The Knights Templar were an order of Christian soldiers from western Europe who gathered substantial influence and wealth during the Crusades. Many were tortured and/or executed in France in the early 14th century, primarily because King Philip of France owed them money and felt it was more expedient to kill them and disband the order than it was to pay. Of course, he did this under the pretense that they were not in fact true Catholics but rather practitioners of any number of bizarre rituals. As a result of these probably false accusations, their previous military prowess and influence, and the massive fortune they acquired through donations and the early bank-like system they developed, the story of the Knights took on mythic proportions. → Shadow of Read
Reviews
Review – Patapon
I bought Patapon at launch, played for a week straight, and got to the third boss, a giant sandworm. After countless failed attempts, I put the game away for over a year, until Patapon 2 was released in 2009. Naturally, I could have just skipped to the sequel, especially considering the attractiveness of its new difficulty settings, until I learned that you can import some materials from the original. I finally learned just how to “play” Patapon, and suffice to say that the game is not only original, but highly deceptive.
If you are to succeed at this game, and by succeed I mean “win at all costs” rather than “handily”, you will need the following:
– A sense of rhythm that doesn’t falter under pressure. → Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this post!
Review – Freshly-Picked Tingle’s Rosy Rupeeland
Tingle is a range of stylized sexual enhancements from Durex, defined by creating a tingling sensation during coitus. The tingling sensation is derived from mint extract. It comes in two distinct forms: condoms and an water-based lube. The sexual enhancer lube has received some criticism as the tingling sensation has received negative reviews when used internally.
 |
|
|
You see what I did there? I made a joke. You see, I am reviewing a DS game called “Freshly-Picked Tingle’s Rosy Rupeeland” which of course features the unwelcome addition to the Zelda series, Tingle. But, and this is the crux of the joke, Durex (www.durex.com) also have a brand called “Tingle”. Oh, the hilarity.
Right, so, this “game” starts with Tingle’s journey to becoming Tingle, and his quest to get into “Rupeeland” where, and get this, women will touch him. → Sounds mildly entertaining, I guess.
Review – Rise of the Argonauts
I’m not really sure what I think of Rise of the Argonauts. On one hand, the game suffers from some poor design choices that can really slow the pace to an insufferable crawl and frustrate the player immensely … so I wouldn’t recommend it. On the other hand, the exciting combat sequences, engrossing story, fine voice acting and art direction made the game quite enjoyable … so I’d totally recommend it.
On another hand, the developer calls this game an RPG, which it totally isn’t. Yeah, you can choose new abilities and change your outfits, but both aspects are so limited that you can’t really call it a full-blown RPG … so we’re back to not recommending it again (for RPG players). → The Last Readment
Review – Killzone 2
When I was first thinking about how to approach my review of Killzone 2’s campaign, I thought I could write up a sizable spreadsheet detailing all the cliches and tropes stolen from other games and films. Thankfully, I realized the errors of such an idea. The problem with the game wasn’t that it was using cliches and silly names. Plenty of other shooters do the same and are forgiven. No, the problem was that Killzone 2 was breaking one of my primary sins of game design – it made me feel like I was wasting my time. I began thinking not of the action at hand, but what else I could be doing during my time after work. I soldiered on simply for the purpose of review, which in turn led to my putting a magnifying glass on every little piece of creative laziness, even if it technically got the job done. → The review for ‘Shark Sandwich’ was merely a two word review which simply read ‘Read Sandwich.’
Review – Avalon Code
Video games have made me weep for a variety reasons. Terrible voiceovers, crappy graphics, mind numbing gameplay, irritating music – if it is horrible I’ve probably suffered through it. But I’ve never experienced anything like Avalon Code before. Not for any of the above reasons – to the contrary, Avalon Code has superb presentation, surprisingly good voice acting (on a DS game, no less!), and an intriguing plot with an excellent premise. What makes me weep is that Avalon Code is a game that is so close to being one of the greatest action RPGs I’ve ever played, but falls short for the dumbest of reasons that indicate – yet again – a developer did a piss poor job of seeing if their game was actually fun to play. → Contains 10% more consonants than comparable articles.
Review – Baroque
Baroque has been wronged. There is no other way to put it.
I held off on getting this game until fairly recently, when I saw it for sale at $20. I wasn’t willing to buy it at $50 because I had heard all about how terrible the game was; crippling difficulty, a complete lack of story, no carjackings or Nazis, and so on.
A few months ago, RPGamer ranked it as the best Wii RPG of 2008. Granted, I don’t always agree with RPGamer – but then, I like Opoona, so my tastes are already pretty weird. Plus, look at the competition. Tales of Symphonia 2, Opoona, maybe a couple others. None would rank best RPG of the whatever on any other system. → All your posts are belong to us.
The King of Fighters ’98: Ultimate Match
By the end of 2008, the situation concerning Western localizations of SNK games was at its grimmest. No one could tell what was happening with the US Branch. Did they actually have any power? If they did, why did they choose not to use it? Why were their games being released over a year after their announcements? What financial/business decisions forced them to use different developers for each port, leading to localizations of incredibly mixed (and now universally poor) quality? Why hasn’t their website been updated since last summer, and why are their forums dead?
At this point I have only a guess, based on the nature of their current lineup – after the remnants of old announcements are wrapped up and shipped out, SNK US may only exist for branding and licensing purposes, while all development, localization, and PR for future products is handled by Ignition Entertainment. → Of all the words of mice and men, the saddest are, ‘Game Over.’
Review – Uncharted Waters: New Horizons
Ahh, the Virtual Console. A wonderful vault of games long forgotten, chock full of titles from a simpler time. We didn’t have to manage inventory, talk to the right townspeople to progress, perform stupid fetch quests or deal with purposefully vague objectives. Back in those days, men were real men, women were real women, and games were all about jumping from platform to platform. Or so you might believe.
A few Mondays ago, the only Virtual Console release (a thought that saddens me; even three would be too few) was one Uncharted Waters: New Horizons. This led to mass disappointment, as everyone was hoping we’d get some stupid Zelda game (please don’t kill me) that everyone has already played before. On the other hand, I was ecstatic because I got a menu-filled, exploration-heavy Age of Exploration sim with multiple interweaving plot lines and tons of freedom. → What is a post? A miserable little pile of secrets.
Review – Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars
As much as I like the Grand Theft Auto series, I’ve always been more of an “owner” than a “fan.” I own the three PS2 installments and played only Vice City to any extensive degree. In GTA 3, I used the cheat code to spawn tanks over and over again outside of my hideout, blew them up, and discovered that they remained there after having saved a game, and the only way I could get rid of them all would have been to painstakingly push them all into the river with another tank, or to start a new game and lose all of my (admittedly meager) progress. In San Andreas, I exercised over and over again, became extremely muscular, then encountered a difficult early mission and lost interest in the game. → All this can be yours, if the read is right.