Post 31: TGS

Damn, I haven't written a post in awhile.  Additionally, it's going to be sparse in the next week or two as I'm getting married to the love of my life on Saturday and will be spending copious amounts of time with her.  For today, however, I wanted to briefly go over some of the cool things that were at the Tokyo Game Show in the past few days.

New Excitement.  Gotta love New Sensations too.

My favorite of the TGS?  Steel fucking Battalion.  I believe that I've already commented on how this game had a huge-ass giant robot controller when it came out for the original Xbox and it was glorious.  Painful, but glorious.  Nothing beats controlling a giant robot with your body via the Kinect.  This system has allowed for the creation of games that have never before been controlled with the body, and it shines the most at events like this one.

Without the white hair, he just looks funny.

Devil May Cry.  That's all we really need to hear.  The franchise is awesome and the plot of the games consists of a half-demon half-human hero with dual pistols and an array of bladed weapons saving the world again and again.  Capcom has always done a wonderful job with this series and I'm anticipating an exceptional return with the newest.  From what I understand the game takes us back to Dante's past when he was younger and more unbalanced.  It sounds like the game is going to be a wonderful, intense ride through this fun character's history.

Another highly anticipated title that's similar to Devil May Cry's style of gameplay is Ninja Gaiden 3.  Hayabusa's back in a big way.  The stylish ninja is slowing down a bit.  Instead of the super-high paced action that we saw in the last couple of games, it appears that this third installment will instead focus more on developing the character and connecting them more firmly with the player.  Besides DMC, this game has some of the most stunning visuals during combat that I saw in all of the trailers I had a chance to look at from TGS.  Also, who doesn't love ninjas fighting huge robots?  There's nothing better.

The last game that I wanted to talk about is Street Fighter X Tekken.  I have some reservations about this game.  I can't see the super fast controls of Street Fighter meshing that well with the slower pace of Tekken.  Also, in my mind, I've always seen Street Fighter as more of a quirky set of characters rather than a more serious take on fighting games that we have previously been privy to with the Tekken games.  I'm anticipating that this game will be little more than a novelty, similar to the Marvel VS Capcom series.  However, the developers contend that the cooperation between the two teams has created an experience worth purchasing.

In any case it appears like the Tokyo Game Show didn't have much to offer that E3 hadn't previously debuted, but it's still a good time.  The cosplay, the merchandise, the demos, the trailers, the artwork, everything is all part of the experience.  And guess what?  TGS is even open to the public after a period of time.  If I'm ever in Tokyo at the same time as this is going on I'm fairly certain that I will be there every single day that I can, and if you've already been able to go, well, good for you, ass.  I'm not jealous or anything.

Post 30: Video Game Violence

Keeping up with the Dead Island theme for this week, I wanted to just shoot out a quick blurb concerning some of the buzz around the first trailer.  Yes, I know this debuted some time ago, but I'm just seeing some of the stories now so bear with me.  NPR commentators believe that the trailer went too far with the death of the little girl, but you should check it out yourself.  I agree that the trailer is shocking and disturbing, but it's nothing that the world hasn't seen before.

The most recent Dawn of the Dead began with a little girl turned zombie.  This one wasn't killed, mind you, but it evokes some of the same raw horror.  As it turns out this same piece of trailer is very, very interesting to some Hollywood parties. A Dead Island movie would have a great audience as long as it stayed true to the heart of the game.  Like the Resident Evil franchise, though, you also have to be careful about recreating characters that gamers know and love because it can easily backfire.

My real quandary with people who have issues with graphic violence in video games is that it's all been done before on TV or in movies and when it hit there, there was little to no regard to it's horribleness.  Only when it hits a console does the attention of the Jack Thompsons of the world get captured.  I agree that interactivity with violent acts may be more harmful to the psyche of a young child than that of a cartoon, but that's why there are ratings.  It's up to the parents to keep content like Dead Island out of the hands of their seven year old children, and don't give me that "the ratings are confusing" bullshit because they couldn't be any clearer.  All in all, the ratings system and parents should work together to ensure that the appropriate content for all ages reaches it's intended audience.  As for Dead Island, yes it's horrible, but it's a survival-horror game and tries to bring the experience of a zombie movie to your console.  To do that it needs to shock and awe with an audience that's rightly aged for it's violence; one that has a separation of reality and fantasy.  As for Jack Thompson, well, he can just go shove it.

Post 29: Dead Island Revisited

A still from the gruesome trailer that NPR has labeled uncomfortable due to graphic violence.

Despite several setbacks, including an issue with profane and inappropriate comments included in the code of the game, Dead Island manages to be a well put together game. The issue can be found in the archives of my blog, but it has little to do with the game's overall playability so I won't dredge it up again.  I simply want to attack the meat of the game rather than it's construction problems; I'll leave that to the media.

Zombie hugs are some of the least gratifying.

The game's premise is that a zombie infestation has occurred on a resort island.  Players choose from four characters, each with their own specific set of skills.  There's a tank, a gun-expert, a throwing-expert, and a bladed weapons specialist.  No matter who you choose, the story remains consistent.  In fact it's so consistent that if you are logged onto Xbox Live and you are "near" someone in the story, they can join your game and insert themselves in to help you or for you to help them.  It works both ways, not much unlike a bisexual.  In any case, this is majorly annoying for those of us that just want to game by ourselves for an hour or two.  It's like some jerk-off knocking on your door and letting himself in whenever the fuck they want.  Luckily, you can change the options here and adjust it to your liking.  There are sometimes, however, that you will want someone to join you, like in a heavily infested area, and in those times it's acceptable.

Machete: 1 Zombie: 0

The idea is to try and survive on the island so that an escape plan can be put together.  Of course, the only obstacle between you and sweet, blissful escape is an entire resort of zombies and idiot survivors that need your help.  You progress in the story, and in areas on the island, by completing main and side quests.  For completing these quests you earn experience, level up, and gain skill points to spend on the skills unique to each character.  This type of gaming setup is very reminiscent of say the Diablo series or Borderlands.  In fact, Dead Island may as well be Borderlands on an island.  The main differences are that you're up against zombies, you're on Earth, and there's an emphasis on melee combat.  Let's talk about the combat while we're on the subject.

It's like a Zombie bug zapper.

As I stated, the combat is focused on melee.  To that end, there are two types of weapons, blunt and bladed.  Whichever you decide upon is usually based on which character you chose and how you want to develop your skills.  All of the weapons you find have a chance of being Common, Uncommon, Rare, Unique, or Exceptional with each category being more powerful than the last.  Add to that a weapon modification system a la Dead Rising 2 and you've got yourself one hell of a good weapons system.  So at this point it's a typical first-person hack and slash, but you've got some choices in combat.  You can take the time to focus on a particular limb and break it, or cut it off depending on the weapon type, or just go all out and waste your stamina on the whole thing.  Either way it makes for a good time as you hack limbs and bust heads.  Even when guns become involved, I have no problem saying that the combat system is excellent.

I don't know why this is here.

The quests are a bit broken and cause some confusion on my part.  There is a difficulty value for every quest, but it seems like it's arbitrary.  A quest may say hard, but you breeze through it like it's very easy.  I'm not sure what determines the difficulty, so this may just be a misunderstanding from my perspective, but it's a point of contention that I had to bring up.  Another issue is the pathing for the quest trails on the map.  If you go a way different from the path on your mini-map it corrects the trail.  This is great if you're an idiot, otherwise it just pisses you the hell off.  One time in particular I was traveling through a bazaar and the end comes out into a car.  There was plenty of room to move over or to the left of the car, but the pathing told me to go around to the right and out to the left again.  This happens constantly and I find myself backtracking or going off the path just to reach my destination.  You'd think it wouldn't be too hard, just get from A to B.

My final complaint about the game is based upon the realism.  I love the graphics, plot, and almost everything else about this game, but it comes across as too real at many times.  You run out of stamina a lot.  Stamina is tracked with a bar.  Once the bar runs out, you slow down and can't attack or jump until you regain it.  That's fine, but it happens way too fucking often.  The horror aspect of the story is wonderful and I actually get scared sometimes when playing alone, but some of the roars and moans are just disturbing and even annoying after awhile.  Despite all of the realism that makes me angry, like people who sell weapons and items jacking up the prices to a ridiculous plateau, the worst of all is the fact that the zombies can utilize weapons.  For instance, I was just running away from a few zombies to get some distance on them and shoot them down due to damage suffered from a close encounter.  With normal zombies that's no problem, they shamble over to you and you cut them down with bullets, game over, but of course here that's not the case.  I got away and took down two of the remaining three, but one of the fuckers threw, yes they can use and throw weapons, a wooden plank at me and killed me.  Talk about being pissed the hell off.  If you're going to have attention to detail and realism that's fine, but at least be fucking consistent.  Zombies cannot use goddamn weapons they're brainless, alright?  BRAINLESS.

Bonus Retro Game of the Week: Ghostbusters II

Indeed.

Ghostbusters II is a unique specimen.  Not only is the movie vastly different from the first, but the games are also vastly different from the first and from each other.  I'm not going to judge the movies again, I already did that, but I do want to talk about the games.  My first complaint centers around why there are different versions of this game.  If you look at the first Ghostbusters game across all of the platforms it was the same game, Sega Master System, NES, the Atari, and the home computers of the time all had the same cross-platform game.  That makes sense and even fits the profile of cross-platform games today, though there are some minor differences.  But why did there need to be four different versions of the game across each platform?  The reason to make all of the games the same is to allow all gamers to be able to have the same overall experience no matter what system they own.  That way, when a developer makes a game, they don't have to specify a platform or waste time creating a different game for each console.

What a beast.

Let's start into the games with the Atari 2600 version.  Activision was lined up to develop a version of Ghostbusters 2 on this console to match up with the original game's release. Unfortunately, by 1989, Nintendo and Sega were already dominating the market and relegating Atari's old consoles to the dust heap of the video gaming age.  Sales were already too slow for Activision to even think about continuing development on a game for this dinosaur.  Oddly enough, a British gaming company eventually released the game in Europe.  Due to some licensing issues, Ghostbusters 2 for the Atari cannot be released onto the anthologies that come out from time to time.

Ah yes, low-resolution PC glory.

The PC version of the game was released though, and it looks something like the pic on the right.  It looks like Ray is being lowered into a river of Spaghetti-Os.  The game here consists of several arcade screens haphazardly jumbled together in chronological order according to the progression of the movie.  The first level is Ray being lowered to the slime.  During his descent he needs to collect health, ammo, and the slime scoop for collection purposes.  Along the way, the player will need to dodge and battle ghosts that try to collide with Ray and cut the rope he's connected to.  The second level is the march to the museum.  You control the fireball on the torch, however that's supposed to be working now, and the goal is to protect the statue as it continues along the path.  The final level of the game, that's right there are only three damn levels, pits the player against Janosz, Vigo, and finally the possessed Ray.  Oddly enough, there are some versions of the PC game that actually include another level from the movie scene that takes place in the courthouse.

This is just disturbing, like a Ghostbuster bukkake.

The most well-recognized version of the game was created for the NES.  It's a classic side-scroller where you dodge obstacles, shoot enemies, and drive the Ghostbusters hearse across New York in an attempt to stop Vigo.  Each level has the player get from point A to B using their slime pack, yeah not the proton pack which would be more fun in every circumstance, to eliminate enemies.  The only issues that I really have with this game is that the gun controls are sticky and the game is way too fucking monotonous.  Each movement of the gun feels like you need to crank the d-pad hard enough to break it and every single level of the game is the same.  Either you're driving the car or your dodging shit on foot.  There are no bosses, no bonus games, and no variety whatsoever.  Lame as shit, moving on.

The Genesis is where it's at.

The final version of Ghostbusters 2 is on the Genesis.  Just to be clear, this isn't based on the second movie, but rather the first it's just the second game that Sega released of Ghostbusters and came out around the same time as the others Ghostbusters 2 games.  All that means that it gets lumped together with other games that are way below it's own station.  To be honest, this game is little short of perfection.  It brings together great controls, good action, and Ghostbusters goodness.  It goes back to that simulation idea of the first game, but it does it on a scale that only includes earning money and using it to buy upgrades.  The gun controls are not stiff and feel almost as fluid as Contra.  The idea is to clear each level of the mini-bosses and boss ghosts to earn money, buy upgrades, and get to the next level.  Each level is non-linear and acts much like a maze that gives you multiple paths to each room and powerups along the way.  The Genesis Ghostbusters is by far the best, even through today.

Each game is decent in it's own right and time period, but the main problem is the version issue.  Activision made some stupid decisions concerning their wasted time and efforts on each platform.  Today companies are streamlined and market-conscious enough to realize that creating several versions of one game across all platforms doesn't provide the gamer with the best experience.  My suggestion to 3rd party developers is to develop the game for the end-user not for individual consoles.  Ghostbusters 2 should have been developed across all platforms in the same fashion as Ghostbusters on the Genesis.  Each system could have handled the improvements save for the Atari.  Instead we get a confusing mess of ridiculous version retardation.

Post 28: Tokyo Game Show

So I've been really wrapped up in Dead Island, which I purchased this last weekend, and haven't had time to finish my posts on Ghostbusters.  I may just end up saving Ghostbusters 2 until this weekend on my normal Retro Game of the Week day.  Whatever, I'll figure it out.

Also since I've been so involved in my new game I haven't had time to compile an actual post, so I'm going to leave you with this.  Take a look at all the funny people in Tokyo dressing up and being crazy.  Enjoy.

Retro Game of the Week: Ghostbusters

The ghost look so surprised.

I am a huge fan of simulation games.  When it comes right down to it, I could play Sim City for a few hours a day and really enjoy myself.  Unfortunately there are some simulation games that are boring, too complex, or just downright annoying.  Ghostbusters for the NES falls into all three categories.  I do have to go on record, again, and say that I fucking love Ghostbusters, but this game is just the shits.  It's a great idea, but poorly executed and on a system that just cannot handle what the game could have, and should have, been.  Let's start with the box on the left.  If you were to pick up this game back in 1988, there's little to no indication that you may not be getting what you want.  All you know is that you're getting Ghostbusters the video game and you're shitting your pants because you're just that damn excited.  Well, when you get home, change pants, and put that game in your Nintendo all your excitement is going to fall right out your ass.

Bustin' ghosts.

As soon as you start the game you get this voice yelling out Ghostbusters and you immediately get crapped out to the screen on the right.  The player takes control of the Ghostbusters logo.  So your first inclination might be that the game is some sort of Pac-Man clone, but by the time you travel all over the board, you find out that touching the ghosts only freezes them for a short period of time and that some of the buildings flash red.  Well, here's the scoop, those red buildings are haunted by ghosts and you need to bust 'em.  But how?  The game doesn't gives you one fucking clue.  You need a Proton Pack.  Oh, right, duh, there's a freaking shop up there.  Before you can actually go into the shop, you need to drive there.  No, not on the overworld map, but on a different screen.  You drive the damn car avoiding drunk drivers and obstacles or you lose money, and you need money to buy your equipment, which means you really need to be on top of things.  So you go to the shop and buy your pack and a trap and you're all set to go out and bust the hell out of some spirits.

Literally the only picture I could use.

So you head back out onto the overworld and zip on over to a red flashing building.  When you get there and go inside, the game forces you to drive there yet again.  After avoiding the damn obstacles for the second time you finally get to shoot some ghosts, and hell, it sucks too.  Your beam controls are as stiff as a corpse and the ghosts move too high up or too low down to capture almost every single time you get to this screen.  Even if you manage to get a ghost over the trap, it's almost up to pure luck if you capture it or not.  Oh yeah, and don't cross the streams, if you do, you disintegrate.  So if you finally capture a ghost or two you get some money.  Gain enough money and you can buy other worthless shit like Ghost Food, an upgraded Proton Pack, or better gear that has greater defense against ghosts.  So where exactly would you use this Ghost Food or defensive gear?  So far all we've seen are the overworld, driving, and ghost busting scenes and you can't exactly use items there.  In any case, now that you've gotten some ghosts you need to empty your trap and buy a new one.  That's right, you can't use one trap forever, you need to keep buying them.

This is very gray, too gray in fact.

So once you hit the shop again, you need to do the driving scene all over.  Fun.  By now, though, your gas meter is probably pretty low and you don't know why the fuck you have a gas meter anyway.  Well guess what?  You need to get gas for your damn car too.  For now you run out of gas and the sprites get out and push the car to the gas station, which costs more money.  So now you've wasted your precious ghost busting fee on gas and you can't buy that upgraded Proton Pack.  Fucknuts.  Whatever, you buy another trap and go after more ghosts.  After about an hour or so of doing this shit, you're still not any further along.  I had the problem of just spending my fees on new traps, gas, and getting hit in the driving stages.  It's like you were exercising only to go back to McDonalds any time that you made any progress at all, except without the addiction and food.  There's no food in Ghostbusters for NES.

Endgame staircases are harder to climb than any other type of staircase.  This is a fact.

Also after about an hour something flashes across the bottom of the screen.  Every time this happened while I was playing I barely caught the tail end of it.  The message just flies across the bottom of the screen at warp-fucking-speed.  Essentially it's telling you that you can now go into the Zuul building and play the rest of the game.  Finally.  Anyway, what you see next is the screen above.  Here you have to play stairmaster and avoid the ghosts.  This is where the defensive gear comes in handy, cause three hits and you're done, and you need to be almost flawless to beat this fuckfest.  Good luck.

The boss in an NES game is a naked woman-man. Fun.

At the top of the stairs, the next screen greets you and the game actually becomes fun for about five minutes until you beat the everliving shit out of the crazy bitch.  You dodge bullets here and fire back with your proton packs until she's toast.  The game ends and you get a shitty black and white ending screen with misspelled words and horrible grammar.  Yay.

Alright, I'm over it.  Hopefully now you see what I mean.  The game is way too boring.  I mean, how many times do you have to play the same freaking driving scene or the same ghost capturing scene?  Seriously, the only fun part of the game is the end where you're mimicking a 2D vertical shooter.  And talk about complex: why do you need to buy gas?  Getting down into that level of detail is just not needed here, it only creates problems for the gamer and causes them to get too frustrated to enjoy or finish the game.  The annoyance of this game is on full throttle and it shows with all of the same scenes, frustrating gameplay, and lackluster music.  I didn't mention this before, but the music is really annoying.  It's a decent rendition of the Ghostbusters theme, but it never stops.  Ever.  You'll want to cut your own ears off just to stop the noise.

Like I was saying at the beginning, I love simulation games, but this is just ass.  There's definitely an issue with the limitations of the NES and if it were on the SNES a few years later, I think that with some alterations, this could have been a good game, like SimCity.  The best change that this game could use though, is a change in location.  It needs to be located right in the fucking toilet.  Just drop that game right in like the shit bomb it is and move on with your life.

Post 27: Party Games

You may have noticed that I changed days in my subjects to posts.  I figured it was stupid to track the days when there are days that I don't write anything.  Plus, posts provides a better experience for you, the reader.  If you don't like to think of things in days, that is.



Whoever this guy is, he has a shitty hand.

 Remember in the days of yore, when your parents would have a party and sit around drinking scotch or whatever and playing cards with their friends?  The drinks may have changed today, but not much about party games has.  There are a ton of card and board games out there that are excellent to play with a bunch of friends, but the best party games nowadays are all on your video game console.  I'm not saying that you need to go out and burn all of your old games, I just want to introduce you to the mounds of fun that are readily available for your gaming system, at least all of the ones that I give at least two shits about.  One shit games just don't make my list.

One hell of a party.  Yeehaw.

Let's start off with one of the greatest, in my opinion, party games of all time.  Yes, Mario Party could be classified as a retro game, but I'm including it here because there are so fucking many of them.  Even though there are as many of these as there are The Land Before Time movies, they can still be decent games.  Each one has the same premise, you go around a giant game board trying to get stars.  The player with the most stars at the end of the game wins.  To gather the winning components, you must collect coins and win mini-games.  The coins are used to purchase items and stars while the winners of the mini-games can win items, coins, or stars.  Of course, the mini-games are also the worst part of the games.  For the most part, they're ridiculous half-assed version of go-karting, drawing, and even bumper cars.  Some are okay, but by the end of a few games you'll have tired of them.



So many characters it's like a buffet.

Sticking with the Nintendo groove for the moment, let's shift genre gears and take a look at Super Smash Bros. Brawl.  I played a metric shit ton of SSBM in high school and this newer version in college, which leaves me with two things to say about the series:  It's freaking amazing with a bunch of people, and it's shitty because it's always dominated by the best players.  I was pretty good at the game, though I've lost my touch for now as I haven't played in over a year, and always ended up in the final two fighters.  Of course this wasn't bad for me per se, but it becomes annoying as time goes on that the same people always use the same move with the same character and win over and over again.

Drums = Paris Hilton

Moving on, I feel like I need to address the musical game revolution.  I'll clump them all into one massive pile, because that's where most of them belong.  Specifically Rock Band sticks out as a great party game.  Who doesn't want to be in a band?  The only problem that I can foresee here is that there's a lot of expensive junk being beat on by a bunch of different people until each one is a worn down shell of it's former self.  By the end of a night of gaming your drums probably look like Paris Hilton after a regular Friday night, both banged by way too many people in a row.  Another game that can be pulled out of this mess is Karaoke Revolution.  It's just a mediocre karaoke machine on your console that's wasting dollars in your wallet and space in your DVD binder.

Another type of party game that needs to be addressed is family/board games.  One that I have a particular issue with is the Scene It series.  If you don't know, Scene It is a board game where you have to asnwer questions based off of various or specific TV shows and/or movies.  Oh, and a onus is that it's got a DVD to play along with it.  So wait, it's now a video game too?  What the fuck is the difference?  It's the same damn thing.  Why not freaking play it with the board and DVD where it's roughly $20 less expensive?!  Ugh, makes me sick.  In any case, why would you play ANY board game on your console, just use the fucking board!

A final type of game that I need to address is Kinect party games.  These are pretty fun and get you moving quite a bit, but it takes a lot of shuffling and complaining before you get some type of order going as the max amount of players at a time is really two.  Of course if you have like 30 people playing Fruit Ninja Kinect, you'd probably be better going bowling.

So the main problem with the newer generation of party games is that they are limited by the number of controllers, total players, or just by space, and really, have the games changed much from sitting around table playing cards?  it's pretty much that you're still playing your board game, but it's on TV rather than sitting on a table.  I have to ask, what's the fucking point?  Smash Bros. I understand, it's a game that cannot be manipulated or recreated using a board or cards or karaoke machine or real musical instruments, but for all of the others why put the game on a console?  If you're going to play Scene It or Monopoly on 360, put that fucking controller down and pick up that cardboard; it'll save you some cash and make you look less like an idiot.

Post 26: Resident Evil 5

Who doesn't know about Resident Evil?  It is literally one of the greatest, and most successful, gaming franchises in video gaming history.  Not only have there been a ton of cross-platform games that started with the original from the PS1 in 1996.  Since that inception point, there have been sequels, prequels, offshoots, and four live-action movies the most recent one in stunning 3D.  The games are the epitome of survival horror games and involve one, or two in the more recent games, characters trying to solve a mystery, escape or destroy zombies, and stop the plots of evil villains from the Umbrella pharmaceutical corporation.  Each of the early games surrounded the original events in Raccoon City, where Umbrella originally unleashed the T-Virus, the virus that revives dead cells and subsequently created the zombie infestation.  In Resident Evil 4, it is discovered that the original creatures that the makings of this virus came from still exist.  The fifth game brings a lot of the mysteries to a conclusion and wraps back in one of the original characters and villains for a stunning end of the game for any fan of the series.  I'm going to talk about the gameplay for Resident Evil 5 today, but going forward, I may wrap in a few of the older and newer games as I continue to delve into the series.

His pants are oddly bunched...

The game centers around one of the first game's main protagonists: Chris Redfield.  He goes to Africa as part of an international group battling biological terrorists in an ultimate quest to end the Umbrella corporation once and for all.  Once there, he teams up with Sheva Alemar, the character that the second player will be, and they head out as a team to fight against a zombie plague that's taken over portions of Africa.  The game plays very similarly to Resident Evil 4, in which you use the controller to switch between Ready mode and Movement mode.  Ready mode allows you to shoot or knife enemies, while Movement mode allows you to move and perform actions.  Some of the actions in the game force you to work with your partner to jump large gaps, climb large buildings, or even move a raft while the other player has to dodge giant crocodiles.  The two-player option here really shines out as it can make for a very intense gaming session even though the horror aspect is downplayed a bit when you have a friend with you.

Gotta love item management like this.

At the end of every level you get to use the money you've collected to buy weapons, items, and upgrades.  There's also a treasure hunt that spans the entire game.  Each individual one can be extremely hard to find, so you need to keep your eyes peeled if you're trying to get the achievement of gathering the entire hoard.  Now that we've learned how the whole shebang works, let's dig into the meat of the damn game.

Giant boss action.  Shoot him in the face!

So as I said, you travel throughout Africa killing zombies and uncovering the secrets of the T-Virus.  The first area that you travel in is a couple of random villages.  There are some good moments here where you have some covering fire from a helicopter while you push your way through a ton of zombies that poke their heads out from hiding to fire a few random shots at you every now and again.  Right, these aren't your brainless zombies, instead they're humans that have been infected by creatures that are cousins to the T-Virus.  In any case, at the end of the level you face off against a crazy black-goo monster that you have to take out using a bit of strategy and flaming explosive gas barrels.  Fuck yeah.  You find a document and head out into the marshes where you fight in a free-roaming area against sniper zombies, crocodiles, and crazed tribals while collecting pieces of a key to open a door into the tribal village.  This is a difficult area due to the fact that one person has to drive a boat while the other has to manage to fend off all of the snipers.  It makes for some fun, but damn is it hard the first time through.  The boss here is a giant squid type-thing that you take out with missile turrets.  Another sweet boss battle down and you head into a cave leading down to some ruins.

Chrrrrriiiiiiissssss~!

The ruins lead down into a cave that leads into a facility that created the virus that came before the T-Virus.  Here's where the story comes full circle, but I'm just going to ignore that and continue on with the game.  If I were to tell the whole story, we'd be here forever.  This is where you first encounter the most annoying ass enemy in the game, save for the final boss.  Fucking dog/brain/tongue monsters are damn tough.  Not only are they difficult to hit, but they strangle you.  What's better, they come in frickin' herds rather than one-by-one.  Fun, right?  Further into the facility, you fight a giant-ass spider boss.  This guy needs to be shot up until he opens his mouth, then you toss a grenade in.  He goes down pretty easy and you move onto the end of the ruins where you have your first taste of Wesker.

Does Albert Wesker need to choke a bitch?

It took me a long time to master this fight with Wesker.  You have to catch him unawares to actually damage him, but it's difficult since he's a superhuman infused with T-Virus.  Once you beat him, he runs away to his big 'ol ship where you eventually follow, but you need to first rip a giant red thing off of Jill Valentine's chest.  The second part of this fight isn't too difficult, you just need to get in close and tap buttons at the right time.  Once Jill's free of the technological control of whatever the fuck that red thing on her chest was.  Chris and Sheva run to catch Wesker.  On the tanker ship, you battle more and more zombies with increasing difficulty and stronger weaponry.  Also found on the ship is a huge number of missiles containing a virus that Wesker believes will push evolution to the max and make the strong the rulers of the Earth.  Why yes, Wesker does have some mental instability, most likely as a side-effect of the virus that he constantly injects himself with.  Once you finish with the tanker area, you find Wesker boarding a plane armed with some of the missiles.  This fight is a bit easier than the first time with the boss because of the free missile launchers everywhere.  Pick up those bad boys, shoot the fucker in the face, and then stab him with an injector.  A few shots of that shit and he tries to leave, but you hop into the plane before he gets away.

I'm thinking he needs his sunglasses back.

After what I thought was the final battle is a battle after you crash in a volcano.  That's right a fucking volcano.  You've now crashed, Wesker has transformed into a damn demon, and you have to fight him with whatever ammo you have left IN A VOLCANO.  It's like the developers threw everything they could into the same fight.  I'm surprised that there aren't any tornadoes, hurricanes, magnetic storms, lightning bursts, and gateways to hell opening up in the same vicinity.  It's like, why not put every hazard we can in the same fight?  Task one is to reach Wesker by running through the volcano, which is easier said than done unless you've played before.  Then, when you finally reach the bastard, it literally drains every shot you have to take him out, and get this, he even has the strength left to try to take you out as you leave in a helicopter.  Man, this guy is like Agent Smith on crack.

This game is overall excellent, I just had a few issues with some of the enemies that seem to be a bit unfair.  The challenge isn't bad at all, it's just something that I wasn't expecting.  My second time through was easier than the first because I knew what to expect.  But isn't that what a survival horror game should be like?  I shouldn't have known what was coming and it should have some decent difficulty, so shouldn't I be happy with it?  Well, even with my own issues, this game is a great addition to the series and is a must-have for any system.  If you've never played Resident Evil because you're scared or too young; whatever the reason, play this game as a starter to the series and work your way back.  It's a great time and you can complete the experience with books, movies, and anime.  Just get out there and start some zombie-killing fun.

Post 25: Ghostbusters

The life force of all gamers.

Picture this: It's 3AM in the morning and you're sitting around in your underwear playing Darksiders or some bullshit, and you get up to grab a Dew.  You walk into the kitchen and bust open the fridge, but you don't find a life-giving, caffeinated rink.  Instead you find a second dimension.  A disembodied voice booms out "Zool," and you shit your pants.  Who the fuck are you gonna call?  I'm not sure that Jay and Grant from TAPS are going to be your best bet here, they mostly handle the more mundane, non-violent hauntings.  Instead, this is a job for the Ghostbusters.  Yeeeaah.

I ain't afraid of no ghosts!

1984 is the year that the first movie came out and it was a huge hit. The film was a great cross between the horror, comedy, and science fiction genres and it generated enough prestige and fanbase to cause need for a sequel.  If you don't know about Ghostbusters, you'd better get your ass out to a rental place, or log onto Netflix, because this baby's a piece of history.  The premise is that a few parapsychologists form a ghost hunting team and clean up New York.  Unfortunately, they also kind of cause a cataclysmic event for the entire city that ends up with them having to save the city from a giant marshmallow man and a crazy genderless lady-boy.  Fun times.  Ghostbusters 2 was less well-received but it kept the original ghostbusting spirit.  Ultimately the audience and critics were mixed on their receptions of the movie and it gave the Ghostbuster legacy a single bad mark in the minds of most people.  For me, both of these movies constitute a great entertainment experience and I'll throw them in any time to relive old memories and hear those one-liners for the fiftieth time.  Of course, if you aren't in the mood for a film-trip down memory lane, you can always pull out your old Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters II video games and fuck about with those for awhile.

Not a real poster by any means.

I'm going to use both games as my Retro Game of the Week, so expect a two-day post there, and it's only fitting given the ground-breaking even that's up and coming in 2012.  That's right, Ghostbusters 3 is coming.  I am completely psyched for it.  That's why today I wanted to take a glance at the latest Ghostbusters video game that came out in 2009.  I grabbed the game for almost nothing at a closeout sale and was pleasantly surprised, but we'll get into the meat of it below.  For now, I just need to end this paragraph.

Ghostbusters: The Video Game is a third person shooter that was released across all platforms.  The main reason that I enjoyed it was the super-nostalgia factor.  Not only did many of the actors provide their likenesses and voices to the game, but many of the levels are familiar from the first movie.  When you were a kid, didn't you want a proton pack to capture ghosts with in an environment where all the other kids didn't think you needed counseling?  Well now's your chance.  The game puts you into the shoes of a new recruit for the Ghostbusters crew.  As the "Rookie" you go around from level to level using the PKE meter and goggles to find paranormal activity.  Once you find it you proton pack it to a weakened state and then capture it with a trap.  Think of the trap like a Poke Ball.  In Pokemon, if you didn't weaken the other Pokemon enough, it could escape.  The same principle applies here.  You can also use your proton pack to interact with objects in the environment, though most times this ends in your breaking of shit and losing money.  Money is used to purchase upgrades and is generally good, similar to real life.  There are times that having a steady hand to move objects in the world is integral to the mission.

This is epic, I can just smell the burnt marshmallow.

The plot takes place two years after Ghostbusters 2 and involves a giant PKE shockwave that causes a ton of ghosts to be released into the city, including our old friend Stay Puft.  Fighting and running away from Stay Puft is an excellent level.  You're basically running through a maze of fire, traffic, and marshmallow while the giant guy hounds you.  Eventually though you get to beat the ever-loving mallow out of him, and damn is it satisfying.  The story leads the group back to the original designer of the Central Park West building from the first movie.  It turns out that he was designing buildings and tunnels to channel slime throughout the city.  Essentially it's a means to merge the real world with the ghost world.  Eventually they find a mansion that came out of the water near New York and they go to inspect.  This level is extremely interesting and graphically fun as it's very mechanized-looking.  You have to find all of the busters and rescue them from various traps strewn throughout while you demolish several machines that pump slime out into the tunnels for the grand design.

My game froze as I got to the final level.  Bunch of shit, right?  I was so pissed.  I tried to play it about seventeen times and finally gave up. Essentially the final level involves exorcising a ghost and fighting the architect in his Destructor form.  It sounds really exciting, but I've never played it.  My goal is to re-play all of the Ghostbusters games before the third movie is released to theaters so that I can experience everything to do with the series.  If you have never seen Ghostbusters, go see it.  If you haven't played the game, go play them.  In 2012, go see the movie.  Like I said, Ghostbusters is a piece of our history and it's integral that it be added to everyone's film repertoire.  Even if you don't like it.  Of course, in that event I'm going to have to freak the hell out and sic Stay Puft on you.

Post 24: State of PC Gaming

Battlefield 3 looks like all kinds of awesome.

Here's an interesting article on where the developers of Battlefield 3 see PC gaming going in the near future, as well as their concerns surrounding Sony's recent hacking issues.  For those of you that are unaware, Sony's Playstation Network, their answer to Xbox Live, was hacked on a large scale.  In response, the company has been beefing up it's security measures.  Of course the main problem is that the event in itself has shown other hackers the vulnerability of such systems.

This is a loyal console gamer.

In the linked article, the General Manager of DICE states his opinions regarding the future of PC Gaming.  I have to disagree with him on a few points, but overall I understand and agree with what I read.  Karl indicates that he believes that consoles are being tapped out.  That nothing much can continue to happen with them and that PC gaming will rise to the top purely based on performance.  PCs do have more capabilities and are better from a hardware perspective, but as a console gamer I don't see that happening for two reasons: 1) console gamers are too loyal and too entrenched to stop the market from creating better and better consoles, and 2) what is a console at this point but a computer?  The line between PC and console has been blurred beyond recognition in many respects.  The crossovers and ports are great in number and my 360 has essentially all of the same components of a computer, it's just reduced for marketability.  If the 360 was priced as a gaming computer was, with all of the top-end hardware and software, there would be no way it could be labeled as affordable gaming. 

Overall, I dislike Apple as a company.

Karl also argues that Apple could be a force to be reckoned with in the near future.  I don't see why Apple hasn't already tossed their hat into the ring with both a console, and better game compatibility.  Microsoft did so at the end of the PS1 era and they are already the king of PC gaming.  Maybe Apple's too damn scared to get in there.  Hell, if I were going up against a giant like Microsoft in a field that my audience didn't really care about, I too would be pissing my pants.

Ick, it's indie.

The final comment that the article leaves us with is that Indie gaming is about to explode.  I hate Indie games.  I literally fucking hate them, but they are a necessary evil.  I am very comfortable with my corporate Halos, Fallouts, and Dead Risings, I don't want to see some random-ass kid make a game where you run around as a stick man and have it gain popularity.  Not because I'm a complete asshole, thought I am a bit of one, but because I don't want the games that I actually like to be replaced by pieces of shit like "Running Stick Man."  Indie gaming spawns creativity, there's no mistaking that, but when it replaces good games on PC or on a console, I foresee less development taking place on series like Call of Duty or Battlefield.  Creativity is necessary, but it can be evil when wielded by the inexperienced.

Retro Game of the Week: Action in New York

 

New York City in the future is purple.

 Alright, let's do this; play us some Action in New York, I mean.  When I first laid eyes on this game, I just didn't understand.  Action in New York?  I was thinking that it would be something along the lines of a Double Dragon clone or The Last Action Hero.  Never did I imagine a side-scrolling shooter where you're some cybernetic guy or gal flying around shooting aliens.  The name just confuses the hell out of me.  To bring even more confusion to the table, the game is also known as SCAT.  That's right, this game's name is SCAT.  Fantastic, at least they're being upfront about the shit.




I guess this is an Astrotube.

 SCAT apparently stands for Special Cybernetic Attack Team, so maybe the game isn't all about feces.  Whatever.  The plot goes a bit like this:  The year is 2029 and some aliens have planted a giant Astrotube, whatever that is, on Earth.  Apparently it connects the ruins of New York City to the alien space station.  I guess they wanted VIP access to Times Square or something so they shot it up and put in an elevator.  SCAT was assembled to fight the aliens and remove the Asstube.  Right, I meant to say Astrotube.
 There's both a one and two player mode which are fairly self-explanatory, move around and kill stuff.  The controls are basic, nothing's too stiff or too touchy, but it's not as great as it could be.  When playing the single player mode you can choose between two members of SCAT: Arnold or Sigourney.  When playing two players, player one is Arnold and two is Sigourney.  Now do these names make you picture anyone in particular?

Man, just how old is she now?

I would imagine that the creators made those US names on purpose, because they aren't the original Japanese names by any means.  I realize that both actors have some great sci-fi hits, but did Natsume really need to use these names and make kids think of their movie idols at the time?  Can't they just make a good game instead?



Just put your money right in.

 So as I mentioned, the gameplay is pretty standard.  Fly around the screen and shoot everything in sight.  Sometimes you move vertically, but most of the time it's just a horizontal flight pattern, nothing special.  You get six lives, but with unlimited continues there's no reason to not play straight through the five levels that there.  Not only is this game a confusing mesh of science-fiction and feces, but it's also really freaking short.  It's like today, if you were to buy a game and beat it in five hours it equals $50 shat right down the damn drain.  Moving on, there're some power-ups for your gun, movement speed, and life recovery.  Overall it's not a bad game, it's just blah.  I mean, how many times have you pleayed a game like this?  Granted not all of them involve Arnold Schwarzeneggar and Sigourney Weaver trying to save the world from an Asstube, but it's still too bland to be good. 

See how much harder?

The Japanese version was harder than the American and European, having supplied the players with only three lives.  Also the story at the beginning showed the destruction of a bunch of cities before the Asstube was firmly planted into New York City.  Another difference is that the JP version had two male characters instead of a male and female.  What are they, sexist?  Oh wait, they are.  The European version also had a difference with the characters.  They kept their likeness to the actors mentioned earlier, but the names were changed to Silver Man and Sparks, guess they didn't like either Alien or Predator...  In this version also, SCAT was changed to SAT.  I guess the EP market wouldn't do well with buying a game about shit.

Even though this game is really weird, and Natsume made it easy to pick on, it's not like it's a "bad" game, it's just so mediocre that it's not good.  When I beat the game I didn't feel accomplished, I felt like I wasted a few hours of my life.  Instead of playing this game I could have read a book, started a new language, or just played a better fucking game.  What a waste.

Day 23: Dead Island Scandal

This is pretty self-explanatory.

So I have approximately none time to spend on a post today so you're just going to get a bunch of garbage.  I found this article to be mildly entertaining with just a touch of enraged nerd.  Dead Island sounds and looks like an excellent game, but someone fucked up in the game's programming.  Hilarious.  Clearly someone has been burned one too many times by the opposite sex and didn't quite know how to deal with it.  Of course putting it in the game's script was clever, but completely stupid.  He probably should have just gone to counseling or tried a different type of woman before he just blew off his steam by fucking with the game.  Good show, moron, good show.

Day 22: Nextnext Gen in 18 months?

What the shit?

This is totally and completely accurate.  No lie.

I know it's been a couple of years since the 360 and PS3 came out and they've been excellent thus far, but why the fuck do we need to see the next next generation Sony console in under a year and half?  Of course this is just a rumor, and the information isn't substantiated in any way, but this is how Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo tend to work with releasing new consoles or developing something super exciting.  Soon we'll be "leaked" information about Project Moonbound and we'll see infamous pictures of things like the controller on the right that have little or no resemblance to what they'll eventually become.  Or if they do resemble in image, they'll be piles of glamorized, over-hyped shit like the Virtual Boy.

So clearly this "announcement" is linked to the development and release of the Wii U.  I'm sure that on a corporate level, Sony and Microsoft are both petrified that the Wii U is going to blow them out of the water in terms of sales when it first hits the market, but I don't think that they're seeing clearly long term.  If they are going to grunt out whatever pieces of shit they can in 18 months, or even two years for that matter, it's going to be a waste of good toilet water.  The 360 and PS3 have consistently outsold the Wii except for maybe in the early stages of Nintendo's baby when it was an extreme novelty.  After that, third party support dropped due in part to the companies love of using it's mascots as well as the newer, yet awkward technology used in the WiiMote.  My analysis brings me to one conclusion then, start development of a new console, but take the longer, more considered approach rather than shitting something out in 18 months or so.  The Wii U will outsell the next next generation consoles until it's novelty wears off and people realize that it's just a redesigned Wii with little or nothing new to offer. 

The clown child is sad for the Wii U.

To that end, Sony and Microsoft can wait a bit.  Not all three consoles need to be released at the same time.  In fact, it might just be better for all involved if each has it's own launch window.  Let's think this through, why release your console on the same day as its competitor?  Say that there are 100 people who want to buy a new console gaming system but there are two being released on the same day.  On that day potentially 50 would buy one and 50 would buy the other for a variety of reasons including game library, appearance, cost, etc.  I made those factors all even because let's face it, how different are the PS3 and 360 really?  Besides, it's not like much goes into the thought of buying a new console for most people, it's usually just personal preference or purchase history.

None of this please.  This is all bad.

The bottom line here is that Sony and Microsoft shouldn't jump the gun with their next consoles.  I think that they can take a measured approach and wait more time before releasing their next big console without pressuring their sales versus the Wii U and it's launch.  My own psyche just doesn't want to see another decent console that completely bites the dust like the Dreamcast.  I do like to think that as a community, gamers have evolved beyond the necessity of novelty, but I doubt that will ever actually be true.  The Wii U will most likely satisfy that annual need and it will suck more sales than it probably should from consoles that have a more thoughtful design, but once that time passes things will be right in my tiny little gaming mind and a new console will be all that I need to console any lingering fears about another Virtual Boy.  It literally haunts my dreams; the goggles burn red in the darkness, staring, watching, waiting.

Day 21: The Arcade

You have to love this carpeting, it adds "atmosphere."

How many of us can recall the glorious days of the arcade?  Not even I can fully remember when these impressive collections of video gaming cabinets were spread across the nation, I just didn't have the opportunity due to the fact that these types of facilities have been relegated to the Chuck E. Cheese's and State Fairs of the world.  Sure I've been able to partake of the arcades in those places, but they retain just a portion of their former glory.

The reason I bring this up is that I recently visited a state fair and had a chance to play some arcade goodness.  I couldn't find any purely retro games like Defender, Asteroids, or Joust.  Not even a 1942 or 1943 was around, but there were still some excellent games.  I want to take a minute and look at the difference between those older games and the newer ones.  Silent Scope was something that caught my eye, and I ended up spending a good while playing with one of my friends.  This is an interesting specimen, there's a screen, of course that shows what you would see from a normal perspective just looking out across the city, but there's also a screen within the scope that shows what you would see from that perspective.  Essentially you use the large screen to find your target and use the scope to take them out.  It's a great game, but it's limited by a ridiculous timer that's there to essentially make you spend as much money as possible.  The timer starts at the beginning of every level and if it runs out during that level you lose and need to insert more quarters.  Every kill gains you some time, but you're always fighting against that damn clock.  The same idea has been applied to such games as Time Crisis.  If you can't beat the clock, you better have fifty fucking dollars in quarters or tokens.  Looking at an earlier, but much better, game reveals that arcades have become much more commercial as they have aged and come to a state of degradation.

That's right, six fucking players.  Booyah.

The Xmen arcade game is arguably the best of its kind.  Where else can you find such side-scrolling, six player, boss-fighting, and super power goodness?  Well, the Xbox Live Arcade is one such spot.  You'll be hard pressed to find this game in any remnant arcade, but you can find it on the Marketplace.  As we continue to lose such gems as the above and gain some of the more commercial games such as Time Crisis and Silent Scope, we are seeing the older arcade games return in full force on various online marketplaces or websites.  Microsoft even created a virtual arcade to be used on the 360 called the Game Room where you can purchase all of the old arcade games, mascots, and memorabilia from the past and place it into your very own, customizable arcade.  If you're an older gamer, or just want to experience that retro arcade for the first time, I highly recommend something like Game Room.

I miss the older game days where you could find The Simpsons, Turtles in Time, and Xmen all in the same location.  Sure, some of these games are being ported, or have been ported, to consoles, but the only way that you can naturally experience them nowadays is if you're lucky enough to find one of those cabinets at a bowling alley or have the ability to use an emulator that you can modify into an arcade cabinet.  

Long story short, I feel like arcade gaming has gone the way of the dinosaurs.  It's a dying organism and the attempts to save it have been lackluster at best, but unfortunately no one really wants to leave their home to play video games.  I realize that this is in large part due to the rise of console and portable gaming, but it saddens me that such a great piece of gaming history is being reduced to nothing.  I propose that we should all experience the arcade, through whatever means we have available, and make a decision to support those local and dying arcades, no matter the form they come in.  Though the commercial aspects of arcades have become something of a nuisance, we should still support these entities as they are the building blocks of video gaming.  So get out there and play Silent Scope, or whatever other crappy, expensive games are out there and save the natural history of video gaming.  You can be an Indiana Jones-esque archaeologist and find old, treasured games like Asteroids, or you can be a futuristic explorer and find such creations as the below.

What the fuck is this abomination supposed to do?