Welcome to another installment of Let’s Make a Game! Last time we made a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game that may have been a bit prophetic, but I haven’t found anyone working on our subject this time; SpongeBob SquarePants. Let’s dive in and see what we can put together.

Art Style

SpongeBob has a great art style already, but could benefit from the clean sharp look provided by the UbiArt Framework engine. Ubisoft did some amazing work in Rayman Origins turning Rayman and company into some lovable characters that just felt alive. Given that, the team I believe that could do the most justice to the SpongeBob universe is Ubisoft Montpellier.

SpongeBob has much much more interesting characters than Rayman Origins, but the starting four characters seem obvious as Patrick, Squidward, Sandy, and of course SpongeBob himself. Unlockable characters could include Mr. Krabs, Plankton, Pearl, Mrs. Puff, Larry the Lobster, and variant costumes and versions for the main characters.

Gameplay

We’ve seen SpongeBob and friends in a variety of games aimed at kids and therefore not given more than minimal attention when it comes to gameplay. Even though the breadth of stories in the SpongeBob show could easily fill an action or adventure game, I rarely find the transition from a 2D foundation to a 3D game works in favor of the source material.

The one exception that comes to mind is the new South Park RPG developed by Obsidian, but we have yet to see it in action. Something like Paper Mario could really be interesting, but I think we’ll save that for another project. For this game, let’s make a platformer, and again let’s see what Ubisoft can do for a follow-up to Rayman Origins. They did a great job with four-player simultaneous gameplay and as such, should have no problem implementing this for our SpongeBob game.

Mechanics

Being that we’ve chosen a platformer for our game, the mechanics are fairly simple. We need something to collect, gather, or rescue. Those could be gold coins, Krabby Patties, jellyfish, or just about anything featured on the show.

Since the characters are so varied, there’s no reason not to have a variety of different types of levels based on each character’s archetype. Plankton can play through levels with giant sized objects. Sandy can play through more combat intensive levels. Mr. Krabs can play a level similar to the Treasure Chest level from Rayman Origins shown above, collecting coins at breakneck speeds only achievable by his motivation for riches. Each character could have a specific type of level or perhaps the levels could simply be played differently based on the character you choose.

The music from SpongeBob SquarePants is enjoyable and inspired, and would fit perfectly in our game. Adapting it to the flow of the game would be handled masterfully by Christophe Heral, the composer for — you guessed it — Rayman Origins. You can clearly see where the inspiration for this game lies, and how can you blame me? Just take a listen and tell me the banjo, kazoo, and even didgeridoo, wouldn’t accommodate the whimsy and fun of the SpongeBob world.

Finished Product

(Please excuse my terrible design skills.)

Title: SpongeBob SquarePants
Developer: Ubisoft Montpellier
Publisher: Ubisoft
Release Date: November 2012
Platform(s): Xbox 360, PS3, Wii U, PC, PS Vita
Players: 1-4 Xbox Live, PSN
MSRP: $59.99

Considering the existing assets and polish of the Rayman Origins engine, we should be able to get this one out by holiday 2012. It’s a full-fledged console release and deserves pricing as such, and I would buy this day one.

A mouse is a mouse is a mouse. They are all basically the same other than the physical shape and the number of buttons they have. It is just a basic piece of hardware that we all use in our day to day lives. I agree with my fellow Golgotron writer Mr. Pharisee’s assessment that a standard mouse “…serves all my functions, gaming and non-gaming alike, just fine”. Also, like Mr. Pharisee, I found out how wrong I was when I wrapped my right hand around the SteelSeries Diablo III mouse. A simple mouse, for a simple (to control) game, the SteelSeries Diablo III mouse will show you what you have been missing with the standard mouse that has been included with every PC you have ever bought.

So what is so different about this mouse over the standard mouse on your desk right now? The first thing you are going to notice is the beautiful eye candy. The mouse glows bright red on the wheel, which looks like a human spine, and on the back where you have the Diablo III logo. The next thing you will notice is that when you pick it up, its got some weight to it. The mouse feels solid and is silky smooth. I switch back and forth between my standard Dell mouse and this and there was a night and day difference. The buttons are equally as solid and are guaranteed for 10 million clicks. Thats a whole lot of Diablo III that before you have to think about replacing this bad boy. The other main physical difference between this mouse and every other mouse you have ever used is the cord. The standard SteelSeries braided fabric cord is present here. It doesn’t seem like it would be that big of a deal but it adds a level of professionalism to the package.

Now lets get down to business. How is this mouse going to hold up and help you out when you need it the most? Well since I don’t have a copy of Diablo III laying around at the time, I installed Diablo II and put it to the test. The seven button layout is done on purpose for two reasons here. First and foremost is that the mouse is designed to be used in either your left or right hand. It is a seven button mouse with two buttons and the scroll wheel on top and two more buttons on each side. This makes it the perfect mouse whether you use it in your right or left hand. I know seven buttons doesn’t seem like a whole lot when you look at other products in the SteelSeries mouse product line (such as the World of Warcraft MMO mouse) but Diablo is a simple game that doesn’t require a whole lot of extra buttons. After a quick download from SteelSeries.com, I was able to map the side buttons to my potions in Diablo II and it made for a much better experience as I could replenish my health and mana much faster.

Since this is a Blizzard licensed product, expect a fully integrated experience with this mouse and Diablo III when it launches later this year. So if you are going to play Diablo III, you need to pick this up. It is a solid piece of hardware that will improve your experience with the game. This is another solid piece of the SteelSeries product line that will work with your PC or Mac. The mouse is available for purchase now. Diablo III, will have to wait just a little bit longer.

Welcome to Let’s Make a Game! This is the first installment in a new feature where we explore how we would make the games we want to see. Today, we’re going to make a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game with a little help from Batman: Arkham City and Darksiders, so let’s get started.

Art Style

First, let’s talk art. There’s really no need for another cartoon-style TMNT game right now. The TMNT franchise has been incredibly hit-and-miss in the game department, and it seems to falter most when appealing to the newest generation of fans. There seems to be quite a strong following, or at least fond fanbase, among older fans of the original run and that is who we will focus on today.

I think our TMNT game would be best suited falling somewhere between Joe Madureira’s comic style and the supremely awesome “fan art” of Dave Rapoza.

Ultimately, it would fall into a blend between Batman: Arkham City and Darksiders. Dark with a hint of color, but maintaining a hint of that ominous feeling of danger and despair.

Gameplay

TMNT usually always takes place in a cityscape, and there hasn’t been a much better city built lately than Arkham City, so I see that as the perfect jumping-off point. You’ve got basically everything you need for a pseudo-open-world TMNT game; with everything from buildings to streets and alleys, and even a nice sewer system to explore. Ideally, I’d love to see a solid single-player campaign where you could switch characters at specific points (perhaps sewer grates or pizza parlors). I’d also like to see four-player co-op via Xbox Live and PSN. Imagine cleaning up the streets of thugs, Foot Clan soldiers, and the occasional Mouser, all with the help of your turtle brothers.

TMNT has a huge stable of characters that could easily foot the bill and give the Turtles a run for their money; Krang, Shredder, Lord Dregg, Baxter Stockman, Rat King and Leatherhead, Wingnut and Screwloose, and of course a little friendly competition from Casey Jones wouldn’t hurt either. You could even have Slash and Venus DLC and a mysterious watcher in the form of Usagi Yojimbo.

Mechanics

Yes, it’s a recurring element, but it’s hard to think of a more engaging and rewarding combat system than that of Batman: Arkham City. Playing through the combat challenges as Robin and Nightwing is actually what prompted me to set Batman: Arkham City as the foundation for a TMNT game. Playing as Catwoman also made me realize you wouldn’t have to walk around as a brooding, face-smashing, bone-breaking, loner all the time, but you of course may want to when playing as Raphael. Play through the extreme combat challenges in Batman: Arkham City as the staff-toting Red Robin and tell me you don’t feel just a bit like Donatello. Give Nightwing a couple of sais and you’ve got one hell of a Michelangelo. Having said that, Rocksteady would be the absolute perfect developer for our game, and Bebop would agree.

The Turtles may not have the Dark Knight’s arsenal of gadgets, but they’re no slouches when it comes to maneuverability. They are ninjas after all. I would say they would have little to no problem traversing a city similar to that of Arkham City, and would probably be much less afraid of the water. The sewer system would probably need to be expansive and maybe serve as a quick-travel route depending on the size of the map. I would definitely forego the Turtle Van as a means of transportation, but a cameo would definitely be welcome.

As far as difficulty, I wouldn’t again place it right in between Darksiders and Batman: Arkham City; an area where it’s not impossible for kids 10 and up but still engaging enough for adults. After all, I can’t imagine a TMNT game would get licensed for anything above a T-Teen rating anyway.

Music might be a tricky area, but there would have to be an inclusion of some version of the original theme to really put a bow on it.

Finished Product

(Please excuse my terrible design skills.)

Title: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Developer: Rocksteady Studios
Publisher: EA
Release Date: May 2013
Platform(s): Xbox 360, PS3, Wii U, PC, PS Vita
Players: 1-4 Xbox Live, PSN
MSRP: $59.99

So I think our game sounds pretty great. Yes, it borrows a lot from Arkham City, but no more than Ubisoft and Game Arts borrowed from Super Smash Bros Brawl when they made TMNT: Smash Up a few years back. Sometimes a good game engine should be utilized to the fullest!

One last CES video for the road.  Join Chase and I as we rattle off the most memorable exhibits of CES 2012, including an incredible console controller and 90s-riffic VR headset.

Of course, our “most memorable exhibits of CES” is debatable, considering our “Best in Show” was technically seen months before. Oh, and our “Worst in Show” is basically just me beating up on a proof-of-concept tech demo that was so clunky it was embarrassing. Look the point is, the Mad Catz MLG controller is pretty awesome and that virtual reality thing is pretty not so awesome.

Just watch the video.  You’ll see what I mean. Thanks for joining us for CES!

Oh and yes, Razer’s Project Fiona looked slick as hell, but I didn’t feel remotely confident calling a gaming tablet our “best in show.”

After a long week spent scouring the CES 2012 convention, Chase and I sat down to weigh in on the fantastical things we had seen.  As it turns out, there actually wasn’t much that was truly surprising on the video game front. But hey, we’d traveled all the way to Vegas, so why not film ourselves talking it out? Here’s the coolest stuff we saw at the Sony and Microsoft booths, including Twisted Metal, Flight, and Nexiuz—a game that I apparently cannot bring myself to properly pronounce.

Now sit back and enjoy the rich cinematic quality of my “iPhone-duct-taped-to-a-hotel-chair” camera rig.

Stay tuned for Golgotron’s Best & Worst of CES video, coming soon.

It’s been quite a while since Microsoft gave us a new Flight Simulator game.  Those original titles were famous as the most realistic flying experience you could have without dropping by an airfield.  As legend goes, many real-life pilots used the games as “at-home practice.” Microsoft’s new free-to-play title, Flight, is the next step for the series.  It’s trying to find the common ground between hardcore sim-freaks and the casual enthusiast.

At first glance, Flight seems like a prettier, more modern Flight Simulator.  The dropping of “Simulator” from the title is key. There’s still a lot of simulating going on, but there’s also a lot more “game” than before. Instead of just picking a destination and flying there, there is a much heavier focus on tangible objectives.   The new progression system lets the player unlock new planes as they go.

Microsoft is also significantly dropping the difficulty.  The old games were purely hardcore experiences that would brutally punish your mistakes.  Flight is way more forgiving. I was able to get my plane off the ground, so I’m calling that a massive improvement.  If everything comes together, Flight could be the Forza Motorsports of flight sims.

The beta is starting this month. We’ll have a full review when Flight debuts this Spring.

At CES 2012, Microsoft finally announced that it was bringing the Kinect to Windows. The Xbox 360 version of the Kinect has reportedly shipped over 18 million units to date. That’s not surprising. The silent-but-massive casual player fanbase is absolutely in love with the device.

What makes the creation of a Windows-centric device interesting is how much attention Microsoft is paying to the ever-growing Kinect modding community.  These dedicated fans have been hard at work, tweaking the existing Kinect hardware to function far beyond its official capabilities. Modders have found ways to use it to play non-supported titles, such as Skyrim. Fashion designers have used it as part of their shows. Microsoft even has a campaign that shows the Kinect helping stroke and brain injury patients in rehabilitation centers. Basically, modders have made the Xbox 360’s Kinect a far more functional device.

From speaking with the reps at the Microsoft booth, it seems like gamers are not the primary audience for this product.  Instead, Kinect for Windows is being aimed at developers who will try to create applications in the retail and healthcare industries. It sounds like the first step in Microsoft fully embracing the “Kinect Effect” they coined in this ad:

http://youtu.be/diy7rkWkDtU

Details are still limited, but right now we know that the Kinect for Windows will be $250, which is surprisingly pricey, considering that it’s Xbox counterpart can be found at retail for under $100. It is unclear whether this new Kinect will be backwards-compatible with the Xbox 360 model.

All we’ve ever wanted from the Kinect was that “Minority Report” experience. By offering a PC-native model, this cuts out at one of the major hurdles that was holding modders back.  We’ll have more news as the story develops.

The long anticipated game from Mojang has finally released. Minecraft is a survival creation game in which the end goal isn’t always quite the same for everyone. If you had asked me a year ago if I wanted to play a game where the majority of it involved digging in a hole, I would have avoided you because surely you’re diseased. Before I start gushing into how much this game has changed my perspectives, let’s dig into what makes Minecraft such a spectacular success.

Minecraft takes a page right out from video gaming of yesteryear; when you start the game off you’re given no instructions about what needs to be done. There’s no true tutorial, no helpful guide, just trial and error. The achievements serve as a tutorial of sorts, giving you the barest amount of clues as to what you have to do to further the game. A good chunk of the joy in this game comes from discovering how the different cubes function in the world. Upgrading materials used for digging means you can mine deeper and faster, especially because certain materials are required for mining other materials from the ground. You’ll find the further you go down that all those wooden swords you made just aren’t going to cut it in the deep pit. When you finally die and you lose all your items, you’ll start realizing you need to create a place to keep your items when venturing near potential doom.

At night, Minecraft turns from a digging simulator into a horror survival game. Monsters – called Mobs – come out from the dark and start attacking you as you peacefully try to dig. The first night in Minecraft is always the most exciting – you have almost no resources, no protective shelter, and probably weak weapons with which to defend yourself. It’s all you can do to survive until morning when most of them burn up in the daylight. But with each night you survive, you progressively get stronger and stronger. Mobs don’t just exist on the surface. They lurk in the dark of caverns waiting for a poor adventurer to wander their way.  The existence of mobs in Minecraft makes the experience infinitely better. It would be one thing if all you had to do was dig and build unhindered. With the potential threat of the mobs ever looming, you always have to be on guard and dig with a sense of adventure.

One thing that makes Minecraft a gorgeous game is the random terrain generator. Even with simple blocks and cubes, the generator creates some fantastically amazing formations. There are several biomes in which you can find yourself in, each with different materials in abundance. Swamps have lily pads and vines, pine forests have taller trees and wolves, deserts have sand and cacti, and northern biomes have snow and ice. On top of generating mountains and oceans and ravines, the terrain generator also places man-made structures. From time to time you may find a village (with some suspicious looking villagers roaming about) but there really isn’t much you can do there. The major treasures of the world are in abandoned mineshafts and strongholds. There are items buried deep within them that can only be found there – and strongholds are the key to getting to the “End” of the game. Exploring the world rewards you not only in the bounty of treasure and resources you find, but in the spectacular environment you’ll encounter on the way.

While single player has some truly amazing experiences, I like to use it as a sort of testing ground for the true mode of the game. Multiplayer makes Minecraft one of the greatest experiences in gaming history. A group of my friends started up a server and we worked together to try and create the best world possible. It wasn’t long before we noticed that we all played the game differently. Some of us liked to explore, some preferred to create farms, and others still just liked to dig. Even in each of those activities, not a single one of us used the same methods. I prefer to make my structures symmetrical with mathematical patterns, while my friend just builds what’s convenient for creating what he needs in that space at that time. There is no single “wrong” way to play this game, although my friends and I don’t always agree on the same thing. Playing together with friends creates amazing moments that would be difficult to reproduce elsewhere.

At this point, I truly believe that everyone should try Minecraft just once. It’s a game that people of all ages and preferences can get excited about. This game was definitely tailor made for anyone who’s ever played with Legos and thought “man, if only I could fully experience this.” Minecraft is full of adventure, horror, survival, exploration, intrigue, farming, and most importantly, imagination. The possibilities of what you can do in this game are nearly endless – well, until you hit bedrock that is.

Pros:

• Incredibly complex world
• Surprisingly detailed physics
• One of the most engaging multiplayer experiences
• Your imagination is the only limit

Cons:

• Portions of the game can be repetitive when finding nothing useful
• Dying early can be a put off
• The music starts off great but gets repetitive quickly
• Memory intensive game can put strain on low RAM computers

Pokémon. Many a video gamer has grown up on the series, whether the first Red and Blue games on the Game Boy back when Nintendo was king, or the contemporary fourth and fifth generation on the DS. And with the series still going, people will perhaps continue to do so into the future. Still, the classic Pokémon has a special place in our hearts.

Maybe that’s why we don’t think about the world of Pokémon that hard. It has a light-hearted atmosphere, an innocent charm that deflects concentrated attention from the fine details and encourages us to simply have fun playing through the games.

Let’s push aside the nostalgia and give it some scrutiny, shall we?

The Pokémon Themselves

First glance: Come on, everyone knows the basic concept of the series; people known as Pokémon Trainers capture powerful creatures known as Pokémon in devices known as Pokéballs. Trainers live up to their name by trying to build up a powerful team via capturing wild Pokémon, and then let them gain experience by sending them into competitions and battles against the Pokémon teams of other Trainers.

Closer look: Pokémon are dangerous. I mean, some of the most powerful ones are creatures out of myth like dragons. Then there’s the psychic Pokémon, and the ghost type Pokémon… Even at their worst, Pokémon come across as being able to severely harm human beings. Why are they being caught and used only for simple sport? And how moral is it to beat them up, capture them in Pokéballs, and then press them into service when they are seemingly intelligent and reasonable creatures?

The Towns

First glance: Isolated townships separated by large stretches of uninhabited territory and wild Pokémon-filled paths. Visit the small points of civilization amid a world of adventure and challenges to restock between ventures out into the great unknown as you travel around the world on the quest to defeat the 8 Pokémon Gym leaders.

Closer look: Sure, from the perspective of an outsider, a video gamer, it’s a pretty good deal. The towns let you stock up on items and heal your Pokémon team, and the routes between cities provide good challenges between the ‘boss fights’ of the gym leaders. But think about it from the viewpoint of a citizen within the world of Pokémon; where are the farms? Where does the food come from? Are there even any animals other than Pokémon? Heck, where’s the government, who leads these towns? Nearest thing to that would be the gym leaders. But why does everything seem to revolve around Pokémon and their Trainers?

Maybe it’s because the Trainers are the only people who can get from town to town? Think of all the wild Pokémon infesting the paths between villages that attack without warning. They’re probably cut off from each other like the medieval days. Of course, they aren’t the only obstacle…

The Pokémon Trainers

First glance: Along every route you’ll encounter other Trainers, who will challenge you to battles. Your Pokémon team faces off against theirs, with victory bringing you a prize; a reward from your defeated enemy.

Closer look: The assumption is that it’s a friendly match, but here’s the thing; you can’t refuse the offer to fight them. It’s totally involuntary, and it lasts until one team or the other is completely beaten. So, people that are dangerous in combat lurk around common paths between towns, ambushing any traveler they see. What does this sound like?

They’re bandits. They’re trying to mug you.  They want your money and your items, and they aren’t asking nicely for it. By this count, the paths are not only infested with dangerous animals but also vicious criminals. But at least they’re independent and unrelated, and not organized, right?

Team Rocket

First glance: Team Rocket is an organized crime syndicate whose main focus is to steal, capture, sell, and exploit powerful Pokémon for profit, with aspirations to take over the globe.

Closer look: Read that again. Now stop thinking of them as ‘the bad guys’ and another challenge to defeat and think of them as an actual organized crime syndicate who almost certainly acts like one. Blackmail. Extortion. Murder. They do it all, they are an organized gang like the mafia, the IRA, or the Yakuza at best, and a terrorist organization at worst.

Worse yet, not only are they seemingly one of the only large scale organizations in Kanto, there doesn’t even seem to be an organized police force opposing them, simply the loose-knit Pokémon league of gym leaders and a group known as the elite four. And Team Rocket is lead by one of said gym leaders.

Perhaps worst of all, through scientific experimentation on Pokémon, they artificially created Mewtwo, the most powerful Pokémon in the game. And they are almost certainly going to try to perfect the process further.

They are technologically advanced. They are spread over the entire region. They have resources. They have influence within what little government there is. And they have no morals whatsoever.

And there are similar organizations based in the other regions spread around the world.

The Pokémon League Competitions

Fight for glory!

First glance: Grand Pokémon tournaments are held and draw entrants from far and wide to vie for victory. Trainers and their teams compete against other in matches amid a coliseum full of spectators, as they fight for the right to be named the best; all in the spirit of sportsmanship of course.

Closer look: First off, supposedly nonlethal or not, considering the level of power that high-end Pokémon have, there is no way there’s no risk of death in these matches. So even if (at best) it is a rare occurrence, Pokémon die in these competitions while fighting for their Trainers.

These tournaments are important. It’s a mix of roman gladiatorial entertainment, a bloodsport that pits living creatures against each other to fight for fame and fortune, and a trial by fire for the trainers who want to rise to the top and become the most powerful entity within a world dominated by Pokémon Trainers. There really is no direct analogue to real life for them; dog fights and gladiatorial contests aside, there is no culture in our history that had a competition so vital to the inner workings within a society like that of the Pokémon world; a society that is built from the ground up to be utterly centered around the titular Pokémon.

The Player Character

First glance: Having just reached the necessary age to become a Pokémon trainer, the player character receives their license, starter Pokémon, Pokédex, and Pokéballs, they are ready to go into the wide world of Pokémon and face all comers. It’s time for a great adventure as you quest to become the Pokémon Master, the most powerful Pokémon Trainer in the region!

Closer look: Pokémon Trainers get their licenses at age 10.

Ten years old.

Becoming a Pokémon Trainer isn’t rare, or even hard. You literally just need to have had your tenth birthday and want to become one. That’s it. The majority of the population is Trainers. It’s just something you do as a part of growing up, like getting a driver’s license. Except what you’re being given access to is the technology to control powerful and dangerous creatures with which to fight other powerful, dangerous creatures.

And it is necessary, because that’s what humanity needs to do to survive.

Think about it; could a human being really take on a Pokémon of note with even a fair chance of winning? No. The only way to be able to take on Pokémon is with other Pokémon. Becoming a Trainer is the norm, because in this world, it’s a basic skill necessary to even travel between towns, defend oneself against violent wild Pokémon- and against other Trainers and their Pokémon.

It’s the Dark Ages all over again. Crime is rampant, bandits add to the threat of wild Pokémon to make travel dangerous and isolate communities. The loose system of government is based around who has the strongest Pokémon teams, with the greatest earning the title of Pokémon Master and ruling as king. Until they are beaten and the title is taken by another. Pokémon tournaments are organized as bloodsport, gladiatorial competitions for fame, money, and power. Well-funded, trained, far-reaching amoral organizations conspire to topple the current system and take control, with plans to eventually conquer the entire globe.

And like the Dark Ages, the immense danger means that most people don’t die of old age or natural causes. Like the Dark Ages, people are considered to be grown up and become elders earlier than they do in our contemporary time.

In the world of Pokémon, once you hit your tenth birthday, you’re considered an adult.

And it’s time to go out and face the world.

Audience Participation Round: How Does Humanity Even Fit Into The World of Pokémon?

First glance: Not even touched on.

Closer look: Think about it. How would humans evolve in a world like this? How would they survive before they had the advanced technology to capture Pokémon? They’re unlikely to have developed alongside them, as that would imply humans are a form of Pokémon themselves, which they’re clearly not. Even putting that aside, they would still almost certainly have been wiped out via natural selection before being able to become advanced enough to create the technology used in the series. Without a way to control them, humanity would have been unable to compete with the powerful Pokémon that inhabited the world before them. Not to mention, the crude society depicted by the games is wholly unsuited for scientific innovation and discovery.

So, perhaps the Pokémon came (Arrived? Were created?) after humanity had achieved an advanced civilization? One able to invent and produce the technology to control the Pokémon? One that has long since fallen and been forgotten?

Food for thought.

Author’s Note: I have to admit, it took a while to write this up. And as much fun as it was to make, I can’t say I don’t feel a little guilty about it all the same. Taking away innocence isn’t something you can go back on, and to be honest, I enjoy heroism more than villainy. I’ve always preferred being the good guy over the bad. I can do both certainly, but being evil is easy. It’s being good that’s a challenge. So, here’s my last little addition to this admittedly quite dark interpretation; think of the storyline of the first generation.

And consider; what does every 10 year old kid dream of doing?

Changing the world. For the better.

It has been ten years since Microsoft launched the mighty Xbox and set us down on a distant planet with one of the most iconic characters in gaming today, Master Chief. Halo set the bar for shooters on consoles, seeing as it was the launch title for a console that was designed for FPS gaming. The controls were solid, the story was interesting and the multiplayer brought us all together. If you’re thinking Halo Anniversary is just a nice way to commemorate the original game with an HD remake, be ready for much much more.
What you will know before picking up the game is that yes, this is a full high definition remake of the original game. They promised a heightened gaming experience with the free DLC Anniversary maps for Halo Reach multiplayer. Now once you pop in the game, if you follow your instincts and curiosity, there is something waiting just below the surface. When you played Halo ten years ago, did you ever look down a corridor or go the wrong way on purpose just because your gut feeling said “Somethings down there”? Most of the time you would find a dead soldier and some ammo or an over shield. Bungie knows the mind of their fans and decided to reward curiosity in Halo Anniversary. This time if you follow your gut, you will discover hidden terminals planted in each level. Some are just a flashing beacon, others are an “incoming message” on a computer screen, but if you access them you will get to see a short video following 343 guilty spark and his time on installation 04. The terminals give a lot of really cool plot info covering past present and future linking to the sequel. I won’t spoil the details so you’ll just have to check them out for yourself. Happy hunting!

If you don’t own a Kinect, you’re missing out on some sweet features in this game as well as bonus content. During solo campaign mode you have the ability to use a list of voice commands with the Kinect. You can say things like “Change weapon” or “Reload” i had the most fun with “Flashlight”. These may seem gimmicky but they added a scanning feature (guess what the command is). When you are in scan mode everything goes into batman vision a la Arkham Asylum/Arkham City, except for key items and characters which will show as bright orange. You can rest your reticle on these things and say “Analyze”, it will gather information on the object and store it in your library. This will give a complete description and background for you to browse through later. They also offer a nostalgia mode allowing you to switch back and forth from the classic look of halo to the HD version. This is one of the coolest features, just going to different areas and comparing the detail is amazing to look at. If you are using the Kinect just say “Classic” or “Remastered”, otherwise you can just hit select.

Let’s talk multiplayer and achievements. Seeing the old maps really warmed my heart. Playing the old maps with a jet pack sells the game by itself. Everything you remember is right where you left it. The weapons are in the same familiar spots as well as new weapons to accommodate Reach multiplayer. The maps are as follows: Beaver Creek/Battle Canyon/Battle Creek, Damnation/Penance, Timberland/Ridgeline, Prisone/Solitary Hang ‘Em High/High Noon, and Headlong/Breakneck. I hope these maps will inspire people to bring over their TV’s and Mountain Dew for a good old fashioned LAN Party. As far as achievements go, the list got a lot longer with a total of 44, a few being pretty crazy.

One of the more crazy, and nostalgic, is “I’ll be taking that”. This achievement takes place on “Assault on the Control Room” level. This was a little reward to all those hardcore fans doing little stunts or glitches back in the day, one being the attempt to safely knock down a banshee in order to fly it through the level. The banshee sits on top of a platform about mid way through the level and can only be knocked down by sniping or hitting the platform just right with a rocket. Do this and you’ll earn 25 gamer points. Possibly the craziest achievement is “How Pedestrian” in which you must complete the second level “Halo” without the use of any vehicles. This level is long and hard (that’s what she said), if you plan on walking this entire level you’re going to need patience and some serious fire power. The level is designed for the use of the warthogs 50cal, without it you can expect bigger than usual firefights with the Covenant. There are other crazy achievements like finishing “The Library” without dying and in 30 minutes or less. You can check out the full list of achievements once you pick up the game.

Being what it is, I would give this game a perfect score, but not everyone is a Halo fan, and when it first released most people gave an 8 out of 10 which is modest. I will say 9 out of 10 just so the 1% can occupy Modern Warfare.

Up until a week ago I was content with living my life with tiny little netbook mice. “I won’t need another mouse,” I told myself. “This mouse serves all my functions, gaming and non-gaming alike, just fine.” What an ignorant creature I once was. Once I got my hands on the SteelSeries Sensei Mouse my entire outlook changed. Now I can’t think of doing anything on my PC without this mouse by my side.

The first thing to note is just how freaking pretty this mouse is. The Sensei’s sleek silver body is simplicity in design, something I actively seek to find with some difficulty. Even rarer than the simplicity of it is the symmetry present here. I know that’s to allow it to be ambidextrous for all kinds of gamers, but it really sells the design of it well. The scroll wheel and logo light up with a range of vibrant colors that’s completely customizable to your liking. You can even control the brightness of the lights which is something I’m glad about – on the off chance I ever need to use it.

When I went to install the SteelSeries Engine program I ran into a little trouble. The mouse froze up on me while it was trying to update itself and for a good chunk of time it was completely unresponsive. On the SteelSeries website they had a FAQ that described my exact problem, but even after following the instructions the problem still persisted. Unable to find a contact number I continued to frustratingly troubleshoot a solution to this predicament. Eventually I figured it out, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say it put a sour taste in my mouth. [Editor's Note: The solution was to reset the mouse to factory settings and reinstall the software. I originally had set the mouse up on another operating system which I believe is what confused the device.]

All the problems with setup could be forgiven if the performance of the mouse could shine – and boy did it ever. The SteelSeries Engine allows you to customize all aspects of the Sensei mouse that you would need to adjust. You can make it more sensitive, accelerate quicker, and be just a tad bit more accurate. You can even adjust what the buttons do on your PC – and switch them around if you use your mouse with your left hand. Playing around with the settings it was easy to see where the benefits off all these adjustments would show off. You can save individual settings as different profiles depending on what you plan on doing with your mouse. You can even modify the lift distance for different surfaces. There are a few profiles already programmed into the mouse for Starcraft 2, Counterstrike, and League of Legends – three of the big e-sports – with the settings similar to those used by big names in e-sporting. Since I use my PC for more than gaming, I set up a profile for the Adobe products as well, and the improvements there have definitely been noticeable.

One other thing that deserves mention is the LCD screen on the bottom side of the mouse. This mouse was built with input from professional teams like Fnatic and EG, and the top e-sports players in LoL, HoN, CS, SC2, and DotA. This mouse is seriously professional grade, and the LCD really drives that point. The SteelSeries Sensei customization program allows you to upload a BMP of your team logo or name and match the lit scroll wheel and SteelSeries logo to match your team colors. Seeing the mouse in Golgotron-pink with our friend and compatriot, Golgobit, emblazoned on a superior-quality mouse gave me a warm feeling inside.

Final Call: I think that’s the selling point here; there is a major noticeable improvement in my PC functionality performance since using the Sensei mouse. It’s not just good for gaming, it’s good for all the other functions you would use on your PC. The mouse design is incredibly gorgeous and ergonomic to boot. My hand used to cramp a little if I was on my computer for too long, but after using this mouse I don’t have the same issues. The installation process was a glaring problem, in my opinion, but it’s a one-time situation that not everyone is likely to encounter. Overall my experience with the Sensei was a definite positive and I’d gladly recommend it to everyone.

Pros:

• Sleek, gorgeous and ergonomic design
• Makes for a better gaming performance
• Improves all aspect of PC functions, even outside of gaming
• The LCD screen is a great touch

Cons:

• Some installation issues will cause frustration for a little bit
• The sleek design of the mouse gets dirtied easily

Can we all just come to terms on this? This is a war on the level of dumb only matched by dumb wars like Donald Trump vs Rosie O’ Donnell, Pokemon vs Digimon, Axel Rose vs his fans, Call of Duty vs the “cool kids,” and 360 vs PS3. In all cases, each had something to bring to the table and really the war was simply a tie up of preferences and poor choices with no real winner, but a bunch of losers. Donald Trump and Rosie are insane, Pokemon was kid friendly while Digimon tended to go in a darker direction, Axel Rose is… well, insane and the fans wanted him to not be, Xbox and PS3 are both gaming systems with their equal claims to success, and Call of Duty was being shoved down the general populaces throats by Activision and we were loving it like the whores we are. There may be a few detractors from the ranks who spam Meta Critic and every forum they can, clambering to speak out against the biggest giant in all of videogamedom. Yet with the release of MW3 and its record setting $775 million in sales during the first five days, the point of the few vocal has been beaten down by the wallets of the general market.

Activision’s biggest competitor in the world of gaming, EA, decided to be the voice for those vocal few with its ad campaign for Battlefield 3. Taking it right to the king with its slogan “Rise Above the Call,” that started a message board feud within the community that hasn’t seen this level of retardation since PSN went down and 360 fan boys stated the war was over (it is not, it is not even a war, it is dumb. Just stop it with the Playstation controller is for baby hands, or PSN is free, but PSN got hacked, or the Japanese don’t give a shit about Xbox, or my Momma use to beat me so screw Microsoft, or whatever. It’s dumb). The competitive ad campaign was an approach that I feel hurt Battlefield 3 by making a war that didn’t need to exist in the first place. Fan boys will protect what they are a fan of, and instead of bringing out a game that is different and fills the market with another option, it forced the stupid to make a choice between one great game and another great game with the only reason being because they were a fan or a hater.

The games, while both are first person shooters in a modern setting, couldn’t be any more different.

GamePlay:

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3– MW 3, much like its predecessors; and even more so than last year’s Black Ops, is all about fast action and arcade style controls. The weight of realism is sacrificed in favor of over-the-top set-pieces and thrill-a-minute intensity. While the other game makes impacting the ground in prone have a weight to it, in Modern Warfare 3 it is not implausible to dive from a second story after a full sprint like Superman onto your belly without even an exhale of air. Hell, jumping off of a building and getting a headshot while performing a full 360 spin like a ballerina action hero became a thing. Everyone in CoD is a John Woo character (John Woo is the retro Michael Bay, he was Michael Bay before Michael Bay was Michael Bay. Note: Michael Bay to Call of Duty reference quota has been fulfilled).

Movements in MW3 are brisk and the controls are precise, allowing for crazy twitch reactions that count heavily on an individual’s reflexes and tend to make a player feel a tad badass. It is very possible to hold down the trigger and keep an even spread as if recoil was hardly a concern at all. Even at vast distances it is not implausible to keep a bead on an enemy without having to resort to a burst shot method. While this doesn’t play into the hand of realism, it does play into the hand of ridiculous fun without a concern for strategy. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 is all about pacing, and it is a pace that never slows down. From Single-Player to Multi-Player it is mindless stupid action.

Battlefield 3 – BF 3 is all about scope and is the closest thing to a realistic shooter out at the moment. There is a weight to the controls that makes actions slower but more deliberate. The action takes place on a broader spectrum and rewards co-operation and patience, recoil is a big deal here, and the spread can easily get out of hand even at short distances. Learning to control bursts is a must, and while a player can sprint for miles without a break, the size of the playing field can often mean there will be a lot of sprinting.

Hitting the ground in prone gives a split second of re-adjustment as the gun and the character have to find their place. The environment explodes and chips away, trees fall from impact, and cover fire blurs the screen making shots more difficult. Entire buildings can collapse with the right amount of work and vehicles just keep coming to make life more stressful. Yet, with all of this, MW3 still moves quicker and is far more chaotic. Battlefield 3 is all about focus and strategy, working around obstacles rather than running head-first into every bit of danger that comes along. Battlefield 3 is the Saving Private Ryan to Modern Warfare 3’s Rambo.

Final Call – Modern Warfare 3 is all about how fast things can move and how big the explosions can be. While Battlefield 3 has environments that go boom, the booms in MW3 are just that much bigger. If you as a player feel like killing things without much thought, you pick up MW3. If you as a player feel like working with a team and developing strategies with friends to conquer a wide open map, you pick up BF3.

Winner!

Team Fortress 2: It is a strategy class based shooter that is about as arcadey as it can get. The design is simple and the animations are more recognizable than any other shooter on earth. Plus, it is free to play now. So… you should probably get on that.

Graphics:

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 – Modern Warfare 3 is Modern Warfare 2 with maybe a slight upgrade. It is the same engine, it looks damn near identical and this could be said about everything from general control, to sound, to of course the topic of discussion now. This is to say, the game looks fantastic. Better than mostly everything out there today. Activision is playing it safe and that’s just fine. The lighting is good and the camera work during the single-player campaign is top-notch. It gives the cinematics a larger than life appeal that seamlessly transition into gameplay. The graphics are Call of Duty, millions of people recognize it in all of its Call of Dutiness.

Battlefield 3 -Battlefield 3 is a new game built on a new engine. It is tender love and care from the ground up and on a powerful PC it is one of the best damn looking games around. This isn’t opinion, this is fact. Battlefield 3 is incredible looking. With the new re-tooled Frostbite 2 engine, there is a sense of realism that Call of Duty just can’t match. Yet, that isn’t what Call of Duty is about is it?

Even on massive battlegrounds buildings will topple in real time, parts of it will chip away as shots are fired upon it. Potted plants burst in your face, and pieces of large rubble blown away from the side of buildings can crush someone standing in its trajectory. The amount of work the engine takes on in every single moment of the game is absolutely stunning. Everything works to add that realism to a game that focuses a lot on realism. Which Call of Duty does not.

Final Call - In terms of graphics, it really isn’t a debate. MW3 is based on an old engine that looked great when it was released and still looks good now. BF3 is a whole new engine and one of the best looking games to date. Yet, all of its graphical achievements are based on making it feel more real, something that Call of Duty doesn’t care to achieve. Because it doesn’t have to, it is not what the game is about. (And yes, MW3 runs at 60fps while BF3 runs at 30fps. It will hardly be a bother while playing BF3, and MW3 needs all its 60fps so it can be so damn unrealistically fast.)

Winner!

Skyrim: Seriously, the new Elder Scrolls game looks fantastic, especially on a PC. There’s nothing else quite as damn pretty, and in terms of scope. No competition. There was many a time I stood atop a mountain as I stared across the horizon and caught myself saying the words “holy crap, this is purty.” While this maybe could happen in MW3 or BF3, I think I was too damn busy saying “Where the f*$% did I get killed from!?” or “That’s right! You can’t beat m-F*&#!”

Sound:

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 – In terms of voice acting, MW3 wins. This in thanks to the big time talent behind the voices of the game. Sure the characters ooze a level of machismo that can only be compared to the Chuck Norris invented by Chuck Norris jokes. The acting is impeccable and the amount of banter in the main storyline is fun to listen to. Plus hell, it has a rock soundtrack. That’s awesome right? It is like a movie!

Battlefield 3 – In terms of in game sound effects, BF3 wins. The sound of guns in enclosed spaces echoes appropriately to its surroundings, the weapons have the right amount of explosive power behind them to sound real. Not to mention the sound of bullets hitting the rock above your head or a sniper bullet whizzing by your ear is enough to frighten anyone with the right headset or sound system. Vehicles can be heard from miles away as they roll over debris, crunching rock and whatever else below them. Helicopters and jets drown out the sound of bullets and when jumping out of one the wind lashes the ears just like it should. The game sounds just as fantastic as it looks.

Final Call – MW3 and BF3 sound like shooters. They have guns and they shoot stuff. Battlefield 3 sounds better thanks to its incredible new engine, and there is seriously nothing more intimidating than a sniper bullet in that game. Yet, the voice acting in Modern Warfare 3 is head and shoulders above most in the industry.

Winner!

BioShock: In terms of voice acting and cinematic appeal, this game is still on top. Has anyone seen; or in this case, heard the previews for Infinite? Holy crap. While it has an artistic look, the sound is impeccable, and the soundtrack is everything it needs to be. From the first moment a player enters Rapture the sound design is there to get its creep on. It never lets up and the sound is just as much a part of the experience as the level design and the story itself.

Single-Player:

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 – If there was ever a time to go ahead and hand a winner medal to one of these two games in a category it is in this department (and sound). Modern Warfare 3’s story may be over the top, and it may feel a bit on the rails in terms of how it pushes the player to one exploding set-piece to another, but it is essentially everything anyone can expect from a game in this series. That is to say it is badass. It may be full of more plot holes than… something full of holes (a well irrigated garden or swiss cheese perhaps? I don’t know. Not incredible with analogies) but beyond anything it is fun. Sure there is a violent murdering of a dog that is glossed over like nothing happened, and there is nothing quite as WTF! as the airport terrorist sequence from MW2. In the end however, MW3 is a great short single player campaign that makes using it as training for the real game (multiplayer) a good time.

Battlefield 3 – For all of its posturing and “above the call” crap, Dice appeared to forget that a large number of CoD fans buy the game for its campaign. I know that sounds dumb, but it is true, some people want to play a shooter, but couldn’t give a damn about having a 10 year old shout in his ear about how much of a faggot they are. I know one of these people, they exist, I’ve witnessed it. (The person who didn’t like multiplayer, not a 10 year old shouting faggot into someone’s ear.)

BF3’s campaign wants to be Modern Warfare so bad that it is actually a little sad. They even dedicated a majority of its ad campaign to showing off the campaign. So, it isn’t like they weren’t aware that some people cared about the single player. The story is full of big set-pieces and it takes place in a world that feels more real (read: boring) but in the end it is just not that exciting. Levels are designed like linear corridors even when outdoors and the entire affair feels a whole lot more confined than Modern Warfare 3. The characters are even more forgettable than their MW3 counter-parts and I found myself wanting the Bad Company crew back. This is not to say that the BF3 campaign sucks, it’s okay, but as a training tool for the real game, it doesn’t even let you use the vehicles much. So, yeah… I guess it kinda sucks.

Final Call – In the single player category there is a clear winner, and that isn’t a single person’s opinion. This is a majority opinion in not only the community, but in the “professional” news world as well.

Winner!

Half Life 2: HA! GOTCHA! In terms of big time single player campaigns in a large shooter franchise, nothing tops HL2. Valve took its time making everyone care for its side characters and establishing the silent hero Gordon Freeman as the lab geek turned hero of the world who is also awesome. We love that nerd with a gun, we really do. Hell, it has been over 4 years since episode 2 concluded on a cliff hanger, and fans are still clamoring for an end to a story started in 2004. That’s a level of dedication that can only be compared to that of a Tool fan. Seriously, Maynard… I need a new album.

Multi-Player:

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 – It’s crazy, it’s chaotic, it’s all about the kills, it’s Modern Warfare 3 baby! There isn’t much different within the core mechanics here, and that’s fine. While some things have been changed in the sake of balance and to favor some co-operative play, in the end, it is all about the K/D and playing to that sort of frantic kill, kill, die, respawn, kill, kill style of gameplay that the series has perfected over the years.

While new kill streaks called strike packages have been introduced and modes like Kill Confirmed works to try and get people to play together like a team. The game does not hurt anyone for being a lone gunman in their own one man army. Actually many still play that way and are perfectly fine for it if their scores have anything to say about it. Team work may make a group unstoppable if done correctly, but it is doubtful that the majority of the hivemind will give a damn.

MW3 has so many game modes that there will be something to do and people to shoot in so many variations that it can become difficult to become bored. While it isn’t quite Halo big in term of game modes, it is impressive. Also they brought back Spec-Ops which is as always, a great co-op experience. If you are into that sort of stuff.

Battlefield 3 – BF3 may not have as many game modes as MW3 but what it does have is incredibly well designed. Rush and Conquest modes take place on many maps that have multiple entry points to an objective and often span large distances that can be compared to playing on all the MW3 maps at once. The scope of the field of battle (see what I did there?) is ridicuhuge (new word) and the balance between vehicles, player classes, and weaponry only continues to force people to play together or be slaughtered by those who do.

Every class has been re-done to offer support to the team from reviving, to repairing vehicles, to re-supplying ammo. The co-op bases are covered. It is amazing what a strategically placed revive can do to turn the tide of battle at the last moment. Also when you throw in destructible landscape, that sniper in the second story window isn’t much of a problem anymore. Having trouble with the one point of entry to an objective? Whip out some C4 or rocket launcher and make a new one!

Battlefield 3 matches can take some work and often leave an exhausted feeling in players. It isn’t as quick and there is plenty of times that a badly timed spawn can mean having to run for what feels like –forever- back to battle, since all the vehicles are gone. The pacing of BF3 is slower and more deliberate, and the multiplayer rewards teamwork like no other shooter out there. It’s a different type of game, and that is what makes it special.

Final Call – The point here is as it has been from the get go in this article. Comparing these two games is just unfair; there is no need for a war when in essence MW3 and BF3 fulfill a different purpose. It is completely alright and actually worth it to go ahead and buy both if you can afford it. They both offer something the other doesn’t. BF3 may have more of that new game smell compared to the yearly recycle that is the CoD franchise, yet no one does arcade kill-fests quite like the call, and in the end BF3 doesn’t look to try to compete if the final product has anything to say about it.

Winner!

World of Warcraft: Beause… screw you. That’s why!

I have a theme going here if you haven’t noticed, and WoW is the biggest multiplayer game in the history of ever and has been the reason Blizzard is one of the most successful developers around, even though they’ve only released around two games in the time that CoD has been a franchise. I could have just said Halo and really pissed in them fanboy Cheerios.

Final Final Word!

It’s plain that my objective here has been to not pick a real winner between the two, but instead to poke fun at the whole fact that we even have to compare them. BF3 is a team class based semi-realistic modern day FPS with an emphasis on team-work, strategy, vehicles, and large open playing fields while MW3 is an action packed fast paced modern day FPS with an emphasis on quick chaotic matches and small confined maps to help keep the action centralized. With such a large sales gap between the two games, it is obvious that CoD isn’t going anywhere. BF3 did really well, but it is far from competing on that level, even Halo got swallowed by the Modern Warfare beast.

So what if in MW3 I entered my first match and had my first death ever be at the hands of a player named Cuminmyanus (which I believe Live confused for Cumin-Myan-us which doesn’t make a damned bit of a sense and is honestly retarded). That is just the general market! It is full of Dr Creamhorn’s and other dick or bodily excrement references. That is what all the BF3 fans can look forward to if the series ever reaches that level of success.

The Real Winner!

YOU!:That’s right. I know it may sound all after school special, but seriously. There are two awesome FPS games out there with a ton to offer, and they both do what the other doesn’t. So, do everyone a favor and get off the pedestal and go back to just enjoying the games you like and stop pissing on everyone’s parade.

It only took six months but Nintendo finally released their first original must-have 3DS game. Super Mario 3D Land is another solid entry into the Super Mario Bros. series. It fits into a space right between New Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario Galaxy. Super Mario 3D Land is the perfect mix between old and new to keep things familiar without feeling stale.

The balance between old and new starts with the suits and power ups that are available for Mario. You of course still get the standard mushrooms, flowers, stars, and green 1 ups.  The best news here is the Tanooki suit making its first appearance since Super Mario Bros 3. The game is built with the Tanooki suit right in your face as they are everywhere. The new addition here is the blue shell that lets you throw boomerangs. The Boomerang Bros have been in many games before but this is the first time Mario can use their powers.

The other new addition here, (being that this is a 3DS game) is the 3D in Super Mario 3D Land. The 3D feature definitely takes the front seat here and is more than just eye candy. Sure it makes the game look fantastic but there’s more the than that. There were several points in the game where I had to turn the 3D on to get through the level without rage quitting the 3DS against a wall. I mean that in the best way possible as it is a welcome challenge that brought a smile to my face. The use of different camera angles and platform layout make for a very enjoyable experience. The levels were designed with the 3D feature in mind so crank it up full blast and enjoy the ride.

Super Mario 3D Land is a wonderful combination of elements from the various Mario series. It takes different elements from New Super Mario Bros. and adds in the look and feel of Super Mario Galaxy. The levels are timed like in New Super Mario Bros but ditches the side scrolling game play for something a little bit closer to Galaxy. I thought the timer would be a distraction since the levels are larger than the New Super Mario Bros levels but it turned into a nice bonus for some levels as an added degree of difficulty. The difficulty curve is just about perfect throughout the entire game as it starts off super easy and goes all the way up to rage at the end. To unlock the later levels you must go out of your way to collect the 3 Golden Coins hidden throughout the levels.

My main complaint about Super Mario 3D Land is that there is just not enough content here. This is a very short game. There are 16 Worlds with only  6 levels each. I finished the first 8 Worlds in just over 4 hours and had every single coin for these levels in just over 6 hours. After finishing World 8, you do unlock 8 more special stages but while these worlds have some new elements, for the most part they are just remixes of the first 8 Worlds.  As I said before, the difficult ramps up significantly in the later levels with evil Mario chases and timers starting at 30 seconds to get you moving but everything still feels very familiar. Because of this familiarity, I was able to get through these last 8 worlds with all coins in just 6 hours despite the increased difficulty. Maybe I have been spoiled by other games but $40 for 12 hours of game play seems light these days. Luigi does make his obligatory appearance here but he doesn’t bring his purple coin levels with him from Galaxy. This would have been a nice touch that could have pushed the game over that 20 hour mark.

At the end of the day, Super Mario 3D Land delivers on everything that you would expect from a handheld Super Mario Bros. game. I just wish there were more here. With the significant advances in technology on handheld game systems with the Nintendo 3DS and Sony PlayStation Vita, gamers expectations are bound to rise. Dedicated handheld game systems are now competing with smartphone app markets for dollars and they days. Nintendo and Sony will need to make sure developers are producing titles that are more inline with their home console brothers in terms of game play if they intent to continue charging $40 per title. That being said, even though Super Mario 3D Land is a little light on content, its hard not to recommend such a good overall game. This title really does belong in every 3DS owners collection.

Pros

• Tanookis everywhere!
• Great implementation of 3D technology
• Solid mix of 2D and 3D platforming

Cons

• Light on content and length

What is up friends of the internt!?! It’s the 2011 Drunken X-Mas special!

Join me (Joe) along with Corey (Pooh Bear), Greg, Mika, Adam and Ryan for what could possibly, maybe be, the greatest X-mas special of anything podcast related ever!… Perhaps.

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Sequence is an interesting game. It is the first outing for indie video game developer; Iridium Studious. In fact, the original release was not on any major service, but just on X-Box Live Indie games. This service is home to games generally made by extremely small groups, with minimal budget, and often just for practice. In addition, it is a combination of a rhythm based game and an RPG. With such an interesting marriage of genres, it begs the question; can a game with such a clash of styles be worth playing?

The first thing to discuss with this game is the sound. It is the key part of any rhythm game. And, in this case, it is brilliant. Iridium Studios hired two artists, DJ Plaeskool and Ronald Jenkees, to do the music for this game. It is actually, to an extent, better than many other music games. Most music games pick popular music and try to match the gameplay to it, not caring whether it is good music for the game. In this case, the music was designed solely to be for this game. And it works. These songs, despite the varying styles, are all fun to listen to, they are inoffensive, and really make the game more fun. Sequence is a game that uses sound to maximum effect, as can be expected from a rhythm game. In addition, this game has a plot. The plot is generally two characters interacting; the protagonist, and his handler who is pretty much a voice from an intercom.

The plot is relatively slow, only advancing once a level is completed. However what makes up for it is the constant stream of jokes. These aren’t jokes that demean the plot, either. They’re the kind of jokes made by people who are just witty. A constant stream of quotable one-liners flows from the characters. In addition, the stage bosses are a pleasure to fight.

Even if the plot is rather basic, described as a “guy trapped in a mysterious dungeon that must figure out what is going on” sort of event but the sheer execution makes the game a pleasure. It is the kind of game that the player will replay again and again, just to see their favorite one-liners. It’s the kind of game where a script FAQ would be printed out, so it can be read like a novel. In short, this game trades length of script, and makes the trade worth it.

The gameplay as well is important, and this is also a success. The main principle of the gameplay is that the player plays DDR. Arrows come down, player hits the arrows in time with the music. Good things happen when the player hits notes, bad things happen when the player misses. It seems simple, and should be…but the game adds some interesting complications.

First, this is not a DDR versus mode match. The computer does not play by the same rules as the player. Instead, there are three windows. The player must play DDR in all three windows at the same time. This seems impossible, except for the twist. One window, the mana window, can safely be ignored. There is no penalty for missing. Instead, whenever the player hits a note, they gain MP. MP maxes out, so the player really only needs to use it when restoring after casting a spell. The second window is the defensive window. Every so often, and not in a constant stream, the enemy attacks. This gives the player plenty of time to shift windows, or cast their own spells in between the attacks, but not enough that it gets boring. As for the third window, that’s where attack spells are cast. The player has to hit a small series of notes perfectly, or your attack fails. This would be frustrating, but the tolerance for hitting is pretty generous, a good few spells have VERY few notes, and the game allows the player to practice as much as they want.

In the end it creates an interesting and unique main battle system. The only flaw with the game is the progression. The player progresses by gathering items from enemies and these items randomly drop. In short, the only way to progress is by grinding. Fortunately, this grinding is not too extensive. Most items drop after five matches, maximum. In addition, the player gets to choose which enemies they face, and when. So, they have control over the spawn rates to an extent. In addition, the gameplay itself is so fun that the grinding is an actual pleasure, not a problem. The equipment system uses the same crafting as progression, since progression is simply crafting a key. There is one more unique element. To craft, the player bids experience points and can even level down. This, as can be guessed, means the player has even more reason to grind, adding a bit of longevity to the game, even if it’s artificial longevity. Again however, the actual fun of the game makes up for it.

The graphics are also surprisingly good, and never feel low budget. The game uses still CG portraits, like a visual novel, or dialogue in Chantelise or Recettear. The trick is, the game never uses anything else.

Enemy sprites are portraits, characters are portraits, and the backgrounds are still. Some graphics tricks are used with attacks, usually slashes across the screen and such, but all in all, it’s still portraits. This is a clever graphics saving measure, as the portraits are beautiful, and the game never feels ‘cheap’. Even though, in practice, there’s practically no animation.

Final Call: All in all, this game is perfect. There’s just only one real flaw, and that’s made moot by the gameplay. There are no ways the game can be improved, and it’s a genuine joy to play. It’s never a trudge, always fun, and can be played for minutes or hours.

Pros

• Fun gameplay, good scripting
• Cheap, but surprisingly good graphics
• Flawless, and dirt cheap.

Cons

• Grinding. Lots of grinding.

On October 21^st, 2011 a story was put onto the mass video game news site Kotaku that stated a meeting was held after the release of id Software’s Rage with Bethesda and parent company Zenimax. It was said that the publisher was disappointed in reviews and overall sales of the developer’s recent game, Rage, and that they would have to postpone the development of Doom 4 indefinitely.

This story was immediately responded to by Bethesda’s VP of PR and marketing, Pete Hines, when he stated on his twitter account that the rumor was “complete bollocks.” Furthermore it has been stated in the past that id Software had plans on continuing production on Doom 4 after the release of Rage. While this may still be true, and honestly I hope it is, the story got me thinking about the current landscape of gaming.

Things have changed over the years since id Software released Doom 3 back in 2004 to decent sales. Let’s pause for a second and focus on that sentence. The third installment to the godfather of the shooter genre’s biggest franchise only did decent sales back in 2004! Let’s keep in mind that this was during the time when a little game known as Halo was making its rounds. The FPS genre has come a long way since that time, and id is going to have to go back to the drawing board to re-evaluate what Doom is known for in order to get the blockbuster that they sorely need. All of this begs the question:

Can they be helped?

How Would Doom 4 Fare in the Current Market?

Since 2004, gaming has become a dominant force in entertainment. In 2008 it was reported that approximately 38% of US homes had a gaming console and in the very year after, The State of Media Democracy report said that the number had surged to around 60%. In the UK that number is even higher; in 2009 a study stated that there were enough consoles sold in the country to give 8 out 10 homes in the country a video game system.

These are all impressive figures for the industry and to think, back in 2004 the medium was just building steam and console based online multiplayer was in its infancy. The FPS genre was far from the beast it is now, and in 2011 it is fair to say that the type of game id Software created with Wolfenstein 3D is the most popular genre out there. Franchises like Halo, Call of Duty, and Battlefield have taken the market by storm, and in the case of the first two, broken video game sales records with each new release. Modern Warfare 3 sold over 9 million copies alone in its first two days, which is over double that of Doom 3’s reported total sales. It might also be worth noting that Doom 3 is considered id’s most successful game to date and it wasn’t even on the top 10 bestselling games of the year list during the year of its release.

Rage sold a modest 550,000 units in its first month which, while still okay by market standards, is far behind that of others within its genre. Id Software had hoped to retake its place on the top of the food chain with Bungie, Dice, Valve, and Infinity Ward with the release of Rage, but it came far below its goal. Rage received modest reviews from the media outlets, but the PC version was plagued with bugs and most of the negative press it got had to do with its linear single player campaign and weak multiplayer. If all this information serves any purpose, it is to answer the question asked above.

How would Doom 4 fare in the current market? If history has anything to say about it, not well. However, I have to wonder what can id Software do to really take back its place within the kingdom it helped create.

What Could Doom 4 Do To Retake Its Throne?

This is a complicated question that I am not remotely qualified to answer. I can however, take a shot. By looking at what areas of a current generation FPS’ have made a property popular, and how id software can use some of them to their advantage when re-inventing the Doom franchise. There are a few areas to look at, but the most diverse of which is how can the single player experience be re-worked to fit what audiences connect to in their shooters these days?

The mythology behind the Doom series lends itself to something bigger than what it has explored in the past and makes me consider the likes of games like Bioshock, Half Life 2, and even Borderlands. The Doom storyline takes place in the far future where humanity has begun to spread out and study the neighboring planet of Mars. In a science facility on that planet, something goes horribly wrong and a portal to hell is opened. Most of the denizens within the facility turn into some form of zombie, and tons of demons make their way into this plane of existence. The main hero is a marine stationed on the facility who fights to survive and eventually squelches the threat before it has the chance to do any real damage by reaching earth.

While Doom 3 added a bit of storyline to the proceedings, introducing an Umbrella Corporation like enemy that develops weapons and various other nefarious things. It didn’t much address the closed in and linear style of the game, nor did it do anything to up the ante in terms of threat. While Mars and bases on Mars are all well and good, they do lead to some spooky environment and a sense of claustrophobia that lends itself to jump-scares, they also lead to tons of look-alike corridors, a far too linear design, and a story that never really explores any sense of depth. The Doom series has never capitalized on some of its bigger ideas, e.g. the fact that it is about hell breaching our reality.

By exploring what it could mean if hell finds its way from Mars to Earth in some twist that extends gameplay and takes the series were it hasn’t gone before, as well as exploring how a future world would react to the knowledge that hell is indeed real. Some things that Half Life 2 did extraordinarily well is open up the world to a barrage of different locations, introduce new characters who grow along with the story, and study how society had grown and attempted to adapt since the events of the first game. Doom 4 could do well to do the same. We are talking about religion here, and a literal hell being unleashed on a futuristic earth that has grown in its technology and changed in ways that only further scientific discovery and 100 years can provide. It is an interesting setting to explore.

I for one would be intrigued at following a story that branched from Mars to an Earth that is attacked in a way that seemingly throws a societies understanding of theology for a loop. I would also like to see a change to the main character. A bad-ass space marine with no personality may have worked back in the day, but these days, if id Software wants to get people interested in the story again, the main character has to have a personality. That can still be a marine, or even more interestingly, a common individual. It could also go the Half-Life route yet again, and introduce interesting side characters that help establish the importance of the main character.

I bring up Bioshock because that is a game that was driven by an enclosed underwater city that made its mystery and creepiness as much a part of the story as its Ayn Rand like philosophy inspired plot. If Doom 4 is going to stay on Mars, it is critical that it inspires to make that place as interesting and beautiful as the abandoned society of Rapture. I also brought up Borderlands to suggest the possibility of Doom 4 giving itself over to a more open experience.

While I don’t think open world would work for the series, giving players more areas to explore and a sense of freedom from time to time could be good for the franchise. Considering the horror factor of the game, it would be both fascinating and frightening to be given some open ended freedom to explore a world overtaken by hell and fraught with panic.

The Doom series cannot rely on its usual setting and vague plot, the mythology behind it has so many possibilities yet explored. I for one would like to see the series reach for bigger ideals and take some serious notes from the biggest names in single player FPS games. For its next release to hit huge sales, it can’t rest on its laurels, because if the overall lukewarm reception in 2004 is anything to go by, they’ve got old a long time ago.

What Really Makes a Game Sale Huge These Days? Multiplayer!

One can arguably say that the reason behind the huge numbers for Halo, Call of Duty, and Battlefield are solely on their addictive and well utilized multi-player system. The Doom franchise is credited for spawning what we now play in our crack-like addictions, it is also well documented that it was the game game that created the term “death match.” The series has done a lot to inspire what has become a vast growing genre in a booming market.

Note 1: Gotta be better than this

Many games have been released with multiplayer systems developers hoped would compete with the giants in question. Most have not succeeded however; it appears that it is an area more difficult to develop than anything else. We have to give credit to where credit is due. Halo and Call of Duty changed the multiplayer landscape forever, and it is a difficult area to take on for many developers. The system created by Doom can be re-invented and tooled to target an audience that is looking for a faster paced and more arcade like shooter experience. Think Halo in scope and Unreal Tournament in pace.

I believe the series could do well in that arena, given its gore and its propensity for really big sci-fi weaponry. With a large enough force behind it, it can keep some of the old stand-bys and give us old time gamers back our frag-fest filled death matches where weapons are littered in set places throughout the map, but also go large in feel by being creative with other game modes.

The Halo franchise is at its best when it gets creative with its multiplayer. Think back when SWAT was introduced, or the popularity of Infection and Grifball. These are wild and off-kilter multiplayer games that throw conventions out the window. I think a series like Doom could do the same and do real well by keeping some traditional style matches, but also throwing out a few “fuck it, why not?” game types as well.

A perfect example of a "fuck it, why not?" game type

If id Software really wants its blockbuster in the FPS genre, multiplayer is where the money is and more than ever, this will have to be a big area for them to focus on. They can’t do what they did with Rage and just give us one game type that was only a minor mechanic in the main game. The vehicle combat was all well and good, but people that played the game really wanted to battle each other on foot as well. Consider the possibilities of popular game types with Doom mechanics and weaponry: Team style domination like Battlefield, a killstreak system like Call of Duty (only way to implement the BFG in most game types), or hell beast vs marines in a take on Left 4 Dead.

The possibilities are there for Doom to really take it to the market and give us players something fresh and cool. Let some of us remember the old days of over-the-top frag fests, while also working to expand, rather than confine, what is possible with older conventions. Modern Warfare and Battlefield may have made modern military operations cool, but Doom 4 has the opportunity to make sci-fi and ridiculous weapons cool again.

Note 2: This is a game type for multiplayer, not multiplayer in its entirety.

In Closing: Here’s hoping Bethesda didn’t shelf Doom 4, and the lukewarm reception to Doom 3 and Rage lit a fire under id Software’s butt that will give us a return to awesome that fans of the franchise have been waiting for. Would anyone really care about Doom 4? I hope id makes us care.

The last two years has been a great time for the 2D platforming genre with indie releases such as ‘Splosion Man and Super Meat Boy making their way to the Xbox Live market to huge sales. The classic genre has even seen a very important return to the big leagues thanks to Nintendo with titles like New Super Mario Bros. Wii, Donkey Kong Country Returns, and Kirby’s Epic Yarn.

2011 has been pretty good to this once forgotten old school style of game and November alone saw the release of two games that proved to be a return to form for their respective properties. Sonic Generations and Rayman Origins both came out to outstanding reviews, but one is certainly much better than the other. Rayman, the charming character without limbs returns for the first time since Hoodlum Havoc back in 2003. How does his re-debut fair?

In a word: Perfectly. Rayman Origins, in my opinion, is the pinnacle of everything 2D platforming. It is what every modern day project like this has built up towards. It is a wonder why he ever had to disappear in the first place and be replaced for a time by those snow like substance abusing Rabbids. Rayman by all means should have been a mascot on the level of Mario and Sonic, he is charming and he exists within a world that is easily one of the most imaginative within gaming. His games have largely been solid and praised for their precise controls and impeccable level design and he is an easily recognizable character.

From the moment the game is powered on, it is obvious the boys and girls at Ubisoft Montpellier have a particular love for this character and the world he resides in. The game is full to the brim with whimsy and charm, so much so that it is difficult not to smile and feel joyful about the opportunity to explore every nook and cranny of it. Every character, enemy, item, and level is hand-drawn with some of the best animations I have ever seen in a 2D space. The animations are alive with so much color and personality that the fact that there isn’t much of a story to follow is hardly an issue.

The amount of care and time in the animations and art is not wasted in anyway as the games mechanics are perfectly handled. Gone is the all too familiar double jump, but as the game progresses, Rayman and his friends are given other powers that continue to increase the challenges they will face in each level. Players will start the game with nothing more than a standard jump and wall jump. Later they will unlock the ability to punch, hover, swim, and even run on walls. With each move learned, the game stacks on the difficulty, and oh man does it get hard.

Don’t let Rayman Origins’ beautiful hand-drawn images fool you. This is not something just for kids, even for long time gamers, this game will kick your word that rhymes with crass. This is a platformer that will challenge players on a similar level that ‘Splosion Man and Super Meat Boy did, but what those games did well, Rayman Origins perfects. Just like with From Software’s Dark Souls, Rayman Origins’ difficulty is a big part of why this game is so good. Never does a death feel cheap, and never does a level or a challenge feel impossible. Every death, every misplaced jump, and every little slip is a chance to learn and get better.

Never is this more the case than with the secret levels unlocked by collecting a certain number of electoons. Just like the stars in Super Mario Galaxy, electoons are the goal to each level and can be collected by not only completing a stage, but by completing certain obstacles within that stage. There are hidden areas in each level whose location is given away by an audible cue, there are yellow floating looms which, if you take the time to collect a certain amount of, will unlock an electoon, and there is even a speed run that can be unlocked after completing the level the first time. Up to 5 electoons can be rewarded on each level, and it can easily become an obsession to get them all. For me, the time trials were often the most fun as each of them meant I had to rush forward as fast as I could, getting around each and every obstacle in the level without dying once in order to reach the goal. If you die during a time trial run, the level will restart from the beginning. That alone was a big part of the challenge, more so than hitting the goal in time.

Rayman can only be hit once before death, and the only thing that can protect him are hearts that will act as a shield, protecting our limbless hero and his friends from a single hit (only one heart can be collected at a time). If my warning of the difficulty wasn’t enough to go by, it is really easy to get hit in this game, and every time you do…it is your damn fault. I cannot stress enough how beautiful of a thing that is in a game like this, that the mechanics and the camera are so precise, that a death is never the games fault. One of the things that annoyed me the most about Sonic Generations was that often the camera or a screw up with the control would cost me a difficult challenge. Never is that the case here, its mechanics have been fine tuned to perfection.

Even though Rayman Origins level design is some of the best I have seen this side of Super Mario Galaxy’s, the game will sometimes throw you for a loop by introducing new level types. Most worlds will have a level that has Rayman or one of his pals flying around on the back of a mosquito (or in the case of his big blue pal Globox, a mosquito riding him) in a horizontal scrolling shooter like Gradius. These levels never cease to be just as fun as the platforming stages, and by the end of the game become nearly as difficult as Gradius itself. Be prepared to float around through a hail of fireballs and on-screen chaos.

If players become dedicated to collecting as many Electoons as they can, they will be rewarded with secret levels that will have Rayman chasing a treasure chest. The animation that begins these sequences, with the treasure chest seeing his foe and imagining what he will do to him if he catches him, is hilarious. What follows is a fast paced chase that is quite possibly one of the best parts of the game. Each of the ten chase levels in the game are designed to require quick and precise jumps. Later they will even call on the ability to lightly tap the jump button to clear certain obstacles, rather than hold the button down and correct in mid-air like mostly every other level in the game.

I cannot stress enough how important it is to remember this tip for these levels: Never use the hovering mechanic. It will slow you down and almost always guarantee failure. These chase levels are so well designed that every obstacle can be cleared with a perfectly timed regular jump. They are also so difficult that the smallest mistake will mean death. They have to be cleared just shy of perfectly.

Speaking of secret levels, if you are able to collect all ten jewels from these chests, they will unlock the Land of the Livid Dead hidden stage. This is by far the most difficult level in the game and will call on everything you’ve learned from playing through the game to this point. I had to take many smoke breaks during that level to clear my head and get back to it. It is seriously hard, but just like every level in this game, it is fun as hell.

Rayman Origins also has a multiplayer mechanic that can make life a little easier with two players, or chaotic with more than that. In Co-Op the other player can resurrect a fallen friend by popping a bubble they are stuck in. It makes some of the more difficult levels a tad bit easier. At least that is what I’ve heard, since I beat the entire game with all Electoons and the secret stages all by my little self. I never got the chance to play co-op, but I can say as a single player game. This is one of the best I’ve played. I will eventually sit one of my friends down (who are all too busy with Battlefield 3) to play some Rayman with me.

Final Call: Rayman Origins is one of the best games I have played this year, and in my opinion is the best 2D platformer I have ever played. I know I used the word “perfect” quite a few times in this review, yet it is a descriptive phrase with a lot of weight. A word that this game deserves, I truly can not find any flaws worth noting. It is everything I look for in this style of game. The art style is incredibly detailed, filled with charm, and one of the most beautiful things I have seen in execution. The soundtrack is whimsical and brimming with just as much personality as the rest of the game. The level design is impeccable from the first stage to the last, and the difficulty is one of the best things about it. As far as I’m concerned, Mario can have the 3D platformers, because Rayman has just taken the crown for the 2D kingdom.

Pros

• Beautifully hand drawn everything
• Perfect gameplay mechanics
• Great soundtrack
• Some of the best level design in the genre
• Plenty of replayability for those who need to complete every challenge

Cons

• May be a bit too difficult for casual gamers
• Might get confused for a kid’s game

Third-Person Isometric RPGs have been around for a long time. Some of the most famous are Baldur’s Gate, Planescape Torment, and the well-loved Fallout series. They’ve fallen to the wayside lately however, replaced with different styles. Even Fallout 3 now uses the same first-person system as Morrowind. Independent games have been taking up the slack, especially Spiderweb software, which has two series of games, concentrating on scripting with incredibly detailed character customization. Will their newest game; Avadon, be as good as Avernum and Geneforge?

The first thing that stands out in this game is the graphics. They are about at the level of early SNES games. Make no mistake, they aren’t bad nor does it really interfere with the gameplay. It’s just abundantly clear that the game does not have a huge budget. The sprites are amateurish but don’t have any obvious problems. The different stages feel copy-pasted, though the developers at least give each stage a distinctive look. The game has a very set number of character sprites, and in fact your main character’s sprite is just an unchanged version of one of the four companions. Sprites only really have walking, and battle animations. Still, you at least can see all the items you can pick up, and can tell the difference between friend and foe. The graphics never interfere with immersion, or gameplay.

The sound for this game is… well, to sum it up in one word, terrible. There is no background music in the game. No well-designed tunes to interest you during battle. There are sound effects, but they don’t interest. They have the clang of swords, the growl of enemies, and the background hum of conversation. But, while these sounds are present, that’s all they are. They don’t have a fire, or a sense of majesty. There is no voice acting, either. All in all, when playing this game, it’s easy to just turn off the volume and listen to a favorite song.

The scripting of this game, meanwhile, is superb. While it doesn’t have the sheer emotional impact of the Final Fantasy series, it is still well-done. The player has four companions, who bicker and talk with each other, comment on the environment, and have interesting motives, and even keep secrets that are only revealed when they learn to trust the hero. The NPCs as well have interesting characteristics, and even random quest-givers have motives and personalities. This is only helped, by the fact that the game is filled with text. Not in the sense of having lots of dialog, though it does. When you click on characters, a full window pops up on screen, and explains not just what the NPC says, but how they say it and their emotions as they do it. It’s detailed, feeling like a mini-novella. Even nameless guards get an explanation on how they’re tired and bored. The text actually really helps make up for the graphics, as the things that would normally be shown using graphics, are explained in the text. Even next-gen graphics are working hard to display the kind of emotions this gives.

The world that’s created is quite interesting, a group of nations held together by an ancient Pact, and the power of the Black Fortress. Yet, while the Pact protects them, it also takes away rights, some of which are sacred. The Pact is not perfect and those imperfections are only growing. Then the player enters, and does what all players do. Poke at things, and change the situation. The scripting alone would be enough to grant this game a 10/10.

Unfortunately, this is a game, and as such the gameplay is important. At this, the game…well, it doesn’t fail, but it doesn’t reach the heights of the script, either. The first thing to go over is character creation. Each character has four stats, and it’s generally clear which stat needs to go up to fight better. Melee Fighters use strength, ranged fighters use dexterity, mages use intelligence, and vitality increases HP. Since enemy damage is so low, vitality never really comes up. Generally, the best plan is to take the main stat and pump it up to the maximum every level. Each character has a large selection of skills; each of the four classes gets 11 skills they can pick between. Unfortunately, these come in three rows of three, with the bottom skill needed before the top skill. And, while the character gets two skill points per level, enabling a new skill costs two points. To get as many skills as possible, it will take the player quite a bit of time, especially since there’s an interesting pattern of prerequisite skills. The player generally has to get skills from two rows, to get the next in one row. The set-up looks nice, but in practice tends to push people to over-generalize. A reasonable plan is to just buy up two rows, to get to the ultimate skill at the top.

Now, while character customization is important, especially for a Spiderweb Software game, the important part is the gameplay. And most of it is well done. It has a large variety of quests, multiple areas to explore, and quite a few items to pick up. A nice touch that Spiderweb Software games have is junk items. Not just items that are junk to sell, they have true, honest to goodness junk. Bones, skulls, clay pots, all of these can be picked up. Considering most heroes are well known for taking anything that isn’t locked down, it is nice, right up there with Morrowind. Items that are not yours are also clearly labeled, so it’s much easier to avoid accidentally touching someone’s fork, and getting arrested. In fact, many junk items do not count as stealing, period, even if they would logically belong to someone else. The areas are also fun to explore, with a lot of neat secrets, and easter eggs. NPCs have plenty of options to talk about, and there is another major complaint.

The combat is problematic. As I mentioned before, there is a reason that the player should select as many different skills as possible. Cooldown times are INSANELY high. Generally, cooldown will be longer then the entire battle lasts. Furthermore, while health regenerates in a matter of seconds outside of battle, the points used to cast spells do not regenerate at all. The only way to recover them is to rest back at Avadon, the home base. This generally requires exiting whatever area the player is currently exploring, going to the pylon in another area, clicking on it, healing, and leaving. The net effect is to encourage rationing skills as much as possible. Besides, basic attacks will take out most enemies in one hit, and group attacks are generally reserved for one of the higher-tier spells.  The characters even start out with one real attack skill and can have only four easy access skills. Most of the battles consist of a horde of enemies rushing towards the heroes, dying in one or two hits, and doing pathetic damage. Even on normal, the game is surprisingly easy. Enemies just don’t do enough damage to feel threatening. Bosses have surprisingly high HP, but once away from their minions, they’re quite vulnerable to surrounding them, and just spamming normal attacks. The overall effect makes the game rather like a trudge. Still, there are plenty of shining moments, such as an enemy mage, a three-on-three fight against boss-class enemies, a group of lizards that use a vanishing trick to jump up within range. It does not help that combat is nearly impossible to avoid, making up a significant focus of the gameplay time. Fortunately, there are no annoying random encounters, and once an enemy is dead, it stays dead. A cleared out level is safe.

Final Call: All in all, upon careful consideration, even the bad combat doesn’t make the game boring. The bad sound doesn’t even really matter either. Avadon is, ultimately, worth it, with an interesting story, good scripting, and a great atmosphere. This would be a perfect indie game if the combat was less of a trudge, and it felt less low-budget. It’s worth every penny, and is a game that should be played by anyone with the money to buy it.

Pros

• System that rewards exploration
• Plenty of side-quests
• High-quality script

Cons

• Lumbering combat system
• Bad Dated Graphics
• Boring sound

I have avoided Sonic games for a good long time now. The last one I laid my hands on was Sonic Heroes, which was an overall broken experience. Since then I neglected to care about the blue hedgehog with attitude; the series had gone off the rails into being unimaginative and frustratingly flawed. I didn’t want my childhood memories to take any more hits, as I was one of the kids who held Sonic in high esteem and adopted the Genesis over the Super Nintendo. I still believe the four Sonics on the Genesis are some of the strongest platformers of that early generation. The years have not been kind to him however, and the third dimension has nearly destroyed the credibility of Sega’s mascot. The continued redevelopment of the franchise has only succeeded in hurting the franchise, and the new additions only proved to be a departure from what made it so damn fun in the first place. The Sonic franchise isn’t about riding around on skates and using guns, it isn’t about running around with a sword, it isn’t about turning into a werewolf, and it for damn sure isn’t about Sonic experiencing a blossoming social life with other random animals with attitude.

There was once a time when this mascot went head to head with Nintendo’s plumber and during its height was even considered better by quite a large group. As time went on though, Mario continued to get better and better and Sonic continued to become an embarrassment to itself with each release being reminiscent of all those 80’s hair bands trying to stay relevant by dropping a new shitty album well after their prime. It didn’t work for Mötley Crüe, it didn’t work for Guns N’ Roses, and it for damn sure didn’t work for Sonic. Unlike these bands though, Sonic has seen a couple of releases recently that were strong and further proof that it was possible to make a good Sonic game.

For Sonic’s 20^th birthday we see the release of Sonic Generations, and I have no shame in saying that it is yet another good game in the series and a return to form for the blue guy. Sonic Team has finally gone back to what made the series so much fun, fast gameplay mixed with twitch based platforming. There is a story here and while it is mostly dumb, it is exactly what it needs to be; an excuse to make this a Sonic only game. Thank god for that by the way. The game opens with Sonic throwing a birthday party with all of his friends, then suddenly a monster appears and tears away the fabric of time and space, kidnaps his friends, and throws Sonic into a sort of limbo. In this Limbo, new Sonic is introduced to his child self, and they both learn that by running at high speeds through areas of their life, they can return time to normal. Not exactly scientifically sound, but it is an excuse to run really fast and play as both a 3D sonic from the likes of Sonic Colors, and an improved 2D Sonic from the likes of Episode 4.

Each level in the game is a re-imagining of a stage from every game in the series, from the good games to the bad. Thankfully, the bad game’s stages have been re-imagined into being awesome and often times a tad bit challenging. It is really fun going back through levels from Sonic Adventure and Sonic Adventure 2 (the only good 3D Sonics) in 2D, and overall the new sonic stages are more exciting with the way they move from 3D to 2D seamlessly. At times however, they are frustratingly bogged down by a wonky camera and the occasional action not performing the way it should. The homing missile move that sonic has adapted over the years adds to the fast jumps that rely heavily on quick reflexes that many of us have honed over the years, yet sometimes, it just doesn’t work out of nowhere resulting in a quick, unfair death. The camera will also tend to get stuck on a corner or refuse to function correctly, and these moments lead to a complete halt to the action as the player struggles to get things back on track.

2D Sonic, on the other hand, is solid in every single level, and some of the later stages are challenging and well designed. Making this all feel like a refreshing return to the status quo. The main game can go by just as fast as the action itself and if done doing the bare minimum, can easily be completed in less than 5 hours. What makes the experience last is the introduction of challenge stages that open up before boss battles after 3 levels have been completed by both Sonics. There are multiple challenge stages for each level and each of them can be played by both Sonics. The challenges range from more enemies in a redesigned version of the stage, to only 1 ring to get through an entire section, to racing against a doppleganger, to a ton more options. Most of these are a lot of fun and add a challenge to the game that otherwise is non-existent. There are some on the other hand that are incredibly dumb and ruin the fun, more often than not these bad stages are the ones that call on Sonics buddies to help out.

Seriously, screw all of Sonic’s friends, all they serve to do is hold him back from being great. Most of them commit the one cardinal sin of this franchise; slow the game down. These challenge stages are frustrating not because they are difficult, but because of how utterly bad they are. Luckily, these challenges don’t have to be completed to move on, but if you are a completionist, prepare to want to curse the day Sonic ever decided to have a social life.

Bosses do make a return to the franchise, with seven battles in total; they are all mostly well-built and sort of fun. I would have much rather had a boss to end each stage like they used to however, I didn’t much like the way things were laid out here. Each section of 3 levels is capped by a final boss in a random level designed only for that fight, which can only be unlocked by completing one challenge stage for each level. There is also the mid-boss type that is a fight with one of Sonic’s rivals, again in their own stage. Most of them are fun in their own way, but are definitely not a high-point in the game. The final boss is extra guilty for just plain being badly designed and the furthest thing away from fun.

Final Call: Sonic has returned to being a good game, and added with the apparently awesome Sonic Colors, Sega may have finally figured out what made these games good in the first place. I don’t think he will be at the level of greatness that Mario is at ever again, because while Mario continues to evolve with each release, Sonic has had to de-evolve in order to remember what made him awesome in the first place. Hopefully with time Sonic Generations can be looked back on as a step towards the greatness that one of my favorite mascots has always deserved. The game is very short and even with the additional challenge stages, it is only about a 10 hour experience. Sonic Generations as a whole is a good game. Not a great one, but a really good one worth a rental.

Pros:

• Fast and exciting gameplay
• Imaginative level design that is continuously exhilarating
• Most Challenge levels add a fair amount of difficulty to the game
• Beautiful graphics that add a layer of depth to each stage
• Remixed soundtrack is mostly great

Cons:

• Occasional camera bugs can lead to misjudging a jump or halting the action
• Fickle control scheme can sometimes break, leading to unfair deaths
• Challenge levels with Sonic’s friends are mostly atrocious
• Boss battles are either okay or bad

I kind of feel like I’ve become a missionary for Naughty Dog in regards to the Uncharted series.  With every person I approach, I whip out an Uncharted strategy guide and excitedly ask them “Do you have a moment to talk about the Church of Nathan Drake?” Some people may think I’m joking, but I can assure you, I’m very serious. In fact, I’ve already converted a couple of previous naysayers, and now they don’t know how they lived before accepting Drake into their lives.  I was starting to calm down a bit with my search for spiritual enlightenment through the Uncharted series, and then the third installment, Drake’s Deception came out.

And I have seen the face of God in this game.

In all seriousness, I’m not going to delve too deeply into the story of Drake’s Deception.  I feel that if I were to just focus on the story of the game, it would really ruin a good amount for anyone who hasn’t played it yet.  I will say that the game does take you to several exotic locations that haven’t been visited in Uncharted thus far, and every detail placed into each location is nothing less than astonishing.  There are so many intricate details in every location… the landscapes are remarkable, the characters look the most real they’ve ever looked, and interaction with inanimate objects and other surroundings have been worked into the gameplay flawlessly.

Aside from the graphical upgrade this sequel received, there were gameplay features that got some tweaking too.  Melee and brawl attacks were definitely a facet in combat in both Drake’s Fortune and Among Thieves, but it wasn’t until Drake’s Deception that they got the focus they’ve needed.  To be honest, I tried avoiding fist fights as often as possible in the previous Uncharted games, simply because it wasn’t perfected; landing a punch seemed difficult and often buggy at times.  However, in Uncharted 3, I’d have to say that brawling got the biggest overhaul.  There are big guys that are more difficult to fist-fight called Brutes that seem to deal more damage and take less overall.  These guys are probably the most fun to fight because of how Drake reacts.  Obviously, fighting a guy twice your size is going to be a bit difficult, and it’s entertaining to see Drake get increasingly fatigued as he lands each blow and entertains the player with his famous witty one-liners.

Other small improvements to gameplay overall include throwing back grenades (I can’t tell you how happy I was with this one), and shooting while swimming.  To throw back a grenade, you have to be relatively near it and time it just right by hitting the triangle button.  Drake will pick it up and make panicked sounds, and then usually throw it in the direction of whichever enemy threw it at you.  I say usually because there were many times that Drake’s arm didn’t extend out far enough, and once thrown, it ended up hitting a wall right in front of him and exploding, resulting in death and me screaming at my TV.  I played on Hard mode my first run-through, and a close grenade explosion equals instant death.  I couldn’t tell you if that’s different on Normal mode, but I’d assume you might catch a bit of a break.  As far as swimming goes, I honestly had no idea that you even COULD shoot and swim (I found out while browsing the Trophy list).  It’s something I’ve yet to try, but there are a couple parts of the game (especially before the big cruise ship area, as seen in the E3 2011 demo from Sony’s press conference) where this could’ve proved useful had I previously known about it.

SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER

In regards to the characters, there is definitely a lot of development that occurs in this installment, especially between Drake and Sully.  Okay, little bit of spoiler alert: We get to see them meet and how their friendship/partnership began.  This was probably my favorite part of the game overall, because it finally answers some questions about Drake, but in the same regard, poses even more (that are unfortunately left unanswered).  Returning supporting characters include Chloe, who thankfully looks like a real person in this game – she looked super creepy and unrealistic in Among Thieves; and Elena, who is super awesome as always, and was also given a major story development in between 2 and 3 that’s vaguely hinted at throughout this sequel.  New characters include Charlie Cutter, who looks quite a bit like Jason Statham and is every bit as awesome, and the villains Marlowe, an old British lady; and Talbot, her much younger, dick-faced second-in-command, who seems to hang around Marlowe in hopes of gettin’ some Cougar action.  There are some new side protagonists and antagonists, but to be honest, their introductions and interactions with the other established characters were very weak; essentially, these new side characters were developed to be thrown away by the game’s end.

While I can readily admit that the Uncharted franchise has become a rival to Zelda in terms of my all-time favorite, I felt that Drake’s Deception wasn’t as strong as Among Thieves in regards to plot and new characters.  Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of amazing action sequences, and I like that they took a new direction for the “supernatural twist” in this game, but I don’t feel that this sequel lived up to its predecessor.  I’d probably give Drake’s Fortune a B or B-, depending on my mood, give Among Thieves a perfect A+ with about 20 extra credit points, and Drake’s Deception a A-.  I definitely loved the game, but it’s not as perfect as other review sites have claimed it to be.  The story was definitely the weakest point, and posed so many new questions while only answering a few that have been around since the series’ creation.  Not to mention that I ran through the entire story in less than 9 hours.  I would love to see a richer plot in the next game, and definitely a good three or four hours added to the campaign.  The Uncharted games are praised for being incredibly cinematic with their caliber being akin to that of a big-budget Hollywood movie, which is true… But a video game shouldn’t last as long as a typical blockbuster flick.

Final Call: All in all, I was pleased with Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception.  It got me excited for Golden Abyss, which will launch alongside the PSVita in February, and makes me sad that I have to wait at least two years for Uncharted 4.  Until then, I will view each game as a Holy Scripture in the book of Nathan Drake, and with each installment that is released, I will get closer and closer to reaching video game nirvana.

Pros:

• One of the best looking games out there
• Revamped combat system that makes hand-to-hand combat fun this time
• Top-Notch voice acting as always

Cons:

• The occasional unfair death
• Plot weaker overall than previous two installments
• Extremely short

Orcs Must Die is an indie title made by Robot Entertainment which is a recently founded company and a newcomer to the genre, leaving them with a clean slate. Regardless of their lack of pedigree however, there are expectations to live up to, particularly if you take into account the advertisements for the game. This game was advertised as a mixture of a Tower Defense game and an over-the-shoulder Diablo. The impressions from the ad campaign were that it was a brainless, silly game. The important question is, is Orcs Must Die worth the $15? And, is it any better than Sanctum, which came out first for a mere $10?

The first thing that interested me about Orcs Must Die is the scripting. I say scripting as opposed to story because the story itself is relatively light, but there is quite a bit more than expected from this type of game.  There are actual cut-scenes, even if they are simply still images with narration by the mentor character. As for the tone, it is quite funny; this game does not take itself seriously.  The main character is consistently snarky and makes silly comments to amuse the players alongside the chatter of the orcs. The steady stream of witty banter and the high number of enjoyable lines help keep the game moving. Unlike a similar game in the genre; Blood Bowl, spoken dialogue is rarely repeated in the middle of a wave. Even in the early waves dialogue is rarely repeated, which helps preserve realism and keep the game from getting boring. The sound design is also well-done, shifting as the player come closer to death as well as providing cues when they are in danger.

The graphics are smooth and free of pixilation, and there is a bevy of genuinely different Orc designs. While the special units are all the same, there are enough ‘standard’ orc models that you don’t see a sea of bland clones coming at you, which is a problem with quite a few tower defense games. The effect of the traps on the enemies also adds to the enjoyment. The orcs explode into bloody chunks if the player uses the right weapon, go flying if hit with a physics trap, and turn a putrid shade of light green if they are poisoned them. This really helps provide the player with incentive to try out numerous, creative traps, and adds to the cartoonish atmosphere.
The gameplay consists mostly of simple, standard, tower defense. The enemies follow a path, conveniently highlighted by a sparkling trail, though unlike many 2D tower defense games, the path is malleable, allowing the player to put a barricade in their way and force them into a specific route.

Now, while it is called tower defense, instead of using towers, the player uses ‘traps’. A giant wall full of arrows, a large pit of spikes, a giant masher… a single trap is likely to knock an orc to half health in one go, or kill it completely. The hero has a crossbow and a staff, but the staff will get you swarmed and killed, and the crossbow only nets you a kill if you get a headshot.  The staff is a melee weapon, but since the orcs come in waves of large groups at once, melee is generally a bad idea. Luckily, the crossbow is rapid-fire, but unluckily, the accuracy tanks if the player just cram down on the attack button. The player has to be careful to use short, controlled bursts, for maximum effectiveness.  Figuring out where to put the traps and the graphic design all work together to make the player think, plan, and then kill orcs. Unfortunately, it is easy to place the traps a little too well, and have the level run on auto-pilot, especially on later levels with more waves, but it doesn’t detract from the fun too much. Generally, the number of waves is short enough that it is not much of a bother.

Orcs Must Die also has a good difficulty range, and is never unfair. The game introduces new mechanics gradually, allowing you to replay old levels for better scores, and has three difficulty levels. There are 24 levels that last anywhere between 5 to 15 minutes each, but with multiple difficulty levels and the implantation of leaderboards (the only multi-player aspect to the game), help keep it interesting. If the game’s too hard to beat, it is because the player failed to learn what a previous level was teaching. Things I learned? Headshots are important, and barricades lure orcs to chokepoints.  On the other side of the fence, you face flying enemies, fast enemies, and Ogres that ignore physics traps. That is until the traps are upgraded, then the Ogres can get thrown right into a conveniently placed lava pit.

Even if the traps aren’t upgraded, headshots punch right through the Ogre’s armor. The only problem with this is that the kinds of traps used might not change. I found arrow traps as my main stand-by, doing great damage with good range, and generally being quite practical. On the downside, they are also a bit boring. But the other, less useful traps are still fun to watch. There is still a place for these neglected traps, and they do become less useful traps are still fun to watch. There is still a place for these neglected traps, and they do become more and more useful as you upgrade them.

Final Call: Orcs Must Die is genuinely fun, a major success at making a silly combination of tower defense and action. The script is entertaining, the story does more than just exist, the sound adds to everything, and you get to kill a bunch of orcs. What’s not to like? It may not be a must-get incredible hit, but it is definitely something you should check out if you are looking for a $20 or less game.

Pros

• Good action game with a fun atmosphere
• High replayability if competitive and want to climb up the leaderboard
• Variety of traps

Cons

• Easy to rely on the early traps a bit too much
• Good trap placement can render the player practically invincible

I sat inside of an inn, basking in the warmth of the fireplace as I read over a few books that I had collected along my journey. The quaint establishment was full of chatter that ranged from talk of a thieves guild I had helped re-establish to a bard playing his lute while singing a song I had heard many times. Patrons interacted with each other independently of my influence, and even gathered around the singing bard, waving their cups in the air along with the song. It was a small moment, one of many, but one I couldn’t help but to seep myself into as I sat on my own couch in the real world eating a meal that would keep me going for a few more hours. I had barely delved into the main quest to rescue the world from the threat of the dragons that looked to end the world, but I had cleared my way through many dungeons and conquered what they had laid out before me. Uncovering many stories within that I might otherwise had missed. It was this sense of discovery in a world that never ceased to give me things to do that inspired me to impart so much of my free time into a game that rarely failed to immerse me in a way I had never been before in this medium of entertainment.

There are so many small moments within Skyrim that stuck in my memory and made me happy that I had a bit of a problem staying on target while playing. I had met old gods named Daedra Princes, that had me do their bidding against my better judgement, I had run into a man in another inn and joined him in a drinking contest that ended in something like The Hangover: Medieval Times. I had even stumbled into the mind of a long dead ruler that had been driven mad, and I had shared a feast with an old god in a moment that reminded me a bit of the tea party with the Mad Hatter in Alice in Wonderland. The world of Skyrim had made me feel regret for a few of my actions, it made me chuckle as I played a game of tag with a few kids in a city, and it always made me feel inspired to continue to discover what was hidden within the frozen mountainous land of the Nords (The Elder Scrolls version of the Vikings). Bethesda‘s magnum opus to the open world genre had me grinding away hours of my life picking flowers, hunting deer for their hides, and chasing after butterflies like a child with attention deficit disorder just because I could. It was essentially a gateway to a wonderful new place that made me realize that I possibly had a few mental disorders I wasn’t otherwise aware of.

Skyrim is an exquisitely crafted piece of a world that has been built upon over five different games, and it is thick with mythology and lore so finely detailed that it is absolutely mind-blowing to consider the amount of time put into each slice of the entire life sucking pie. A pie that can easily consume well over 100 hours of a gamer’s free time. Skyrim made me a feel like I had missed something when I had put away Oblivion, only playing it for maybe ten hours before I had forgotten to pick it up again. It made me regret that I had never tried to go back through Morrowind when it had glitched on me many hours in and made a main character disappear, ruining my chances to play through the main storyline. I had however played through Fallout 3 in a fashion that could only be described as religious, so I knew full well what Bethesda was capable of. Yet, no matter how much I loved the post-apocalyptic world of Fallout, Skyrim had introduced me to the harsh continent of Tamriel and I was enamored by the amount of detail woven into every bit of it.

Skyrim is a game defined by the small moments like the ones I described in the first two paragraphs. While the main quest has its moments, the freedom of the open world led to a path that I imagined looked more like a heart rate monitor than a straight cohesive line to an objective. There is very seldom a sense of urgency, and while a player is fully aware the world is under the threat of world ending dragons and that they are the chosen dragonborn with the destiny to defeat them, it is just far more fun to run up that mountain and see what’s over the ridge. It feels like a bit of a downfall, but one hardly worth being much of a complaint. Bethesda has done a wonderful job accumulating all they have learned from their previous games and streamlined much of the content that bogged down the experience of the previous installments. No longer is character creation about picking a class and having to stick to it, things are as simple as choosing a race with some benefits in one area or the other and then going on your adventure.

Skyrim has changed the way I feel about the way a character should level, the freedom given to players to do what they want to do in the case of character development is impeccably clever and I hope RPG’s in the future take a few hints from it. If you want to wield magic, you simply do it, and the more you use it, the more it levels. Want to become a sneak thief that can pickpocket a weapon and the clothes right off a guard’s back without being detected? Skulk around in stealth and pickpocket simple things until the skills level up to that point. The system of building a character based on what a player actually uses is an idea that should have been implemented long ago. The leveling itself has been streamlined, it as simple as placing a point in magic, health, or stamina and then picking a perk if you have leveled a particular skill high enough, it just makes sense. There is no need to wait for a level so you can increase the lock-picking skill to get into that treasure chest found a few dungeons back anymore. If a lock is set to a high difficulty level and the players skill is low, it simply means the puzzle is going to be more difficult and they will likely go through a lot more lock-picks. There is no longer a feeling of being punished when a choice of what class the player has chosen keeps them away from content within the game.

The combat system itself has been improved vastly over that of its predecessors with a simple tweak known as dual wielding. It may sound like a small attachment, but in practice it completely changes the way the game is played. You could wield two single handed weapons and tear apart foes with speed, or equip a shield spell in one hand and blast away with fireballs in the other. You can even do like I did and spend most of the game with one hand always ready with a healing spell as you slash away at foes with a weapon in the other to then switch off to dual wielded fireballs to lay waste to stronger foes from a distance. When two of the same spells are wielded together with the right perk, the results are spectacular. There was something downright fulfilling about blasting away with lightning in two hands as if I was Emperor Palpatine.

The combat in the Elder Scrolls series has always been known to be a bit airy, with impact sometimes feeling a smidgen off. While I noticed this in earlier games, it wasn’t much of an issue in Skyrim. Each hit felt visceral and impacted with the right amount of gory sound to be satisfying. The pull out cinematics from the Fallout series return here, and instead of limbs being blown off by a shot, we are instead treated to beheadings, quick cuts taking out the legs before another slices deep into the neck, and even the occasional impaling upon a large sword. These are a thankfully a well added addition, and while at times the animations can be sloppy and underwhelming, they feel good none the less. So what if a mace cleanly beheads a person as if it was a sword, or if you accidentally get treated to a scene of anal sword rape. It is a nice addition, and the glitches simply follow the knowledge that this is indeed a Bethesda game.

Glitches are bound to happen in a world this large with this much detail. NPC’s move about a city or around the paths on the terrain as if they are all actually going about their lives separate from a player’s involvement or manipulation, it is an impressive feat that should be filled with a lot more bugs then we see in the final product. Dead Island didn’t get away from game breaking bugs, and its world was far smaller and less detailed. This is a difficult game to tackle for developers and the occasional floating corpse or flying mammoth is well within the bounds of acceptable. I don’t hear much about game breaking glitches, there is the occasional lock-up that can be frustrating and it is made ever more so by the obtrusively long loading screens. Nothing however serves to break the experience, most of the time the glitches are simply funny.

Speaking of loading screens, this is one complaint I can lobby without remorse. They are a tad long on consoles, and make the latter part of the game a bit of a chore when fast traveling from place to place to get quests done or entering a new city and exploring to gather up quests. It isn’t much of an issue when delving into dungeons or traveling the vast world, but in cities every door that is opened prompts a loading screen that can take a minute or so, just to spend a few moments inside the shop before exiting to another loading screen. Fast traveling is a quicker way to get around, and while the designs of individual characters, dragons, doors, and tables are impressive. There are only so many times I can manipulate them on a loading screen before it all just becomes tedious and the immersion is dampened.

The main stories themselves are all well and good, but as with most Bethesda games they are slightly underwhelming when everything is said and done. The civil war comes off rushed, and the main story comes to a conclusion a bit too easily. The guild quests are at best engrossing and at worst uninteresting and uninspired. As I stated before, Skyrim stands tall on the small details, the side quests, and its sense of discovery. It is a more streamlined interface that makes exploring more rewarding and less laborious thanks to icons appearing on the compass when a player is in an area that has some points of interest. If the icon is black, it hasn’t been discovered, if white, it has. This makes going on a mission in a new area far more difficult since Timmy is likely going to have to wait to find out about his parents well-being in that one dungeon because there are far to many black areas on my compass along the way, and I have to see what is there. It is Bethesda’s fault for randomly placing interesting quests within these discoveries that makes me feel like I’d be cheating my experience by rushing through an objective. Oh, and one more complaint. The menus… they do suck quite a bit. Expect to spend more then enough time digging through them constantly to get to where you want to be.

Final Call: Skyrim is not a perfect game, but with such scope and imagination it is damn near impossible to really get everything right. Bethesda Softworks has created a title that is the new bar for what is possible in a video game and is their masterpiece to the open world genre. It may suffer from the occasional hiccup and glitch, or a story that has little sense of pacing and comes off as underwhelming by the end, but the real story of Skyrim is the one the player creates. The best moments lie in the scenery and the side quests, they lie in watching a giant mourn over the loss of his mammoth on the bank of a river, so struck with grief that it doesn’t lift a finger to attack when approached by the player. Skyrim is a fantastic place that continues to add to the mythos of the Elder Scrolls world, and I was more then happy to spend damn near 100 total hours in it.

Pros:

• Highly detailed world that is large and riddled with tons of content
• Visceral and pleasing combat mechanics
• Possible to spend a reported 300+ hours with the amount of side quests available
• Streamlined traveling and leveling system makes the game more accessible
• Beautiful graphics with an eye for the smallest of details
• Side quests so finely written, that they can often trump the main content

Cons:

• Incredibly long loading screens
• Main story is underwhelming and left feeling unimportant
• The occasional bug can freeze the game
• Clumsily designed menu system

Oops we did it again! – Episode 3 is hear to sex you up with Game Crush girls and Greg’s Hot or Not extravaganza. Adam Occupies his PS3 while Scott gives some hard honest advice for the Otakus of the world. It’s all somehow related to video games and food so you can’t go wrong listening to this weeks episode of The bEAST Coast Podcast: The Video Game Variety hour!

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Warhammer 40,000 has had a good run of things in the video game arena thus far. The famed Dawn of War RTS series has (with the unfortunate exception of Soulstorm) been expertly made and managed to bring Warhammer 40k into the mainstream. However, with the recent release of Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine, Relic Entertainment has tried to bring the player down from their position as commander right into the shoes of the titular superhuman defenders of the Imperium. How did Relic handle the transition to third-person shooter with hack-n-slash action, and more importantly does it live up to the quality of its forbearers?

Space Marine’s protagonist is Captain Titus of the Ultramarines, and is joined by his battle-brothers Sidonus and Leandros on their quest to defend the forge world Graia against all comers.  Their enemies are legion, ranging from barbaric ork invaders to the twisted servants of chaos. The Ultramarines are aided by Imperial Guard Lieutenant Mira and Inquisitor Dragon as they battle their way across the world and attempt to stem the tide of the Imperium’s countless foes. The story fits the grim spirit of Warhammer 40k, and there are a few twists and turns. The hidden servo-skull recordings do add some more viewpoints and flavor, but overall it’s not going to grab your attention. The characters can come across as flat, Mira in particular. I don’t think I ever saw or heard an ounce of emotion break through her stone-faced expression and calm monotone through the entire game.

But playing a game like Space Marine is like watching action movies; you don’t do it for the quality of the story. You do it for the gunfire and the explosions… Which leads to a very important question: Does Space Marine deliver in the adrenaline department?

The answer is an undisputed yes. From the very first minutes of the single-player campaign Titus is hurling himself into the jaws of death with near reckless abandon or well, it would be reckless were he not an armored superhuman powerhouse and perfectly capable of carving through the enemy ranks like a buzz saw. There is a palpable sense of weight and strength when controlling his movements and the unique combat system nails the bull’s-eye for the feel of Warhammer 40k combat. The player must learn to swap between ranged and melee combat at a moment’s notice with the turning tides of battle as they shift from ranged firefights, to visceral hand-to-hand brawls, and quite a bit of the time to hectic mixes of both.

One of Space Marine’s stronger assets is that it is built to encourage the player to throw themselves into the thick of things. While ranged combat is sometimes required for taking out enemies who are out of reach and is useful for softening up the enemy, the player will regularly draw their weapon of choice and slug it out up close. The health system is dual-layered, with a rechargeable shield bar as the player’s first line of defense with the second layer being Titus’s life bar. There is only one way your life bar can be refilled however, and that is by charging into melee combat and making use of the execution mechanic. One tap of a button near a stunned enemy will prompt a tense clash of blades and with some button smashing for powerful foes the animation will end with Titus slaying the hapless foe in a brutal, gory display that regains a measure of lost health with his foe’s death. It is a system that rewards aggressiveness instead of forcing the player to pause the action to hide behind cover when damage is taken. Space Marine allows you to wade into a horde of enemies and keeps the action hard hitting and fast paced while bringing the fury of the Emperor to your foes.

For this task, the player has at their disposal a multitude of weapons which constantly expands with the progress of the campaign. Weapons range from the (comparatively) humble bolter pistol to the mighty lascannon. There’s a lot of variety to be had, and the satisfaction gained with attaining a new weapon is something that rarely gets old. It is great when you can get your hands on a heavy bolter and blast foes to gibs with a righteous hail of gunfire, or incinerate an entire group of orks bunched up close with the meltagun. I personally fell in love with the Thunder Hammer within minutes of getting my hands on it; the feeling of power is singularly gratifying. I was able to go toe-to-toe with ork nobs, a move which would ordinarily result in a quick trip to the game over screen, and smack them around like bowling pins. Combine that with the jump pack, which gives the player a sense of vertical freedom with a burst of flight that can end with a shattering impact attack, you will feel invincible.

Hammer!

The single-player makes for a fun romp, and on the hard difficultly setting it can provide a challenging but not impossible contest for those who consider themselves skilled in a similar fashion to legendary mode of Halo fame. The jump pack sections and setpieces are well interspaced, and prove to spice things up while keeping the standard combat from getting stale. The soundtrack helps keep the blood pumping with its dramatic and inspiring overtures playing in the background to sharp gunfire and battle cries. The character design is also excellent but while the massive scale and destruction do make for a spectacle, the environments in which they take place are one of the weakest elements of the game. While the level design and surroundings shift through the campaign, the muted grays and browns can’t help but appear in stark contrast to the colorful characters.

The quality of the character design becomes even more apparent in multiplayer. With a level of customization that goes even further than the army painter of Dawn of War, the player can fine-tune his avatar’s appearance to their heart’s content. Loyalist space marines are pitted against chaos marines in team deathmatch and capture-and-hold modes, and with the recent Exterminatus DLC setting a team of players against wave after wave of NPC enemies there is a wealth of content to enjoy. Space Marine uses a class based system much like that of Call of Duty, with the equipment split between three classes. The first; assault/raptor, dual wields a set of pistols and has access to the jump pack. With the added melee weapon the assault/raptor favors aggressive rushes and ambushes. The next is the devastator/havoc, which lugs around the heavy weaponry, such as the heavy bolter or lascannon. The devastator/havoc is more defensive, and while he is vulnerable to surprise attacks and close range battles, he is more than capable of mowing down anyone in his sights. The last class is the tactical marine who has access to the rest of the game’s weaponry, and has the greatest range of available strategies, from close shootouts with the meltagun or storm bolter to longer-ranged firefights with the plasma gun or stalker bolter. Perks add extra abilities and bonuses, increasing the available range of play styles. All in all, there is a great deal of content to be found.

The downside is that it just takes an annoyingly long time to get to it all. One big flaw I see in the multiplayer is simply that it starts a new player with barely anything.  Leveling-up gives only one unlock with each level, and accordingly it takes a great deal of time and effort to gain access to all the weapons, equipment, and perks. Worse, higher-level players, with extra perks and perk slots unlocked, have an explicit advantage over newcomers. Even with the ability to copy the loadout of your killer on your next respawn when you fall, the balancing issues can be frustrating to deal with.

Overall, Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine is an enjoyable game. Relic Entertainment did well in transforming Warhammer 40,000 over to the action genre and has made it a fitting addition to their franchise. While the current news about the likelihood of a sequel is disheartening, I still hold out hope that Relic will refine what they have done even further and create another fine homage to Warhammer 40K.

Final Call: With solid mechanics, excellent character design, and fun content for both single and multiplayer, Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine is an action-game worthy of the Warhammer 40K license and despite a few wobbles, is a solid experience. For the Emperor!

Xbox live and PSN have proved to be a great place to delve into a different world within gaming. As mainstream titles looks to assault our senses with over the top action, large explosions, and worlds so large that traveling from one corner to the other could take hours. Mainstream games are in essence trying to consistently become bigger and badder than what has come before. The digital market however, has aimed to remind us of a simpler time in gaming. Many of the games on the digital market have innovated upon older gaming conventions and added a sense of artistic flair that continues to prove that gaming can be an art form. From the platformer puzzle games that entered into dark surrealism such as Braid and Limbo, to an action RPG title that introduced us to an ever evolving painted world in Bastion, and to now a beautiful serene landscape that gives us a Populous for our consoles with From Dust.

The point of this introduction is to talk about the last game mentioned here; From Dust, which recently saw release on the virtual consoles during this year’s Summer of Arcade. As the virtual console has become more mainstream many of the titles I mentioned above have become legends and have set the bar for what to expect from the market. How does From Dust stack up against the likes of Limbo, Braid, Bastion, and all the others that have helped bring the indie scene to a higher status amongst gamers?

From Dust is in essence a god game that in practice becomes one of the most beautiful and intriguing physics puzzles that I have ever played. The point of the game is simple; the player is presented a number of small locals with the goal of leading a nomadic tribe through dangerous terrain and assisting them in growing their civilization and discovering the history of their people. The player takes control of the breath of god, which is a large ball of power that is easily controlled with the analog sticks and has the power of picking up a certain amount of terrain and putting it down elsewhere within the landscape. The simple mechanic of moving around water, sand, and later lava to make bridges or clear an area of pooled water is where the physics shows its weight.

From Dust has some of the best water mechanics I have ever seen in a video game, and often the water itself acts as the big puzzle within the game. The small areas that act as the playing field of each puzzle are full of flowing waterfalls that continue to fill the world with a rushing stream of water, the flow of which the player must divert in order to properly reach the next totem or exit that eventually presents itself. The totems are large obelisks which, when reached with a certain number of villagers, will become the center of a village that they create. Watching the small nomadic tribesman dance around the obelisk and play their instruments to create their crude homes and the plant life which surrounds it from the ground is a wonder to behold. They literally pop into creation from the ground below, summoned into existence by a mysterious force. This act of creation is especially awe inspiring when you pull up close and watch these actions take place from the perspective of your villagers.

Reaching these totems and spreading plant and wild life around the terrain is the heart of each level. Beyond the act of diverting the flow of water from water falls or jet streams that randomly appear as you gather up sand, there are large obstacles of nature that continue to increase the difficulty of the game with each passing level. The jet streams mentioned above made for one of the more frustrating puzzles, but volcanoes, and tidal waves will also act to wipe out your tribe and present you with a game-over screen.

The difficulty does spike a bit quickly in From Dust, forcing the player to really focus on how everything works within the landscape. The level of physics which the player must deal with during these spikes is something that I doubt many players will be prepared to take into consideration at first. With some patience and toying around however, the player will soon discover how much has gone into the creation of the game. Lava flows from volcanoes in a way that simulates life to a tee, and watching lava move down an area and eventually hit water and dry into solid rock is impressive to behold. Creating rock paths is far more useful than sand paths, since sand can be eroded away by water and eventually break down to cause some damage to your progress.

A thing to keep in mind about using lava to create rock paths is something a player can easily forget, it is lava, and it lights things on fire. Lava can escape your grasp as you release it onto a sanded or rock area while trying to place it in water. This will cause small amounts of molten destruction to flow towards a village and destroy it without the player knowing it has happened until screams and a visual prompt lets them know. There were many times I would be in the midst of controlling the land and diverting the flow of a nearby waterfall so it will no longer interfere with my goals when I would hear screams and think to myself “what now?” only to discover my civilization going down in a blaze of shame and panic. This issue, by the way, rears its ugly head on the third level and things progressively get more difficult, for example… fire trees. Screw fire trees.

From Dust is art in motion, the game itself is beautiful to watch and even during the frantic events there is something wonderful and calming within the chaos of nature’s force. Tidal waves rise up in dramatic ways and shake the entire land you play in. This action will constantly cause the player to stop and scramble to figure out what to do. The power unlocked by the totems give you new tools to use to complete the level, one of which causes the rushing water from a tidal wave to wash around an invisible bubble protecting the village. Zooming in on the villagers during these moments creates a sense of godliness that is as epic as any action scene in the biggest of mainstream titles.

From Dust is a game that continues to validate the existence of the indie market and the digital platform. Just as Limbo, Braid, Bastion, and many others have before it, From Dust proves the legitimacy of simple mechanics in gaming. It doesn’t always have to be about multi-million dollar budgets and over the top cinematics. A game can be great simply on tight mechanics and interesting art choices. It is difficult to experiment with mainstream titles since artistic IPs will often be overlooked (Beyond Good & Evil for example) for games that have an established name.

Final Call: From Dust is simply the best physics puzzle game I have ever played and even without much of a story, the plights of the villagers is felt, and the rush of panic you feel when they are in danger is real. Ubisoft Montpellier has released a near flawless title that should be experienced by everyone. None the less, screw fire trees… screw them in their firey tree-y faces.

Pros:

• Tight and easy to learn controls
• Beautiful graphics
• Unmatched water physics
• Deep and rich puzzles
• A great value at only about $15

Cons:

• Difficulty spikes can often feel unfair
• No real story worth focusing on
• Very little replay value

I’ve caught up with life, time to catch up on some games. I am continuing with my computer science degree, upgraded from single room apartment to two story house, and I’m here to seal the lid with the Box of Many Things. The only way to conclude this amazing adventure is with Final Fantasy XIII. How does it stack up to the others? Did they add too many ingredients and spoil the soup? Let’s find out.

It’s not even rhetorical to ask if you’re familiar with Final Fantasy, so I’ll assume you know that Square Enix is up to thirteen installments, and this one has a lot of that down home Final Fantasy feel, introducing a group of people who are brought together by the threat of their world coming to an end in a cyber-punk fashion. We have the main protagonist, Lightning, who is a female Cloud Strife with a gunblade. She is arguably the coolest character, and in my opinion makes up for the lineup of FFX-2. She is teamed up with the winner of the black dynamite lookalike contest, and Chocobo enthusiast, Sazh Katzroy. After they attack a transport train they are grouped with the rest of the lovable bunch during what feels like an ethnic cleansing. The game focuses mainly on Lightning and the trench coat brawler, Snow. Snow was dating Lightning’s sister and pissed off a ton of people and now they can use mako (Shut Up! It’s always going to be called mako!). The game is visually stunning, to the point where I didn’t mind the high amount of cut scenes; it really helped you get an idea of the scale of your surroundings. The game does like to show you the scenic route with consistent strolls down what feels like endless corridor-style roads. You are offered to pass by enemies along the way and, believe me, they are not being coy; you will get your ass handed to you if you’re feeling too ballsy.

With the obvious squishy enemies, you can take the time to grind some XP by taking them out and even collecting some orb items to help customize your arsenal. A note on that; I felt that collecting/buying “junk” items to enhance your weapons was a bit of a letdown. You could stay with one weapon half the game, feeding it rare candies of sorts until it’s a happy little sword of destruction, but then why ever get a new weapon? The new ones look cool but you’re starting the process all over again and soon realize that you already used everything on your current weapon. Even if you scrap it for spare parts you’re stuck with the Buster 4s which doesn’t feel like much of an upgrade at all.

Onto the goofy group of misfits you get to journey with. Everyone has some quirky reason for being on this quest and granted, some of them are worth listening to, maybe even for relatable reasons. Given enough time people start opening up to one another and develop back stories. I enjoyed learning more about everyone, because it didn’t make any sense in the beginning, but I felt that the game teamed up the wrong people at the wrong times. Sazh is a father with no son to whom he can give advice and guide, and he reveals this to the weird Australian girl who just doesn’t really have anything relevant to say. Lightning gets stuck playing mom to this kid who just lost his mother during an attack back in the city, and is blaming Snow for it. What the game is doing here is relying on the stronger characters to justify the weaker ones, which just makes me question why the weaker ones are getting so much face time to begin with. I will admit that each character plays their role during combat even though you could mold them to be whatever you want from the first battle, but that’s probably left for a second run through.

During combat you get to assign healers, magic users, berserker attackers, etc. The newest introduction to Final Fantasy was the acquisition and use of summons. First, you have to defeat the summon in whatever form it takes. Near the end of the fight, you hit the awesome button and your summon is now a motorcycle. This is where you either turned off your console or spit coffee all over the T.V. You are now able to use that summon in battle either in the form in which you fought it, or as an epic mount. Both are effective, one is ridiculous. I don’t know if the summons become stronger later on, but the ones i used didn’t seem to stay as long as I needed them. While exploring their set of moves I kept hitting the “Dismiss” button accidentally and never saw them again for the rest of the fight.

As a game I would say this one was enjoyable. As an RPG, it fulfilled the criteria and satisfied on an automated or customizable level. There is definitely a lot you can do to tweak the group to meet your needs in combat. With any Final Fantasy game, you need to be patient and take the time to explore all of your options. Most people start the game liking the rail roading feel and having all these things which they are given, but once they are let out into the world with an airship and a captain’s badge, they huddle in the corner and cry. Like a lot of games these days, this one has a learning curve and most people just want to stay on track and avoid any extra reading and just play the game through. FFXIII was fun to play, annoying at some parts, but a good experience. It doesn’t rank with my favorite Final Fantasy games but i would give it to someone who hasn’t played one in a while to see just what Square Enix has been up to, and that they can still pump out a fun game. Final Fantasy didn’t have a good run at a sequel with X-2 but Square Enix announced a FFXIII sequel back in January. Check out the trailer and tell me what you think.

I want to thank you all for staying with me through the Box of Many Things. I especially want to thank Zach Noble from Michigan for sending me the Box of Many Things and invite anyone else interested to send me games you want to be played, just send all requests to my email and we’ll get in touch. I also have been inspired to finally get my first game related tattoo. I will be starting it soon and have pictures up along the way. To those in the community with game related tattoos I would love to see them. Please send all pictures to my email: Chase@Golgotron.com and we’ll get them all together in a gallery for the site.

Bastion. A strong supporter. A fortified place. A location of safety. The title of an excellent debut game by Supergiant Games, a recently founded independent developer. Similar to other recent indie developers like Mojang of Minecraft fame, Supergiant Games has put its best foot forward as it steps boldly out into the world with a superb solid action role-playing, single-player hack-n-slash game. But unlike some other indie games hitting the market, the brilliance lies not in the gameplay, but in the storytelling.

Bastion’s greatest triumph is the invention of the narrator; his voice is a constant companion to the player and lends to a singularly immersive experience with no breaks for long cut-scenes or text-block infodumps between player-controlled sequences. The narrator’s commentary manages to never grow tiring or repetitive and he gives a feeling of life to the game, his smooth drawl providing a steady stream of exposition on the world and commentary on the player character’s actions in-game. The often small, detailed touches of his narration provide the player with a feeling of truly being a part of the story and possessing a personal stake in what is occurring. This sentiment continues to grow right up until the tale’s end, the climax of which provides choices for the player that go beyond the simple decisions of good and evil that plague the branching endings of today’s modern games; when I reached them, I actually had to lean back in my seat to pause and think on what to do.

It’s difficult to talk about the story without spoiling the experience. It starts slowly and jumps directly into the protagonist’s shoes without introduction, leaving the player blind to the world and left to find their way through it with only the narrator’s company. The story comes out gradually, like a trail of breadcrumbs that draws the player’s interest and leads them along further and further in. Tidbits of information are constantly revealed to the player as they journey, leaving them to wonder what lies within the blanks and trying to piece the narrative together as the picture of the world is progressively painted for them from blank canvas before their very eyes.

And Bastion truly does appear to be painted, with the visual style providing gorgeous visuals that makes the very most of its isometric viewpoint. From the characters, to the enemies and the environments, the hand-painted style provides a treat for the eyes. As the player character constantly progresses through the game world, the art style works to provide new spectacle for the player and keeps the level design from growing tedious or dull.

The gameplay makes efforts towards the same, and while Bastion’s base hack-and-slash mechanics are regular fare for the action role-playing genre, Supergiant has still put forth due effort to provide variety within what remains a solidly built system. With set piece scenes, the occasional boss fight, and optional side-missions, the experience stays fresh rather than showing the sameness present in many games within the genre. New customization options are laid out in a constantly growing array for the player to choose from, furthering the sense of the personalized experience that the game imparts.

The player character has the choice of two weapons, a special attack, and passive abilities which are all fully alterable in the game’s hub between levels. The narrator will provide hints as to the strengths and nuances of each combination as it is chosen, and each weapon as it is discovered. The side mini-games give the opportunity to upgrade the capabilities of your weaponry by running the player through trials to prove their mastery of their equipment. There are yet more choices in this, as the upgrades will often modify and add effects to how the weapon operates rather than simply boosting damage, which all proves to increase the range of available play styles and combinations to still greater heights. Even the difficulty is modifiable to your heart’s content through an innovative structure, allowing the player to take on specific challenges to face in their battles. The developers even go as far as to give every single one of these mechanics a satisfying and interesting in-game explanation that provides a unity of game design elements and narrative.

Bastion’s music is no exception and provides flavor to each scene in which the player finds himself. As with everything else, the developers made sure to go the extra mile and have crafted a diverse soundtrack for Bastion’s shifting moods. The soundtrack ranges from a pounding and intense wild western adventure, to a haunting and melancholy drama that sweeps you into a remembrance of things past. Each song stands tall on its own merit and in-game they serve to emphasize the tone and events onscreen.

Bastion is an example of excellence in execution and another fine addition in the growing independent gaming scene. It is comparable to the wacky Castle Crashers in color and fun, and Limbo and Braid’s deep, evocative ambiance. All told, Bastion is greater than the sum of its parts, with nearly unparalleled flow between them. The narrator ties the entire thing together, allowing the story and mechanics to be introduced smoothly into the experience and provides a touch of life and polish to the package. Bastion introduces an element of replayability into it all, even after the first playthrough is all said and done; the desire to discover everything it has to offer makes Bastion an experience that will linger in your mind even after you walk away.

Final Call: While the gameplay in Bastion doesn’t break any new ground, it is still solid and varied, and provides the foundation for the rest of what Bastion has to offer, the mesmerizing aesthetics and masterful narrative imparts a lasting and immersive experience.

PROS:

• Great story and immersion.
• Beautiful hand-painted visuals and soundtrack.
• High replay value and new game plus mode.
• Gameplay is tight and responsive.
• $15 price tag, available for download on Steam and Xbox Live Arcade.

CONS:

• Doesn’t break any new ground with the hack n’ slash gameplay.
• Game only lasts 6-8 hours per playthrough.

In August of 2011 Eidos Montreal released Deus Ex: Human Revolution and sadly we are just getting around to reviewing a game that helped us get over the sluggish period in gaming that came shortly before the onset of the chaotic holiday season. Deus Ex: Human Revolution is the third game in a series that hasn’t seen a new release since Invisible War in 2003. Invisible War received good reviews during its time, but fans saw it as a dumbed down version of a game they loved. The original Deus Ex was a cult classic on the PC and later found release on the PS2. It has constantly been labeled as one of the best PC games of all time and won multiple game of the year awards in 2000. Its revolutionary approach to mature story-telling, player choice, and multiple narrative paths helped win it a dedicated following.

Eidos’ 2009 merger with Square Enix brought focus back to the series and work took off on a proper Deus Ex title which had originally been announced on May 17, 2007. With one of the largest publishers and developers of role playing games solely behind the project, life looked good for this beloved series. Deus Ex: Human Revolution left two important questions to the long time fans of the franchise. Is it as good as the first game? And is it better?

The simple answer is yes and no. DE:HR is, however, one of the best games released this year, giving players something palpable to sink their teeth into with one of the most intriguing stories I have seen play out in this medium in a very long time. The year is 2027 and the world is a much different place due to the continued growth of corporate control. Since the invention and implementation of human augmentation, society and the human species has seen a vast change in the way the world functions. Augmentation is used to enhance the lives of the people who go under the knife to receive them, and the possibilities are endless for what can be done with them to further the development of a person’s capabilities, both physically and mentally. The downside is that the human body often rejects the augmentations, making those who take them dependent on an anti-rejection drug.

Not only are the surgeries expensive, but the constant upkeep on the drugs themselves is a constant expense that makes it difficult for the lower and middle-class to grow along with those capable of receiving them legally. This class-separation causes a rise in crime as many have subjected themselves to scavenging for augmentations and receiving surgery and drug supplies through a growing black market. There are even those whose bodies can not take to the augmentations at all and those few often find out the hard way what can happen when their bodies reject them. The privatization of human evolution and the anti-rejection drugs that make them last leads to an outcry for change in the way things are done. It even leads to the inevitable formation of a movement called the Humanity Front that stands against the act of playing god all together, theorizing that this is a path that will lead to humanity’s destruction. Other groups have grown alongside the Humanity Front, preaching their own ideas on how these problems can be addressed, even going as far as to attack and terrorize people to get their point across.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution takes place in this world and all of these elements are fleshed out incredibly well. From the NPC’s that exist in this world’s version of Detroit and China to the main characters themselves. There is a constant struggle between deciding what is right as the game toys with the players ideology, morality, and political beliefs.  Eidos stated that the player will have control over how they play the game, and while this stands mostly true for the gameplay, it stands very true to how the story progresses.

You play as Adam Jensen, the head of security at the headquarters of Sarif Industries’ in Detroit. Sarif Industries’ is one of the leaders in augmentation technology and a powerful entity within American society. Adam works alongside his ex-girlfriend Megan Reed who is a researcher for the company that has recently come up with a huge breakthrough that will allow augmentations to be done without the dependence on anti-rejection drugs. Just before her press release on the recent discovery, the building is attacked by a group of heavily augmented soldiers. During the attack Jensen is beaten down by one of the attackers and left in critical condition while trying to save Megan and her research team. The entire research team is murdered and burned, leaving only charred remains of the bodies. In an act to save Adam’s life the C.E.O of Sarif industries; David Sarif, decides to put Jensen through some major augmentations. He implants Adam with experimental technology that he appears to take to exceedingly well. While augmentation for Adam was done out of necessity there is still the question as to if this is something he would have wanted. Before he can think on it too much, he is called back to work to continue the investigation on the attack and find out who was behind it. What follows is an ever evolving story that forces the player into scenarios that exceedingly presents them with moral choices that while never good or bad, often rely on the players perception of the situation.

The characters in Deus Ex:HR are all fascinating and evolve just as much as the story. Everyone except for the main character that is. Adam Jensen is sadly one of the few complaints I have with the game, his character design and voice acting are a low point. He might as well be a cyborg version of Neo from The Matrix, and his voice acting is even more stale than Keanu Reeves. Little range is shown with the character, and even though the choices he must make are huge for the world at large, he never seems to change. Jensen acts as the eyes in which the player sees the world through, and is consistently overshadowed by all the side characters he interacts with. While the main character may stay static throughout Human Revolution’s story, many of the other character’s do not. They instead progress and change with every large twist and turn, and in some cases turn out to be something completely different than what had originally been presented. These side-characters are wonderfully voice acted and animated, I learned to care about many of them much more than I ever did about Jensen. Jensen acted as nothing more then a catalyst to the experience. His back story was far more interesting than the character himself. Which is too bad, because the more I discovered about Adam the more interesting the idea of him became.

The world itself is rather large and even though it takes place in two cities that, while not big themselves, are cluttered with important places to go and people to talk to. Deus Ex: Human Revolution can easily take 30+ hours to experience in full, and while not long for an RPG, it is rather long for an action game. There is never a shortage on things to do and the side missions are rather varied, they can go from breaking into fellow co-worker’s offices and hacking into their personal computers to catch someone stealing the anti-rejection drug, to helping Megan’s mother expose the sloppy detective work done on the investigation of her daughters death, to even helping a call girl in China stop her boss from forcefully augmenting one of her fellow workers in a way that would make her easier to control. The side missions help flesh out the underbelly of the world and the corruption present within it and they are often complex and relevant to the overall story.

The small interactions themselves can help breathe life into the world. From the moment the game returns Adam to work after his surgery, he is bombarded by co-workers fearing for their safety, mourning over the loss of Megan Reed and her research team, and even showing concern for Adam returning so soon after the attack that nearly took his life. Even when you first walk out into Detroit there are many who talk down to Adam for being Augmented, showing the support the Humanity Front has with the common folk. Hell, after the first mission you get rewarded with being able to see the results of your actions in the dialog of people on the streets. It is these small touches that help bring an exciting feeling of realism to this grim and indecisive world in which Human Revolution takes place. The only complaint I have is that often the NPC’s will stay static in their designated areas that will eventually take away from the immersion. It is a small complaint, but if large games like Fallout and Oblivion can succeed in making a city seem alive, then Deus Ex should have had no trouble with it.

A game however is nothing without good gameplay, it can only survive so long with a strong story. Deus Ex: Human Revolution delivers with its promise of allowing the player to choose how the game is played in this area, at least for the most part. The ability to upgrade Adam’s augmentation using Praxis Points opens up a wide variety of gameplay choices. You can build a stealthy agent that can put the likes of Solid Snake and Sam Fisher to shame, or build a super soldier who can punch holes in walls, toss vending machines at his enemies, and take on a hail of gunfire. The upgrades can even turn you into a smooth talker that can follow the subtle hints of facial expressions and release a pheromone that can help turn people to your way of thinking. The dialog situations can be just as intense sometimes as a big firefight, with the right upgrades you can make these segments easier by being able to track the effects your replies have on the character you are talking to, as well as look at psychological reports that describe the personality type of the person you are trying to persuade. These add an interesting touch to the dialog trees often found in Bioware games, but even without these upgrades the facial animations are impressive enough to give hints on what effect your words are having. The options are plentiful, and I especially loved that the game awarded players who went a passive route and never killed a single soul in the game outside of the bosses.

Beyond that, the game plays as a mixture of many other great games. With the right stealth upgrades you can make the navigation HUD look like something out of Metal Gear Solid with line of sight, noise display, and a countdown timer that indicates when enemies will stop looking for you. They even mix in a bit of Splinter Cell with an upgrade that puts an indicator on screen of where you were last seen in almost the exact fashion seen in 2010′s Conviction. The shooting and cover system is almost identical to Rainbow Six: Vegas making it work and work well. I quite enjoyed lining up a perfect shot from behind cover and popping up for just a split second to score a precise headshot, and then following it up with another and another until the room was cleared. The fun of these situations is often in getting things done the way you want, by either taking out an entire room the quiet way or laying down hell upon your would be attackers with precisely aimed shots (I say this because ammo is a bit scarce and the inventory system is sort of clunky.)

The strategy behind taking out a room with stealth is, in and of itself, a puzzle that is fun to tackle. Finding a way to take people out quietly, dragging bodies into hidden places, taking air vents into optimal positions behind the enemies, and using the environment to attract the attention of guards towards a trap you laid out is incredibly enjoyable. It is moments like these when all goes well that never stopped giving me a great sense of accomplishment. The way the level design is laid out is also quite impressive, giving the player multiple points of entry and multiple options on how to get through the area. It is even possible to clear an entire objective by talking your way through it without ever having to take out a single individual. The freedom of how to get things done is so impressive that when Deus Ex throws a broken and ill-conceived boss battle at you it is incredibly disappointing.

The biggest complaint I can lobby against DE:HR is that the freedom is immediately sidelined in favor of arena style brawls with bosses that, if not prepared for, can lead to multiple frustrating reloads of your save file. Stealth is not an option during these moments, the game forces the player to take on these threats head on and it is as if you have been thrown into a completely different and less impressive game. The first boss battle comes when it isn’t expected, but after defeating this enemy, most players will build their characters appropriately in order to take care of these threats. This is too bad, since this means that all players will build similar characters in some aspects in order to trump these cheap fights. I even heard from a friend of mine that he was unwilling to continue playing the game because of these boss battles, they really do threaten to break what is an amazing experience with their poor design.

The rest of the game, however, warrants building your character around them so as to traverse and discover the real magic within the game. Human Revolution is one of the most rewarding and mature experiences a gamer can ask for even with all the flaws. The message the game conveys is a heavy one, and one I appreciated in its neutral approach to the issues. Never did I feel forced to take one side of the argument or the other, if I took one, it was because it felt right to me and many players will likely go a different route than I did. While many games give freedom to the player through an open world and the ability to complete the story how they wish, Deus Ex: Human Revolution gives players freedom by choosing how the game is played (for the most part) and the how the story progresses by pressing on some rather mature and potent issues.

With recent political movements as of late protesting against corporate power, Deus Ex: Human Revolution is even more relevant right now than it was back in August. Plus, no matter what side you take, the story never tells you what side is right. It leaves it up to you to decide that. If anyone hasn’t given this game a shot, it comes highly recommended, it is a great game with few low points and a story that is stronger then most everything currently offered in this medium.

We are creeping up on November and have already seen the release of the first wave of big games released this holiday season with Rage, Dark Souls, and Batman Arkham City. As all gamers have been aware, the end of 2011 is going to be big. Really big. I have trouble remembering a year that had so many AAA titles being released all around the same time; it is going to be hell on our wallets. There are some other games creeping out during this time that deserve some attention, and attention I shall give them. Games that are going to be innocent bystanders in the FPS turf war between Call of Duty and Battlefield. Titles that may find themselves lost within the wilderness of Elder Scroll’s Tamriel and Zelda’s Hyrule. It’s interesting to me that there are so many smaller games that publishers are pushing out during a time when they are going to have to stand up against Batman’s rogues gallery and the witty action packed life of Nathan Drake. I feel that many of these titles would perform well on their own merit, but I fear that they will be overlooked standing aside these giants. It’s time to shed some light on these titles, and give them a small dose of the attention that they deserve.

SONIC GENERATIONS

Release Date: November 1st, 2011

Platform: 360, PS3, Wii, NDS, PC

Publisher: Sega

Developer: Sonic Team

Releasing In The Same Week As: Uncharted 3

Sonic has had a rough couple of years since his career took a dive in the new generation. Sonic Team released dud after dud for Sega’s big blue mascot which made those who supported the genesis back in the day weep, at least a little. Recently, things have been kind for our hedgehog friend with the release of the solid Sonic Colors for the Wii in November of 2010. A game that reminded those who gave it a shot why the blue hedgehog with attitude was once competition for Nintendo’s galaxy traversing plumber. There was also the arcade hit Sonic the Hedgehog 4 – Episode 1 which, while not great, was good enough to feel promising in the hands of someone who wanted to relive a special time when Sonic wasn’t a joke.

Sonic Generations had a short playable demo available back in June that got a good amount of people to sit up and pay attention. Sega released a second demo in October that is currently available for download but will soon be gone. For anyone who missed their first chance I strongly recommend giving it a download. Allow me to assure you, this looks promising. Sonic might be back, and by back I mean fun again. If Sonic Generations fulfills the promise shown in the demos and if Sonic Team gets a third hit in a row, the hedgehog may just start to race his way back into our hearts. I hope it does, because I have missed that blue bastard. I really have.

GOLDENEYE 007: RELOADED

Release Date: November 1st, 2011

Platform: 360, PS3, Wii, NDS

Publisher: Activision

Developer: Eurocom

Releasing In The Same Week As: Uncharted 3

A remake of a remake? While this may seem a bit odd and groan-worthy, let us all take a moment and look back on Rare’s original Goldeneye on the Nintendo 64…. okay, all done? Anybody who actually took a moment will remember how amazing it was. There is nostalgia here, and while owners of the Wii got a chance to play through this remake last year, those who don’t care about Nintendo’s system didn’t. The release was solid, receiving positive reviews for its recreation of all the classic levels and updating the old multiplayer that had at one time showed us that consoles could compete with PCs in the FPS genre.  Reloaded is going a bit further than just adding some HD flare to a year old Wii title. The graphics have been completely redone, and are very well done. While early reports indicate that the multiplayer is buggy, the possibilities on stage here are quite enticing.

This release will see a brand new campaign that acts as something of a challenge mode as well as some new multiplayer game modes. I have high hopes for this release, as I was a huge fan of the original and don’t much care for the Wii’s multiplayer layout. Goldeneye holds a special place in many a gamer’s hearts, and while Eurocom does not have the best of track records, last years remake was good and this one shows even more promise for us 360 and PS3 fans.

There really isn't much out there in the way of official advertisement for this game.

METAL GEAR SOLID: HD COLLECTION

Release Date: November 8th, 2011

Platform: 360, PS3

Publisher: Konami

Developer: Kojima Productions

Releasing In The Same Week As: Call of Duty: MW3 and Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Recently we have seen a lot of classic games from the olden days come back with HD reboots, many have been the same games with updated graphics and maybe a few new additions thrown in to entice old players into reliving a game long since beaten. God of War, Sly Cooper, Resident Evil Code Veronica, Resident Evil 4, and Team ICO have ventured into that territory with some success. Others have completely overhauled the game and given us something fresh; Goldeneye, as mentioned before and Telltale’s Monkey Island games went that route. Metal Gear Solid HD disappointingly takes the former approach. However the collection includes Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater and Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker. Again leaving me a bit disappointed that the first MGS isn’t here, but I imagine it would take a lot more work to re-do than the other three, and since MGS HD Collection is a bit of a reskin, the budget must not have allowed for a complete overhaul of a PSx game.

Let us remember though, that not many MGS fans got a chance to play Peace Walker since it was a PSP only title. The game was a great entry into the confusing mythology of the world, and will now be playable for the mainstream audience. Any fan of the original series needs to give this a look, these are classics that I imagine will translate perfectly fine for modern gamers.

JURASSIC PARK: THE GAME

Release Date: November 15th, 2011

Platform: 360, PS3, iPad, PC

Publisher: Telltale Games

Developer: Telltale Games

Releasing In The Same Week As: Assassins Creed: Relevations, Ultimate Marvel Vs Capcom, Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, and Saints Row: The Third

Telltale Games is a company that many have come to trust with bringing back the classic adventure games that stay true to their source material. They have given life to Strongbad, re-introduced us to the awesomeness that is Sam & Max, made many look back on Lucasart’s classic Tales of Monkey Island, brought Back to the Future to the world of gaming the only way it could be done right, and will soon deliver upon us The Walking Dead game.

Jurassic Park is the next franchise they are tackling before The Walking Dead, and so far it looks rather promising. Telltale knows what they are doing, and bringing a Heavy Rain control scheme to the dangerous world created by Michael Crichton and brought to the big screen by Steven Spielberg makes for a game worthy of some attention. While some early reports out of July’s Comic-Con lead to some concerns with the slower mechanics during the dino attacks and the general character design, it appears the developers addressed these issues and fared better with its appearance at PAX in August.

Let us also mention that it will be released at a lower price point for a full title, and at $39.99 it may be worth a look.

RAYMAN ORIGINS

Release Date: November 15th, 2011

Platform: 360, PS3, Wii, NDS,  PC (Vita in 2012)

Publisher: Ubisoft

Developer: Ubisoft Montpellier

Releasing In The Same Week As: Assassins Creed: Relevations, Ultimate Marvel Vs Capcom, Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, and Saints Row: The Third

THIS GAME NEEDS SOME LOVE! Out of anything on this list, and over quite a few of the AAA titles, this game is on my personal must have list. Some gamers may remember that Rayman and Rayman 2 where some of the most solid and beautiful platforming games ever created. This is a series that made Ubisoft and made it possible for them to make games like Rainbow Six, Splinter Cell, Prince of Persia and Assassins Creed. The current market has been spoiled by some stellar 2D platformers on Live and PSN with games like Super Meatboy and ‘Splosion Man, but let’s also consider that the Wii has recently seen the release of Kirby’s Epic Yarn and Donkey Kong Country that were both released as full retail 2D platformer titles that did rather well.

Everything I have seen of Rayman Origins points to a beautifully animated and difficult game that shows nothing short of a developers love for what they are doing. With new characters being introduced to the series that all look fun to play, a co-op element that is bound to be chaotic, and a beautiful world to explore, this is a game that deserves attention. It deserves to be a hit, and I have a feeling that this will be a critical darling that will sadly be overlooked by the general market. I personally am just as excited for this as I am for Skyrim.

SERIOUS SAM 3: BFE

Release Date: November 22nd, 2011

Platform: 360, PS3, PC

Publisher: Devolver Digital

Developer: Croteam

Releasing In The Same Week As: WWE ’12

Serious Sam promises to be a return to the old school shooter style that Duke Nukem: Forever should have been. Anyone familiar with Serious Sam knows that it is a chaotic experience where enemies are thrown at you from every direction. It is a frag-fest full of some of the weirdest enemies ever imagined. (For example, a rhinoceros velociraptor skeleton.) Serious Sam 3 offers a bloody experience and some cool looking melee attacks. You can rip out a one-eyed crawly creatures eye and then throw it at another enemy or rip open a guys chest and remove his heart that you can then…. throw at another enemy.

Serious Sam 3 will offer 16 player co-op and a bevy of multiplayer modes that, at this stage, competes with the number of and creativity of the game modes offered in Halo: Reach. (For you haters out there, Halo has got one hell of multiplayer game mode line up that is untouched by any other series.)  Here’s hoping Serious Sam turns out as fun as its predecessors, and finds an audience within the mainstream. I’m hoping it is going to have that classic feel that Duke Nukem: Forever missed out on mixed with the fun insanity we saw from Bulletstorm earlier this year.

There we are, a spotlight has been put upon some games that will likely be overlooked this holiday season. I hope they all turn out as great as they are looking, and make a splash to compete with the behemoths they will be going up against. They will all need a lot of luck in order to survive, but I’ll be looking at them, and I hope many other gamers will be too.

I think it’s fair to say I’m a fan of Batman. Long Halloween and the Killing Joke are a couple of my favorite comics and I have the Dark Knight practically tattooed onto my brain. For some reason though, Arkham Asylum never quite clicked with me. Maybe I was a little hung up with the seemingly random x-ray vision that Batman had or maybe the nerd in me is still raging about Harley Quinn’s redesign. I recognized that Rocksteady created a fabulous game but it just wasn’t for me. I was hard pressed, however, to see if Arkham City would swing past me again or if this would be a Dark Knight to remember.

The story begins with Bruce Wayne protesting over the creation of Arkham City – a prison literally built into the center of Gotham City. He is promptly arrested by Hugo Strange, the man behind the prison social experiment, who reveals that he knows that Wayne is really the Batman. After getting harassed by the Penguin and some prisoners, Wayne contacts Alfred and changes suits into the Batman. Not wasting any time, Batman flies off to go and fight evil doers. After saving Catwoman from Two-face, Batman confronts the Joker, whom he finds out is dying from the Titan serum from the events of the previous game. The Joker poisons the Batman with his blood and reveals that he’s also been sneaking his infected blood into Gotham’s blood banks for months, knowing that this would force Batman to find a cure for his disease. Hugo Strange then starts a ten hour countdown to Protocol Ten – something that the Batman has to figure out what it is, and stop it before it can be enacted.

One thing that Arkham City does that surpasses over its predecessor is the ability to glide through Gotham City. Granted, it’s a limited portion of the city, but it’s definitely quite impressive. Gliding silently around town and listening in on criminals as they talk about your exploits makes it so sweet when you nab them from the shadows and frighten their buddies. The open world really gives a great feeling about what it’s like to be the Dark Knight, seeing the city from his eyes. I was kind of bothered by the false sense of urgency that the storyline pushes on you, however. Between trying to cure and incurable disease and stop an unknown protocol happening in the course of one evening, you’d think everything would move quicker. It took me longer than necessary to realize that it didn’t matter how long I took with each mission – the overall threat was plot related and would solve itself as I played more missions. I took this moment to play some side missions I was sorely neglecting, opening up the game to way more exploration than the main storyline.

Okay, normally I wouldn’t do this, but I’ve got to point it out for this game and stand on a soap box. I’m kind of fed up with the concept that female characters in comic books and video games need to be turned into sexual objects. The idea that women are sexual – yeah, I get that. But I find it embarrassing when the design of a character is such that it just screams “look at me! I’m a cheap attention ploy!” Poison Ivy doesn’t need to wear a shirt that doesn’t fit and panties made of leaves for guys to go “oh yeah, she’s hot.” Neither does the camera have to get an ass shot of Talia every chance it gets. Every male character gets some sort of personality with their uniform that displays their character without saying a word. The women? They get corsets and tight pants. It just seems really unnecessary to me and takes away some value from the game I might not otherwise have cared about.

I have a hard time explaining to people exactly why I enjoyed Arkham City. It’s not that it’s a bad game–far from it. I just don’t quite understand what it is I like about it. The plotline is kind of ridiculous-–even for something based off of comic books-–and gets unnecessarily complicated towards the end. The female character designs range from ridiculous to unnecessary, and Killer Croc just looks stupid. Plus, I was so overstimulated by “things to do” that at one point when I had to struggle to keep focused on the storyline, just so I wouldn’t lose track of where I was. Overall, though, I had a pretty great experience. The interactions between Batman and the Joker are always fantastic and reminiscent of the Killing Joke. Beating up bad guys with the kung fu ninja skills of the Batman is always satisfying. I guess even the biggest “WITF” moments were outshined by ten more “OMG” times.

I’ll do my best to summarize this game in question form; did you like Arkham Asylum and also Spiderman 2? Then this is the game for you. Do you like pretending to be the Batman and also sometimes Catwoman? Go and get yourself a copy. Are you the goddamned Batman? Then you probably don’t want to play this game as you are a fictional character. Basically it comes down to this; Arkham City isn’t a perfect game… but it’s fun. It’s ballsy, good, beat ‘em up and tie ‘em to a gargoyle fun. If nothing else, you’ll be going as the Batman for a long Halloween.

Join myself along with the full bEASTly crew of Adam, Greg, Scott, Tara and Corey for what can only be described as “quite possibly, perhaps the best damn video game podcast series of all time- only not really!”

Hilarity and video games ensue with funk remixes, spooky encounters, and artsy snobs!

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Welcome to the premiere episode of the bEAST Coast Podcast presented by Golgotron.com! Join Joe, Greg, Scott, Tara, and Adam, as they discuss games, food, and… thingies!

This isn’t your average podcast. Check it out!

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It seems these days that forums are full of youngsters with a false sense of entitlement. Many are saying Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 is overpriced, under delivers, and is a straight rip-off. I figure it’s time to sit down and look at the numbers and rationale behind the upcoming Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 and put some of these complaints to rest.

Most of the backlash I’ve seen on forums around the release of Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 revolves around a few topics: the report that much of the announced content was originally intended as DLC for Marvel vs Capcom 3, the exclusion of MegaMan, and the price and disc format. Let’s look at these issues individually.

The Content Should Have Been Vanilla DLC

Capcom definitely threw me for a loop when they released the first costume pack for MvC3 but had no mention of a future DLC schedule or even plans to release another costume pack. Yoshinori Ono has spoiled the fighting game community with a thinly veiled, yet regular flow of information regarding Street Fighter projects. Although managed by a different team, Marvel vs Capcom is a staple franchise and should be treated in a similarfashion. When we heard nothing, I got the sense that they either wanted to see how it was received or truly had no sense of a roadmap for MvC3 DLC.

Given the events that transpired on and after the March 11, 2011, earthquake and tsunami, again not even a month after the release of Marvel vs Capcom 3, it is understandable that there would be some disruption to the development cycle. That aside, one can speculate that had a catastrophic event not taken place, some of the characters announced for UMvC3 may have made it to DLC and the chain of content would have continued over the past six months. Unfortunately though, it did happen and this is most likely Capcom’s attempt to catch up with fan demand, while at the same timegiving us a bundle and saving us a lot of time and money.

The No-MegaMan

Capcom has always been one of the better companies at doing fan service, and over the last few years their attention to fans has grown tremendously. With the hiring of Seth Killian as “special consultant” and community liaison, and the full-time attention given to communication on Capcom-Unity and Twitter, Capcom has proven time and again their commitment to fans. Even the existence of current Street Fighter and Marvel vs Capcom sequels speaks to this fact, as both were written off as too expensive and time consuming to be profitable. Luckily for Capcom, their fans truly support their work and vote to support them with their dollars year after year.

Personally, I’m a roster whore. When MvC3 didn’t have more characters than MvC2, I was thoroughly disappointed and saw a product of laziness and complacency, despite claims they were attempting to go for balance and all viably playable characters. Over time, I really came to enjoy the system and the roster we were given, but really missed my old Capcom favorites like Jin Saotome, Captain Commando, and yes, MegaMan.

As much as it irked me to have to imagine how amazing Blodia Punch, Saotome Dynamite, and Captain’s Corridor would look in the MvC3 engine, I just had to come to accept that Capcom and Marvel wanted to move onto new characters and we all are not entitled to anything as consumers. You get what you buy and as an educated consumer, you should never buy something you do not wish to support. If the lack of MegaMan ruins the entire experience for you, you have the right to refuse support for it, or perhaps you should deal with not having your way and enjoy the game like the other two million people playing it. Look on the bright side, we’ve now got Frank West, Phoenix Wright, and everyone’s favorite, Strider, all of which came as the loudest cries from fans on the Capcom-Unity forums. Didn’t they say spectator mode was not feasible given the amount of craziness on-screen and data being transferred? Didn’t they also say Strider didn’t fit into the system? MegaMan is not dead, the franchise is not abandoned, and I have a sneaking suspicion that at some point it would not be out of the realm of possibility to see the blue bomber appear as DLC.

The Price and Disc Format

It just doesn’t make sense to release an update this large as DLC. Should UMvC3 be released for Games on Demand? Sure, but it should not be considered a basic add-on. The game plays similarly and is recycling many assets and game engine mechanics, but this much content truly warrants a proper release. Priced at $39.99, Capcom is already acknowledging that this isn’t a full sequel to MvC3, but rather an expansion much in the way Super Street Fighter IV was to the original “vanilla” version. Oh, and this is also assuming Capcom has no more surprises up their sleeves prior to the November launch date. Remember, Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition started out announced as DLC only, but was eventually released on disc due to fan demand.

As far as price is concerned, Capcom currently has two major fighting game franchises they’re actively supporting, and given their popularity as both multi-platinum selling titles we can look at the two for comparison. The first Street Fighter IV update, Super Street Fighter IV, was available on disc only and priced at $39.99.  The game featured ten new characters, five new stages, a rebalance, new menus and HUD, and new online modes. This offering was widely accepted as a hefty update with a substantial amount of content being added to the original, and thus the backlash was minor for the update being released only a year after the first franchise entry in a decade.

Many fans claim Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 is a minor update and an attempt at gouging players on the part of Capcom. They argue UMvC3 should be made available as DLC. UMvC3 is bringing twelve new fighters, eight new stages, new menus and HUD, and new online modes including spectator mode. For MvC3, Jill and Shuma Gorath were the only available DLC fighters, priced at $5 each. Assuming Capcom gave away spectator mode and the other new online features, for twelve new fighters alone this DLC would run $60. (Just be glad they aren’t $8 each like they are for BlazBlue.) Now let’s talk about the eight new stages for UMvC3. The original had eight stages, plus training and the final stage. Adding eight new stages basically doubles the initial offering and would realistically be priced no less than $10 as DLC. Considering Soul Calibur IV had bonus songs for $15, I think this is a bargain. So all told, for twelve characters and eight stages, again assuming the spectator mode and updated interfaces are worth nothing, the DLC total is $70. Hell, maybe Capcom should release this as piecemeal DLC and really take you for a ride.

With the Nintendo Wii making its last gasps in the shadow of the Wii U, I felt that it would be appropriate to look back on the things that could have been. I came up with a list of 7 things that the Wii still needs to do before it rolls over and dies.

1. Wireless Nunchuck and Classic Controller

This should have been a no brainer. Here we are in 2011 with a 6 year old console and Nintendo is the only console that comes packaged with controller with a cord. The other consoles only use a cord if you want to play and charge the batteries for the controller at the same time; which brings up another question. Why didn’t Nintendo make their own proprietary batteries and charge station for all 3 of their controllers? Nintendo could have made a killing on another accessory rather than having me flush dollars down the drain for Duracells. And don’t give me the “we don’t have the technology” excuse. If the system can detect four Wiimotes at one time, there should be no issue with grabbing a Nunchuck or a Classic Controller.

2. That Blue Glowing Light

What a mistake not to leave this beautiful blue glow on all the time. Or even just when the system was powered on at the very least. I love going down to my pitch black living room and seeing that light surging on and off when Nintendo has pushed out an update or a message to the Wii. I imagine this is what it will look like during the alien invasion. And all it would take is a simple firmware update to make this happen. And it wouldn’t even need to be forced to stay on. How about another option in the Wii system settings and let players decide for themselves?

3. Forecast and News Channel

When I first fired up my Wii back in November of 2005, I felt like Sylvester Stalone waking up after being frozen for 30 years in Demolition Man. The capabilities of this new console seemed so foreign at the time coming off the Playstation 2 and GameCube which merely played video games. Now I can make a digital copy of myself, check the weather, read the news, and vote on whether I like rainy days better than sunny days. I thought that I would be turning on my Wii ever single day to have it read me the days headlines and weather predictions. That didn’t happen. There was so much potential for the Wii to be an every day appliance but it just didn’t work. I guess I’ll go back to trying to figure out these three shells.

4. Social Media Integration

So you want people to spend more time on the Wii? How about some Facebook/Twitter integration. I know that I would have been a lot more motivated to my ass on the Wii Fit if I new my results were going to be posted for the world to see. And while we are at it, how about some Mario Kart fastest lap times? Maybe some stats from Super Smash Bros? High scores and Leaderboards from Link’s Crossbow Training? Its all free advertising for the Big N; and talk about motivation to get existing players back in the game and new players playing so they can get their friends to shut up. Come on Nintendo, you put an app on the DSi to load pictures I took with a super crappy camera. Where is the connectivity for the Wii?

5. DS Connectivity

Speaking of the DS, what happened here? When the Wii launched, I had all kinds of hope for cool things to do by connecting my DS to the Wii. I was sure that at some point I would be able to use my DS as a controller or add on for a Wii game. I guess they are sort of making this happen with the Wii U touch screen tablet but why didn’t it happen with the Wii. You have to remember in 2005, we were coming off the GameCube with games like Four Sword Adventure and Wind Waker. These games damn near required you to have a Gameboy Advance and GameCube connection cable to play. All we ended up with was a DS download channel buried somewhere in the Nintendo Channel. Forgot it was there didn’t you? Nintendo had the biggest console and handheld for at least the last 6 years which would have almost guaranteed cross ownership of both the Wii and DS. And there is nothing to show for it. Here’s to hoping that the Wii U and 3DS can get something going here.

6. Wiimote Speaker

One of the first things I noticed when I put in Wii Sports and Twilight Princess was that there was sound coming from the Wiimote. This was an unexpected surprise for me and I immediately thought “I can’t wait to see what the developers do with this thing.” All I got was more disappointment though. It turns out the speaker was a cheap piece of junk that distorted on almost all volume levels. That volume level ended up on mute for the duration of my Wii ownership as it became more of an annoyance than an added bonus. This could have been cool if they would have spent 25 cents more per Wiimote to put a decent speaker in all the controllers.

7. Good Games

We all knew that Nintendo was going to make their own titles properly to make the Wii a success but what about 3rd party support? We were once again promised it would be there but it never happened. Besides a couple of Capcom PS2 ports (Resident Evil 4 and Okami), some good efforts from Sega (Conduit, Madworld), the Wii had nothing but de-tuned versions of Xbox360 and PS3 games (Call of Duty, Madden). Sure Nintendo is sending out the Wii the same way that it came in with a solid Zelda title Skyward Sword but thats not going to leave the Wii with the legacy it deserves. These games are collecting dust ready to be shipped to America. The fans are asking for them, but only time will tell if we ever see Xenoblade, The Last Story, or Pandora’s Tower here in the US of A.

Welcome back to another excited episode of Golgocast! This time around, I’ve got Chase Cutler, NamelessTed, and Mr. Pharisee, under my command and control as we discuss the goings-on in the world of games. We talk Team Bondi hissy fits, Rich’s disdain for Resident Evil, the unexpected glory of Shadows of the Damned, and much, much, more.

As always, give us a listen and subscribe below. Feel free to direct all hate mail directly to NamelessTed.

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We all knew it was coming… I’ll let the press release, videos, and screenshots do the talking. All I’m saying is, I better get my fuckin’ Jin back!

GAMEPLAY OVERVIEW

The epic rematch looms in the distance as Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 prepares to take the battle to all-new heights. With new iconic characters from the Marvel and Capcom universes, 48 characters on disc, a refined fighting system and new modes, Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 continues the Capcom fighting game legacy when it releases this November for the low MSRP of $39.99.

FEATURES

• The Ultimate Roster – Twelve new legends from Marvel and Capcom join the fray, bringing the roster of characters on the disc up to 48, and a total of 50 with DLC.
• More Legends – : Includes some of the most iconic and celebrated characters from the Marvel and Capcom universes, including Strider and Firebrand from the Capcom side and Ghost Rider and Hawkeye from the Marvel universe.
• Newly Balanced – Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 offers re-balanced gameplay that will provide accessible depth for both newcomers and pros alike.
• Enhanced Modes – After many fan requests, Spectator mode is now available as part of an overall improved online experience along with other new modes and enhancements.
•Low Price – The ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom experience can be had at a low MSRP of $39.99.

We all knew it was coming… I’ll let the press release, videos, and screenshots do the talking. All I’m saying is, I better get my fuckin’ Jin back!

Details

Genre: Fighting
Platforms: PS3™, Xbox 360®
# Players: 1-2
Release Date: November 2011
ESRB Rating: RP (T for Teen Expected)
Developer: Capcom

I just traveled across the mystic desert that is Soul Calibur IV. My throat is parched, my thumbs are sore, and I have some things to say. Let’s get started.

I have been a fan of the Soul Calibur series for a long time. Each game has the usual characters that, like wine, only get better with time. On top of the awesome selection of diverse fighters you are also offered a few special guests from other notable sources of awesome. In Soul Calibur IV you are allowed characters from the Star Wars universe. If you play on Xbox you are able to play as Yoda. I played on the PS3 so I was open to Darth Vader and his apprentice Star Killer. Now the game definitely made some big changes from its predecessors. The characters have changed in story and appearance. A lot of the characters have donned more heavy and elaborate costumes for the purpose of driving the new battle feature of damaging ones armor. During a fight you can do certain actions to damage the other characters armor and slowly strip them down to their bare essentials (wink wink). Performing counter attacks or successfully hitting with powered up heavy attacks will break apart their armor showing that they are weaker and easier to damage. So when you see the end game boss standing proud in full plate mail that was made to look like the nemean lion, you can break that all off in just a few moves. This brings me to character creation.

In character creation you can make some pretty crazy things. It opens you to create the ultimate fighter using other characters moves and specials or creating completely original ones. I threw together some simple characters that kick all kinds of ass. Playing through single player arcade and story mode will grant you money to purchase cooler moves, weapons, and costumes for your characters.

Justice Beaver

MANATOR

Other than the basic single and multiplayer options you can take the challenge of The Tower of Souls which is similar to Mortal Kombat style tower advancement. As you ascend the tower by winning matches you get to change things up each fight. In some fights you get to choose some alternate characters to switch out. As per the usual Soul Calibur challenge style you will be put under certain restraints or advantages in fights such as regenerative health or hidden bombs across the floor and walls. I never made it to the top of the tower in fear that if I die in the game I die in real life.

I really enjoyed Soul Calibur IV. Much like any fighting game I like learning the unique combo attacks and watching them fail against people online. Soul Calibur not only utilizes quarter circle moves but forces you to make your right thumb multitask with square, circle, triangle, X combos. After playing online for I while I actually started to understand a few other fighting games more. Not like “Mike Ross understand” them but enough that to make some people shut up. One problem I have had with the Soul Calibur series is the over emphasis behind making methodical characters. I was interested by how Vader fit into the scheme of things so I sat through his back story and how he came into the Soul Calibur tournament. He had a good 2 or 3 page explanation full of plot twists and character development. Reading through the character bios was like watching the opening credits to star wars scroll by. I get that Soul Calibur is the ultimate power in the universe and all these great warriors are fighting to get it but something simple like “My village burned down, you bastards!” would have sufficed. Mortal Kombat is a grand tournament with the grand prize of not being exterminated. Twisted Metal granted one wish to the winner. Neither game had a novel sized explanation. I don’t need the Cohen brothers to direct my video games, just throw me into the fighting and I can figure it out from there.

I would highly recommend playing the game just to compare with previous ones. They made a lot of happy changes and any fan will enjoy the new special moves and campaign modes.

Well my little goonies, we’re almost done with the might Box of Many Things. For the grand finale I will be playing Final Fantasy XIII.

Dear Ted Price and the crew at Insomniac Games,

Firstly, before we get into the reason behind this open missive, I’d like to thank you for the countless hours of high quality entertainment you have provided me. From the carefree days of  charging after sheep across meadows in Spyro’s homeworld, to the horrors of the Chimera charging after Sgt. Hale through the streets of ‘50’s Britain in Resistance: Fall of Man, your company has been a beacon of innovative, original and engrossing video gaming that is unmatched in quality and presentation in today’s market.

You came from humble beginnings; starting a rag tag indie game development studio in Burbank, CA, back in ‘94, laying it all out for a shot to make ‘Insomniac’ a household name in the heart of the technological boom of the mid-90’s, striving to put forth works that not only stand the test of time but also paved the way for the future of both platform and FPS gaming. For the entirety of your time as a published game developer, I have been a huge fan. Since the early days of your work with the Sony PSone, your games were not only well made, but endearing. The stories you told were rich, compelling, full of depth and character development, both in gameplay and personality, and the love of what you produced was clearly visible throughout the experience. All these years later, though the graphics have obviously worn, your stories still stand the test of time.

As your company grew, your scope widened in kind. With the onset of the Sony Playstation 2 system and the increase in graphic capabilities, you passed Spyro’s flame to Activision, allowing them to beat the franchise into a purplish bloody pulp, while allowing yourselves to focus wholly on the glory that was Ratchet & Clank.

From the wildly hilarious real life weapon testing commercials to the unbelievably addicting gameplay and astounding level design, you supplied those of us still reeling from the Spyro withdrawals with a Lombax of our own to love. Like a breath to the lungs of a drowning child, the polished, immersive worlds you created were awe inspiring, reinvigorating and are unsurpassed in quality and depth still to this day.

Ratchet & Clank became a force to be reckoned with, spurring 9 subsequent games starring the eponymous characters on the PS2, PSP and PS3 systems, including the upcoming Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One, the first R&C game to feature 4 player co-op multiplayer in the franchise history. Ratchet & Clank became a major player in the Sony market, and along with the Resistance franchise, your games have accounted for millions upon millions of dollars in revenue for the company.

Sony was there the entire time for you Mr. Price, hell they launched their PS3 console with Resistance as their lead title! Such a gritty, edgy and addicting game, it was the first PS3 title to sell a million copies, and was worth every bit of critical praise thrown at it. The PS3 couldn’t be found for months because it was so popular, but with one of the richest and most inventive storylines in video game history, Resistance: FoM was in nearly every PS3 console that did leave the stores. Like Ratchet & Clank, Resistance is a franchise that is here to stay and with R3 just three months away from release, I truly believe Sony should be thanking you now more so than me, for helping to shift players’ attention spans away from the PSN hack back towards the future of next gen gaming.

What I am trying to say Mr. Price, Ted, is that Insomniac Games is making a hugely necessary step into the future. With the recently released trailer for Overstrike hitting the airwaves at E3 this year, you reignited the fires in my loins and proven the point I have been trying to make for years: you need to get off Sony’s exclusivity leash and go multi-platform. By branching out to one of the leading gaming publishers in the world, EA is sure help Overstrike become the powerhouse blockbuster I know it can and will be. I’ve been waiting a long time to see your work on the 360 and am positive that your fine establishment will continue to empty my wallet on command for years to come.

With unparalleled dedication to producing truly engrossing gameplay, lovable and relatable characters, and high caliber environments, you have garnered many lifelong fans, myself included. As you branch out into multiplatform development and walk away from the decade and a half under Sony’s rule, I look forward with wide eyed amazement as you lead us into the future of modern gaming. Thanks again Ted, I owe you a lifelong debt.

Yours truly,

Mikey

Well kiddos, we’re back for another rousing edition of teh cast that is GOLGO! This week we cover a wealth of topics, including: the end of lulzsec, the Supreme Court giving Gamestop the finger, and Rich’s take on parenting!  We also delve into Nintendo’s decision to not bring Xenoblade and The Last Story stateside. Give it a listen, leave a comment, subscribe… you know the drill!

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This week we feature the soothing sounds of Cory, Mr. Hawkins, Rich, and Scott, as they talk Lulzsec, Nukem’s PR nightmare, WiiU, and Battlefield’s handicapped console version. As usual, we know about -10% about what we’re talking about, and trolling abounds!

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As Golgotron’s undisputed number one Nintendo fanboy, it is my duty to get as many eyes as possible on this story. A group of Wii owners (upset at the lack of quality games for the Wii as it dies a slow, painful death) have taken to the internets and the IGN message boards in hopes of gaining the attention of one Reggie Fils-Aime.

You see, Mr. Fils-Aime is the President and Chief Operating Officer for Nintendo of America and is the man that could pull the trigger for North American localization for several highly regarded Wii titles that have been on store shelves in Japan for several months now. These three titles could provide Wii owners and fans of Japanese RPG’s hours and hours of gameplay and a much better regard for the end of the Wii life cycle.

The group, calling themselves Operation Rainfall, is attempting to have Xenoblade, The Last Story, and Pandora’s Tower translated to English in order to make them available for sale in North America. I’ve included a collection of videos for these titles below so you can decide for yourself if you think this is a noble cause or a waste of time.

Xenoblade

The Last Story

Pandora’s Tower

All three of the games contain the standard issue JRPG, Final Fantasy looking, emo hair cut wearing, is that a dude or a chick characters that you would expect. I will withhold judgement on the gameplay for these titles until I have them in my collection. However, I must say that the idea of going straight to the top of an organization like Nintendo of America in order to get a game brought over from Japan is a fantastic idea. I cannot believe that it has not been done before now. If this all works out, I vote for Operation Rainfall to shift their focus toward getting the Earthbound series brought to the North American Wii Shop.

Should you decide to support Operation Rainfall, you can check out the original forum post on the IGN Forums or head straight over to their website for further details on their plans to gain the attention of Mr. Fils-Aime. You can also follow them on Twitter @oprainfall.

Welcome to the latest edition of the Box Of Many Things. This time I’ve been playing Ninja Gaiden Sigma, a remake/upgrade of the Xbox original. Since it’s taken me this long to get around to playing it, I think we can safely say this certainly wasn’t my reason for getting a PS3 in the first place.

Let’s start with the story.  The main character is Ryu, a straight-up modern ninja who lives in his village of Hayabusa.  Like any anime storyline, Ryu’s family has an ancient artifact of great evil and mystery.   Obviously, its mystery is only surpassed by its immense evil. You begin “Bruce Lee style,” fighting your way through a dojo leading up to your nunchuck-wielding Master who hands you your ass. Once some bizarre vaguely English translated banter is exchanged, Ryu senses a disturbance in the Force. He rushes outside to see rival ninjas burning his the village to the ground. After slicing through his foes, Ryu faces a Samurai Demon-thing wielding what may-as-well be the malevolent sword from Soul Calibur.   This is your standard “you’re supposed to lose” fight. The Demon mops the floor with Ryu and struts off with that “you got served” attitude. Soon after, Ryu gets right back up and gets ready for his ultraviolent quest for vengeance. This concludes the tutorial portion.

The overall experience of playing as a ninja is pretty awesome. The gameplay is fun but hard. It felt like I needed two years experience and some kind of degree in ninja economics. Now that I think about it, I don’t think I’ve ever played a ninja game before. That’s probably why it took me so long to get the hang of all Ryu’s artful maneuvers.

Plus, the enemies can run laps around you, so blocking quickly becomes Ryu’s best friend. Patience and timing are key to Sigma. Unfortunately, I don’t understand why you can’t unlock counter-attacks until chapter 3.

Once you understand the ninja mechanics it’s time to start upgrading your shit. That means new weapons, new special attacks, and of course, new gear. Ryu starts the game with a traditional ninja outfit but once demons make him look like a bitch, shit gets real and he straps on the leather fitted armor. It looks like Batman’s sleeveless summer wear.

The game has a neat story, cool moves, and hot anime chicks. Unfortunately, everything happened so fast that I hardly had time to enjoy it. The pace of the Ninja Gaiden Sigma was hopped up on caffeine.  It was just one decapitation after another at breakneck speed.

This is awesome, don’t get me wrong, but if I was gonna be on a railroad, I wish I could have seen everything. The boss fights get more and more ridiculous, they really like to hype up that whole “Mech meets Monster” thing. I was very surprised that the final boss wasn’t Tetsuo from Akira.

In summary, I really enjoyed the game. Sigma did a great job of reinventing would-be tedious hack-and-slash moves. I wasn’t exactly blown away by the game but maybe I would appreciate it better if I play the previous titles. But that is the entire of purpose of the Box, to play through things I would have never played otherwise. Obviously, I’m aware that there is a sequel to this game. Since I had a lot of fun slashing everyone up and unlocking new techniques in this one, I just might pick it up once the B.O.M.T. comes to a close.

Coming up next in the B.O.M.T. – Soul Calibur IV

This week I’ve decided to show you all one of my favorite gems from the Sega Saturn. By now you’ve all played Castle Crashers or, at the very least, you’ve heard of it. Still, if you’ve been under a rock for the past couple of years, I’ll fill you in. Castle Crashers was a brawler with an RPG element in it, wherein you level up and get to put points into different stats, making your brawling that much more RPGing. Long before Castle Crashers was even a brainseed, there was already a game that delivered this amazing combo: Guardian Heroes.

One thing that Guardian Heroes did fantastically was manage to have one of the most ridiculous stories ever. Guardian Heroes begins with you and your friends chilling out in your apartment, checking out this cool sword you totally just found. All of a sudden the cops–led by Selena, a knight in red armor– show up and set fire to your place. You beat ‘em up until the fire becomes too much and run down the street to the local graveyard. There you fight more soldiers and the leader of the Black Knights, Valgar, who throws robots at you. Your dumb friend attacks the robots with your sword and gets electrocuted. The sword floats towards a mound of dirt. Some crazy magic shit happens and then a skeleton in golden armor pops out of the ground. He LOSES HIS SHIT on the robots and breaks them like they’re his red-headed step children. Then he starts attacking you and you say “please stop,” …and it fucking does. You now control a psychopathic skeleton ready to kill on your command. THIS IS ONLY THE FIRST FIVE MINUTES.

Seriously. The game just gets way more intense from there. I didn’t even mention the witches and zombies that show up right away. There are quite a lot of different paths for you to go; I’m still not sure I’ve seen every possible ending. By the end of the game you’ll have a chance to dethrone a tyrant, fight a giant army of super killer robots, go to Hell and kill everyone, and then go up to heaven to punch God in the face. No matter which way to go you are guaranteed to have a ridiculous time with it.

What I find completely batshit crazy is that the game does everything with a dead pan face. It takes itself way more seriously than it ever should. That kind of works to its advantage; if it was pointing out how ridiculous everything was, I think my brain wouldn’t be able to wrap around it. Also, seven-year-old Mr. Pharisee was a lot more capable of taking this crap in.

Basically there’s the Sky Spirits (heaven) and the Earth Spirits (hell) and they hate each other (duh) and humans were caught in the middle of this (fuck) until the Sky Spirits gave them magic (yay!) and the humans then sided with them to banish the Earth Spirits (to hell) but the Sky Spirits were jealous of the powers they had given humans (…what?) and then banished them as well to the dark place (seriously?!) so then the humans said “fuck spirits” and lived happily ever after.

Where do you come in? Oh, you don’t. The sword is what matters. See, humans made the sword to do shit against the spirits if they returned in human affairs (and they did) and the golden skeleton is some sort of chosen warrior who is supposed to fuck their shit up (and he does). You guys just happened to have found the sword. That’s it. Could have happened to anyone else. So why do YOU have to fight? Well… dude, you get to punch God in the face.

Shut up. Just go do it and you’ll get nookie forever.

Okay, I’m starting to realize that I’m writing this from the perspective of one character, or at least that’s how it appears to me. See, in Guardian Heroes you have the options of four heroes in the beginning. Han, a meat head who punches things with his sword; Randy, an apprentice wizard what shoots the fireballs and death; Nicole, a… I’m not sure… a medic? She heals, I guess. Finally, there’s Ginjirou, a wise old ninja. Well, he’s old at least.

The thing is, Randy is the ONLY character worth playing. He kind of sucks in the beginning; he’s not a strong fighter, and his magic, while powerful, runs out pretty quickly. You can regain it by punching things, but like I said, he’s not a strong fighter. However, once you level him up a bit, Randy is a flaming death machine. Literally. Boost his magic stats and just spam the fireball spell. It’s a homing beacon that does stupid amounts of damage and costs almost nothing to cast. Also, while he can’t really do damage, he stuns enemies like crazy.

If you’re worried about playing two players, don’t. Once you beat the game you unlock Serena as a playable character. She’s a balanced character, being good at fighting AND magic. Otherwise, just use Randy.

A couple more hints for those of you interested in picking this up but not wanting to get frustrated with it; there is a secret level that you MUST find. It’s in the beginning in the forest level. You have to kill every single plant before advancing to the next screen. Doing so will unlock a colosseum level. In here are the most powerful monsters in the game and they WILL hurt you. A lot. But if you play in here for a bit, you’ll level like nobody’s business. It makes the rest of the game so much simpler.

Also, when you go through the forest level watch out for the most dangerous of all enemies. This opponent has to be one of the most cock-blocky monsters of all time. From the second they enter the screen you know they’re there, and they spend the whole time making your life a living hell. The whole ordeal is made that much worse because you can’t see them. The best solution is to just have the soldier go beserk and explode on them. Do you know what this most deadly enemy is?

Guardian Heroes is just DRIPPING with amazingness. A great beat ‘em up style that incorporates magic that is not only easy to use but completely satisfying, a fighting style that involves moving between several different planes, and a story so ridiculously insane it could only come from the minds of Treasure. Want to know the greatest thing about Guardian Heroes? As I was writing this little nostalgic love letter, I found out that Sega is giving us all a little present later on in 2011 near my birthday.

You love me. You really love me.

This week we recap E3 and cover the best and blurst of the show. The whole crew who attended is here, Cory, Molly, Mr. Hawkins, Aaron, and the illustrious (and injured) Alon! We talk about the “big three” press events, booths, swag, babes, and of course, games. Season 3 is gooooooo!

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On the first installment of Toys in the Attic, I may have overdone the word count a bit. To be fair, the game I chose to talk about was incredibly complicated and cram packed with detail, and I didn’t want to leave anything out. Not wanting to leave anyone behind in the wind, I think this time I’ll talk about another one of my favorites, albeit a much simpler one.

The Genesis had a lot of platformers on it that were quite fantastic, and you may have heard of a couple of them (can’t remember the title but it involves a blue hedgehog and his foxy sidekick) but I’m not quite sure if you’ve heard of this one. It’s been released a couple times in Genesis collections since the early 90′s, but still there are people who have yet to play this gem. I’m talking about, of course, Dynamite Headdy.

Dynamite Headdy remains one of the most unique games I’ve ever played. You play as Headdy, a puppet trying to escape the evil puppet King Dark Demon, who is snatching up all the peaceful toys in North Town. Headdy won’t stand for this sort of thing (he’s the hero after all) and goes out on an adventure to resuce everyone. Headdy has to defeat the Keymasters as he makes his way to King D.D. Trying to stop him at every turn is Trouble Bruin, another puppet who is jealous of Headdy and wants to be the hero instead of him. Along the way Headdy is helped out by three of his friends, HangMan, who acts like a hook for Headdy to pull himself up with, Beau, who points out a boss’s weak points, and most importantly, HeadCase, who provides Headdy with all sorts of Headdy Heads to choose from.

Headcase is probably what makes Headdy so extraordinarily profound. Headdy uses his head (how many more times can I say head in this article?) to attack enemies, among other things. Headcase gives Headdy the option to switch out his head for a number of different items. Normally it’s only between a few options, and they usually help you find different paths in any given area. In one of the earlier levels you get the choice of a Spiky head, or a head that shrinks you. If you use the spikes, you can cling to the walls and climb out of a well. But if you take the small Headdy route, you climb through small corridors built just for him. Occasionally you’ll get a head that really sucks. Well, okay, bad wording, since there’s a vacuum head, but what I’m talking about is a fat head, which incapacitates you and makes you completely useless. It’s kind of gross too.

The Keymaster boss fights are completely off the charts cool. Each one is just so fun to go up against, even the crazily frustrating ones. The first boss is a dog that dances to an orchestra and throws things at you. Then there’s a wooden doll that wears different costumes that give it different powers. Next there’s Spinderella who tries to crush you with her giant arms. Her fight is pretty cool. The last Keymaster is Baby Face – a baby face on a stick that shoots lazer balls at you. It then turns into a teenager, then a man, and then a really old man. This fight is just… ridiculous. They’re all ridiculous. I’m going to show you the first boss fight, since it’s probably my favorite. It may be biased, but hey, this is my article buddy!

There are a couple more boss fights after that; a gatekeeper to King Dark Demon’s castle, and of course, old D.D. himself. They’re pretty fun, but if you know what you’re doing they can be kind of boring, especially compared to the wackiness of the other fights. The boss fights aren’t really what sells this game for me anyways. The greatness of Dynamite Headdy comes from it’s crazy unique and detailed environment. They really try and make it feel like it’s a theater production, and while it can be a bit visually overwhelming, it’s still really cool.

Would I call Dynamite Headdy the greatest platformer on the Genesis? Probably not. I mean, you’d have to at least compete with Sonic 2 and Vectorman, and that is territory I’m not willing to cross. But is it an amazing game that you should be playing right now? Hell yes. It’s on the Genesis ultimate collection, and that shit’s real cheap. Go get it just for Dynamite Headdy and you won’t be disappointed.

Here at Golgotron, we consider ourselves scientists. We go where others dare not go, and we get the info others dare not get. So, when we were introduced to the Nintendo Wii U and realized that Nintendo only had some of the answers to our many questions, we set out to find the answers ourselves. We found one.

What is the screen resolution of that fancy wireless LCD built into the Wii U tablet controller?

First off, we knew it wasn’t super high res. You could tell that just by looking at it, and no one expects a 6.2 inch screen to be 1080p. At least, not anyone who knows anything about present-day LCD technology. However, we were kind of hoping for what is commonly referred to as QHD – 960 x 540. That’s a quarter of the 1080p that we love so much, and if you didn’t already know, hi-def scales down better when it works out evenly like that. Unfortunately, it looks like the units at E3 were not quite that good. Now, they didn’t look bad. In fact, the screens looked quite good in practice, but technically speaking, QHD is a bit better than WVGA, especially when the source material is hi-def. Just think about all the NetFlix’ing that’ll happen on this thing.

So this is what we found after staring at some hi-res photos and manually counting individual pixels – by our estimation, the screen on the Wii U tablet is about 870 pixels wide. However, that doesn’t jive with any standard screen resolutions and it certainly doesn’t match any LCDs commonly in production. 854, though… now that’s a winner. 854 x 480 (WVGA) is a very common widescreen resolution, and it’s within 2% of our not-scientific-enough measurement. Unless Nintendo changes things for the final units, we’re confident the Nintendo U tablet resolution is WVGA.

If you’re up for it, you can use our images to count the pixels for yourself. Click on the thumbnails for the full resolution images.

It takes two hosts to keep the violent beast coast set under control this week, so join Cory and Mr. Hawkins as they take on Dr. Joe, Mr. Pharisee, and Scott “Meaney” Meaney on the penultimate episode of Golgocast Season 2. Penultimate!

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It shouldn’t be surprising that 2K Games has opted to promote Duke Nukem Forever with straight-up porn. I mean, from the very beginning of the series, Duke has been portrayed as a violent, beefy, sexist, gun-totin’ macho man. So really, it’s only fitting.

If you’ll recall, this isn’t the first video game promoted with flesh, but I’d dare to say they put in some effort this time around. Duke Nudem, a genuinely interactive Flash game with actual flashing, does a better job of recreating the game experience than most other Flash-based marketing I’ve seen. There are four distinct levels with progressive difficulty, a “boss” character (played by Rosie Jones, FTW), and unlockable rewards*. Hell, you can even ruin the experience with a cheat code if you want… and if that doesn’t sell you, I don’t know what would.

So, I invite you to play Duke Nudem for yourself and tell us what you think about it in the comments. If you’re in the mood, feel free to also share your thoughts on the degradation of society, the misguidance of youth, or which of the four girls you’d bang first. Write in complete sentences, always show your work, and remember, there’s extra credit for functional use of diagrams.

*Some of the rewards (desktop backgrounds with boobies) are included in the gallery below. That’s how much we love you. If you enter the cheat code, you get access to a gallery with a lot more content. If you want the code, just ask for it, and I’ll add it in a comment.

[Thanks to Boobie Blog for bringing this to our attention.]

[Show as slideshow]

Welcome to Toys in the Attic, a new little segment where I get to talk about a game from a land so far far away – the past. We’ll start this off right, by talking about my absolute favorite video game of all time – Dragon Force. No, not the power metal band, Dragonforce, although a game about them would be quite interesting… but I digress! Dragon Force is one of the greatest games never played, and a lot of that has to do with its release on Sega Saturn in 1996. How many of you owned a Sega Saturn in the mid 90s? How many of you even knew somebody who knew somebody who owned one? It was rather sad that such a great machine had such a short shelf life, but that’s neither here nor there. Now I’m just going to educate you about a game you should have played eons ago.

Dragon Force is a strategy RPG about conquering the continent of Alundra. In the beginning of the game, you control the monarch, Wein, and his many generals. Each general has their own army of warriors, which can be one of many different classes. Each of those classes has their strengths and weaknesses. Mages and Archers, for instance, are good at killing enemies at the other side of the field, but tend to be rather weak in close range. Monks and Beasts are very powerful attackers but it doesn’t take a lot of effort to kill them. Dragons and Zombies are rare to find, and hard to stop, but what kills them kills them quickly. It’s essentially a giant game of rock, paper, scissors and the winner is usually determined before the battle even begins. You travel with a total of ten generals to each castle – but each castle can hold around twenty or so generals themselves. Each general fights one at a time until one side has completely lost or retreated. The winning side holds the losers as captives and if you’re fighting in a castle, they get control of the castle.

Every “week”, Wein meets with his generals and talks about the war. You can give out awards to generals who do well, fortify any castle you occupy, attempt to search for items hidden in the castle, or try to convince captive generals to join your side. Some generals refuse to join your side at all for a long time – most of them, however, are merely waiting for their monarch to join you. The awards you give out go to the general’s soldier ranks – but only one warrior type at a time. Each award you give them counts for 10 warriors, up to a maximum of 10 awards. One hundred soldiers might not seem like a lot, but you’ve also got to recruit that many soldiers for the war effort. How well recieved you are in the game world has a lot to do with that, but largely recruitment is just a time based effort. If you wait long enough, you’ll be able to replenish your stock.

Each general levels up as well. Levels give them respect to their soldiers, strength to kill enemy soldiers, and up to three spells. The generals often change the tide of battle. Typically most generals can take out two soldiers for every one that hits them, and the magic spells can sometimes wipe out whole armies. If it gets to the point where both generals kill both armies, the two of them have a duel. Whoever has the most health usually wins, but I’ve had instances where the enemy was so evasive they ended up winning the battle. It can be really frustrating, since it takes a long time to even get to that point.

The story begins with Wein being told about Goldark starting a war in the west. The other monarchs on the continent believe him to be a madman and wish to stop him; Wein, realizing that the war is going to happen with or without him, decides to participate but only in the name of peace. A holy spirit visits him in the middle of the night and informs him that there are eight holy warriors that are reincarnations of eight heroes who put an evil demon, Madruk, to rest under a mountain near Fandaria, Goldark’s nation. The spirit informs Wein that Madruk is awakening, and his evil is possibly influencing the war. Wein is one of the eight chosen heroes, and it’s up to him to collect these warriors and stand up to Madruk – and stop the war. Kind of a lot for one guy, right? Well, he is king… anyway, Wein is on the lookout for eight warriors. There are eight nations… each with their own monarch. Surely it can’t be as simple as that?

It… it kind of is. I mean, it’s simple in theory. The actual challenge of capturing the monarchs is insanely difficult. They’re usually the strongest general of their nation, and while you’ve been busy fighting and capturing other generals, so have they. Also while you’re trying to capture their monarch, some other nation might decide to poke you for a bit. And that’s just the monarchs! There are thieves, vampires, and unholy hellspawn robots to deal with as well. The best strategy is usually to wait until another nation has done most of the beating for you, and come in for the kill – or to get dragons and zombies for everyone! Once you collect all the heroes, then you’ve got to stop the hordes of evil, while simultaneously collecting the weapon of badassness – then you’ve got to go and stop the ultimate evil. This can take a while, as each of the pieces are spread out over the continent, and it takes a week to walk a few inches across the screen sometimes.

After you’ve beaten the game as Wein, you can play the game again from the perspective of one of the other eight – well, not Reinhart or Goldark. You have to beat the game using a different monarch, first. Those guys are considered the “hard” mode of the game. Most of the difficulty of the game comes from the location of your nation and how easy it is to convince generals to come to your side. Strategically, Wein is the most average. People listen to him plenty okay, and he’s in a spot that’s easily fortified. Reinhart is located in the middle of the continent and is pretty much bitch bait for everyone – plus he uses mages, which are amazing at the end of the game, but suck dick in the beginning. Goldark is really strong, obviously, but because he’s the dictator that started this war, none of the monarchs join his side until you get all of them.

This game fucking sparkles. The only way it could get better is if it could somehow pleasure you sexually and then make you the greatest sandwich you’ll ever eat. I can’t tell you how many hours I’ve poured into this thing in my lifetime. I must have beaten it with all eight monarchs at least half a dozen times – and some way more than others. And it’s not a quick game! I pride myself on being able to beat an RPG fairly quickly, but the slow paced strategy of the game forces you to spend at least fifty hours beating the first section of the game. It has a lot to do with the fact that there’s a lot of talking – a lot of it. You’ll spend a long time listening to people go on about stuff that’s kind of important. But this game is definitely fun. If you can’t be arsed to get a Sega Saturn and a copy of this (jerks) I don’t blame you entirely. You’ll just be missing out on an amazing gaming experience.

Welcome to another glorious episode of Golgocast! This week Mr. Hawkins takes the gang on a journey through the past, present, and future of video game tedium. NamelessTed, Scott Meaney, and good ole Mr. Pharisee talk about the 3DS lameness, Brink‘s lack of luster, L.A. Noire expectations, Xperia Play and the fools that bought it, MW3, Kinect, Square-Enix, and much more — all with a slight echo-o-o!

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We’re winding down on season two of everyone’s favorite podcast, and I’ve completely lost all control. Rich, NamelessTed, has gone off the fucking deep-end this week, making some of the most ridiculous and outlandish claims I’ve heard in… like 50 podcasts. Jorge does what he always does and tries to fight back, but there isn’t much that even he can do to stop the Rich Troll Machine! This week we discuss the recent delay for Mass Effect 3, the lunacy of having LA Noire on 3 discs, and whether or not Ubisoft has squeezed too much blood from the Assassin’s Creed stone? Of course we also touch on the continual debacle that is the PSN situation while saying a little prayer for those who’ve lost their cc numbers as a result. So enjoy everyone and please remember to send all hate mail to namelessted@golgotron.com .

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Check out the first installment of our new round-table review show, Golgoview! In this episode, NamelessTed, MikeyMet, and Mr. Hawkins discuss Portal 2. The first ten minutes of each thirty minute show will be spoiler-free, so if you’re debating on whether to buy or rent or if you’re on your third playthrough, check out what the crew has to say about Valve‘s latest work!

We’ll be back next week with Episode 2 — Mortal Kombat!

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Our actual review of Portal 2 should be up sometime soon once Mikey finishes it, but I want to get my feelings out on the table about what some other people are already saying about the game. I want to make sure that everybody knows that I really really like Portal 2 and think its a great game that I believe everybody should play at some point. But, what has bothered me the most in the past week is the vast amount of sites/publications that are already declaring Portal 2 as a “Game of the Year“.

Saying Portal 2 is Game of the Year is like saying that Hurricane Katrina was the storm of the century. No doubt it was devastating but we have a long time before we reach the end of the century. We are only 4 months into the year and the vast majority of the big games aren’t scheduled to release until the second half of the year. I think you also need to look at the actual games that are scheduled to release this year. The list is very impressive:

• Uncharted 3
• Mass Effect 3 (now delayed until 2012)
• The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
• The Last Guardian
• L.A. Noire
• Batman: Arkham City
• Rage
• Battlefield 3
• Zelda: Skyward Sword
• Deus Ex: Revolution

I just listed 10 games that haven’t yet come out and are all highly anticipated. Uncharted and Mass Effect are both obviously major contenders and the previous titles in both series won a bunch of GOTY awards. The Elder Scrolls has been a major franchise and Bethesda is known for making games that get GOTY awards (Oblivion and Fallout 3). We also have new franchise games like L.A. Noire and Rage that we can’t count out. Bioshock was a major winner of GOTY awards the year it came out. Who knows, there might be a game that isn’t on this list that will surprise everybody and take the world by storm.

The point I am making is that it is way too early to tell if Portal 2 will be Game of the Year. There are way too many other games coming out this year to declare any game as the best of the year before we are less than half way there. I had an absolute blast playing through the single player of Portal 2 and look forward to playing some multiplayer levels. Even if a game comes out later this year and is better than Portal 2, that doesn’t make Portal 2 a worse game. It just means that it isn’t the Game of the Year.

Cautionary Note: I am not trying to troll or get people mad just to get comments. I was just frustrated with everybody calling it the Game of the Year way too early.

Grips of sinus medication and large quantities of alcohol do not mix well with the duties of a podcast host… However, despite my controlled substance handicap I manage to form some complete sentences and the rest of the team picks up the slack this week for another glorious addition to the show. As the titles indicates, there’s a lot of discussion on “The Sony Situation” and Scott and Jorge go krazy over Mortal Kombat. We miss out on the chance at some Portal 2 discussion, but that’s all well and good, because we’ve got a solution to that coming this week! More on that later, but in the meantime enjoy Golgocast Season 2 Episode 20!!!!

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When someone mentions gaming in Las Vegas, the first thing that comes to mind is the poker table or slot machines. When I heard that a couple from New Jersey opened up a video game themed night club, I was geared up to check it out. This isn’t just some bar with video poker and sports playing on a wall of TVs. No, my friends, this is a full-on arcade with top name games on every system you could ever want. This is Insert Coins, owned and operated by Christopher LaPorte – a great guy with a great vision.

The lounge looks like a rich kid’s basement, only with a Vegas atmosphere that makes it that much cooler. You walk in and instantly feel the energy of the room. They have giant padded booths for groups of people to come and enjoy the newest games and the greatest classics, while getting hammered at the same time. When I witnessed Mortal Kombat 9 being played next to Dig Dug, I almost cried. The walls of the lounge are painted by local artists with awesome video game themed art. Your group can walk in and grab a lounge or reserve one ahead of time with some drinks so you can get right down to playing when you arrive. If you aren’t in a big group and just want to play some console games, the bar is lined with TVs sporting just about every popular game right now for PS3 or Xbox 360. On the drink menu you can find custom video game themed drinks such as “Pac-Man and the 4 Ghosts”. If you are more into the arcade style, thalf of the lounge is a mini arcade with anything from Pac-Man to Street Fighter. There is also a dance space featuring a house VDJ playing sweet gamer music all night.

If you plan on visiting Vegas or are attending CES or the EVO World Championships, Insert Coins is definitely a must. You and your friends will have a great time gaming and drinking in this chill atmosphere. The lounge is located right next to the Fremont Experience downtown and is for adults age 21 and over.

For information on reservations and hours, check out the Insert Coins site.

[Show as slideshow]

So, I once again I was forced sit this week’s episode out due to work… then to top it off I didn’t get a chance to listen to it this morning before posting, so I really have no idea what happens on it. As a result, I’m going to replace this area, where I’d normally include a synopsis and some witty banter, with this exert from H.P. Lovecraft’s The Call of Cthulhu. Please enjoy it… oh yeah, and the podcast too.

“The older matters which had made the sculptor’s dream and bas-relief so significant to my uncle formed the subject of the second half of his long manuscript. Once before, it appears, Professor Angell had seen the hellish outlines of the nameless monstrosity, puzzled over the unknown hieroglyphics, and heard the ominous syllables which can be rendered only as “Cthulhu” ; and all this in so stirring and horrible a connexion that it is small wonder he pursued young Wilcox with queries and demands for data.”

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Sorry for the delay boys and girls,  its been a rough week here in Cortopia what with my computer trying to kill itself, and you know…  Portal 2.  In any case this week’s show covers a wealth of news straight from the world of vidja games and right into your hearts. Capcom’s annual gathering “Captivate” has come and gone and left us with loads to discuss including: Dragon Dogma, SSF4 AE, and SFxT!!! We also discuss anonymous‘ recent attacks on Sony, why Sega ruined Jorge’s life and pulled the Streets of Rage Remake from the interwebs, and a shit-ton of knowledge is dropped about one of the greatest films to come out of the 90s, ONLY THE STRONG!!!! So strap on your dancin’ pants and lets get to it capoeira-style… go go banana whey!

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Dear Capcom,

The reason for this letter is to tell you how much I hearts you. We have spent so many hours together and I wanted to take some time to look back on the fond memories that we have shared together. I can still remember when we first met. The year was 1989 and I had just opened up my Nintendo Entertainment System. Super Mario Bros was getting kind of old so I went down to the local video store and rented Mega Man. It was love at first sight. Even though you made Mega Man nearly impossible to complete (and I still haven’t to this day), I loved the challenge and variety of levels that you gave to me. Of course soon after you gave me the first Mega Man game, I discovered that you had actually already released Mega Man II and a third installment was on the way. I remember talking with my friends about how if we had Mega Man I, II, and III here, you must have just launched Mega Man XIII in Japan. Oh, those were the days…

It didn’t stop with Mega Man on the NES though. You also had Bionic Commando, Commando, and 1942 to help me waste away the hours between getting out of school and dinner time. You got away from your own IPs for a little while there with developing games for Disney but hey, Chip ‘N Dale Rescue Rangers was awesome. If anyone tells you otherwise, you send them my way.

We did part ways for a little while there as I moved on from my NES over to the Sega Genesis. You didn’t have much to offer on the Genesis but when I got my Super Nintendo, we reconnected in a big way. It was there that you gave me my introduction to fighting games with Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo. This is when I knew that we were back together for good. Sure there were other fighting games out at the time. I could have gone with Killer Instinct and their new combo system or I could have gone with the Mortal Kombat series and their gruesome fatalities, but I stuck with you, Capcom. I loved the pure speed of Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo and the characters were so much more memorable. You skipped over the gimmicks and hype and made a solid fighting game that has stood the test of time and is still played heavily today. Sadly, my fondness for your fighting games only lasted for one more game after SSF2T. I picked up on the original Marvel vs. Capcom for the original Playstation but I quickly found that my skill for fighting games was not enough to keep up with my competition.

The launch of the Playstation was when things really took off. I had missed out on all of the Mega Man games since Mega Man 3 for the NES but I came back when you released Mega Man X4. Mega Man had changed so much and I was very impressed. The PS1 also marked the launch for one of your most successful franchises: Resident Evil. We stayed together through the other prerendered backgrounds and then into 3D with Resident Evil 4 which was good enough for two consoles. The prerendered backgrounds continued to the Playstation 2 with Onimusha Warlords at the launch of the console. This was the first and only game that I had at launch and there was nothing wrong with that.

The new generation of console brought out another one of my favorite series: Devil May Cry. All the other kids were rushing to pick up Grand Theft Auto 3 but I knew where I wanted to be. I took my hard earned dollars down to the store and preordered the first game in the series and you even gave me a Devil May Cry T-shirt! I skipped over the 2nd game in the DMC series but you got me back when the 3rd and 4th games was launched a couple of years later. While all of these console games were great, it was the remake of an old favorite for the GameBoy Advance that really opened some new doors.

Nintendo tapped you on the shoulder to take The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past from the SNES and get it over to the GBA. Then they gave you the reigns to make an original Zelda title, The Minish Cap. I believe this was a good learning experience for you with adventure games and that experience really showed through with the release of Okami for the PS2 and the Nintendo Wii. This original adventure game was in the same vein as Zelda but you proved that you could do it better than they could. You proved that you could make a solid adventure game not only on a console but on a handheld as well with the release of Okamiden for the DS.

And that is where we stand today. We have a tremendous amount of history and a lot of great memories. I am still wearing that Devil May Cry T-shirt that you game me 10 years ago. I am also still enjoying the Devil May Cry, Resident Evil, and Okami series. While I haven’t picked up any of your recent fighting games and I am the absolute worst Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 player on the entire Golgotron roster, I still enjoy the tremendous amount of fan service that you delivered in this game. I am looking forward to many more years of enjoyable games from you. Even if you didn’t release any more games, we will always have Dino Crisis. But not Phoenix Wright. Phoenix Wright sucks.

Always Yours,

Dr. Thiefz0r (aka Aaron)

Dear Sony,

I have always kinda known that you were not the miracle gaming company that you claim to be. Somewhere in the back of my head I knew this truth — and it’s the only truth that really matters. You are not the one. It wasn’t until recently that the veil was lifted from my eyes, and like a hung-over man waking up from his one-night stand, I stared into the face of my drunken conquest and was not pleased with what I saw. Sony… we’re through.

I started losing faith in you when the PlayStation 3 came out. You promised a machine that “only does everything“. You said you wanted to create a console that could compete with a PC in terms of its capabilities, which is great! Except that they have those. They’re called other PCs. The reason why dedicated gaming consoles never tried competing with a PC is because they didn’t have to. Gaming on the PC evolved from having a computer and trying to find something to do with it in between surfing for porn and doing your office work. It’s only recently that a need has existed for gaming computers, and the only games that have a true divide are FPS. PCs are great because on top of playing games — games that look and play best on a PC – they let you do things you otherwise couldn’t.

So, instead of making a dedicated gaming console, you decided to make a machine that could play games beautifully, and do everything else kind of mediocrely (or in the case of PlayStation Network, really poorly). The Wii and the Xbox 360 definitely have their faults, too. The Wii is buried in shovelware and ended up being a complete joke, while the 360 had so many hardware issue in the beginning that it spawned its own pop culture reference. In spite of having technologically inferior machines, both of them are still much more supportive than you.

When the Xbox 360 launched, they sent out a marketing campaign that I still talk about today. It was so incredibly simple, I can’t believe they were the only ones to think of it. People playing together as a community. “Jump In”. It’s such a simple crude idea and it is beautifully crafted. It gave people who weren’t that interested in gaming a positive idea of what the games were like. Look back at everything the Xbox 360 has managed to do since then. They created an effective and manageable way for people to come together and have fun. Nobody has done anything quite as good.

The Wii had a campaign that was definitely… helpful. Nintendo has always been a unique company and they had created one of the most unique systems. Instead of having some sort of vague message, they decided to go with a more direct approach, and show people enjoying their system. The ability to use motion control was one of the strong points of the Wii when it first launched. Now that everyone is sick of it, Microsoft and Sony are jumping on board, but that’s a topic for another day. For now let me just say that Nintendo was on message here and did a great job with a mediocre system.

Now, before the PS3 launched? Oh my good lord. You sent out one of the most confusing, awkward, and all around CREEPY campaigns I’ve ever seen. Who thought this would be a good idea? Did this convince everyone that the PS3 was the console to get? I’m not sure what you were trying to imply here; that the PS3 is more than a video game console? Okay, then what is it? A psychic, baby doll inducing hell? THAT’S a helpful image. “Play Beyond” seemed like a good tagline EXCEPT THAT IT DOESN’T MEAN ANYTHING. Play beyond what? Eggs that smash into nightmare crows? I’m not sure what you’re trying to tell me here, Sony.

Your latest campaign would have me believe that it “Only Does Everything” with Kevin Butler, the VP of Convenient Job Positions. Initially, I liked these commercials. They’re funny, borderline clever, and very informative. The problem is entirely in the tagline. I mean… “It Only Does Everything”? Okay, so, you’ve got exclusive games, blu-ray, and a really bad browsing system. What else can you do that the others cannot? What exactly does “everything” mean, in terms of what you can offer? I wouldn’t have such a problem with you going around telling everyone you’re hot shit, but you haven’t SHOWN me anything that proves you’re the man you say you are.

In the ad biz we’ve got this thing called a USP – Unique Selling Proposition. Microsoft, you’ve told us yours. You’re a gaming console with strength in community gaming. Nintendo is telling us that you’re a family console that just about anyone can get into. But when it comes to letting us know what’s going on in your commercials Sony, everything is about you. There’s not a lot of room for US in your little world.

Sony… we’ve been through a lot since we first got together. I know we’ve grown apart in the past few years but I think it’s because you’re changing too much. It was great when you slimmed down, but you don’t seem to know what you want anymore. It’s like nothing pleases you. Maybe I’m too stubborn to change, but dang it, I don’t think I should have to. I know that you’re offering a lot for any gamer to be excited about. The NGP looks like a technophile’s wet dream. It’s just – well, I’m not a technophile, and I’m not sure if you get that. And what’s with the Xperia Play? Are dedicated gaming machines not good enough for you? What I’m trying to say is… I don’t think we’re going to make it, Sony. Whatever magic we had in the past was gone. You’re going to have to continue this journey alone.

We’ll always have Crash Bandicoot.

Love,

Mr. Pharisee

Mr. Pharisee scored an interview with Jay Stuckwisch of Twisted Pixel about their new Kinect game, Gunstringer. Does Twisted Pixel come through or are they just pulling our strings?

Gunstringer is definitely the most interesting game I’ve been wanting to play. Ever since I heard about this neat little on-rails shooter from Twisted Pixel, I’ve been anxiously awaiting my chance to play it. At PAX East this year, I got my hands on this hands on experience.

The demo starts off a bit slow by introducing me to the plight of the Gunstringer, via an off-camera aged cowboy. I can’t help but compare it to Sam Elliott’s role in the Big Lebowski. I have no idea if that was their intention, but you know what, I don’t care. I’m sold. The Gunstringer was a part of a posse that left him for dead because they’re bad people and that’s what bad people in the Wild West do. Years later the Gunstringer has returned from the dead, and you’re going to help him get back the people who put him there.

Gunstringer plays like it’s a puppet show and you’re the controller of the lead marionette. As the cowboy explains what’s going on, it gives me the impression that the world of Gunstringer is partially aware that it’s a play. There is talk about the “hand” putting enemies in his way and sending them to the great beyond. The whole thing is very cleverly written and sticks with their theme incredibly well.

The gameplay controls excellently. The Kinect is capable of capturing your entire body, but it excels in determining where your hands are. The Gunstringer only focuses on your hands, meaning it’s as precise as it possibly can be. This makes the on-rails shooter that much easier to play. Basically you use your left hand to move left and right, or jump, and you use your right hand to select targets. When you get up to six targets highlighted, you pull your hand up like you’re shooting, and the Gunstringer shoots all the targets at once. It seems the motion concept isn’t easily figured out by all. Some people trying out the demo got through it on nearly perfect runs, while quite a few others barely limped to the end of it.

The Gunstringer definitely shows a lot of promise. There are some technical issues that hopefully get fixed before its release. Personally I hope the difficulty curve for it is incredibly tough. I don’t see that happening right now, but then again, I’m also not a game designer. Like everything from Twisted Pixel, the Gunstringer has a lot of charm and personality to it. As long as the laughs keep on coming, I’ll keep on buying their games.

Check out the official trailer below.

Dear Square-Enix,

You and I go way back, don’t we? What has it been now, 25 years? I’ve stood by you through thick and thin, and you know you’re one of my all-time favorites for developing and publishing amazing games, but we haven’t been all that close as of late and I think we should talk.

First of all, this isn’t a breakup letter, so get that out of your head. I’m sure you had a good reason for trying to sell me MindJack and 0 Day Attack on Earth, and we’ll just pretend Final Fantasy XIV never happened. One thing I can’t understand though is why my PSP Go is not good enough for Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core, Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep, or 3rd Birthday? You know I wanted to play those games, and now I have no choice except to what, pirate them? Neither of us wants that, so why put me in that position?

What? Me pirate?

While we’re on the topic of PSP, why are you developing so aggressively for it in the US? This year alone, you have six games coming out before May. You do realize the NGP is slated for release later this year and PSP sales have been basically dead for quite a while, right? I know it’s not easy to hear, but maybe it’s time to look at Nippon Ichi and Atlus for some inspiration. Their games are selling well and are hitting market at a perfect pace, their fan bases are growing steadily and strengthening in loyalty, and their development cycles are quick to say the least. Let’s be honest, you could do well to gain a little indie flair and agility in your stable. And what’s with opening up a new studio in Canada for development on next-gen home consoles? You know something I don’t?

Brave Fencer Musashi? Never heard of it.

So, I know you got a lot of flack for Final Fantasy XIII, but I loved it. The environments were some of the best I’ve ever seen and I found myself quite fond of the Paradigm system. The male characters weren’t my favorite, but I really liked Lightning, Fang, and Vanille. I’m sure it wasn’t an easy decision, but I really appreciate the risk you took on releasing it cross-platform. Between us, I bought a PS3 initially because of FFXIII, but seeing it on the Xbox 360 was amazing and really showed what the system can do. You’ve had a knack for pushing consoles to their limits for as long as I’ve known you.

I am curious about one thing though. Why did it take over five years to get it to market, only to hear that the open world, towns, and post ending gameplay had to be cut due to time constraints? Was it the development of the Crystal Engine? That would make sense since you’ve got Final Fantasy XIII-2 slated for this year, and that wasn’t even part of the original Fabula Nova Crystallis project. That’s a pretty quick turnaround for a sequel to a game that took half a decade to craft. Either way, I’m very excited about XIII-2 and the direction of the series. Oh, that reminds me, since XIII-Type 0 is so hugely anticipated, does it really make sense to put it on the PSP after the NGP comes out? This wouldn’t happen if the development cycle didn’t last the entire lifespan of a system, but I’m sure you know that. Let me play XIII-Versus on Xbox 360 and we’ll call it even. Deal?

Quiet everyone, I may have found a fan.

Back before you and Enix got together, you had some big collaborations with other companies. You localized Breath of Fire for Capcom and brought it to a welcoming US market. You convinced Nintendo that a Super Mario RPG wouldn’t necessarily be a bad idea (but I’m still not sure what’s up with them have you doing Mario Hoops and Mario Sports Mix). You and Tri-Ace had some great successes with Valkyrie Profile and Star Ocean. These were some memorable gems, but they do pale a bit in comparison to the effort you’ve taken with Kingdom Hearts.

A collaboration between you and Disney was something fans didn’t even know they dreamed about. Kingdom Hearts 2 was a worthy follow-up and solidified the franchise as a successful endeavor. Well we both know how excited you get with success on new IPs, but from that point on it seems like you kinda lost direction. Between the card fighting GBA game and the scattered sequels across the DS and PSP, you’re spreading the story and continuity way too thin for fans to keep up. Where is your PS3 support? If you’re going to release games on the DS, why not Xbox 360 or XBLA? Yes, the Xbox isn’t all that popular in Japan, but it’s immensely popular in the states and there’s no reason not to take our money. Speaking of taking my money, I hear you’re doing a possible Front Mission collaboration with Konami and Hideo Kojima, but I know you can’t talk about that… yet.

They won't stop raping me.

Now, I know we said we’d forget about Final Fantasy XIV, but let’s face it — you can afford to throw away your online presence. You had about half a million users on Final Fantasy XI, but let’s be realistic; you’re not going to be able to take much of the market away from Blizzard at this point. What if you did a console-based online RPG? It’s no secret I have a bias towards Phantasy Star Online, but you have to agree it was a pretty good model. You had four person parties taking guild missions and going out on adventures. That sounds a lot like an early Final Fantasy game to me. Done well, it could create a new cross-platform market and bring in some much needed subscription revenue. For now, I’ll wait patiently for Wakfu on XBLA at the end of this month!

Coming soon. The game is too.

I’d like to see you branch out a little, too. Gyromancer on XBLA was really fun and I played it relentlessly, but I know you can do better. Hell, you’ve done better in mini-games in Final Fantasy games. What about a card battler for XBLA and PSN, or maybe NGP and 3DS? You’ve showcased your “creatures” collection through Play Arts and gashapon, and since you and Enix got married, you’ve got all the Dragon Quest critters at your disposal, too. You could easily make a Pokémon or Card Fighters Clash style game utilizing your massive roster. I know it’s not what you’re focusing on right now, but just consider the idea.

A wild Cactuar appears! Holy shit!

I know finances can be a touchy subject, but as a friend and supporter, we need to talk about your investing habits. You purchased Taito and Eidos to get a better hold on distribution, IP diversity, and localization, and that’s all well and good but since then, you’ve been coming across as a little… overextended. I was relieved when I found out you were unable to purchase Tecmo. Before you go expanding any further, you should consider getting your assets in order. You’re trying to manage Final Fantasy on every platform imaginable, keep fans of Dragon Quest and Enix’s other popular lines happy, and now you have to juggle Space Invaders, Bubble Bobble, Thief, Deus Ex, Legacy of Kain, Hitman, and Tomb Raider. So far you’ve nailed bringing Space Invaders back in taking a similar approach to what Namco has done with Pac-Man and Galaga, but don’t get cocky — it’s going to get rocky now.

Look, I know you’ve had a lot of fun on your risky 2nd-party endeavors in the past. Einhänder, Ehrgeiz, The Bouncer, Driving Emotion… all good games but none were really as profitable as I’m sure you would have liked. Now you have major franchises to look after, all with respectable followings, so be careful and take your time and give Eidos the resources, attention, and direction they need. The last thing you want to do is become known as a conglomerate who has lost sight of their existing and newly acquired fans and just pumps out Maddenized sequels every year. Also keep in mind that having Eidos under your belt doesn’t give you credibility as a “western” developer, so don’t treat their IPs as such.

My money's on the chick on the left.

Oh, and what is this I hear about you planning a movie and game reboot for Tomb Raider? First I have to say that the Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light game for XBLA/iOS was awesome. Beyond that, the best way you could get Tomb Raider back into the realm of relevance is to really take a long hard look at Uncharted and Assassin’s Creed. Here you have one franchise that basically is Tomb Raider taken to an impressive new level, and another that has elements of fun platforming and exploration. I’m not saying you need to copycat anybody, but look at what works and don’t be too proud to not let them influence your direction a little. If you want to get stupid, do it with the movie. No one will care if it’s terrible.

Speaking of the Guardian of Light for XBLA, seeing Kain and Raziel from the Legacy of Kain series in the game really was a nice touch. Can we expect any new development on Legacy of Kain? Maybe start small with something similar to Guardian of Light’s isometric adventure and work your way up to a full scale console release?

Y'all ready for this?!

So are you excited about the 3DS and NGP? I certainly am. The 3DS would be a great place to reintroduce Seiken Densetsu to America. Isn’t Seiken Densetsu 3 still just laying around, collecting dust as a Japanese-exclusive masterpiece? You already have a 2.5D engine for the other Final Fantasy remakes, so really it’d just be polishing it up and putting in action-RPG elements. People do love their action-RPGs. Secret of Mana for iOS is one of the top selling apps and it’s nearly impossible to play. Nintendo is remaking Link’s Awakening for the 3DS Virtual Console. Maybe it’s time to slap a coat of paint on the old Final Fantasy Legend and Final Fantasy Adventure games, no?

3-D!! Fuck yeah!!!

The NGP looks killer and looks to have a lot of people excited. Since it’s fully backwards compatible with previous PSN Store content, you’ve already got the PSX Final Fantasy entries on there. How about a little Chrono Cross and Legend of Mana? If you think about it, since Sony is saying that porting from PS3 to NGP is “effortless”, you’re going to want to adapt the Crystal Engine to the NGP and capitalize on all that work you did over the past five years. It will need some tweaking for sure, so why not use that as an opportunity to crush the launch roster and answer the pleas of so many fans with a Final Fantasy VII remake? That Crystal Engine is going to last you years on the NGP so cash in now and show people what it can do. It might not hurt to try putting a new Final Fantasy Tactics game on that beautiful little screen, either.

This should have been you!

Oh, I almost forgot! I got your package a few months back, and shame on me for not sending a thank you note. The Chrono Trigger figurines were fantastic, and the iPod Touch was a blast to tinker around with. Preloading it with a couple of your games was definitely a nice touch. The original artwork on the post cards was amazing as always, and the soundtrack collection was epic. Overall it was a very generous gesture for only having to be a Ultimate level member of your “fan” club. I look forward to what next year has in store!

Next year, I expect a fucking iPad!

Well, that’s all for now. Have a great summer and stay as cool as you are!

Your pal,

Mr. Hawkins

P.S. Hang in there with the unimaginable challenge your country is facing right now. No one faults you for shutting down PlayOnline servers for a while. Godspeed.

At E3 2010, Nintendo announced that The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time was getting the remake treatment for the 3DS. Although regarded as the highest rated game of all time, sending Ocarina of Time to bat to represent the Legend of Zelda franchise on a new platform at this point is simply a bad idea.

We all know Ocarina of Time is a beloved game, and despite it being re-released for the Gamecube in 2003 and again in 2007 on the Wii’s Virtual Console Channel, my issue has nothing to do with Nintendo’s choice to push recycled content on us once again. My problem with the 3DS release is that it shows once again that Nintendo has no interest in earning the continued, yet waning hardcore fan loyalty they enjoy today. They also seem to be missing a huge opportunity to show off their new 3D capable handheld.

Whether intended or not, the Zelda franchise has long served as a vessel to show off Nintendo’s new technologies. The Legend of Zelda was the first game to use an internal battery to enable game saving to the physical cartridge, eliminating the need for players to use codes to continue progress. A Link to the Past showed off four level parallax scrolling, Mode-7 scaling, and the highest resolution sprites of any Nintendo game at that time. Ocarina of Time showed off full use of the N64′s unique controller by moving to a 3D graphical engine, while Majora’s Mask utilized the N64 Memory Expansion Pack. Wind Waker demonstrated the power of Gamecube’s cell-shading processor. Twilight Princess took advantage of the Wii’s motion controls, and Phantom Hourglass brings the DS stylus into play. Recently, Miyamoto revealed that the reason Ocarina of Time was selected for 3DS release was because he always wanted to see it in 3D (which I don’t buy), and because of its linear progression and lack of complexity. With the reputation Nintendo has earned as a developer who has abandoned their hardcore audience in favor of the shovelware buying casual crowd, this seems like a missed opportunity to turn the tide.

Nintendo has said that they have encountered some issues in development of their upcoming Zelda title for Wii, Skyward Sword, pushing it to “sometime” 2011. Since there is only one team that develops the portable and console Zelda games, I could see how they just wouldn’t have the resources to make a new Zelda game for the 3DS launch. There is a solution, and it’s one Nintendo has used several times in the past. The solution is to let another developer come in and take the reigns for a while so the core dev team can focus on catching up. In the past, Nintendo partnered with Capcom to produce the excellent Oracle of Ages/Seasons games, as well as the Minish Cap. Considering their track record of high quality in their DS development, maybe it’s time to tap Capcom for their help again.

As a fan of the Zelda series from day one, I am excited to see Ocarina of Time and, much more so, Link’s Awakening getting released on the 3DS. An actual remake of Link to the Past using the Phantom Hourglass engine would be nice. I’d also love to see the other GBC/GBA games released onto the 3DS Virtual Console. Just sayin’…

Recently it’s been rumored that Ocarina of Time will include the 64DD and Gamecube exclusive “Master Quest“, which is a nice bonus for sure. Obviously, there will be a proper Zelda game released for 3DS, but just like Mario 64 was a cheap copout to get Mario on the DS, Ocarina of Time feels very much the same. This just isn’t how you show your fans that you care about retaining them. Regardless of the direction they ultimately take, the new 3DS Zelda game should take full advantage of the 3D capabilities in puzzle solving and exploration. Unfortunately, it should be ready and available at (the very lackluster) launch. I’d even be okay with a Luigi’s Mansion style offering for launch day. The Legend of Midna could be a fresh look for a tiring DS game engine while adding depth to the end game scenario from Twilight Princess, but that is a different story.

Former Arkham Asylum warden Quincy Sharp has bought Gotham’s ghetto to make Arkham City after taking credit for stopping the Joker’s siege on Arkham Asylum and becoming mayor of Gotham. Yeah, that sounds like a good idea.

Arkham City has Kevin Conroy, Mark Hamill, and Arleen Sorkin, all returning as voice actors as Batman, the Joker, and Harley Quinn respectively. Let me just say that Kevin Conroy totally makes these games, but Mark Hamill announcing that this will be the last time he voices the Joker is a huge disappointment. The lineup for Arkham City also includes the Riddler, Mr. Freeze, Talia al Ghul, Victor Zsasz (hopefully in a bigger role this time), Dr. Strange (seen in the above trailer), and Calendar Man, as well as Catwoman and Two-Face. Yes *pushes up glasses*, Calendar Man’s real name is Julian Gregory Day, although Batman has never really been known for its pun-free content.

Aside from the absurd costume change for Harley Quinn between Arkham Asylum and Arkham City, there are minor differences that have been announced. Batman will get smoke bombs (think Assassin’s Creed 2) and a signal tracer that will help him track signal sources. Detective Mode is being revamped to an augmented reality mode after David Hugo, Rocksteady Art Director, saw players running through the entire game using Detective Mode.

I really like the direction they took Harley’s costume, but only because I thought her duds in Arkham Asylum were borderline gut-wrenching. The art direction in Batman Vengeance was probably my favorite since it paid such a strong homage to the animated series, although I suppose we have grown past that in the age of current-gen graphics. Mr. Freeze always makes the game (NOT THE MOVIE) for me, so I’m looking forward to seeing him in Arkham City. Oh also, if I can’t do this in Arkham City, I’m not buying it.

Batman: Arkham City is slated for release Q3 2011 on PS3, Xbox 360, and PC, and if you missed Arkham Asylum for $5 on the holiday Steam Sale for $5, shame on you.

GolgoHypeMachine is an open sounding board for our staff to concisely share their excitement about upcoming games.

This time I charge up my LAZER for the latest Pixel Junk game!

After ten years of solid support and tournament play of Marvel vs Capcom 2, Capcom officially took notice and rewarded fans with what they call “a huge evolution in Versus gameplay”. Marvel vs Capcom 3 is definitely a fun game, but to me it feels more like they made Tatsunoko vs Capcom 2 and passed it off as the game we’ve been waiting to see for the better part of a decade.

Don’t get me wrong, I like MvC3, and TvC for that matter, but I can’t get past how the game feels like TvC more than it feels like MvC2. I keep seeing arguments about how it’s just like MvC2 on paper with its “broken tier” balance and over-the-top craziness going on from start to finish. That’s not what defined MvC2 to me, and it just as easily describes TvC as any other Versus game. From a higher level, it seems like Capcom pulled a similar move to what Nintendo did with Super Mario Bros 2. Nintendo saw a demand for more Mario games in North America, but they didn’t want to localize their existing sequel. So what did they do? They took an existing game and repurposed the engine and gameplay with all new skins and characters. Sounds kinda familiar.

The move shouldn’t have surprised me really, as the TvC engine was advertised by Seth Killian, Capcom Community Manager and hype machine, as the engine Capcom would use for Versus games going forward. Prior to the announcement of MvC3, Chris Svensson, VP of Strategic Planning, was quoted as saying, “Perhaps TvC is a test. If it sells well and demand is high, maybe we’ll see a sequel on Microsoft and Sony’s consoles. Or maybe, fingers crossed, it’ll add further weight to the case for Marvel vs. Capcom 3.” I think we kinda got both.

When MvC3 was first announced, I was so amazed and excited that I had forgotten this fact and expected what each new Versus game had delivered in the past: a bigger roster, a visual nightmare feast, and addicting yet unbalanced gameplay. TvC was intentionally developed as a less technical fighter than previous Versus entries, requiring less demanding execution and timing and creating a more approachable system for a broader Japanese appeal. It was touted as an “evolution” to attempt to allow lower level players to be on a nearly even level with much more skilled players. While this made sense for TvC, it surely wouldn’t apply to something as highly competitive as MvC2… or so I thought.

As the game was shown bit by bit and people began to get answers about the direction Capcom was taking, the consistent answer to whether it played like TvC was “absolutely not, not even close, it plays just like MvC2″. Further reports from play tests came in saying it felt slow, sluggish, and “a lot like TvC”, but Capcom remained firm on their stance that the two games don’t even resemble each other. Finally we started to get a good look at the finished product, and the impressions were that it was a modified TvC graphics engine, a modified TvC control scheme, and a roster size slightly larger than that of TvC. This is how you’d describe a sequel to TvC, not MvC2. It also doesn’t help that Ryu, Viewtiful Joe, Morrigan, Zero, and early on, Frank West were confessed to be assets borrowed (and improved upon) from TvC. Granted, “sprite” rips are part of what defined Versus games in the past, but in this case it further goes to my point.

Like I said, the game is not bad by any means, and years from now we’ll probably have a DLC bolstered roster and MvC2 will go the way of the former fighting game champions. Unfortunately, to me it’ll never feel like the evolutionary step each previous entry in the series was to its predecessor. It feels like, for the first time in the series they tossed true fan service aside and took the easy route to appease fan demand. All Capcom had to do was say that the game is a “spiritual successor” of the Versus series, not call it MvC3, and release TvC on XBLA and PSN six months prior to MvC3′s release. Then the principal of the issue wouldn’t bother me so much, and that way more people, including myself, would be used to the control scheme and graphical engine of the new Versus platform prior to seeing it in our beloved MvC2 sequel. At least the newly announced Street Fighter X Tekken running on the “Cross” Series engine (basically a modified Street Fighter IV engine) looks very promising as a tag-team fighter. I’m not entirely sure why the SFIV engine wasn’t used for the versus games, but that’s neither here nor there. Regardless, everyone should definitely go out and get MvC3 for its own merits, because Capcom just doesn’t make bad fighting games.

P.S. Marvel vs Capcom 3 would be a killer NGP launch title. Just sayin’…

How many tries does it take to record a podcast? Apparently three! Join myself, Dr. Garcia, Mista Hawkins, The Infamous Belisle, and Aaron, who apparently is calling from overseas, as we discuss a week’s worth of gaming awesomeness!  On the show we cover the happs of GDC, the IGF winners, why Molly is wrong about Zelda, and why I need to give MvC 3 another shot! So, come one, come all and join our “Dinner Party“!

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