Destructoid – Johhny Rotten isn’t a GH3 fan

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Johnny Rotten hates Guitar Hero 3!!!! It’s all right here in this article!

Except he doesn’t say he hates it, he says he loves it. Then he says it doesn’t teach you how to be a rockstar and thats a GOOD thing because pursuing fame and fortune is stupid. Punk rock is not exactly about the bling.

So why does Destructoid have the story entirely wrong? Because they, like many other internet journalists, get their news stories from internet forums, namely NeoGAF. The problem with this is two fold. First there is the standard who is the source, how reliable are they, blah blah blah stuff. Then there is the equally important reading comprehension, and required will power to read the second post of a thread you are using as a news source.

It doesn’t hurt to read the whole thread, either. That way you can see bits like the original poster saying – “Yeah, I totally misunderstood what he said. →  Keep it warm.

Review – Crysis

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Taking First Person Shooters to a New Level of Suck

After a long day of working, it’s nice to come home, jump on my computer, and blow the living daylights out of people, monsters, hookers, you name it. For me, playing an FPS after a day of work is akin to getting an Oreo Cookie Blizzard on a hot day; it just feels right. I don’t have to think, I don’t have to care about hurting people, I just shoot and all of my stress melts away. As blood sprays across the digital walls and bodies drop, mangled and lifeless to the floor, I grin and become new again. When I heard the news that Crysis was in development, I was happy. FarCry, while not a perfect game, was an ok shooter so I figured Crysis would follow suit. I was regrettably wrong.

At some point in the Crysis development cycle, I am guessing there was a conversation that went something like this:

“Oh, hey Franz, did Adolph’s team finish the AI algorithm for the new game?” →  Ridge Reader V

Retrospectives – Halo Single-Player Campaigns part 3

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In this continuation of the Halo single player retrospective I will look at…

Story/Presentation

Again, the most enjoyable Halo in regards to story and presentation is Halo: Combat Evolved. In 2001, we didn’t know what a “Halo” was or meant. With the first game, we were introduced to the Forerunners, the Covenant, and the Flood for the very first time, and it feverishly sparked our imaginations, with the player trying to figure out what kind of universe Master Chief was living in. This happens a lot with games in general. The first game is far more potent in terms of story than the sequels, as you’ve already experienced the same style of storytelling in the first game. From our perspective, the most innovative is the first one. All the rest are just walking down the road that the first one paved.

Of course, the general story isn’t something you’ll find in a Shakespearean play or anything. Watching a human warrior dressed up in mechanical armor that takes on an entire army of alien marauders by himself is pretty much a cliché in cinema and video games at this point. →  All I want for Christmas is my PSP.

It’s the end of Civilization as we know it, and I feel fine (I think)

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There has been a recent hullabaloo about the pending Civilization Revolutions game. Having realized that the hardcore 4X PC gamer market is not as lucrative as say, every other platform, Firaxis has set about developing a new “made for console” version of Civilization.

Because a move like this smacks of “selling out” and “destroying the game concept,” and it coincides with what can only be described as criminal negligence of the Beyond the Sword expansion, the community has been at best, suspicious, and at worst, behaving like forum trolls at a n00b feeding frenzy. And they have every right to have this attitude.

For starters, Firaxis is cultivating as much ill will as humanly possible with the Beyond the Sword expansion. The launch version (like all PC games these days) was bug ridden, requiring a patch. A second patch was forced upon gamers by developer constraints, and broke a variety of things. User-developed patches saved the single player game for a time, but a long awaited “official” patch was riddled with bugs that literally 20 minutes of QA could reveal. →  Are anyone else’s nipples hard?

Thanksiving Post – Game Movies

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For family reasons I am not having my Thanksgiving until Friday, so tonight is just business as usual for me. I’m taking my small bit of self-alloted time on the computer to write a blog post.

Games Radar has written a classic fluff piece designed exclusively for diggs. It has to do with game game movies, and I find it completely wrong, so here is my fluff piece meant exclusively for diggs.

Let’s look at it point by point. Their first is

“Respect the source material

You bought the IP for a reason and it’s successful for a reason. Your audience is there, so take it seriously and they’ll come. ”

This is a narrow view that assumes that all gamers think like the ones who post on gaming websites. It doesn’t seem to me that every game movie has tanked, so someone is watching. And considering that people who don’t know the related game are unlikely to care, that means that the fans are watching the movie. →  Are you a bad enough dude to rescue the article?

Retrospectives – Halo Single-Player Campaigns part 2

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In this continuation of the Halo single player retrospective I will look at…

Level Design

Halo has never been one to “wow” a player with its level design. One of the core examples of why Metroid Prime was cited as being better than Halo was its superior level design, which, in retrospect, is not a huge accomplishment. Levels like The Library seem to be a test for the level designers to see how many times they could use the Copy-Paste function in their level editors.

To be truthful though, Bungie makes really good outdoor environments. This seems to be because it is usually devoid of any Forerunner architecture. When Master Chief travels through a Forerunner structure, there is very little in the way of detail. It’s an artistic choice, but it doesn’t lend itself to variety. Buildings usually just consist of metal rooms. For gameplay it’s not really an issue, as a table would just be something to move around while fighting enemies. →  Jet fuel can’t melt videolamer.

Are you ready to rock? … well you can’t.

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Way to go EA / MTV. Way to f up the launch of what should have been your biggest title this Christmas season. Rock Band launched today, or so gamers were told. In reality it seems like there were only a handful of units shipped to retailers with little or no warning about the shortage. The only press release I’ve seen even hinting at production shortages was unearthed yesterday, in which the EA spokesman said that there might be a little supply crunch … until MARCH OF 2008!

Best Buy held midnight launch parties at about two dozen locations across the US and reports are coming in that a large majority of those stores got shipped a paltry number (one store in Kentucky received two PS3 bundles, and that’s it) or no games at all. That means people waited all night to get a rain check for a game with no future restock date. Websites for retailers GameStop, Circuit City, Best Buy, Target and Walmart have removed the bundle package listing completely. →  Are anyone else’s nipples hard?

Assassin’s Creed: the greatest flawed masterpiece in history

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Let me get this out right now: I fucking love Assassin’s Creed. This is the game I’ve been waiting for ever since those crazy marketing execs started screaming “Next-gen gameplay found here!” I cannot get enough of this game, and I mean physically. I went to bed last night in a state of withdrawal. I almost fell off the wagon (or is it on?) last night around 3 AM, but thankfully I held back the urge. For a little while, anyway.

Suffice to say, I totally want to make Assassin’s Creed babies:)

But sadly, as the title of this blog suggests, it is not perfect. For every eight aspects that expertly immerses you into the world of assassins, there is one that takes you out of it. There are a few examples I could give you that show how Assassin’s Creed is flawed, in both design and technical execution, but it really doesn’t matter. Assassin’s Creed is such an amazing experience that even the minor flaws do nothing to phase me on my final verdict. →  Xenoblade Articles X

Retrospectives – Halo Single-Player Campaigns part 1

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When people think of the Halo series, they’re quickly reminded of the college dorm-room deathmatch. Halo is the quintessential multiplayer experience on consoles, but it wasn’t always like that. Before 2001, Halo meant nothing to people. It was just another FPS game that Microsoft was using to launch their first console, the Xbox.

To really get players talking (and ultimately spending their hard-earned money), Bungie had to create a compelling single-player campaign. If the core game was bad or run-of-the-mill, no one would care about multiplayer. And a launch game’s success is usually dependent on word of mouth. Look at Wii Sports. The more people that enjoy it, the more they talk, and the better it sells (which basically means more people to play multiplayer with).

Contrary to popular belief, Halo was originally all about the single-player, story-based campaign, which is the complete opposite of what it is now. People bought Halo 2 and 3 for the Xbox Live online-play. You’ll see a few players that have “finished the fight” on Legendary, but I’m willing to bet it’s the minority of Halo 3 owners, and Live was the real reason they bought it. →  Read Band 2

videolamer Votes aka Should Tyson Sell His PSP?

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The amount of handheld consoles I have had over the years is nutty. I’ve laid the smack down on Tetris, old school style with the original Gameboy. As I suspect color television enthralled people in the 1950s, I popped a gamer boner when the Gameboy Color rainbowed its way on to the scene in the early 90s. And no, rainbow should never be used as a verb unless I O.K it… and I just did. Come to think of it, the only Gameboy iteration I have never owned is the Gameboy Pocket. I also own a GP2X and a PSP. I like my handhelds.

Despite my undying love for pocket-sized gaming machines, I have never fully accepted the PSP into the fold. I had money to blow in Akihabara one fine Spring day last year and there was nothing else I was dying to have, so a white PSP found its way into my backpack. Since then, I have bought a handful of games and UMD movies for it and the whole system, while not being a total disappointment, has yet to really thrill me in any way, shape, or form. →  The King of Articles 2002: Unlimited Match