DOLLARS! This combined with regular weekend and mid-week deals is enough to break a man's wallet in half without destroying it. I probably bought 20-plus games over Christmas on Steam and spent just under 200 bucks. I added up what was available on the console and it came up well over 400. I'm pretty bad with money, but even I can't sit back and deny that kind of price chasm.

So that's all I got to justify myself. I fully expect PC gaming to die completely as soon as this comp is delivered. But hey, I can at least play Dragon Age at ridiculous resolutions while wondering just how much I can overclock the processor if I throw in another fan. Man, it's been way too long. I can't wait.

Witty Title For Me Playing Bioshock 2 In Progress

2010-02-12T10:38:00.000-08:00

So yesterday I got to spend a little time playing both singleplayer and multiplayer in Bioshock 2. Both seem far better than I expected. Though I guess I wasn't coming into either with very much excitement. I have no clue why, since I fucking loved Bioshock. A few minutes into playing the singleplayer cemented just why I loved it so much. Rapture was, and still is, an amazing setting. The story is a pretty big non-event for me in both games. The setting is what draws me in and makes me want to keep going. I love it.

Multiplayer, well, hey it seems okay, I guess? I dunno. It seems polished and fun enough. I just wasn't able to do too much. In the 3 matches I played it seemed like I was running around looking for other people way too much. I was having flashbacks to playing 1 vs 1 Quake matches. When I did find someone to shoot at, I either died before I shot my gun, or died right after I shot my gun. Ronnie and Billy swear by it though, so maybe I'll grind a few levels and see if things improve. At any rate, playing mp just made me wish I was playing sp.

Hey I think I'll do that right now actually.