NGP vs. 3DS-WHO YA GOT?!?!?!?

Sony unveiled their successor to the PSP, codenamed the "Next Generation Portable" (NGP) yesterday along with a whole mess of specs and upcoming titles. It does address some huge issues that the original had, namely the cumbersome UMD format being gone and adding a second analog stick. Sony is boasting it's nearly as powerful as the PS3, which sounds like it'll be costly. Sony also claims it'll be "affordable",  though what that actually means is anybody's guess. I think anything over $299 would be insane, and even that would probably raise more than a few eyebrows. Of course the underlying issue here is that support for the PSP was pretty goddamn anemic, with many titles cancelled and long gaps in-between solid releases. It's hard to say if anyone is going to even give a damn this round, but then again, last time everyone expected the PSP to completely dominate the DS. This time the NGP is the massive underdog, so who knows? I do know that I don't really care to play Sony's biggest console franchises on the go, they need some real original content to drive sales or this might even have a history than the go.

So I tried the Bulletstorm demo yesterday, and boy I felt like I had just played Duke Nukem Forever, or what Forever is probably supposed to be, as it was filled with gratitous violence and swearing and desperately trying to make you love every minute of despite coming out more like something that escaped from the extreme attitude of the 90s. I was mildly amused, but ultimately bored by its excess.

And finally, WATCH ARCHER SEASON 2! It premiers tonight, I'll probably watch it tomorrow online. And I should still have another post this weekend.

The 15 Best Animated Superhero Shows

Superheroes are awesome, it's just fact. And while live action seems to be the trend lately, animation is a much more natural fit to really represent them in the best way possible. So with that in mind, here are the 15 best examples of top notch shows pretty much anybody should be able to enjoy:

#15: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Far more goofy than their gritty comic book origins, the original Turtles show took a whole bunch of weird and made it work. As if the Turtles themselves weren't crazy enough in concept, adding brain-like space alien Krang and moronic minions Bebop & Rocksteady turned it up a notch. And yet for the most part it worked really well, managing to combine decent action with comedy really well. It kind of fell apart the last couple seasons, but few shows, animated or otherwise had such a strong run for such a long time, to this day they are still making TMNT, with a new show on Nickelodeon coming out this year, which speaks to the appeal and strength of this oddly fantastic foursome of ninjas.

#14. Freakazoid : Possibly the most insane superhero ever, winning most of his battles by simply irritating his enemies more often than doing anything remotely heroic. Whether he actually even qualifies as a hero is possibly in question, since he just does whatever he wants most of the time, mostly in an absolutely hilarious fashion, with completely awesome and random humor thrown in just for the hell of it.

#13. The Tick

While most of these shows do a pretty good job at poking fun at the superhero genre once and great while, The Tick managed to do it every single episode, be it the dim bulb hero or his equally ridiculous allies like Sewer Urchin and even more awesomely ridiculous enemies such as Chairface Chippendale. A still brilliant parody of the occasional stupidity of comics, this probably still reigns as the greatest superhero comedy ever.

#12. Darkwing Duck: Superheroes are supposed to be selfless, all about helping their fellow man, and don't really care for glory. That is not Darkwing at all. He's all about the glory, extremely petty, egotistical and selfish, sometimes dangerously so. And that's what makes him so awesome. But at the end of the day, he still beats the bad guy, making him one of the few heroes that usually can back up his huge boasts.

#11. X-Men Evolution: It'd be nearly impossible to try and outdo the original X-men series (more on that later), so why even bother? Granted, sending heroes back to high school is a risky proposition, but Evolution made it work incredibly well, bringing a great mix of stand-alone and arching storylines that would even stretch into the next season, which is extremely rare for an cartoon shows. It's a shame it only lasted 3 seasons, which didn't five it much of a chance at having a rich a deeply layered history like it could have.

#10.  Gargoyles: This is probably Disney's most ambitious animated series to date. It's has layers upon layers of character development and plot lines, it's dark, dealing with deep betrayal, murder, kidnapping, hate crime and other such non-kiddy fare. And being on Disney with this kind of subject matter, you knew it was only destined for a few seasons, but what a fantastic few seasons they were.

#9. Batman: The Brave & the Bold : It's an incredible accomplishment to do Batman as light and campy and still make it work exceptionally well, but that's exactly what the most recent Dark Knight series has done, being extremely funny and loaded with cameos from DC's vast B & C-list such as Blue Beetle & Plastic Man. It's also the only show to portray Batman as having an actual sense of humor, which while out of character for his more serious portrayals, works very well within the show.

#8. Batman Beyond : There can't really be another Batman other than Bruce Wayne, right? Nobody could possibly fill that role. Except what the hell do you do when Batman actually does get too old? In comes Terry McGinnis, who isn't Bruce Wayne, not by a longshot. But he's a new kind of Batman, for a new age, and it works, even beating the likes of Freeze and the Joker in his own way. Gotham doesn't always need Bruce Wayne, but it does always need a Batman, and Terry fills in the role very nicely.

#7. X-Men : Premiering the same year as Batman: the Animated series, this was one of the first attempts to do a real, serious cartoon show, and boy did it work. Arcs that ran over the whole show, a real continuity to the universe and the episodes, and the bonus of bringing some classic X-Men storylines to life. This was one of the first examples that animation and cartoons specifically did not have to be candy coated crap meant to sell toys and could be as good as anything on prime time TV. If it has any failings, it was that unlike the best shows, it was completely serious, instead of having a good mix of humor and drama.

#6. Spectacular Spider-Man : There have been a fair amount of Marvel cartoons over the years, several starring Spider-Man, this is far and away the best, managing to perfectly capture the personality of the wall-crawler while successfully taking a new spin on most of his villains and friends. Sadly this fantastic show lasted only 2 seasons, a fatality of the rights going back to Sony, which choose to go with a new show rather than keep the great original. Boo Sony.

#5. Teen Titans : This might actually be the funniest superhero series that isn't a spoof, giving the show an exaggerated anime style and most of the characters extremely goofy yet enjoyable and endearing personalities. Yet it manages to mix in some seriousness, most of it dealing with Robin's arch nemesis Slade but also dealing with things like Raven's repressed darker nature from time to time.  For pure entertainment and hilarity, it's hard to top this awesome 5-season run.

#4. Superman : The Animated Series: Arguably DC's most famous hero (at least until Batman's recent leap in popularity), a huge problem with Superman was that he was practically invincible, how do you keep that interesting? Bruce Timm managed to do it, making nearly every episode entertaining and the best representation of the Man of Steel to date.

#3. Avatar: The Last Airbender : Like many of the shows on this list, Avatar manages to blend drama and humor extremely well. What makes it stand out is that it's an original property that manages to create a rich universe and it manages to tell its story in three short but amazing seasons. It could've gone on longer (and sort of will thanks to an upcoming spin-off) but in the end it didn't really need to, it accomplished what few shows, especially cartoons manage to do in wrapping up all its key plots to come to a stellar and satisfying conclusion, making it easily one of the best series ever, animated or otherwise.

#2:  Justice League/Justice League Unlimited :  The original Justice League show was a great feat, managing 8 superheroes in compelling ways with great intertwining storylines for 3 seasons. When it changed to Unlimited, potentially incorporating the entire DC universe, it got even better, taking time to make us care about nobodies like Hawk & Dove, Vigilante, or the hilarious Booster Gold while still giving plenty of screen time to the big name heroes. Probably the most amazing aspect was continuity, even mining episodes of Batman, Superman & Batman Beyond for episode material.

#1. Batman: The Animated series: Arguably responsible for cartoons finally being taken as something more than kid's stuff. It was true to the source material, and actually made the comic it was based on better. Harley Quinn was an original creation of the show, Mr. Freeze was made a better villain, and so on. It managed to have great adventures, seriously dark moments, and even completely hilarious episodes. It is the standard-bearer, and probably always will be.

Ok that's the list. Don't really have anything else, but I'll probably be back Friday with another post. Until then, here's your FREE GAME OF THE WEEK: Zombie Homerun

The need for Achievements?

Achievements. Everybody has them these days. Microsoft, Sony, World of Warccraft, Credit Cards. They are goddamn everywhere. And why not? It's obviously great to get some form of recognition for your work, they add extra value to games. But Nintendo doesn't use them and while its not opposed to it, seems to have no real plans to implement them anytime soon. Now granted, achievements should never be the reason you buy a game, that throws you into achievement whore territory. And while I rarely go out of my way to get some of the more challenging and ridiculous achievements, knowing that I get some sort of reward for doing something extra will usually get at least a few extra hours out of me, especially if it manages to be fun. Nintendo's philosophy seems to pretty much be that playing the game and exploring for extra content should be its own reward, i.e. if you get all the stars in Super Mario Galaxy, that's reward enough, you don't need a special reward saying so. And there's really nothing wrong with this philosophy, after all some sort of uniform reward system didn't really exist until the Xbox came along in the first place.

So then is there a right answer to this question? Well, why there is certainly nothing inherently wrong with Nintendo's philosophy the bottom line it is a feature that both Microsoft and Sony offer that Nintendo doesn't, so it may be a difference maker in what platform cross console games are bought on not too mention what console you may buy. Nintendo's not opposed to it, so even if it is too late for the Wii (and really, it probably is), they could implement it into the 3DS without much issue and whatever the eventual successor to the Wii will be. This is a company that claims it listens to its audience, and this is something all gamers, casual or hardcore, do want.

That's really all I got for today, so until next time here's your TRAILER OF THE WEEK: Skateland

And your Batman 3 Villains are...

With Tom Hardy and Anne Hathaway filling the respective roles. Anne Hathaway is a great actress, though whether or not she can do Catwoman justice is anybody's guess, as with most female superheroes, it's an incredibly hard role to get the right fit for. That being said, Nolan we shouldn't second guess any choices Nolan makes at this point. You could probably give him the Care Bears and he'd come back with the most awesome film ever. Tom Hardy as Bane is absolutely goddamn brilliant, because behind all those Venom-induced muscles is a brilliant criminal mastermind and Hardy is probably one of the few people who can bring both proper physicality and terrifying intelligence to the role. It's heavily rumored that regardless how successful it is, this will be Nolan's last Batman. I can see why, nobody wants to get tied to a franchise when they've got other things they want to do, but that leaves little possibility for his take on other great Batman villains like Mr. Freeze or Croc, so hopefully they'll be able to wrangle him into just one more film (hell after that Bale will probably be too old anyways and they'll have to get someone new or just start over).

The 3DS is coming out on March 27th for $250.  Granted that seems a little on the high side, but I bet that won't really slow sales down. It's not too high for my blood, but as with about 99% of other system launches, the initial line-up looks like complete garbage, so I won't be getting one launch day, but admittedly I'll probably pick one up after Kid Icarus and the Ocarina of Time remake hit, which is supposed to be later this year.

And yes I did pick up DC Universe Online for the PS3 this week. I had debated waiting til a few reviews hit, but I had a lot of fun in the beta and the first month is free, so what they hey. And even though I thought it would feel repetitive going through some of the same missions, I made a completely new character, which helped quite a bit. Now this is a game that's actually mostly built around end game content, so we'll have to see if it holds up on that end, but as of right now, it's a very fun title.

Finally, a direct sequel arguably the most polarizing Final Fantasy game ever, Final Fantasy XIII, has been announced. And that's all we really know at this point. No idea if it'll completely overhaul the battle system, feature new characters or what. While I enjoyed the original, it was not really have many of the qualities that traditionally define what Final Fantasy is. Here's hoping that's what they are attempting to do with the sequel.

Ok, that's really all I have for today, so I'll end it here with your FREE GAME OF THE WEEK: Tesla Death Ray

It's a Little Big Planet after all

It is indeed a completely awesome week to be a PS3 owner, with arguably the biggest reason being the giant timesink that is Little Big Planet 2. Because as if making your own levels wasn't time-consuming enough, now you can pretty much make any game you can imagine. Which actually raises the question is LBP 2 even really a game? I mean sure there's a single-player, but I'd suggest it's more of a tool-set (especially based on the rather poor demo that was released) simple enough for anyone to use regardless of their level of programming skill, which with everyone being able to put their vision out for someone to download, could make it the best bang for your buck in all of gaming. I don't know if I'll pick it up right away, I really don't have the free time to play around with the tool set, and it'll be a little while before people really get a hang of using it and start churning out some amazing stuff, so I'll probably give it a look if there's a good sale or when the inevitable Game of the year edition hits.

Also hitting shelves this week for the PS3 is the best game of last year, Mass Effect 2. It is awesome that PS3 owners get to experience this awesome franchise, but I'm really surprised that Bioware isn't also releasing the original. Sure there's a comic book so people can catch up, but honestly one of the coolest things about 2 is seeing stuff that you did in the original make differences in the sequel, even if it didn't affect the overall game all that much, little touches here and there help seal the deal, and PS3 owners miss out on that. Also, it's like starting a series in the middle. Yes, you don't absolutely have to play the original to enjoy the sequel, but like any good trilogy there's a whole important layer missing.

After the excellence that was Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection, one could only hope  Sega would release more awesomeness from years past. Well, they are releasing something from years past at any rate with the Dreamcast Collection. Now the sadly doomed Dreamcast had many great titles, none of which are on this collection. Sonic Adventure was terrible when it was released and hasn't aged well, Crazy Taxi is fun for about 10 minutes, and do I really even have to explain why Bass Fishing is a poor choice? That pretty much just leaves Space Channel 5: Part 2, which I'd rank a solid but not really a classic. Hope if there's a volume 2, it's got a much meatier offering (hint, Jet Grind Radio, Skies of Arcadia & Grandia II would make any collection a must-buy).

ok that's really it for today but I should be back with another post in the next couple of days, in the meantime here is your FREE GAME OF THE WEEK: Moby Dick: The Videogame

The most important game EVER.

I've mentioned this before, but it's sort of mind-boggling that this is the first real mmorpg taking a serious shot at the console audience. I mean yeah, there's FFXI, but that was pretty much a half-assed attempt at best. This is the first one really designed to fit a console, with a serious license and budget behind it, and it may set the trend for the future of online console gaming as we know it. Console gamers are sort of lost on the idea of paying for anything beyond the initial purchase, as you can tell if you read virtually any PS3 thread on any forum about the game, they think paying a monthly fee is stupid. But this isn't Call of Duty or MAG or Borderlands or whatever. It's a persistent changing universe with constant updates, and clearly none of these people have played a game like it or they would know that. And frankly that does not bode entirely well for the game.

Now granted, this may just be the usual vocal minority, as we've seen the vast majority don't even bother doing things like going on forums and bitching about stuff like this. We won't really know until sales figures come in. But the reason this game obviously has a huge responsibility on its shoulders is pretty obvious-if it does well, we may see a long overdue flood of other MMOs. If it fails, well odds are it won't completely kill off other attempts, but it may remain the mostly barren wasteland we've been used to all these years. I'm really hoping for the former, although admittedly with nearly every MMO going free-to-play these except WOW(and most of them actually making a lot more money that way), a monthly subscription may not be the best overall idea to welcome console gamers into the MMO waters. I guess we'll see how everything plays out over the next few months.

That's really all I got for today, but there should be another post sometime this weekend (most likely Friday). Until then,here's your TRAILER OF THE WEEK:  Battle LA

WHY SQUARE? WHY DO YOU TORTURE US?

Seriously, Kingdom Hearts II came out ALMOST 5 YEARS AGO. But yet a myriad of mostly underwhelming re-mixes & spin-offs have not stopped coming out the gate rather than a proper sequel. Where we re-visit worlds yet again with characters we don't really care about. And they are digging into this shallow well once again with the DS port of a damn cell phone game in Kingdom Hearts: Coded. Where you play a digital version of Sora and re-visit the worlds that we've visited many, many times before. Yes, it can be fun to go back to familiar places, but it would be to see how they have changed since the previous adventures not to see them as they were all over again.

Now granted, Disney has used a large majority of their biggest classic tales already, but that still leaves a wealth of good properties to mine (as many including myself have mentioned) as well as Square and now even Marvel properties to use. What we really need from the powers that be is a full-fledged sequel. I don't even care what console it's on, pretty much anything from the PS3 to the DS have all proven capable of handling such an epic. Just put it out with some new worlds and maybe a couple old ones for nostalgia's sake. I wouldn't really say I was disappointed by Birth By Sleep, but it wasn't Kingdom Hearts 3, it was a prequel. I and pretty much all KH fans want a proper sequel and we wanted it no later than 2 or 3 years ago. Now Square has said to expect a Kingdom Hearts title at least once a year, but frankly unless that title has a "3" attached to it, I'm not going to be horribly interested in what they are churning out.



Ok, that's really all I have for today, but I will probably be back Monday with something else (probably on DC Universe). In the meantime, here's your FREE GAME OF THE WEEK: Bat Country

Time to get excited about Xbox Live arcade again. For at least a month anyways...

Being a xbox arcade fan is mostly a series of short highs and extremely long lows. You usually get periods for about a month (or if you are really lucky 2) where there is a ton of quality content eager to fill up your hard drive and empty your wallet. But for months at a time it is a virtual wasteland of overpriced garbage or disappointing rehashes of classics that were better left in yesteryear. But hey, Microsoft has decided that for at least several weeks starting in February, we should actually get real excited with it's Xbox Live Arcade House Party.

Admittedly a Bejeweled game and another card title hold absolutely no interest to me but everybody should be extremely excited about Beyond Good & Evil HD & Torchlight. BG&E was one of the best titles of the last generation no one played and word is this is sort of a litmus test to see if Ubisoft should make a proper sequel. If you haven't played BG&E before now (and odds are you haven't) it's arguably the best Zelda-esque title you will ever see on a non-Nintendo console, so do yourself a huge favor and download it so Ubisoft can see that there is in fact a great reason to make a sequel.

Torchlight is kind of a question mark. Yes its a fantastic game, especially if you love Diablo-style dungeon crawls, but it's been on the PC a long time already, often available for a mere $5 (at least through services such as Steam anyways). This sort of brings into question how much is it worth? Granted, if you never have played the game before the expected high price tag might be worth it, but if anyone has an even semi-decent computer available to them, there's little reason to buy it. Though $10 sounds like a sweet spot price point to me, if it comes out at that I might justify having it on my hard drive.

Of course this still doesn't solve the real issue-that ever since it's launch the Xbox Live Arcade service is pretty much the poster boy of inconsistency. We get a few noteworthy titles months apart, and for the most the release list is utter garbage no one in their right minds would pay for. Microsoft really needs to get a handle on this, if they really treated it as a serious channel for delivering content on par with brick & mortar retail (like the pc already has for years with digitial distribution), it could make real quality titles delivered on a consistent basis, and with hard drives getting bigger and bigger, a large project is getting a lot more feasible these days. Unlike previous hardware cycles (especially with Kinect selling so ridiculously well) the 360 still probably has quite a few years left so there's still time to correct before the next generation and have a system in place for when that does happen.

That's really all I got today, but I should be back Saturday with another post. Until then, here is your TRAILER OF THE WEEK: Paul

The first good console MMO?

Why MMOs are almost exclusively a PC genre is sort of a mystery these days. Sure, console gamers that are used to paying just for the initial box and maybe some future dlc would balk at paying a monthly subscription fee and keyboards are far more versatile for the genre in general, but the sheer lack of attempts is staggering. I mean there have been a few canceled projects and that's about it. DC Universe Online is hopefully set to change this mindset when it comes out in about a week and a half. I've been able to play a few sessions here and there in the beta, and the game actually works incredibly well with the PS3 controller, giving you a much more action-packed grind than you get out of WOW. Of course, it's easy to forget that this is a new MMO, just about to come out of beta, and there are still plenty of maintenance issues (the reason I'm not playing right now is because the servers are down, which has been an issue the last few days really). But frankly the ability to be a superhero running around with the likes of Supes & Batman and even minor leaguers like Steel while fighting the likes of Grodd and Braniac. I unfortunately think I won't really have the time to devote to make a monthly subscription worth it, but it seems like once the maintenance issues are under control it will hopefully be the first of many quality MMOs for consoles. We'll see when it hits on the 11th.

One other service I've been giving a shot is Hulu Plus, and while it does show a lot of promise, it has a long way to go if it wants to be on the same level as services like Netflix. Sure, Netflix doesn't have current shows most of the time for streaming, but it has an absolutely tremendous back catalog, far less issues streaming and no ads. Aside from being able to play it on my PS3, I'm not compltely sure what benefit I get in paying for this since some content that is on Hulu for free isn't available on the Plus service. Admittedly the sheer fact that I can watch at least some episodesof current TV or catch up on seasons I've been missing out on for a mere $8 a month seems like it might be worthwhile.

That's pretty much it for today, have a happy New Year, and I'll see you in 2011, leaving you with the TRAILER OF THE WEEK: Casino Jack

10 Reasons to still play your Wii in 2011

Yeah, the future isn't looking entirely bright for the little underpowered console at the moment. Nintendo is most likely focused on launching its new baby, the 3DS, which is just a few months from launch, and they pretty much seemed to have blown their load on catalog releases this past year, coming out with an entry for pretty much all their established franchises. And both Sony and Microsoft have gotten into the motion gaming arena, offering similar options in high def. Might as well dump the Wii now while it's still worth something right? Not so fast. Like every year, there are actually a fairly decent amount of reasons to not only keep your Wii, but possibly play it just as much if not more so than the "hardcore" consoles, and here's 10 to look forward to right now :

10. Retro City Rampage

Unfortunately no longer a Fall 2010 release or aWiiware exclusive, because otherwise it'd probably be higher on the list. But that doesn't changed the fact that this is a real GTA "de-make" that promises to brilliantly spoof both classic 80s games and the sandbox crime saga genre that GTA itself defined is one of the most anticipated downloadable titles in ages.

9. de Blob 2

The original de Blob is one of many excellent third-party Wii efforts that sadly went mostly unnoticed by the Wii audience,so it's no surprise that much like RCR above, it's expanding to all 3 consoles for the sequel. But the original was a great example of awesome gaming using the waggle, so the sequel should be no different in quality, and hey if you already have a Wii, why pay extra to get something that will pretty much be the same on any other console?

8. Mario Sports Mix

Hey not every game is going to be for us hardcore people, and putting three sports into one box Nintendo would usually sell as 3 separate titles is an unusually good value assuming they play well. Mario sports titles have a pretty good record overall, and this is the kind of game you could enjoy with more casual gamers in your family/circle of friends without being ashamed to even own it unlike say Carnival Games. The real icing on the cake would be competent online play(it does have online play, but only one-on-one and still needs friend codes, which should be dropped altogether), but since this is Nintendo, that's probably not going to happen.

7. Conduit 2

The Wii is better built for shooters than most would lead you to believe. It's why games like the Metroid Prime Trilogy are considered a must buy and the Wii version of Resident Evil 4 is considered essentially the best version. Because when done right, the shooters stand right up there with the likes of COD and Gears of War. So, aside from lack of a coherent online system, it's sort of puzzling why more high-profile shooters don't end up here. But the Conduit series was intentioned from the get go to be a hardcore FPS that Wii owners could claim as their own. Now while the first didn't completely live up the ridiculously high bar it set for itself, it was still an incredibly solid game, and the sequel really promises to improve on that experience.

6. Dragonquest X

This would probably be significantly higher if a damn thing was known about this latest entry in the biggest RPG series in the world. But this is actually shaping up to be a rather strong year for Wii rpgs, with several to be known in development, this arguably being the biggest one. All we really know is that this is confirmed for the Wii and it's supposed to be out sometime in 2011. But since it's a DQ title, that may be all fans need to know anyways.

5. Xenoblade

Admittedly all I really know about this title is that it is a critically acclaimed rpg in Japan that seems ripe for a release over here. Though no official announcement has been made, both fanboys and websites  alike have been been drooling over it, so it would make a 2011 release at least seem a likely possibility. It looks gorgeous and seriously long, so any rpg fan should snap it up right away if it does come out here.

4. Lost in Shadow

Just a few days away from release, Lost in Shadow is already one of the more intriguing titles this year. It's a 2d side-scrolling platformer, which is becoming increasingly rare and it uses a really unique hook being that you literally are a shadow and have to pretty much use the background as your guide. Hopefully it lives up to its lofty promise as reviews have been a tad mixed, but those who love it truly think its brilliant.

3. Last Story

It's another rpg (I told you it looks like a good year for Wii rpgs), but this one is from famed Final Fantasy director, Hironobu Sakaguchi. Offering what seems to be a solid single and online component along with an epic quest. Last Story has been looking more awesome with each preview, so this should be an rpg hopefully on par with any other epic out there this year.

2. Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

It's ZELDA. Do I really need to explain much more than that? The showing at E3 was awesome, Zelda is always incredible. This will probably be the premier 2011 title for Wii, and that's not because of a lack of other stellar titles. Zelda games stand out pretty much any year, and this one should be no exception.

1. Games You Missed

See that game right there? It's a highly praised Wii title that no one bought. And it's one of many. Other excellent action games like No More Heroes 2 & Sin & Punishment also pretty much died at retail while crap like Just Dance 2 sold like hotcakes. Wii owners who enjoy real games cry time and time again about the lack of non-shovelware but when someone tries to come out with something for that crowd, they hardly show up. If your Wii isn't getting much playtime, odds are there is more than a few noteworthy games released not only this past year, but in the last several that you can pick up on the cheap now and discover. Titles like the original Conduit, the first de Blob, Zak & Wiki, Madworld and many many others. If you seriously wanna bolster your library, the bargain/used section at most stores have plenty of awesome titles for under $20 if you're willing to dig just a little.

So yeah, hardly time to turn in that little underpowered waggle-machine just yet. And 2011 hasn't even started, so I'm sure Nintendo has a few surprises up its sleeve like it usually does. That's pretty much all for today, but I should be back with another post tomorrow. Until then, here's your FREE GAME OF THE WEEK: Line Runner 2

The obligatory Christmas post

Sorry about only one post this week, but my schedule has been kind of screwy lately, so until I get that sorted out, this'll be m last post (but shouldn't be more than a week or two). So in the meantime, here's some Christmas cheer for you all:


The Tron Holiday Xmas Special

The 1982 Tron Holiday Special from Rip Taylor

The Robot Chicken Christmas Special

10 Must-see Xmas Horror Movies

The 12 most Unintentionally Disturbing Xmas ads

4 Bad Lessons from Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer

And your FREE GAME OF THE WEEK: MOUNTAIN MANIAC XMAS

Lonestar vs. Captain Jack?

Yup, former space hero and alien ass-kicking president Bill Pullman is all set to join the upcoming season of Torchwood, along with Mekhi Phifer (who had a pretty good run on Lie to Me). It does seem like they are cast under a mandate of having somewhat familiar American actors in the show because as awesome as Torchwood is, much like Doctor Who it's following in America is small at best; however these seem like 2 very awesome additions to the cast (though to be fair Freema Agyeman and Noel Clarke would've made a lot more sense to long-time fans). I can't wait for the series to finally start sometime next year.

Maybe I've just been spoiled by the pure awesomeness that is Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection (even if it is missing a couple obvious classics like Toejam & Earl and General Chaos), but it's far and away the best compilation out there and should be an example to others for sheer content alone. Now, most aren't going to be that massive, and I accept that, but the Super Mario All-Stars compilation seems like such a major jip. 4 Games? All of which you can simply get on the Wii Virtual Console for a cheaper price. The graphics are only moderately updated (to 16-bit). This just seems like a really pathetic cash grab to me. If they had made them all multi-player like the New Super Mario Bros game or included a few more classics such as Super Mario World or Yoshi's Island, it might be worth it, but it really seems like this was a big throwaway idea. Let's hope the newly confirmed Dreamcast collection isn't also a let down (and as long as they include Skies of Arcadia, it probably won't be).

Another "classic" out this week on both PSN & XBLA is the old X-Men arcade game. It's arguably a re-skinned Ninja Turtles game with very similar mechanics, so whether it's worth picking up or not may be dependent on your love of simplistic old-school brawlers. I considered it worth the $10, though value beyond that is arguable.


Ok that's pretty much it for today so until next time, here's your TRAILER OF THE WEEK: Take me Home Tonight

Well looks like my 2011 calendar is pretty much taken up...

At least as long as there are no massive delays. The completely pointless Spike Videogame Awards aired last night, but they did show off a ton of awesome games for 2011, including Arkham City, Mass Effect 3, Uncharted 3 and the OH MY GOD IT ACTUALLY EXISTS Elder Scrolls V. As pumped as I am for new chapters in the Mass Effect & Uncharted series as well as the sequel to the best superhero game ever, Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion ate up my game time like few other games have, easily spending a couple hundred hours on it and never even finishing the main quest. Seriously, I hope Nintendo has nothing awesome planned for next year (besides the 3DS, which likely won't have much worthwhile software he first year anyways, like virtually all consoles), because I don't know if I'll have time. Well, maybe for Skyward Sword, but that's probably pushing it.

I haven't been paying much (really any attention) to the Doritos-sponsored xbox live development series that resulted in what should be 2 horribly cheap games. I haven't actually tried Harm's Way, just doesn't seem like my cup of tea, but I might try it at some point. Crash Course, on the other hand, is unexpectedly awesome. It's basically Ninja Warrior with avatars, pulled off incredibly well. Pretty much the only thing missing is a level editor so you can make your own stages, it would nearly infinite replay value.

That's really all I've got for today, so I'll just leave you with your TRAILER OF THE WEEK: THOR

Shaking things up...

Expansions rarely change the core of the game. They are by definition, pretty much an extension of what you already have, sometimes only a little, sometimes a vast amount, but the core game itself remains virtually unchanged. This week's biggest release, the latest expansion to the hugely popular World of Warcraft game, Catyclysm, actually drastically alters the Azeroth landscape and some of the biggest changes in game history, even bringing major changes to familiar classes.

Now anyone who has actually followed this blog since the start knows that I had somewhat brief (at least in MMO terms) addiction to it back in its infancy before any expansions were released, then pretty much quit cold turkey near the endgame and really hadn't looked back. My wife however, discovered it a few months ago and is completely  hooked, and has even gotten me back into just a little, so of course we picked it up. I haven't really tested out the new races myself, but many of the changes already have taken place with the last major patch and it's pretty awesome not to mention refreshing to see them make really big changes like this rather than the mostly minor tweaking they've been doing even with the previous expansions. If you have been lax in your WoW lately or have been away awhile, this probably provides the best reason to come back in a long time.

XBLA & PSN are prime opportunities to re-live arcade classics, and someone has finally gotten around to releasing a long overdue one as X-Men arcade hits XBLA next week (PS3 owners unfortunately have to wait til February). Now if someone can get their heads out of their asses and release the far superior Simpsons arcade game we'd pretty much be set.

And out this week is this almost obligatory tie-in the the latest nerd-gasm worthy-looking movie, Tron: Evolution. I really have very little interest and the game though, and I'm sort of wondering why Tron is even popular in this day and age. Ok, it has a cult following, lots of crappy movies do. It was a giant flop when it was released, and if you watch it today, it doesn't really hold up in any shape or form. Fantastic idea? Absolutely, but the execution was pretty ho-hum. Whether or not the sequel actually delivers on the promising idea of the original is yet to be seen. I do plan on seeing it if not next week in the near future so I'll be sure to post my thoughts when I do.

Ok thats really all I have for today, but I should be back later in the week with something. Til then here's your FREE GAME OF THE WEEK: Endeavor

Epic Fail?

There's a lot of positive things to say about what Warren Spector has done here with Epic Mickey. The art style is fantastic, making it one of the best-looking games on the Wii and proving once again that processing power isn't everything. The fan-service is immense with nods not just to Mickey himself but to a vast majority of Disney's contribution to animation in general. But while the overall style and fanservice is top notch, the game fails in a couple of key areas that seem like really obvious issues. Firstly, the voicework, or overall lack thereof. With the excpetion of the Narrator, no one really has a voice in Epic Mickey. Now, that is pretty standard for most Wii titles, but given the famous voices that should be involved here, it's pretty inexcusable that they don't talk.

Secondly, many times you are given at best a vague idea of where you are supposed to go or what you are supposed to do, and the system to help you out (little lights called guardians that can point to your next objective) works poorly at best.

But really the biggest issue is the camera. Now a bad camera is almost expected as even with all the advances in technology getting a really solid consistent camera in a 3D game is a near impossibility even in the best of the genre. But this has to be one of the worst cameras I have ever had to deal with, making many battles a guessing game and platforming sections a huge leap of faith for the most part. A camera this bad is pretty inexcusable on what is supposed to be a AAA title right up there with Nintendo's finest efforts.

So is it a bad game not worth your time? It depends. If you are a huge Mickey/Disney fan, it's probably worth it for the presentation and fanservice alone. It presents a ton of value through multiple playthroughs, and there are certainly enough times where everything clicks to show the game's full potential. However, I don't think there is enough here to make it worthwhile for people who are not Disney fans or animation buffs.

Moving on, if anything seemed like a giant cash grab at this point, it would be a Back to the Future title. There hasn't been a new movie in a long time and no attempt to re-make it yet (thank god), but the guys at Telltale games are not ones for quick cash grabs, making the highly amusing Sam & Max titles as well as the latest entries in the Monkey Island series and the Wallace & Gromit games. So when they are the ones making a Back to the Future title, you should know its worth checking out, which they have definitely confirmed with this awesome trailer for the game, due out in the next several weeks:



Supposedly they are also working on a Jurassic Park title, but I don't see nearly as much potential there.

That's pretty much it for today, but I should be back Tuesday with thoughts on Catyclysm, Inception and probably a few other things. In the meantime, here is your TRAILER OF THE WEEK: Your Highness

More Your Highness Videos

The Top Nine worst castings of iconic characters...

Well I took a bit longer off than I originally intended, but yes I am back and should be back to my regular schedule of at least 2 posts per week. I do have Epic Mickey and will write about that next time, just don't think I'll get enough time in today to give a really thorough impression. Now, some of you may have already heard, but the latest game franchise sure to be completely ruined in movie form is Uncharted. While great Indiana Jones-style move fodder it is, rather than cast someone who can play the smarmy charming Nathan Drake (like say Nathan Fillion, who even campaigned for the role) they chose Marky Mark Wahlberg. Now, I don't share the ultimate hate for Wahlberg many do, even though he makes plenty of bad movies. But hey, plenty of actors do. But he is horribly wrong for this role. However he's not the first person cast in some iconic role when they clearly don't fit the bill. Here's 9 that might just make casting the funky one seem brilliant in comparison.

#9. Kevin Costner as Robin Hood in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves

This just barely makes the cut because I absolutely love this movie, but it is in spite of Costner's absolutely terrible portrayal. Costner is one of the worst big name actors in recent history, and his inability to pick an accent and stick with it in this film doesn't help matters. Luckily the film is saved by everyone else around Costner, but that doesn't really make his "acting" excusable.

8.Hayden Christensen-Anakin Skywalker in The Star Wars Prequels

This is sort of only half the actor's fault. Sure, he's wooden and not the spitting image of the ultimate badass we saw in the original films, but Lucas' terrible dialogue and direction really seals the deal. And I won't really harp on Jake Llloyd because frankly he was 10, and really, how many good actors around that age are there?

7. Mark Wahlberg as Max Payne in Max Payne

This is probably why Wahlberg should actually know better than to jump into another video game adaptation. Max Payne is an intense noir thriller, and while Wahlberg can do gloomy serious cop, he can't really do the pain (no pun intended) of a scarred individual like Max justice. It didn't help that the gritty tone went down to a PG-13 rating orthat the trailers implied a supernatural element to a series that has none. Bad all around, but the heaviest anchor bringing this ship down was Wahlberg.

6. Anton Yelchin as Kyle Reese in Terminator: Salvation

Now don't get me wrong, Yelchin was absolutely gold in Star Trek as Chekov and he's got a promising career ahead of him. But he's no Kyle Reese. At least not the Kyle Reese who was badass enough to be John Connor's bestest buddy and most trusted soldier, only to go back in time, live out the fantasy of banging his best friend's hot mom and hold off the ultimate robot badass for about 99% of the movie. This Reese is lucky to have lasted 5 seconds in the apocalypse, and Connor wouldn't let him anywhere near a battlefield.

5.  Dolph Lundgren as the Punisher in The Punisher

Yup. Russian steroid machine Ivan Drago as all-American killing machine Frank Castle. To be fair, the new Punisher may actually be worse, but that's more the fault of the movie. This is one of those casting choices that just makes you wonder how much blow did the execs go through before they were convinced this was a good idea?

4. Arnold Schwarzenegger as Mr. Freeze in Batman & Robin

I probably don't need to do much explaining here. One of the biggest disasters ever to be filmed, the failures run across the board. But arguably the most bizarre decision was to cast the hulking future Governor as the wiry extremely brilliant and extremely layered Victor Fries. Arnold was a great action star and even had some comedic range, but dramatic range just wasn't there, and buried in Schumacher's campier than Adam West could ever hope to be vision, it made even less sense.

3. Jean Claude Van Damme as Guile in Street Fighter

Guile is the All-American army boy in the Street Fighter franchise. So who better to play him than a Belgian who can barely manage English? Yeah, that's a brilliant idea. It's Street Fighter, we aren't expecting brilliance, and Van Damme wasn't exactly at his prime when this movie came out to begin with, so why they wouldn't just save money and cast some random American black belt who can speak proper English? It boggles the damn mind.

2. David Hasslehoff as Nick Fury in Nick Fury: Agent of Shield

David Hasslehoff in anything is pretty much a joke, but none more so than this ill-fated made-for-tv disaster. Granted, the land of TV movies is a mostly barren wasteland of pure trite, but this literally seems to come out of the fact that they producers needed an actor with some kind of name recognition, as admittedly before Sam Jackson came into the role, anyone who didn't obsessively read Marvel comics wouldn't have the slightest idea who the hell Nick Fury was. But it doesn't change the fact that Hasslehoff has made a career of being a complete goddamn joke, which makes him a pretty terrible choice to be one of the baddest non-superhumans in the Marvel Universe.

1. The entire cast of the Super Mario Bros. Movie

Oh dear god the horror. The horror. Two non-Italians butchering the admittedly stereo-typical but most famous Italians all of time. Dennis Hopper as King Koopa? A weird humanoid lizard as Goomba? What cocaine/ecstasy/lsd-fueled board meeting even cooked this up? To paraphrase a certain famous movie quote: What you've just produced is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever witnessed. At no point in this rambling, incoherent experience were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having watched  it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.


Ok that's the list, and let's start things off with the FREE GAME OF THE WEEK: Super Pixelknight

5 reasons the digital age is bad for gamers

Yes the digital age is coming. Hell in some aspects it's already here. PCs and consoles have tons of downloadable content and games you can only get through online channels, and many are awaiting the "glorious" day where everything will be download-only, cutting out middle-man brick & mortar stores, which would hopefully lead to cheaper prices (yeah, right and Superman 64 is the best game ever). But in my opinion, the move anytime soon to a strictly digital service like say Steam, is a terrible, terrible idea, and here's 5 perfectly good reasons why:

5. The waiting/space game: Full retail games are humongous downloads. Odds are most people these days are no more than 15 minutes from somewhere they can pick up the latest videogame. A game the size of your average retail title could take far longer than that to download and install, and though hard drives are getting bigger and bigger, they could eat up your space fairly quickly, especially if you keep more on your hard drive than just games.

4. Rushed or unfinished games: This is already a huge issue. Games ship all the time nowadays with huge bugs or missing content that was promised for launch to be fixed later via a patch. I get why this happens, I mean everyone has to deal with budget and time constraints and sometimes you just have to get a game out the door. But the fact that many companies can now get away with releasing sloppy or unfinished products is probably only going to get worse, I'm sure somebody will try gouging gamers for an episodic game released in parts.

3.  Cutting off your audience: Here's a hard slap in the face: The internet isn't nearly as widespread and influential as most people on the internet think. If that was the case, Firefly & Arrested Development would still be on the and Scott Pilgrim would be the highest-grossing film of all time. A rather large portion of the population owns consoles and has never connected them to the internet. Hell only about 6% actually purchase dlc. Doesn't mean it won't grow and expand, it will, but there's just too huge a market of people who don't have the access or don't want to bother with it. Hell I'm extremely internet savvy and I rarely buy dlc, maybe a couple titles a year. It will be a huge mistake to try and go purely digital anytime soon (see the PSPGO for a prime example of this).

2. Pricing: With taking games away from the traditional brick and mortar settings, we are pretty much subject to whatever the publisher wants to charge for as long as they want. This means no $15-20 giftcards that stores often provide as incentives, arguably far less sales and price drops as DLC now as it stands stays fairly firm on price on long periods of time. Granted, in a purely digital age, the market may adjust accordingly, but seeing as many titles that have been available for years have seen little to no change in price except for the once in a blue moon sale, I seriously doubt it.

1. The disappearance of the second-hand market: Yes yes, everybody hates the evil, evil Gamestop and their pawnshop-esque practices and their hardly-used new games for the incredibly low price of $5 less than brand new. But really the second-hand market helps gamers far more than it hurts. It saves gamers money allowing to to buy more titles than they normally would and also it allows you to get older out of print titles for usually a pretty reasonable price. In a digital age, this goes away. If I always have to pay full price for games, I'm buying a lot less. Also what if a company decides to no longer offer a game for download? What, you have to wait for them to hopefully re-release it? There are some things that should be fixed and developers should certainly get some share especially now that everybody seems to be jumping into used games but the death of the second-hand market will drastically alter the landscape of gaming in general, and in my opinion not in a good way for the most part.

Ok, this will be my last post for a little while, as I am getting married next week and going on my honeymoon, I should be back to posting regularly in late November (probably fairly close to when Epic Mickey finally hits). In the meantime, I leave you with the FREE GAME OF THE WEEK: EPIC COMBO!

Schafer leaves me wanting a whole lot more...

Tim Schafer is a creative genius. Psychonauts, Maniac Mansion, Monkey Island. Even blunders like Brutal Legend had interesting characters and a fun story. So with that in mind we come to Double Fine's first digital release, Costume Quest, a charming funny halloween-themed rpg reminscent of classics like Earthbound that I enjoyed quite a bit. For the roughly FIVE hours it took to beat it. Seriously. And one go-through netted me nearly all the trophies, so the replay value is pretty low. Granted, I wouldn't be so annoyed if it wasn't $15, which qualifies it as an upper-tier downloadable title. And I'm not expecting an epic 20+ hour quest, 10-12 (which is about how long the Penny Arcade RPGS were) would've been perfectly acceptable. Ultimately a few really awesome hours is obviously better than stretched out mediocre ones, but these over-priced bite-sized experiences keep me from venturing into the waters of DLC more than once in a blue moon.

The biggest retail release this week may be the most non-apologetic full-priced expansion ever, Fallout: New Vegas. While many sequels could certainly be qualified as mere expansion packs, offering little new yet still charging full-price, few in recent history seem as blatant as this. Sure, it's a whole new land to explore, but pretty much everything else seems the exact same, it's more like just throwing a Vegas-style paint job over the original wasteland. I have been able to grab a rental copy and if it's a different enough experience, I'll talk about it more in my next post, but given the reviews, I doubt it.

All right, that's really all I have for today, I should be back with a post on Friday. Until then, here's your TRAILER OF THE WEEK: The Warrior's Way

The state of Nintendo's E3 lineup

E3 for Nintendo fans was almost like Nintendo finally giving some serious effort to appeal to those who bought a Wii system for games that weren't for the more casual set. Metroid: Other M, Kirby's Epic Yarn, Donkey Kong Country Returns and Epic Mickey along with a couple others were leading the charge. Well, Metroid Other: M, to put it bluntly, sucked hard. It might actually be the worst game Nintendo has put their name behind that doesn't have the word "Wii" or "Olympics" in it. To be fair, this was a rare incident of Nintendo having an outside party developing the game, and that rarely turns out well (especially the developers of the extremely shallow Dead Or Alive series).

To a smaller degree Dragonquest IX & NBA Jam were supposed to supposed to help draw in gamers but frankly while they were perfectly decent releases, they didn't really set the world ablaze with their somewhat ancient gameplay mechanics. And their much touted multi-player features weren't quite up to snuff.

So with that in mind we come to Kirby's big return to a home console in Kirby's Epic Yarn. While Kirby is not one of Nintendo's big three (Mario, Link, Samus) he has been a long-running character popular with the gaming crowd, mostly on Nintendo's portable systems. The reviews are rolling in already, and while they all agree that it's a gorgeous and fun game, the average play-through of about 6 hours doesn't exactly make this more than a strong rental reccomendation imho. Not exactly the great lineup we were promised, and frankly, Goldeneye isn't looking so great. Us Wii owners will have to hope Donkey Kong & Epic Mickey deliver because Nintendo's lineup isn't living up to it's high promises so far.

Ok I should be back next weekend with another post (earlier if I can manage), in the meantime, here's your FREE GAME OF THE WEEK: Road of the Dead

The Force Actually feels unleashed now

I wasn't a huge fan of the original Force Unleashed. I loved the concept mind you, and the story was arguably the best effort since the Knights of the Old Republic titles. But for a game that was supposed to make you feel like one of the most badass Jedis this side of Coruscant, you were kind of limited in your variety of powers. Sure there were a couple of nice cinematics and set pieces, but the actual action got kind of repetitive after awhile. The demo for the sequel that dropped this week however, holds a lot more promise. Your force lightning can shock scores of enemies, force push can blow away tons of foes, and you can do things like throw tie fighters into a goddamn tower! Now that seems like it's delivering a lot more of the power really promised in the original. Hopefully when it hits on the 26th, we'll get a true feeling of a really powerful Jedi.

Another title that promised huge things, but failed to deliver was the original Scribblenauts. The concept of writing virtually anything and having it appear in order to solve puzzles was a fantastic concept. The execution was terrible however, with horrid collision detection and controls. Super Scribblenauts thankfully not only fixes those issues but ads the oh so important adjectives. If you want a rabid zombie bunny, you get a rabid zombie bunny.

Finally, Sonic's long-awaited return to 2D on consoles came out on all three platforms this week with Sonic 4: Episode 1. Sure it's a return to form, but at $15 for just a few levels, it's a giant rip-off when you can pick up the far more magnificent Sonic's Ultimate Collection for only $5 more. For shame, Sega. Even when you finally do a Sonic game right you do something else wrong with it. Hopefully at some point they'll offer the whole collection for a nice cheap bundle of around $20, then it will be worthy of picking up.

That's really it for today but I should have another post up tomorrow with thoughts on Epic Kirby among other things. Til then, here's your TRAILER OF THE WEEK: Drive Angry