posts by tyson
tyson

Review – Flower

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If you haven’t noticed…and you probably haven’t, I have not written much lately. Truth be told, there hasn’t been a lot in gaming that has inspired me in the past couple of weeks. That is, until tonight. Flower has been on the Playstation Store now for roughly six or seven hours and in that time, I can safely say this game has answered the video games as art argument with a resounding, YES!

This review is not going to be very long because the game is not very long and it is hard to do justice to it without letting you just play it and experience it for yourself. The premise is simple, tilt the controller and press any button to make the wind blow. That is it. Of course there is more to it, but really how much can I say about a series of flower petals blowing in the wind? →  You fool. Don’t you understand? No one wishes to read on…

The Ever-Evolving State of Gaming, part 1 of 327

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Here it is, December 2008. I am setting here typing this up on a computer I rarely use for anything other than playing music and scouring the internet for unseen porn. If you would have told me ten years ago that Chinese Democracy would actually get released and that I would play console games more often than computer games, I would have laughed at you.

I just glanced over at my shelf and spied my little black DS Lite snuggled into its cute little sock carrying case; who would have thought that a fifth of Japan would come to embrace such a gaming device and that millions of them now occupy the United States as well? The old school Gameboy was popular…for little kids. Now men, women and kids play them. →  In all ages, hypocrites, called producers, have put crowns upon the heads of thieves, called publishers.

Review – Little Big Planet

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Now that the game has been out for a while and I have eased myself off of Fallout 3, I feel it is time for me to kick in my two cents about Little Big Planet. I must admit that prior to the game’s release I was caught up in the euphoria surrounding LBP. I basically bought my Playstation 3 to play it and waited anxiously for each new video that was released in the weeks before the game came out. Once those evil lyrics about Islam had been properly disposed of and the game finally came out, I rushed home and barricaded myself in my room to play the game for almost an entire weekend straight.

Things you need to keep in mind when considering Little Big Planet:

1. The game is a side-scrolling hop ‘n’ bop. →  Now bear my arctic post.

Tyson gives thanks… to video games!

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When I started writing for videolamer over a year ago, I was a slightly angry, jaded gamer. I was pissed with how the industry was going: the Playstation 3 was way too expensive; the 360 had some good games on it, but let’s all be real honest, most people got the system for Halo or Call of Duty; and the Wii was intriguingly underpowered but still kind of fun.

I felt a lot like Jack Black’s character from High Fidelity. I was a ticked off, elitist snob who firmly believed that the few people who felt like I did about gaming hung around this site and we were the last bastion of sense in a pixilated world gone mad. Today, I am still a cocky bastard to be sure but I am not nearly as angst filled as I was a handful of months ago. →  Onimusha 2: Samuread’s Destiny

Confusion, Bewilderment, or Why I Bought A Playstation 3 and Need Help

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For reasons and in ways I need not delve into here, I made the sky open up and rain money down upon me. Lots and lots of money. Enough money to get me out of debt and leave me with almost a grand to disperse however I saw fit. I could have done many things with this leftover cash: I could have bought new tires for my car that desperately needs new tires, I could have paid off all of this upcoming semester of school, but instead, I bought a Playstation 3. I am Yoda wise.

I didn’t just go out and get any old PS3 either, I had to get one that was backwards compatible with PS2 games and so my only option was the $500, 80gig Metal Gear Solid bundle. →  Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this post!

Review – Spore

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I am not sure how to introduce this review so I am going to start gently. If I were the kind of guy that was into fellating people to get what I want, there would be a short list of people that I would be willing to drop to my knees for. Right off the top of my head, I can only actually think of two men, the first being Trent Reznor if he promised to give me another album equal to or greater than The Downward Spiral; the second guy is Will Wright.

I can’t think of what I would ask Will Wright for in exchange for orally pleasing him but if he were into bartering, I am sure I could come up with something. I have always liked Will Wright because, thankfully for my succulent lips, he gives me what I want without forcing me to choose to spit or swallow. →  What can change the nature of a post?

Tales From Behind the Counter – The Walking Dead

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I love zombies. I love zombies so much that I would be lying if I said there weren’t nights that I have gone to bed hoping to wake up the following morning in a full-blown zombacalypse. In many ways this column and my video game store are in a state of zombie purgatory, not quite dead but not completely living either. Let me explain:

About two or three weeks ago a series of events transpired that granted me the magical power of telepathy. In the subsequent moments of enlightenment, I learned that the people who own my video game store were running into some serious financial issues in terms of the stores and keeping them running. We are not talking a missed phone bill payment, we are discussing a shambling, fetid, corpse of over $10k debt. →  Final Post VII

Tales From Behind The Counter – A Time of Loathing

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When working in retail there is one time of year you dread above all others: the holidays. It means angry customers with no time and no money, pissed off that they have to brave ice covered roads and bumper car parking lots instead of being gleeful and warm in the comfort of their own homes. In video game retail land, there is one other time that I have come to regard in the same way I would a diagnosis of colon cancer: EA Sports Game Release season. Also called, the Unholidays, with a long e sound on that i.

During this time, Electronic Arts decides to rain shit from the sky in the form of a new NCAA everything, new Madden, new baseball whatever, and [shudder] Nascar 09. I would rather play most of these sports over having to deal with the people who come in to buy these games and that, my friends, should tell you something. →  Xenoblade Articles X

Tales From Behind The Counter – Lost Treasures, Trade-Ins, and Drugs

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I should preface this installment by saying that I am a pack rat. I always have been and probably always will be. When I die, my relatives will come to clean out my house and find stacks and stacks of old newspapers, every wrapper of the slices of Velveeta cheese I had eaten over the past twenty years, and journals of every major weather event from 2025 on with my hand drawn renditions of how things went down. I keep everything. Having said that, it baffles me that most people have no problem trading in all of their old video games and accessories, and for extremely pathetic prices at that.

The other day, two guys walked into the store and told me they had a couple of items that they only wanted cash for. →  Densha de Read! Shinkansen

Tales From Behind The Counter – An Xbox In The Bathroom

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To be truly honest, this week has been pretty tame in Video Game Store land. No crazed pedophiles, no extremely stupid customers, just a couple of stores full of video games and me, tooling around behind the counter like robot in malaise. This is the perfect time to give you an honest glimpse of how a video game store runs when weirdos aren’t coming out of the woodwork.

Like all tertiary jobs, this one comes with its fair share of retarded and mindlessly repetitive tasks. The biggest one is disc cleaning and re-surfacing. Just about every disc that gets traded in to us gets a thorough cleaning. How people get substances like butter on discs is beyond me; what I have learned is that most people care as much about their game discs as they do about their fourth cousin, twice removed on their mom’s side of the family. →  Read or Alive 2: Hardcore