Pin Cushions

I would be pleased if the throwing knives in Red Dead had a little more stopping power.
If you're finding yourself with no concrete use for them, I have a suggestion:
Hunt small game with them.
Skulking through brush, playing darts with armadillos is surprisingly fun.
Good for your aim, too.

I'm sure you three readers that I have have been eyeing E3 on your own.
But in case you have missed Bethesda's Brink up to this point, check it out:

Video Games | Brink | E3 2010: Walkthrough

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

Lost in Translation

A guy I occasionally speak to at parties told me that the Konami E3 press conference was a real mess.
I haven't watched it yet, but you can judge for yourselves.
I can't.
If it wasn't for this guy I occasionally speak to, I wouldn't have opinions.

Video Games | Konami | E3 2010: Press Conference (Stream) Part I

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

If I Could Walk With the Animals...

I'm not sure about the rest of you 360 owners.
But navigating Tall Pines and the surrounding forest area is not really feasible.
That many trees and random grizzly encounters
(they sure can run fast, can't they?)
is too much for the system to load at once.
Really, the glitchiness and unplayability in this area are a testament to the forest's design.
The system chugs loading everything because a forest should have so much...stuff in it.
And Rockstar's forest does.
Nevertheless, the 360 has been hacking and coughing quite a bit.
Since entering Blackwater, actually.Y'know, the medicine system in the game is really somewhat primitive.
You get partially mauled by a cougar (speaking of running fast).
So, you access your provisions, freeze everything, use your medicine, and you're fine.
With hotdog and peanut vendors sort of straying from the motif, the medicine itself is an okay concept.
But using it should really be done on the fly.
If the original Ninja Gaiden remake is called out on this, I don't see why Red Dead should be any different.
...
And the skinning animation gets old.
Okay.
I'm done.
The game is a triumph.
But it has flaws.
We're all adults here.
Face facts.
Triumphs can be like that.
Ross Rebagliati can tell you all about it.
Seriously, though.
Taking away someone's gold medal due to traces of marijuana.
If you ask me, if you can get stoned and still snowboard well enough to win a gold medal, you deserve two gold medals.
One regular gold medal, and one that has gold foil with chocolate inside.

Days of Thunder

We're getting closer to a Road Rash rejuvenation.
It'll happen.
They're soon going to run out of classic games to recreate.
I know you hangers-on are excited that Gran Turismo 5 may launch this decade...
...but this is more intriguing, I believe.
Check the clip here at Playstation.Blog.
Sorry I can't embed it for you.
Though the ad itself is extremely dated, the announcement has some merit.
And one way or the other, it's nice to see that the Insane Clown Posse can still get a job besides the occasional birthday party. They look more like badgers than clowns in this picture, really.

Need for Greed

Finally.



EA figured out what to do with the Need for Speed franchise that will likely work:
Shit they did ten years ago.

Looney Toons

Pretty tall in the saddle, are you?
Figure you've put your Red Dead time in?
Your days of being a cowpoke are long gone.
You're now a rustler.
A 'slinger!
But let me ask you this:
Have you shot a TNT crate just as a rabbit is running by it?
I'm not going to say that "You haven't played the game until this has happened."
But I will say that it's extremely entertaining.

I'll tell you what's better than Rockstar compiling a bunch of songs onto a bunch of invented radio stations:
Rockstar's own music.
Iggy Pop be damned.
The fact that they could take brass instruments, and make them fit in a western motif.
That speaks volumes.


This, in fact, wasn't the track I was looking for.
There's another that crops up randomly while wandering.
I'm not sure if it is specific to a certain area. I'll make a note the next time I hear it.

Obsidian may be licking their Alpha Protocol wounds now...
But this title will be something to be proud of.
Everyone knows that Dungeon Siege was the best non-Diablo Diablo imitation.
Besides, I can't remember an earlier game that allowed you to buy a pack mule.

Battletoads + Double Dragon

You have to try this.
Please, just trust me.
This is like Zeppelin covering Bohemian Rhapsody.



Or The Muppets.

Hard Time

Majesco is going to publish a Martha Stewart game.
Press is still a little obscure, but Majesco released details on the basic premise of the game.
You play as Martha Stewart, obviously.
Gameplay is third-person stealth action.
The game begins with you shivving the overnight guard on watch while on laundry detail (also doubles as the game's training mission).
From there you dispose of prison staff and convicts using any means available.
Sounds like a Manhunt ripoff to me.
I hear it's going to be rated AO in Australia.
Laundry doesn't act solely as the springboard for the game's story.
It also doubles as a handy mini-game in which you fold linens for other convicts.
You're paid in cigarettes, which can then be traded for new jumpsuits and concept art.

"He Gets It All the Time"

If I ever met Ted Price, I'd probably hug him.
You'd have to point him out to me first, though.
Wouldn't want to hug his assisstant or anything.
That could be construed as a mixed message.
I'll likely never be in the same room as him.
But it's not something I'm going to...lose sleep...over.
Get it?!
Lose sleep?!
Insomniac Games?!
I don't know what I'd do to Andy Gavin and Jason Rubin
(after you pointed them out to me).
Give them noogies, probably.
I heard that they smoothed over Crash Bandicoot's teeth in order to market him in Japan.
No, seriously.
They also blurred out his genitals in the commercials.
It's just common decency.


edit: I googled 'noogies' before publishing this post.
Just to make sure it hasn't become a racial slur of some sort.

Doesn't Matter If You Win or Lose (it's if you play the game)

Feel like being aggravated?
Here's a quote from Ebert, explaining how he knows that video games cannot be art.
His quote, however, doesn't explain why his lips look so funny.
Someone should tell Ebert that we let him critique films because he actually watches them.
Obviously he doesn't play video games.
If he did, he wouldn't say that you 'win' them.
You know who uses the term 'winning' when referring to finishing games?
My parents.
You win when you play Tri-Bond.
What a fat head.
Someone should jam Ebert back into his suitcase until Avatar 2 comes out.

Thumbs down, buddy.

edit: I used Okami just because it's an obvious counter.
I could have used a GTA screen, or countless other titles just as easily.

Reeking Havok

I would have written sooner than now.
But I've been sitting in my own filth since the last post.
Trying to kill the Armored Spider in Demon's Souls.
I finally beat him earlier this week.
So, I can start ogling girls outside of La Senza again.
That's a real job.
A real job like killing that Armored Spider.
It's nice to fight a boss with uncertainty.
Well, it's nice until you die and have to go farm more healing items.
Y'know what Demon's Souls reminds me of?
Mega Man.
Seriously, though.
You progress through a level, not knowing what you'll run into next.
Then you run into it.
Then it kills you.
Then you start over.
There's a rhythm to the levels; a pace.
Want proof?
Do a level that you've done a hundred times already (Boletarian Palace, probably)...
...completely backwards.
I still haven't seen the dog that shoots energy balls from its' tail.

Reviewers complained about the physics in the game.
Particularly with the dead bodies.
And their tendency to tango around when you walk into them.
This is on damned good authority.
The Havok physics are, for once in gaming history (maybe), piss poor.
But, I've figured out how to appreciate them.
I learned it with my wizard, and have since translated it to my thief:
Savour the death of every jerkoff that you kill.
Which you should be doing anyway.
Administer a finishing blow, and then stand perfectly still.
They sort of die convincingly then.
Beyond that, try to walk around their dead bodies instead of through them.
That's the best I can tell you, though.
If you're fighting in close-quarters, my suggestion is null and void.
Speaking of which, that lock-on camera, though crucial, can and will fuck you at times.
In a game where you're already getting fucked so frequently...

Clearing the Air

Drain the brake fluid on your buddy's car.
It's April Fool's Day.
Keep an eye out for headlines suggesting that Duke Nukem Forever is coming out.
It'll just end up being a gag.
Or a Road Rash sequel...
Y'know, all the game industry consists of now is frigging sequels.
You think someone would have made a new Road Rash by now.
When's the last time any of you wailed on Biff with a chain?
Exactly.
Ubisoft got their April Fool's joke out a little early.
Check out the gag here, via Gamespot.
Good one, Ubisoft.
You almost had us there.

It's a big day for me.
I still look the same as I do, but! I'm getting a PS3 today.
Big deal.
I was okay without one for this long.
But there are too many exclusives that I'm missing now.
I believe I already mentioned Demon's Souls.

My Dead Space rental will have to be cut short as a consequence.
However, I'm very glad I picked up this property before its' next iteration.
If you ignore the lack of statues and playing card-themed keys,
this title is more Resident Evil than Resident Evil 4 is.
Well, it's a bit of a tie, maybe.
I mentioned earlier that this game has a great sense of atmosphere.
And this proved truer as I progressed through the tram rides.
Not only did Redwood Shores nail their attempts at ambiance.
They shift that ambiance as Issac makes his way through the goo.
It's reminiscent of Bioshock in that way.
After so many gloomy hallways, a change of pace was due.
But I didn't expect the Hydroponics Labs.
You walk into this green, lush, clean environment.
And after listening to so many crying babies and violin riffs...
...crickets.
It's such a pleasant shift in tone, it's almost palpable.
Like a shedding of skin.
Or, you know when your socks are really wet and you want to take them off?
It's like that.
Then you have to shoot those poisonous wheezies with the mutated lungs.
And they prove to be creepier than any monster in the game.
If you took this long to play it like I did, today's your day.
Break up with your girlfriend and splurge the twenty bucks.
Slam the game for a few days.
Then tell your (ex-)girlfriend that you were April Fooling her.
Didn't expect that little tidbit of genius, did you?
Gaming is all about distancing yourself from your girlfriend.
And then tricking her into having sex with you again.
If you have this title, dust it off.
It deserves another go-around.



edit: I have to figure out how to make videos of my own gameplay.

Out of This World

It's worth a look just for the music alone:

Body Language

Will Wright birthed SimCity and The Sims. Spore.
And now he's looking to do a project for TV.
It's going to be entitled: Almost Real Life.
It will feature people who will come onto the show and do housework.
And, after they finish enough chores, they'll be able to buy a lamp.
Or an armchair.
Which they can then place wherever they please within the house.
They'll also eat meals.
And occasionally shower. With blurred genitalia.
Like the Japanese.
Then, a tornado will suddenly appear and fuck everything up.
Or a giant tumbleweed.
Sounds like a good fit for Fox.
I found the article on Gameinformer (which is where I find everything).

The corpse physics in Dead Space are pretty atrocious.
If you brush up against something you already plugged, it will jitter around.
Unconvincingly.
However, put those corpses in a vacuum.
And the same dead bodies animate fluidly and convincingly.
I'd even go so far as to say beautifully.
That is, if we're to believe footage from Apollo 13 and The Next Generation.
I know I do.

Here's the least irritating video I could find
(though the player's a bad shot):

Green Herb + Red Herb

I had to bring XIII back to the rental shop.
I will pick it up eventually, though.
The beauty of getting Game Over when your main character dies
Is that you actually get Game Over from time to time.
Really, in a Final Fantasy, how often does that happen?
Particularly intense boss battles.
Malboros.
Anything that turns you to stone.
And when you let your guard down around a pack of Mindflayers.
Mind Blast and whatnot.
Because when you can't control your mind, you can't operate properly.
Which is why people get hammered and immediately lower their standards.

I've never played a Tom Clancy game that had a plot I considered interesting.
What does that say about Tom Clancy?

I picked up Dead Space on a 7-day rental.
The demo up on Live and the PSN doesn't set up the game properly.
Sure it goes over commands and instructions.
Tells you what to shoot.
But the demo also undoes its' own sense of atmosphere by screwing with the game's pace.
Which, for anyone who's played it, are the game's most charming traits.
At first I thought, "Shoot limbs? UN troops shoot limbs.
I shoot faces."
It took me capping a couple of those spindly assholes to realize:
Shooting limbs can sometimes be tougher to pull off.
Anyway, I'm still early on, but it's a great time.
Does survival horror properly.
I constantly check my ammo reserve and inventory space.
And ink ribbon supply.

edit: The Gapra Whitewood in XIII was when things became interesting.
It is also the last place I reached before returning the game.
It was the first area with visuals that felt like next-gen Final Fantasy,
And it was the first place with intriguing character development.
The mutual, bitter pissiness of Lightning and Hope made for intriguing dialogue between them.
Which the game sadly lacks.

Finally?

My incredibly early impressions of XIII?
Glad you asked.
Final Fantasy is tough because you play it knowing that you like it.
But you have to rank it in the lineup, or you're not hardcore enough.
It's higher than Mystic Quest.
Which also had visible monsters.
People complain that random encounters are boring.
I consider the opposite to be far more tedious.

It's a good thing that IGN posted this blurb from SE director, Motomu Toriyama.
For those of you too overweight to check the link, he defends the linearity in the game's first portion.
Which prevents dweebs like me from complaining about it.
As of now, the game sort of plays like a giant tunnel.
And the enemies are mixed and matched.
Like nuts.
Alright. Fight two pistachios and an almond.
Now fight the almond with a cashew and a pistachio.
Now it's two pistachios and an almond again, but they have a back attack on you this time.
I'm not saying that it's bad.
But I am saying that I'd be concerned if I hadn't read the Toriyama comment.
All of his buddies call him by his last name.
I have his number in my phone.
It's a Japanese number, so there's a bunch of digits.
He calls me when he's hammered sometimes.

Anyway.
The visuals might be next-gen, but the lead character movement through this tunnel is not.
Animation, even the sound of footsteps for world exploration is taken directly from X.
Sure, it's nit-picky, but it does feel a little Savage Garden.
A little 2001.
It just makes movement feel subconsciously dated, that's all.
We'll get over it.
You know when you go out with Roman and you get hammered in GTA?
At that Russian place across from the burned-out apartment?
Well, when you're all hammered, yelling at the cabs.
That's sort of how the camera controls in XIII.
It moves sluggishly sometimes and intuitively the rest of the time.
Though full camera rotation in battle is a nice touch.
And it does so fluently during combat.
Which is when it counts.

Remember XII?
And all of the cool shit they said in XII?
Here's Basch, being all romantic and chivalrous:

"If I could protect but one person from war's horror...then I would bear any shame. I would bear it proudly."
I was sort of hoping that Final Fantasy characters would speak like this from now on.
But, much like the rapper, Snow had to come along and fuck that all up.
For any American readers out there, Snow is sort of a Canadian inside joke.
Well, he's an outside joke, too. Wherever he goes.
Snow Villiers has as much charm as that guy at the party who no one wants to talk to.
My favourite part is when he recruits Hope's mom.
Who is designed like a real tart, by the way.
She sort of reminds me of the druggie mom from the first Crow film.
Anyway, she says she wants to fight, and Snow hands her a gun.
Then he says something about being brave and so on.
And then I can't remember what he says.
But it's just as well he said:
"And babe, right now, in this chaos, you're some chick I'd like to bang."
Vanille sometimes sounds like a Japanese girl impersonating an Australian.
Sometimes she sounds like she has a speech impediment.

Okay, this is enough complaining.
The treasure chests bounce.
They're supposed to be hard to find.
Alright. Now this is enough complaining.
I may make it sound like I'm not enjoying the game.
But I am.
The paradigm system has a lot of promise for intuitive battles.
And the customization of this system looks like it will allow the player to develop character roles as they see fit.
Sorta like a job system.
Which has never been a bad thing in a Final Fantasy game.
There's my one-tenth review of the game that no one will read.
Take it away, fellas.

Birth Mark

I have rented Final Fantasy XIII.
I considered purchasing on release.
But I'm going to have a tough time playing that copy of Demon's Souls until I buy a PS3.
So I have to wait, and play by the rules of Rogers' Video.
The person working there kept trying to close the rental case.
But she couldn't.
Because three discs won't fit into one case.
Which I felt like telling her while I stood there.
But then how would she get a sense of accomplishment from her job?

Final Fantasy introduced me to role-playing games.
Which kind of sealed my fate, really.
It would have been Dragon Warrior.
But my brothers wouldn't let me play it.
Besides, for some reason, at the age of five, I found the music scary.
I have a tattoo of the series' black mage on my ribs.
Well, some of my ribs.
Tattoo ideas don't occur to me.
They dawn on me, like Newton with the apple tree.
"Of course! The black mage!
Who needs sex with women, anyway?"
Well, that depends on how long the series goes on for.

edit:
I've been told I have large nipples, gaming community.
But you probably all do as well.

Bring Out Your Dead

My Xbox 360...

...Passed abruptly away this weekend.

Just as my Dragon Age character was finally about to bang Leliana for the achievement.

Survived by myself, and my buddies who played NHL '10 with me on the weekends. Also by my warranty receipt which I cannot seem to find.

Condolences and Microsoft Point Cards welcome.

To send off your own 360 in style during the interim before you buy a new one, I strongly recommend this site.


My 360 didn't really die.
Well, not this weekend.
Then again...it's only Saturday.
I'll keep you posted.

I have finally purchased Demon's Souls.
Now I just need the PS3 to go with it.
I wanted to play it so badly that I kept watching video reviews for it.
GameTrailers had the best one.

You Again...

Remember when games were made into second games because it was earned?
There's a problem with the industry having money.
It's a prime opportunity for executive hard-ons to waste it.
On garbage that should be forgotten instead of being repackaged and thrown at us again.
Let's see how many writers get fired because of it this time.
Maybe they can get a job on the dev. team for the third one.

When you were a kid, even cool games wouldn't get sequels.
Now that just makes them even cooler.
Blackthorne.
Eternal Darkness (okay, young adult).
Faxanadu.
A.P.B..
Could you imagine four installments of Bayou Billy?

Come on.

What happened to the honour?
The responsibility?
You release a humiliating title you do the noble thing:
Take all of the units to a dump and bury them in fucking concrete.
It's called the drawing board.

I Only Do It Because I Love You

Has Bioware really gotten a grasp on the good vs. evil schematic yet?
I love Bioware.
Baldur's Gate dropped-I was there.
Regardless.
Here's a synopsis:
You beat up the abusive bartender for the bar wench.
The slider moves up a quarter inch in the blue bar.
You beat up the bar wench (to keep her in line), quarter inch in the red bar.
Blue bar: Everyone is polite to you.
Red bar: Merchants say something pissy before the purchase menu opens.
But they're making promises for ME2.
Here's hoping they deliver.

I just finished Assassin's Creed 2.
Don't bother trying to get that sand tossing acheivement.
Just whack your controller off of something.
Then immediately check to see if all of the buttons still work.
Mutter, "Bullshit," under your breath.
And dye your clothes a new colour instead.
Save you a whole bunch of time.
Did you do that when you were kids, by the way?
Whack your controller off of something and then immediately calm down?
And then check to see if all of the buttons still worked?
It's like the game reeled you into a frenzied sort of trance.
And damaging your controller was the only way to snap out of it.
Ever see how bulls have their testicles clamped up during rodeos?
But as soon as they take the clamp off, the bull's cool with everyone?
Same thing.
You'd kick around like that, too, by the way.
If someone clamped up your testicles.