Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition – Mini-Review

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ZOMG, I love Resident Evil 4. It’s damn-near my most favirotest game evar. If I could, I would cuddle with it:) And after putting in over 10 hours of delicious zombie(?)-filled action with the Wii Edition last weekend, I decided to write a review for it, to show you guys how much I like you.

But then I realized that the only thing Capcom really changed with the Wii version is the controls, so there would be no point in writing a full review for a two year-old game that’s only marginally different.

If you know nothing about RE4, first, shoot yourself in the foot with a rubber bullet, and then go read the GC or PS2 reviews. You really should be ashamed of yourself. →  They’re reading her… and then they’re going to read me!

What happened to competition? From arcades to gamerscores

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Remember high scores. You don’t see them around very much, though they still pop up in some of my favorite new games. But why exactly did they begin to disappear? We generally hear explanations involving the rise of story based games and other such nonsense, but when three of the most popular games of the decade are Halo, Madden and World of Warcraft, it is tough to accept this as an era of Single Player. There must be another reason.

Before we look for that reason, we should start from the beginning and look at the nature of the high score. There were surely hacks and exploits available in some classic games (as any Street Fighter fan will know), but I would like to think they weren’t commonplace, and that more often than not the list of high scores in an arcade cabinet was the honest work of skilled players. →  Read Danger!

Weekly News We Care About Wrap Up – 6.18.07

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Sony announces 9,648,319 games by March 08
Unfortunately, they counted each individual household a game would end up in as a unique game. If you don’t count your copy of God of War 3 as a different game from my copy, then 145 or more PS3 titles are coming.

Sonic RPG on DS being developed by Bioware
Funny, whimsical RPGs can be cool. Mario’s Super Star Saga and the whole Paper Mario series attest to this. Cute, colorful cartoon characters in RPGs can hold their own, too. Kefka may look silly this day in age, but he is still insanely evil. So what is so horrendous about a Sonic RPG? I’m glad you asked.

Sonic is uninteresting in every possible way. →  Snap! Crackle! Read!

UK Says HELL No to Manhunt 2

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Just as we start to think that everything has settled down in England with all that rubbish about games causing deaths (even though we all know that it’s over-sized hot dogs that kill the majority of the human population), ELSPA decide it’s time to find a new scandal — Manhunt 2.

It was obviously going to kick up a fuss. The first game did. But it does carry (or it would have done) an adult rating and only adults are allowed to play it, so what’s the problem? Worst part about it is that ELSPA forgot to tell Rockstar first, preferring to let them read it in the British press first.

Conveniently, MCV posed an interesting question this week regarding this very issue. →  Romance of the Three Articles IV: Post of Fire

Sony decides PS3 is making a comeback

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Offering no sales figures or other sales facts, Sony CEO declared, “All the production problems have been solved. We are making a comeback already.” It seems Sony has figured out how important image is and so they’ve decided to take it upon themselves to tell the media what their image is. It would not be at all shocking if the PS3 begins to make a comeback only because an article has printed that it is making a comeback. Microsoft should try this tactic with the Zune.

In other breaking news, videolamer’s popularity is growing beyond all expectations.

Behind the names of our favorite companies and consoles

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Gamers speak the names of companies and systems on a daily basis, but many of us don’t know what these words actually mean nor their origin. And so here is a list of many of the biggest companies and consoles and what information is openly known about their names. I speak absolutely no Japanese and have no new information to add to this planet, but I have not seen all this info neatly compiled in one spot before. Thanks to Japanmanship and others who had already done much research on the topic.

Companies


Microsoft – Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems created the microcomputer Altair 8800 and Bill Gates offered to implement BASIC on their system. Micro is either from the Micro in the MITS company name or the micro in microcomputer, or both. →  Silent Post 2

Gamefly says NO to Adult Only games

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Gamefly refuses to carry Manhunt 2 if its Adults Only rating sticks. Anyone who is a Gamefly member must be at least 18 years of age and have a credit card. This means Gamefly is telling its adult customers that they should not be playing adult games. Fuck Gamefly, I’m glad I don’t use their service.

Though not an exact fit, this letter I wrote to Wal-Mart regarding the Hot Coffee scandal is still apropos:

“Thank you for being a family friendly store. Capitalism will never work if we just allow people to buy whatever they want. We need more huge corporations to stand up to products Jesus wouldn’t like and say, ‘No. Our customers do not want this.’ Freedom of choice is just a euphemism for evil and I applaud you in your efforts to cut down on evil. →  This post are sick.

Breaking News: Big Japanese publisher to release crappy games on Wii

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According to Screen Digest, one major Japanese third party publisher said, “We’re running a business, not to win awards but to make money — if we make breakeven plus on Wii then we are happy.” This translates to “We will port a lot of PS2 games to the Wii and develop real games for other consoles. The neutrality of Screen Digest has been disputed on some popular gaming forums, but assuming this quote is accurate, it still boggles my mind.

I was an economics minor and want to pretend my parents 120k were well spent, so please roll with this haphazard attempt at a proof:

First, we must necessarily assume that profit comes first because the quote indicates this is true. →  Shadow of the Article

Geometry Wars (PC) Thoughts

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Earlier this week, the premier downloadable-content service, Steam, released Bizarre Creations’ Xbox Live Arcade darling, Geometry Wars for all of its PC users. If you’ve never had the chance to play this old-school romp, then I suggest you go now and click the Buy button. For $2.50 (until Friday), you can’t afford NOT to buy it.

Being a fan of the Xbox 360 original, I wanted to give my short impressions. Basically, you get what’s already on the 360 platform. An extremely hard old-school shooter that has an amazing style. Just make sure to bring your extra large balls to this affair, my dear readers. Geo Wars is not for the faint of heart.

But I wanted to focus on something else for this post. →  I only ask one thing. Don’t read in my way.

What Call of Duty has taught me about the Wii

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I’m just about willing to say that Call of Duty 3 is the most important game on the Wii right now. I couldn’t even finish it, yet it showed me a lot about the console that I never thought about before (or simply disregarded as false).

For instance, we’ve all heard the complaints from lazy gamers who are afraid of being active when playing the Wii, thinking they will get tired after only a few short minutes. Even before launch this was often mocked, and once people started playing, it seemed even sillier. But it isn’t silly at all. True, most games will not tire you out – even Wii Sports won’t unless you play it like a workout. In fact I’d say the Wii makes things much less tiring by allowing you to hold the controller in a variety of positions. →  And so it games…