posts by jake

There are a whopping two arcade machine series on Earth that I can beat consistently on one purchase, regardless of sequel number or difficulty setting: Soul Caliber and Marvel vs. Capcom.

The key to Soul Caliber, you see, is Maxi and his awesome ability to start spinning his nunchuks, never pausing for a break as he beats the sweet bejeebus out of any and all opponents. Just mash the buttons, bimbo. Why didn’t you think of that?

And Marvel vs. Capcom 2? Iron Man, War Machine and Cable will destroy any and all challengers from their cozy little far corner of the screen, sending a constant and unfair barrage of projectile after projectile at those who dare to cross them.

Am I excited about the announcement of Marvel vs. Capcom 3? Damn straight. But instead of just cheesing my way to the top once it is released, I’d instead like to offer some sober, sane advice for potential new characters to add to the roster of the game to increase the fun. →  Ask not what this post can do for you - ask what you can do for this post.

I have to give Cryptic Studios some credit: Realizing the current flood of MMOs on the market and the presence of another game that they helped develop in the exact same subgenre would hurt their sales, they created a business model for their newly released Champions Online that can thrive with as few as 10,000 subscribers. By catering to the niche of the niche and trying very hard not to even suggest that their new release is anything like the legendary and fabled World of Warcraft killer that fans have been waiting for for years now, Cryptic was able to explore cheesy silver age comics ideas to their fullest without having to live up to the lofty, unfulfilled expectations that are currently dooming Age of Conan and Warhammer: Age of Reckoning.

But deep inside a game of holographic floating brains and giant flaming apes is an unparalleled ability within a deep character creator to make a vast assortment of animal-based characters. →  2 h4rdc0r3 4 U.

Now that videolamer has become the haven for misfit and under appreciated games, a review of perhaps the year’s biggest release seems out of place and wrong. As such, no review of the excellent and entertaining Batman: Arkham Asylum will be drafted by me for inclusion on this website. Besides, the internet is already chock full of reviews and I really would have nothing to add to the conversation. But I will do a blog entry on a tiny detail that has almost no impact on the game whatsoever: How the Batcave was included, and what other video game makers will hopefully learn from this.

As Batman kicks ass and takes names all across the island that holds Arkham and its many criminals, he eventually reveals that he has a hidden Batcave just for such emergencies. This is not an unexpected revelation, as Batman is the ultimate planner, always thinking of ways to be prepared for whatever may come. While his peers spend their days thinking about Lois Lane or running fast or protecting the galaxy from the mighty Qu’lar race of subterranean bug people, Batman is always envisioning what he will do if something goes wrong. →  The post still burns.

Ah, creativity. Useless, overrated creativity.

Once, back in the past, a man had an original idea and he took it and he made a form of mass media out of it and people loved it. They loved it so much that they decided he shouldn’t work on finding something new to give them, he should instead work on more of what they loved.

And thus we were given The Odyssey. And The Odyssey was just as successful and lucrative as the first. This opened the eyes of the creative people, who would often struggle for long periods of time trying to make something new. Creative people did not have to be creative all the time. They just had to be creative once and willing to cash in on that one flash of brilliance as much as humanly possible!

Flash forward to the twenty-first century, a time of robots and warfare and nuclear doom and genetic modifications and food shortages and energy wars. →  Gotta get down on Friday.