This is a hastily written, un-proofread analysis of the top 10 DS games as rated by www.gamerankings.com.

(GameRankings Rank) (Title) (Publisher) (GR's Score) (Rob's Score out of 5)
1. Mario Kart DS - Nintendo - 92.20% GR - 4 Rob

This is just like all the other Mario Karts. Fun game, but relies too much on the luck of the powerups. If you're behind, you get kickass powerups like the Blue Shell that homes in on the 1st place racer. That's sorta lame. It does support wireless peer-to-peer and internet play though. That's sorta cool. Overall, it's quite fun, but I am starting to get tired of the formula.

Buy if... you love Mario, non-serious racing, or loved all the other Mario Karts.


2. Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow - Konami - 90.50% GR - 4 Rob

Like so many games on this list, this is another episode in a series of franchise games. This is supposed to be 2D side-scrolling at it's finest. And I'm sure it is. Personally, I was never a big Castlevania fan so it's kind of 'meh' for me.

Buy if... you love Castlevania, 2D sidescrollers, or supporting a Non-Nintendo product in the top 10

3. Advance Wars: Dual Strike - Nintendo - 90.50% GR - 5 Rob

Man, I can already tell I'm going to get tired of this, but again, another derivative game. I should just start writing, if you like Game X, then you'll love Game X: The DS Version. It would save me a lot of time. Anyway, for what it does, it does quite well. AW: DS is a turn based strategy game that's simple enough to be enjoyable by the masses and yet deep enough to be enjoyed by hardcore strategy game nuts. It's got a manga style graphics and a convoluted storyline, but neither will get in the way of enjoying this game. There are a lot of Commanding Officers to choose from, each with their own unique Super Power-ups. It's almost like there are too many because some of the powerups are sorta lame or unbalanced and you'll find yourself just picking the same set of CO's over and over. There are tons and tons of maps and you can even create your own. The Dual Screen usage is pretty cool, but ultimately I liked the old style maps with just one screen. In any case, it's hella fun in multiplayer mode.

Buy if... You like strategy games, you like multiplayer madness, or you like, you guessed it, Advance Wars for the GBA.


4. New Super Mario Bros. - Nintendo - 88.90% GR - 4 Rob

... I'm not even gonna say it. Sigh. OK, well, on the bright side, this is one really good Mario game. And honestly, we haven't seen a traditional side scroller Mario game in a long ass time. So maybe I should cut them some slack for making another Mario game. I think I'm burned out on Mario just because he's in every other game published by Nintendo.

Buy if... you're a girl, you're old-school, you like fun, if unoriginal, games.

5. Meteos - Nintendo - 88.60% GR - 1 Rob

This game sucks. I have no idea why people suck on Meteos' dick so hard. The idea behind this puzzle game is that you move around blocks to match colors (surprised?) You do this by selecting a block with the stylus and sliding up or down a column until you get 3 same colored blocks lined up horizontally across 3 columns. When they line up, they fire off rockets that propel the blocks above them up towards the top of the screen. Sometimes you have to fire off rockets more than once before they completely leave the screen (the goal.) Problem is... the gameplay is flawed. I got pretty damn far just randomly moving my stylus around the screen. The Blocks would randomly line up and fire rockets. For a puzzle game, that's horrible.

There are better puzzle games out there.

Buy if... you hate good gameplay in your puzzle games, you love Mizuguchi, you find it for < $5 and then give it to your worst enemy for his bday.

6. Kirby: Canvas Curse - Nintendo - 87.60% GR - NA

I never played this game. So... OK.

Buy if... you love Kirby??

7. Super Mario 64 DS - Nintendo - 86.40% GR - 3 Rob

This game was AWESOME for the N64. For the DS, the control sucks balls. It emulates an analog stick with the stylus. That blows. It also allows you to use the regular D-Pad and hit a button to run. That sucks too. Without analog controlled, this game is ruined.

Buy if... you never played the proper N64 version, you find it for < $10, there is no 3rd reason.

8. Animal Crossing: Wild World - Nintendo - 86.40% GR - 3 Rob

I never played the DS version, but it looks a lot like the Gamecube version, and that was pretty damn boring. So you move into the town of Animal Crossing and you set up a house and then you do boring shit like work, collect crap and decorate. This isn't really a game. It's more of the simulated grind of adulthood with cutesy graphics and retarded minigames. The DS version includes online functionality which lets you interact with other real-world peopel's towns via Wi-Fi. So you can trade crappy gifts and shit. Girls love this shit.

Buy if... you love to decorate your house (you're gay,) you don't have any real life friends, or you're a girl.

9. Elite Beat Agents - Nintendo - 86.40% GR - 5 Rob

I really liked this game, but I can see other people not getting into it. It's a music/rhythm game, so if you ain't got the rhythm, stay off the dance floor. The game is crazy. The premise is over the top: you're part of an elite force of dancing... umm... agents... that gets sent in to help people cope with everyday situations like taking getting a cat out of a tree or driving a prego to the hospital in a cab or dealing with a bunch of bratty kids that this hottie is babysitting. The most serious scenario, helping a little girl dealing with the loss of her father, is actually quite touching and is one of my favorite levels. The song that you have to dance to are covers of mostly well recognized pop tunes. Cavaet: If you're out of touch with poppy radio songs, you might not know 1/2 of these songs. The gameplay consists of tapping and dragging the stylus in time with the rhythm of the songs. It takes a little getting used to and it does start off slow. But then the difficulty ramps up pretty quickly. Overall, the control works wonderfully once you figure thigns out.

Buy if... you love music games, you like something different and wacky, you like pop music.

10. Tetris DS - Nintendo - 86.30% GR - 4 Rob

Are you serious? It's tetris. C'mon.

Buy if... you're into tetris, you're gf loves tetris, you are tetris (what??)

"Netflix Movie Reviews"

Here's some weird shit I Netflixed recently:

Cannibal Holocaust - 3/4 stars - Italy - The first Blair Witch Project. Documentary filmmakers go to the Amazon to film cannibals. They disappear. Their film is found later and screened. The atrocities! The inhumanity! The savageness of the documentary crew towards the natives is startling! (Yes, towards the natives.) Pretty real looking guts and shit. And, oh, by the way, animals WERE harmed during the making of this film. Monkey brains extracted from a live (well, up to the point of extraction) monkey. A huge ass turtle butchered and cooked in front of your very eyes. And they kill bugs too! No shit. ASPCA eat your heart out (Get it, cannibals... nevermind.)

Mark of the Devil - 3/4 stars - German - Originally famous for passing out barf bags at every screening. It has torture scenes. Oh, my. But as you might guess, it's not nearly as disturbing in 2006 as it might have been way back when (1970.) I sought this out because it starred Udo Kier in his first big role. It was just a bonus that this was the famous "barf bag" movie I'd heard about. Udo was the awesome German guy in the Masters of Horror Season 1 episode "Cigarette Burns" directed by John Carpenter. This movie actually has some sort of story believe it or not.

I Spit On Your Grave - 3/4 stars - USA - Having selected Mark of the Devil, Netflix suggested that maybe I'd like this flick too. Oh, I dunno. It just has the longest rape seen ever in a movie. No big deal. Of course, it's really not that big of a deal. Again, this movie is old and sensationalism rarely lives up to the hype... especially decades old sensationalism. Still it's quite entertaining with a few friends and some alcohol. Plus, the chick gets the last laugh, so it's OK, right? C'mon, the alternate, though way less cool, title, "Day of the Woman" gives that away, right?

In the Realm of the Senses - 1/4 stars - Japan - According to Neflix, this movie has never been seen in Japan in its original form. Probably cuz they show too much snatch. As in any snatch. Best part? When the guy sticks a hard boild egg up said hairy snatch. And she 'lays' it out for him. He naturally eats his newly seasoned egg. Hot, no? Other than that hotness, nothing in this fucking movie made any fucking sense. Oh, wait, I forgot. She actually gives him real head on camera. Rent Download an asian porno instead.

Romance - 1/4 stars - French - Honestly, I don't even remember watching this. Again it was suggested by Netflix... this time after selecting I Spit On Your Grave. I guess it's thinking: "Like long rape scenes? Cool, try this movie 'Romance.'" I don't know about you, but I wouldn't want my sister to go out on a date with Netflix. It's kinda got a weird sense of romance. Oh, wait. I remember. This was a
shitty movie about a girl that had an affair cuz her lover wouldn't fuck her. Huh? Yeah. And her choice to do the nasty with? None other than Rocco Siefriddi... Seffiedi, Seeefreeedddiii.. or however you spell that fuckers' name. You know, the porn actor with the accent. Anyway, yeah, his dick comes out in this movie. Lame.

Lies - 3/4 stars - Korean - Old Korean guy fucks young Korean girl. They get into an S&M thing... whippings and beatings. The movie gets some props for breaking up her cherry popping scene with titles like "First Hole", "Second Hole" and my favorite and yours "Third Hole." Yes, she takes it in the cornhole on her first night of sex. Nice. Way to get 'em trained early on, old Korean guy. Then again, his life turns to shit.

Anatomy of Hell - 1/4 stars - French - More hairy bush, more Siffredi. You take the good with the bad. BTW, the good is the bush. The bad is Siffredi. Just wanted to make that clear. Let's see. A fucked up chick hires this well hung gay guy to watch her 'be sexual' with herself for a few days for no fucking reason I can remember. He ends up sleep fucking her, but not before he paints her lips bright red with lipstick. Her *pussy* lips I mean. Oh, let's not forget the part where he pulls out her tampon, and she puts it in a glass of water and they fucking drink the murky pink water. Wonderful. Guaranteed to get your date to close her fucking legs up for the night.

A Real Young Girl - 2/4 stars - French - Fucking weird movie about a 15 yr old-ish French country girl that is getting her hormones on. I never watched it all the way through. It kinda freaked Claire out. I mean, they show her bush and everything. And she really does look 15. Euros man. Crazy fuckers. Nothing much to say about it. I mean, the girl's cute. That's about it. Oh, and she throws up on herself
like no big deal in one scene. Yeah.

"The Da Vinci Code Review"

The movie, not the book... fuck reading. I don't have the patience to sit and stare at thousands of words until they entertain me. Reading is far too time consuming and an archaic form of entertainment as far as I'm concerned. It's akin to gathering the family 'round the ol' RCA to listen to the latest radio drama.

That being said, it's not too surprising to know that I only had a very vague idea of what the hell this movie was about. I knew it was based on some hotshit book that sold tons of copies, and only right before I went to go see it did I find out that religious freaks were boycotting it. Yes, I was that clueless.

I honestly expected it to be a lot more about Da Vinci and a lot less about Christianity, but that explains the religious nuts being all up and arms about it doesn't it? I'm quasi-Cahtolic, and I still don't get why Catholics get their panties in a bind over works of fiction like this.

Anyway, I liked it. It wasn't the best movie or even story I had ever come across, but it was definitely not bad. There were certain elements that I felt were a little silly, but I'm not sure if the movie or the book was to blame. For instance, as soon as it was revealed that the Grail was a person, I knew it was Sophie. It was ridiculous to even pretend that the audience wouldn't figure that out right then and there (though it's definitely possible for even me to underestimate the general public.) Also, why the fuck did Sophie's 'grandfather' make shit so fucking hard to figure out? To protect the secret? The puzzles were so convoluted that it was easily possible for no one to be able to makes sense of the clues. If the location of the Grail was so damn important, why would he risk it being lost forever by creating all those impossibly random puzzles? Silly I tell you.

However, for the most part, if you suspend disbelief for long enough, the story isn't too bad. You see, the REAL reason for those crazy-ass puzzles is to entertain the reader/movie-goer. Traveling from place to place, figuring out clues, avoiding the bad guys, cracking the code. Exciting! Drama! Adventure! And indeed, there were enough twists and turns that kept me focused (although Claire did fall asleep in certain places.) It kind of reminded me of an Indiana Jones adventure with fewer tribal natives and a far less cool protagonist.

And as far as characters go, I expecially liked Silas. His parts in the movie were fucking awesome. If Silas was in the scene, people were like... Oh, fuck, what's gonna happen now? He evoked emotion and tension. Teabing was great too. He had some awesome lines, and I was genuinely convinced by his convinction. So, yeah, Magneto did a great job. Too bad the other characters weren't as interesting. I mean Hanks was OK, but I really didn't give too big of a shit (maybe a shart) about Sophie. She could have easily been relegated to flashbacks and an appearance towards the end. I just didn't care about her.

It was interesting to me that there didn't seem to be any true 'bad' guys. Sure, there were people that chased our hero around, but I really can't fault any of them. The Bishop was doing what he thought was right. Silas was doing what he thought was right. Fache was doing what he though was right. Same with Teabing and Sophie. And really, who are we to say which faction was right or wrong? I could see both sides of the argument, and didn't really know who to root for. Hell, even Sophie didn't know if she was going to let the cat out of the bag once she found out she was the Grail.

Overall, I'd recommend this movie for those that enjoy thrillers/mysteries. If you're a fan of the book, you'll probably like this movie too because it appears that the movie is quite close to the book (according to what I've read about the whole Da Vince Code thing.) I'd say this movie is 8 times better than the Transporter.

"Sony PS3"

The PS3 details have been announced. Wow. $499 for the basic model and $599 for the full blown version. Wow. I am honestly surprised. I was thinking that it would be $450 tops. And I didn't even consider the possibility of them releasing two versions. I think Sony is in trouble. They're going to be a year late to the game and with a console that's 50% more expensive too. I know that their $599 console has some cool features like built-in WiFi, a fat 60GB HDD, a motion sensitive controller (Hi, Nintendo!,) and an HDMI port, but damn... that's a lot of money for your average Joe Gamer.

I know I'll be buying one of course. The Deluxe model please. And I know that their initial allotment will sell out because there are enough hardcore gamers out there to snatch them up, but its hard to make it in the games business catering to the hardcore gamer. I mean, you can do well for yourself catering to the hardcore, but you're not going to be the industry leader. And I doubt Sony will be happy relinquishing their industry leader crown.

Personally, I think Blu-Ray fucked them. First, it caused a delay in the shipment of the PS3. Now, it's causing the PS3 to be expensive as fuck. Way to go. I don't even think that the public is ready for either HDDVD or Blu-Ray. People only recently rebuilt their movie library with DVDs after tossing their VHS tapes. Now they're being asked to rebuild it again? It's too soon. The only saving grace is that the new HD disc players are backwards compatible. That helps, but I still don't see too many people re-buying their movies on an HD disc format anytime soon... at least not en masse.

Blu-Ray on PS3 is akin to the boneheaded move Nintendo made opting for a catridge based N64. They'll survive, but they're not going to lead. Sony's reign at #1 will end. Who'll take over #1 spot? MS? Perhaps? Nintendo? Possibly. But count Sony out of the top spot this time around.

"Silent Hill Review"

Hmmm... why does it seem like I only review horror movies? I don't even consider myself a horror movie aficionado. Maybe it's because they're often so bad that they piss me off enough to make me write something up about them. Or Maybe its because I feel compelled to warn others not to waste their time or money on them. No, wait, those were my motives for reviewing the "The Transporter"... a horror of a movie more than a horror movie, but still, it's scary that it got a sequel. What the fuck was I talking about? Oh, horror movies... Silent Hill. Right.

Before release, many of the gaming websites who are usually cynical about game-to-movie adaptations were opining that Silent Hill could actually be pretty good. The trailer looked very Silent Hill-y. The script writer, Roger Avery, was a huge gamer who was so hardcare that he even restored old Atari arcade uprights as a hobby. It had a decent director in Chris Gans (also a gamer.) And most importantly, Uwe Boll had nothing to do with it. The game community just ate it up. Who can blame them? They were starved for a even a decent game-to-silverscreen flick.

Then came the first sign of trouble: no advanced screening for reviewers. That's never a good sign. Personally, I never like to read reviews of movies that I plan to see. So it didn't really bother me that I couldn't use movie reviews to gauge my expectations. When I heard that there were no advanced sceenings, it was more of a "Oh, shit. That better not mean it's gonna suck!" reaction. Even still, I went to go see it with the not-so-high hopes that it would be the best video game movie yet. And you know what? I'm not so sure that it wasn't.

Most of my friends hated it. Then again, most of my friends are idiots. Now I'm not going to say that Silent Hill was a great movie, but it doesn't take much to take the Best Video Game Movie Ever crown. C'mon... what it's up against? Mortal Kombat? Tomb Raider? Resident Evil? It's not like those movies are in danger of ever making the AFI top 100 movies of all time. Honestly, I don't know what my friends were expecting out of Silent Hill. A direct game-to-movie script? *MORE* gore? Bare breasts? Hmmm... honestly, there's never too much tittage in horror movies as far as I'm concerned. I mean, if you've already got the R rating... Right? Right.

So what things did I like? Well, first of all, I liked the mood. It 'felt' like Silent Hill. I also liked how they explained the fogginess and how the town was evacuated so quickly. I've only played through Silent Hill 2 so maybe some people were more bothered by the lack of strict adherence to the game script, but I didn't mind it. If you're trying to condense hours upon hours of gameplay into a 2 hour movie, you're gonna need to change some shit around, and I think Avery did a decent job of it while Gans did a good job of visualizing it for us.

And what didn't I like? The worst thing about the movie, for me, was that even though it was way long for a horror flick, that they wussed out and summed up the 'why?' in a spoken 15 minute segment. It felt to me like they were telling the story, and then they ran out of time so they just broke down and hand fed us the reasoning for everything so that they could get to the climactic boss battle at the end. It would probably have been better as a Kill Bill-ish Vol 1/Vol 2 deal. Though I'm sure that was not an option as far as Hollywood business goes.

Also, while I liked Avery's handling of the setting, his dialogue sucked. I absolutely hate hearing the audience laugh during horror movies, but some of the dialogue in Slient Hill was so absurd that I could totally understand why the audience was chuckling in some places.

Overall, I liked Silent Hill. And it seems like most gamers liked it. It was just the critics that hated the shit out of it (and my stupid friends.) Kotaku had a post on how movie review sites like MetaCritic and Rotten Tomatoes had complied overwhelmingly negative critics' reveiws for the movie while the user ratings on those same sites were overwhelmingly positive. Even on IMDB, Silent Hill has earned, up to this point, a respectable 6.7 out of 10 rating. If you're wondering if you've missed anything by not playing the games. Probably not. Like I said, I only played through one of the four Silent Hill games myself.

My Rating: 7.5 x better than The Transporter.

"The Hills Have Eyes Review"

Just saw this movie last night... I'll get to the point. It sucked.

I know, I know, most horror movies suck, but for some reason Claire and I were under the impression that this was supposed to be a good movie. I thought I remembered hearing some positive buzz about the movie, and I vaguely remember the ads being somewhat interesting. But to be honest, I didn't really look into it very much. I saw this as a postive thing as the last horror movie I went to see where I didn't know much about it was the American version of The Ring, and that movie was quite good.

Anyway, spoilers abound...

First of all, we thought this was going to be something about some hills out in a dark forrest area with a dilapidated house sitting on top of some hill that was really an ancient demonic ritual site or something like that. Instead its about a family of vacationers that get stuck out in the desert of New Mexico and fall victim to a bunch of nuclear fallout mutants that all look like Sloth from The Goonies. Even worse, the majority of the movie is set during the day. Not scary.

If you remember the tagline for this movie "The lucky ones die first." You'll know another reason why I was so disappointed. That line implies that 1) the ones that die at the end, die the worst deaths and 2) that a lot of people will be dying. Neither are true. Three 'good guys' die. Three. Well, four if you count the guy that killed himself, but I don't think that should count because I think he was more of a 'bad guy' anyway. And as for dying first? The guy that dies first gets his head bashed in and is burned alive. Pretty horrible death, isn't it? How do the 2nd and 3rd people die? Shot. Yep. Shot in the belly and shot in the head. I don't know about you, but having my skull bashed in and being burned alive sounds much worse than being shot to death.

Another gripe... the movie takes forever to get to the good stuff. You know how only three people die? Well, it takes almost half of the movie for that to happen. And then they all die within 15 minutes. Boring.

Finally, I suppose there was some message that we're supposed to have taken to heart. Something about the government displacing families from their homes or some other non-issue these days. Who cares? I want to be entertained, not preached to. Fuck off.

This movie was a huge disappointment. I give it a 5.5 out of 10, but at least it wasn't The Transporter.

“Dead or Alive 4 (Xbox 360) Review”

I love Street Fighter II. (Yes, this is a DoA4 review, but indulge me, dammit.) I mean, as far as I’m concerned, fighting game-wise, nothing has topped it. Ever. The Street Fighter II series has some intangible qualities that no fighting has ever been able to reproduce, much less improve upon. The gameplay is simple, yet complex. The characters are now iconic. Hell, even the music is memorable.

But even still, instilled in me is the ever growing need for something newer and shinier, something better than what is already nearly perfect. No sooner had I mastered wake up dragon punches all those years ago that I started looking for the next ‘it’ game to replace it. Early on, it was Mortal Kombat. Killer Instinct made a run for the fighting game title. Then you had the barrage of SNK games. Some were good. Many were horrible. But in the end, even the good ones couldn’t compare to SF2.

Then came the 3D fighting games, and soon, button mashing became a viable fighting game strategy. This sickened me. Never in its admittedly short history, going back to Karate Champ, had the fighting game genre ever been even remotely easy to play. If you were a newb at Street Fighter, and you played someone that even kind of knew what he was doing, you got destroyed. End of story. Too bad. So sad. Suck it up and try again. And again. And again. Just like everyone else before you. All SF2 players had to go through this rite of passage before even being able to consistently throw a fireball, much less use it at the right time, or ultimately combo into it. SF2 took skill.

And these 3D fighting games, man, I mean, button mashing… ugh. And yeah, OK, I admit that button mashing isn’t going to win you any tournaments. But still, it gets you a lot further than it should. As much as I hate to admit it, I’m not blind to the fact that 3D fighting games take skill to master, but it’s just not satisfying. Punch, Punch, Kick, Punch. Should *never* be considered a ‘move.’ And furthermore, it shouldn’t take 1/4 of a life bar away if you connect with it. (This is what sucked about KI, by the way.) Sure you have the timings and counters and shit like that, but honestly… all that stuff just seems… not… cool, I guess. It’s not that it doesn’t take skill to play games like Virtua Fighter or Tekken or Dead or Alive 4, it’s just that the skill needed to play those games just seems sort of gay. It’s kind of like being good at synchronized swimming. It’s hard and shit, no doubt, but wouldn’t you rather be good at real game like football or basketball or even golf?

So you’re probably thinking I hate Dead of Alive 4. The strange thing is, I don’t. As I said, I’m always looking for that one game to supplant SF2 as the best fighting game of all time. So I’m always welcoming the next big fighting game with open arms. Unfortunately, DoA4 isn’t the ultimate in fighting games. But, I begrudgingly admit that it’s still quite a bit of fun.

Perhaps I’m influenced by the fact that DoA4 is my only fighting game option on the Xbox 360. Or perhaps I’m enchanted by the online aspects of the game, or even by the hi-res boobies. In any case, I like this game. I admit it. And that should mean something from a guy that has hated nearly all 3D fighting games.

Graphics – 8.4

A sore point, for me, about the Xbox 360 is the lack of truly jaw dropping graphics in the 1st batch of games. DoA4 is among the games that disappoints graphically. Perhaps, it’s unfair to judge something based on how you think it should be, but you know what, I never said I was going to be fair. The graphics in DoA4 should be much better than they are. Period.

Of course, DoA4 has the obligatory jump in resolution and texture detail, a less than apparent jump in polygons, and a very nice framerate. Ho-hum. Boring. What I wanted to see in this generation was gameplay graphics that matched the graphics in the pre-rendered endings. Instead, what I got from my Xbox 1.5 was DoA 3.5.

Let’s take the characters’ hair. Where do I even start? It’s ass. The long flowing hair on the DoA 4 characters looks simply terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Why did they bother with long flowing ‘hair’ if they make it look more like magical ribbons that seem to move of their own volition… independently of any implied game physics… even going as far as going through the characters’ bodies. I mean, the hair polygons clipping into the shoulders of most of the characters is really noticeable. If they couldn’t do the hair right, they should have just left their hair short like in previous games.

The backgrounds are pretty good I guess, but nothing too great either. I really like the waterfall level. But when your character falls into the water, I want to see their clothes get wet. I want to see their hair droop down, soaked with water, and I want to see droplets of water go flying from their hair as their heads are popped back with a nasty kick to the face. But apparently we’ll have none of that.

The graphics are simply adequate with respect to the rest of the Xbox 360 games. People who jizz in their pants when they talk about the graphics would also probably be quite happy playing with an empty egg carton. They are easily amused. The graphics in DoA4 are nothing special people. Let’s be real.

Gameplay – 9.0

This is the real heart of the game. SF2 looks like ass by today’s standards, but the gameplay keeps me coming back again and again. I’m happy to report that the gameplay of DoA4 is decent. It’s got a nice feel to it, and while it’s very spam friendly, there are some definite skills that can be learned that will allow you to dominate less experienced players. Countering is one of those skills.

Let me just say that what I call a ‘counter,’ the game calls a ‘hold.’ Let me also say that whoever named the move where “you stop an opponents attack and retaliate against it with an attack of your own” a ‘hold’ is an idiot. It’s a fucking counter. Using their logic, a ‘throw’ would probably be called a ‘maneuver.’ Most likely this same idiot (probably Itagaki) is also the guy that named the guard/counter button, the ‘free’ button. Why not call it the ‘defense’ button? I chalk it up to the long history Japanese people have of being retarded when they name something in English. “Donkey Kong” anyone?

In any case, countering is a big deal. Apparently, it was a much bigger deal in earlier versions of DoA because it was overpowered. It had a long window where the counter was active, and it did way too much damage. The counter window has been reduced in DoA4, as has the damage performing a counter does. These are good things. That being said, there are 4 different ways you can counter in the game: forward + free (counters mid kicks), back + free (counters mid punches), up-back + free (counters high attacks) and down-back + free (counters low attacks). That means, if you’re really just guess as to what your opponent is going to do next, you only have a 25% chance of countering. Or more importantly, you have a 75% chance of getting pummeled. A word to the wise, don’t guess on what kind of counter to use. If in doubt, simply block.

The good players can pick up the attack strings being used against them and intelligently counter the last or next to the last attack. This is where being spammy gets you your ass handed to you. If you always do the same three fucking punches, a good player is going to start countering you.

Outside of counters, you have a lot of other nice subtleties in gameplay like stun moves that temporarily incapacitate your enemy if they block and multiple part throws. Nothing really new here as these things have been done before, but its still doesn’t change the fact that these moves deepen the gameplay.

Matches tend to be over pretty quickly when played at default settings: 2 rounds with the ‘Normal’ life bars. Almost too quickly. Over time, I preferred to play first to 3 rounds and with the life bars increased to Maximum to allow for longer rounds. This is with regard to Vs. mode of course. For single player games, you want that shit over as fast as possible because you’re going to be wanting to get through the game quickly to unlock bonus characters and costumes.

That brings me to the modes. There are only 2 modes worth a shit in my opinion, Story mode and Versus Mode. Story mode is how you earn the majority of your shit, so you probably want to play through that a few times. It’s not too bad. The rounds default to 1 round. But Versus mode is where I spend most of my time. That and Online Versus mode, which is basically the same shit. Time Attack and Survival? Fuck those. They’re only there to stretch out the game. Having to go through those modes to unlock the last few things really sucks.

Back to the online aspect… DoA4 does a great job of giving you an easy way to experience online Versus. Basically, the layout of online is like a virtual arcade. A group of 2 thru 16 people join a lobby. Register, then they join a game. People play their game. If it’s not your turn, you wait in line and watch the others play. When your turn comes up, if you win, great, you stay on and take another challenger. If you lose, back to the end of the line. Sound familiar? Yeah, it’s awesome, and it works really well.

The only bad part of playing online is that the game can lock up on you from time to time. It generally does that when you mess around with the guide button while the game is loading. It does NOT like that. It’s easy to avoid, but it’s a bug that shouldn’t be there nonetheless. Oh, well.

What else do you wanna hear? About the Spartan? She sucks. Slow and predictable. The online lag? That just depends on your connection to the other guy. Sometimes good, sometimes bad, but almost always playable. About the special DoA4 joystick? Yes, I have it and it rocks. I can’t wait to use it to play SF2 over Xbox Live Arcade. ;)

In summary, if you like how 3D fighting games play, in particular the DoA games, you’ll love the gameplay. There really isn’t a competition with regard to fighting games… soo… there you go.

Sound – 8.0

All I know is that Itagaki seems to have a hard on for Aerosmith. Why do they keep licensing Aerosmith for DoA games? WHY? Blech. Well, besides the Aerosmith, the rest of the songs aren’t bad, but they are easily forgettable. The punches and kicks and groans and grunts sound about right. The voice acting is a bit lame, however, not because it’s bad, but because it’s all in Japanese. I mean, the Americans, the Chinese, the French and German… all speak perfect Japanese. All except the Spartan. The lady who does the voice of the Spartan seemed to be the only non-Japanese name in all the credits. ;) It just doesn’t seem right that Bass speaks perfect Japanese.

Value – 9.1

If you like fighting games, you’ll play DoA4 a shitload. You can find it at some places for $49.99, but mostly it’s $59.99. Either way, if you want a fighting game, you’re gonna have to pay it. The value totally depends on how much Versus fighting you do and whether you play online. Overall, for me, it’s a great value.

Overall – 8.7

One last time: this is the only fighting game for the Xbox 360. If you liked older DoAs or even Tekken or some other bullshit, get it. End of story.

Screenshots:

Penalty on offense. Illegal Block to the back!	That's a hardcore game of pattycake!
You were warned! No counting cards!!	Mmmmmmmm... boobies.

"Call of Duty 2 (Xbox 360) Review"

Let me start by saying that 1) I didn’t play Call of Duty 1 or any of the CoD offshoots for the consoles and 2) I hate FPS controls on consoles – two analog sticks are shit compared to a keyboard and mouse. Couple that with the fact that I normally wouldn’t play a PC game ported over to a console, and it’s a miracle that I even played CoD2 for the Xbox 360 let alone bought it.

Here’s the deal though: the game just looked oh-so-nice at the Xbox 360 demo kiosk at Best Buy. Sooo smooth. Mmmmm. I’m a sucker for a high frame rate. Then I visited another Best Buy and they had the demo Xbox 360 setup up on a big HD TV with surround sound. Some kid had set up camp on one of those comfy gaming chairs. It looked like he’d been there all day. He was playing through the CoD2 demo like he’d done it ten or twenty times before. I stood and watched for a bit, and I suddenly found myself actually considering getting the game at launch. I kept trying to reason myself out of it… thinking that it was stupid to buy CoD2 for the Xbox 360 because if I really wanted to play it, I should play it ‘properly’ on my PC. It’d be cheaper too.

But, alas, I gave in and bought CoD2 on launch day. My final reasoning was that I would never actually play a single player campaign on the PC (I’m strictly multiplayer/deathmatch on the PC) and that even though I had a pretty high end PC, that it just wouldn’t look as nice as it did on the Xbox 360. Also, the rest of the launch titles pretty much sucked (more on that another time.) Oh, and Best Buy was handing out $10 off any game coupons too. So that helped.

Graphics – 8.9

The graphics are pretty good. No doubt. They are not so much ‘next generation’ graphics, as much as nice, solid graphics. The polygon counts aren’t unbelievable, but they’re pretty good. The textures are pretty good. The frame rate is pretty good. It’s just pretty good dammit!

While most of the demo (and the rest of the game in fact) runs at a nice 60fps, there are times where tons of explosions and/or smoke screens slow the framerate down to a reasonable, but less than perfect 30fps or so. But about 90% of the time, the frame rate is silky smooth.

The character models look well done. Their animation is on the nicer side of things, but they do get repetitive after a while. Seeing a guy walk up to a doorway, stand up against the wall and peek his head around the corner about 100 times kind of kills it.

Quite honestly, this game looks like a really nice PC game, which on its own isn’t that impressive when you think about how there we’re supposed to be in the next generation of graphics. However, when you think about how the Xbox 360 costs a mere $300-$400 dollars, it’s quite impressive they can muster up $3000 PC graphics in HD.

Gameplay – 9.0

Before I get into the actual gameplay, I have to bitch about the save game bug I came across…

First thing I noticed is that while I had let friends play CoD2, and they had made it all the way to the British missions (the middle part of the game), I couldn’t select the British missions anymore. It was very strange. I continued playing through the Russian Campaign and finished it. Then all of a sudden I was thrust back into the first Russion mission: a training mission. Since the game doesn’t allow you to move on until you finish the missions in order, I was confused as to why I was sent back to the start. Well, apparently the game had ‘forgotten’ that I had done these early missions somehow. I shrugged it off and re-did the first few missions. I didn’t really mind because my friends had been the ones that had played the early missions.

I moved on to British missions, and about halfway through those, I noticed my Russian missions were again grayed out as if they hadn’t been completed. Sure enough, after I finished my current set of British missions, I was thrust back into Russian Training… again. What the fuck? Something was very wrong. After some searching on internet forums, I found out what I didn’t want to find out: the game had a save game bug. Apparently, it was triggered when your profile loaded after the game loaded. It would keep track of where you last were, but not what you had completed, and if you saved in that state, you fucked yourself. Or rather, the game fucked you because it would save it in a state that let you finish off your current mission while claiming you hadn’t finished the missions before it. Which is a load of crap because you can’t even get to the later missions without finishing them in order.

Anyway, I found the work around: basically, never use the “continue to the next mission” option. Always save after every mission and then select you new mission from the Mission Select menu. Most importantly, upon first booting up the game, make sure your shit got loaded. If it didn’t, reload the game by going into the Multiplayer menu and exiting back into the Single player menu. It’s a load of shit that I had to do that, but it worked. I expect that type of shit from PC games that get patched a lot, but not from a console game.

Anyway, on to the actual gameplay… the controls were quite well suited to the Xbox 360 controller. I was pretty worried about that. It’s usually pretty fucked up trying to squeeze tons of PC controls onto a few buttons on a controller, but this worked well. I think it was because you only could carry two weapons, so weapon selection was easy. I always hate cycling through weapons on console controllers. Same with grenades… one shoulder button for smoke grenades and another for frag grenades. Easy. The sensitivity of the sticks seemed spot on as well. I really liked how when you hit the 'aim/zoom' button, you looked down the sights of the gun. Very cool and easy to use. Overall, it was just pretty nice to control. I didn’t have much problems with it.

During the game, you play as different soldiers. You start out as a Russian Soldier fighting the Germans on the Russian front. The levels are all fought on the snow covered grounds in the middle of a Russian winter. Next you move to a British Campaign where you play mostly as a British grunt with a short break as a Tank Commander. These are African missions and are all desert based. Finally, you get to play as an American soldier. These are fought in Western Europe and are the general village in temperate weather missions. All, with the possible exception of the tank missions, are very fun and quite enjoyable. The tank missions seemed a bit tacked on to me. They weren’t very deep. Still, they weren’t bad and they did offer a nice break from the FPS action.

For the remainder of the missions, the FPS missions, you pretty much follow the Star on the radar to your next objective. Most of the objectives are quite clea, and you don’t have to run around trying to figure out what to do. You do some recon, some holding down the fort, some taking back an area, and a lot of killing of dirty Nazi bastards. If you’ve played any FPS game, you’ll probably feel quite a home.

I like the use of smoke grenades as a battlefield tactic. The computer controller Nazis actually have trouble finding you in the smoke. Which brings me to the AI. A lot of people have been touting the AI of the characters in CoD2 as really fucking awesome. I’m here to tell you that they are pretty awesome indeed. They tend to work as a team and are no where near as dumb as say… they bad guys in Perfect Dark Zero where they’re complete morons. It really adds a sense of realism and urgency to the missions to know that the Nazis aren’t dumb drones easily picked off.

Your teammates aren’t nearly as impressive. Not because they’re idiots, but because it seems like only certain team members are allowed to die. One of my favorite characters was the Scottish gunner in the British Campaign. That guy was funny as shit. And he never died. Which is a good thing, but still it was kind of obvious who the main characters of the Campaign were and which grunts were gonna get offed. Kinda like the Star Trek missions where Spock, Kirk, McCoy and Ensign Smith beam down to the planet surface to investigate hostile activity. Guess who’s not beaming back up?

Overall, the gameplay was rock solid with fun, enjoyable missions.

Sound – 9.5

The game itself is, how should I put it, engaging. No. Enthralling. No. It’s immersive. Yeah, it’s immersive. I saw a documentary on the making of CoD2, and the developers pointed out that some old soldier dude told them that once the first shot was fired, they never stopped talking to each other. This really made a huge difference in my opinion. While in most FPSs, you play a pretty much silent one man wrecking crew, in CoD2 you really do feel like you’re part of a team… a squad… or whatever the fuck you call your group of guys in military speak. All I know is that my fellow soldiers always kept in contact with me, and it was relative speech too. They say stuff like “Jerries on your right, behind the boxes!” That’s a nice touch.

I also played this in 5.1 with a nice subwoofer. Honestly, you have to. This game sounds amazing. If you’re in another room, you’d think CoD2 was a movie. The voice acting is superb and the sound effects are massive. The resonating boom of explosions, the firing of guns in the distance, the battle chatter from your teammates and the radio, they are all simply awesome. The only problem I saw was that you played a silent hero, which doesn’t make sense since your not even playing the whole game as a single guy.


Value – 8.0

At $59.99, no game that you just play through once is gonna be a great value. I got mine for $49.99, and that’s not too bad. If you trade games in, its even a better deal. You can finish the single player missions at the default skill level in about 10-15 hours. Perfect length as far as I’m concerned. If you play on Veteran, you’re looking at a lot of restarts that will lengthen the game.

There aren’t that many Xbox 360 achievements since they basically involve finishing the game at the Veteran (i.e. hardest) difficulty setting. I’m still going through the game again to do those.

As far as multiplayer is concerned. I honestly don’t know. I didn’t try it. I was turned off by the backlash of people online that have complained bitterly about lag whilst playing CoD2 over Xbox Live. If you play on LAN, I guess it could be fun, but you’re talking about rounding up 3-4 more people with Xbox 360s and the game. That’s probably not gonna happen.

Overall – 8.9

This game was solid. I highly recommend it to FPS fans, even the ones that hate console FPSs… like me. The story was engaging and the level of immersion was phenomenal. The only ones I wouldn’t recommend this game to are people that suck at FPSs and people that have played the PC version. Everyone else should go out and get this game for their Xbox 360. And apparently, everyone did as CoD2 was the number one selling title for the Xbox 360 in 2005. 

Screenshots:

"Testing..."

Just testing this gamercard thing. If it works, there should be a flash version of my Xbox Live gamercard below...




Hmm... that didn't work. How about the straight up jpg of it?





OK, that works...

Fuck. I just tried it with IE. The flash gamercard works ONLY with IE. What a crock of shit.

"King Kong (Xbox 360) Review"

I know that the proper title is way longer than that. But "Peter Jackson's King Kong: The Official Game of the Movie" is too long to type out... nevermind. I was halfway tempted to title this "Rob Nava's Peter Jackson's King Kong: The Official Game of the Movie Un-official Review" but that's also too lo... umm.. OK...

So, anyway, this is the first Xbox 360 review I've done. In fact, I think it's the first game review I've ever put up on this site. But before I go any further, let me start off by saying that if you don't know that King Kong dies at the end, then I've just ruined it for you because King Kong dies at the end. Seriously, you should have known that. It's not a well guarded secret. I also hope you knew that the Titanic fucking sinks at the end too. I've actually run into people that didn't know that. And I don't care how old you are or what decade you were born in, King Kong falling off the Empire State building to his death is common knowledge people. Peter Jackson's version is at best, the 3rd version of the film.

Anyway, now that your caught up on things, let's get to the review.


Graphics - 7.5

Like most games on the Xbox 360, the graphics of King Kong can impress at times and under whelm at times. My first reaction was quite positive when I saw the detail on the ship's hull in the first scene. Nice textures. Keen lighting. Pretty. Then things sort of fizzled when I turned around and saw that the character models looked like ass. I mean, these things were barely better looking than the Xbox 1 models, and they animated like crap to boot. So the game then sends us towards Skull Island on a small row boat during a tumultuous storm, and I was again impressed. . . this time with the draw distance and weather effects, only to be disappointed by the crumbling rocks falling off the cliffs of the island. They just looked retarded. And that's pretty much how things went graphically: Oh, that dinosaur looks kinda cool. Blech, those plants look terrible. What a shame.

And when are developers going to stop with the shiny plastic look? Seriously, I know that its raining and things are wet, but it's ridiculous how shiny everything is in King Kong. And they must have an equally emphatic guy over in the Bump Mapping department because it looks like every single thing is bump mapped to hell. I'm sure it has its uses, but really, if "Next Gen Graphics" simply means "Bump Mapped with Shinies", count me out. I'd rather have a silky smooth frame rate than shiny bump mapping.

And really, I don't think I'm too far off from the truth. I played King Kong on Xbox 1 and it really looked close to the Xbox 360 version with the exception of the textures and lighting and possibly a higher polygon count that isn't quite as noticeable. And I'm sure that's what happened. They designed the Xbox/PS2/Gamecube versions and then added in some fancy bump mapping, lighting effects and a few more polygons. The game is essentially the same. It's akin to playing a PC game with all the graphics options turned off (Xbox 1) and then again with all the graphics optioned turned on (Xbox 360.) Does King Kong look better on the Xbox 360? Sure it does. But it's not next gen graphics to me if the game is identical in every way but a few graphical features. Next gen graphics should be completely re-done from the ground up. King Kong is Next Gen Rehash.

Gameplay - 6.5

King Kong plays mostly like an FPS for dummies game with a little shallow wresting game thrown in to break things up. Most of the time, you play as Jack, the screenwriter for the film being shot on Skull Island. Your mission, as far as I can tell, is to burn down thorny bushes that block your path and find handles for intricate door opening mechanisms. That's pretty much it. You can chuck spears at dinos and shoot some crappy guns, but that's pretty much it.

The game is designed to be played without a hud. Which means no lifebar or ammo meter. This was done in order to increase the cinematic feel of the game, but for the most part no lifebar just means that you can get hit twice: once turns the screen red and another hit while your screen is red causes you to die. Occasionally, bigger dinos can kill you with one attack, but you can really just think of the game having a 2 section lifebar that regenerates after the first hit. As for the ammo, Jack will tell you how much ammo you have left when he's either running low or you hit the 'How much ammo do I have left?' button. With regards to enhancing the cinematic feeling, hearing "Two magazine on backup" over and over isn't exactly any better than showing how many bullets you have on screen.

As I already mentioned, a lot of the time you are simply searching for ways to burn bushes that block your path. This is clever puzzle the first and maybe second time you have to do it, but it gets really boring after a while. They try to break it up by having spiders block your way instead of you know, the thorny bushes. When that happens you have to spear a random giant insect or fish and throw it on the ground away from the path the spiders are blocking so that the spiders rush to the bait. Wow. Who came up with that fantastic gameplay element? Exciting! The final gameplay element is finding these wooden handles that attach to these long poles that need to be turned in order to open doors. This is the silliest thing ever. Why can I just use the spear I'm holding in my hand to jam into the pole to turn it? Why do I need that exact piece of wood to jam in there before I can turn it? It's not like it's a key. It's a fucking piece of wood. Give me a break.

I addition to the FPS Jack levels, you also play as Kong from time to time. These are pretty fun, but mostly because you're given a break from burning bushes, and you can actually beat the crap out of stuff. But the controls for the Kong missions are simplistic at best. One button swings and grabs onto the sides of cliffs, another one punches and another one grabs. You can also thump your chest to power up, but most of the time you end up getting hit before you can completely power up so that's useless. The Kong levels boil down to a simplistic wrestling game. I mean, even more simple than NES Pro Wrestling. At least you had a variety of moves in that game. In King Kong, all you have to do is shoulder butt over and over. That's pretty much it. Give that beloved Beyond Good & Evil game designer a bonus! I know I couldn't have thought of something like that. I'd have thought of something much better.

Sound - 8.5

The music and sound effects are pretty good. Good job not fucking everything up over there. The voice acting is also pretty good. Jack Black, who plays the director in the movie, is still funny as shit. I love that guy. Jack (the character you play) sounds dull and, well, dull. He doesn't even get two different adjectives. He's just dull. Really, the biggest complaint I have about the sound is that the voices are waay too low in comparison to the music and sound effects. I had to turn the music and sound effects waaaay down and leave the voice level all the way up in order to make it sound right. I guess they realized they had that problem because the did put that option in the game so you can tweak each sound level independently. Then again, I might be giving them too much credit. They might have put that option in because they saw that option in other games. In any case, you'll probably have to fuck with the sound levels a bit.

Value - 5.0

There is almost no replay value in this game. I'm a big fan of short games. I have way too many games to go through to be tied up with 40-50 hour games. Fuck that. So the fact that King Kong is a short game was actually a selling point to me. However, usually short games give you some sort of reason to replay it. King Kong doesn't. All Xbox 360 games offer achievements (which give you Gamer Points) that can be earned by doing specific things in the game. Complete a level on hard mode, get a "Hardcore Gamer" Achievement and a few Gamer Points for your Gamer Card. Maybe finish a level in a certain time or without dying, get more points. Not so with King Kong. If you play through the game, you get all 1000 Gamer Points possible. To give you a comparison, you only get 150 Gamer Points for going through Call of Duty 2. By giving you all the possible gamer points for simply finishing the game (no game can give you more than 1000 Gamer Points), they remove any reason to replay the game. Pretty silly. Basically, once you finish this game, you're done. Trade it in or put it back on the shelf. Did I mention this game is a full $59.99? Luckily, I bought it used for $35, and they're offering me $33 to trade it in so I only lost 2 bucks on the game. :)

Overall - 6.5

I think too many reviewers are biting on King Kong's cock. There is no way this game deserves a 9. It's competent at best and boring at worst. If you love King Kong for some odd reason, you'll be disappointed in the fact that you don't really play much as King Kong. If you love FPSs, you'll surely be disappointed in this game. If you love adventure games, you don't have much to look forward to except hunting down wooden handles. Basically, avoid this game or simply rent it. It's cool for a day or two, but that's about it.

"Xbox 360 Launch Titles"

So I came across a list of the Xbox 360 game titles available on launch day. Not real impressed. Not a single one of them has impressed me to the point where I can't wait to play it. I'm more excited about the hardware than the software. I think that the new Xbox Live is pretty freakin' awesome. And I like that I can stream video and audio from my PC and MP3 player right off the bat... no modding necessary. Going with wireless controllers was good too. But the games... man. I guess they're not bad, they're just not awesome. Not yet anyway. I'm trying to figure out what to pick up on launch day, and I'm not sure this list has helped me.

ORIGINAL XBOX 360 TITLES:

• Sega's Condemned - Visually unimpressive. Core gameplay looked tired. Very current generationy looking. I don't know why I need to preface the title of the game with the publisher. I don't even think it was developed by Sega. Interest: Low
  
  
• Kameo: Elements of Power - Visually unimpressive. Turned off by the fact that it began development on the original Xbox and it still looks it. Also current generationy, but not as much as Condemned. Interest: Low
  

XBOX 360-ONLY SEQUELS:

• Amped 3 - Wasn't a big fan of 1 and 2, so... The new design style is cool though. I dig the artwork. Interest: Medium
  
  
• Perfect Dark Zero - Didn't play Perfect Dark on N64. Looks unimpressive. Could be the closest to Halo though. I think a lot of people will buy this so it *might* be good for multiplayer. Interest: Medium
  
  
• Project Gotham Racing 3 - Just another racing game. Looks 'OK'. Seems tired though. Interest: Medium
  

AVAILABLE ON OTHER PLATFORMS:

• Call of Duty 2 - Looks damn smooth, like it was running on a High End $2500 PC. Which is fine, but I was hoping that the next generation of consoles would blow away anything available today. Including high end PCs. Still, I did like the smoothness in the framerate (with minor exceptions on big explosions.) If this was an XBOX 360 exclusive, I might have higher interest in it. But knowing that it's availabe on PC where you can use a keyboard and mouse definitely takes away some of the interest I could have had in it. Interest: Medium
  
  
• Gun - Another game where if it was an XBOX 360 exclusive I would have higher interest in the game. Games developed on current gen and next gen systems give me the feeling that they design for the current gen (PS2/Xbox) and then tack on some extras for the Xbox 360. This is opposite of how I feel it was last generation where say Madden or Tony Hawk was developed with the PS2 in mind, and then they'd cut it down to fit on PS1. Interest: Medium
  
  
• Peter’s Jackson’s King Kong - It's a movie game and that brings along a stigma with it that is hard for me to look past. I have heard that Jackson is a bigtime game player and that he personally took his King Kong game to the Beyond Good & Evil designer in order to assure a good game was made. But, c'mon, it's King Kong. :( How good could it be? I do hope it's really awesome though. I'm open to have my opinion changed. Interest: Medium
  
  
• Madden NFL 2006 - ... Interest: Low
  
  
• NBA 2K6 - I really like NBA 2K6 for my current Xbox, and now I'm faced with this 'better' version. Honestly, I'd probably buy it, but not for $59.99. Not when I own the Xbox version already. Maybe if the price drops fast. Interest: Medium
  
  
• NBA Live 2006 - ... Interest: Low
  
  
• Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2006 - This game actually looks quite a bit better on Xbox 360 than it does on other platforms. Honestly, so do the other NBA games, but whatever. Anyway, hmmm... but it's a golf game. Not exactly a show stopper. Interest: Medium
  
  
• Need For Speed: Most Wanted - Not a big NFS guy either. Haven't really looked into this a lot. Interest: Low
  
  
• FIFA 2006: Road To The FIFA World - ... Interest: Low, low, loooow.
  
  
• Quake 4 - Have it on PC already. Hey Microsoft, what do you have against the keyboard and mouse? Seriously. With all the FPS games out on console, you'd think either Sony or MS would embrace the keyboard and mouse in the next gereration battle. Can you imagine a first party keyboard and mouse with actual game support. Sony came close with the Linux Kit kb/mouse, but someone needs to officially support a keyboard and mouse in their games. Interest: N/A
  
  
• Tony Hawk: American Wasteland - I bought every single TH game up until this past one. Seriously, this shit is getting old and one thing Neversoft has always sucked at is graphics. And why am I buying a new console if its not to get better graphics? Interest: Low
  

I probably would have picked up Dead of Alive 4 had it made the launch day. I'm hearing that its coming out a week or so later. So I may just wait until then and pick that up. However, I need something on launch day! But what? I don't think I can bring myself to bring home a sports game as my only launch title. I'll probably buckle and get PDZ or Kameo because they're Xbox exclusives. Blech...


Word of the Day: lackadaisical(adj) – Lacking spirit. Unlively. Uninterested. Ex: Many Xbox 360 launch day adopters will no doubt lackadaisically pick up at least one title in order to put their shiny new hardware to some use.

Trivia of the Day: SEGA is derived from SErvice GAmes. It was started by an American, David Rosen, in Japan.

"The Devil's Rejects"

Last Friday I saw Rob Zombie's latest horror film "The Devil's Rejects." And you know, I actually liked it. It wasn't the best movie ever made, but I enjoyed it. Like so many movies, it benefitted from my low expectations. Originally, I was thinking it was gonna be a pretty decent flick. Then while I was looking for showtimes online, I ran into a local review of the movie posted on austin360.com. As much as I tried not to read it, I couldn't resist. Of course, the reviewer hated it.

No matter how many times I tell myself that a single review is worthless, I couldn't help but take the reviewer's negative remarks with me to the theater. Quite honestly, Rob Zombie is a better movie maker than that dipshit reviewer is a movie reviwer.

I mean, this critic even freely admitted that this movie was not intended for someone like him. Then why the fuck did he review it? To represent the 'common man'? Seriously, even if it had received rave reviews, my Dad isn't going to see "The Devil's Rejects." Neither will anyone else that doesn't already like horror movies. So what's the point? Stick to reviewing Miss Congeniality 3 and Legally Blonde 3: Bleached Blonde Bush if you like pussy movies. Or only review documentaires, or sci-fi or whatever the fuck you're into.

Ah, I dunno. I guess I should be sorta thankful to the little twit. After all, by nature of lowering my expectations, he actually made the experience that much more enjoyable. Whateverthefuck.

So about the movie.... it really is what you expect it to be. I seriously think that I've become desensitized to horror movies because everytime I'm told that a movie is over the top gross and gritty and sadistic, it just seems 'normal'... for a horror flick I mean. There's a bit of tension in the film, but not a whole lot. It really just an assualt on the senses. It does what it does well though.

As the movie started to wrap-up, I found myself feeling like I was going to be really disappointed if it ended the way they were going. And it's not like Rob Zombie threw in an M. Night Shyamalan plot twist in there, but the movie ended in a way that satisfied me.

If you like horror movies, by all means go see this film. I don't really think you need to see the first film "House of 1000 Corpses" but it would definitely increase your enjoyment of this one. I only saw the first film once, on opening day, and I didn't remember a lot of it. I really wish I had taken the time to re-watch it recently.

Before I close, I have to say that Rob Zombie's wife, who plays Baby in the film, is a really pretty woman. I don't normally say things like that, but she is. She reminds me of a younger Bo Derek. Her acting is no worse than most actresses who appear in feature films, and I'm a little surprised she hasn't appeared in more movies.

With that said, I give Rob Zombie's "The Devil's Rejects" a 7.5 out of 10. and I'll definitely be in line for the next Zombie film.

Word of the Day: gaffer (noun) – The chief electrician in charge of the lighting on the movie set. Ex: What the fuck is a gaffer?... Oh, yeah, nevermind, I remember. It's the chief electrician in charge of the lighting on the movie set.

Trivia of the Day: Before Groucho Marx developed the fast talking, one-liner insult character for which he became famous, he played a German accented character. Because of tensions with Germany in the early 1900's, he started to get booed by the audience. So, he dropped his German accented persona and became the cigar toting, funny walking, bushy eyebrowed and mustached funnyman.

"Horror Movie Review 2-Pack"

I saw a couple of horror movies this weekend. Nothing new. Just a couple of older films: Session 9 (2001) and Haute Tension (2003). Check it.

Haute Tension(2003)

I saw this movie first. Sean brought it over on Friday for Horror Movie Night. We played poker longer than we'd intended, so it ending up being the only movie we saw that night.

So, OK, I gotta get this out of the way: it's a French film. There, I said it. You can stop reading now, if you want. ;) But honestly, this movie does have some balls. Believe it, or not! In fact, I checked out the IMdB entry, and it turns out that it got edited in every other country when it was theatrically released. We had the privilege of watching the original uncut French version though. So, if you end up watching this movie, make sure you get your hands on the original French release with subtitles.

Speaking of subtitles, for some reason they were all fucked up when we watched it. They started out fine, but they eventually got way out of sync. I mean, at times the subs were up to a minute early! Normally, that would completely fuck up a movie experience, but fortunately, there was very little dialogue in this movie. Most of the talking took place early, when the subs were still synced, and after that, there were like 10-20 minute stretches with absolutely no dialogue. And even when there was dialogue, there wasn't very much of it.

So while there was little being said, there was a lot being done. After the obligatory set-up, the movie jumps right in with the slashing. And that's what this movie is: a straight up slasher flick. There are a few suspenseful scenes, but for the most part, it's all about the blood spurting everywhere. That's what ended up on the cutting room floor with foreign releases. A lot of the reviews I see on this movie say that it's really, really gory and gruesome, but I must be desensitized from all the killing I do in my spare time because it didn't really seem that bad to me. I think Japanese films like Ichi the Killer and Audition are far more brutal. But then again, this is France we're talking about here. Remember, I said this movie had balls, but I didn't say they were big ones.

It's worth mentioning that there is a twist to the thin plot, but it's not a very good one. It's got a cop out ending too. I could be a dick and ruin it, but some people still might want to see this movie.

Ultimately, what we have here is a movie with little plot, a moderate amount of suspense, and quite a bit of bloody slashing. Not too bad, but nothing great either. If you want a throwback to those 1980's slasher flicks, give this a shot. Personally, this gets a 6 out of 10.


Session 9 (2001)

I had rented this movie for Horror Movie Night, but I didn't get around to seeing it until Sunday evening. I pretty much just randomly picked it off the shelf at Blockbuster.

First impression: this movie is slow as shit. Second impression: David Caruso's in this?!? I hadn't seen David Caruso in anything since NYPD Blue. Anyway, David Caruso wasn't that bad in the film, but the slow start was sort of annoying. For the first 15 minutes or so I was like WTF is going on? It wasn't like surrealistic confusion. It was more of like "I came into this conversation late, and I don't know wtf is going on" type of confusion. Eventually, you get the picture, and we move on.

The premise to this movie is actually kinda cool. An old, abandoned insane asylum is going to be renovated. A small team of five people is hired to clean out the asbestos shit before the renovation can begin. They're offered a bonus if they finish the job in one week. Creepy shit happens. Personal secrets are exposed. People die. I have to point out though, that I don't consider this a true horror film. It's definitely more suspense/drama than horror. There is a fair amount of blood and whatnot, but it's not the main draw. This isn't a gruesome movie.

In fact, Session 9, in contrast to Haute Tension, is completely cerebral. I can dig that. It's always scarier to imagine things in your head than seeing monsters on the screen. Manipulating the viewer's imagination is the scariest technique that a horror/suspense filmmaker can use. For the most part, the director succeeds in making the viewer think. The problem is that we don't have to think that much. Being a contemporary suspense/thriller, it has the obligatory plot twist, and although it isn't as contrived as Haute Tension’s, it still not very good.

The best part of this film was how believable and real the characters were. There weren't any silly teenagers running around getting naked and getting themselves in stupid situations. That's not to say that the charcaters didn't do some stupid things sometimes (like hardly ever working on what was supposed to be a 'rush' asbestos removal job), but overall I liked them, and I believed their intentions were true.

Still, I don't know if that's enough to recommend this movie to others. I can see how some people would like it, but I can also see how some would hate it. I didn't know anything about this movie when I saw it, so I didn't have high expectations. That helped. Unfortunately, now you know something about this movie, so that angle is shot for you. ;) In any case, it's a solid 6 or a weak 7 out of 10.

Word of the Day: halcyon (adj) – calm and tranquil like the halcyon bird that was said to calm the seas. It can also mean the good ol’ days or a golden, prosperous age. Ex: Sometimes, I long for the halcyon years of gaming, so I fire up my dusty Atari and go to town on some asteroids.

Trivia of the Day: RDI, the company that created the Dragon’s Lair, Space Ace and Thayer’s Quest laserdisc games, released a home laserdisc game console named Halcyon in 1985. The cost? $2500. Yeah, I don’t have one. :(

"Some Funny Gay Shit"

Aaron just sent this link to me, and I couldn't stop laughing at the ridiculousness of it all. ;)

Make sure to go through them all!: http://www.superdickery.com/seduction/1.html

Either they were really gay back in the 50's/60's, or we're really perverted now in the 2000's. Probably a little of both...

Bonus (thanks to Pete): http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=uscc_part1

Word of the Day: impecunious (adj) - always without money, poor, without the ducats. Ex: Being an impecunious college kid sucks balls, but being an impecunious college drop out sucks bigger balls.

Trivia of the Day: I have a birthmark in the shape of Smurfette on the underside of my... hehe... just kidding. *Ahem* "The sixth sick shiek's sixth sheep's sick." is officially recognized by the Guiness Book of World Records to be the hardest English tongue twister in existence.

"Long and Complex"

Seems like there's been some talk lately about long length and complexity as a negative in game design. CNN recently interviewed Shigeru Miyamoto (legendary creator of Mario and Zelda games amongst others) who bitched about it some. That sparked some more talk on the subject at some gaming site (I'd never heard of) that got linked to by shacknews. Personally, I've held this view for a long time: Long games simply aren't fun for me anymore.

I just do not have the patience to play games for very long. I might have at one time, but now there are just too many games out there that I want to play. Honestly, no matter how good a game is, after a while... I start getting antsy. I'll get 10 hours into some RPG, and then I just have to peek at a FAQ to see how far I'm into the game. Only 20%?! Fuck. I become disheartened. And that's skipping all the bullshit side quests and mini games that just make it longer. Fuck that. I'm not playing this game for 40 more hours. I may like it and all, but now it's become work. There are other good games out there waiting to be played.

And that's part of the problem I guess: I'm spoiled by all the choices out there. I buy a shitload of games, and even still I don't get every single 'good' game out there. You know how many games get 9's every month? Lots. It might sound ludicrous, but yeah, I'm saying there are too many great games being released. Especially too closely together. I might have enjoyed that 40 hour game if there wasn't another game tempting me. Instead, I have to deal with the multitude of unopened 'good' games sitting on my shelf... calling my name. It's gotten to the point that I almost hate the Holiday Game Flood because so many games I want all come out at once.

My favorite games are games that I can pick up, play for a bit, and put down. No story. No item collecting. None of that shit to get in my way of enjoying the game. Presently, that boils down to competitive gaming (fighting games, puzzle games, racing games) and portable gaming.

Competitive games are, by nature, quick gaming fixes. With no story to worry about, the only thing you focus on is the actual gameplay. That's why I love games like Street Fighter II, Bomberman and Quake III deathmatch. Every game doesn't NEED a story to be fun. Because, you know, sometimes I just don't feel like spending the time to hunt down all the fucking armors and gems in the world. And the worst offenders, man... those are the games that don't give you the 'good' ending unless you 100% it (Hello, Metroid Prime, I'm looking at you.) Fuck that. What kind of bullshit is that? 100% should give you something EXTRA, not show you the real ending.

Anyway, the other games that rock, the portable games, are meant to be digested in bite sized morsels. Games like WarioWare and Feel the Magic are great. I can even get into games like Hot Shots Golf on the PSP because it's designed so well. It has short quick golf competitions and is just perfectly suited to the needs of the pick-up-and-play portable gamer. Even RPG/Strategy games like Advance Wars and Mario & Luigi for the GBA were bearable. You can save anywhere (why can't you do that in ALL games?!?) and the missions weren't too long. Console game designers can learn a few things from portable game designers.

Getting back to the complexity issue that Miyamoto brought up… yeah, that's pretty shitty too. But for me, I wouldn't even pick up a complex game. Complexity is never fun... whether it be in a short game or long game. Overly complex games can rot on the fucking shelf. You should re-think your design if you require the gamer to use every fucking key on the keyboard and then use shift or ctrl to access even more functions. And while I'm at it, hey Unreal guys: we don't need 20 fucking guns in an FPS to make it fun OK? We don't use them all anyway. Pick a few and make them balanced and useful instead giving us 10 guns all with alternate fire. I'd much rather see a game that had marketing hype like "You'll actually want to use all 5 guns because they're useful!" instead of "Choose from 15 guns, each with alternate fire!". And to those simulation 'game' makers, your shit needs to be sold in another aisle at the store because learning how to fly a fucking Cessna isn't a game. Unless your Cessna shoots vulcan cannons and can pick up shield powerups, your shit belongs in the software productivity section, next to learning to play the guitar or some shit.

Word of the Day: prolix (adj) - tedious, long, wordy and drawn out. Ex: After reading my rant on prolix games, some assholes out ther will bitch how they're not getting they're $50 worth... to which I reply, "Trade it back it after you finish it, you cheap bastards!"

Trivia of the Day: The PS2 game Xenosaga Episode I: Der Wille zur Macht promises 80 hours of gameplay on the back of the case. 80 hours?! Fuck.

"Well, shit."

I forgot to tack on the WotD and TotD again yesterday. So, here you go. These are for yesterday:

Word of the Day: vitriolic (adj) - Vitriol literally refers to sulfuric acid/metal sulfate. Figuratively, it's something scathing, corrosive or caustic. Ex: The vitriolic criticism Uwe Boll has received for his inept movie directing, hasn't thwarted his plan to ruin every video game-based movie within his reach.

Trivia of the Day: The cop in the game Monopoly is named Officer Edgar Malloy. The guy behind bars? That's Jake the Jailbird. I'm not making that shit up either.

“Overrated Games”

Writing that article about good games that a lot of people never played got me thinking about overrated games over the years that have really bugged me. These games were lavished with undeserved praise when they were first released and have since, somehow, been heralded as classics. So, here’s my feeble attempt to right these wrongs: my list of games that are regarded much too highly when they actually suck.

Some of you might recall that GameSpy made a list of overrated games a while back. It received well deserved criticism. For some reason, GameSpy decided to clump overhyped and disappointing games in with overrated games in their infamous list. Anything that’s overrated, as you would imagine, is rated higher than it should have been. Therefore, a game that got panned by the critics cannot be overrated by definition. So, Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness and Enter the Matrix (No.’s 8 and 3 respectively on GameSpy’s list) cannot be overrated games since everyone pretty much agreed those games sucked.

Anyway, with that being said, let’s get on with it.

---

Mortal Kombat [1992]

---

Yes, Dave, I stole your precious screenshot.

System: Arcade, SNES, Genesis, Gameboy, Game Gear, Sega CD, PC

Why it’s overrated:

At the time, fighting games were hot. Street Fighter II had blown everyone away with its great graphics and amazing gameplay. And like any good genre-defining game, it was immediately cloned about a zillion times in an attempt to cash in on the fighting game craze. For the most part, the clones sucked. They offered little different from SFII and they quickly faded into obscurity. Then came Mortal Kombat.

Mortal Kombat, I admit, brought a lot of new elements to the fighting game genre, but unfortunately, most of those changes were novel at best. The most glaring example of this is the fatality of course. It added absolutely nothing to the gameplay. The same goes for the digitized graphics. Honestly, I didn’t really care for them. While they appeared more realistic at a glance, the animation was simply terrible. The characters moved like they all had sticks up their asses. And the addition of the block button and ‘tapping’-style special moves made an already stiff game even more cumbersome.

The truth is that MK played terribly, and the only reason anyone ever played it was for the digitized gore. There were no combos to speak of and the strategies involved in playing the game were pretty basic. MK was and still is a terrible game. I will admit that the series improved dramatically with MKII, but that’s another story. MK was a terribly playing game, pure and simple.

The only decent move in the whole game.	Cuz, you know, I didn't get enough Track & Field in the 80's.
Scorpion loses!... umm... wait...	The only reason people played this game.

---

Myst [1994]

---

Thys game ys shyt.

System: Mac, PC, PlayStation, Saturn, Atari Jaguar CD, 3DO

Why it’s overrated:

If you’ve played this ‘game’ recently, you should already know what I’m going to say here. No fucking story, no coherence, retarded random puzzles, almost no animation and a bajillion games sold. Go figure. Myst always was and always will be garbage.

This is what happened.

Myst was first made for the Mac. Mac users didn’t (and still don’t) have shit for games so any new game that came out was snatched up in a heartbeat. CDROM technology was new. Myst was a CDROM game. Ooooh. High resolution pre-rendered computer graphics were still a novelty. The game was considered ‘oh so pretty’ even though people were just watching a slide show. The Mac users are retarded and are amused by the ‘wondrous’ puzzles and ‘enchanting’ environments. Myst sells a buttload of copies. People smell money and port it to every fucking console with a CDROM. Because it’s so popular on the Mac, people play it, and even though they don’t get it, they pretend to or risk looking silly. The End.

Wow, a pre-rendered pathway.	Wow, a pre-rendered telescope.
Wow, pre-rendered stairs.	Wow, a pre-rendered bedroom.

---

Shenmue [2000]

---

Must... remain... bland...

System: Dreamcast

Why it’s overrated:

If you want to play a ‘find every character and talk to them multiple times’ game mixed in with a little Dragon’s Lair and very little Virtua Fighter, this is your game. If you’re sane, like me, stay away from this overly ambitious yet underachieving game. Those people that gave it 9’s are out of their skull.

You literally do very little more that what I outlined above. Talk to a whole bunch of people until you unlock a mini-game. Do the mini-game and go talk to a whole bunch more people. Where’s the fun in that?

I think people rated this game so highly because they got caught up in all the voice overs. There haven’t been many games that have this much voice acting in them. I remember playing this game back when my sister lived with me. After a couple of hours of hearing me play this game (she was upstairs in her room while I played in the living room), she finally came down and asked me with a confused look on her face, “What movie are you watching?” That’s pretty much how it feels too: like you’re playing a slightly more interactive version of Dragon’s Lair. It’s really too bad that its main drawing point, the voice acting, was so uneven too. Some characters were pretty good, while others, like the main character, were pretty bad.

Yu Suzuki, the game’s designer, had a grand vision: to create the most enthralling real-world adventure game ever. Instead, he made a laserdisc game for the Dreamcast. People wanted so badly to buy into Suzuki’s grandiose plans for this game, that they forced themselves into thinking it was a masterpiece.

A little side note here: if you want to simulate playing this game, buy Shenmue II for the Xbox for like $10. It comes with a DVD movie of the entire first game. Yep, you can just watch the first game being ‘played’. What more proof do you need that this game was really no game at all?

Talking to some lady.	Talking to another lady.
Wow, that's different. Talking to a man now.	Ok, THIS is funny!

---

Valkyrie Profile [2000]

---

Only $75, and it's yours to keep!

System: PlayStation

Why it’s overrated:

I honestly don’t’ know why people love this RPG so much. It’s a highly sought after PlayStation collectible as it was released near the end of the PlayStation’s life when games tend to have smaller production runs. Prices on eBay range from $60 to $180 dollars for this game depending on its condition. So I made myself play through this game just to see what all the fuss was about. What I found was that this game’s mechanics were poorly designed and the character development was extremely shallow.

I used a guide to get through this game to assure myself that I would get the best ending and see the most stuff. You see, one unique feature of this game is that you can skip almost everything past the very first dungeon. I didn’t. I did everything I could. But even still, I can’t tell you what the fuck the whole point of the game was. The plot development was terrible. There are so many characters that you don’t get a chance to really get to know them, and therefore you don’t really give a shit about them when they’re sent off to Valhalla.

The actually gameplay is extremely redundant: at the start of the level, hit SELECT to see a new voice/cutscene, go to the area/town where the scene pointed you to, watch the cutscene and get a new character, hit SELECT to see a new cutscene, if it’s a dungeon, go to it and beat the repetitive monsters, if not, go to the town and see the next cutscene and get a new character, hit SELECT to see a new cutscene, if it’s a dungeon, go to it and beat the repetitive monsters, if not, go to the town and see the next cutscene…. Ugh. No wonder they allow you to skip stuff. It’s torturous. Anyway, along the way you send some of your built up characters to Valhalla to fight the good fight alongside the Gods, but it’s all really rather boring.

Somehow this became a collectible and then it got ‘popular’, but if you play this game for an hour or two, you’ll realize just how ‘blah’ this game is. I won’t get into it, but even the music is repetitive and sucky. The bottom line is that there are many better and cheaper RPG’s out for the PlayStation. Don’t bother paying the big bucks for this one unless you’re a collector and can find it cheap.

Horses and stuff.	Field of crap.
Some lame battle.	This game is so boring, you get this shot again.