posts by christian
christian

Xbox 360 demo roundup!

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I have no idea if this will be a regular thing. Depends on how many demos come out on a weekly basis. In any case, enjoy this roundup of recent demos.

SKATE – Jay tells me I’m not allowed to like this one because its name is SKATE. Also it is by EA. I don’t really give a damn. If you want to bury Tony Hawk into the ground, this is the way to do it. SKATE opts for a more realistic skating experience, without being too realistic. One joystick manages your body, the other the skatebaord itself. Most moves involve simple flicks of the joystick in various directions, in some facsimile of the motions for performing that trick on a real board. →  For I have come to turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a gamer against their game.

Review – Bioshock

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About halfway through Bioshock, I had concocted three different introductions to use in a review.

Then I lost my saves.

Word to the wise; don’t transfer your offline gamertag onto Xbox Live at 2 in the morning. Bad things will happen. They did to me, and I had to play the entire first half all over again. Doing this was a blessing in disguise, as it showed me a few things about the game that were not evident the first time around. Then the second half taught me even more. Let’s get right to the point; this is a good game. Is it a great game? Some will feel it is not, as there are most certainly a few problems here. →  Today I consider myself the luckiest reader on the face of the earth.

ASCII art game – Shoot ‘Em

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When it comes to Youtube vids made of ASCII art, quality can hit or miss. But this is the first time I’ve seen it used to make a 3d game. The name is Shoot ’em , and the concept is simple – use your ASCII gun and ASCII mines to blow up ASCII shapes so they don’t crash into your ASCII ship. old schooley techno plays in the background. Also, you can run out of ammo. It is 3d and mouse driven, and while not the most thrilling game ever, it is a sight to behold.

In case you are wondering how the game works – it looks to use a custom image conversion layer in OpenGL (thanks to Tringi for pointing this out to me!), →  Games are the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions.

Metal Gear Silly 4

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I should begin this blog with a disclaimer – I have played all of the Metal Gear Solid games, and sooner or later I know I will play 4. With that out of the way, I want to say that the hype for MGS4 can get puzzling at best.

Now I’m not saying that the game deserves no hype. Anything MGS is guaranteed to get people talking, and for good reason. It just seems weird. Unless I wasn’t paying attention, it felt like MGS3 had the least amount of hype and talk before its release, and yet it for my money its the best game in the series. Now with MGS4 we get a new trailer ever few months, and from just this we’ve got floods of comments where people are already claiming it to be the best game of this generation. →  Postsona 3 FES

Bioshock and Awe

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First of all, let me say that I hope that everyone who can play Bioshock is trying their best to do so. This is a big, important game that we need to discuss campfire style.

Second, I want to tell everyone to please, please, slow the hell down.

Thanks to Bioshock’s art deco style, mesmerizing visuals, and Randian plot and philosophy, there are already people declaring this an instant work of art. By the end of the year you will no longer hear chants of “Ico! Beyond Good and Evil! Shadow of the Colossus!”. Instead the only weapon many gamers will wield will be Bioshock.

ReggieHatesYou

Again, I say to this – slow down. Wait until everyone has played it. →  Illiterates hate her! Click to read this one weird trick.

What are we Playing?

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I don’t know what you dear readers are playing, but I’ve got myself a tough choice, as demonstrated on the right:

Don’t pity me. I’ll somehow play them while still squeezing in Prime 3 this month.

I promise reviews as quickly as possible. At least for Bioshock.

Square Enix and the Merch

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Man Square Enix, you just live to piss me off, don’t you? Apparently you’ve opened your merchandise store to the west, and rather than being a force of awesome, you’ve filled it with lousy merchandise and worthless jewelry so teenage otaku have something to go with their black nail polish.

Let’s look at the subcategories on the side navigation bar. We’ve got specific links for every Final Fantasy from 7 to 12…. oh wait. FF9 isn’t there. Sorry Zidane; guess you weren’t emo enough pal. The rest of the FF’s, as well as all of Dragon Quest are each lumped into a big series category. Just great.

I guess we can still look at what they have. Hmm. Seems the other FF’s have nothing to offer me but figurines of summons. →  Reading more, assemble!

Dreamcast Mania!: What did we miss? – Capcom VS SNK 2: Millionaire Fighting 2001

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What happened – I don’t actually remember if there were even rumors of Capcom VS SNK 2 coming to American Dreamcasts, but considering we got the first game, it seems likely that there were. CVS2 would hit the Dreamcast, but only in Japan. In my experience it was one of the most widely imported titles in the West, to the point where some DC groups talk about it like it was a regular release.

The Game – If there is one thing Capcom’s massive library of fighters has taught us, it is that they never did get it right the first time. The first iteration always comes with its share of problems, while the final revision is often tweaked and polished to perfection. →  I’ll read you, my pretty, and your little dog, too!

Dreamcast Mania! – EA

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In my development of articles for Dreamcast Mania!, one theme has come up quite a lot – the lack of support from major companies like EA, Square and Konami greatly injured the Dreamcast’s chances of success. I agree that it certainly wasn’t a good thing, and I certainly agree that missing support from companies like Square and Enix in Japan was very close to receiving a death note. But when it comes to good ol’ Electronic Arts, I’m not so certain.

Hear me out with this one – the Dreamcast was released here in 1999. It died in 2001. 2001 is also the first year of Madden on the Playstation 2. Maybe my memory is foggy, but I remember that during the years of the original Playstation, it was NFL Gameday that was the big football game in town, while Madden was fairly shoddy. →  Jesus: Readful Bio Monster

Requiem for a Dreamcast

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I used to think I was pretty clever when I told folks that “Nintendo made me a gamer. Ocarina of Time made me hardcore”. I kept thinking this for quite some time, but eventually realized that pre-OOT, I wasn’t really a “gamer”, just a kid whose game experience consisted of little more than a string of Nintendo consoles, a few hours on the Genesis, and a dusty old 486 PC. This was a time when fresh games came to my house twice a year if I was lucky.

After Zelda I truly became a “gamer”, though now I think it had less to with that game in particular and more to do with the fact that around that time I was introduced to a modern day computer, Next Generation Magazine, and a Sony Playstation. →  Readout 3: Takedown