Sony's biggest mistake with Move...

Well first things first. I have gotten a few hours in with Halo: Reach. Arguably the biggest improvement is that while previous games were mostly corridor shooters with a few open levels, Reach is mostly open and has a tad more variety to it. The much touted space combat isn't anything special, though and it's a pretty brief affair.The A.I., at leaston normal (I'm honestly barely good enough to play on Normal, no way I'm playing Heroic or Legendary) is vastly improved, with teammates actually being helpful and enemies actually employing tactics (though I think enemy A.I. being able to use armor lock is pretty goddamned cheap). It is an overall improvement, but if you are still playing Halo 3 (and a lot of people are) it's hard to imagine paying full price for this game (although with all the special offers going on this week with most places offering some kind of $20-25 gift card/coupon, that may be enough incentive for anybody on the fence). Ultimately, Reach lives or dies by its multi-player, and while that may be the huge incentive for some, I'm pretty much in the same boat as Penny Arcade guys:

And frankly since match-setting like that don't really exist, that doesn't really do it for me. However, I did just renew my Xbox live gold membership since they had it on sale for only $30 this week, so I may have something down the line to really take advanatage of that. Hell, it may even be Reach if there's a good sale on it.

Would you buy a movie made up entirely of game cut scenes? CEO of Activision and Gordon Gecko wannabe Bobby Kotick certainly believes so. And granted, this isn't actually a new idea, but usually it's something released as a bonus feature or something you can get for about $10 rather than the $20-30 Kotick is looking to charge. I don't think it's an evil thing, as seems to be the kneejerk reaction from the internet, but Kotick seems to be forgetting that pretty much 99% of story and acting in gaming still makes Michael Bay films look like oscar-worthy material. Until that changes, I seriously doubt many would pay to watch these kinds of films.

Finally, yes Move is out. And the reviews kind of speak to what I've already been talking about. It's impressive enough tech, but not really any compelling software. Sports Champions is a weak Wii Sports wannabe, and not one of the launch titles is impressive. Arguably most important, to really get the full use out of Move is pretty costly. At minimum (assuming you already have a PS3) you are spending a minimum of a $170 (for the bundle and 1 extra set of controllers). If you don't have a PS3, that bumps it up to a whopping $470. That a lot of money for HD waggle. Granted, if Sony actually really sticks with Move, we may see some amazing stuff come out, but that's probably going to be next year at the earliest, and most companies (and gamers) probably won't wait that long.

That's all for today. I leave you with the FREE GAME OF THE WEEK: My First Quantum Translocator

The "I'm not talking about Reach" post

Not that I don't plan to, but seeing as it's on the way from gamefly, I'll wait til it actually gets here before talking about it anymore (which will hopefully be tomorrow).

But hey other games came out this week, arguably most notably yet another attempt to cash-in on Lord of the Rings, Aragorn's Quest. While I am certianly not against the idea of LOTR games out when there's no movie to promote, these should be games that really further explore the Middle Earth universe, not unoriginal cash grabs no one cares about. Arguably the only interesting note about this game is that it is compatible with the Playstation Move, though I seriously doubt such a lazy attempt will make good use of it.

More importantly, the best sitcom on network TV, Big Bang Theory, had its third season released today. If you haven't seen the fantastic episodes (including 2 awesomely evil appearances by the fantastic Wil Wheaton) this is a great opportunity to catch up.

And also a couple of big anniversaries happened recently. Firstly, the Playstation, the unbelievable juggernaut borne of a hapless rift between Sony and then completely dominant Nintendo, came out 15 years ago. To celebrate, Sony is having sales on PSone classics every week, so keep an eye out. Last week it was the rpg classic Suikoden, at a sweet price of $2.99. Hopefully they will put actual classics on sale each week, as the PS one library is filled with many titles no one would consider classic. I'm personally hoping for a nice sale on FFIX, as that would be a good excuse for me to own it digital form in addition to physical.

A much bigger anniversary is Mario's 25th. It's crazy to think the icon who essentially rebooted the whole gaming business is still around, as good as ever. You can certainly question other Nintendo properties, and possibly even his foray into other arenas, but the main Mario titles have rarely had a misstep, even extending to the surprisingly excellent series of role-playing games extending all the way back into the Super NES era. It's hard to imagine another 25 years of consistent quality, but if anyone can get it done, it's Nintendo.

ok, that's really all for today. I leave you with the TRAILER OF THE WEEK: Hereafter

Bungie's finest hour...

Halo: Reach. Most fans of the series and especially anybody who read the surprisingly excellent Fall of Reach know that it's a story about the fall of humanity's second home from a massive Covenant invasion. It's also Bungie's last Halo game possibly ever (they've said it's their last, but you never know), as they have moved on to try their hand at a new multi-platform franchise.And admittedly, the formula may be feeling a bit tired at this point. My personal interest isn't that high, even though I've watched most of the promotional vids and been reading the glowing reviews. And that sort of apathy seems like the common opinion among non-frat boy gamers, with more realistic games like Modern Warfare 2 still dominating their Deathmatch time. That being said, there are a lot of really great offers to entice people to buy it and I will certainly at least be renting it and hopefully give me opinion Wednesday or Thursday.

And yes, I have gotten in some time with Birth By Sleep. I've been playing through Aqu's (the female keyblade wielder) story. That admittedly may not have been the best option to start, as she comes at a point in each world where a lot hasalready happened, making the narrative downright confusing. But the battles are still just as engaging, its one of the most gorgeous psp games to date, and its still fun to see all the Disney characters, especially since this is mostly completely new territory you are exploring. They ditched the biggest glaring flaw of KH I & II-there is no gummi ship! Though the camera still has issues that actually become more problematic with this being mainly a solo adventure as compared to the main games in the series where you usually have at least 2 partners. But unlike the slightly underwhelming 358/2 days and the mostly terrible Chain of Memories, this is a true Kingdom Hearts title. The fact that it doesn't feature the continuing adventures of Sora & co. should be nothing more than a minor quibble, making this one of the few really good reasons to own a PSP.

Ok that's really it for today as I'm incredibly tired from working virtually the whole day and most of the weekend. I should be back Wednesday with thoughts on Reach, Move and a couple other things. Til then, here's your FREE GAME OF THE WEEK: Vertical Drop Heroes

Batman>Spider-Man

Ok, this post is later than I expected, but I spent most of last night and this morning finally finishing off Star Ocean 4, which I've been working through off and on since late last year. I did pick up Birth By Sleep on Tuesday, but to be honest, I've only played  few minutes, which isn't really enough for any kind of proper impression or full review. I will hopefully have one next time I post, which should be tomorrow or Friday.

Two games I did manage to play before I got into my lengthy Star Ocean session were two big superhero releases that came out this week: Spider-Man Shattered Dimensions & Batman : The Brave and the Bold. Ever since Arkham Asylum came out last year and showed everyone exactly how to do a superhero game, everyone was hoping other studios would take note. For its part, Shattered Dimensions starts with tons of promise. The looks of the different dimensions and the face that they all have different play styles seems to promise the best Spidey game since Spider-Man 2. But it all falls apart due to extremely loose and shoddy controls. For instance, in the Noir universe, which is completely based around stealth, I can't even do a from above take down with an enemy right below me half the time. In more action-packed universes where precise web-slinging is pretty essential, it constantly doesn't respond in a timely manner or I web jump when I should be just swinging. Even wall-crawling is problematic. Though arguably this could be worked through if the camera was competent. It's complete and absolute garbage. I can't even see where I am going most of the time. It's too bad because the presentation and ideas are great, a decent camera could've saved it.

Now Brave and the Bold starts off much like Spider-Man. The presentation is right in line with the look and the surprising humor of the brilliant but short-lived cartoon. The game itself is presented as an old-school brawler along the lines of Streets of Rage and Scott Pilgrim, and while its a fairly simple premise, its fun and it works. But it's hard to reccomend at $40 to all but the biggest B & B fans because it's a so simple. A $15-20 downloadable title seems much morethe proper price. Still, way better than Spider-Man.

Hopefully someone will actually take the lessons of Arkham Asylum and incorporate without just trying to copy them. Until then, we just have to wait for Arkham City.

Ok, that's pretty much it for today. Have to actually get some time in with Birth By Sleep so I can give some impressions next time. In the meantime, here's your TRAILER OF THE WEEK: Due Date

You just can't keep a shitty franchise down...

Yup. Duke Nukem lives again. I really don't get the continuing appeal of this franchise. It hasn't even been good since it's heyday of 2D sharware, much less it's unexplainable explosion of popularity by going to 3D and ripping off everything from Doom to Evil Dead. Nevertheless, it just won't seem to die. Of course, I dunno what anyone's expecting at this point, the game has been in the works in some form or another for like 15 years. The final product, assuming it ever actually comes out, will probably be extremely dissapointing, we've seen it before with games that take multiple generations of consoles to be made such as Kameo & Too Human. Granted, 2K games is no slouch, but we already are overloaded with ridiculous macho heroes in games, I don't see this making much of a dent.

Ok so rather than outright buying, I ended up renting both Metroid: Other M and Disney's Guilty Party. Metroid: Other M's flaws are fairly apparent right from the get go, but easily the biggest flaw is the godawful story and acting. Nintendo's never reallytried to put together a deep story for any of their flagship characters, and this is a prime example that they probably shouldn't. And there's better acting in porn. The saving grace is probably the combat. Sure, first person is clunky, but it's handled well enough that it's not an issue and moves she as jumping on an enemy and shooting it in the head never get old. I'll probably pick it up somewhere down the line, but honestly I've got several lengthy rpgs in my backlog I'd rather work on first.

Guilty Party on the other hand is a surpring delight (aside from the incredibly annoying theme song). The  characters you can play are varied and interesting. The minigames are admittedly mediocre, but the game's Clue-esque mystery solving is it's biggest draw. This isa pretty prime exmple that casual isn't a dirty word and can be fun and done extremely well if actual effort is put into it.

Finally, a bit further thought on the whole Xbox live price hike. Last time I commented that it seems like a lot just to play Halo. But as Tycho has rightfully pointed out, I am one of those who doesn't really play online much(the last game I seriously got into online was Halo 3), so the value of easy matchmaking and cross-game chat along with various other subtle but important differences easily make the soon to be $5 are month a worthwhile investment for most. However, seeing as my primary uses are things I would get equal performance of on other consoles (netflix streaming)  or would get for free anyways (updates, most demos, etc.), it's still not a worthile investment for me personally.

Ok, that's pretty much all for today but I should most definitely be back by Tueday with thoughts on Birth By Sleep and Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions along with anything else that goes down. Til then, here's your FREE GAME OF THE WEEK: KA-BLOOM

Teh worstest Nintedo game everz!!!

It's generally accepted that the large majority of the Wii's library is filled with piles and piles of completely useless shovelware. Why does anybody continue to buy it, then? It can't just be Wii Sports Resort & Wii Fit, right? Oh alright, it probably can. But odds are if you are not one of the casual gaming crowd (i.e. somebody who actually made trash like Carnival Games a success) and you own a Wii, it's pretty much for the first party exclusives that you can only get your hands on by owning a Nintendo system. There are a couple other hot properties Nintendo has, but generally they've kept an extremely loyal hardcore following with the holy gaming triumvirate of Mario, Link & Samus. These 3 legendary gaming icons and their series are generally considered some of the finest gaming ever offered. Nearly every title has been met with resounding critical acclaim and huge sales. The most amazing thing is probably that though these are Nintendo's flagship franchises, they have rarely played it safe. Each entry is usually a drastic departure from the previous one, and in over 20 years, this has rarely resulted in a bad game.

With this in mind, Metroid: Other M hits today, and reviews started popping up Friday. And compared to the usual high praise, it's taking quite a beating. The majority of reviews are positive, but even those have similar complaints of a terrible story and a very clunky first-person mode. I'm honestly not sure if this will affect sales much, Nintendo loyalists tend to treat anything given less than an outstanding review as "bias" and will snatch it up. I most likely will be picking it up later today, so hopefully I'll be able to at least give some impressions next time I update (most likely Thursday).

Also out today may be the sleeper hit of the year for the Wii. Earlier I said most of the Wii's more casual oriented library is pure garbage. Which frankly might be an insult to garbage. But once in a blue moon, the planets align correctly and you get a really fun game that's aimed at casual crowds yet really well done. This may very well be Disney's own take on Clue, Guilty Party. Not only are the early reviews pretty solid, this quirky little out of nowhere title got quite a bit of attention at E3 for actually being quite fun. I also hope to pick this up today so I'll give my impressions on that as well.

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Actually Gamestop apparently has a plan to detail with the inevitability of everything going digital, and boy is it stupid. Granted, I don't think the day where you download all your games is only 5-10 years years away. The PSPgo being a total and utter failure is evidence of this. There's still a lot of things to work out in the digital space, proper pricing probably being the biggest one, but also that the public is slow to adapt to a huge shift in media. Sure, internet savvy users are already chomping at the bit, but if the internet actually represented anywhere close the majority of the populace, the Wii would be a failure and Scott Pilgrim would be the highest-grossing film of all time. That being said, Gamestop's so-called solution is pretty stupid. Who is going to want to go to the store, purchase content to download, then go back to download it? It's probably still a couple decades off really, but once games truly go digital, Gamestop is in big trouble.

Microsoft has really had a hard time continuing to truly justify charging people to access features most other consoles give you for free (streaming netflix, online play, etc.). So what are they doing about that? They are raising prices.

Sure, that makes sense, the economy is just booming right now, so why not raise prices? Granted, if you buy in before the price hike, you actually save $10 off the previous price of $50 (and if you buy cards instead of renewing online you could be set for years). But I feel most will see this as a ridiculously ludicrous expense just to play Halo: Reach online.

Ok that's all I have for today, but hopefully I should be back Thursday or Friday with impressions of both Metroid: Other M & Guilty Party as well as anything else going on. Til then, here's your TRAILER OF THE WEEK: The Town

Sony not expecting Move to well, move?

In a rare show of caution, Sony is actually not only saying that their entry into the motion control field might not be a huge hit come launch day, they are practically expecting it to start off slow. While this rare attitude towards the launch is almost commendable, one has to wonder about the VP's comment, comparing it to the "hugely successful" Eyetoy. Pretty much nobody actually owns an Eyetoy aside from the small cult following behind Eye of Judgement. It also causes worry about what kind of post-launch support Move will have, as the library of titles that even support Eyetoy is practically non-existent. Sure, Sony is pushing plenty of titles out of the gate, but if sales don't really happen right away, will it be much like the Eyetoy or even Wii's Motion-plus where only a few titles even support it? And sure, some major titles (LittleBigPlanet 2, SOCOM 4, Heavy Rain) are having Move support, but if the experience is equal or better with a normal controller, why switch in the first place? That's probably what most gamers will end up thinking. The real failure on the Wii has been publishers rushing in with a bunch of "me-too" titles with minimal effort. Nintendo and a few select others have shown that quality games that offer a really unique experience can be done that you currently can't get on other platforms. All I've seen so far from the Move lineup is a bunch of Wii knockoffs. And frankly, even if the response is tighter, it won't matter if Move can't offer something unique. They need something that you couldn't possibly pull off on a Wii. Ironically, something like Kinect's in-development Star Wars title would probably be perfect, assuming it could really do 1-to-1 motion.

Well all I've really got left for the day is Shank demo impressions. It's actually pretty reminiscent of the Scott Pilgrim games in a lot of aspects. Has a great, unique style in gloriously unapologetic 2D. And seems nearly impossible and downright cheap in single-player. Encouraging multi-player is all good, but these two titles could also offer a much stronger single-player with just a little tweaking. Hopefully they'll at least fix it in Scott Pilgrim soon, as I'm getting a little tired of being killed by Ramona's lesbian ninja ex...

That's pretty much it for today, I might have something about Metroid: Other M this weekend if I have time. Til then, here's your FREE GAME OF THE WEEK: Megaman vs.Metroid

I don't feel I have to wipe everybody out, Tom. Just my enemies...

Granted, to anybody who has wanted to play a modern-day Godfather, you could just pick up any of the GTA games or their various impersonators. But a true GTA-style game set in the same era as the seminal Godfather films has been surprisingly rare. But with Mafia II, the sequel to the classic PC title (and very terrible PS2 port), wannabe Italian mobsters finally get their chance. I did play the demo released a couple of weeks ago, and it seems to support most of the reviews, that the presentation and story is great, but the gameplay could use a little work. Still probably a worthwhile purchase if you enjoy that style of game or just really great story-telling though.

PS3 & 360 gamers get another high-profile downloadable title out this week in Shank, which essentially looks like a 2D God of War with its over-the-top ultra-stylized violence. I plan to download the demo at some point today or tomorrow and hopefully give impressions in my next post.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles has had many variations over the years, and they all came together in a glorious mash-up titled Turtles Forever. And now it's been put out on DVD, which you think would be a glorious occasion, but it's a release with a good 9 minutes trimmed out and completely devoid of extras. This seems like a movie tailor-made for Turtles fans of all ages which makes it seem incredibly stupid to release this in such a form. Hopefully some kind of super ultimate edition will come out and rectify this horrible mistake.

Finally, I happened to catch the pilot episode of No Ordinary Family. Best described as a live-action Incredibles, I was really hoping Michael Chiklis and Julie Benz would make this worthwhile, but judging strictly on the pilot, it's pretty terrible writing. Like truly awful. I was cringing most of the way through, hoping it would pick up. It did have some slightly interesting foreshadowing, but if it doesn't improve quick don't expect it to become a regular sci-fi viewing.

That's all for now, hopefully should be back Thursday or Friday with Shank impressions and some other things. Until the, here's your TRAILER OF THE WEEK: Let Me In

The 12 worst sci-fi shows of all time

Ah the beleaguered sci-fi genre. Always a huge risky gamble for networks, its no wonder occasionally it rarely eve has a solid presence on tv. Even the best shows usually have to fight hard to find a solid audience. And for every great show like Battlestar Galactica, there are a dozen sub-par shows (most of which are on this list), including shows that seem to throw in sci-fi elements just for the hell of it. Such as:

12: Family Matters

What? Family matters was a crappy sitcom! Not a sci-fi show! I say otherwise. Had the show truly go on its original intended theme, which was a middle-class black family, I would certainly agree with you. But most internet-savvy people know the story of the most annoying nerd ever, Steve Urkel. He was supposed to be a one-shot character, but was so popular he became more of a focus of the show so much so where the family was pretty much irrelevant to the point of characters popping in and out of continuity or disappearing entirely with no justification. This quickly became the Steve Urkel show, all about his wacky misadventures with science. Which included, but were not limited to alternate personas (which he was able to change into with a potion or chamber), robots and time travel. It had tons of sci-fi elements to it, mainly because it was a horribly unfunny show that relied on outrageous scenarios to cover for that fact.

11. Small Wonder: Arguably one of the creepiest concepts ever for a show, Small Wonder was basically a giant endorsement for child slave labor. Lots of shit happened in this show that supposedly ok because the kid was "just a robot". I'm pretty sure Data, the Cylons and most other sci-fi robots would have something to say about that too. Also, the kid was just plain creepy. Any kid behaving like that would be put under for psych eval in quick order. One of many examples on this list that for whatever reason, sci-fi and comedy don't really mix all that well.

10. Homeboys from Outer Space: One of the many abominations from the short-lived UPN network (which  merged with the slightly less awful WB network to create the mostly awful CW). The borderline racist concept-It's just so wacky that 2 black guys would be in space! Is moronic all on its own, add in tired jokes, production values that made MST3K look impressive, and two extremely unfunny "comedians" as the stars, and you've got a show that is a constant presence on just about any worst list ever.

9. Whoops!: Yeah, that's pretty much the only pic I could find. But this might be the worst sitcom ever made. It's about a nuclear holocaust that apparently only 6 people survived (for really stupid reasons such as being in a Volvo). Bring on the comedy! I'm not saying a comedy about a nuclear holocaust couldn't work, but in traditional dumb sitcom fashion they went for the lowest common denominator, relying on slapstick and featuring really awful production values, with such brilliant plot lines as Santa Claus not being able to save Mrs. Claus and all the elves because HE DIDN'T KNOW HOW TO WORK A DOOR. Yeah, how this thing even got a pilot is beyond me.

8. Heroes: Ah Heroes, such a promising show. The first season was absolutely brilliant. Then things went downhill really fast. Even the creators to their credit acknowledged that essentially they didn't know what the hell they were doing, but they never found their footing again and each season got exponentially worse until its merciful cancellation this year. This is a show that in one of its moments, had a character carry around a turtle on a "spiritual journey". FOR SEVERAL EPISODES. Add to that a tendency to change characters powers and how they worked on a whim and you have one of the most incoherent shows in history.

7. Enterprise: Few shows can lay claim to essentially killing off a thriving franchise and making it in desperate need of a reboot, but hey, JJ Abrams version of Star Trek may have never seen the light of day had Enterprise not been such an awful show. Granted, the popularity of Star Trek in general had been gradually declining since TNG ended, as DS9 and Voyager weren't quite as capable of duplicating the same success. But Enterprise was the real nail in the TV coffin, with characters that were simply boring at even the best of times, a time-traveling plot running through most of the series' run without much rhyme or reason, and episodes that featured things like Captain Archer's dog being sick and trying to find out Tripp's favorite food. Space exploration at its finest, indeed.

6. Manimal: Aside from an extremely stupid name, this travesty of a show featured a cop who could turn into virtually any animal he wanted to. Not a horrible concept all by itself, but add in ridiculously awful production values and the show never had a chance. It seems that the producers of a lot of these shows don't seem to realize that they need a decent budget in the first place in order for them to last.

5. Robocop: Robocop the movie was awesome. It was bloody and gritty. Robocop the series was anything but. Aimed at teens for some unfathomable reason, the violence was gone, Robocop never killed anybody, and the evil OCP corporation was portrayed more as bumbling fools who were merely criminally stupid than actually evil. It even messed with basic continuity (i.e. in the movies everyone knows who Robocop was before he died, it's a key subplot, in the show, no one does). Why this was even made is beyond me, I mean that'd be like making saturday morning cartoon of Sin City.

4. Beauty and the Beast: Yeah, I have no idea how this even existed ever. Let's take the story of Beauty and the Beast, except there's no curse, he's just a random freak, and they solve crimes in modern day! How much blow did TV execs get offered to believe this was a good idea? A truly horrible concept that should have never gotten off the ground, it was actually amazingly popular until Linda Hamilton left, then no one cared anymore and it was canceled in short order.

3. Mortal Kombat: Conquest: Yeah, adapting video games is seemingly always a bad idea, be it movies or TV, and this might be the worst of the lot. It didn't even feature most of the rather large MK cast, focusing pretty much on Kung Lao and making up several unnecessary characters. Why they think they could make a series based on a fighting game is mind-boggling at best, and like most shows of this type, it suffered from bad acting, worse writing, and laughably awful production values.

2. Ok yes, the original TMNT movie was live action, and it's awesome. But that doesn't mean you should make a whole series that is live action, it just gets to Power Rangers-level of ridiculousness (which they had a crossover with oddly enough). But really, the major psychological trauma was Venus De Milo, the first femal ninja turtle:

Seriously, WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?!? But all of the combined above ridiculousness is nothing compared to:

1. Baywatch Nights: Let's see, what made Baywatch popular? Surely it was Michael Hasslehoff, and absolutely nothing else. So clearly, we should give the guy his own show as the same character, only with a job as a P.I.(which it's not really clear if this is a part time gig or he's just switched careers). What you say? That's not enough? Well let's make it a poorly done X-Files riipoff in the second season dealing with ghosts, werewolves, vampires, aliens and the like. Yeah, not suprisingly, that not only didn't work, but made this one of the most mind-baffingly awful shows this side of Walker: Texas Ranger. This is truly the most godawful attempt at sci-fi ever. No contest. The only way it might've worked is they added a laugh track.

Ok that's the list. I will try and post one more time this week, but Monday or Tuesday is looking more likely. Til then, here's your FREE GAME OF THE WEEK: Achievement Unlocked 2

6 things all video games must have! But don't really need...

Ok, Scott Pilgrim failed. Epically. People can point to reasons why and why not, personally I like this article over at Den of Geek, basically pointing out that the initial box office probably doesn't actually matter for a film like this, as the fanbase and critics loved it, and it's almost bound to do very well on DVD.

Now, onto today's main topic: When considering making a game, what needs to go into it? It seems like there's almost a checklist these days that every single game needs to have a certain basic set of features. It's not a completely universal thing, but enough so that it's expected and getting to the point where even games as different as Fable & Red Dead Redemption are actually pretty similar on a lot of levels. Do games really need all this stuff? Probably not, which is why a lot of feels shoehorned in. So let's get to the list:

3-D!: 3-D has been around a long time. It's been the standard for games essentially since the original Playstation came out, and while a great many games have come out that wouldn't work without 3D, the consequence has been the near disappearance of fantastic 2D games. Why? Nintendo pretty much seems to get the idea that 2D is a really viable option, with their big holiday titles (Kirby's Epic Yarn & Donkey Kong Country Returns) being 2D, but that probably also has something to do with just how insanely successful New Super Mario Bros. does as well. There is an extreme lack of these on the PS3 and the 360 unless you count some of the games on PSN/XBLA. There is an audience for these, and given the skyrocketing budget of games these days, more developers should be looking that way.

Realism: This is arguably the hardest for me to understand as I'd say 99% of us play games to escape reality. Yet games getting more realistic is the in thing more and more. Bullets doing real damage, needing to eat, etc. Why? Why in games do you need to even consider this stuff? I really don't want to worry about maintaining relationships, my health by having to worry about what I eat or having to follow some kind of medical procedure (see Metal Gear Solid 3) instead of just using a goddamned medpac.

Moral Choice: With games like Mass Effect; Moral Choice is an essential gameplay element. Unfortunately, now it's being shoehorned into a lot of other games without much thought. You can be a complete bastard in Fable II or Red Dead Redemption, but it doesn't affect the story. And really, unless it changes the way the story plays out drastically, it's extremely unnecessary. But it's creeping into more and more titles with haphazard results. Arguably the biggest Wii title coming out this year is Epic Mickey, which seemed to actually have a really solid morality system, then after moronic focus testing, has some sort of middle ground that's sure to please no one compared to what it could have been.

An Open World: It really kickstarted with Grand Theft Auto III, and in that series and some like it, it makes sense. But many games just seem to throw in an open world without much thought to what to actually do, when a linear approach would've been much better. I mean sometimes just getting from point A to Point B in those is a laborious chore in itself. off the top of my head the perfect example is probably No More Heroes (which is a little older, but being remade for the 360 & PS3). A fantastic action game with an open world you must go through to get to your missions, but it was completely empty. No citizens, no random thugs to beat up, nothing. What was the point? Apparently none, as it was just dropped completely in the sequel.

Multi-Player: Bioshock was a fantastic single-player experience. I was hoping the sequel would offer something similar, but the single-player was diluted in favor of really mediocre multi-player. Splinter Cell sells itself as a gritty single-player spy game, but instead we get a very short single-player experience. Multi-player is all well and good, but not if it comes at the expense of delivering a quality, lengthy single-player one. Nearly every game these days really feels the need to put in some kind of multi-player aspect, no matter how minor. Even Dragonquest IX, an-old school style rpg, has completely unnecessary (and frankly, clumsy and pointless) multi-player features. It's the old trying to please everyone one while pleasing no one routine and its getting old. Game companies need to really realize that there are actually seperate audiences that can support a dedicated single-player experience, as well as a multi-player one, which brings to to my last item on the last:

Single-Player: This seems to be something the game companies are slowly realizing, with MMOs finally making once in a blue moon appearances on consoles (MAG, FFXIV, etc.), but most games seem content with hedging their bets, providing both single and multi-player, and one usually suffers horribly. Any multi-player game could probably succeed if it creates a really well-developed experience. The only reason PC gaming is still alive is because it can deliver a dedicated multi-player experience, but consoles, despite being far more dominant, have barely dipped their feet in the water. Hopefully some game will come along soon that changes all that. Because until then, fans of either type of play suffer because developers feels the need to include both.

Ok, that's all for today, I should be back tomorrow or Friday with something else, until then, here's your TRAILER OF THE WEEK: DON'T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK

More Don't Be Afraid of the Dark News & Previews

Epic Scrooge?

What does Warren Spector, creator of Deus Ex and the upcoming Epic Mickey game want to do next? Ducktales, that's what. Now, the original Ducktales game is a true NES classic, and if anyone could bring it into modern day gaming while retaining the inherent greatness of the license, it's Spector. If Epic Mickey id half as good as it seems, Warren Spector should have spin on nearly every Disney property, frankly.

I did manage to go see Scott Pilgrim at midnight on Thursday, and it was a truly amazing film. This is kind of like if Hollywood actually treated video games with the respect they deserved when making them into movies, because although yes it's based on a comic, Scott Pilgrim is pretty much like a video game, with tons of references littered throughout. Even if you are not familiar with the comics, if you are a geek. you will probably loves this movie, as it totally works (i.e. my fiancee & her cousin saw it with me, having almost no knowledge of the series, and absolutely loved it). It's funny, charming original and action-packed. This is easily the most fun I've had at theatres this year so far, everyone should go see it.

Video game novels are pretty much a crapshoot. I've read several, and they mostly range from not horrible to nearly unreadable (the Halo series of books covers the entire range). These days, I'd probably need a little extra incentive to pick one up. The people behind the upcoming Fable novel, The Balverine Order, seem to release this, and are offering a code for an exclusive yet-to-be named weapon if you purchase the novel. Granted, exclusive items haven't seemed to do much in games beyond being a status symbol, but as a somewhat avid reader, I'll support anything that encourages reading (plus the fiancee is completely obsessed with Fable II and is highly anticipating the 3rd game, so I pretty much have to buy it).

Finally, Star Wars is really finally coming to blu-ray, but only in the newer crappier "Greedo shot first" editions, and possibly only in all-in-one box set with all 6 films. Screw you Lucas. I'm pretty sure I'm passing on anything Lucas has a hand in forever, as he's essentially spent the last 20 or so years ruining two of the biggest franchises of all time.

All right, that is it for today, I should hopefully be back by Tuesday with... something.

Scott Pilgrim vs. The Expendables vs. Julia Roberts

Admittedly, the Expendables isn't taking aim directly at Scott Pilgrim, it's more concerned with with the super chick flick Eat, Pray, Love starring Julia Roberts. And I don't think there's ever been so much testosterone in one flick, even with key players missing (seriously, you couldn't nab Vin Diesel or The Rock? That would've been better than UfC fighter Randy Couture or Dolph Lungren, who's entire claim to fame is Ivan Drago). But all three movies are opening this weekend, vying for top spot. Admittedly I do want to check out Expendables, but I'm pushing it just trying to catch Scott Pilgrim at midnight tonight(which if that does happen, expect a review tomorrow night), so that'll probably wait for video. What would be awesome is if Scott Pilgrim leaves these two in the dust, it would actually be a huge message to studios that there really is a big audience for something that has big game references and doesn't treat the gaming culture at large with disdain.

So if you're like me, you've watched the Scott Pilgrim trailers a bunch of times already, because they are epic, but even more epic is the trailer matched up the the graphic novel series it's based on:

And I've now played through several levels of the Scott Pilgrim game, and it's pretty sweet. If you enjoy side-scrolling brawlers, it's hard to go wrong here, especially since it's only $10. The soundtrack is extremely memorable, and the game looks fantastic, and it's really fun to go through the levels repeatedly, which is good, because one of the biggest complaints about this game is probably going to be how hard it is, especially solo. The enemies are brutal and cheap, but enough powering up through buying items and leveling balances it out. But easily the biggest sin is a lack of online play, as this game seems built for it, and it's just odd. Still this is easily one of the best downloadable games of the year even with those glaring flaws, so do yourself a favor and download it.

And as old school as the game is, the pitch goes back even further to more of an 8-bit look:



While that would've been kind of cool, I'm glad they went aimed a little bit higher with a 16-bit feel for the actual game.

Ok, that's really all I've got for today, hopefully back tomorrow with a Scott Pilgrim review and some non-Scott Pilgrim stuff. Until then, here's your TRAILER OF THE WEEK: Skyline

Scott Pilgrim > Madden

Hell just about anything is better than another goddamn Madden game. And later today, we get what is already being called one of the best video game adaptations to date, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, the Video Game. It just sucks that unlike when something comes out on the 360 to download and we can get it at 12 am, we have to wait til the official PSN update hits, which is always a vague "sometime Tuesday", which usually translates to around 5 pm from what I've experienced. Admittedly that's better than waiting til August 24th, which is what you are going to have to do if you only have a 360. Of course I guess that's better than only having a Wii, which as of now, it isn't even coming out on, which makes no sense, since everybody seems to be comparing it to River City Ransom, one of the best games on the NES, which is available for download on the virtual console). Of course, I guess Wii owners could console (no pun intended) themselves by downloading RCR, it is only $5 and still stands as a completely awesome title.

In other Scott Pilgrim awesomeness, check out these fake movie posters for Chris Evans character, Lucas Lee:

The only thing that would make this more awesome is if they made fake trailers for them ala Funny People or Grindhouse. Course then someone may get the idea to actually make one of these in (which is how Machete happened) in which case the joke's gone a little too far.

One more cool Scott Pilgrim thing before I move on, you can check out both the Soundtrack and Original Score right now for free over at Spinner. Ad the game's soudtrack is available for a listen at the Playstation Blog

Jumping back a step, River City Ransom is one of many great games that have been released on the VC, but where all the great releases lately? 2010 has seen very few releases period, and barely ay of note. Is the VC pretty much a dead thing now that Wiiware is fully up and running?  IGN certainly seems to think so, and it would be hard to prove them wrong. I had no idea Japan's VC library is nearly double the size of the US one, and it seems like we basically get scraps with no explanation as to why. Admittedly it bothers me less lately with plenty of fantastic new content both retail and digital to spend my money on consitently, but it would be a shame to have the service basically slowly wither and die as it seems to be doing, even though there's a mountain of old school titles left untouched.

Is Blockbuster going to finally be able to challenge netflix and gamefly by combining games & movies into one rental service? That is what they are now trying. Admittedly, as I currently pay for both Netflix and Gamefly, an all-in-one subscription is overall a tempting offer, but as Netflix offers streaming and I'm overall pretty happy with Gamefly's service and selection, I'm willing to pay a bit more until Blockbuster can prove they offer something better. It honestly may be too little, too late anyways, as Gamefly and especially Netflix are ingrained into the public as where you go for online rentals.

Ok, That's it for today, I do apologize for only one post last week, but I was super busy and not a whole lot seemed to be going on that wasn't covered to death. I should be back Thursday with a review if the game, I sadly probably will not be able to see the movie til at least Monday due to me weekend just being packed work-wise, so expect of review of the film then. In the meantime enjoy 101 FREE GAMES to make up for lack of posting last week.

7 licenses that should be given the Lego Treatment

Lego games have pretty much become their own genre at this point. And why not? What could've been a bunch of shoddy kiddy games has turned out to be a series of mostly fun all ages action titles brilliantly spoofing some great franchises. But With 2 Indiana Jones games and the upcoming release of yet another Star Wars Lego game based on the Clone Wars, they seem to be short on overall ideas. So here are 7 that could easily give the Lego games a much needed boost.

7. The Prince of Persia



Yeah, the movie bombed and the games have sort of gone downhill since the original Sands of Time. But the property itself would be pretty awesome for a lego game to be set in, with the cool palaces and dungeons. And Lego games have certainly proven that they can make even craptacular movies like the Star Wars prequels incredibly entertaining. The only downside would probably be that POP isn't exactly loaded with memorable characters, but that shouldn't get in the way of fun gameplay. I mean just look at the video, wouldn't that be awesome to actually play?

6. Evil Dead

Ok, going a little outside the box here, but seeing Ash and the Deadites lego-fied would just be pure awesome. I mean, it's a series known for not taking itself seriously in any way, shape or form to begin with, so making it a lego game wouldn't seem that out of the realm of possibility (aside from the fact that clearly Lego only wants to do family friendly properties). There's certainly an audience for it, as you can tell by the fan art above, and you can find any number of Evil Dead lego videos on youtube.

5. Alien/Predator

Arguably a much richer field to mine than Evil Dead, the Alien/Predator movies have become much like any other long-running horror franchise, definitely not scary and almost a joke. So might as well go all the way with it. And I could certainly see a lot of rich comedy opportunities in the usual Lego manner. Best of all, they could theoretically not eve have to cut down on the violence cause hey, it's just Lego characters, they get body parts cut off all the time!

4. DC/Marvel

Yeah, there's Lego Batman. But both the DC and Marvel Universes are so huge, any one of their key properties could easily be a Lego game in its own right, but obviously having something like a Justice League or Avengers or any random mismash ala the Marvel Ultmate Alliance games would be the preferred way to go. Since Batman has already been done, I'd rather  see a Marvel-based game, but really, somebody needs to get on this.

3. Pirates of the Caribbean

Unfortunately I think the only reason this hasn't happened yet is that some company named Mega Bloks owns the rights, because otherwise this just seems way too obvious. It's got a ton of characters, sets ideal for lego adventures and it's very popular with families. My guess is we'll see it at some point, hopefully in the not too far off future (and preferably before another Lego Harry potter game).

2. Transformers

Granted, this might have to be handled a little more carefully to be done right, but Transformers in a lego setting would be ridiculously awesome. And just seeing Autobots, Deceptiocons, Dinobots, and whatever the hell else bots in the glorious Lego selves would be worth $50 or $60 all on its own.

1. Lord of the Rings



This would be my top wish. Seeing the awesome battles and characters in Lego form would be epic. And with Harry Potter arguably being the best Lego game to date, it's been proven that a fantasy setting as such would work really well. The time might not be right now, but hopefully if the Hobbit films ever get off the ground, it would be perfect opportunity.

All in all, the Lego franchise has the potential to remain frash for a long time, as long as they don't milk it by doing licenses either no one cares about, or continuing to mine already familiar ground (i.e. no more Star Wars). So hopefully, they'll be smart enough to do so.

Ok, that's it for today, I hopefully should be back a little later in the week with something. In the meantime, here's your TRAILER OF THE WEEK: Sucker Punch

Microsoft needs to watch this....

Because they seriously fail in the math department, claiming Kinect is cheaper than the Wii. Sure, if you already have a 360. And this is hardly the first time a company has used funny math (the most infamous probably being Atari's claim that it's final system, the truly craptacular Jaguar, was the first "true" 64-bit system). And as Destructoid has pointed out, while the Kinect may be able to "track" up to 6 people, it can only handle 2 playing at any time. Face it Microsoft, your math just doesn't add up. Nice try, though.

Yes I did happen to watch the latest DCAU  movie yesterday. Honestly it's a good thing they keep making this stuff, or I'd never be able even remotely keep up things that have happened since I stopped really reading comics about 12 years ago. I still read the occasional graphic novel while killing time at Borders, but that's about it. Anyways, most DC/Batman fans know that there have been several Robins, but only one was brutally murdered by popular vote/The Joker, and that'd be Jason Todd. Years later, he's come back to deal with criminals the way Batman never would. Controlling a few key ones and killing the rest. Now in the comics, he's brought back to life by Superboy punching reality (yeah, that kind of stuff happens all the time in comics). I won't spoil exactly how he was brought back in the movie, but let's just say Superboy isn't in it. Ultimately whether or not you'll enjoy this movie arguably depends on your history with DC animated stuff. There are certain iconic voice actors established with key characters in the DC Universe. Most notably Kevin Conroy as Batman and Mark Hamill as the Joker. These guys are considered the standard for any animated work featuring these characters. And this is admittedly not the first time they've decided to go another route, but for many fans it's hard to hear anyone else in the role. It's certainly a solid entry in it own right, but for anybody who owns or has watched a good portion of the DCAU, it doesn't quite stack up to the high quality bar that was set with movies such as Subzero or more recently, Wonder Woman (arguably the best non-batman animated DC movie to date). Still, I'd reccomend a rent for any Batman or comic fan.

Does anyone play Everquest anymore? I'm pretty sure that sadly the grandaddy of MMORPGS has been shoved into near-irrelevance since WOW has more or less dominated the market for years and everyone else is just dividing up an increasingly small pie. Apparently in a bid to try and regain some relevancy, they are going the free to play route like so many others. But it's not quite the same as it won't include the latest expansion. I'm not sure who this is suppossed to appeal to.The hardcore who still play Everquest will want access to the newest and frankly if you're not playing Everquest now, you probably never will as their are far more attractive offerings out there, free or otherwise.

That's pretty much it for today, but I will try and do one more post sometime this weekend. In the meantime, enjoy your FREE GAME OF THE WEEK: Skyfyre

WII NEEDS WOMEN. And rpgs...

Actually the Wii arguably has a better track record than any console in history of attracting women (at least those that don't normally play video games), but attracting rpgs at anything even remotely resembling a regular fix seems next to impossible. I mean the last rpg that even came out for the system was Sakura Wars. And I really tried to like it, but several chapters of listening to inane sub-standard anime chatter with the rare occasional battle thrown in was just too much for me to bear. This was a similar issue on the Gamecube, but with it being a distant third, that wasn't surprising. The Wii is completely dominating the market, and with it being considerably less expensive to develop for, it should seem a haven for quirky rpg developers aiming at a niche crowd. Unfortunately, that hasn't really happened. So, an rpg fan with only a Wii to play desperately grabs at anything that comes out. That almost seems to be the hope behind Arc Rise Fantasia, out tomorrow, because according to nearly every review, it'd be extremely difficult to be more generic. Ironically rpg fans are far better off owning a 360, what with its wide variety of both American & Japanese flavored-rpgs. And the DS has a pretty healthy library as well. And what's the next rpg Wii owners even have to look forward to? The next Dragonquest game, due out whenever they feel like it at this point (likely 2012 at this rate). On the bright side, this console generation is seemingly having a much longer life-span than previous ones, with the next generation nowhere to be seen, so it's not too late to change this (but I doubt it will happen).

Batman 3 isn't coming out til 2012, but in the meantime you can help tide yourself with the latest DC direct-to-video release, Under the Red Hood, which is an animated re-telling of the return of the only Robin ever killed by popular vote. DC video releases are normally of tremendous quality (the Wonder Woman movie is one of the best animated films I've seen in a long time) so I definitely intend to rent it tomorrow and hopefully will have a review up next time I post.

How much will you pay for a 3DS? Is $250 too much? That's what often-quoted (and wrong 90% of the time) analyst Michael Pachter thinks it'll be. Granted, it's tough to say what a fair price for a portable 3D gaming system that can play 3D movies as well would be. But Nintendo has always stressed affordability for their products, including this newest one, so that price does seem like a slim possibility at best, or at least it would have a pretty solid bundle included to come out at that price. It would almost certainly be more than the DSi XL which is currently $189, but I think we'll simply see the DS disappear, the price of the DSi & DSi XL dropped and the 3DS at $199, as anyone who bought a DSi/XL might feel shafted at suddenly seeing a new fancy 3D system that can play their games and more and suddenly have to shell out another $250 for it.

Ok, that's really all I have for today, but I should be back tomorrow with something, in the mean time, check out the awesome new comic-con Tron Legacy trailer as the TRAILER OF THE WEEK:

Starwhatnow?

Now I played the original Starcraft back when you didn't need to have a $1000+ rig to run the latest computer games, but my interest in computer games was steadily waning at that point anyways, and with computer gaming being more of a niche thing these days than ever, it's easy t see why someone who was raised on consoles or has played console games almost exclusively could not give less of a  frakk about arguably the biggest PC release in nearly 10 years, Starcraft II, which is out this Tuesday. It doesn't help that consoles and RTS games just do not seem to mix. It's been tried mind you, but usually with middling results at best. For whatever reason, developers just have not managed to work out a formula that amounts to a quality RTS experience on a console, and so console gamers (which do make up something like 90% of the gaming community) at large don't care. Personally, I've tried the RTS genre several times over the years and never really had a taste for it. Probably something about having to do all that micromanaging in real time.

Couldn't download the free Doctor Who games released awhile ago because you live in the colonies? Well good news, they are now available for download. Bad news-not free like they are across the pond, but 4.95 for both episodes is hardly something I'd complain about, that probably just covers the licensing fees or something.

So the world's biggest comic convention, the San Diego Comic Con was this weekend, and everybody seems to be going ape over the not terribly be surprising news that Joss Whedon is indeed directing the Avengers, and that Mark Ruffalo is the latest Hulk, even though they've been the names most associated with those respective roles for months. Whedon on the Avengers is of course huge. It's hard to see Mark Ruffalo convincingly do Bruce Banner even though he is a very solid actor, he just seems ill-fitting for the role. But as he may be a green cgi giant most of the time, it may not matter.

Ok, that's really I got for today, I will hopefully do another post tomorrow or Tuesday (certainly Wednesday at the latest), but in the meantime, here's your FREE GAME OF THE WEEK: The Breach

No, no don't riddle me anything. Really, it's ok...

So Batman 3 casting rumors are popping up again with the film actually being in the not horribly far off Summer of 2012. The big rumor running is that the villain will be the enigmatic mastermind known as the Riddler. A classic villain to be sure, but bring this character into Nolan's universe and what have you got? A low rent Joker. I mean, he'd clearly be a super-intelligent psychopath who hatches crazy schemes to outwit everybody. Pretty much the only difference would be the Riddler would be doing it for an ego boost, the Joker just did it for kicks. I really feel that this would be a wrong way to go when Batman has a large assortment of more than worthy villains, many of which fit well into Nolan's more realistic universe. Bane would be a great way to play on the fact hat currently Batman is a fugitive, as he could be hired by an overeager official who finds out he can't control him. Black Mask is virtually a mirror image of Bruce Wayne, just twisted inside, so he'd also be a great choice. My top pick however, would be Mr. Freeze. Though it was touched on briefly with Two-Face's all too brief subplot in Dark Knight, a tragic villain as the focus would be perfect after Batman mainly having to deal with pure psycopaths so far. Granted, Nolan so far has been able to handle dual villains rather deftly, so maybe a Bane/Freeze combo could work. Then again...

And yes, at the top is a trailer for the completely awesome-looking Scott Pilgrim videogame, due out on PSN in just a few weeks. Feel free to drool of the River City-esque awesomeness. If any new ones pop up before the actual release, I'll put them up. I'm seriously anticipating  this more than most retail releases coming out this year.

Apparently, even the sinister Mr. Shanrgilamayan cannot kill Avatar: the Last Airbender. The absolutely awesome cartoon is getting a spin-off next year called The Legend of Korra. Now, if this was a mere cash in on Nickelodeon's part, I would be skeptical, but since the original creators are involved, I'm very excited. This is the kind of rare animation that manages to be entertaining on many levels for kids and adults. Let us wash the horrible memory of the movie away and await these hopefully awesome new adventures.

The price for the Kinect has been confirmed at $150. I've more or less said my piece on this. It's not that the price seems unreasonable in itself, but the software looks terrible, and good luck convincing the casual public to fork out at least $100 more than what Nintendo is offering (and odds are Nintendo will drop the price again).

That's really all for today, I should be back tomorrow with something about Salt as well as a couple other items. Til then, here's your TRAILER OF THE WEEK: Red

Taking "adaptation" to a whole new level

Two potentially huge movies out this week, The Sorceror's Apprentice & Inception. I saw both today, and firstly I'd really like to talk about Apprentice. How exactly a short section of Fantasia got turned into a full blown big budget movie clearly involves a lot of liberties, and I guess they are hoping for the same magic that came with the very loose concept of a movie based on a certain piratey theme park ride. I think it works as a big dumb popcorn flick, with good comedy and special effects, and clearly Nicholas Cage had plenty of fun with his role. I will say I think Jay Baruchel was poorly cast, as he's pretty much just annoying and can't really carry the more serious heroic growth moments his character has throughout the film. I still think it's worth seeing overall, which doesn't seem to be the consensus.

Inception is pretty much everything you've heard. Brilliant, suspenseful, amazing. This might be Nolan's best work to date, and considering his resume that's saying quite a bit. And the thing is, everyone seems to know its brilliant and yet they are worried it will fail (and in a day and age where movies like "Marmaduke" een get made, it's a serious concern). So drag everyone you know with you into this film. If they don't understand or don't get it, you should probably find new friends...

Finally, with 007 movies in limbo for god only knows how long, will we actually see Daniel Craig don the secret agent duds ever again? Well if a couple of videogames do well enough, we may see him more often than we'd think, because not only is the Wii release of Goldeneye featuring Mr. Craig, but a new original Bond game was just announced, and they are treating it like a full blown movie. Now granted, Bond games have an overall fairly shoddy history, but the last fully original (as in not based on a movie at all) Bond game was the very excellent Everything or Nothing, so hopefully it follows in that game's foot steps.

That's all I really have for today, but til next time, here's your FREE GAME OF THE WEEK: Five Minutes to Kill Yourself (reloaded)

Where's the epic downloadable rpgs?

Because today is the release one of the more hotly anticipated downloadable titles of the year (at least on PSN, it hits XBLA tomorrow), Deathspank, an old-school dungeon crawler with a good sense of humor. I downloaded the demo, and it was pretty entertaining. But even though the reviews are very positive, most clock it in at a measly 8 hours, not a very meaty rpg. Now, admittedly, standards should be a little different for a downloadable title, but this is an rpg we are talking about. 15 hours should arguably be the bare minimum, with 20 being a more acceptable number. There is no reason someone couldn't make an epic rpg clocking in anywhere form 30-60 hours on the graphical level of a PS one title or even a 16 or 8-bit game. I mean, we do get occasional bytes in old school classic rpgs such as Secret or Mana or Final Fantasy IX that are available for download, but where are some original rpgs? I mean aside from the newly released Deathspank, there's the Penny Arcade games, and that's about it. Hopefully somebody is working on one, because I'd love to see an epic Super NES era style rpg to downloadable channels. I mean, if they can make something as awesome as Torchlight and sell it for $20 (actually far less with it constantly being on sale) on PC, surely they can do something equally epic for consoles, right? Someone get on that.

Well, I'm about 9 or so hours into Dragonquest IX, and I'm thoroughly enjoying it so far. Though it is still very old school and frankly the multi-player aspect is essentially nothing more than grinding with friends since you can't advance the story any. Still a really solid choice for anyone looking for a timesink portable rpg.

So, Kinect demo units are coming to a major retailer near you. Where you ask? Macy's. Yeah, that's the ticket, demoing it at a place that gamers never go for gaming, and that is on the verge of bankruptcy. And while Kinect is clearly an attempt at reaching a non-gamer audience, it's not the matter of "playing the Halos" as the Penny Arcade guys put it. It's the matter of being able to navigate menus equally well with your hands vs. a controller, or being able to do something like drive with nothing physical to interact with. The complete lack of a physical controller to do many things that in real life require control of an object sounds like you might as well be just using your imagination and playing in a cardboard box. Which would be a helluva lot cheaper than buying whatever the hell Kinect thinks it is.


Ok, that's pretty much all I have for today, but I'll leave you with the TRAILER OF THE WEEK: Valhalla Rising

Even Seth Green probably won't make you care about Dragonquest IX

At least if you aren't already a fan of the series. Despite it being around as long as the venerable Final Fantasy franchise and being an international phenomenon to the point where Japan virtually shuts down when a new one is released. But here, it's relegated to a small but fiercely dedicated fanbase. I wouldn't count myself as fiercely loyal, but I have enjoyed the majority of the series entries, I especially invested plenty of time in the last couple entries. It's kind of hard to describe why it's got such a huge following, as it's been extremely slow to change with the times (i.e. the seventh installment, a Playstation title looked like it could've easily been done on a Super Nintendo). But hey, Pokemon's barely changed in over 20 years and its still huge. The series has always maintained a huge charm factor, possibly because it's so simple when other rpgs get more and more complex (hell I had to buy a strategy guide just to understand most of FFXIII). The ninth installment is a true divergence for the series, adding a huge multi-player component that while I'd like to advantage of, nearly nobody out here in the midwest seems to have both a ds and an appetite for old school rpgs, but the single-player component should be enough to keep me busy for quite awhile, and I happily anticipate the next chapter, apparently due out for the Wii.

Not much else to comment on, except that I managed to catch Despicable Me earlier today, and it was a very charming film. It's probably not what you would expect, but it's very funny and manages to not overdo it with the syrupy sentimental stuff and it's nice to see a non-pixar production that is actually good every once and awhile. I would say that I would've preferred either a pure villain vs. villain movie or Gru keeping to his evil ways and teaching the kids, but obviously that probably wouldn't go over so well with the mainstream audiences. Still, a high reccomendation from me.

Well, that's really it for today, but I should be back early next week with DQ IX impressions and whatever else happens to break. In the mean time here's your FREE GAME OF THE WEEK: Looming

You almost had me at Hulu...

I've said that Sony's Playstation Plus service really needed something far beyond the little tidbits of practically useless freebies and discounts to get myself interested. Hulu plus, the new service from Hulu that sounds essentially like what we've all wanted cable to be for years at the low low price of $9.99 a month. Now it is coming for PS3 in the very near future (like supposedly later this month) and originally it seemed to be only available to Plus members. Granted, some decried this as relegating non-Plus members to the same second-class citizenship rules that the Xbox Silver players suffer from. But keeping in mind that cable/satellite is at least 3 times more expensive a month, paying $50 once a year and $10 a month would be quite the savings, and something I would've gladly signed up for. Luckily, Sony and Hulu aren't seeing this way and are merely offering Plus owners a shot at the preview period, essentially the beta. Once Hulu plus is out of preview (which should be later this month) it will be available to all PS3 owners. Win one for the cheapskates like me, but getting it through Playstation Plus still would've been a very good deal.

By now you might've noticed the ginormous trailer posted for Dragonquest IX replacing the artwork of Scott Johnson. I think what I'm going to start doing is alternating between upcoming trailers for games & movies I'm really excited for that are hitting soon, and the occasional piece of awesome geek art if there's a lull. We'll see how that works out. Dragon Quest IX itself, which hits this Sunday, I'll likely discuss in far more detail in my Thursday/Friday post (more likely to be a Friday). In the meantime, have a slime drink...

Whether or not this strikes you as completely awesome probably depends on your history with the Dragon Warrior/Quest series...

So even though it's easily the worst movie of the year, if not the last several, M. Night Shakalazam's savaging of The Last Airbender still managed to make a pretty respectable $70 mil over the holiday weekend, bringing up sequel talks. God I hope not. Most people are betting/hoping the is the final nail in his directing coffin, but nearly everything that even breaks even gets at least a shot at a sequel. I hope if development does go forward, the studio boots his ass or those who were duped in the first place just don't go.

Ok, that's really all for today, but I hopefully will post something tomorrow. In the meantime, here's your TRAILER OF THE WEEK: The American

Video Day-Big Bang Edition

Yeah, after working double shifts yesterday and today and having to be up in a little over 6 hours for work again tomorrow, I'm in no shape for a full on post, so look for an actual post hopefully tomorrow (but assuredly there will be one Wednesday at the latest). In the meantime, enjoy the last few hours of the holiday weekend with a bunch of clips from what is currently easily my favorite sitcom currently, the supremely geeky BIG BANG THEORY:

Shamamahahiho Hits a new low....

Which frankly I didn't think was possible after the Village and the Happening. Hell, this was suppossed to more or less be his comeback piece. A huge budget, a potentially huge property, and since he had an established lore and story to follow, he couldn't possibly include any of his usual nonsensical plot twists and surprises. But yes, M. Night Shahadoons take on the beloved and completely awesome Nickelodeon series Avatar: The Last Airbender is a complete affront to fans of the show and moviegoers in general. I could forgive the lack of appropriate race casting (most of the cast of the cartoon is Asian or Indian) as it admittedly might have a less broad appeal that way, but the actors (aside from the kid playing Aang, who does an okay job) are all completely terrible. Their are numerous essential elements of the show either completely butchered, missing or changed for no reason to something compleltely ridiculous, the special effects are serviceable at best, and the fighting is choppy, slow and extremely clumsy. Finally, if you watched the series, you know that that while it is a fairly serious affair about rebelling against a violent empire, it also had a ton of hilarious moments. The offbeat humor was a key element, and it's pretty much completely absent from the movie. This will arguably be his biggest failure to date and frankly given his track record over his last 5 films, I'd say we are all better off if it's his last.

So, Nintendo's E3 press conference was 20 kinds of awesome, but they were lacking in one big area: NEW IP. As much as we loved seeing all those old franchises updated, their pretty much wasn't anything new, making many think Nintendo has pretty much blown their wad and won't be able to follow it up next year. While it will be hard regardless, the good news is that Shigeru Miyamoto knows this, and has stated that they in fact need new characters, which they should focus on next year, so kudos to him for realizing this, I hope they can keep up with it.


Birth By Sleep is coming up fast (Sept. 7), and I thought I'd do my little bit to promote it by making a fanvid"




Finally, Roger Ebert has recanted? No of course not, that'd be silly. He simply apologizes for expressing his half-assed opinion that he still clings just as strongly to about games not now and not ever being art. Gamers are seeing this as some sort of victory? Why? Frankly the man shouldn't apologize for giving his opinion on the matter, that he should be free to express all he wants, it's the whole point of free speech. Just as the gaming community is free to respond. That he shouldn't have apologized for, and it's damn cowardly of him to do so frankly. So the gaming community is hounding him about it? Get a goddamn backbone and don't sort of apologize for having the opinion in the first place. Essenitally saying "I still believe what I said, but I was wrong to say it anyways" is a complete fucking cop out.


That's really all for today, but I'll probably try and post something this weekend if I can, in the meantime, here's your FREE GAME OF THE WEEK: Infectonator!