Jesus Saves, Blue Dragon, Not So Much

Blue Dragon is the much-ballyhooed RPG from the guy who made Final Fantasy. Personally, I can't stand Final Fantasy, but there are precious few RPGs on the 360, and besides, I was getting paid to review it. It comes on (holy crap!) three discs and is very, very Japanese, which will either delight or irritate the shit out of you, depending on your personal proclivities. Let me put it to you this way, if you don't want to search golden piles of poo for treasure (no, I'm not kidding), then this game may not be for you.

There's actually rather a lot to like about Blue Dragon. The characters in your party each control Shadows, which are the creatures that actually do your fighting for you in the turn-based combat. Your shadows can have different jobs, so to speak, which gives them access to different abilities and spells. The Monk, for example, specializes in charged attacks that can do a lot of damage, while the White Magic specialty focuses on healing spells. As you earn experience, you're allowed to add more jobs to your personal repertoire, balancing out your shadows as you see fit. It's a nice, deep system that provides for a lot of customization and it keeps the fighting interesting, which is good because you're going to be doing a lot of fighting.

The problem with Blue Dragon is the utter dearth of save points. There's really no reason for a game to still be relying on the antiquated system of using save points, but I don't really have a problem with it so long as said checkpoints are reasonably close together. In my last session of Blue Dragon, after an hour and fifteen minutes of playtime, I still hadn't found the next save point, so I was forced to backtrack to the last one I'd found and use that. Now, when I start up again, I'm going to have to retrace my steps just to get back to where I was when I wanted to stop playing. That's just plain unacceptable. I don't know what Mistwalker was thinking when they set up that save system, but even if I had several hours to play Blue Dragon at a time, I don't necessarily want to--so I shouldn't have to.

Blue Dragon has a few other flaws, as well, but I was willing to overlook those because developing your shadows is so satisfying. But the craptastic save system means I'll likely never get to the end of the first disc in the game, let alone finish all three.

Coffee + Thinking

I read an interview recently with Will Wright, creator of The Sims and the upcoming game Spore. He’s a very smart guy who likes science. This jumped out at me:

So when games become fully accepted, what takes their place in that cycle?

Who knows. At some point we're going to have direct neural connections, where you plug the thing into your brain, and the first people who do that are going to be seen as social outcasts: how dare you do that to your body, it will be almost like tattoos or body piercing and parents will all be up in arms about it. Thirty years later those people will be the parents and it will be totally accepted.

Are you going to be one of those early adopters?

Oh, not right off the bat, no. But they actually have some interesting devices available commercially right now that involve reading your brainwaves and controlling software.

I also always think about this kind of stuff. How our technology is going to evolve and how we will evolve with it, the social ramifications of said evolving and other various etcetera. What do you think? Will you be an early plugger? I’m thinking this technology will be available within 10 years, perhaps crudely, perhaps not.

I will definitely be one of the early ones, as long as it has been proven to be physically safe and all that. Sign me up.

What is interesting to me is that while the idea of plugging a video game (or some other simulation software; doesn’t necessarily have to be a game) directly into your brain seems kinda crazy right now, it won’t be eventually. There will be gradual steps that take us up to that point. I think we are fairly close right now, and it’s exciting, sometimes.

Of course, these new developments will bring along with them The Apocalypse and the Damnation of All Humankind, but that’s to be expected, no?

(Click here for a complimentary post on our sister site)

Silver Shamrock!

I love Halloween. A brisk coolness permates the air; leaves change color and float effortlesly to the ground, decorating it in small swathes of yellow, orange and red; pumpkins and gourds festively adorn neighborhood porches to greet visitors; and the social climate is ripe for a good scare. In fact, it's practically expected.

People watch scary movies, read horror novels, or they go to haunted house rides and even costume parties to get their doses of fright for the season. What about games: can games actually be scary? Immersion would seem to be a game's greatest asset in creating horror: pulling a player so into a game world they they don't want to just turn off the console or put the controller down; they need to keep going. Essentially forcing the gamer to play the part of that stupid bimbo who won't just leave the goddamn house already because the killer is so totally in that room! Don't open the door!

So what's immersive? How about early games like Friday the 13th, Maniac Mansion, or Splatterhouse. No, not scary; no atmosphere. In fact only one of them is any good. Let's look to more modern games for immersion: Resident Evil or The Suffering? No, too many guns; how can you be afraid of something when you have a damned rocket launcher? F.E.A.R.? Same deal, gamers play as tough guys with machine guns. These games start strong, but fail to maintian an atmosphere of the horrific. It's just an unavoidable side effect of having a shotgun in one's hands and 300 shells of ammo in the pocket.

Silent Hill is one of the few games that has created a pitch-perfect air of dread and almost unfalteringly maintained it through an entire playthrough. Weapons are always sparse, the player is barely a physical match for the hideous creatures he encounters, and the story is such a mess that a sane person cannot figure out just what the hell is going on. Horror is found in confusion, friends. Silent Hill is the only game I have played that has simultaneously filled me with dread while also kept me keen to go into those dark places I should absolutely never ever go. Lovely.

What other scary games are out there? I haven't played them all (I hope), because if so, then there's only one. Get down with scary time this Halloween, because as the saying goes: everyone's entitled to one good scae.

I'd post images or videos from Silent Hill, but if I do they will become hilariously unscary due to a lack of player context. So instead I'll post the other horror that Resident Evil loosed upon us, and also one of the things I <3 most about video games!!!

My new-found love for the PSP

I was never a huge fan of the PSP, despite its movie-watching, 'net-surfing, homebrew-playing capabilities. My first PSP was actually from the original launch in Japan, and it was a damned heavy thing that went through batteries like a depressed woman goes through chocolate. I used it whenever I had a PSP game to review, and left it to gather dust the rest of the time. I may even have sneered at it from time to time as I hugged my DS. It's possible.

Recent events caused me to lose that PSP, and so I asked the lovely folks at Sony if they would mind sending me a new PSP Slim to replace it. They were kind enough to do so, and I must say, the redesign makes all the difference in the world. It still has the same enormous, gorgeous screen that the first one did, but it's so much lighter that I no longer feel like the tendons in my wrists are snapping while I play on it. I've largely ignored the PSP library to this point, since I loathed gaming on the damn thing, but with this new model, I'm rather looking forward to checking out what I may have missed.

Granted, the game I was most interested in, Every Extend Extra, is now on XBLA, but work with me, here, people.

The Fear

I haven’t been doing so well lately in Halo 3 multiplayer. Part of it may be due to my playing The Orange Box a bunch, getting out of groove with the controls. Another pretty valid reason is that I have been playing totally sober (which is common during weekday play—I’m responsible!). I have noticed there is a peak level of Halo effectiveness when drinking, in that sweet spot where I am buzzed enough to be confident and aggressive but not yet mechanically impaired. Other sportsmen have reported this to be true for pub games such as billiards or darts.

However, these are excuses. The Fear has gripped me. Like a struggling pitcher in baseball, everything I do is tainted with doubt, shame, and anger. My vision and senses are blurred. I continually lose.

Ever since I ranked up to the lower 20s, I have been mediocre at best. This makes sense; there are thousands of Halo players far better than I am, and always will be. What is funny though is how The Fear invades my being and paralyzes my gameplay. It is an interesting phenomenon.

The Fear takes hold about 25 seconds into a match when I have been killed three times without having killed anyone else. My sense of direction goes off, I’m not sure where the enemy is or what vile weapons they have; I am like a scared rabbit seeking shelter. The foxes know where I am, are chasing me, and laughing.

Last night I was playing with good buddy Chaka Boris and we weren’t doing so well. I felt the burden of shame as I knew I wasn’t doing my part, and did not want to divulge via headset chat that I was scared. We kept trying to psyche ourselves up after a loss, and I would unconvincingly say such motivational things as “OK COME ON WE GOT THIS” and “THIS NEXT ONE WILL BE A WIN.”

It was futile. I should have stopped while I was ahead, which was after the only two wins we had all night.

I turned off multiplayer and decided I needed a confidence boost, so I loaded the single player campaign, tempted by the forbidden pleasure of Achievements. I knew there were two easy ones within grasp, so I went for them. Turns out you can’t get skull or level achievements if you start from “Campaign Mode” and pick to start from a midway checkpoint. Long story, but I couldn’t start from my previous save point because it got corrupted somehow. I did not get the achievements.

I went to bed a crushed, defeated man. My dreams were of sick torture in heathen lands.

The cake is a lie

I finally finished Portal last night. The game isn't that long, but level 18 was really getting on my nerves. There are typically two kinds of roadblocks in a game: figuring out what to do, and then actually doing it. I have all the patience in the world for the first group, and absolutely none for the second. Making progress in Portal is, for the most part, simply a matter of figuring out where you need to go. It's very brain-intensive, and not particularly twitchy...except for certain select spots, like most of level 18.

It annoyed me to the point that it had turned my feelings about the game, which to that point had been uniformly positive, into something in the neighborhood of hate. Not actual hate, mind you, but perhaps a few doors down from it. Fortunately, the final level, and the song during the credits, restored my love for this wildly creative treat of a video game.

I'm really glad Portal is as wonderful as it is, 'cause I gotta tell ya, I ain't feelin' the Half-Life 2.

Addictions Anyone?

This Xbox 360 is quickly becoming a bane to my existence. No, not really, I hyperoblize. But still, it's bringing out the worst of addictive traits in my personality. I've already spoken about my broad gaming guilt: that of falling prey to "farming." Now there's another gaming guilt the Xbox 360 has awakened in me: The Achievement Whore.

These past couple of days I have not really played any games for enjoyment, but have played solely for the chance to unlock any number of achievements. This in itself is not so bad, I'm sure many players have done this, and is actually sometimes the only way to unlock achievements that do not correspond to normal game play. No, this is about my shame. It's a shame I've held off on so far, but honestly, I don't know how much longer I can keep the beast at bay.

I've discovered a rather informative Xbox 360 wiki page and have been perusing its articles as a method of identifying what games might be suitable for purchase in the future. Of course, each of these game articles also include a detailed list of the achievements available. Most of the older games, I'll use Oblivion as just one example, seem to have designed their achievements simply around reaching story points in the game. Theoretically, if one finishes the game, they should unlock nearly all 1000 pts of achievements.

What?

"Wow. That'd be a really easy way of beefing up my neophyte gamer score! No, why would I buy games simply for easy achievements? Why do I care what other people think of an arbitray score? It does not mean anything. Or does it?"

I thought about buying a few games just for the easy achievements. that's sick. I should also add that I already own Oblivion on the PC. For now I've kept my achievement addiciton at bay, held in check by the games I already own; but at night, in the stillness of twilight, I can hear it gnawing in my brain, throwing itself against the formidble mental barriers I've constructed; It is only a matter of time. For now though, I'm keeping it real. Pray for me.

I've also realized my list few posts have been of the complaining variety. That will not do. Next time: 3rd in my ongoing series of hearting video games! Be there!

I promise I'll throw in a funny video too. Just for you. <3 Bonus Pic: The victory screen from Jackal. Hardcore!!!!!!

Fresh Laser Blade Audio!!!

Ok, here it is, first time, LASER BLADE: GAMES DIVISION AUDIO.

If the embedded audio doesn't work with your configuration, you can access the file HERE

I recorded this mini-interview with Dave Terruso of Animosity Pierre. The interview was for the upcoming episode of The Quarterslice but I snuck in this Halo discussion, as I knew that Dave is a Halo (1) fan.

VGXPO go?

So, Susan posted about the VGXPO at the convention center, but I was so so so busy I couldn't respond. I think we should head out there (one day is enough for me!) and represent LBGD (not to be confused with LGBT). After all, we are the premiere gaming website on the Internet and the people will be clamoring for us.

What say ye? I haven't been to a gaming event since the Nintendo World Tour back in like, 1989, when they had the Tetris/Super Mario Bros./Rad Racer competition and I played Final Fantasy before it came out and was like "what the crap is this game I hit fight and he doesn't fight for like 10 seconds."

Anyway, it looks inexpensive and would have enough to hold my attention for several hours. Plus we could drink cokes and talk games together.

When video games attack... your mind!

I was reading this funny comic… oh well, here, read it first.

Well, not really sure why but it reminded me of my strangest experience in gaming.

I had just bought “Metal Gear Solid: Sons of Liberty” which was the first MGS game to come out for the PS2. I had never played any game in the series before and it was to be my first introduction to the real wack-job that is the main character Solid Snake. Actually, I did watch my friend Patrick during Middle School beat the original PS1 game but it was at 3 a.m. while we were high off our asses on Twizzlers, Pop Rocks and giggles.

Those of you who played it know that at one point in the game (way after you have lost track of the complicated, homoerotic, weird storyline) you’re all of a sudden captured and put in a weird surveillance room. Oh, did I mention your stripped BUTT-ASS naked! You can’t fight because your hands are too busy covering your nuts. Oddly enough you can still do a nakey ninja flip but I don't think words can really describe it.

So, I was already a little uncomfortable with male videogame nudity when I suddenly was contacted (via internal earpiece implants no less) by my good old trusty Colonel. My buddy. Finally, some explanation! Normally, he tells you about your mission, what to do next and honestly, I kind of considered him a friend. Wrong! All of a sudden he starts talking all this weird shit like “hey man, haven’t you been playing this game long enough.” And “I saw your girlfriend and she was with this other dude.” By now I am yelling out to my roommates to come because I am getting scared. My fear compounded when I realized I was home alone and not in a cool Mccully Culkin way.

After sneaking around this complex naked trying to avoid these flying soldiers (of which, of course, you have never seen before and they are armed with weird guns and alien facemasks) you get into this little corridor where there is no exit. You can only go back and forth through this little tunnel with no way out. WTF!!!

What happened next is up for debate but I swear it happened. A little pop-up screen appeared in the top right hand corner of this Asian woman sunbathing. A real video. Not CG, not cartoon but an actual “I shot this on my home camcorder” type of video.

At this point I made the wise decision that somehow I had gotten baked withouth realizing it and I that was too mentaly frail to continue. I casually got up, put the controller down, shut off the video game and escaped my house. After 20 minutes waiting outside for my roommate’s car to pull up he asked me what I was doing on the stoop. I told him blankly that I was scared.

The next day at the bookstore I told my friend Randy, who had played the game before, and he explained that I had fallen for the MGS “Psyche out.” He told me of when Psycho Mantis(?) had psyched him out of his house in a previous installment of the game.

Bottom line is we need more games like this. They need to breach the normal gaming walls and make us feel weird. Please share any of your weird gaming moments.


FOUND IT!!!

Need new service provider

So, this story made the headlines on Drudgereport, in red lettering no less.

I am tired of hearing about all the evil things Comcast does as I continue to pay for their service. My problem is, I need something that can support my online Xboxing. How am I supposed to get the triple sword kill achievement in Halo 3 if I'm a filthy lagger?

So, anyone know of a service that could provide me both the speed I need to continue my impressive string of multiplayer wins and satisfaction knowing I'm not fellating Satan him/herself?

Meeting of Pyew, Pyew?

It looks like I shall be returning to the greater metropolitan Philadelphia area to cover the VGXPO, which is taking place Nov 2-4 at the Philadelphia Convention Center. I've attended the XPO each year of its somewhat lackluster existence, as well as several years of its previous (and in most every way better) version, the PhillyClassic.

I'll be working the show, interviewing Jack Thompson, interviewing attendees, taking pictures, and hopefully taking in the Women in Gaming panel as well. I'll also just plain be mucking about and seeing what nifty swag I can find, since I recently lost most of my gaming collection and have to rebuild nearly from scratch.

Will other Laser Blade (pyew, pyew!) members be attending? Could we perhaps meet up and do a secret handshake?

LOOK!

Holy crap, Street Fighter 4. I don't even like fighting games very much, but this is Street Fighter. I love Street Fighter!

Street Fighters 2, 2, 2, 2, Turbo, Hyper, Championship, 2, New Challengers, 2, 2, and Special Edition. All of them were great (I skipped 3)!

I'm going to spend a year waiting in line at the Internetz. I'll be the first to get a copy.

Joy.

(please be 2-D)

What's up with the Halo 3 icon

not showing up on our gamertags?

If it is fixed when you read this, please forgive.

Cosmic Controllers

I used to play a lot of PC games before my computer turned into a huge wussy (read: real life prevents me from upgrading). I sometimes even kick it in the nuts and remind it of what a wussy it is. Stupid computer thinks it's so bad...

Regardless, The Xbox 360 was purchased as a replacement for my aging PC (2 years!). I'm happy with this purchase aside from two instances. The first being an inability to mod or create content for games. The second being the most important even though it mostly concerns one genre of game. The dual-analog controller is nothing in the face of the keyboard-mouse combo.

The mouse gives me the freedom to kill that I crave. Headshot after headshot does it give me the power to reign upon mine enemies. Blood pours from the sky to mingle with the tears of my enemies' families. Then I kill them too. Just out of principle. Murder becomes my currency. Flesh my credit. My PIN Number is B-L-O(O)-D.

All the dual analog control gives me is a case of tourette's. There's just not enough accuracy nor speed. If I could hook the keyboard/mouse combo to my Xbox, I would. More FPS crave only the murder I can give. I weep for their loss.

Join the mouseketeer club. I don't think that name's been taken yet has it?

I'm so creative.

Portal rules, more please

Portal rules. I want more.

I beat it in about three or four hours, as other players had reported. It was delicious, and I am saving the bonus levels as wee prizes of pleasure for when I am feeling down in the dumps, which is often, because I carry the collective pain of the Earth on my shoulders.

The best part of this game is not the portal-creating mechanic, which is awesome, but rather the decreasingly subtle back story that unfolds and culminates in level 19. It is kind of creepy and gets under your skin, like my favorite Radiohead songs, of which, sadly, there are few on In Rainbows.

I actually liked the length of this game. Short and sweet, kept me wanting more. And if more is made available through DLC (how easy it would be) I would purchase!

This is the new and exciting kind of games of which we need more. It is original and fresh. I like how one blogger (forget who, maybe Susan's co-worker Chris Kohler) called it the first ever "FPS puzzle comedy."

So, join me as I hoist Portal into place as a shining example of gaming goodness.

Fight=finished

The other night I wrapped up Halo 3's campaign. I must confess, I had a very hard time doing it. Not because it was particularly difficult, though certainly there were some sections that had me dying with an alarming regularity. No, because it was so tedious and poorly designed that it was all I could do to stop from putting the controller down and putting the disc on the shelf for all eternity.

Let me clear something up right now, to hopefully forestall any "Halo 3 si teh awesomz" arguments. I don't play multiplayer. If I did, based on the videos I've seen, Halo 3 looks fantastic, rewarding, and genuinely balls-out fun. I absolutely understand people being wild about Halo 3 if they're into the multiplayer. I, however, am not, so I think it's a lot of crap.

Ok, ok, that's putting it rather strongly, and not entirely accurate. "Disappointingly flawed" might be a better way of putting it. The campaign is woefully short, and its story doesn't come close to making sense. The Halo trilogy reminds me rather a lot of The Matrix, story wise. First one: fantastic. Next two: full of dragged out rave sequences and rambling messages from Cortana.

Speaking of those rambling messages, I don't know who got the idea that stopping you in your tracks whenever she felt like chiming in was a good idea, but they were wrong. It broke up the flow of the game, which is a big mistake when you're in something as adrenaline-pumping as Halo. It did force you to listen to the storyline being spun out, but since nothing she said ever made sense, your reaction wasn't one of rapt attention, but rather one of "Yeah, yeah, crazy bitch, I get it. Shut your pie-hole and let me get back to the killing."

Most of the action of the campaign is genuinely fun, especially anything involving a vehicle. I do find that it's just like the original Halo in that I tend to get lost an awful lot, but perhaps that's just my failing. The final few hours of the game are simply insufferable, however. The level where you actually have to find Cortana is distinctly unfun, as you prowl through corridors resembling nothing so much as bits of digestive tract, with no room to maneuver, and hordes of Flood coming at you from all sides. Easy to get trapped, easier to get lost, it's not challenging, it's drudgery.

I can't help but feel like Halo 3's campaign was tacked on just so Bungie could say they had a single-player option. All of the heart and soul seems to have gone into the multiplayer. And perhaps that's as it should be. After all, Halo is the icon it is because of the love and devotion of its multiplayer community, and if one aspect of the game had to be given designer dibs, the multiplayer was the correct choice. For people like me, however, who will likely never use that feature of Halo 3, the game ends up being rather disappointing. Ah, well. I can always replay BioShock.

New occasional feature: WTF?! Explain Yourself.

MATT!

NBA 2K8? WTF. Explain yourself. You hate sports.

(Oh btw my gamerscore is actually 5 points higher than it shows on the right; I got a 5 pt. achievement last night for lots o' head shots in Halo 3 but my Internet connection wasn't working. I was also playing BioShock.)

What all the fuss is about

When Puzzle Quest came out a few months back, the gaming world was abuzz with delight. Reviews were universally glowing. Everyone, it seemed, loved this game, even the boys at Penny Arcade. It's so addictive! We can't stop playing it! For weeks, all anyone could talk about was the awesomeness of Puzzle Quest.

In case you're not familiar, Puzzle Quest is the unlikely result of blending the casual game of Bejeweled with an RPG. The story is standard sword-n-sorcery fare, with the Queen sending you off on a quest to rid the kingdom of evil, blah, blah, blah. As Matt might say, just point me in the right direction and tell me what to kill. You'll travel all around the kingdom, picking up rumors, upgrading your equipment, and learning new spells. Eventually, you'll find something to kill, and here's where it gets odd. You do battle...by playing Bejeweled. It's not actually Bejeweled, but it's the same basic idea: match three like gems to make them disappear.

Can't say I saw the appeal.

To be fair, I never actually played Puzzle Quest. I was too broke to buy it for myself, and I couldn't seem to get my hands on a review copy, so I never got to drink the Kool-Aid that everyone around me was drunk on. A friend even went so far as to send me an Amazon gift certificate so that I could pick it up, but I used the money to buy the new Harry Potter book instead.

Yesterday, Puzzle Quest landed on the Xbox Live Arcade. Finally, I would be able to see what everyone was chattering about! It cost a hefty 1200 points, so I figured the smart thing to do was play through the trial first, to decide if I liked the game even remotely.

It took me all of about three minutes to decide that 1200 points as a bargain and a half for this game.

Puzzle Quest should come with a doctor's warning about its incredibly addictive nature. It's nearly impossible to start playing it once you start. The battles themselves are quick enough so that you're always eager to get to the next one, but challenging enough so that you're kept alert and on your toes the entire time you're playing. The RPG elements are deep enough to make a difference in gameplay, but light enough to keep from scaring off gamers who don't have their own set of 20-sided dice. It is, in short, positively brilliant and I hope whoever came up with the idea is now living in solid gold house and swimming in a Scrooge McDuck-sized money bin.

Though the combat has the same backbone as Bejeweled, it changes it just enough to keep it from becoming mind-numbingly boring. Spells you can cast during battle require certain amounts and colors of mana; as you make combos of jewels, you earn mana in the corresponding color. So, while you might have a match of blue gems available, what you may really need is a string of green. Your opponents have their own spells and special abilities, too, such as stealing your mana, destroying all the gems of a certain color, or taking extra turns. Skulls drop randomly into the board--matching three of them is how you actually do damage to your enemy. This adds an extra element of strategy to the jewel-matching--will what you're about to do set up a skull combo for your opponent? Do you have enough hit points to survive the hit if they do?

The name is terrible and the premise absurd, but you must try Puzzle Quest. Just clear your schedule first.

I've No Respect

Shit.

I'm that person.

Last night I was playing through Castlevania: Symphony of the Night on Xbox Live Arcade and my wife figured it'd be a good idea to plonk down on the couch next to me and watch. She does this often, it's nothing out of the ordinary. In the minutes that followed, her face would become a mask of fear, disgust, and confusion.

As she sat down, I was in the Inverted Castle and running into the opening hallway. I killed two skeleton jacks and a dodo, paused for a moment, and then left the room. I ran back into the room immediately: killed two skeletion jacks and a dodo, paused, left; enter, kill, pause, leave; enter, kill, pause, leave. Over and over again

After about 3 minutes of this, she turned to ask me the immensely sensible question: "What the hell are you doing?" That's whan I informed her of my current shame: "The dodo drops a rare item called the runesword; it's the rarest drop in the game. I've been doing this for almost 45 minutes."

Oh God.

She chuckled at first. Was I joking? As she watched me constantly re-enter that dreaded room in the silent moments that followed, I'm sure it dawned on her that I was indeed serious. Deadly serious. Gamer serious. In the end she left and I finally got my runesword. When I finally came to bed my wife was asleep, too ashamed to even speak to me no doubt. Did it make me feel better, finding that sword, that cursed peice of code? No, I just felt empty afterwards...empty and soulless.

I'm THAT person.

Shit.



HOT RUNESWORD ACTION!

Look at Susan's gamerscore!!!

6666

Wow, that's pretty cool. I'd like to know how you got a final digit not ending in 5 or 0. What game did this to you? You should stop playing your 360 now so you will forever have that score.

If I were making a 360 game I'd have the points be all absurd and lopsided. They would all have scores like:

Beat lvl. 1 boss Brunus: 14 pts
Ingest Holy Potion of Shame: 22 pts
Shoot 18 goals in soccer: 7 pts
Find all 30 Bonus Powerups: 52 pts

Also it would be funny to have really hard things to complete have low gamerscore points. Like "Beat game on Extreme mode 40 times: 4 pts."

The Riddle of Steel

A 15-minute demo for the new action game based on Conan the Barbarian was released to the Xbox Arcade earlier this week. I can report that I have seen it, and it is good.

The fan in me is banging against the walls, threatening to break loose and scream how sexually-gratifyingly awesome this game will be and oh-my-god it's freaking Conan and I love him. The truth of the matter: fans are usually wrong; I can say though, while maintaining my critical faculties, that the demo is very promising but extremely flawed.

The first thing I noticed were that the graphics were unfinished. Fine, it's a demo, not all of the kinks were worked out; the big negative here would be if the graphics were considered finished. That's bad ju-ju. The greatest detriment in the demo were the lack of any kind of camera controls. It was very easy, even in the small area included in the demo, to get lost simply because a player could not see or survey their surroundings.

Now, with the bad out of the way, let's get on to the ass-kicking! Combat in this game is exhilarating. Brutal, fast-paced, and well animated. Control is intuitive and playing such a violent force of nature like Conan is a fantastic experience. Speaking of whom, Conan is by far the best thing about this game: He acts, looks, and sounds just like the original descriptions from Robert Howard's short stories. In short, the game developers were very particular concerning the original stories. I think this is the feature that will separate Conan from God of War, a game that will rightfully draw comparisons.

Give the demo a try, I think this game is going to be something worth playing.

Simpsons Game Demo is Tight

I downloaded both the Conan and Simpsons game demos last night. Matt said he was going to write up the Conan one, as he is a lover of all things Conan. So I shall write about the Simpsons one.

I thought it was pretty fantastic, actually. And this is despite two frustrating flaws: the camera, and my own inability to beat Lard Lad. The camera is unfortunate and unresponsive, but I didn’t find it to detract much from the action. Also, I couldn’t figure out how to get up to the second exposed circuit board of Lard Lad so that I could punch it. I tried for about ten minutes, felt stupid, and then tried the Conan demo.

I noticed that this game is beautiful. It looks SO COOL. I love how it mixes the cartoony Simpsons graphics with particle physics and lighting effects. Top-notch artistry, here. I expect that the levels will each be pretty different, and from what I have heard they will be, requiring you to jump into various videogame parodies. I saw lots of different looking levels in the teaser movie after you end the demo.

The game is funny as well. I remember thinking back when the Simpsons Hit and Run game came out that it had jokes much funnier than ones on the show. This one does as well. I loled when I destroyed Lard Lad’s first circuit board and received an award from the Comic Book Guy for unlocking (or some such mechanic) video game cliché #1: attack the obvious weak point. Kent Brockman’s commentary throughout the level was non-repetitive and chuckle-worthy.

Looking forward to this, I hope it turns out to be a great game.

Bite-sized Zelda

I picked up Phantom Hourglass for the DS last week, and I'm utterly charmed by it. I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with Zelda games, as a rule. The ones I like, I utterly adore, and the rest I can't bloody stand. Ocarina of Time, for example? Hate it. Link to the Past? Love it to bits. The problem I have with the Zelda formula is that it's exactly that--a formula. Forget the plot, you always end up doing the exact same things. You'll travel from dungeon to dungeon, each one tailored to specifically suit whatever nifty gizmo is tucked away in a corner somewhere, defeating big-ass bosses who all have one piece of the Something that you need to conquer the Whatever.

Some people call that staying true to a series' roots, and I understand that perspective, I really do. I just got tired of it several games ago. The Zelda titles I like are the ones that mix up that formula a bit, like Minish Cap with its shrink-dink mechanic, or Wind Waker with its cel shading cuteness. Not surprisingly, those are two titles that "true" Zelda fans often find fault with, either for straying too far from canon (or perhaps I should say Ganon) or being *gasp* too easy.

Phantom Hourglass finds a middle ground between Minish and Wind Waker, combining the difficulty of the former with the look of the latter. I, for one, appreciate its stripped down nature. Long gone are the days that I could devote hour after hour to tracking down every last heart container, bug, or whatever other random collectible Nintendo feels like throwing in there, so I enjoy Hourglass' direct approach. Your pal Zelda boarded a Ghost Ship, which sailed away with her. You have to go get her. Simple as that.

Naturally, this does involve trips to various dungeons, as well as upgrading the boat that carts your world-saving ass from Point A to Point B, but it's all scaled down to be appropriate to DS-sized play sessions. No more heart containers to look for--you get one when you finish a dungeon, that's it. You're not overwhelmed with side quests or random running back and forth, you just do what you gotta do to further your goal. Some are finding fault with that sort of linearity, as it is a bit divergent from Zeldas past, but I for one find it a relief.

Playing entirely with the stylus does take some getting used to, and it doesn't always work as well as it perhaps should. To swipe your sword in a circle, for example, you draw a circle around Link, but since touching the screen is also how you tell Link where to go, you'll often find that he's simply following your stylus around and not actually taking a whack at anything. Conversely, you'll often find that Link is swinging his blade with wild abandon when all you wanted him to do was walk over there. Fortunately, the game seems to be forgiving enough so that these issues never keep you from success, but they do get a bit annoying, just the same.

If you have a DS, you should have Phantom Hourglass. It's not as deeply layered as Twilight Princess, of course, but not every game needs to be a marathon.

Laser Blade Games Origin: Part III

My compatriots have stirred in me inaugural memories of gaming. I could just rip them off, but that's not how I roll brother (yes it is)!

I never had an Atari; my pal Joey had an Atari and I played it at his house often. My first gaming system was an NES, and while I liked it, I don't think it was the start of video games becoming a lifelong hobby. Incidentally, my first games for the system were Jackal (awesome!) and Friday the 13th, so maybe the NES was the start of other things in my life. Regardless, The dingy back corner of Mike's Deli, with his 3 or 4 arcade cabinets, is where I learned to <3 video games.

Contra, Street Fighter II, TMNT: The Arcade Game, Final Fight, X-Men, these were the games I cut my teeth on. I went to parochial school (St. Joe's in Collingdale) with all of my little buds up until Grade 4; anytime we had some quarters stirring impatiently in our hot little hands we would make a quick detour on the walk home from school, dive into Mike's Deli, purchase as much candy as would leave us quarters for a decent number of games, and proceed to play our little hearts out. A sugar-fueled romp through 8- and 16-bit color mayhem fueled by the emerging instances of eager competition and an honest desire to put oneself in the role of a wrestler-turned-mayor who wanted to clean up the streets of his fair city and rescue his lovely daughter from the insidious Mr. X. Those were the days.

I'm not all-too-fired-up sure Mike, the cantankerous Italian man who ran the eponymous Deli, liked these kids, with their parochial school ties and sweater vests, hanging around his establishment for an hour or two, but he sure must have liked the amount of money we pumped into his business.

Chris, Mark, Joey, Little Joe, and myself: perhaps I'm being sentimental, but I will remember those guys and these memories probably until I die. Even if I haven't spoken to any of them in almost 15 years. Good times.

I still play these games on my computer (thank you MAME!) and I'm not sure if they're honestly good games or if the rose-colored glasses of nostalgia are just too much for me to cast off.



Yeah, so not bad. The opposite of bad. Video games!

Early Gaming Memories, Mark Two

My brother and I got an Atari 2600 one year for Christmas, with Combat as the pack-in (of course) and Space Invaders. It was the most magical thing I'd ever seen. You have to remember, that at the time (1977), watching TV was much different than it is now. Sets were still expensive enough that families only had one or two at most. There was no such thing as remote control. There was no cable. There was no VCR. We had the enormous console TV in the family room, and my parents had a smaller set in their bedroom. If my brother and I were sick, or very, very good, we were allowed to watch the TV in my parents' room, but for the most part, it was the family room or nothing.

When my dad hooked up the Atari, I couldn't believe that I was actually controlling what was on TV. I stared for hours in amazement that I was making the cannon (or tank or airplane) move back and forth on the screen. It was a wonderment. I played Space Invaders so much that I could clear the first screen with my eyes closed, just from muscle memory. I used to play with the controller turned upside down, just to provide more challenge. I never had too many games...perhaps 20 at most, but they were treasures to me. Chopper Command, Maze Craze, Barnstorming, Pitfall, Pitfall II, and my favorite of all time, Adventure. So many wonderful memories.

My first experience in an arcade was, appropriately, Pac-Man. I was in Radnor Rolls, a local skating rink, waiting for my mom to pick me up. The rink had a small arcade section, designated with a hot pink neon sign over the doorway. It took me all three lives to clear the first screen, but I thought it was marvelous, just the same. I told my mom all about it on the car ride home, but she seemed less enthralled, for some reason. Later, Tracy Simpson and I would go to Mackey's Pharmacy after school, get genuine cherry cokes and play Ms. Pac-Man. She was way better at it than I was, so I would usually just stand to the side and root her on.

Gaming Memories

What was your earliest videogame memory? What was the first system you had? I remember lots of things.

I consider myself pretty lucky to have been born long enough ago that I got to experience the birth of videogames. My father bought an Atari 2600, and I pretty much grew up with that machine. Adventure and Pitfall! were stand-out titles. He later got an Atari 5600, and man, did that thing have some great games. Jungle Hunt inspired many of my adventurings into the woods behind my house as I imagined I was jumping over rocks and swinging from vine to vine.

The arcades were my next big thing. My good friend Colin and I would go to the arcades on Sundays, and I remember our parents giving us $2.00 in quarters to use. This was eight games. I remember the Newark (DE) Arcade as a dark place where older boys would scare me a little, but I didn’t care. Rolling Thunder, Contra, 1942… so many good times.

I remember when Colin tried to explain this curious new game they had, that I could not wait to go play. It was called Super Mario Bros. and he was like “you run and then jump on mushrooms and turtles, and you get mushrooms that turn you big and also a flower that lets you shoot fire.”

I actually played SMB very little in the arcades; it wasn’t soon after that I got a NINTENDO ENTERTAINMENT SYSTEM in my own house. The Christmas videotape of me opening the present is glorious. I hope to digitize it and upload it to this very site, soon!

Having the NES in my house turned me into the dedicated videogame enthusiast that I am today.

Coming up next time: Remember how you used to design videogames on paper?

Indie Games

I just checked out indiegames.com. It is a site dedicated to yes, independent videogames. As a stuffy and pompous videogamer, I love this idea. There is nothing I enjoy more than scoffing at Halo 3 and Gears of War meatheads *cough*. The site has a list of the the top 50 independent games, and plenty of other information about the Indie Game Movement.

I don't love playing games via the Internet, but it looks like some of links lead to sites where you can download games. I would prefer to be able to play indie games on consoles, and it seems like all three major consoles are making an effort to give independent games a place to thrive.

Can't wait for the Wii to get that channel going.

Fun with Halo's Theater

So, on Digg I found this post of this sick Halo 3 sticky bomb hit. Then I remembered a Halo preview where the designers were talking about the movies that people were going to make using Halo 3's Theater. For those of you who don't know what I mean (and I look down on you), it is possible to record your matches, save and watch them later. While I should have been working... I picked my 5 favorites.

If you don't care about Halo 3 then this won't interest you.

# 5 Lazers and Rush



The best part is the response by this dude
allnamesrtakent - "the rock stopped the lazer, but the ultraviolet radiation seeped through and you died from a very rare form of instantanous uv cancer"

#4


With music and all...


#3 This is funny because I probably was the 2nd and 6th person he killed.




#2 I think I saw this in a John Woo movie



#1 And this is just insane.

Pyew Pyew, I need help

Two weeks ago I bought this shiny new Xbox 360; future of gaming entertainment, high-def triple-core graphics, next generation software and all that. Y'know what though? I've mostly been playing Castlevania: Symphony of the Night and Streets of Rage 2 with my big expensive machine.

This just will not do.

I spent a lot of money on this thing, I need some big boom-boom expensive graphics to lull my my mind to peace for when I get that credit card bill in about a month. I've bought three games already: Crackdown and Guitar Hero II, both of which I think are really good, and Marvel Ultimate Alliance, which I'm not very impressed with right now.

UA is just not gripping me, the play is too derivative. Crackdown and GH II are both too good: I get sucked into the playing experience and I unkowingly play until after midnight. I'm old, I need sleep or else I drool all over the place, am incontinent, and just generally cranky. These are weekend games for me.

What do I need then? I need utterly mediocre games for playing during the week. Games that contain the pretty gloss I paid good American dollars for, but are so thoroughly uninspired that I can turn them off after about 45 minutes to an hour of play. They should still fun enough to keep me satisfied for that time period. I need games that resemble the movie Commando (see below for reference). They should also be cheap and available used on the back market. I'm not going to pay 60 bucks for a halfway crappy game.

Help me Laser Blade (pyew pyew) Games, you're my only hope.

Great Job!

I’d like to thank everyone who has helped make Laser Blade: Games Division’s first month a complete success. The board is pleased, profits are up, and everyone is walking around with a smile on their faces.

A special thanks to my hard-working bullpen of writers; without you guys we’d have nothing.

Keep up the good work, and let’s have a fantastic October!

Brendan