Nukesniper's Newest Targets

Phantasy Star Universe review

2009-03-23T13:36:00.003-05:00

Phantasy Star Universe was a game that I was originally excited for on the 360, but once I played it for a little while I realized that the charm and the addictive properties of PSO were dead and gone.

I tried playing PSU online, but without set classes that actually worked, I gave up on that quest very, very quickly. Therefore, basically all you get is a review of single player's story mode.

The story in PSU is pretty pathetic, all things considered. The SEED are evil aliens or something and they need to die and stuff. Yeah, that is about it. The computer controlled allies of yours barely actually fight too. So if you want to do anything other than get in there with a sword, tough luck. If you keep your distance from the enemies and shoot at them, your team will just stand next to you and pick their noses. This stupid AI means you cannot play as a Ranger or a Force class character through story mode.

The game is moderately long, but I think its main setback is that they really thought you wanted to play it longer. Throughout the game you collect materials to craft items with. I never got enough mats to make anything that was nearly better than what I had or what I could buy in the store. I hated collecting tons of stuff I was not going to use.

Aside from the fact that the loot was pointless, the levels were also pretty pointless as well. Every single chapter or stage is exactly the same. You walk into some room, kill a bunch of enemies, look for a key, loot some boxes, and then progress to the next room and do it again. It gets very boring very quickly and I just had to walk away from the game at some points due to the extreme monotony of it all. The combat in the game is not intuitive enough to make me enjoy doing that the whole time. It is like Dynasty Warriors, except it is slightly more boring and there isn't that excitement of knowing you killed 497 guys in that battle.

Basically, yes, Phantasy Star is a game. It has no ridiculous flaws to it, but it is extremely frustrating. It is barely in my power not to knock it down to 1 star, but I think that the nostalgia of what PSO was is keeping it at 2 stars.

Maybe if PSU had a four player split screen, then I could give it 3 or so stars. Alas, that is not the case.

Castle Crashers Review

2009-03-23T13:17:00.001-05:00

The Beat 'Em Up genre faded away near the end of the SNES and Genesis era of video games, now simply walking down the street doesn't hold the attention of gamers long enough. However, as I found out quickly, if you add a sweet arsenal of weapons, little pets that help out, experience and levels, and some quality humor, you can get an addictive and fun game that is nothing shy of awesome.

Castle Crashers is a Beat 'Em Up at its core, but it is covered with all the above versions of delicious frosting that I cannot seem to stop playing it. At 1200 microsoft points ($15USD) , Castle Crashers is one XBLA game that deserves the higher price that some other games ask for but should not.

I keep looking for games like this nowadays. I used to be a big fan of Gauntlet and Phantasy Star Online (the split screen stuff on GameCube) because I could sit down with three friends and play one game all night and make some progress somewhere. A couple nights ago me and some friends started new guys in Castle Crashers and played it all the way through to the end.

There is enough content in Castle Crashers to give you good reason to play through it multiple times. Heck, the game has at least 10 different playable characters, each will have his own character data so you can have one for every occasion.

Castle Crashers had some problems when it had just came out, but now it is working pretty well. I had one little bug happen to me where we just had to replay that level, which didn't take much time at all.

Castle Crashers is a quality game that is well worth the $15 if you have people willing to play it with you. You could always go online and hop in another game. Check out the demo on the Xbox Marketplace and see for yourself all the good times you can have in Castle Crashers.

Braid Review

2009-03-23T13:15:00.001-05:00

When the Giant Bomb crew was discussing Braid for possible game of the year, I thought they must be crazy. An arcade download? Game of the Year? They talked about it enough to get me to download the demo and by the end of my demo run I couldn't wait to buy the rest of the game.

Braid starts off slow and is a basic platformer at first. But within a little while of playing around with it, you will find yourself staring at some puzzle piece that you just cannot get to. Some of Braid's puzzles will have you thinking outside of the box, while you never really leave it. They present you with a simple solution, but that simple solution will have a complex problem in the way. It can get frustrating. I will not lie, but once you solve that problem you will feel like the smartest person in the world.

I have never had a game make me so frustrated and confused as Braid. At least not one that was working like it was supposed to (Broken games are the peak of frustration) . Braid has a few missions that made me think the game was broken. I was sure it was doing the wrong thing. Then I calmed down and took another look and saw that the game was doing everything exactly how it was supposed to. Then my problem really showed its ugly face.

On sections that seemed impossible, yet I still got around them, I wanted to run out of my house screaming "I'M A $%@#ING GENIUS!!!" Braid is the only game that has every gotten me so excited about solving problems like that.

If you like puzzle solving in any way, I recommend you try out the demo of Braid. My problem with the demo is that it only gives you a brief taste of the craziness that is to come. The best stuff in the demo is at the very end of World 2, then those little snippets they give you from World 3 and 4.

Braid is one of two arcade games that I have felt worthy of the 1200 point price. However I have not tried the Penny Arcade games yet, those might make my list hit four 1200 point games that I can stand paying those extra points on.

Braid is a brilliant game. I'm just going to leave it at that.

Project Gotham Racing 4 Review

2009-03-07T16:45:00.002-06:00

You can also find my reviews linked to games on www.giantbomb.com. This one is also posted there.

The Project Gotham Series has entertained me since I picked up PGR2 way back on the original XBOX. PGR2 was one of the first few games to utilize online play through Xbox Live, and it did it fantastically well. When I got PGR3 at the Xbox 360 release I was pumped for more fun like that online. The game stayed awesome for single play throughout the arcade mode, but the online championships killed the casual fun that PGR2 had going for it online.

PGR4 has a high quality single player mode. In fact, it has two different modes for single player fun. Arcade Mode is the standard race after race with five different difficulty levels. Steel, the easiest difficulty, is pretty simple and easy to pass even if you crash constantly. Bronze steps it up a bit, but it still is easy. PGR4's achievement list obviously credits Silver as the standard difficulty to beat. The highest gamerscore is given for clearing arcade on Silver. Gold and platinum clears give what I am going to start calling "Holy Crap" achievement points. They each give only 10GS where Silver gives 40GS. If you see someone with Platinum Gotham Arcader, just know they are crazy good at PGR. Silver is a moderate challenge, but if you are looking for more there is always Gold (achievable but tough) and Platinum (Yeah, I barely can do one or two races with this medal).

Career Mode is a new feature for the PGR series. Basically you start out as a new racer in the PGR circuit and you have to play championships for points to get to Numero Uno. This is spiced up by Invitationals and Majors along the way. Invitationals are fun challenges that unlock cars for your garage, while Majors are extra-hard tournaments that get you some nice bonus points for your ranking. Career also has three difficulties, none of which affect your achievement earning abilities, which means you can switch it to easy and get it all done. I liked normal difficulty however, I generally won but had to work for it most of the time. I never tried it out on Hard. I was losing more than I like on Normal as it was.

The online in PGR4 is not as deliberate as it was in PGR3. Where PGR3 had a set of championships online that was too intense for people like me, the casual PGR player. People on PGR3 were running me off the road to guarentee their victory and their points. In PGR4, the online is much more casual, but yet they have running championships that you can join if you are looking for more serious fun. Ranked races are set up by your Trueskill rank, and I can imagine they get more serious as you rise up in rank.

PGR4 brings back the main draw of the PGR series with Kudos being awarded for various things while driving. Drifts, nice corners, overtakes, drafting, and other things all earn you points while you race. These points are tallied into your championship scores (for Career or online championships) and you total Kudos that you can spend to buy car, track, and cheat packs. Kudos have always been a fun aspect of PGR. The addition of Motorcycles to PGR4 expands on Kudos even more. Wheelies and Endos (Stoppies) give some nice points and you can also simply hold B during them to perform a sweet stunt, look awesome, and earn some nice Kudos.

PGR is a fun racing game, and I thoroughly enjoy it obviously. It has its own little niche in my mind, where my other racing games hang out. If I want a serious and realistic racer, I'm playing Forza 2. Want a crazy, crash filled party? Burnout Paradise. When you want a game full of licensed cars that drive in a nice, almost arcadey style. Definitely pull out PGR4.

PGR4 gets Four out of Five stars for being totally awesome, but it doesn't stand out as classic or perfect.

Oh yeah. You get Geometry Wars: Waves in your garage in the game. It is a pretty fantastic game. If you like Geometry Wars, PGR2 is where it all started.
PGR2 has Geometry Wars (Retro)
PGR3 has Geometry Wars Evolved
PGR4 has Geometry Wars Waves
Geometry Wars 2 is in XBLA.
PGR4 is the only way to get your hands on Waves is my point. It is pretty cool, and obviously a bridge between Evolved and GW2.

Maybe Geometry Wars puts it up to the 4.5 out of 5 area, but I'm sticking to whole numbers.

Catch me if you can. I might be online.

Brothers In Arms: Hells Highway Review (XBOX360)

2009-02-07T14:01:00.002-06:00

I am almost back to posting on here. Two weeks from now I'll be back to updating this the best I can. Have a quick review.

Brothers in Arms: HH is not necessarily a bad game, however I find myself reluctant to play it any more than is necessary. I recently beat it over the last week and I am glad to be rid of it.

I don't know how long the game takes to beat, because I beat it over a week on a military training schedule which forces me to move my xbox each time i want to play a game. All I know is that the game too much longer than the content contained therein lended itself.

The main catch for BiA is the tactical attacks you have to make. It works pretty well, but it gets dry pretty fast. The game tries to spice it up a bit by letting you drive tanks and do some solo missions, but in general the cover mechanics and overall FPS of it all aren't compelling enough to keep me entertained.

The worst part of the game is the lack of checkpoints in it. When you die you could be set back a few seconds of time, or possibly 20-30 minutes of time. Some situations are so tense that you will be very careful and slow about getting through it. I would do this and then get complacent at the end of a market or pavillion. Then I would get jumped by one or two guys and die, sending me back what felt like twenty minutes.

One other minor thing is the lack of close combat weapons. No knifing or melee in this game, so when you get surprised by an enemy in a hallway, don't be surprised to spray every round out of all three weapons you are carrying.

I'm giving BiA:HH a 3 out of 5 because it is not a bad game, and I had some good times in it. However, it was not for me and I suffered through the last few levels to get that 150GS for the last mission.

That said, I really like how the story is played out for the audience. At times I think it could be a full on movie because they do a pretty good job with how things are told.

Sorry this is horrible quality. I am pressed for time. February 21st or so I should be back in the saddle again.

Toodles?

Updates for the last few months. >.<

2008-09-27T22:47:00.002-05:00

Well, I never posted what I was doing here, but I left for a while obviously. I was away at boot camp. I am now a Private in the United States Marine Corps. Crazy stuff if you ask me, but you didn't so I will talk about games again.

I've been gone for over three months, so I have a lot of catching up to do. I also cannot finish a full game and review it (I could, but I chose not to) over these short ten days I have off. I could have beaten one of these games, but I preferred the idea of playing multiple games while on leave. Therefore, here are the games I have been playing on my 10 days of leave so far.

God of War: Chains of Olympus
Great game so far. I would guess I am barely over half way through it. The graphics and framerate are what really surprised me. It looks and moves as though it was on the PS2, but it definitely is not. It doesn't stray far from what the other two games have done, but I will say that it is the best of the three for a couple little reasons.
1. There (so far) is not an annoying environmental obstacle course in the game like God of War 1 had in Hades.
2. All of the quicktime event kills are unique and new to the series. God of War 2 didn't change a couple of them and that bothered me back then. Note: He still rips the gorgon's heads off, but this time he does some very nice skull bashing first. =)
3. The controls in the PSP version seem to make dodging a bit more easy. This mobility makes the game a bit less clunky.

5/5 stars right now. I will finish that review in the months or weeks ahead though. I am bringing portable games with me to training.
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Ninja Gaiden 2:
Once again, this is a great game so far. The graphics are fantastic and the game moves fluidly and violently. My only criticism is that it hasn't hardly changed since NG1. Most of the combos are identical (save all the new weapons) and the Hayabusa village is back, which obviously doesn't help my mind get out of that rut.

On the other hand, the new weapon sets are fun to use and the game does a great job of spicing up the ninja in me and giving me more bloody action to enjoy. After how great Ninja Gaiden 1 was, I am glad that NG2 is doing the same stuff.

4/5 stars right now. This one I may not write a full review on until January... yeah...
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Rock Band 2:
This game is awesome. I can't stop playing it for one thing, and they did a lot of simple exciting things to keep me engrossed in this game. The tracklist is awesome, it supports all the songs from Rock Band 1, and it plays all your downloaded tracks as well. They added clothes to the store, and online tours and challenges so you can play with your distant friends and still earn cash. There are some other extras like No-Fail mode and the drum beat/fill trainers that will help many people enjoy the game more than they already have.
My only possible criticism here is that it looks very much like Rock Band 1. So much so that you might not even know it isn't RB1 if you don't know the differences. However, when Harmonix made Rock Band 1 they stumbled on a great, near-perfect product. I am glad they didn't mess with it too much.

5/5 stars. I didn't beat tour mode, but I have played most of the songs. Grade A stuff.
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Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core:
I was pleasantly surprised by this game. I knew it was going to be good, but the story picks up rather quickly and I am already hooked on it early on. Sure, that might be helped out a bunch because FFVII gives this game a future story to build to, but at the same time I really like how everything works in Crisis Core. The cinematics are breathtakingly well done. Advent Children is almost being shown up by the videos in FFVII:CC. The characters are coming alive already, and the little jokes and pieces of humor in the story bits keep me smiling as I play.

The combat system is a bit crazy and new at first, but I am pretty sure I understand it fully now. I don't really like the slot machine mechanic, but once I started figuring that it is a rigged machine (in your favor when you have earned it) I liked it more. Basically it eliminates an experience bar or anything like that. However, if you kill a bunch of enemies, you will get to that "I should level up soon" feeling. I find that it isn't much longer down the road that I am gaining a level because 777 came up on slots.

5/5 so far. I'll finish reviewing this one soon as well.

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I leave again on Monday for combat training. I may or may not be reviewing any products while that goes on. I know I will have internet access, but I don't know that I'll have time to play and write about these games. If I don't write again for another month or so, then I was busy and I'll catch up during my job schooling.

Until then, play some good games for me.

Mario Kart GP! (Arcade)

2008-05-26T00:15:00.003-05:00

While at the nearby amusement park recently, I stopped in the arcade to see what was up. Arcades are long dead in normal places now, but in amusement parks like Valleyfair and Camp Snoopy you can still find some pretty sweet arcades.

Yes, I know that the amusement park in the Mall of America is no longer Camp Snoopy, but it will always be Camp Snoopy to me. Sorry, Nickelodeon, but that is just how it is.

Time Crisis, House of the Dead, and DDR games are still in full swing in most arcades, and this was the case at both of these arcades. However, Mario Kart is now totally an arcade game.

Mario Kart GP is basically a Mario Kart port, but it has unique tracks, some unique items, and a few unique characters. The gameplay is still very much like Mario Kart, however you only have two pedals (gas and brake) and an item button that is in the center of your steering wheel. This is an issue for fans of Mario Kart, as you have to learn how to drift turn by reading the stickers by the screen.

The tracks are much like other tracks in the game series, however the couple I actually played or saw played lacked anything really creative like the games have been doing on consoles now. Rainbow Road is the last circuit though, and that is always a good sign.

The items are a problem for this game. While they introduce a few new items, they almost all do the exact same thing. I tended to pick up an item and just assume that I could use it like a red turtle shell, which was the case. The only item that did not lock on was the green turtle shell. Another weird thing about it is that each race only has three different items. Perhaps this was done to make arcade-goers want to play more races, but it just made races feel repetative.

The most exciting thing about Mario Kart GP is that it was made by Namco. This means that there are a couple iconic Namco characters added to the game. Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, and Blinky the ghost (the red one) are all playable kart-racers. They offer little change to how the game feels, but I wanted to play the game again just so I could race as Blinky.

My friends could tell you. I repeatedly said "I played Mario Kart as Blinky the ghost!"

The novelty of this game and the chance to play as Namco characters are the only really good things about it. The game is pretty good, but its not good enough to make me want to play it too much. One or two races was more than enough for me to get all the excitement out of my system.

On a weird plus-side, I only spent two dollars playing Mario Kart GP. That is my cheapest Mario Kart experience to date. If you want to really enjoy a Mario Kart game though, definitely pick up a console version. Mario Kart GP gets three arcade credits out of five.

PS. The three out of five is based on the fact that it is an arcade game and not a console game. If I gave it a console rating it would be a two out of five.

PPS. Blinky is awesome!

ESRB tips for parents.

2008-05-24T00:46:00.002-05:00

The ESRB was created to help parents make decisions about video games before you purchase them. They have a useful list on the back of each game that lists the potentially offensive content of the game. Some of these are worse that others in my opinion, and here is a basic rundown of the top things you may see on an M rated video game.

First off, blood is a pretty minor thing in my book. Blood in most games is an automatic M rating, or it is close to it. However, every kid knows that if you cut something it bleeds. Therefore, if you are going to let an M rated game slide into your house, don't be ashamed if the main mark is Blood.

Nudity and Sexual Themes: If a game has these in it, I would usually keep it away from your kids. While no game that I can think of has gone for actual nudity, to a 13 year old gamer, the prospect of going to a strip club or anything like that is undeniably gripping. Young kids show other young kids the strip clubs in video games first. While I do not really understand why kids do this, it always happens that way. Young kids giggle at the thought of sex, and this humor leads them to show their friends. GTA's strip clubs are there because they are there in real life. I do not spend much time in them at all, but if that 7-9 year old kid from the above story got a copy of GTA I would be sure he will spend quite a bit of time in there.

Language: I would also avoid this one too, but for most games language is not an issue. While many games will have profanity in them, most good games use what I will call 'tasteful cursing.' That is a weird term I know, but the idea I have there is that there is a line between normal cursing and gratuitous swearing. GTA4 has gratuitous swearing, but the game is set in organized crime, therefore the profanity fits the setting. Kane & Lynch: Dead Men has gratuitous language, and it is rather distastefully done. This subject is an easy one to build an opinion on. If you think the language is unnecessary, then thats it.

A side note for Language: Gears of War, among other games, has what I will call 'unlimited profanity.' This means that the casual gameplay contains swearing (i.e. when a gun jams on your character, he may spew a vulgar phrase). Most games will get a 'Language' marking for a couple uses of the F word in cinematics (I think it only takes one in the whole game to get M). This is a good reason to try out a game or talk to someone at Gamestop or something about it. If it only is said one time, you would be more comfortable letting it slide than if your kids could trigger it repeatedly.

Violence: Violence is another thing that I would let slide on the ratings box. Some games are inherently violent. If you see a gun on the cover of the game, you pretty much know what to expect.

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Now that I have given little blurbs about those categories, I am going to demonstrate a video game that has three of those items in its contents list, but that I feel is decently close to a Teen rating.

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is a great game. I have to say that because I feel I am doing the game an injustice if I leave that out. As a future parent, I will allow my kids to play CoD4 far before the 17 year old mark that society claims is normal. By 'far before' I mean I will probably let my kids play CoD4 at 13 or 14 years old, depending on how mature they act at that age.

CoD4 has "Blood and Gore", "Intense Violence", and "Strong Lanuage" in the ESRB content box on the back.

CoD4's blood and gore is still rather minimal for a shooter game. Gore to me means pieces of body flying through the air, and I know CoD4 does not have that. I am sure, however, that blood is present in the game. When you shoot someone, blood will hit the wall behind them or the floor near them. There is not much of an animation to it, but you can tell people were killed by the bodies and blood. This is one of the first CoD games to have blood in the game, but it is tastefully done. Kids know that if you were shot you would bleed, therefore I would assume that a 14 year old kid would not be scarred for life if he saw blood splattered on a wall behind a target.

Intense Violence simply means that lots of people get shot or stabbed. You do a lot of shooting in Call of Duty. If you did not do lots of shooting the game would be much more boring. Remember, we are trying to escape reality, which is why we want to shoot thousands of bullets and sit around doing nothing for only split seconds at a time.

Strong Language is in CoD4? I have played through the game twice already, and I am on my third play through, but I seriously cannot think of any time I have heard cursing in the game. That means that it is well done, and it only happens when it should. It also means that it is not an unlimited event. Wherever the profanity is in CoD4, it must happen during a cinematic because I cannot remember it.

Overall CoD is a game that I would consider to be on the lighter side of the M rating. I have similar feelings about Halo as well.

Most importantly, the parent is the one who gets to decide what the kids get to play. Be open with your kids, if they really want a game and you feel they cannot handle the blood in the game, then talk with your kids. Tell them that you don't think they are ready to handle such images at that age. Or talk with them and see if they think they can handle it. Warning them about what is in the game can save them from nightmares later.

Part 2: ESRB Ratings among other things.

2008-05-23T23:42:00.003-05:00

So, now that we know what the point of a video game is, I can further voice my thoughts on video game ratings and the like.

The reason I am writing this post is simple, but I am going to tell it to you as it came to me. While on break at work earlier tonight, I saw a 7-9 year old boy shopping for video games. His mother seemed to be doing the "which game do you want?" thing that I, sadly, never got as a kid. This kid said, "I want to get Grand Theft Auto." To which the mother promptly said "No."

Kudos to you mom-that -was-shopping-in-Target! You did the right thing. While I have my thoughts about what is right and wrong with game ratings, I agree totally with what this mother did.

At the age of 20, I am starting to craft in my mind what kind of parent I want to be. Since video games have been a strong part of my life, I often think about how I would want my kids to be exposed to them. GTA games are the main subject of my mental jaunts.

When I was 14 or so, I saw my cousin playing GTA3. The prospect of doing whatever I wanted in a game was exciting, and I wanted more. I never got my own copy of a GTA game until I was almost 17. About 2 months before I could buy the game in stores (Target had recently started the 17 year old rule for M rated games), a friend at Target sold me a copy against policy. Yeah, I could have waited, but thats beside the point now.

Roughly four years later, I am able to look back and be glad that I never got the game when I wanted to at only 14 years old. GTA one of those games that definitely deserves its rating of M for Mature.

This is where my little tiff with the ESRB comes in. The E and T ratings are perfect in my eyes. But the M rating is a vast sea of various levels of adult content. The ESRB is there to help parents make decisions about what games are safe for their kids to play. I find it very lazy when parents pick a rating letter and disallow games of that rating int he home.

One of my friends could not purchase Halo for his XBOX because his younger brother was not allowed to play any M rated games, but since his parents had not seen the game at all, we felt if weirdly unfair that they judge a game solely by its rating. So, with a small chat with his parents, I brought over my copy of Halo one day to show them exactly why it was rated M. (Halo is rated M for Violence and Blood, the blood is primarily blue, purple, orange, black, or grey when it comes from aliens, but it is still blood.) His parents saw us playing Halo and, in their opinion, it was in virtually no way worse than the James Bond games they already owned. For their open-mindedness and willingness to learn more on the subject, I respected his parents to a whole new level after that.

The ESRB is not the governing body when it comes to which games are good and which are bad. They are there to help give some help when the decisions are being made.

Parents: I understand that I am younger than you, and therefore I will not be telling you how to be a parent. However, I would like to suggest that if your kids want a game that you suspect may be bad for them to have, do your best to see the game in action before you reject them. You are the parents of the house, and you know what is best for your kids. If a magazine says a game has gratuitous violence, that does not help you understand exactly what is in the game (aside from violence).

I have seen small articles in magazines that explain why games got M ratings, but sometimes they sound like they were written by horror movie writers. I have read a rating breakdown of Halo that sounded like you would be swimming through blood for the entire game, but in reality Halo is (in my opinion) not that bad.

Don't jump to conclusions about the content of a game. If you are rough and close-minded your children will only get mad at you. If your son asks you if he can buy a game like Call of Duty 4 (rated M), don't just sharply say no unless you know exactly what is in the game. Try to rent the game, borrow it from someone, or look up a video of the gameplay online. If you put in the effort to make sure that the game is bad, your kids will most likely respect the fact that you at least thought about it. And if you find that it is actually a decent game, they will appreciate the chance to play it. (Especially with CoD4, it is a great game and the M rated aspects of it are barely apparent.)

Kids: Be reasonable with your parents. They are seriously trying to protect you. I felt that it was unfair that I could not get GTA when I was 14, but at 20 years old I cringe when I hear 14 year olds talking about GTA.

Your parents know what is best for you. Like it or not they are right. Just because your neighbor has GTA does not mean you should have it too. My mom thought it was weird that one of her students had gotten Halo 3 for Christmas (second grader), while I agree that is a bit young I told my mom that Halo is one of the 'better' games to have an M rating.

Part 1 of my rant about gaming: What is a video game?

2008-05-23T22:50:00.003-05:00

Sorry it has been a dry period for posting. I am more occupied with wasting what little summer break I have than I am plaguing the internet with my thoughts.

This post is a weird prequel to the post I will write later tonight or maybe even tomorrow. That post will be my thoughts on the ESRB, ages to purchase games, game censorship, and other topics in that league, but this specific post must come first.

Some media sources seem confused by what the purpose of video games is. Games like Grand Theft Auto bring out a dark, angry side of these columnists, reviews, and other media resources. Since GTA 4's release, gaming websites and magazines have praised it as one of the greatest games to have ever been created, but, at the same time, nightly news, newspapers, and other more general media sources have bashed the game as "evil" among other words and phrases that blatantly contradict what the gaming websites have to say about it.

The reason I am going to address what a game is is simple. Perhaps much of the world does not understand what the purpose of a video game is, or perhaps they understand, but choose to complain anyways.

Here in Minnesota, a columnist for the Star Tribune newspaper, Katherine Kersten, has said this about GTA 4 in a recent article. "It stimulates and glamorizes our dark impulses, encouraging us to strip our fellow human beings of their dignity."

While I stand strongly by the fact that GTA is, quite possibly, the 'worst' mainstream video game when it comes to adult content, I believe that the backlash that is generated by the game is completely ridiculous and unnecessary. (I will speak more specifically about GTA in the coming post).

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With GTA out of the way, the point of any video game is very simple. The point is to create a window into an alternate reality.

That simple idea is nothing new to the world. For centuries mankind has created stories, made movies, and acted in plays to take a step outside of the normal bounds of reality. Let's face it, reality is pretty boring. What you did today was relatively boring, and what you will do tomorrow will also be relatively boring.

Video games, books, movies, TV shows, and plays are all basically the exact same thing. The only major difference is that video games are inherently interactive. While some books and TV shows have interactive levels to them, they will not achieve what video games have.

To me, however, a video game is a source of entertainment. They are a way to escape reality and enjoy an imaginary reality. Video games replace television for me. I don't watch Lost because I can enjoy something as interesting and adventurous in my XBOX 360.

I find it weird that many people have such a problem with video games, and yet there is a much smaller number of people that have problems with movies. The Godfather, easily one of the greatest works in cinema, is a loved and treasured movie. However, the point of The Godfather is exactly identical to that of all video games. While a person watches The Godfather, they vicariously become Michael Corleone. Viewers see what he has seen and react and think as responses to what has happened in the movie. The Godfather is not frowned upon in society though. Someone who would pass judgment on a 20 year old (like me) buying GTA 4, possibly would not pass the same judgments on me buying a copy of The Godfather. However, both are vicarious windows into the life of crime.

People play video games to experience something they cannot experience in real life, or at least that is what I believe. I do not think that people play Doom to practice shooting demons, or play GTA to practice stealing cars, or play CoD4 to practice shooting Marines/Insurgents.

All video games support this alternate reality.

In Forza Motorsport 2, I own roughly ninety cars right now. And I have driven most of them in actual races. (I have never raced cars).

In Gears of War, I have cut aliens in half with my chainsaw. (I have never cut an alien with a chainsaw in real life)

In Call of Duty 4, I have fired 132,796 bullets, and with those bullets I have taken 12,774 lives. I have also died 9,286 times. (I have never fired a gun or killed someone, nor have I died.)

In Madden 08, I can direct a whole team of players to do exactly as I wish. I play coach, quarterback, running back, wide reciever, etc. (I have never played football competitively.)

In GTA4, I have stolen hundreds of cars, killed hundreds of people, and fled from the cops many times. (I have never done those things in real life.)

Video games are not making me an evil or angry person. You can name pretty much anything offensive in any GTA game and I can promise you that I have not done that.

Strip club? I still have not gone to one.

Hookers? Yeah, I have never picked one up.

Drugs? Nope.

Gangs? Still no.

Video games are not going to drive our society to violence, nor are they going to make me move into a town that is occupied by talking animals where I will sell fruit to a raccoon in order to make my house bigger. (Animal Crossing GCN)

I Less-than-three Jeff Gerstmann (<3)

2008-05-13T23:29:00.002-05:00

"Unless they slipped something into the ventilation system and I’m dreaming all this, I totally played Too Human. Which implies that it is, indeed, a video game that can be played and potentially enjoyed."

- Jeff Gerstmann

Perfect! Too Human has been too long in the works for how potentially awesome it is. I am glad that I am not the only one who has been wondering when people will play Too Human, but there is no way I could say it better than Jeff Gerstmann.

Hats off to you Jeff. You have made my night so much better with your witty comment.

Bourne Conspiracy (Demo Thoughts)

2008-05-09T23:08:00.002-05:00

The Bourne Conspiracy is an upcoming game based on the Bourne series of books. The first thing I noticed in the demo is that either the movies were based very strictly on the books or the game is based very strictly on the movies (minus actors faces. Bourne doesn't look like Damon).

For a while now I have been looking at the Bourne game and thinking about how horribly bad it would turn out, and I got to test my theory earlier tonight in the demo. I was, surprisingly and happily, wrong about the game. Aside from a few little control issues (mainly with shooting), the game works pretty well. While I would love to say the demo is a work in progress, the game is coming out on June 3rd, so I doubt the demo strays far from what the game will actually be.

The Bourne game has a very cool ability to switch from firearm combat to melee combat on the fly. Simply run up to an opponent and you will automatically disarm them and instigate a fun melee fight.

This game, however, does fall for the ever-so-popular interactive cinematics (Press X to not die!), but they felt well done. As per the Bourne movies, the disarming and multi-enemy fighting is spectacular, but it is done by button presses during a cinematic. That said, I don't know how else they would pull that one off.

My favorite aspect of the demo is how long it is. The demo contains three levels (or fractions thereof) that each display the three major styles of gameplay. The first level is an embassy escape that has only melee combat in it. The second level is mostly firearm work in a subway and then an airport, with a cool melee finish on a plane. The third level is the little red Mini Cooper police chase, which is by far the shortest of the levels, and that leads me to believe that these are all fractions of levels.

The melee works out decently. It is not the best melee fighting ever, but it is reasonably fun. There is a jerky feel to it, but the takedowns are very enjoyable.

Weapons fire is difficult at first, but it makes decent sense. There is a basic cover system at work and the special firearm takedowns are epic (Press A to shoot faces!). Once again, it is not the best, but the result is rather enjoyable.

The driving portion feels completely unrealistic and is the worst of the three parts of the game. This makes me think that driving will happen very rarely throughout the game, as it seems it was somewhat overlooked. Once again, however, the cinematic sequences are pretty cool.

While this game over-uses the cinematic sequences, they always feel fun and prove to be the cooler things you can do. The problems this game will have are based simply on the fact that everything is done decently, but nothing is done extraordinarily. Overall though, the demo is a
very enjoyable download, and I plan to play it again.

What I will do: I will probably play the demo a couple more times and leave the game be for a while. If I ever see it for 20-25 dollars I will probably snatch that up, but I for sure wouldn't pay more than $40, Unless I find the game is much longer than I expect it to be.

Expect the game to sell well to the random video game public who buy games based on movies. I also expect those people to find this game much more fun than other movie titles they have picked up in the past. (The Iron Man demo was neat too. That is another one I wouldn't mind playing through some day.)

GTA4 Review (X360 / PS3)

2008-05-08T20:44:00.003-05:00

Note: This review is solely based off of the 360 version. The differences between the two versions are minimal, but you can read a summary of them here on Kotaku.

GTA4 gets a 5/5. There, now that that is out of the way, lets discuss.

GTA4 does everything to the GTA series. It fixes the control issues that I had a serious issue with in the GTA3 games. It is graphically more real than any other GTA game, and its graphics are up to par with some of the best games in the industry. And, most of all, the story is alive. Everything in the story feels real. Real characters, acting like real people do, and feeling like real people would in that situation. With those large things out of the way, I shall list off notable flaws in the game.

I list the little bugs in this game because the game is so close to perfect, that I have to dig a bit to find anything to be bothered by. While it is said to be a discrepancy between the consoles (more often occurring on the 360 version), there can be a bit of late load in at times. This only ever interfered with what I was doing one time over the whole 33 hours I clocked on the game (and that didn't even make me fail the mission I was on). The cover system can be just a little buggy, but overall the cover system is great.

The only other bug-type thing I can come up with is the AI on your side. Sometimes the AI working with you will run up ahead in an effort to advance, and he will be blow away in the process. This only really applies to a couple missions, but, if it happens repeatedly, it can be very infuriating. That is every bug I can think of at this moment. Small minute things I could ignore, but I heightened my senses for this game.

The control of the game is great. It may take a little getting used to, but what game doesn't (ignore your huge stack of FPS games. I get it. X reloads. R shoots.). Some people are saying the auto-aim is broken (as in unfair), but I found that I prefer to have it off for single player. I am the type who likes to shoot people as they pop out of cover, and I don't like watching my reticule move while I prepare to remove a face. Overall, the on foot control is performs well and feels pretty real.

Driving is another thing you have to get used to. I have seen user-reviews where people dock the game because the cars feel very heavy, causing them to over drift turns into people on street corners. The driving is not a problem at all, but, yes, it is very different than past GTA games.

HINT SESSION!

1. To make a faster turn in the game: Slow down with your normal break in advance of your turn, then tap the handbrake and crank your turn. Practice with it and it will become second-nature.
2. Learn to use RB instead of A for the handbrake. I used A and the occasional phone call would make me kill 4 people on the sidewalk. (A answers your cell phone)

END HINT SESSION!

Liberty City looks fantastic in GTA4. It is slightly smaller than other GTA games, but it feels more alive. People are talking to each other on the street, cops will arrest random people for crimes you did not witness, and there is more clutter on the corners. The city may be smaller than you want, but it has so much more in it. When I say the city is smaller, that means it is smaller than previous GTA games. The city is still more than large enough to make me feel that it accomplishes its purpose and then some.

The story in this game is where everything comes together. The great movements of the characters along with their facial expressions convey mood like no other game has. In my opinion, if Bioware used its Mass Effect skills on the faces and Rockstar used the body movements, the acting would feel as real as any Hollywood picture.

Niko is a very likable character as well. GTA4 is based on survival in America, not the take-over-the-world feeling that came through in GTA3 and Vice City. When told to kill someone Niko usually questions his order or acts as though he doesn't want to do it. While you may have slaughtered five hundred people driving down the street to get to the mission, Niko acts as though he hates taking each life. Niko also refuses any drugs offered to him throughout the game, and not until late in the game do I remember him even drinking alcohol (aside from your bar visits you may go on). These aspects of Niko's personality make him seem more like what a real person would be like in those given situations.

On a final note, all the wacky, corny humor of GTA is fully intact here. I watched TV in my safehouse for a good half hour and I enjoyed all of it. The talk radio stations and all the DJs in the game are consistently amusing as well. Katt Williams and Ricky Gervais are even comedians at the local comedy club. Yes, it is really them speaking and acting. They were motion captured for the game and they make the Comedy Club my favorite place to take people for the date missions.

Overall, GTA4 is a brilliant game that brings a level of reality into GTA. The real feel will, I am sure, get more parents up in arms about the violence, drugs, and prostitutes in the game, but I think that Niko's character helps quell those problems. Well, that, and the fact that Rockstar and the rest of the gaming industry really doesn't care what people say about their games so long as people buy and enjoy the products.

GTA gets a 5/5. It is pretty much everything you could want in a GTA game, and then some. It exceeded my expectations by far, and I had put the bar pretty high for Rockstar to jump over.

Something amusing.

2008-05-07T22:53:00.004-05:00

Just to entertain myself mostly, I had fun seeing why Facebook is so slow for me. While I found no reason as to why, I found a pretty hilarious thing when I tried a simple Ping command for the site.

Here are my results from my ping attempts.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
C:\Windows\system32>ping www.google.com

Pinging www.1.google.com [Their IP] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from [Their IP]: bytes=32 time =20ms TTL=243
Reply from [Their IP]: bytes=32 time =21ms TTL=243
Reply from [Their IP]: bytes=32 time =20ms TTL=243
Reply from [Their IP]: bytes=32 time =20ms TTL=243

Ping statistics for [Their IP]:
Packets: Sent=4, Received=4, Lost=0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 20ms, Maximum = 21ms, Average = 20ms

C:\Windows\system32>ping www.facebook.com

Pinging www.facebook.com [Their IP] with 32 bytes of data:

Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.

Ping statistics for [Their IP]:
Packets: Sent=4, Received=0, Lost=4 (100% loss),

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So far Facebook is the only site I have tried to have such a result. It always happens this way and I really wonder why. I doubt I will ever fix this issue, so I will have to wait for a bit to do anything on Facebook. I will convince my friends to do this test as well and see if it is just my house.

Maybe it has to do with facebook being so busy so often, or maybe facebook is just to good to respond to pings.

Sorry about the fact that this is not, by any means at all, video game related. It amused me, therefore it is blogged about.

Lost Cities Trial Thoughts (XBLA)

2008-05-07T19:15:00.004-05:00

I downloaded the trial for Lost Cities, an interesting card game for XBOX Live Arcade, and I really enjoy the idea behind this game.

Lost Cities is a strategic card game that has you "exploring cities" for treasures and the like. It has a reasonably easy feel about it, but the simplicity that is evident at first is soon backed up by a large amount of strategy.

Here is a brief explanation of the point of the game and how it works. There are five colors which represent the five cities you get to explore. The cards of each color are numbered from two to ten as well as three or four (I am not sure at the moment) cards with a picture of hands shaking. The handshake cards can only be placed first in the stack (though you may ignore that and play numbers right away) and then the numbered cards go on top of them in ascending order (if you play an 8 you cannot play a 7 on top of that, but you can play a 10). Each handshake card adds a multiplier to the value of the stack.

The trick of the game comes in the fact that it costs twenty points to start a city and that the discard piles are shared. Therefore, the strategy is to only start cities that you believe you can get over twenty points on, and to only discard cards that your opponent does not want.

The only problem with the game is that it is very short, therefore the demo actually includes one whole round (which ends when the draw pile is empty). I just played the game over and over for about a half an hour and had quite a bit of fun. Therefore, while this game is exactly the kind of game I enjoy on XBLA, I don't think I will buy it as I can experience a significant portion of the gameplay by just repeating the demo.

Games like Catan and Carcassonne are other games like Lost Cities that I enjoy, but those games run a bit longer and the trial version of the game interrupts you. Lost Cities is a fun game, but I see the round ending and then the demo messages come up. I do not feel that it interrupts me enough because I have finished what I consider to be a game of Lost Cities.

That having been said, I may look into buying the actual card game for when people are over. The demo does not let me play with friends, but the final version would require my friend to have bought it too. The problem there is that I have cheap friends, or perhaps they are smarter than I. I spend too much on these arcade games as it is.

So, I am back.

2008-05-06T04:00:00.002-05:00

I had to make an emergency post for this one. Gamespot has disappointed me with this advertisement. I will come out right now and say that GTA4 is, in fact, the best GTA game ever made. Now I may be a confused individual, but isn't ousting an older game a goal when creating a new one? This is especially true when it is your own game, and the previous game in the series.

I don't know. I feel like this ad is confused. If it said "Best. Game. Ever?" more people might click on that thing, but instead they are comparing it to only three games by my guess. I would guess they won't compare the game to GTA1 or 2 at all, and only to 3, Vice, and SA.

I just can't get over this one right now. Yes, it is an ad for Gamespot, as it must link to their 'lowdown' site, but its also an ad for GTA4, which is weird. I am trying to think of what game they will do this to next.

Ninja Gaiden 2. Best. Ninja Gaiden. Ever?

Halo 3. Best. Halo. Ever?

Starcraft 2. Best. Starcraft. Ever?

Actually, I would love to see it on a much more inferior game.

Spongebob: He Flips Burgers and Makes Decent Humor. Best. Spongebob Video Game. Ever?

Sadly though, that compares this imaginary game to quite a few more games than the GTA ad compares GTA to. I am sorry, and I apologize for wasting your time and my own. I just can't get past the fact that the ad suggests that Rockstar would fall short of creating a game that surpassed its predecessor, or that any game company would do that.

Mario Galaxy. Best. Mario. Ever?

There, I thought of one I would click on, but I don't think that it is true. I think Galaxy is a great game, but its beaten by Super Mario World.

PS: When I have a topic I can rant about with angry confusion, I have a problem controlling length. I also rarely edit beyond spellcheck for posts like these. I still am laughing at that ad.

Finished GTA 4

2008-05-06T00:44:00.002-05:00

I just beat GTA4. I have a clear percentage of 70.17% and a play time of 33:27:59, so that means I don't get an achievement for beating the thirty hour goal.

I have a couple little thoughts I have to say now, but I have a review on the way as well. The game is fantastic, but my question right now is as to if the game is worthy of all the perfect scores it is getting from many sources. I really don't know right now. I mean, I rate games here from one to five, with only whole numbers, so I can guarantee that GTA4 will be getting a 5/5 in my review. But if I had to rate it on a 1-10 with decimals or a 1-100 rating scale, would it get a perfect score or would it just barely fall short?

The only reason I think I am feeling this way is because I have seen reviews of perfection and i have heard absurd things about how great it is. In Jeff Gerstmann's post on Giant Bomb, he said "it’s probably the greatest game story of all time." It is very close to that I would say, but my only conservation on this topic is that the ending did not completely blow me away. But if you look at the story as a whole, I think that it works out great.

GTA4's story is much more than many other games that I have played. It feels slightly more real and more dark. The characters feel like people you could really meet or see in a movie. The ending was pretty epic. I cannot hold that back. But I did not get overly excited about it, nor did I get emotionally attached to what was happening. I know that there are two endings, and perhaps I (by a choice I made a bit earlier) got the worse of the two. I don't doubt that possibility, so I will report back when I beat it again either way.

The story is brilliantly done, but I feel that it was done so well that I was expecting more in an ending. I love games that have gotten me emotionally attached to characters or plot lines. When a game has such an epic ending that I get teary eyed or I am yelling at my screen, that is an ending worth of note. I don't think that GTA4 has an ending like that, but thats not to say it is bad or in any way negative.

A reviewer for Game Informer said that playing GTA4 early made him feel as great as what, he assumed, movie reviewers thought of The Godfather when they screened it. I find this comparison rather fitting. This story will be remembered for a long time now, just like The Godfather, but if you asked me exactly how The Godfather ends I don't know that I could tell you. I can venture a guess, but I think that is wrong. I may just pull out my copy of The Godfather to check.

Expect a full review soon. Yes, it will be a long one, but with 33 hours of eyeball-to-television interaction on this game's part, I cannot just write a few paragraphs on it.

PS: The games that have given me the touching endings mentioned above are as follows: Mass Effect, Call of Duty 4, Halo 3, Earthbound (SNES), and a few others I cannot remember at this time.

GTA4 First thoughts.

2008-05-01T19:12:00.003-05:00

My first thoughts are more like half thoughts. I am 22 hours into the single player game right now and have about 42% of the game completed. So I will give brief thoughts about the first half or so of GTA4.

First off, GTA4 is exactly what you expect in a GTA game. The idea, the feel, the look, and the story all fit a general idea of what you expect to come across in a new GTA game. However the biggest difference is that the game is what I describe as "GTA3, but much more realistic."

The world looks more real. The characters move, act, and express emotion in a much more real way. The cars handle slightly more realistically. In retrospect, GTA3 and Vice City had a cartoony feel to it all. Vice City had a very strong colorful feel, as everything was rainbow or blurred with pink and other colors. GTA4's Liberty City looks like New York, or at least enough like New York that, unless you knew otherwise, it could pass for NYC.

Overall the game is fantastic so far and I can't wait to see where everything goes from here. I already have done a mission that was similar to the last mission of Vice City, but the GTA4 version of it was much, much harder and more exciting in my opinion.

Is GTA4 a perfect game? No. But it is so close to that goal that I don't feel I could possibly hold it back. Every little thing I could possibly bitch about is so minor that I tend to forget about those little flaws when I think about the game.

Expect a review sometime soon.

Until then, I have Skittles Bubble Gum here, and it is fantastic. The flavor is just right on and I was surprised how good it is. I am chewing on Grape/Lemon/Orange gum right now. The small pieces make it fun to mix flavors. I just wanted to throw that in there.

GTA4!!!!!!

2008-04-28T21:56:00.003-05:00

GTA4 comes out tomorrow officially, however many will have it within 3 hours of now. I want to talk stuff about the hype that I am generating in my mind. So, this post is a list of all the thoughts I have developed about this game over the last hour or so with my internet searches.

First off, I have done a good job of keeping my excitement for this game curbed significantly. I also have to thank the great men of Giant Bomb, Jeff Gerstmann and Ryan Davis, for not ruining my emotions by talking about it in excess for the last few weeks or months. Today they ruined it though, but with good reason. In a Giant Bomb Post today they talked about their excitement for GTA4 and linked me to some priceless stuff on Kotaku. Kotaku put out a very cool Meta-review of other companies reviews of GTA4.

Fun note on Kotaku's meta review page, they said in the article "Most major sites are accounted for: IGN, 1UP, Eurogamer...even CVG and Game Informer and have their takes on the game up and published (only GameSpot are missing...maybe their allocated reviewer quit?)." Now, I have been out of the loop on GameSpot for a long time (since the Giant Bomb folks stopped working there) and I am curious if this is still an issue for them. If it is it really is a shame, but that is beyond our power as an audience to prevent that. I mean, the Giant Bomb guys are brilliant (in their own moderately crazy way that I love them for), and they had huge fan numbers but that could not keep them there. Either way, I am a generally uneducated bystander of the GameSpot goings on, but I feel bad that that website has had so many problems over the last few months. Part of that feeling is due to the fact that I am not completely sure what happened there last winter, but I shall not dig further as the past is the past.

Back to GTA4: The reviews are screaming out about this game right now. IGN gave the game a perfect 10. This is the first console game in 9 years to get a 10 on IGN, so we know it is a bold statement. The main things I have been concerned about in this new version of GTA are control and graphic issues that arose in GTA3 and Vice City.

While we knew graphics were supreme for the most part, I am happy to hear that the controls are revolutionary for the series. There is even a cover system at play here (though it is slightly buggy at times, I can't hold that back as Gears of War is the only game with a flawless cover system, or nearly so.) and this cover system is a welcome change to the series. Anything beats ducking behind a counter with no way to shoo the six guys shooting at you.

I will pretty much say that you can see my hype in the Kotaku meta-review. That is the biggest piece of excitement for me at this point.

Oh, and the game has 16 player multiplayer in some modes online. Sixteen! I would laugh like mad if you could have 16 in Free Mode, however I would anticipate only 2-4 players in that, and if it hits 4 player free mode that is more than enough for me to wet myself.

Beginning of a busy night. Creek Review (CoD4: Map Pack)

2008-04-28T21:13:00.004-05:00

Tonight will be a busy night for me. I anticipate at least three blog posts including this one. The reason for this is the exciting realization that GTA4 will be mine tomorrow (I am saving nine dollars by using my Target discount tomorrow at 8am). The GTA news however is for another post, as this post is going to involve my updated review of the CoD Map Pack since I got to play Creek about three or four times recently.

Creek is a huge map, as my last bit of information on it pointed out. It is tailored straight to snipers, which means the matches are slow, patient shootouts for the most part. In my personal opinion, team deathmatch games in CoD should hit their kill limit before the 10 minutes runs out. Usually any match that ends with the time limit and not the kill limit can usually be looked back upon as pretty dull and boring. Creek is no exception to these rules, but if you want to put Creek up against Bloc to see which is the better map, I will side with Creek.

The reason I like Creek more than Bloc (CoD's other sniper-heavy map) is a basic environmental feel. In Bloc there are few hiding places and few positions to snipe from. This leaves me window and doorway shopping for skulls. Creek is distinctly different. There are a few really great places to snipe from, but on both sides of the Creek you have tons of decent positions. In Creek I usually scope up and watch for movement of any kind. It feels more real and more thrilling than Bloc as Bloc left me watching two doorways instead of an entire hill.

Creek is a nice strong map in CoD. It gives sniping a new, living feel to it. Sniping on other maps is more about killing people from a decent view and hoping you can kill them before they kill you. Creek's environment makes sniping more about survival, you want kills, yes, but in order to get them you have to pick a nice spot and never move. Targets that move a lot in creek are my friend. As a sniper, watch for movement. As anything that a sniper can shoot, try not to move or know where the cover is and sprint like mad.

Creek, like any other map, is also nice for SMG/Assault/LMG toting soldiers. You can really cause hell with a silenced SMG running around behind enemy lines. That is another good point as well, with stationary snipers for the most part, Creek supports a single side battle like Wet Works does. In three of my four games on Creek, I never switched ends of the map once.

Creek alone is enough to boost my review on the CoD:Map Pack to 4 out of 5 stars. It is a strong map. And while it is not the best in CoD, it is distinctive and separate. Like Broadcast and Chinatown, it creates a new feel to how the game is played.

The map pack may get boosted to a 5 out of 5 if I ever play Killhouse, which is the map I have the most faith in being pretty darn sweet.

Call of Duty 4: Map Pack (Review)

2008-04-23T02:21:00.005-05:00

I spent about six to nine hours playing Call of Duty 4 today, and I think I am ready to review the Map Pack now. I was going to address and rate each map individually, but a problem has arisen with that idea which I will address later in this review.

Chinatown:

First off, the map Chinatown goes under my microscope. I have played Chinatown a few times and, while it feels weird in other maps when buildings are closed off, Chinatown has mostly open buildings contained in the map. You can walk into most of the buildings and shoot out the windows and kill your enemies in the street. It is cool at first, being able to explore most buildings and work more like a real battlefield, it gets very annoying very quickly. Camping is a serious problem on this map. A few people can stand in some buildings and spray out the windows and, in the process, make it very hard for anyone else to move through the streets. It gets better when there are more players involved in the match, but I still find myself wanting to hit the Vote to Skip button.

Killhouse and Creek Note:

The second and third maps I want to talk about are Killhouse and Creek. The reason I have lumped these together is that I still have not played them. They must be too small and too big accordingly for me to play them on Team Deathmatch.

Killhouse:

Killhouse looks like it could be a nice small map, and I will have to find a game mode that lets me play on there someday. It is a straight end-to-end stage like Wet Work, but it is much shorter and therefore more of a square shaped stage. The obstacles in the level still present a two-ended stage. One where you could label sides for red team and blue team.

Creek:

Creek looks like a completely painful sniper battle map. It is pretty huge for a Call of Duty map, and it says in the description that it is made for snipers. I really want to at least try this map yet, as it seems to be a very unique map. The weirdest thing about the map is, when you stand around and look at it, you might expect to see a warthog drive across the map with a blazing machine gun in the back end. The map has a weird aura about it that makes it look and feel like a Halo map. A few features that are reminiscent of Halo are the cave, the ledge above the cave and the creek itself. It looks like Blood Gulch, Battle Creep and Val Halla all squished together with half-destroyed houses scattered around the ends of the map.

Broadcast:

Broadcast is my last target. This map is much better than Chinatown in my opinion. The design of the map is very unique when compared to other maps and I find it to be very fun. There is the one huge broadcast building and nearby there are two smaller buildings. There is quite a bit of nice, long-range sniping that happens between these buildings and you can still find a bit of short range action on the outside edge of the huge building. My only real complaint with this map is definitely going to need another paragraph.

My issue with broadcast has nothing to do with what happens in the map, but instead I have a problem with WHERE everything happens. One of my favorite parts of the game is the firefight in the newsroom, which is what broadcast is based upon. I have killed ONE person in that newsroom, and that is very saddening to me. Usually when you get to that room you can run through it safely without ever having an enemy (or friend for that matter) see you go running through the room. The lack of action in the coolest room of the map is my main problem. I think they should have built the map so that a natural choke point comes around that news room, and not so much on the roof of the building. I guess this gripe is for nothing as the map is still good. I just had different wishes in the experience generated by that map.

Overall I am going to give the Map Pack a 3 out of 5 stars. I find them to be totally worth my money, but I think I expected a little bit more from the pack. The maps help renew my interest in the game, but I still cannot get past the fact that I have not played two of them yet. Team Deathmatch supported all of the original maps but one (Shipment) and I find it weird that the new map pack is only 50% supported by the most populated game type in CoD4.

I Have An XBOX!!!

2008-04-19T00:54:00.004-05:00

I got my 360 back earlier today, so I have been recording various things. Check out my youtube channel for three fun Forza videos and two videos from Ikaruga. Once they get uploaded and all that, that is.

Tomorrow I plan to start my first actual video review, and then I will play some games that I have not been able to play for a few weeks.

I also forgot that when the support center fixes up your box you get a month of free Live subscription. That is always a pleasant surprise.

I have started playing CoD4 again, and soon will have a review of the map pack. I played a game on Broadcast today, but I will not review each map until I have played three or so games on it.

That concludes what I hope is my last update post for a while.

Last Updates to hold me off.

2008-04-17T23:01:00.002-05:00

Tomorrow I will get my XBOX back in the mail. That is my main thing right now. So later tomorrow I should have a Ikaruga gameplay video up here and I will start work on my TiQal review. Next on the list after that, I have to review all those games I was interrupted from reviewing a couple weeks ago.

That is all for right now. I just want my XBOX back.

Ikaruga Review (XBLA)

2008-04-15T17:04:00.009-05:00

Ikaruga is an exciting top down shooter reminiscent of games like Galaga and Space Invaders, except for the fact that Ikaruga is completely ridiculous. At the point of typing this review, I have only played the first two levels as I find the game to be so hard. I will release a video review of it once I have a working XBOX, but until then here is a video of some gameplay I found. No they are not masters of the game, but I am not either and that is what makes it fun.

The Polarity system that Ikaruga uses is very simple. When you are white/blue you cannot be killed by white/blue laser or bullets. The same works when you are black/red. The projectiles of other colors can kill you though. It sounds like a fairly simple concept, but if you watch many videos of the gameplay you can see that it gets insane really fast.

Multiplayer is just as fun as single if not more so. The trick I have noticed so far is that when a player kills a white/blue enemy with the white/blue laser, the enemy explodes into white/blue bits. While it is somewhat easy to dodge this spray, it is simpler to try to stay the same color as your partner.

Ikaruga is a very fun game, however it is extremely challenging. I bought it more out of respect than anything else, as I seriously doubt I will ever beat all five chapters. That is right, there are only five levels to Ikaruga.

It is a short game, but the steep challenge makes that short game feel like the world when you conquer it. The only thing I could ask of Ikaruga would be some more levels. I wouldn't want the game to be easier, but rather I would like the game to last longer. For example, if I could get to level four out of fifteen while I wrote this review it would feel more reasonable in my mind.

Ikaruga is an actual arcade game, and as such it does not have to be long to be fantastic. I give Ikaruga a 4 out of 5. It is a pristine arcade game and a welcome addition to the XBOX Live Arcade.

Because It Is Fun!

2008-04-15T00:44:00.004-05:00

I have found this ability to record videos of gameplay to be much fun, so I have four more little matches of SSB:Brawl to throw online. Then I will start using it for actual review work.

I got to play Ikaruga yesterday. I will be doing a review of that on here tomorrow or later today because if I wait until I beat the game it may never be reviewed.

Since I have nothing to review... updates?

2008-04-14T11:47:00.003-05:00

So my internet is working perfectly now. Turns out after the trouble last week we had two routers go out at the exact same time. One wired only router was just sitting around while we used the wireless one that replaced it, now neither work. So we have a shiny new one that actually works. So, I can post on here now!

I am playing Wii and PS games now. Mario Party 8 and most of the Final Fantasy Series are the games of choice at this second. I might review some of them, but I have not decided yet.

I bought WWF No Mercy off of www.ebay.com recently too. Expect a review on that because I think it is quite possibly the best wrestling game ever made. And it is on the N64 too!

Thats all for now, but I will try to check on my XBOX 360's status and see if I can pinpoint its return to me.

Edit: I just looked it up and my XBOX is on its way to my house! Fantastic!

More updates!

2008-04-09T02:03:00.004-05:00

I was shocked with what just happened in my last post, so I figured I would continue my talking since a couple new things came up.

Hopefully soon I will have my internet patched up nicely. That will make me very happy, especially when I get my XBOX back and can actually use its online gaming functions.

Another fun thing I have tried is recording game footage on my computer. I spent about an hour trying to figure this stuff out, but I recently played a little match of Smash Bros. on my computer and recorded it. It is uploading to youtube right now. You can find my youtube channel right here, but I will also edit in the link to the video clip once it finishes. With no progress meter and my touchy internet at the moment I may just go to sleep and check in the morning.

Anyways, I am still surprised by the Comcast comment on my last post. Hoping this all leads to good things.

Here is my gameplay video on youtube. Glad I got it working right.

Also, awesome stuff going on with Comcast internet. I posted my previous post a day ago, and within a day I had a comment from Comcast. I e-mailed them my info and they called my house early today. Of course, after they called my internet was working fine, but I talked to a specific person at the office and even had two people on the line with me at the same time. Awesome job by Comcast. My faith in these corporate industries keeps increasing thanks to things like this and the Rock Band equipment replacements.

Cheers!

Updates on me

2008-04-08T13:19:00.002-05:00

So, posting is getting more and more scarce obviously. I have a broken XBOX and I am still waiting on the box to ship it to Microsoft. So right now I am actually playing a bit of FFVII since i have never beaten that game.

Another thing, my Comcast internet access is failing miserably right now. I have 651ms Ping and a 22kbps upload speed. What this means is that my internet is taking its time in doing anything that is not downloading information. I can download games on my half broken XBOX fine, but browsing the internet or playing games online. That is where the problems come in. My internet is performing at about 56k dial-up speeds, which infuriates me. So I will call Comcast soon and have them come out and fix this.... for the THIRD time. Yes, my house is cursed to reject our internet access.

www.speedtest.net lets you test your connection speed. That is how I know my horrible stats. And yes, I have seen that website advertised for in Comcast commercials. I just want to be able to post on here without waiting for five minutes before this box pops up.

Lastly, but I guess its the biggest news, I am currently working out and stuff because I will be going to Marine Boot Camp this summer. Fun stuff I know. So I will be gone for three months starting in June. Sorry.

PS. While typing this my XBOX box came! So, I will send that off today I guess.

Army of Two Thoughts

2008-04-06T13:15:00.003-05:00

I got to go down to Iowa to bother Tyler for a couple days. While doing that I got to play quite a bit of Army of Two. Now I have decided to post my thoughts on what I have played, which was the co-op campaign.

First off, I can pretty much tell you to play the demo and you will get the idea of the game. The demo is the first level of Army of Two, and it is really quite fun. While I played Army of Two, I never really got bored of it like I thought I would. It is reasonably short, but the missions are fun to play especially if your co-op partner is a friend. I don't know that public co-op games online would be as much fun as sitting down with a buddy and playing through Army of Two.

The weapon customization is a pretty neat and fun aspect of the game. We were running around using nothing but our Desert Eagles for a while. That was some real fun. You can upgrade various parts of the gun and usually craft them to do what you want them to do, be that stealth or aggro work.

The aggro mechanic in the game deserves some mention as well. Basically, I will say it this way. If I stand up and spray a bunch of bullets at the enemies, they get mad at me. While they are all watching me, you can shoot them in the side of the head or run up to them and beat them down. Aggro makes the game much more fun than it would be without it. However, sometimes the aggro is hard to control. If the enemy group is huge, the big guy with the machine gun may only really be making half the group mad at him. Then the stealth player, who is running around smashing heads, might run into a guy with a shotgun pointed at him. It is not perfect, but the aggro works pretty well throughout the game.

Army of Two was not by any means a bad game. The thing is that most people say the multiplayer is a bit dry and single player is completely frustrating. I would recommend this as a rental or a later buy. Simply because you could find more replay value in other games. If you want a good couple days of shooting bad guys, definitely check out Army of Two.

I won't be giving this one a rating, but, between you and me, I can almost be Tyler will have a review up soon. He has been able to play it much more than I, and maybe will try the multiplayer. I am not sure though.

XBOX Broken!!!

2008-04-03T19:04:00.002-05:00

So, my XBOX is screaming about unreadable disks at the moment. So, until I send it off to be fixed, I guess I will be playing arcade games only. Then I have a couple weeks of Wii, PSP, etc. coverage until I can play my Call of Duty maps.

On a good note, it is still under warranty. I had it replaced last year for the Red Ring, so apparently my new box has a new warranty. That news made this experience a few dollars less terrible.

Anyways, expect Mr. Driller and TiQal reviews soon, since that is all I can play.

Demos (Army of Two Demo thoughts as well)

2008-04-01T17:09:00.005-05:00

I have become more and more concerned about the lack of demos on the 360 marketplace over the last few months. When the 360 was young almost every game and its mother had a demo for me to play. I know many games that I chose to purchase simply based on how much I liked the demo. Prey, Full Auto, Quake 4, and Call of Duty 2 are some games I can think of now that I bought because I enjoyed their demos.

Recently the 360 market has been a bit lacking in the demo department. Instead they send out more videos. I think that this may all be due to the experimental nature of online demo supplies. Until the 360, demos were only available on disks from XBOX Magazine or other similar sources. Now that the demos are available everywhere people are trying to see what makes games sell more. Perhaps the sales of earlier games were strong enough to constitute programming a demo, or perhaps not. It seems that most companies are trying videos, webisodes, and video diaries on their games. They probably hope that these market the games just as well as a demo and they are easier to make.

Personally I love playing these demos. I have probably downloaded around 50-60% of the demos that have hit the marketplace. I do not have much fun with sports games so I do not download those demos. Either way, the only videos I download are the videos for games I am pretty sure I will be buying. Games like GTA4, Gears of War 2, Ninja Gaiden 2, and Prototype currently have videos on my hard drive. I think a lot of games that I am on the fence about could get me to buy their game with a demo. Videos help keep gamers who plan on buying a game interested in that game, but I think a demo does a much better job of helping people who won't buy the game think about the purchase.

Army of Two put out a demo today, and I really like it. It is a nice long demo that displays the fun and excitement that comes with that game. It is also co-op only. This is important for Army of Two as most reviews say the game loses its fun when played single player. So pick up the demo for Army of Two. Hit up the private or public co-op on Live, or you could try it out with a friend split-screen. It is a fun demo and I would probably buy it based on the demo. However most sources say the game gets repetitive and drawn out, so I am going to save my money and buy something else instead. However I will definitely rent Army of Two later, as I feel I cannot miss out on the fun the demo presented.

"When I think of Nintendo.... Lucas." -Jeff Gerstmann in the GiantBombcast

2008-03-31T14:47:00.004-05:00

Here I am already talking about Lucas. I barely posted my SSB:Brawl review, and I knew I had to talk about this. SSB:Brawl stars a vast selection of characters. Some of them are staples in the Nintendo industry, while others are completely obscure and unknown to some players.

Pit: Pit is the star of the game Kid Icarus for NES. He has not been in a game since 1991 when Kid Icarus hit the Game Boy. However, Kid Icarus is a classic in its own respect. It has been a long time and it is weird that he has made an appearance.

Marth: Marth and Roy (from Melee) are from the Fire Emblem games. Until SSB:Melee they were only available in Japan. After Melee came out Fire Emblems started being released in America. Even so, Marth has never appeared in an American Fire Emblem game.

Ike: Also from Fire Emblem, Ike was a character in the GameCube version, which was released in America.

R.O.B.: He is a weird one. R.O.B. was an accessory for the NES. While some people give R.O.B. credit for saving video games after the video game crash near the end of Atari's days, it seems odd that he would star in a video game 20 years later.

Lucas: This is the one that really bothers me. Lucas is the star character of Mother 3, a Japanese-only release title. Ness was the star of Mother 2, but that game came out here as Earthbound for the SNES. I am a huge fan of Earthbound, and it is probably the only RPG game I have ever beaten more than once. Nintendo has not ported any new Mother games since the SNES ,and America had not ever seen Lucas until SSB:Brawl.

I have spent years reading stories about Mother 1 & 2 coming out for GBA and Mother 3 coming out after that. Nintendo in Japan seems to like to taunt the American market with these stories, as neither have come out here. I still have my hopes, however, that Mother may come back to America. Fire Emblem came out after SSB:Melee, so I can dream that Mother 3 (at least) will come out here now that Lucas and his SSB:Brawl exploits have shown up in America. However, Nintendo has been very adamant since Mother 3's release that it will not be released here primarily due to Earthbound's lower-than-desired sales.

Please, Nintendo, send Mother 1 and 3 to America. I promise I will be good. Otherwise, send me some books and a few hundred hours free time so I can learn Japanese and move there (or hit up ebay)to satisfy my craving for more Mother antics.

Super Smash Bros. Brawl - Review (Wii)

2008-03-31T14:21:00.005-05:00

Super Smash came out a while ago, and I held off the review until after I had played it with friends over break. Since this is a pretty broad game I will give a very brief talk about the basics of the game, and after that I will speak as though you have played a previous version of Smash.

Smash is a fast-paced, pound-your-friends-in-the-head game that stars your favorite Nintendo Characters. SSB:Brawl has 35 characters or 39 if you count Zero Suit Samus, the other two Pokemon that Pokemon Trainer Uses, and Sheik (no, not Nana, the other Ice Climber). The idea is to hit your opponents a lot and eventually hit them with a "smash hit" to launch them off the screen. Life bars do not count down, but instead they count up. Higher damage means that you will fly farther when you are hit. That is SSB:Brawl in a nutshell. Let's do some Pros and Cons.

Pros: This is everything you could expect from a new SSB game. More characters, more game modes, and more aspects of co-op play give that 2 player experience a little more fun than before.

The controls are perfect, as there are four different controllers you can use, and virtually every button can be customized. The music is completely fantastic and it seems like an endless list of tunes. The game is graphically brilliant compared to virtually anything else on the Wii.

The Final Smashes, special abilities each character can perform after collecting a Smash Ball, give the game a nice touch. It seems annoying in concept that a player could do such a strong attack simply because they got an item, but I like it. It gives players with less skill a chance to do something completely awesome, and it tends to be crazy fun chasing after the Smash Balls whenever they show up. That said, it can get really annoying when the same person gets most or all of the Smash Balls in a game. If that is something you do not like, you can always toggle the Smash Balls off via the Item Switch.

As a small note, the online play works well, but I feel weird playing online as, while I know I am fighting real people, the lack of interaction makes opponents feel fake.

Cons: The Subspace Emmisary (Adventure Mode from SSB:Melee) feels too long. It makes getting the characters much easier, and the story-telling is nicely done. The reason I do not like it is the last level.

(Spoiler, I guess) The last level makes you virtually replay the entire thing again in maze-format.
You have to fight all 32 (how many people I had at the time) people again along with the eight bosses you fought as well. It is completely tedious, pointless, and it is not fun. The first time through everything it is fun, but having to redo it without cinematics makes me sad. (end Spoiler)

The SSE also has too much of the platforming levels in it. They were neat in SSB:Melee because it was new. In SSB:B however, they are overused to the point of frustration. There are at least three levels/instances that I can think of right now that I wish they had never put into the platforming.

As I already said, the online feels superfluous. I cannot seem to enjoy playing against nameless, voiceless, and faceless people because that is what computer enemies are anyways. Playing with friends adds some aspects to that, but the Wii has a weak integration of online yet. To play with friends you would have to organize it some other way, instant messaging or what have you, in order to know when your friends were online. It would be nice to be able to put in the disk and say, "Oh, neat. Three of my friends are on right now. I guess I will play with them instead of all alone." The lack of voice chat also would leave me using TeamSpeak, Ventrillo, or even XBOX Live chat (I thought of Halo or CoD lobbies) to chat with friends while I play.

My last complaint is that it is still Super Smash. It is an awesome game, but it is all the same. I had friends over during my break, but we did not play SSB:Brawl as much as I thought we would. Because when it came down to it we wanted to play new, creative games instead of Smash. This is not something that Nintendo could avoid I assume, but it happened to me and I can only assume that others are haveing the same thoughts after playing it a lot.

I give Super Smash Bros Brawl a 4 out of 5. It is a great game, if you are a SSB fan I don't doubt you will love it. Outside that niche I doubt it has much tread. It is another good game I have for the Wii, but it still does not have me playing my Wii all that much.

CoD 4: GotY Edition

2008-03-30T12:25:00.003-05:00

On April 1st CoD4 will be re-released as Call of Duty 4: Game of the Year Edition. This is still the exact CoD4 game that you could have bought last November, but it has a code that lets you download the CoD4 Map Pack that comes out on April 3rd. The Map Pack again will cost 800 MS Points, which translates to ten dollars. So that alone saves any GotY buyers a nice, shiny ten dollars. Also, I see Circuit City has a deal that lets you get CoD2 free when you get the GotY Edition. That is an even better deal if you have not bought CoD2 back in the day. Either way I am excited for April 3rd and not April 1st. Download those maps and get online and shoot some dudes in the face.

Also I am having fun with www.360voice.com. It is a site that gives your profile on your XBOX a voice. There are some neat badges to aim for and streaks as well. It is all based on achievements, so if you are not a fan of the gamerscore idea then I would steer clear of 360voice. Either way, here is a link to mine. Feel free to mock my XBOX as it writes in its own little online diary. I also linked to it under my recommendations on the right.

http://www.360voice.com/tag/nukesniper

Dude... Audiosurf! (PC)

2008-03-28T10:49:00.002-05:00

There is a demo out for a reasonably recent game called Audiosurf on Steam at the moment. I bought this game simply because of Jeff Gerstmann's (Giant Bomb) various quotes during podcasts, "Dude, Audiosurf is awesome!" He is totally right.

While the game lacks a direct story mode or anything the reason is because the music library that the game uses, is your music library. Audiosurf is a game that will never suffer from people wishing these songs or those artists were in the game. The idea of the game is fairly simple, and tutorials demonstrate exactly how to play.

Pick your favorite song and Audiosurf will scan the song and set up the track. This doesn't take very long, but the game tells you that the first time you load a song it could take a while. Then you see a layout of the song. When going uphill it is a softer type of music, and downhill runs happen during faster or heavier music.

You control a ship that flies across the lanes on the track, colored blocks flying at you constantly. You either dodge or run into them and try to create combos by collecting blocks that you need. It is hard to explain at this point, but the demo has built in videos that work fantastically for training purposes.

Online leaderboards track everyone's progress on any song you play, which is pretty fun to see. And remember, as your library grows, so does the Audiosurf library. This means to me an infinite replay value. Not only that but there are many different ships with different skills and difficulty levels to keep you playing non-stop.

Audiosurf gets a 5 out of 5, and its ten dollar price tag is way to easy to pay out for something this fun. Download the demo here and play your four favorite songs. I can almost promise you will want to play more and more.

PS: For a really fun song pick one with a bit of dead space every so often. A little pause in the music translates fantastically to Audiosurf. A fun one to see how the game works is "March of the Pigs" by Nine Inch Nails. I pick this one because of its slow and fast parts, and I picked it because it is Rock Band DLC so maybe more people who read this will have played it.

Now you are thinking with Portals...

2008-03-27T12:08:00.005-05:00

I am waiting to talk about the Rock Band patch from about a week ago until I have my copy back and can write about every feature and its awesomeness, so until then I get to talk about random subjects more and more.

Over break I finally got the chance to play through Portal, the greatest thing to come from Valve since Counterstrike in my opinion. And I know by saying that I skip Half Life 2, which probably makes some people mad, and I might get some flak from my friend Tyler too. I stand by it though, because Portal is awesome. It is short and sweet with only about two hours play time for the first run through it.

Portal is a brilliant puzzle type FPS that uses some sweet gameplay mechanics to keep you thinking. Also, GLaDOS, the computer voice that talks you through your tests, kept me laughing most of the game. It has a surprisingly awesome story shoved into a game that really didn't need one, and I think the story is what makes the game excellent instead of good. The Weighted Companion Cube is another "character" that I have to mention as well. While I am not completely attached to it, I find it very amusing when you mix the box with a heart on it with GLaDOS telling you that it will never stab you.

I wanted to play Portal for a while, and I felt that, if I could sit down and beat it, I could wait a longer time to buy the Orange Box for myself. However, since playing Portal I want to buy the game more than ever. It is a weird sensation wanting to buy a game even after beating virtually ever puzzle in it. I did not do the extra challenges that extend the difficulty of Portal by limiting what you can use in each stage.

If you have not yet played Portal, I highly recommend buying it and enjoying it. It is available apart from the Orange Box right now on Steam, but it will also hit retail shelves on April 9th. While twenty dollars is a bit steep for a shorter game like this, Portal is not your normal game. Portal is completely worth the twenty dollars if you do not want to buy the whole box. Unless you want to buy the Orange Box, which you can do now, and get Team Fortress 2 and Half Life 2: Episode 2 as well. I however will wait to get the Orange Box on sale somewhere for my 360.

Portal gets a 5 out of 5 with value taken into account. It is truely a great game, though I would really be excited if they planned to release a much longer game for a stand-alone package. I would easily pay sixty dollars for a Portal 2 type game with 12-15 hours of play time for one play through. Though playing it would risk melting my mind. There is nothing wrong with that.

Buy Portal for Steam here!

View the old Portal Trailer here for a taste.

GranTurismo and PS3

2008-03-27T01:09:00.005-05:00

While Gran Turismo 5 Prologue is due out in North America in a few weeks, it has now become apparent that Gran Turismo 5 will not hit shelves for "about a year." While I am not a huge fan of the Gran Turismo series (I play Forza a lot), I see this as sad news for GT fans and for Playstation. Gran Turismo has become a huge game series for the Playstation systems, and I see this as just another thing to hold Sony back from what it wants to be. I find it odd that there is a Prologue version of the game coming out at all. GT5: Prologue has six tracks and around 70 cars (on the US version at least) meant to tie GT fans over until the final release of GT5. Seems weird to me, but I played the Halo 3 Beta Build to tie myself over until that game came out. Make of it what you will.

Source: http://ps3.ign.com/articles/862/862361p1.html

My thoughts outside of the above subject matter: I find this late GT5 release as another problem in Sony's way. The PS3 came out after the 360 so it started the race late. Another odd thought is that games like Rainbow Six: Vegas and Oblivion came out months after the PS3's launch. Not only was 360 ahead in sales, but PS3 was releasing the same games, but months upon months after the 360 released the exact same games.

MGS4 was delayed to summer this year, but I don't doubt that Konami pulled that one off because they want to release a great game. GTA4 is no longer launch exclusive on the PS3. And as one more weird point, in the past three weeks, two games (Condemned and Rainbow Six) have been released a week earlier on the 360 than on the PS3. These are all weird little things that make me wonder why Sony is still having trouble.

No I do not own a PS3 yet, but there are a few titles that would have made me consider that purchase. Those titles are: GTA4 (oops, its on 360 now), MGS4 (delayed), God of War 3 (not anytime soon), Resistance (played it and it can wait), and of course the still unannounced Final Fantasy VII remake (still unannounced). If I ever bought a PS3 it would be for one of those games, and all these delays simply mean I get more time to save my money or try to win one or something.

I just wish that Sony would resolve all of these weird little problems with their games and their releases. That way I could have less reason to feel bad about how the Playstation took such a huge hit in its third installment.

TiQal: First Thoughts

2008-03-26T22:54:00.004-05:00

I just forked over the 800ms points for TiQal. TiQal is a new puzzle game that is Mayan themed. Basically, if you take Lumines's 2x2 block clearing method and wide board, Tetris's shapes falling, and Zuma's theme you get Tiqal. Don't forget to color the blocks, and to make the blocks falling in be all sorts of random shapes (so it is different from Tetris's 4 block arrangements).

It is pretty fun so far. I mean, I did buy it. It has a lot of aspects that make it fun and new, and yet it is easy (for me) to pick up and play. So far its a good puzzle game, and it has not been overly easy, which is always nice.

My only real gripe so far is that the controls feel just a little stiff. Like it takes more effort to move my pieces and work things out. It is not excruciating, but it is noticeable. I don't doubt that I will eventually get used to it and it will work great for me.

The reason I ran to my computer just now instead of staying at my XBOX and playing this game is because of a little bit of the story. The story is just you usual "we wanted to make it an adventure story in text, but a puzzle game in gameplay" type idea. Between levels the game tells you where you are next as an excuse to change the background. Anyways, I am currently at the shrine, temple, or statue of the Jaguar. I do not care to verify right now as I am not sure that I can. All I know is that the place I am at is called "Kitiqat." I will let that sink in for a second. Alright, now to write it with different spelling, "Kitty Cat." I like it that way.

This little naming thing does not bother me really, however it does show me that this is not based strictly on Mayan gods and stories. It does show me that they have a little sense of humor to is (like Zuma did too), which is not bad at all. It made me laugh, and it made me run to my computer to tell the world about Kitiqat. It is just interesting is all.

Well, I will go back to TiQal and conquer the puzzles that await me at Kitiqat. Expect a review for TiQal sometime after I beat the single player mode.

Quake 4 (XBOX 360)

2008-03-23T22:51:00.002-05:00

Over my break I finally sat down and played my way through Quake 4. I had bought it from Gamestop a long time ago, and, since it was a release title, my playing of the game is ages overdue. While I never took a shot at multiplayer, or I haven't yet but might try that later. The game overall is really good. All of my following comments are going to be based on the premise that the game came out with the XBOX 360 in late 2005.

Graphics: The graphics in Quake are awesome for date of its release. And just playing it for about ten minutes made me sad that I had bought Perfect Dark Zero at all (PDZ was the release title multiplayer game I got with my 360). While my remarks at PDZ are not saying much, Quake has some very good graphics and I seriously cannot thing of a negative thing about them at this moment. Lighting is where this game shines. Id has put an obvious focus on lighting, just like they did for Doom 3. Shadows, rotating lights (like a red siren bulb), and many other things make the lighting an obvious strong point in the game.

Gameplay: I turned aim assist on for my play through of the game. This was only really because it is a bit rough to sight exactly what you want at times. I don't doubt that I could do it well without the assist now, but I chose to use it because I was not used to how the turning and aiming felt at first. Gun switching with the D-Pad is a simple and useful tool in the game. No, not swapping like Gears of War had, but instead Quake has ten or so guns mapped to the D-Pad. For example, hit down once and you will pull out the shotgun, but hit down two times and you pull out the Rocket Launcher. I found swapping to be very simple to do quickly. Vehicles are also in the game, but they perform at an average level. The vehicle controls are not overly amazing, but they are not at all frustrating.

Id Software likes to have fun with your mind. This was a big issue in Doom (most recently Doom 3), and it still shows in Quake 4. For example, if you walk into that well-lit corner of the room to get the armor and ammo, you will most likely be mauled by something evil when you do so. The game abandons this in the later levels, however, as the game strays from the Doom-style fear gameplay to a properly placed Quake style that involves more action.

Story: The story will not blow you away, but I will make a couple little remarks about how stuff goes down. The first act of the game is just a "let's kill the bad guys!" based storyline. You play a soldier named Kane, who apparently has to do everything because no one else can figure it out. "Kane go find out how to get this door open" is a line that is said at least twice in the first act. So while you run off to open a door and get shot at, the rest of your squad stare at the door and talk about the weather or something.

An event later in the game starts making the "Kane, you have to do this" type lines make more sense. Another story point later in the game is a humorous slap in the face for the Quake 2 story. Overall though the story is interesting enough to keep you playing.

I give Quake 4 a 3 out of 5 stars. It will not blow you away at all, but it does everything you want it to do well. The problems that held it back for me were that it is reasonably short, and it is all too normal. Quake 4 stays very much in a safe FPS setting. It does not do anything too new or revolutionary, but it is in no way a bad game. If you have it lying around and have not beaten it yet, do it. It is short and fun, and you will in no way regret the time you put into it.

CoD 4: The newest patch for 360

2008-03-23T03:37:00.003-05:00

Recently Call of Duty 4 was patched to make it much more awesome. That being said I will give highlights of the patch notes here. The game is still the same, so don't you worry one bit. This patch affects a lot of aspects of online multiplayer that, I think, needed some refinement.

New Kill Cams: The kill cams in multiplayer now have been improved for various situations. Now, when you are killed by a claymore, grenade, or even an airstrike bomb, you get a sweet kill cam that better shows what happened. Claymore cams put the camera on the claymore and watch you run up to them. Grenade cams usually show the throw, and then they follow the grenade and will show your position with respect to the explosive device. And, most impressively, the airstrike kill cam will show the bomb releasing from the plane and its approach to your position. These all greatly help when you are trying to learn exactly what killed you.

Accuracy Issues: From what I have played the ACOG and Sniper scopes now perform almost perfectly. There used to be an issue where a well-sighted shot wouldn't land on sight. I hated taking four well aimed shots at a guy's head and, for some reason, missing them all. Since the patch I have not noticed a frustrating situation like that yet.

Quick Mute and Host Migration: Quick mute options similar to those of Halo 3 make an appearance now. This saves the trouble and the time of opening their gamertag profile and muting them there. Host Migration was also added, which means that, now, when a host leaves a game it will pass hosting on to the next best connected player. This means less dropped games, and virtually no "Game Lobby Closed" messages. I have had one game where a host left during the game, it took us back to the lobby with the same players (excluding the host of course), and it immediately started up another game. This overall speeds up and streamlines the process of finding a good game online.

Spectator Cams: Before this patch the spectator cams were only third person follow cameras that you could not in any way move. Now, after patch, they have added 360 degree rotation to the follow cams, and you can also go first person. Spectator cams are not prevalent in all game types, but you can find them in Search and Destroy and Headquarters quite easily.

Those are my thoughts and experiences in Call of Duty 4 for the past week. I do not know if the PS3 or PC versions of the game got this neat patch, though I do not doubt they did or will very soon.

Back From Break.

2008-03-22T01:13:00.003-05:00

Spring Break was a great use of a week overall. I pulled out some older XBOX 360 games, played quite a bit of Rock Band, got my Smash on, and I got to see Condemned 2 in action. So now that I am back to posting here, I shall give a preview of what I have to talk about in the next few posts.

The next few posts will contain my thoughts on the Survival Horror genre and a few remarks about Condemned 2: Bloodshot in there as well. I also beat Quake 4 recently, a game that had sat on my shelf since I bought it a while back. So you get to have my thoughts on how that game was, being that it was a launch title for the 360. A recent Call of Duty 4 patch came to my attention recently and is certainly worth some mention as well. And the last thing I can think about at the moment is the Rock Band Patch, which, if you can't wait for me to write about it, you can get Ryan Davis's (from Giantbomb.com) thoughts on the patch right now.

As a quick bonus, Call of Duty 4's map pack has been announced for April 3rd. This is the first map pack since Halo 2 that I will even think about buying. By "think about buying" I of course mean "will buy the second I see that it is out." While all I have for insight thus far is two small screenshots thanks to xbox.com's article on them, I will say the Chinatown map is one I am excited to play. The first picture looks too much like Overgrown right now. It also looks like something right out of CoD2 instead. Otherwise Microsoft's brief descriptions make these four maps sound promising. At 800 MSPoints, or ten US dollars, these maps will be in my collection as fast as I can download them.

Rock Band vs. Guitar Hero (My Two Cents)

2008-03-15T14:58:00.003-05:00

Since it is now spring break for me, I will have a bit of a pause in my posts. However, when I get back to this expect some big talk about Smash Bros. among other things. Anyway, lets talk music games.

Guitar Hero was a revolutionary game back when it came out. Hanging out with friends and playing songs together was an exhilarating adventure. After Harmonix flooded the market with this new sensation and its sequel Guitar Hero 2, they went on to make Rock Band, while Activision and Neversoft picked up the Guitar Hero franchise and made Guitar Hero 3.

Guitar Hero 3 and Rock Band hit shelves around the same time and both are outstanding games. The difference in the games is that they each have their special appeal in my opinion. While Guitar Hero 3 has a new level of challenge, Rock Band has the stronger multi-player modes.

All in all the parts in Guitar Hero (especially 2 and 3) are much harder than those of Rock Band. The main reason for this is pretty obvious if you have played both games. In Rock Band, the songs cater to the whole band, there are very few songs where one of the parts feels bored or left out. Whereas in Guitar Hero, there are a few songs that have almost no lyrics at all and are virtually a guitar solo from start to finish. Some Guitar Hero songs that come to mind as purely guitar are Cliffs of Dover, Misirlou, and Jessica. Offhand I do not think any of these have vocals at all. While this is great for some crazy guitar action, they are not in Rock Band because they do not fit the mold of what Rock Band is.

Rock Band's single player campaign is not the most interesting modes. It is basically Guitar Hero 1's simple progression of songs with little to no story involved. The reason, however, that I find myself working so hard on these solo songs is so that when I am playing with friends I can do well. Multi-player is why Rock Band is awesome. Four people gathered at a TV playing all these songs together has a brilliant charm about it. I remember playing Guitar Hero until my fingers hurt a couple years ago, but now when that problem comes along in Rock Band I just switch to vocals or drums.

The inclusion of the entire band is extremely thrilling. All of the parts are fun to play on most songs. The reason I say MOST songs is because there are a couple that cater to the screaming guitar parts. Green Grass and High Tides is the last song for guitar players to challenge, and it is as hard as (and very similar in style and song layout as) Freebird. The vocalist in Green Grass and High Tides has a pretty boring part, but they play the tambourine as they watch their friend cry while his fingers fly across the buttons.

I feel that both have their charm, but I think Rock Band is by far the better game. While I play Guitar Hero now, I occasionally wish I could play the drum part of a song, but alas, I cannot. The main reason I play Guitar Hero now is for a shot at those songs that make me sad inside. Through Fire and Flames (the hardest song on Guitar Hero 3) is a song I will never complete, but that does not mean I don't have fun practicing the song to see what my accuracy was.

And now, the main reason that Rock Band will outlast Guitar Hero, Downloadable Content (DLC). Rock Band has released about three songs a week for download online. While this may seem to be extra money Rock Band is trying to make off of me, I find it nice that I can pick and choose what I want to buy. At only two dollars a song, I find it very easy to sacrifice that burrito at Taco Bell for a healthier substitute, and I get to download a new song to play. I have only downloaded around twenty songs thus far, and I enjoy every one I have bought.

Guitar Hero has hardly released any new songs. I count twenty-four songs for Guitar Hero, and they come in three-packs, which forces me to buy songs that I may not like as much. On the other hand, Rock Band's songs come in packs as well, but you can also buy the songs individually. By the looks of the DLC status for Guitar Hero and the June release of Guitar Hero: Aerosmith, it looks like Guitar Hero is going to be putting out more and more games, instead of more and more content online. I question how many people plan to buy Guitar Hero: Aerosmith as well. I bought the 80s edition of Guitar Hero and regretted paying fifty bucks for it later, and I am afraid the same could happen this June.

Anyways, there was quite a bit of my mind on these subjects. I have plenty more to say, but I will leave that for another time. Once again, they are both good games, but I feel that, since I have Rock Band, I have virtually stopped playing Guitar Hero. So if you are thinking about buying one of the two, I would definitely recommend Rock Band over Guitar Hero. The only problem there is that Rock Band is an expensive buy compared to Guitar Hero.

Rock Band: $170.00
Guitar Hero 3: $100.00

Those prices are what I payed for the two. Sales are showing up putting them down about ten to twenty percent off now.

Thanks for reading, and if you would like another opinion on this situation, check out my friend Tyler's Blog. On March 12th he posted a "Rock Band Vs. Guitar Hero" comparison as well, and it hits a few extra points that I have not yet touched on.

Console Wars: Wii

2008-03-12T22:36:00.004-05:00

I decided to start a console focused topic in which I will rant my thoughts about consoles and my current thoughts on them. I will do these on a virtually random basis. With brevity as a goal, I have decided to talk about only a few things for the consoles separately as opposed to putting all three in the ring at once. So this time I am going to throw out some thoughts on the Nintendo Wii.

First off, the Wii is a revolutionary system in many regards. However, I am beginning to feel that it is not as awesome as it came across at first. My reasons for this are strongly focused on the overall game quality. Nintendo does a reasonably good job of releasing outstanding titles, but if you go to Target, Wal-Mart, or other retail stores I doubt you will find more than a slim few games that are exciting enough for you to spend fifty dollars purchasing them. Some of this is due to the natural mini-game feel of the Wii. There are games out that are little more than a mini-game that was made into a full on title or a large collection of mini-games. Games like these I feel are giving Nintendo a bad reputation, but I think that Nintendo knows how to use its system and has made some of the best games for the console.

My second, and last complaint for this post, is that the controller is dying. While it is brilliant in its own way, I see it struggling to become a normal everyday controller. The Wiimote and Nunchuck are looking to be drifting toward the secondary controller position for a few simple reasons. Nintendo has made Smash Bros. and Mario Kart Wii (coming out in June) able to use the GameCube controllers instead of the Wiimotes. While I am very glad they did this for Super Smash and Mario Kart, it concerns me that more and more games may revert back to the normal console controller. If the Wii loses the Wiimote, I see it failing in the long run. It will continue to become more and more like the other systems, and those systems are superior in the hardware regard. I feel that the Wii needs to find more gaming ideas that work well with the Wiimote.

On the plus side, the games that are good for the Wii are fantastic. Mario Galaxy and Zelda are quite possibly the best games since their respective SNES titles. Super Smash Bros. Brawl is brilliant and fun. The thing that will help the Wii the most right now would be a bunch of games that make me want to use my Wiimote. The Wiimote is the saving grace of the Nintendo Wii, and if it can be used in future titles like it was in Zelda and Mario, I have no doubt that Nintendo will show huge signs of success.

P.S. For more thoughts on video games and anything related to that, be sure to check out my friend Tyler's blog as well!

Assassin's Creed (X360, but also on PS3)

2008-03-12T20:58:00.007-05:00

Here is a review for Assassin's Creed, available on XBOX 360 and PS3. I played the 360 version, however I have heard of very little difference between the two. Assassin's Creed is an overall quality game. I have nothing at all to complain about in the ideas of how it is structured and what it entails. This game excels at many points that make it stand out above the rest of the open world adventure type games out there.

First off we have control. Control is one of the most important aspects of gaming to me. If I cannot do what I want simply due to control issues, I get more and more frustrated. The controls are very specific, and yet, when you want to climb a wall it can be as simple at pushing the thumbstick forward. For the most part, Altair does exactly what you want him to do. There are some situations where he will struggle, but as I played I found that the overall control is positive. My only gripe here is that I do not have enough thumbs to sprint/tackle and to turn my camera at the same time, but I made due just fine.

The story is a bit weird and unexpected if you are hoping for a game that has nothing but stabbing people in it. However, it does not take away from the game at all, and I think it is a nice interesting story. I will just leave the story talk at that because this review is already longer than I planned.

I feel that, if anywhere, the area that Assassin's Creed falls short is in replay value. Once the game is done there is nothing to do but collect flags. Collecting items or other "collectibles" is always a tedious adventure in a game, or that is at least how I feel on this matter. Also, in order to get back into the game, upon beating it, can take about 5 minutes. This is because you have to sit through the chapter introduction talk again, then ride your horse to the next town again. So that tedious step only gives me another reason to play another game or make a sandwich/burrito while I ignore the introduction conversation.

The main thing that Assassin's Creed could do to counter this lack of replay value would be to add a co-operative multiplayer mode. I also do not doubt that Assassin's Creed 2 will have such a mode in it. Crackdown (another game I will review soon) had a nice co-op mode that really made that game fun to play over and over. I feel that a two player way to do each of the assassination events or even explore the city together could make for a very fun experience.

In closing, Assassin's Creed is a very good game for very specific reasons. If you are looking for a game that will entertain you for about twelve hours, then Assassin's Creed is the way to go. If you want a game with much replay value beyond that I would look somewhere else. All things considered though, I give Assassin's Creed a four out of five stars, simply due to the lack of replay value.

Pros: Controls, Story, Nothing else is quite like it.
Cons: No replay value or multiplayer.

Score: 4/5 stars.

Note: If replay value and multiplayer are not things that you need in a video game, then you might as well bump this one up to a 5/5 stars. I gave it a four simply because those additions would have made Assassin's Creed a game that I would still find tremendously fun today.

Resident Evil 4

2008-03-12T02:53:00.006-05:00

I am starting off on a pretty old game. Resident Evil 4 is quite possibly one of the best January launch titles ever. No, I am not going to go through my entire library's exceptional titles to see what came out when, but I looked it up and it surprised me that it was a January release. RE4 is an example of a game that came out when it was ready, and it has done fantastic in putting survival horror in a whole new league. Anyways, January 11, 2005 we saw Resident Evil 4 come out for the Gamecube. RE4 is one of my favorite games ever for multiple reasons.

1: It boldly marches into a new style of gameplay. The 3rd person view and the overall setup is completely new. The number of puzzles in the game have been reduced to a minimum. Resident Evil 4 is not your big puzzle based game. Instead it is all about shooting people. Some people played the older RE games just to shoot zombies, and that is what RE4 caters toward.

2: Graphics make this game awesome. RE4 is definitely among the top few games on the GCN for graphics. There is a grainy feel to the visuals at times, but I feel that this only improves the effect of the game. Also, that grain is not prevalent across the GCN library, so I wonder if they put it in intentionally.

3: Gameplay and progression are the biggest points as to why this game is awesome. RE4 is the first game I have played where, after each boss battle or huge event, I have wanted to set down the controller for fear of the game getting harder than the last thing I completed. The curve of difficulty is perfect. Each boss is harder than the one before it, and each event is harder than the boss before it or whatever. The game never really has a part later on that I thought it was easy or tedious. It is a constant challenge from beginning to end.

Since RE4 does not really have much or anything that can be said negatively (except perhaps its lack of puzzle aspects that were prevalent to previous RE titles) I will not even try to list the cons for this one. RE4 gets a 5/5 and a mark in my book as one of the greatest games ever made.

"That is it! The game doesn't get harder than that. If it does I don't want to see it." Expect to say something like this to yourself as you set your controller down. Then, after you make yourself a tasty sandwich or something, do not be surprised to find yourself back at your GCN, PS2, or Wii only to be putting yourself through the next horrible thing they have planned for you.

Once again, Capcom's Resident Evil 4 gets a 5 out of 5.

So I have a blog?

2008-03-12T01:05:00.000-05:00

So I have decided to make a blog on here. Mainly because I can, but I also feel that Facebook notes don't quite cut it.

Contained in this blog will be thoughts about virtually any game I pick up and play. If I get lost in my cabinets and wind up playing FF6 (FF3 here in America) then you may see a review of the classic for SNES. My main reason for that is that this can be a window into my currently insane mind. So first I will import my notes from facebook on Smash Bros. and Mass Effect. And I will continue to replay my older games and spew my thoughts on my gaming actions here on this blog.

That explanation aside, someday I plan to make video reviews as well, but I have to get some work out of the way on those things. So perhaps expect that in the future.