Year: 2008

Banjo Kazooie – Does Anyone Care?

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The answer to the title is “no” – no one cares about the new Banjo Kazooie that is likely to be released. Let us break down the modern history of Rare.

Star Fox Adventures – stuck so close to the Zelda formula I’m not sure why they bothered.

Grabbed by the Ghoulies – I almost forgot this one.

Kameo – Less memorable than the PS2 launch titles

Perfect Dark Zero – The biggest joke so far this generation.

Viva Pinata – I did forget about this one. Let’s just say it launched with a cartoon from 4kids Entertainment. They knew what they were doing all along.

Rare has not been relevant in years, and I think has been a good thing for gaming. It means we have not been subjugated to insane amounts of item collecting and character names based on bad puns and stereotypes. Best yet it meant we didn’t have to hear anyone tell us that these things all made for great gaming. →  Fear the old posts.

Finished with the Next Gen — A jumble of an article

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I have had an Xbox 360 for about three months. Under normal circumstances such a short period of time would never be enough to wear down the novelty of this fantastic new toy. However, about three weeks ago tragedy struck. (No red circles were involved, the box works fine). I accidentally deleted about 25 hours worth of progress in one of my all time favorite games: Culdcept. The second I realized what I had done, I almost vomited from grief. I had gotten more than halfway through the game collecting about 300 of the 500 available cards, and all of it went up in smoke with a simple misclick. For the following week I could not bring myself to play another game. I could not even look at my Xbox without feeling a pang of regret. I almost picked up reading again, like some sort of a caveman. But, after some minimal contemplation I decided that instead of sulking, buying a Wii would cure all my ills. →  [post launches in virtual reality],[put on your VR headset now],[left click on your mouse to open the remainder of this post in your web browser on your digital computing device]

Review – Mass Effect Downloadable Content: Pack #1

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Mass Effect is one of the best games I’ve played in recent years. The intricate character development, the beauty of the various worlds, the epic music, the quality voice work … fantastic. I’ve already played through the game twice and I can’t wait for the sequel (which was just made official). So naturally I leapt at the chance to get some filler content with the first DLC pack “Bring Down the Sky”: a 400 point ($5) roughly ninety minute add-on with an additional fifty achievement points thrown in.

Before I get to talking about what I thought went wrong with the pack, I just want to say that I loved playing it as much as the rest of the game. If you were a fan of the original it’s exactly the quality you’d expect from BioWare, but this side quest is given the same cinematic treatment that only the main plot missions had the first time. Not to mention that for $5 you get an hour and a half of entertainment that’s far better than most current movies (I’m looking at you Witless Protection). →  Ikari Warriors 2: Postery Read

Something old, new, recycled and blue

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I’ve decided to condense two potential blog posts into one topic, as they are both somewhat similar in nature. I should do this more often, as it seems to force me to take my almost article length ramblings and cut them down into something readable. A win for all.

Some time ago Jay wrote a discussion on Mario and how he is anything but a throwaway character. Interesting then that a “games editor” at Softpedia (a site which I have only known before as a place where I failed to get working drivers) has claimed that mascots like Mario and Sonic should be locked up in a museum and never put into another game, starting right this minute. His reasoning is that they are old and stale, and offer nothing new to the gaming table, hurting the industry more than helping. His reasoning, as well as the chorus of commentators in agreement are completely off base. While Sonic has been troublesome in regards to quality in the last ten years, Jay has already pointed out that Mario is practically a symbol of quality, and that it is hard to find any game he is in that is not worth someone’s time. →  Get lame or get out.

Random Old Game – Drakkhen

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There are few games that can inspire a sense of true exploration – a feeling of awe at how large or detailed they are. Fewer still are the games that can bring out that feeling even after you’ve beaten them. For some reason, despite being only a so-so game in nearly every other respect, Drakkhen (of a few systems, though most notably the SNES) still holds uncounted mysteries in my mind.

Seems fair.

The most likely source of this awe is simply that the game is so abominably random. I never owned the instruction book, and the introduction only gives vagaries as to the plot (blah blah, 4 elements, 2 poles of power). Fact is, you create a party and start in the middle of the Earth area with little direction. You’re told that you have to collect 8 Tears of Power, and that you should check at the nearby castle first. Oh, the introductory information tells you a decent amount about the game’s system. →  Michigan: Article from Hell

Review – Professor Layton and the Curious Village

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As the perpetually annoying sidekick Luke’s cockney accent will quickly inform you at the start of the game, Professor Layton and the Curious Village tells the story of the eponymous Professor Layton, renowned puzzle solver, and his apprentice Luke as they investigate the death of the Baron Reinhold in the curious village of St. Mystere (I hear that’s heavy-handed-plot-device-ese for “mystery”). More specifically, Layton is tasked with settling the Baron’s will and finding the enigmatic “golden apple” it references.

Professor Layton wants *you* to solve more puzzles… and join the Army.

Getting to the bottom of this riddle will require interacting with the various townsfolk of St. Mystere– sounds easy, right? Only one one little problem, the people of St. Mystere just love puzzles, and if you want to get anyone to do anything for you chances are you’re going to have to solve a puzzle for them first.

Need to get across a river? Solve a puzzle. Glass of milk? →  Read, you fools!

Review – Spider-Man: Friend or Mere Acquaintance

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In another installment in my untimely series on finding something to hate while surrounded by the best games in years, here’s another look at games that ate shit in 2007.

Now That's Amore!

Until recently, the Spider-Man franchise had been the only comic book license that somewhat translated into an enjoyable gaming experience. Next Level Games, a company that specializes in cramming a licensed properties into games that have nothing to do with the license they are based on, must have won some sort of raffle to be awarded the development of Friend or Foe. Any company that works solely in licensed games is going to suck worse than a circus put on by disabled veterans. Anyone who tells you different is Next Level Games.

With hands full of cash and laps full of stripper, Next Level Games didn’t waste time on relating this game to the movie or even comic when they had already developed what I can only assume would have been called Mario Strikers Love Corndogs if Nintendo had called them first. →  Read, you fools!

Ziff Davis files for chapter 11, rebel journalists celebrate

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So Ziff Davis, owner of the magazine Electronic Gaming Monthly and website 1Up, is finally going under. Last week they filed for bankruptcy (I hope you didn’t have any gift cards for their merchandise). This probably won’t mean much since companies have the amazing ability to survive even after they’ve lost all of their money, but for the sake of argument pretend it means that the 1Up network is dying.

Should this passing be celebrated or mourned? Forget that there are real people who need to eat running these publications for a moment – our capitalist system is harsh and we all implicitly agree that if people can’t make a living doing what they do then they are probably not good enough at that job (minus those of us who belong to the American Communist Party – I still believe in our mission comrades, this whole site is a ploy to gain the trust of the greedy pigs). Compiling a list of what we stand to lose is better left for annoying optimistic people. →  Read more, before it’s too late!

Echochrome Demo impressions

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Thanks to their simple file format, getting Japan only PSP demos is a snap. Thank goodness, because that means you can play the three level demo of Echochrome without hassle.

EXCITING!

The experience is quite interesting, but I am not completely sold. The stylings are nice and simple – an absolute bare minimal interface, simple levels and constantly looping string music make this the closest thing to therapeutic gaming. Despite the Japanese text, the controls are easy to learn; you can make your stick figure avatar either move faster along the terrain, or stop to “think”, giving you time to do the same. The D-pad of course allows you to rotate the world, which is the mechanic used to solve all the puzzles.

How well does said mechanic fare? It isn’t easy to say from the demo. The rules of Echochrome are deceptively simple; the perspective from which you observe any of the Escher-inspired worlds is what governs how it behaves. →  Xenoblade Articles X

Review – Call of Duty 4 Multiplayer

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Throughout the history of Xbox Live there have been several games that have been the most played at any given time, but no one had a doubt as to which would eventually become the undisputed champion. Nothing, it seemed, could top Halo 3. Now here we are, in the month of March, and Halo 3 is in an almost weekly battle for number one. Its competition is one of the top games of 2008, a title that was a guaranteed success, but which no one thought would become a viable contender against Bungie’s Goliath. That game, of course, is Call of Duty 4, and after just a couple of rounds of play you will see what the fuss is about.

Developer Infinity Ward has been making quality multiplayer games since the original Call of Duty – CoD 3 was made for multiplayer enhancements more than anything. This time they have outdone themselves by offering one of the most complete experiences on any platform. →  It’s not you, it’s me.