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.